‘You can shout but they don’t listen’ – Inside the simmering anger after the riots
The rat man from the council has just turned up. He is back at James and Oscar’s home laying more poison that the rats keep eating.
“I woke up the other night at three in the morning and one was biting my nose,” James says.
It’s the stuff of nightmares but it has become James and Oscar’s everyday struggle. A nearby building has the words “rat city” daubed on one of the walls.
“There was a fire next door,” Oscar explains.
“The rats came out of there and now there’s problems with them in the drains.”
He showed us around their overgrown garden. “It’s like a rats’ playground” he says, thoroughly fed up with it all.
The pair are friends and neighbours – and invited us in to discuss the riots that erupted across the UK in early August, including in their home city of Hull.
They were there on the fringes of the trouble but not, they tell us, directly involved.
It was a “kick back”, James tells us, over the UK’s failed immigration policies.
When Keir Starmer described the riots as “far-right thuggery” James believes he failed to grasp what was happening.
“I have seen people crying in doorways… they are cold, and they are hungry…who is helping the English-born people?” has asks.
“What I am not is a racist person… I just look at the pain in people’s eyes sometimes and you think, ‘What the hell? What is going on?’
“Their (migrants’) problems are getting solved but nobody is solving the problem of the people who are living on the streets.”
James and Oscar are angry that migrants stay in hotels while people around them struggle
Neither Oscar nor James work due to poor health and spend their days watching YouTube channels dedicated to investigating Britain’s immigration problems.
They are both angry about immigration, really angry.
While they ultimately blame the government they resent the way asylum seekers are put into hotels while their claims are processed.
“Get rid of them, I just think it is wrong,” Oscar says.
“I ain’t got a problem with being in other people’s countries and I haven’t got a problem with them being in mine.
“But when it’s taking away all our necessary needs – hospitals, dentists, hotels… housing. It is just pfft…” He throws his arms up in the air in despair.
Riot police had to defend a hotel housing migrants in the city
The pair watched as rioters surrounded a hotel next to the station in Hull on 3 August.
It’s currently home to dozens of predominantly young men waiting to hear if they will be allowed to stay.
James acknowledges there was appalling racism that day and says he has sympathy for genuine asylum seekers.
“I don’t think everybody thinks like me and goes, ‘God bless them, they’ve got problems too’,” he says.
“They have been through hell, they have been through warzones but… people felt a lot of anger, a lot of frustration, like, you know, people living on the streets, who are not getting looked after.“
Oscar later takes us to meet Donna – who sits outside a nearby shop with a sign that reads “JOB WANTED”.
She used to run her own cleaning business but after the death of her daughter in a car accident her life fell apart. Last November she also lost her partner.
Donna used to run a cleaning business but now sleeps in an underpass
For the past two and half years, Donna has been homeless. She purposefully hides herself away under a road bridge most nights so nobody can attack her.
“Where I am it’s so dark that nobody is going to be able to see me,” she says.
“Every time you think you are getting back up… there is something or someone who kicks you back down again.
“England is the place that has got a big sign for people that says ‘Freebies’, come in and we’ll get you in a hotel – that is the way it comes across to people.”
Donna says there’s always ‘something or someone who kicks you back down again’
“They (the government) want to sort their own problems out first and this is one of them,” says Donna, gesturing to the gloomy underpass she calls her bedroom.
It’s a problem they see most days at a community interest company called Adapt Resettlement further along Anlaby Road.
Every day, Danny and Lisa lead a small team dedicated to trying to get a roof over people’s heads.
“If you’ve got drug problems, mental health problems, even just living on the street, it’s a war every day for them,” says Danny.
“They can pitch up somewhere when a gang of kids will go and kick the tents, will kick their head in, it is a war daily for them.
Danny (left) says it’s incorrect to say all those caught up in the trouble are racist
“So, I get what they’re saying, that they (asylum seekers) are fleeing wars, but ours are fighting in a daily war,” adds Danny.
“Not everybody was in that riot for the same reason. There will have been people in that riot because they are homeless, they haven’t had help.
“But that doesn’t make them racist. They just wanted to get their point across.”
Danny has served time for violent offences in the past – and has also been homeless himself. He pins the blame for the riots squarely at the door of politicians.
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Aftermath of unrest and looting in Hull
“The government laid the bomb. And it’s just exploded,” he says.
“It is down to the government to sort it… The only way that they will do it, in my eyes, is that they give them equal opportunities.
“If they’re going to allow them in then so be it. But please look after ours as well. Otherwise, it’ll just continue, and it will.”
Read more:
Man apologises to mosque worshipper after Hull demo led to riot
Mum-of-six jailed for ‘truly disgraceful’ behaviour in riots
We joined Danny’s final home visit of the day, where we meet Carl.
‘There’s a lot of tension in the air, there is a lot of aggression,’ says Carl
He’s trying to stabilise his life, improve his health and eat better, but needs ongoing support.
He’s finally got a roof over his head thanks to the project.
“You can shout so loud can’t you and they don’t listen,” Carl tells us.
“It is just one of those things it boils over sometimes.
“There’s a lot of tension in the air, there is a lot of aggression and a lot of animosity.”
The police and courts have clamped down hard on those who were involved in the riots on 3 August. Earlier this month the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “There is no place for such appalling, senseless violence on our streets, and this government is determined to stamp out the scourge of serious violence wherever it is found.”
Meanwhile, the anger, animosity, and jealousy that helped fuel them still exists.
The roots of the riots run deep.
UK
Philip Young appears in Swindon court charged with 56 sexual offences against ex-wife – as five others also charged
A man has appeared in court charged with drugging and raping his ex-wife over a 13-year period.
Philip Young, 49, formerly of Swindon, has been charged with 56 offences, including multiple counts of rape, against Joanne Young.
He is also charged with administering a substance to allow sexual activity, as well as voyeurism, possession of indecent images of children and possession of extreme images.
Young appeared at Swindon Magistrates’ Court this morning and spoke only to confirm his name and address.
He declined to enter a plea and was remanded in custody until the next hearing at crown court on 23 January.
Philip Young was remanded in custody
The 49-year-old was taken to court in Swindon on Tuesday morning
Five other men have also been charged with sexual offences against Ms Young between 2010 and 2023. The 48-year-old has waived her legal right to anonymity.
The other men are on bail but are due in the same court at 2pm.
They are: Norman Macksoni, 47, of Sharnbrook, Bedfordshire. He is a black British national and has been charged with one count of rape and possession of extreme images.
Dean Hamilton, 47, of no fixed abode. He is a white British national and has been charged with one count of rape and sexual assault by penetration and two counts of sexual touching.
Conner Sanderson Doyle, 31, of Swindon. He is a white British national and has been charged with sexual assault by penetration and sexual touching
Richard Wilkins, 61, of Swindon. He is a white British national and has been charged with one count of rape and sexual touching
Mohammed Hassan, 37, of Swindon. He is a British Asian and has been charged with sexual touching.
The alleged offences took place between 2010 and 2023.
A Sandringham photograph of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from the Epstein files has resurfaced at a particularly uncomfortable moment for the Royal Family, just days before they gather at the estate for Christmas.
Andrew is set to move to the King’s private Norfolk estate in the next few months, after he was officially stripped of his titles, honours, and his large home on the Windsor estate.
The picture was among the thousands of Epstein files by the US Department of Justice.
It shows Andrew lying across the laps of several women whose faces have been redacted.
Looking on and laughing is Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend.
The photo was taken in the stately saloon room at Sandringham House in Norfolk.
Prince Charles, now King Charles III, in the same room at Sandringham with Prince Edward in 1969. Pic: PA
Although the image is undated, we know Andrew organised a shooting weekend in 2000 for Ghislaine’s birthday.
It is a picture of intimate access to the inner royal sanctum.
Sandringham is a private royal retreat, and no one is invited here by chance.
Royal biographer, Andrew Lownie, said royal residences were used as “party places” by Andrew.
Andrew at the Royal Family’s Christmas Day service on the Sandringham estate in 2022. Pic: Reuters
“Epstein and Ghislaine took advantage of this,” he said. “They went to Balmoral, Sandringham and Windsor … This showed people just how close they were to the Royal Family.”
There’s no suggestion the wider family knew Epstein, but the timing is deeply awkward. This week Sandringham will once again host the Royal Family’s traditional Christmas gathering.
And the King will deliver his Christmas message to the country and Commonwealth.
Andrew isn’t invited to Sandringham and will be spending Christmas elsewhere. The Norfolk estate will soon become his new home; it’s understood the move will happen in the first quarter of next year.
A photo of the King at Sandringham released to mark his 77th birthday last month. Pic: @MilliePilks/Sandringham Estate
For years, Andrew let Epstein and Maxwell into his privileged world.
They were guests at the 18th birthday party of his daughter, Princess Beatrice.
Read more:
Outrage over incomplete Epstein file release
The links between Epstein and UK revealed in new files
Another photo released in the files shows Andrew, Epstein and Maxwell at Royal Ascot, a firm fixture in the royal calendar.
Epstein and his former girlfriend are also photographed at another shooting party, possibly at Balmoral.
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell hunting, date unknown. Pic: US DOJ
We know the pair were once guests at the Scottish castle, pictured in the same lodge loved by the late Queen.
Mr Lownie said the pair enjoyed “extraordinary” access.
“It just shows how close Andrew was to them… for them to be socialising in these very private residences,” he added.
Andrew’s association with Epstein has cost him his royal roles, titles, and his beloved home.
He has always strongly denied any wrongdoing.
Sandringham Estate, Norfolk. Pic: PA
The images and documents released and revealed in the Epstein files contain graphic and traumatic content.
It is harrowing and retraumatising for Epstein’s victims.
And what continues to shock – is how a man like Jeffrey Epstein had proximity to the Royal Family. And why Andrew let it happen and stayed friends with him.
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