In Altrincham near Manchester asylum seekers are just settling in at the Cresta Court Hotel, many of them just days after making a treacherous journey across the English Channel.
But, as the new arrivals find sanctuary in a northern town, their presence is causing controversy.
Now young men are huddled in groups outside the hotel drinking coffee or smoking.
In Arabic, a Kurdish man in his 20s tells me: “I’ve been here for a few days, and I haven’t faced any hostility since I arrived. In fact, they’ve shown us a lot of respect.”
In contradiction, someone shouts from a passing car: “Get back on the boats!”
About 200 yards down the road people are gathering in a church to air their concerns.
Residents have just learned about the new arrivals, and only because thousands of bookings were suddenly cancelled, along with meetings and even wedding receptions, as the hotel cleared its commitments to make way for the asylum seekers.
“There’s been an information vacuum,” says a mother of two children.
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Standing to raise her objections in the public meeting, she asks if the migrants are “illegal” and if so, is the hotel “effectively an open prison” near several local girls’ schools and a nursery?
Her voice shakes as she tells the room she has already cancelled a night out with her girlfriends over safety concerns.
Community police officer Colin Dytor says the men’s refugee status is a matter for the Home Office but tries to calm the room.
He adds: “I can assure you we’ve had asylum seekers in Trafford for several years and there has been no spike in crime attributed to these asylum seekers.”
Local resident Roger Roper objects, saying the Britannia Ashley Hotel in Hale the officer is referring to is mostly for migrant families, adding: “This is up to 300 young men. We don’t know anything about them.
“If they don’t have any papers or passports, we don’t know what they are capable of.”
Another woman says she worries about her daughter going out at night, as the men come from a country that “doesn’t value women”.
There is an objection to this point from across the room by two women from a pro-refugee campaign group, but the majority applaud in approval.
The concerned resident continues: “Is there going to be a curfew or are they just going to be able to wander around after seven o’clock? Is my daughter going to be safe? No!”
Inspector Dytor responds: “We can’t just lock people up who haven’t committed a crime. We live in a very tolerant and open society, and we have to continue that.”
‘Some of the comments online have been racist’
Further objections are raised about the cost to the town and the added pressure on already stretched GP services.
A spokesperson for Serco, which runs the hotel, tells us: “No decision has yet been made by the local authority on how healthcare will be provided to those in the hotel.”
Connor Rand, the Labour MP for Altrincham and Sale West, released a statement saying he’s been assured background checks had been done on the men by the Home Office.
Outside the church, protesters hold banners which read “Stand Up to Racism” and “Refugees Welcome in Altrincham.”
A protester who gave her first name as Jane says: “Some of the comments online have been racist. When you are saying refugees should be vetted to make sure they are not paedophiles I think that is racist.”
‘We’ve just been kept in the dark’
Back inside Gwyneth and Roger Roper say it isn’t racist to raise concerns. The couple had a Ukrainian family in their home for 14 months and say they welcome documented asylum seekers.
Gwyneth is chairperson for the chapel who provided the venue after the town hall was cancelled last minute a few days earlier.
She says: “I can’t say I agree or disagree with what’s going on because we’ve just been kept in the dark and treated like mushrooms.
“It’s wrong of local, central government and the Home Office not to consult us on something that could impact the local community.”
Councillor Nathan Evans, leader of the Trafford Conservative Group, who called the meeting, agrees, saying there has been a “wall of silence” where residents have “genuine concerns”.
He adds: “One hundred to probably 150 people stay in that hotel a night. They all go into Altrincham to spend money. That’s gone from the town. Nobody is going to compensate businesses for that.”
Asylum seekers describe treacherous journeys
Unaware of any local uproar, back at the hotel the new arrivals tell me of treacherous journeys from places such as Syria and Afghanistan.
A Kurdish man describes being trafficked through countries in the back of a lorry not knowing where he was when he got let out.
He says: “Eventually, we arrived at a beach, and the smuggler ordered me to board a boat. When I told him I was afraid of the sea, he slapped me several times. Then he reached for his gun and said, ‘You’re in a safe country now, get on the boat’.”
One young man not wanting to speak on camera says he saw people drown in the channel on his crossing as a nearby dingy sank.
Another asylum seeker, Fahad, tells of panic on his boat as waves started to beat against the vessel packed with 70 migrants, but they pressed on wanting the escape conditions in the French migrant camps.
Heated national debate becomes local issue
The government promised it would end the use of hotels for migrants but blames this move on the Rwanda policy, which halted the asylum claims of people who arrived in the UK on small boats, causing a processing backlog.
While the thousands crossing the channel have caused heated national debate, the residents of Altrincham are learning how that sharpens when it becomes a local issue.
Mr Rand, the local Labour MP, said in a statement he wants to find out people’s concerns about Cresta Court, which is why he organised the public meeting.
He said it’s “not the first time a hotel in our community has needed to be used for this purpose”, pointing to the “huge backlog” in the asylum system and the almost 119,000 asylum seekers waiting for their claims to be decided.
“Labour is committed to a fair and controlled asylum system,” he said, but warned “there are no quick fixes”.
Mr Rand pledged to “continue to meet with Home Office officials and with ministers to push for the claims of those in the Cresta Court Hotel to be processed as quickly as possible, so this situation can be resolved.”
A man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after a car was driven on to the pavement in central London in the early hours of Christmas Day.
Four people were taken to hospital after the incident on Shaftesbury Avenue, with one said to be in a life-threatening condition.
Metropolitan Police officers were called to reports of a crash and a car driving on the wrong side of the road at 12.45am.
In a statement, police said the incident was isolated and not terror related.
A cordon is in place outside the Sondheim Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue, which is the London home of the musical Les Miserables. Shaftesbury Avenue is at the heart of London‘s West End and the city’s theatre district.
Blood, a jacket, pair of shoes and a hat are visible on the pavement inside the cordon.
A man with a knife was shot dead by armed police in Redditch after “several hours” of negotiations on Christmas Eve, police have said.
West Mercia Police were called to a property in Fownhope Close, Redditch, at around 2pm on Christmas Eve to reports of a man with a knife.
Police negotiators arrived at the scene in Worcestershire and “attempts were made to resolve the situation by engaging the man over several hours”.
But at 7.40pm the 39 year old was shot by armed police – and he was pronounced dead just after 8pm.
No one else was inside the property at the time, the force added.
A mandatory referral to the police watchdog – the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) – has been made and an investigation been launched.
West Mercia Police’s assistant chief constable Grant Willis described it as a “tragic incident”.
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“We do not underestimate the shock and concern this may cause the local community and I want to reassure residents that we are following all appropriate procedures, this included making an immediate referral to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), as is mandatory and right,” he said.
“We will support their investigation, which will include providing all information we hold, including body worn camera footage.”
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
The Church of England needs to “kneel in penitence” and “be changed”, the Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell is expected to say in his Christmas Day sermon.
It comes at a challenging time for the Church which has faced criticism over how it handled a number of abuse scandals.
Mr Cottrell will next month effectively become the Church’s temporary leader in place of the outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby.
But Mr Cottrell has himself also faced calls to quit after revelations David Tudor, a priest at the centre of a sexual abuse case, was twice reappointed under him while he was serving as bishop of Chelmsford.
With Mr Welby not giving the 25 December sermon, the focus has moved to what Mr Cottrell will say at York Minster.
He is expected to say the Church must “kneel in penitence and adoration” this Christmas and “be changed”.
He will say about Jesus: “At the centre of the Christmas story is a vulnerable child; a vulnerable child that Herod’s furious wrath will try and destroy, for like every tyrant he cannot abide a rival.
“The Church of England – the Church of England I love and serve – needs to look at this vulnerable child, at this emptying out of power to demonstrate the power of love, for in this vulnerable child we see God.
“If you’re in love, show me. If you have love in your hearts, embody and demonstrate that love by what you do.”
‘Put the needs of others first’
The archbishop will add: “This is what we learn at the manger. Put the needs of others first – those who are cold and hungry and homeless this Christmas.
“Those who are victims of abuse and exploitation. Those who, like the little holy family, have to flee oppression and seek refuge in a foreign land.”
With regards to the Tudor case, Mr Cottrell has acknowledged things “could have been handled differently, and regrets that it wasn’t”.
But Tudor’s victims have branded Mr Cottrell’s response to the case “insulting and upsetting”. They have suggested it’s “inevitable” that he resigns or is forced out of his role.
Bishop of Newcastle Helen-Ann Hartley questioned how Mr Cottrell could have any credibility, and Bishop of Gloucester Rachel Treweek declined to publicly back him.
Meanwhile, the Bishop of Dover, Rose Hudson-Wilkin, is giving the sermon at Canterbury Cathedral in place of Mr Welby and will speak of the birth of Jesus as a triumph of “light and hope” over “fear and darkness”.