‘Our country’s ruined’: Protesters on why they oppose asylum hotels

Published

3 days ago

August 29, 2025

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“It’s an invasion,” Dinah Bentley tells me, standing next to a cardboard cut-out of Nigel Farage.

The 78-year-old retired teacher says she “doesn’t laud” the Reform MP, whose grinning likeness is a permanent fixture in her West Yorkshire conservatory, but he “says what I believe”.

“Everybody talks about migration, but our country’s ruined,” Dinah adds. “They’ve ruined it.”

The “they” in her mind? People who have crossed into the UK on small boats.

We have seen asylum hotel protests intensify over the summer and wanted to speak to the people who’ve joined them.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll speak with counter-protesters too, but today, we meet Dinah, a grandmother of two who has joined those calling on asylum hotels to close.

She was, like many of the protesters we met, initially sceptical to speak to a journalist.

Dinah says she “doesn’t watch mainstream news” because of “media lies” over Brexit.

Instead, she says she gets her news from social media.

It was on social media that Dinah learnt about a protest being organised outside a hotel in Wakefield, which has housed asylum seekers for several years.

It was the first migration-related protest she had ever attended.

“We’ve put up with so much for so long and I think ordinary people now, they’ve decided it’s no good sitting, doing nothing,” Dinah says.

After reading about a male asylum seeker being charged with a sexual assault in Epping, she says she is “fearful” for her granddaughters’ safety.

“They’re undocumented,” she says, referring to those who have arrived in the UK on small boats.

“We know nothing about them. We don’t know where they are wandering the streets. It’s not right, is it?”

She’s also angry about the cost of housing asylum seekers in hotels.

I ask Dinah what she thinks about the government plan to close asylum hotels, stop illegal crossings and deport people who do not have a legal right to remain.

“It’s all talk, all talk”, she says. “I don’t believe them.”

“I would be happy if the Navy went into the Channel, we’re an island for God’s sake, and stopped the boats.

“That would make me over the moon.”

Dinah tells us people used to be “afraid” of saying what they really thought about migration.

No more, she says.

The ‘migrant watch’ group

On the other side of Wakefield, we meet 47-year-old James Crashley.

He’s also been to the local asylum hotel protests.

An army veteran and former policeman, James says he does not think asylum seekers should be housed in hotels or houses of multiple occupancy.

“I’ve served in Kosovo and in Iraq, within the British Army,” he says. “And if I can be housed in a tent for six months, then they can too.”

The prime minister has pledged to end the “costly use of hotels to house asylum seekers in this parliament” – which would be 2029, if not earlier.

James has, by his own admission, become somewhat notorious in his local area for trying to set up what he’s called a “community watch”.

He says the police are “very good at dealing with serious crime” but believes “they seem to forget that day-to-day crime exists”.

Called “5 Town Migrant Watch” and advertised by him on social media, James says the volunteer group will support the Wakefield hotel protests and act as a “gentle presence” in public areas to tackle “all anti-social behaviour”.

But it will focus on “illegal migrant men” who James describes as having “conflicting traditions and cultures”.

“They come from cultures that aren’t as civilised as ours,” he says. “They don’t seem to adhere to our laws.

“And because of the cultural differences, as in the sexual assaults on children and women, they believe that’s fine in their cultures. Well, it’s not here.”

I say to James that no culture accepts sexual assaults on women and children are “fine”, a point he says he “accepts”.

But he claims that, by definition, people have already “broken the law” when they arrive on small boats in the first place.

James’ group has attracted hundreds of supporters online, but also criticism from people who believe the group – and James himself – is not only divisive but dangerous.

James admits he has previously had a police caution for a public order offence, not related to the community watch, but stresses this group “isn’t vigilantism”.

“It’s a peaceful movement,” he says. “But if needs be, we’ll stand our ground and will prevent crime. We’re not allowed to commit crime.”

‘People are angry’

A few days later, we meet Dinah again outside the Cedar Court Hotel in Wakefield.

Protesters line the road, waving Union and St George’s flags. Some are shouting “send them back” and “stop the boats”.

Groups of counter-protesters are there too, chanting “Nazi scum” over the police barricade.

I ask Dinah how that feels.

“I think it’s hilarious,” she says. “I know what I am, I don’t value their opinion, so I couldn’t care less what they call me.”

But standing next to Dinah, also waving a Union flag, is Sharon.

She says she’s “a little bit frightened being here” and feels it’s unfair to be put in that position just “to try and get the government to listen to you”.

She added: “I’m a 60-year-old mum. I work 40 hours a week. And nobody gives me anything free. You just want fairness.”

In the crowd, we find James.

I ask him what he thinks about the government plan to appeal a court ruling to shut the asylum hotel in Epping.

“Of course they were going to try and block it,” he tells me.

“The smiles here and the good attitude and the positivity is masking the anger of what’s happened to the English.

“People are angry. People know that once they’re out of here,” he says, gesturing at the hotel behind us, “they’re going to be put in the community”.

“What happens then, who knows?”

Dinah and James are among thousands of protesters who share a sense of being ignored by the government – leaving an overwhelming sense of pressure and uncertainty about what will happen next.

UK

Retired vicar involved in ‘Eunuch Maker’ extreme body modification ring jailed for three years

Published

20 mins ago

September 1, 2025

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Retired vicar involved in 'Eunuch Maker' extreme body modification ring jailed for three years

A retired Church of England vicar who was part of an extreme body modification ring run by man who called himself the Eunuch Maker has been jailed for three years.

Warning: The following article contains graphic details of extreme physical mutilation

Reverend Geoffrey Baulcomb, 79, pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm with intent after a nine-second video of him using nail scissors to perform a procedure on a man’s penis in January 2020 was found on his mobile phone.

He also admitted seven other charges, including possessing extreme pornography and making and distributing images of children on or before 14 December 2022.

Prosecutors said some of the material included moving images which had been on the eunuch maker website, run by 47-year-old Norwegian national Marius Gustavson.

Gustavson was jailed for life with a minimum term of 22 years last year after a court heard he made almost £300,000 through his website, where thousands of users paid to watch procedures, including castrations.

Baulcomb was said to have been an “acquaintance” of Gustavson, and the pair exchanged more than 10,000 messages with each other over a four-year period.

He was formerly a vicar at St Mary the Virgin Church in Eastbourne but retired from full-time ministry in the Church of England in 2003.

The diocese of Chichester said he applied for “permission to officiate”, which allows clergy to officiate at church services in retirement, when he moved to Sussex the following year.

But Baulcomb was banned for life from exercising his Holy Orders following a tribunal last year, which heard he was issued with a caution after police found crystal meth and ketamine at his home in December 2022.

He had claimed experimenting with drugs or allowing his home in Eastbourne to be used for drug taking would “better enable him to relate and minister to people with difficulties as part of his pastoral care”.

The diocese said the Bishop of Chichester immediately removed his permission to officiate after being contacted by police, and bail conditions prevented him from attending church or entering Church of England premises.

‘Nullos’ subculture

The Old Bailey heard last year that extreme body modification is linked to a subculture where men become “nullos”, short for genital nullification, by having their penis and testicles removed.

Gustavson and nine other men have previously admitted their involvement in the eunuch maker ring, which one victim said had a “cult-like” atmosphere.

The life-changing surgeries, described as “little short of human butchery” by the sentencing judge, were carried out by people with no medical qualifications, who he had recruited.

Prosecutors said there was “clear evidence of cannibalism” as Gustavson – who had his own penis and nipple removed and leg frozen so it needed to be amputated – cooked testicles to eat in a salad.

Gustavson, who was said to have been involved in almost 30 procedures, pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm between 2016 and 2022.

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UK

Labour plans to ‘overhaul broken asylum system’

Published

6 hours ago

September 1, 2025

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Labour plans to 'overhaul broken asylum system'

After a summer dominated by criticism over the small boats crisis and asylum hotels, Labour says it’s planning to overhaul the “broken” asylum system.

As MPs return to Westminster today, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper will speak about the government’s success in tackling people smugglers and plans for border security reform.

Labour hopes that the raft of changes being proposed will contribute to ending the use of asylum hotels, an issue which has led to widespread protests over the summer.

Ms Cooper will set out planned changes to the refugee family reunion process to give “greater fairness and balance”, and speak to the government’s promise to “smash the gangs” behind English Channel crossings.

National Crime Agency (NCA) figures show record levels of disruption of immigration crime networks in 2024/25. Officials believe this contributed to the lowest number of boats crossing the Channel in August since 2019.

But, despite the 3,567 arrivals in August being the lowest since 2021, when looking across the whole of 2025, the figure of 29,003 is the highest on record for this point in a year.

Labour says actions to strengthen border security, increase returns and overhaul the asylum system, will result in “putting much stronger foundations in place so we can fix the chaos we inherited and end costly asylum hotels”.

In a message to Reform UK, which has promised mass deportations, and the Tories, who want to revive the Rwanda scheme, Ms Cooper will say: “These are complex challenges, and they require sustainable and workable solutions, not fantasy promises which can’t be delivered.”

While the home secretary will look back at the UK’s “proud record of giving sanctuary to those fleeing persecution”, she will argue the system “needs to be properly controlled and managed, so the rules are respected and enforced, and so governments, not criminal gangs, decide who comes to the UK”.

She will also give further details around measures announced over the summer, including the UK’s landmark returns deal with France, and update MPs on reforms to the asylum appeals process.

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp dismissed Ms Cooper’s intervention as a “desperate distraction tactic”, reiterating record levels of illegal Channel crossings, the rise in the use of asylum hotels and the highest number of asylum claims in history in Labour’s first year.

Sir Keir Starmer too, says he intends to “deliver change,” using a column in Monday’s Mirror to criticise the Tories and Reform UK for whipping up migrant hatred.

And the prime minister isn’t the only one to hit out at Reform UK’s flagship immigration plan, with the Archbishop of York accusing it of being an “isolationist, short-term kneejerk” approach, with no “long-term solutions”.

In response, Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips the archbishop was “wrong” in his criticism.

Mr Tice, who is the MP for Boston and Skegness, said he was a Christian who “enjoys” the church – but that the “role of the archbishop is not actually to interfere with international migration policies”.

Meanwhile, the Court of Appeal will hand down its full written judgment in the Bell Hotel case today, which saw Epping Forest District Council fail in an attempt to stop asylum seekers from being put up there.

Protests continued in Epping on Sunday night, with police arresting three people.

An anti-asylum demonstration also took place in Canary Wharf on Sunday, which saw a police officer punched in the face and in a separate incident, a child potentially affected by synthetic pepper spray.

UK

Murder investigation launched after man fatally stabbed in Luton

Published

6 hours ago

September 1, 2025

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Murder investigation launched after man fatally stabbed in Luton

A murder investigation has been launched after a man was fatally stabbed in Luton, Bedfordshire, on Sunday.

Police said officers were called to Humberstone Road just after 6pm after reports of an altercation involving two men and a woman.

A man in his 20s was taken to hospital with serious injuries but was pronounced dead shortly after.

Police are appealing for any further information, including doorbell, CCTV, or dashcam footage from the area around the time of the incident.

Superintendent Rachael Glendenning, from Bedfordshire Police, said: “This is an isolated incident, and we would ask the public not to speculate at this time.”

She said officers will be at the scene for a significant period while the investigation continues.