Asylum hotel protests: ”They’re angry with the wrong people’
“It was, quite literally, you deserve to be raped, you N-word bitch,” Ella Mitchell tells me, standing in her kitchen, “and I can’t wrap my head around it.”
Warning: This article includes content that some readers may find distressing
Ella, 25, an administrative assistant in Leeds, is recounting her recent experience at an asylum hotel protest.
The abuse she says she’s had from protesters, calling for the hotel to shut, is shocking.
“Threats of sexual violence, rape threats, racial slurs,” she says, shaking her head.
“I think I will always find it a little bit galling to hear people say that they’re doing this to keep people on their streets safe.”
Ella Mitchell, a counter-protester at the hotel housing asylum seekers in Leeds
For several weeks now, Ella’s helped organise counter-protests outside the Britannia Hotel in Leeds.
The hotel houses 200 male asylum seekers and protests started in early August, organised under the slogan “Protect Our Kids”.
“We live in a time of immense misogyny and violence against women,” Ella says, but “the only incidences of sexual violence against women that they care about are ones that they can use to further their own agenda, to stir up more hatred around asylum seekers.”
I put it to Ella that there are some people at the protests who wouldn’t call themselves racists or far-right, as some of the counter-protesters claim them to be, but are local residents who feel ignored by the government and angry at small boat arrivals.
“I do understand,” Ella says, “that not every single person there is a seasoned far-right organiser, and I wouldn’t want to claim as such.
“However, if you are stood next to someone who is Sieg Heil-ing [the Hitler salute], for example, or next to someone who is yelling racist abuse, week in, week out, then I think it does reflect on you.
‘They’re angry with the wrong people’
Sally Kincaid speaks during the counter-protest outside a hotel housing asylum seekers in Leeds
Protests and counter-protests outside asylum hotels have been going on all summer, sparked initially by those that began outside the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex.
For weeks, we’ve been speaking to people on both sides and found communities starkly divided.
Read more:
Asylum seekers come face-to-face with migrant hotel critics
Protesters on why they oppose asylum hotels
The key numbers driving the immigration debate
“We shouldn’t have to do this, should we?” a counter-protester tells me.
It’s Friday night and we’ve come down to see the Leeds protest for ourselves.
The numbers aren’t huge – a few dozen on both sides, flanked by police – but the rhetoric is aggressive and the atmosphere febrile. Insults are lobbed by people on both sides.
“We shouldn’t have that hatred on this side of road,” Sally Kincaid says, “against people who live on this side of the road.”
Sally, a retired teacher and seasoned protester, has worked with refugee communities for decades.
Anti-migrant protesters outside the Britannia Hotel housing asylum seekers in Leeds
“I can understand people being angry, but they are angry at the wrong people.
“Refugees are not to blame for the fact that there’s bad housing or overcrowded schools.
“And people keep being told that they’re getting all these things – they’re not! They are just waiting and waiting for the Home Office to make a decision.”
Sally then tells us about Hossein, a young refugee from Iran who she fostered from the age of 15.
“He’s lovely,” Sally says, “and everyone that’s ever met him loves him to bits.
“Now, this lot would say he is a bad person.”
I tell Sally that, from our previous conversations with protesters, we know there are a lot of concerns about safety and rates of crime associated with migrants.
“It’s a myth, it’s a myth,” she says, pointing at protesters on the other side, “and it’s being stirred up to make the situation more polarised than it already is.”
‘There’s a lot of racism around and kids are scared’
Sally Kincaid and Steve Johnston with foster son Hossein
Hossein travelled to the UK as a young refugee from Iran before being fostered
A few days later, we go to Sally’s house.
We’d hoped to meet her foster son Hossein, who lived with Sally and her partner, Steve Johnston, for five years after he first arrived in the UK in the back of a freezer van.
Sally and Steve saw Hossein through college, driving tests and, after nearly a decade of waiting, getting British citizenship.
Hossein after passing his driving test
But Hossein isn’t there, and when I ask Sally why, she looks really sad.
“There’s a lot of racism around and kids are scared,” she explains. “That’s the tragedy of it.”
She describes her foster son as someone who “was very, very open on camera a few years ago” but says he is “now worried”.
“The amount of hatred on social media is awful towards refugees, even though he now has status.”
I ask Sally if she finds that painful to admit.
Hossein with foster parents Sally Kincaid and Steve Johnston
“Yes,” she says, “we sat and watched the TV the other night when [Nigel] Farage was talking about deporting Afghan women, and I just thought what’s going on?
“Why have we got ourselves into this situation where people who desperately want to contribute to society are scared to meet people like you.”
The Britannia Hotel houses asylum seekers
‘I don’t think wearing a dog collar exempts you from abuse’
It’s Friday night and, once again, we’re back outside the Britannia hotel.
Protesters and counter-protesters take their positions on either side of the road, and the chanting and name-calling – amplified on loud hailers and speakers – start being flung across the dual carriageway from both sides.
As we walk along the bank of counter-protesters, I see a man, wearing a dog collar and crucifix and quite clearly a member of the clergy, carrying a tray of homemade cakes.
He offers me one and I ask if they are for both sides of the protest.
Cakes being handed out to protesters and counter-protesters by the Bishop of Kirkstall
“Yes we’ve offered them to both sides, and a sense of peace, in the midst of rising tension.”
I ask him what he means by “rising tension”.
“Well, I was last here three weeks ago, and I think the verbal abuse I got today,” he says, gesturing to the protest side, “is more than I had three weeks ago.”
“So to that extent, it does feel like the tension has raised slightly higher,” he adds.
Arun Arora, the Bishop of Kirkstall
The man, as it turns out, is Arun Arora, the Bishop of Kirkstall, the most senior member of the Church of England in West Yorkshire.
I ask him if he finds it shocking that someone who, in his words, has come in peace, should be the target of verbal abuse at these protests.
“I don’t think wearing a dog collar exempts you from abuse,” the bishop says.
“I think part of it is if you stand alongside those who are being dehumanised, those who are being degraded, those who are regarded the least, then you can expect to share in some of the same treatment that they get.”
‘Being polite about it doesn’t win’
I scan the crowd and see Ella, escorting groups of counter-protesters from a nearby car park to the meeting point.
She tells me no one walks here alone in case things get violent.
I also see Steve, Sally’s partner.
Steve Johnston has been involved in the protest movement for years
Like Sally, he’s been involved in the protest movement for years and I ask him about the language we hear being used by the counter-protesters, like chants of “Nazi scum” and “fascist scum, off our streets”.
Does he think it risks making a tense situation even more polarised?
A sign held up by counter-protesters
“There are people over there,” he says, gesturing to the protesters on the other side, “who are clearly members of fascist organisations.”
He concedes, when I challenge him, that there will be some who won’t be, but says “by doing these sort of chants, we hope those people will go away and think ‘well why are they calling us Nazis?’
“People have [previously] stopped the rise of fascism by calling it out for what it is.
“Ignoring it or being polite about it doesn’t win.”
“That smell of maggots, rotting food and maggots, my house smells like that.”
For Louise, not her real name, home has become a hell she cannot escape.
“We just couldn’t move for flies, and then we noticed an increase in rats,” she says.
Louise lives near Bolton House Road in Wigan. At the end of a row of terraced houses sits a former scrapyard, which has been transformed into an industrial-scale illegal dump site.
The wagons started coming last winter, “20, maybe 30 times a day,” Louise remembers.
“Eighteen-tonne wagons. Full of all sorts; nappies, black bin rubbish, chemicals, plastic.”
Within a few weeks, she and her neighbours realised the waste was just being dumped, not sorted or managed. It piled up, higher and higher.
They contacted the council, the Environment Agency and the police – but Louise claims no one did anything to stop the lorries.
Her retired neighbour, Tom, says it felt like the authorities “didn’t want to know”.
Though he does remember someone from the council asking him if he could go and “have a look for them” and “report back” information about what sort of waste was being dumped.
Louise and Tom are both so worried about who could be behind this that they are only comfortable speaking anonymously.
The fire which lasted nine days
By July’s heatwave, the site had long been full. The wagons had stopped months earlier, so 25,000 tonnes of waste, several storeys high, sat festering in the sun.
Lorries and vehicles in the former scrapyard lay buried, unseen, beneath the shredded and rotting filth – and then the fire started.
For nine days, dozens of firefighters from across Greater Manchester fought to bring the fire under control.
Pic: Wigan Council
Pic: Wigan Today
The nearby primary school had to shut due to the acrid smoke.
The sheer amount of water needed by fire engines to tackle the blaze left residents without any – while many were forced to keep their windows and doors shut in the 30C-plus heat.
Some were left with chest infections, others were hospitalised.
“I think it’s awful to let people live with that toxic rubbish right next to our house after us all asking for help and nothing’s materialised,” Louise says.
The crime costing the economy billions
Sky News has been investigating how, across the country, waste crime is a growing scourge and a booming business being exploited by criminal gangs.
Being paid to remove rubbish only to dump it illegally without sorting it or paying tax is an easy way of making huge amounts of money, with poorly enforced legal repercussions and a huge cost to the environment.
It’s something the previous head of the Environment Agency called “the new narcotics”.
– It’s thought a fifth of all waste in England is being illegally managed
– That’s around 34 million tonnes a year, enough to fill about four million skips
– It costs the economy around a billion pounds a year, with legitimate operators thought to be losing a further £3bn from missed business
In July, we tracked down a group of suspected organised fly-tippers who waved wads of cash on TikTok after dumping waste in the countryside.
‘Absolutely soul-destroying’
The residents of Bolton House Road are not the only victims of this toxic dump.
Last winter, Neil Hardwick rented out three diggers to an individual, unaware of the growing illegal dump site in Wigan.
By March of this year, he had not received several rental payments and had received a call from the Environment Agency warning him about what was happening at the site.
Neil and Carla Hardwick
With his daughter Carla, he went to Bolton House Road in an attempt to retrieve the machinery, worth approximately £300,000 in total.
At the site, Carla says a group of men slapped her, as well as spat at her. The men allegedly told her father: “We want you to give us £100,000, and we’ll allow you to take your diggers back, or we can cut your throat.”
Carla and Neil say an officer from Greater Manchester Police dismissed their report, and claimed their machinery was not stolen.
That officer also threatened to arrest the pair if they did not leave the area, they say.
“I just wanted us to get those machines back. But the fact that a man can spit in a woman’s face and get away with it, and the police are not interested, well, it is maddening,” Carla said.
The Hardwicks returned to the site 10 days later with officers from the National Crime Agency but found their machines smashed up and destroyed.
Mr Hardwick said the ordeal was “absolutely soul-destroying”.
“It’s caused us so much grief, damage to business, just absolutely brought us to our knees,” he said.
A vehicle used to transport waste to the illegal dump
Greater Manchester Police told Sky News there is an ongoing complaint relating to the incident involving Neil and Carla Hardwick at Bolton House Road, and “this process will take time”.
“As part of this complaint, our Professional Standards Directorate are assessing all elements of the investigation including all crimes and reviewing bodyworn footage,” a spokesperson said.
The £4.5m bill
Finding out how the illegal dump in Wigan happened, and who’s responsible, is hugely challenging.
The landowner has not responded to Sky, nor have the companies which allegedly own the lorries seen by residents transporting the waste.
They appear to be either refuse or haulage companies that boast of their environmentally friendly credentials.
The firms seen moving waste to the illegal dump did not reply to Sky News
One company’s website claims it diverts most of its waste away from landfill, and advertises its “innovative approach” to waste management.
“We’re passionate about the environment,” the website says.
Josh Simons, the local Labour MP, has been outraged by the case.
Speaking before his promotion to the Cabinet Office, he said it is “buck-passing” between Wigan Council, the police, and the Environment Agency.
Mr Simons says he was told at the start of the year that there was a criminal investigation, “and therefore no action can be taken to prevent people from dumping more on the site or intervening”.
“That just doesn’t seem right to me,” he says.
He also says information and financial support from the Environment Agency to Wigan Council has been poor.
“The number [the council] have come up with is about £4.5m to clear the waste.
“Anybody who knows local authority budgets at the moment knows they don’t have nearly five million pounds stashed behind the sofa. So what’s supposed to happen?”
The land itself is not worth £4.5m – and Mr Simons thinks this makes working-class areas uniquely vulnerable to this kind of crime.
The funding and powers of the Environment Agency need to change, says Josh Simons MP
Paul Barton, director for environment at Wigan Council, said: “Our top priority is to ensure those residents feel heard and safe while the Environment Agency carries out their investigation with our full cooperation.
“We want the site to be cleared as a matter of urgency and are continuing to work with the Environment Agency to survey and sample the waste so polluters/landowners – who are the responsible parties – can progress this as soon as possible.”
Paul Clements, director of operations at the Environment Agency, said: “We are prioritising local people, businesses and the nearby school as we work… to deal with this illegal waste site as quickly as possible.
“Our staff continue to visit the site and at the forefront of our minds is the impact the illegal waste is having on the local community.
“We are continuing to progress our criminal investigation as a priority. This includes actively pursuing many lines of enquiry, interviewing under caution and using the enforcement tools available to us.”
Additional reporting by Adam Parker, OSINT editor, and Niamh Lynch, planning producer
The Environment Agency (EA), police and other agencies are failing to stop fly-tipping by organised crime groups, a cross-party group of peers has found.
In a damning letter to the government, members of the House of Lords’ Environment and Climate Change Committee called for an independent review of waste crime, with the current approach “inadequate”.
Their report described the EA as “slow to respond to even the most flagrant and serious illegality” – and said its taskforce on waste crime appears “ineffective”.
Police are accused of showing a “lack of interest” in the crime, while penalties for criminals do not match their profits and are “insufficient to deter future offending”.
Read more:
Dirty work: The fly-tippers turning trash into cash
The Lords’ committee has called for the EA’s Joint Unit for Waste Crime to do more to encourage collaboration between various authorities, and for the Department for Environment, Rural and Food Affairs to develop and publish targets for tackling this issue.
Peers have also demanded an end to what they call the “merry-go-round of reporting” where members of the public who report fly-tipping and waste crime in their area get bounced between various agencies.
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Criminals benefitting from trash
This is something Sky News has often heard from victims – they will call the police, only to be told to speak to the council, which then pushes them over to the EA.
Peers want a “single telephone number and web portal” which would triage responsibility for each case.
Read more from Sky News:
Could the UK run out of drinking water?
Mystery of what killed billions of starfish solved
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The boom in waste crime
An EA spokesperson said: “We recognise the recommendations of the report and are committed to doing more.
“Last year alone, our dedicated teams shut down 462 illegal waste sites and prevented nearly 34,000 tonnes of waste being illegally exported – showing that we can make real change despite the challenges involved.”
The King has been heckled over his brother Prince Andrew’s relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein during a visit to a cathedral.
Charles was shouted at by a man in the crowd outside Lichfield Cathedral in Staffordshire on Monday, who asked: “How long have you known about Andrew and Epstein?”
The protester, who was filming on a mobile phone, also said: “Have you asked the police to cover up for Andrew? Should MPs be allowed to debate the royals in the House of Commons?”
King Charles during his visit to Lichfield Cathedral. Pic: AP
The King did not respond to the comments, which came as the monarchy faces increasing pressure to resolve the controversy surrounding Andrew, who earlier this month said he would stop using his Duke of York title and his knighthood after revelations in the posthumous memoir of sex assault accuser Virginia Giuffre.
The prince has always strenuously denied all allegations against him from the late Ms Giuffre.
Reports also emerged that claimed Andrew asked a royal close protection officer to “dig up dirt” on Ms Giuffre. The Metropolitan Police said it is “actively looking into the claims”.
At the moment, Andrew resides at Royal Lodge, a Windsor mansion where he effectively lives rent-free. He’s done so since 2003.
Obstacles to a settlement are reportedly where the prince, who remains eighth in line to the throne, will live and what financial recompense he will receive for the funds he spent renovating the home.
The Sun reported he is keen on Harry and Meghan’s former home Frogmore Cottage.
Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein. Pics: PA/Sipa/Shutterstock
‘The royals need to be challenged’
Calls are still growing for Andrew’s dukedom to be revoked, which can only be done by an act of parliament.
Downing Street has indicated it its reluctance to do so, suggesting the King would not want the issue to take up politicians’ time.
Graham Smith, chief executive of anti-monarchy group Republic, said: “The royals need to be challenged, and if the politicians won’t do the job and the police won’t investigate, then more and more members of the public will be asking tough questions.”
He said he believed Monday’s heckler was “one of our own members but doing their own thing”.
After the visit to the cathedral, the King laid flowers at the UK’s first national memorial commemorating LGBT armed forces.
He was joined by dozens of serving and former members of the armed forces, as he met veterans who told of the trauma inflicted by the military’s former “gay ban”.
The memorial, titled An Opened Letter, was unveiled at the National Memorial Arboretum.
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