For a year, the pretty, prosperous Essex town of Epping was torn apart by protests over the Bell hotel, which housed asylum seekers. The unrest was sparked in July 2025 when a 14-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by an asylum seeker, Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, who had arrived at the hotel just days earlier. The protests, led by far-right activists, escalated into violent clashes, leaving the community deeply divided. The hotel was emptied in June 2026, but the scars remain.
How the protests began
Kebatu, an Ethiopian national, entered the UK on 29 June 2025 after a 6,000-mile journey. He was transferred to the Bell hotel on 7 July and that same day approached a group of 14-year-old schoolchildren near a Domino's pizza outlet. According to court documents, he asked for pizza, told the girls they were pretty and that he wanted to have babies with them, and invited them back to the hotel. He followed them around Epping, tried to get them to drink alcohol, and attempted a kiss. One witness said Kebatu asked the victim to 'come back to Africa' and told her 'she would make a good wife'. He was arrested the next day and later convicted of sexual assault, attempted sexual assault, inciting a girl to engage in sexual activity, and harassment without violence.
Far-right activists seize the moment
The day after Kebatu's arrest, Epping Forest district council leader Chris Whitbread, a Conservative, announced that the suspect was from the Bell hotel. He urged residents to 'stay calm' but also criticised the use of the hotel for asylum seekers, calling it 'totally unsuitable'. His statement fuelled anger. A local Facebook group, originally called Epping Forest Residents Group, was renamed 'Epping Says NO' and taken over by three members of Homeland, a far-right group described by Hope Not Hate as 'a fascist political party'. The ringleader, Callum Barker, who calls himself the 'Lion of Epping', wrote on X: 'I don't want integration, I want entire communities gone.'
Protests began on 13 July 2025, with organisers claiming they would be 'peaceful'. However, two security guards were assaulted at a bus stop in an attack police described as 'racially aggravated'. Further protests on 17 July saw a pitched battle with police, with projectiles thrown by masked children. Ch Insp Terry Fisher said: 'In my 20 years of policing, I have never witnessed disorder of this scale in Essex, and certainly not in a town like Epping.'
Life inside the hotel
Asylum seekers living at the Bell were trapped inside. Ali, an Arabic-speaking Kurd from Syria, arrived 10 days before Kebatu's assaults. He said: 'We would stay in our room as if we had committed a crime. We couldn't study or go out.' Ali fled Syria to avoid mandatory military service and described the dangerous journey across the Channel in a small boat carrying 68 people. 'Anything could have happened; we could all have died,' he said. During the protests, the men feared for their families back in war zones and for their own fate.
The Pink Ladies and growing division
Some campaigners, like Orla Minihane, a financial services consultant and vice-chair of Reform UK's Epping Forest branch, formed the Pink Ladies to lead protests as 'local mothers'. Minihane later defected to Restore Britain. She told the BBC: 'We are not happy with these men in this hotel because we fear for our children. If that makes me far right then so be it.' The protests continued every Thursday and Sunday for the rest of 2025, with fireworks shot at the hotel and dogs set on the fences. A video showed a white man chasing a hotel resident into the road to the laughter of onlookers. When schoolchildren made a banner reading 'Epping welcomes all … except racists', it was burned.
Counter-movement: Epping for Everyone
In response, a group called Epping for Everyone formed, led by women like Jane and Amelia. Jane said: 'For me, it was absolute anger that these men could turn up in our town and speak for me, speak for women, and do it in such a violent, misogynistic, abusive, aggressive way.' The group organised community events and volunteers taught English to the asylum seekers. Jane added: 'When I go into the hotel to volunteer, it's not uncommon for people to drive past and shout: 'Scum!' at me.'
Football as a lifeline
In May 2026, a football tournament organised by Care4Calais gave the hotel residents a boost. Coach Dom, a local Sunday league coach, formed Bell FC. The team trained daily in the hotel's concrete courtyard and entered a tournament at Clapton FC. Despite losing their first game, they won the trophy. Ali, whose asylum claim had been rejected that day, started banging a drum and chanting 'Bell hotel!' Dom said: 'They just got better and better and better.'
The end of the Bell hotel
On 11 June 2026, the residents were taken without warning to a processing centre elsewhere. The hotel was emptied as part of a national strategy. Restore Britain's Rupert Lowe claimed victory. Sherzod, a Uzbek-born resident who moved to Epping in early 2025 and faced abuse from drivers shouting 'Go home', said: 'The horrible genie has been let out of the bottle. It's like a disease; it's spread even to people who were not racist before.'
Today, Epping remains divided. Epping for Everyone focuses on community cohesion, while protesters still gather on Sundays, even though the hotel is empty. One protester, James, a mechanic in his 20s, said: 'You just want a better standard of living for everyone.' The far-right activists have been discredited by arrests: Craig Kitts pleaded guilty to assault, and Ben Cullen was charged with making indecent images of children. But the town's wounds are far from healed.
