Days of clashes triggered by an alleged sex assault by an asylum seeker placed by the government into a hotel in the town erupted into violence in Epping, Essex on Thursday night with police promising arrests.
Two people were arrested overnight in relation to scuffles in Epping, Essex (15 miles north-east of central London) said to have taken place over the presence of a migrant hotel in the town, and the alleged sexual assault committed by an Ethiopian asylum seeker resident against a 14-year-old girl.
Essex police said in their statement that Thursday night’s protest was initially peaceful, saying of those taking part: “These residents were peacefully and legitimately protesting. This follows a recent alleged incident involving a resident of the hotel who was swiftly arrested, charged and remanded.”
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – 2025/07/17: A large placard appealing to the government to “Protect our Kids” is parked outside the Bell Hotel in Essex during the rally. Photo by Lab Ky Mo/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
They said the local community “largely dissipated” but other individuals, who they claimed were from outside the area, arrived and were “intent on causing trouble”. Missiles were thrown, police vans smashed, and the hotel at the centre of the protests — The Bell, on Epping High Road — was damaged. Eight officers were “assaulted” and sustained minor injuries like “cuts and grazes”.
Police said in addition to the arrests that had already taken place, they had identified several suspects and were seeking to make further arrests.
The Daily Telegraph notes of footage shot and publicly released at the protest that mask-wearing men carrying England’s national flag threw missiles including eggs and bottles of what appear to be milk at officers. Left-wing counter protesters — self-confessed “anti-racists” — were also pelted, it was stated.
In one incident, protesters erected an improvised road block which police vans drove through, hitting one of the protesters, throwing him several feet.
A police spokesman told the paper that officers were driving quickly because there had been attempt by protesters to hem them in, and they consequently had to perform a withdrawal. “During this, a police van made contact with one of the protestors”, they said.
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – 2025/07/17: A young anti-immigration protester tries to get through the cordon of riot police. Photo by Lab Ky Mo/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Summarising the ten days of incidents leading to today in Epping, police said in their digest that on Tuesday 8th, they had arrested a “man acting inappropriately towards a number of people” in the town. That individual, 38-year-old Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu of Ethiopia, a resident of The Bell migrant hotel, was charged with three counts of sexual assault, one of inciting a girl to engage in sexual activity, and one of harassment.
It is reported these alleged crimes took place eight days after Kebatu arrived in the United Kingdom. He appeared in court on Thursday 17th and denied all charges and is being held by police pending his next court appearance, next month.
Following the initial arrest of Kebatu last week, there was a protest at the Bell Hotel on Sunday 13th. Essex police said the protest itself was peaceful but that two security staff employed by the hotel were “seriously assaulted” elsewhere in the town by a “group of men” and ran to police lines for protection. The force say they are “treating it as racially aggravated” abuse and are investigating.
Days later on Tuesday 15th there was an incident of a man shouting “racial abuse” at the Bell Hotel and causing damage. A suspect was arrested on the same day.
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – 2025/07/17: Masked far-right, anti-immigration protesters attack and jump on Police vans, which were retreating from the scene. Photo by Lab Ky Mo/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Media reports around the protests have uniformly referred to the anti-migrant-sex-assault protesters as “far-right”, but one local politician speaking out has claimed trouble is being stirred by “professional” protesters on both sides of the equation. GB News reported the remarks of Conservative Councillor Holly Whitbread, who told the broadcaster the town was at “boiling point” and the migrant hotel should be shut down.
She said: “As a council, we’ve absolutely condemned the hotel and called on the Government to close it immediately, and we have done that since it reopened… The Government have ignored those calls repeatedly.”
The councillor criticised the violence the town had seen, observing it “diluted a legitimate message of concern”, but added: “I think there were also people both on the left and the right who were there as professional protesters and who were there to cause trouble.”
The unrest in Epping is not the first anti-migrant-sex-assault protest in the United Kingdom, with the town of Ballymena in Ulster seeing several nights of sometimes fiery confrontations between locals and officers protecting migrant accommodation. Triggered by the alleged sex assault of a 14-year-old local girl by recently arrived migrants and following the plantation of large numbers of newcomers by the government renting large swathes of homes saw petrol bombs thrown and a riot declared.
As reported in June, local residents had taken to placing British and Ulster flags in their windows to make clear the properties hadn’t been rented out to government agencies buying up properties for migrants. National politicians called the unrest a “three day festival of hate”.
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