Migrants to be taken from hotel as injunction granted

ASYLUM-seekers are set to be removed from an Essex hotel after a council was granted a temporary High Court injunction blocking them from being housed there.

- CALLUM PARKE and NINA MASSEY

Epping Forest district council had asked a judge to issue an interim injunction stopping migrants being accommodated at the Bell Hotel in Epping.

The injunction sought by the council meant the hotel’s owner, Somani Hotels Limited, would have had to stop housing asylum-seekers there within 14 days.

The hotel has been at the centre of a series of protests in recent weeks after an asylum-seeker who was staying there was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl.

In a ruling yesterday, Mr Justice Eyre granted the temporary injunction, but extended the time limit by which the hotel must stop housing asylum-seekers to September 12.

He refused to give Somani Hotels the green light to challenge his ruling, but the company could still ask the Court of Appeal for the go-ahead to appeal against the judgment.