Communities split, families divided: how Epping lit the fuse on migrant hotels crisis

Nationwide protests fizzle out after few answer the call in the wake of legal ruling

- John Simpson & Catherine Neilan

The waitress shrugged. "It's always like this," she said. "Basically every day. It's all anyone talks about. It's even dividing families.

She had just watched two customers at the small cafe in Epping on the verge of a fistfight as Britain's latest febrile asylum row continued to tear the Essex market town apart.

"You're a stereotypical person blaming all your problems on black and brown people. It's racist and I'm sick of it," Adrian Hutchins, 56, said before an older man rose to his feet.

"You made it personal," the older man said, squaring up to him. "It's not personal. I haven't got a racist bone in my body. This is about them coming here illegally - I don't care whether they are black, brown, pink, yellow or ..." pulling at the corners of his eyes "slitty-eyed people."

About a mile away a flag bearing the St George's cross has been attached with cable ties to a drainpipe on the Bell Hotel. It has appeared in the past 10 days or so. Like others on the streets of Epping, it was put up in the dead of night.

Weeks of protests at the hotel followed the arrest and charge of an asylum seeker on allegations of sexual offences including attempting to kiss a teenage girl on 7 and 8 July. He denies the charges.

The Epping protesters' tactics, which led to 27 arrests in clashes with counter-protesters and police, are seen as a playbook for forcing asylum seekers out of communities.

Yesterday, under the banner Abolish Asylum System, similar groups planned to take their protests nationwide, to towns and cities including Bristol, Tamworth, Liverpool, Newcastle, Horley in Surrey and Canary Wharf in London.