Inside the Daresbury Park Hotel used to house asylum seekers

They did not know who was on the other side of the door, but strained by months of isolation and the UK’s tortuous asylum process they feared for the worst.

One said: “They were scared.

"Some of them, they opened their window and put something behind the door so you can’t open it quickly.

“They were going to run away, they didn’t know whether it’s the enforcement team from the Home Office.”

Those that did answer the door were bombarded with questions about where they were from and rants about taxpayers’ money being used to provide their accommodation.

One asylum seeker added: “They came in and terrorised people.”

The incident, on the evening of August 25, drew widespread condemnation from refugee charities and anti-racism campaigners after a video of Britain First activists in the hotel went viral.

Ewan Roberts, of Asylum Link Merseyside, described the actions as 'disgusting', adding: “The Britain First crew wandering through the hotel with their misplaced self-righteousness clearly know nothing about the people who have been placed in the Daresbury, nothing about their journeys or backgrounds or even why they are there.”

A Home Office spokesman said any abuse or violence directed towards asylum seekers was 'completely unacceptable', while a spokesperson for Serco, which arranges accommodation for asylum seekers on behalf of the Home Office, said it was 'shocked and appalled by the clearly racially motivated' incident.

Serco’s contract director for asylum seeker accommodation and support Jenni Halliday added: “At the same time, we are very proud of the swift response of our employees who were on duty at the hotel, who dialled 999 to summon the police and, in the meantime, took every measure possible to protect the residents and themselves in the face of an aggressive group of men who were intent on abusing and threatening the asylum seekers in our care.”

Cheshire Police said enquiries into the incident were ongoing, but at this point no arrests have been made.

The incident captured on video followed a series of protests outside hotels housing asylum seekers during August, including at Daresbury Park, in which far-right activists have claimed asylum seekers are ‘living in luxury’ at taxpayers’ expense.

It is true that more asylum seekers are being temporarily housed in hotels as a result of the coronavirus crisis.

But while Daresbury Park is normally a three-star hotel, the reality for the asylum seekers staying there is far from luxurious, even before the added stress of far-right harassment.

HB, who asked to only be referred to by his initials, has been in the hotel since April, one of many asylum seekers moved into Daresbury Park in response to the coronavirus crisis.

He summed up conditions there with just three words: “It’s a prison.”

The asylum seekers have a curfew and must report in each morning and evening.

They receive the same food every day, which Ewan Roberts described as 'poor', and because their food is provided for them they do not even receive the £5 daily allowance given to other asylum seekers.

Not that they would have anywhere to spend it if they did receive the allowance.

Stuck on a business park by a motorway, they are isolated from the surrounding area and have nothing to do but wait in monotony for the Home Office to decide on their case.

HB said: “You have four walls, you can’t go out.

“90 per cent of the guys inside, they don’t go out of their door because they don’t know if somebody is going to jump them.

“Mentally, everyone is sick.

"They’re just sitting between four walls.

"It’s like we’re told ‘don’t work, don’t breathe, don’t eat – get lost, get crazy, get sick and now we will detain you’.”

With nowhere to go and nothing to do but wait, mental health problems are rife in the hotel.

Mr Roberts said many of the asylum seekers he had worked with in other hotels had already been suffering from mental health problems before being placed in the hotels, and their conditions had only worsened.

Asylum seekers have been found dead in their rooms at hotels in Manchester and Glasgow, while Glasgow’s Park Inn Hotel also saw an incident in June in which a Sudanese asylum seeker stabbed six people before being shot dead by police.

He is believed to have suffered a mental breakdown while staying at the hotel, and only hours before the incident told his solicitor he was feeling suicidal. 

Mr Roberts said: “Everything points to the hotels as places where people are struggling.”

For the asylum seekers in Daresbury Park, he added, the problems have until recently been exacerbated by difficulties in accessing health services.

He said: “People are stuck in the middle of nowhere.

"Unlike Liverpool, there are very few local support services that I know of and getting healthcare or GP access has been a problem but is now getting sorted.”

Now they can access a small clinic, HB said, but they still have to call 111 to get a referral for mental health support.

A Home Office spokesman said: “The UK has a statutory obligation to provide destitute asylum seekers with accommodation and support whilst their applications are considered, including free meals, access to healthcare through an arrangement with the local clinical commissioning group and a 24-hour helpline run by an independent charity.

“We demand the highest standards from our contractors and their accommodation, and take the wellbeing of asylum seekers extremely seriously.”

But already under stress, cut off from the world and harassed by the far-right, HB claimed some asylum seekers have fled Daresbury Park while others have attempted suicide.

Unlike the asylum seekers featured on tabloid front pages in recent weeks, HB did not arrive in the UK on a boat across the channel.

He did not even arrive intending to claim asylum.

Born and brought up in the United Arab Emirates, he had a good job and would often visit the UK for work.

He ended up marrying an English woman and moving to the UK on a spousal visa, intending to carry on working.

He said: “I came here legitimately.”

But the relationship broke down and the couple divorced, leaving HB with no home, no money and no right to stay in the UK.

He said: “I just vanished onto the streets.

"I was broken down on the streets in a country I didn’t know.”

HB also couldn’t return to the UAE.

Although he was brought up there, he is a Yemeni citizen and no longer has the right to live in the country where he was born.

The only other place he could go is Yemen.

Since 2015, Yemen has been wracked by a civil war that has killed more than 100,000 people, displaced millions more and plunged the country into a famine described by UNICEF earlier this year as 'the largest humanitarian crisis in the world'.

Sitting outside the hotel, HB scrolled through pictures sent by his brother, who is already in Yemen, showing burning buildings and wrecked vehicles, the result of a Saudi air strike.

He said: “This is what I am waiting for.”

Now his application has been refused and he has run out of appeals, he said, all he can do is wait to be taken to a detention centre before being deported.

He believes he is most likely to be sent at first to Ethiopia, a country he has never been to and has no right to live in but told authorities he had relatives in because he feared otherwise they would send him to Yemen.

He said: “I’m stuck here with no status and I’m at risk of detention any time.

“Sometimes you get your letter at 7am and you have half an hour to get ready.

"You know you are being taken to the detention centre to be sent God knows where.”

He is not the only one.

Another asylum seeker, Faisal, said he had been waiting for a decision for more than a year after fleeing Kuwait in fear for his life.

He said: “I need to know, yes, come live in the UK, or please leave the UK.

"I need to know.”

A sense of stasis surrounds the hotel, with everyone waiting for something, for a decision on their asylum application, for the bus to take them to the detention centre, for news that they have been found alternative accommodation somewhere less isolated.

And every day the stress mounts.

Britannia Hotels, the owners of Daresbury Park, was approached for comment.