Epping asylum hotel protester kicked police officer, court told

A man who kicked a police officer while protesting outside a hotel housing asylum seekers has been given a suspended jail sentence.

Jimmy Hillard, 52, struck the officer with his leg outside The Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, on Friday.

It came hours after a Court of Appeal ruling allowed migrants to continue being housed inside the building.

The carpenter, from Loughton, was sentenced to eight weeks in prison, suspended for one year, at Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court after admitting assaulting an emergency worker.

He was also ordered to undertake 60 hours of unpaid work and pay the police officer £100 in compensation.

Serena Berry, prosecuting, said Hillard was outside The Bell Hotel at 21:20 BST while a police cordon was in place, and an officer asked him to move.

“This defendant didn’t move,” the prosecutor said, adding an officer then “pushed him away from the officers’ cordon, causing him to fall to the ground”.

“While on the ground he’s kicked out at [the officer],” Ms Berry said, telling the court “no injury was sustained”.

Raphael Pigott, mitigating, said his client did not attend the protest to hurt anyone, claiming: “It was just a reaction.

“He’s pushed, goes flying on the ground, so he’s probably angry and upset by that.”

Thousands of people have attended anti-immigration protests and counter-demonstrations outside The Bell Hotel since July.

It followed an asylum seeker housed there being arrested and subsequently charged with several offences including the sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl.

Hadush Kebatu, who is from Ethiopia, denies the offences and has been on trial.

Sentencing Hillard, Judge Christopher Williams said officers had faced “very difficult and hostile” situations at times.

“There’s ongoing disorder surrounding the government’s policy on housing asylum seekers at hotels across the country,” he said.

“The Bell Hotel is at the epicentre of that.”

Judge Williams said Hillard had been previously sentenced in 2021 for a racially aggravated offence that took place outside the same hotel.

“Given the ongoing disorder at the hotel and across the country, I’ve got to be considering punishment and deterrence,” he added, banning Hillard from the vicinity of the building for six months.

At the same court, Ross Ellis, of Orchard Croft, Harlow, was sentenced for failing to provide a specimen.

Essex Police said a car had been driven towards its officers, on the wrong side of the road, as they maintained a cordon on Friday.

Ellis, 49, was banned from driving for two years and fined £200.

Earlier on Monday, in a separate hearing at Chelmsford Crown Court, 23-year-old Charlie Land denied two offences related to events outside The Bell Hotel on 17 July.

The defendant, from Hatfield in Hertfordshire, denied violent disorder and criminally damaging a police van.

He was bailed until a hearing on 22 September.