Police probe disappearances of children from asylum seeker hotels

Speaking to councillors on Wednesday, temporary Assistant Chief Constable Katy Barrow-Grint said a number of children had been reported missing from hotels in the Banbury area that are being used to accommodate asylum seekers as they wait for their asylum claims to be processed. Hotels elsewhere in the county, including in Oxford and Witney, have been used to house those seeking asylum.

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In the meeting she said ‘some’ children had been reported missing from the hotels and, in an inaudible response to questioning by the committee chairman Cllr Charlie Hicks, appeared to put the number in single figures – before saying she would check the figures and send them to the county council’s Place scrutiny committee after the meeting.

It comes just months after Home Office minister Simon Murray told the House of Lords that 200 asylum-seeking children placed in hotels run on behalf of the Home Office had gone missing. They included at least one girl and 13 under-16 year olds.

Last month, a family court judge heard that 66 unaccompanied children who disappeared from a hotel in the Brighton and Hove area remained missing, according to reports. More than 75 had gone missing from a hotel, with fears they had been targeted by criminal gangs.

Cllr Charlie Hicks Picture: Oxford Mail (Image: Oxford Mail)

On Wednesday, Cllr Hicks asked Ms Barrow-Grint whether any of the children missing from Sussex had been found in Oxfordshire or the Thames Valley.

“We have had some in Thames Valley. In Oxfordshire specifically we’ve had some go missing from Banbury; so, the hotels in the Banbury area,” she told the committee.

“They are children; they are a missing child.

“We risk assess all individuals that are reported missing. Children are more likely than not to be high risk.”

The force was working ‘very closely’ with the relevant local authorities ‘around how we track and trace some of those individuals’.

“Some of them have completely disappeared and normal methods we would use to try and find them have [been] very difficult,” she said, although it was unclear whether she was speaking about children reported missing from Oxfordshire or Brighton and Hove.

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While the issue of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children going missing was a problem both nationally and locally, Ms Barrow-Grint told councillors that Thames Valley Police had a ‘good process’ in place when it came to hotels being opened up for asylum seekers.

PCSOs would go to the hotels to speak to those being housed there about policing in the UK, she said. “Many of them are scared of the police, many have been in environments where they would never want to speak to the police. It’s very different here; we police by consent.

“So, we’ve been going in to speak to them about the legislation, explain the law, explain consent and build up those relationships as they come into Oxfordshire as well.”