Officers attended the Bell Hotel, which houses asylum seekers, after a number of people were reportedly throwing projectiles including flares and firecrackers and carrying out harassment and anti-social behaviour. This behaviour was not carried out by legitimate protesters and was a change from the peaceful protest on Thursday and on many occasions before, Essex Police have insisted. Police also received reports a resident of the hotel was assaulted outside the property, and officers arrested a 49-year-old man from Harlow in connection with this. Epping has been the site of repeated scenes of disorder in recent weeks, with multiple demonstrations outside the Bell Hotel in the town after an asylum seeker was charged with the alleged sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl. “We have seen hundreds of people turn up to dozens of protests peacefully – this was not peaceful protest, it was criminality.