Nearly one in four unaccompanied children have gone missing from a hotel used by the Home Office to house asylum seekers, with fears some could be exploited by criminal networks.
Of the 600 unaccompanied children who have passed through the hotel in Brighton in 18 months, 136 were reported missing.
Seventy-nine remain unaccounted for, The Observer reported. At another hotel in Hythe, Kent, about 10 per cent of asylum-seeking children were going missing each week, it was claimed.
A source who worked for Mitie, a Home Office contractor which provides security services at hotels, said: “Children are literally being picked up from outside the building, disappearing and not being found. They’re being taken from the street by traffickers.”
The source claimed that many were being exploited by county lines gangs, which deal drugs across the country. “Most of the children disappear into county lines. The Albanian and Eritrean gangs pick them up in their BMWs and Audis and then they just vanish,” the source said.
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Home Office sources denied that dozens of children had been “kidnapped” and said that no evidence had been provided so far of minors being taken against their will. The source said many of the missing children were aged 16 or 17, and that unaccompanied asylum-seeking children were free to leave the accommodation.
The Times has previously reported that charities are concerned for the welfare of children in the hotels. In 2021 Home Office officials privately warned ministers that unaccompanied child refugees were at risk of disappearing, being kidnapped by traffickers, harming themselves or being exposed to sex offenders.
Last month Stephen Watson, chief constable of Greater Manchester police, said that organised criminals were targeting migrants at asylum hotels and children’s homes. He warned that vulnerable asylum seekers were being exploited as “cannon fodder” by criminals who used them for labour.
A Home Office spokesman said: “Local authorities have a statutory duty to protect all children, regardless of where they go missing from. In the concerning occasion when a child goes missing they work closely with other local agencies, including the police, to urgently establish their whereabouts and ensure they are safe.
“Ending the use of hotels for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children is an absolute priority, and we have robust safeguarding procedures in place to ensure all children in our care are as safe and supported as possible as we seek urgent placements with a local authority.”
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Concerns about the vulnerability of the children, and the criminal gangs targeting them, are said to have been repeatedly raised at meetings between local councils, Home Office officials and other agencies.
The Home Office said that appropriate safeguards were in place. Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children were assisted by team leaders and support workers who were there 24 hours a day.
In addition, the Home Office said measures were in place to ensure the risk of a child going missing was minimised, and that records were kept and monitored of children leaving and returning to the hotel.
Support workers would accompany children off site on activities and social excursions, or where specific vulnerabilities were identified.
Brighton and Hove city council said: “For many months now we have been raising with government our concerns about the Home Office’s use of hotels to accommodate asylum-seeking children.”
