July 17th - The Battle Of Epping/Bell Hotel Protest

Here are my photos of the "battle of Epping", a peaceful protest that quickly turned into a riot. The protest was originally set to be outside of the Bell Hotel in the southern end of Epping, they were originally protesting against asylum seekers at a local hotel after one named Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu aged 38 allegedly sexually assaulted a local school girl on the evening of the 8th of July. There was a previous demonstration on the 13th of July where "two security staff members, both men, were seriously assaulted by a group of men at a bus stop in High Road.", but besides that from what I could see online no other issues took place. But onto the protest that I attended, after walking from a bus stop not all too far down the road there was roughly 200 people standing around outside the Bell Hotel with no real signs of aggression but there was something in the air especially as word of a counter protest got round. From the start there was serious flaws in the policing said protest with at the start only a van and two cars from Essex Police being in attendance so if things were to go sideways fast (as it did) then they would be able to deal with it. At roughly ten past six some members of the crowd got further word on the counter demonstration and had decided to make their way towards them with one demonstrator shouting "lets fight these lefty cunts" which set the tone as for what was about to take place. It wasn’t long until one van load of officers attempted to stop the protesters in their tracks with PAVA spray in hand, but this cordon was quickly broken through. A second cordon was set up a few hundred meters down the road with this one being more successful until protesters went around through a nearby field to get around police before ending up outside The Tower School roughly half a mile from where they originally started. Essex Police had already kettled the Stand Up To Racism counter demo outside of the said school and were now alongside police being attacked with eggs, milk, flour, various drinks and fireworks up until they had pushed the counter protest further away from the now rowdy and aggressive crowd who had since turned their attention to attacking police. Most officers by this time were now in riot gear with the British Transport Police attending under mutual aid agreements followed by the Metropolitain Police again under mutual aid agreements. I managed to speak to some of the protesters I spoke about how most of the protesters were there for a good reason, but it was the minority that had decided to riot that now paints them all in a bad light. As it had died down a little I decided to leave at roughly eight thirty, but the rioting had continued into the early hours of the 18th. A statement from Essex Police "Our officers have been in Epping this evening, where a number of people disrupted peaceful protests with projectiles. We have identified several suspects we believe are responsible for damaging police vehicles, the hotel, and assaulting our officers. One of our officers was left with a minor injury to their neck. These investigations are underway, with images circulated across our teams and to neighbouring police forces. Despite these incidents, we’d like to thank the many protestors who attended peacefully throughout the evening. Later, others intent on offending caused substantial disruption in Epping town centre. Faced with significant hostility. Our officers, supported by the Metropolitan Police Service and British Transport Police, responded to that offending.", Chief Superintendent Simon Anslow also commented saying "“I am sure those living in Epping have concerns following tonight. I share those concerns. We know the people who carried out these crimes do not represent Epping or Essex. Nothing about the offending we saw tonight is representative of these communities, or the peaceful event that ended before this started. This was crime.", these comments do not exactly make up for the fact that they had caused the riots by their lack of vans and officers and the fact they had allowed both sides to mix.