“Bored” groups of men from Asia, Africa and the Middle East are said to have “targeted women” and taken “pictures of schoolgirls”.
(Stock image) Migrants crossing the Channel to enter Britain illegally (Image: Getty)
Women in a town close to a former RAF base housing asylum seekers say gangs of migrants “take pictures of schoolgirls” and make it scary to go out alone at night. Large groups of men who have illegally crossed into Britain via the Channel are bused into Braintree in Essex in groups of around 50 at a time.
The small town is close to RAF Wethersfield, which was once built to house bombers to fight the Nazis and is being used to house foreign arrivals at the taxpayer’s expense. Worryingly, women claim some of the males, mostly in their 20s and 30s, prowl the town centre and target lone females and groups of girls.
Susan Doan, the joint owner of Braintree’s Sisters Nails and Beauty, told the Mail Online the “terrifying” groups make it feel unsafe to leave her place of work at night.
A protest in Braintree in Essex against housing migrants at a military base (Image: Getty)
She told the Mail: “I had a client who left here and was followed by a group. She was terrified and so came straight back.”
Weeks before becoming Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer told a local TV interview the migrant camp at the RAF base “needs to close”, adding: “I do know how keenly this is felt locally and understandably so.”
But despite Sir Keir’s observation almost two years ago, the migrants are still using the former military facility and Labour have said it will more than double in size to 1,225 males.
Ms Doan the in one incident when she asked the men to move away from her shop they “spat chicken bones” at her, and chillingly she said she had seen some of the men “sitting outside of Tesco taking pictures of schoolgirls”.
Braintree in Essex is said to flooded with migrants ‘targeting’ women (Image: Getty)
At a local charity shop one female worker said she was “living in fear” of the men coming into her store. She said one asylum seeker was spoken to by police after he kept coming in the shop and “flicking through the women’s clothes”.
She added on a different occasion, with a different asylum seeker, she was “followed on my way to work.”
Serena Fletcher, owner of Stylistic salon, said she had also heard “a few stories of women being followed” by the gangs of migrants.
Charbel Chami was brought up as an Arabic-speaking Christian in Lebanon, but when he began to be persecuted, he fled to Britain, where he found sanctuary and a new life in 1993. The father-of-three runs the Yumy Cafe in Braintree.
He said many of the migrants were Muslims who viewed locals as “impure” and that the men were “seuxally frustrated” and from countries with “hugely different” cultures to the UK.
He added the migrants would get into situations and say “totally inappropriate things to young women and girls”.
Mr Chami said his own 14-year-old daughter was targeted by a group of migrants. He explained the men apologised and said they “didn’t know she was your daughter,”.
Braintree’s Conservative MP James Cleverly wrote to the Home Office about the migrant camp issues in the town which he said were “creating real problems in the local area”.
He wrote: “Asylum seekers at the site are transported to surrounding towns and villages with little to do other than hang around.
“Groups of bored young men, in any circumstances, are intimidating and local shopkeepers have reported declining footfall.
“These developments are contributing to rising tension and division within communities that have already shown considerable patience and co-operation.”