Content creators film inside asylum seeker housing

The video shows three men accessing the back entrance of a house in Leicestershire accommodating asylum seekers. The men enter via an unlocked back door and move through several rooms of the house, including the kitchen, where they examine the contents of the fridge. They repeatedly claim to be looking for “paperwork”, searching through a pile of letters near the front door and boxes discarded in the back garden. The man filming claims he is the first to “document” this property.

When the men filming encounter three men, believed to be asylum seekers, in the kitchen, they tell them they are contractors sent to assess the property for repairs. They ask one man whether the property is run by Serco, a Home Office contractor, which the man confirms, and whether he has “paperwork”, which he says he does not. When asked for ID, the man filming briefly shows a lanyard, the contents of which are unclear.

The man filming specifically names the street and the village where the house is located, and shows the exterior of the property and its surroundings, making it clearly identifiable. A Serco spokesperson said: “We are aware of this post. We take issues of this nature extremely seriously and are investigating.” A Home Office spokesperson stated: “The safety and security of those housed in asylum accommodation, staff who work there and local communities are of the upmost importance to the government. We engage extensively with contractors, local authorities and the police and expect any instances of criminality to be taken seriously.”

A TH101UK spokesperson defended the footage, accusing the asylum seekers of being “ticking timebombs” and questioning the Guardian’s scrutiny of “independent journalism”. They added: “Don’t worry, I’ll keep asking the questions you should be.”

In recent years, there has been an increase of self-styled “auditors” and far-right activists attempting to gain access to accommodation housing asylum seekers, sometimes under the guise of “inspections”. The increasing use of houses of multiple occupancy (HMOs) has given these activists a new target, with some obtaining addresses from publicly available documents and sharing details in online groups. TH101UK entered another asylum seeker property in Norfolk several months ago and posted footage online.

After the Guardian brought the footage to the attention of YouTube, a spokesperson confirmed that it breached its standards and had been removed. A YouTube spokesperson said: “Harassment and cyberbullying are not allowed on YouTube and as part of this, we do not allow content that reveals someone’s personally identifiable information. Upon review, we have removed the flagged video for violating our harassment and cyberbullying policies.” Louise Calvey, the executive director of Asylum Matters, expressed concern, stating: “This is a premeditated invasion into someone’s home for clicks and attention. The people that court this are the very worst of us, they’re the ones the pose a threat – barging into people’s homes, filming in people’s private spaces. The audacity and sense of entitlement is breathtaking. Government must urgently take steps to improve protections, remove the details of shared accommodation sites of all descriptions from the public domain, support people accommodated as victims of crimes, and escalate quicker police responses.”