Migrant jailed for 16 weeks for assaults inside asylum hotel

A migrant who assaulted four people at the asylum hotel where he was a resident has been jailed for 16 weeks, as a court heard he has signed paperwork to return to Syria.

Mohammed Sharwarq, 32, was a resident at the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, at the time of the offences between July 25 and August 12 this year.

He had been due to stand trial for sexual assault, after allegedly kissing a man on the back of the neck, but prosecutors discontinued the matter, Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court was told.

He had denied the charge.

Sharwarq had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to two counts of common assault and four of assault by beating, and he was sentenced for these on Tuesday.

Terence Newman, prosecuting, said: “All of these offences were committed at the Bell Hotel in Epping where the defendant was a resident at the time.”

He said there were four male victims, with two of them fellow residents of the Bell Hotel and two of them staff.

The prosecutor said Sharwarq assaulted another resident of the Bell Hotel on several occasions, culminating in a punch that caused a “small cut to his jawline” on August 12.

He said that on that day Sharwarq “continues to be aggressive, he’s causing issues for several residents and staff members at the hotel”.

He said Sharwarq punched a cleaner at the hotel to the arm, causing no injury, and threw a banana at him, hitting him on the back of the head.

The prosecutor said the defendant slapped another hotel resident to the back and then approached a hotel chef, “grabs him and tries to slap him to the face”.

“The defendant then picks up a chair,” Mr Newman said. “He’s then restrained and police attend.”

Paul Baker, mitigating for Sharwarq, said the defendant was born in Syria and had worked as an engineer specialising in electronics and cars.

“In 2011 a war broke out in Syria,” he said.

“There were a lot of deaths and atrocities committed and he and his family made the decision to flee.”

Mr Baker said he travelled first to Turkey, then Germany, then lastly to the UK.

He said Sharwarq “came into the UK by boat” and was initially placed in a hotel in Gloucestershire, then placed in the Bell Hotel, where he had been for around a month before the incidents.

Mr Baker said he had spoken to the defendant about the offences.

“I suspect he’s had some kind of breakdown as a result of the stress he’s been under for the last 13 to 14 years and the death of his mother was the final straw,” he said.

Mr Baker said Sharwarq had “indicated a desire to return back to Syria despite the atrocities still going on there”.

District judge Lynette Woodrow said the offences were committed while Sharwarq was on police bail for an alleged affray at another asylum hotel.

She said he was shown CCTV footage of what happened and asked why he did it. She said: “You said ‘I was bored and mood and morale not well’”.

The judge said she had been told Sharwarq had “signed documentation to facilitate your voluntary resettlement to Syria”.

She described the incidents as a “series of escalating assaults against the same person”, and on August 12 “a number of assaults on different people”.

The judge sentenced Sharwarq to 16 weeks in prison.

She also ordered that he pay £300 compensation to the man he assaulted on multiple occasions, £200 each to the two staff, with no compensation for the fourth victim.

She ordered that he pay £85 prosecution costs and a £154 victim surcharge.

Sharwarq bowed his head to the judge then sought to clarify, with the help of an interpreter, how long he would spend in prison before he was led to the cells.

Multiple demonstrations have been held outside The Bell Hotel after asylum seeker Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu sexually assaulted a woman and 14-year-old girl in the town.

The 38-year-old Ethiopian national, who arrived in the UK on a small boat days before the incidents in July, was jailed for 12 months at Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court last week.