𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Families living next to Labour’s asylum camps face an ‘inevitable’ increase in crime, a police chief has warned. Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner Matthew Barber said it is “naïve” not to expect an increase in ‘violent and sexual offences’.

Nine women from Piddington descended on Parliament on Wednesday to demand Labour ditch plans to house 1,256 asylum seekers next to the Oxfordshire village. But Labour faced fresh fury for failing to talk to any of the women – despite their repeated pleas.

Mr Barber said in a letter to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood: “We must expect an increase in crime. We have seen this in asylum hotels and the size of the proposed camp near Bicester will only increase the scale of the problem. It is naïve to consider that such a large population of single men will not bring with it a greater risk of violent and sexual offences”.

And he said in an interview on GB News: “What we’ve seen in the past, certainly in Thames Valley, where we’ve had asylum hotels in the past, they do generate some crime, if nothing else between groups of asylum seekers [themselves]. You’ve got people coming from all over the world from various different backgrounds. There is some inevitability of an increase in crime when you put that many people in a confined space and expect them to all rub along with each other.”

The women of Piddington compared the Government’s silence to the betrayal of grooming gang victims.

Andy Burnham and Shabana Mahmood were accused of using “class as a weapon” to ignore warnings that they will “suffer” at the hands of men “from cultures where women are treated worse than animals”.

Piddington resident Christina Gower said: “So the fact that he’s used that language, it really just validates our concerns and our fears. And our fears, speaking of fears, is actually something we’ve received a lot of criticism for.

“When I was 15, I was walking along a very fast road, in broad daylight, when a migrant male approached me and told me to have sex with him.

“He followed me home, but I did get home safely, thankfully.

“I believe that it’s because I was on that busy road that I was safe, and we don’t have that here in Piddington. We don’t have that security.

“When we spoke to rural policing, they said to us that it will take up to 45 minutes for them to get here, and the best thing we can do for ourselves is to run and

The nine women sat in the front row of the public gallery as they watched MPs tear Labour’s plan to shreds. They then met with Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, just weeks after she visited the village.

Miss Gower added: “It’s so, so frustrating to be ignored by an elected government.

“I was there on Wednesday in the gallery at Parliament.

“At any point, any of them could have come to speak to us, but they refused to.

“Seven times now, Andy Burnham said, ‘Yes, I will listen to the people of Piddington,’ but he hasn’t.

“He’s ignored us. He’s ignored all of our concerns. And it’s re- yeah, really, really frustrating. It’s about time this Labour government put its taxpayers and its British residents first, as the priority.”