Protests continue outside Dudley hotel which has no asylum seekers living there
Tensions mount as a crowd of about 150 protestors gather outside an hotel on the edge of a Black Country town centre.
The demonstration spills out into the busy dual carriageway outside the hotel, and cars sound their horn as they drive past.
"We're angry," says a middle-aged man in a baseball cap, brandishing a banner bearing the words 'protect our children'.
Yet the authorities insist there are no asylum seekers living in the hotel.
The Home Office, which has a duty to inform the local authority if it places asylum seekers in hotel accommodation, says there is just one hotel in Dudley borough which is being used to provide temporary accommodation for asylum seekers - and the Superior Hotel isn't it.
Not that you will convince the growing number of people who have taken to demonstrating outside the 167-year-old hotel, just over half a mile from Dudley Castle.
"I don't believe a word," said one woman. "If they came out and waved and showed their faces and we knew that they were from here, we would be very happy."
The hotel, previously known as the Ward Arms Hotel, and reputed to be the oldest hostelry in Dudley, has been the subject of speculation for some months. Anecdotal sightings of asylum seekers entering and leaving the building have been swirling around on social media for months, and the hotel has not accepted bookings from the public for some time.
YouTuber Ryan Brooks added fuel to the speculation in April when he took a camera into the hotel and filmed what appeared to be a group of people staying in there.
