Dozens of people who were lodging at an East Sussex school when it was raided by anti-terrorist officers are living at a four-star hotel in Brighton at taxpayers' expense.
Twenty-five people, from five different families, are staying at the Thistle Hotel, where rooms start at £110 a night, rising to £170 for a double and £360 for a deluxe suite. The cost, which is being met by the Metropolitan Police, is already estimated to be approaching £10,000.
The families, who everyone accepts are innocents caught up in the police operation through no fault of their own, have been told that the search of the Jameah Islamiyah school, near Tunbridge Wells, will last for at least a fortnight, taking the final bill to at least £12,000.
Those staying at the hotel have swapped the allegedly ramshackle interior of the Gothic-style school for a seafront hotel with bright, airy rooms boasting modern furniture, large en-suite bathrooms and satellite television. A swimming pool, sauna, sunbeds, beauty treatment rooms and a sea-view restaurant are all available for their use.
However, as they left the hotel on their way to Friday prayers last week, they cut gloomy, bewildered figures.
"It was either stay here or live on the street," sighed one man, emerging from what the hotel describes as "its spectacular atrium lobby". Others said they were still "shell-shocked" at being caught up in an anti-terror operation.
The group, comprising at least four babies and grandparents, said they had been lodging at the school in the village of Mark Cross when, at 6am on September 2, police poured in and started searching the grounds.
"It was very scary," said Vali Adam, who has lived there for seven years.
Some of those living inside Jameah Islamiyah, including Bilal Patel, the owner, had relatives to stay with, but the five families were stranded until the police arranged rooms at the Thistle.
Last week, they were seen tucking into hearty breakfasts of scrambled eggs, hash browns and baked beans in the Promenade restaurant, where evening delicacies include a "pastry box of wild mushrooms and herbs in a cream sauce".
One trio of middle-aged women in hijabs ventured into Brighton's Lanes, peering into the windows of antique shops and fashionable clothes boutiques.
However, the attractions of the Thistle, described by the management as having "a premier position on the promenade" and where some of the delegates to this week's Trades Union Congress conference will stay, generated little enthusiasm. "It's so boring," said one man in his early twenties, who did not wish to be named. "We are 110 per cent the victims. We are confident the police will find nothing."
He said Mr Patel's mobile telephone had remained switched off since the raid and they had been unable to contact him.
"We are simply his tenants," the man added.
"I am renting a room and trying to find work.
"We don't have a clue who comes in and out of the school. People come all the time, but we do not have anything to do with them."
A Scotland Yard spokesman declined to say how much had been spent on accommodating the families, but added: "They will stay as long as the search takes. It is a very detailed investigation." Earlier this year, the Metropolitan Police attracted criticism after The Sunday Telegraph revealed that it was paying for Abul Koyair, 20 and Mohammed Abdul Kahar, 23, the brothers at the centre of the Forest Gate terrorism raid, to stay in a plush London hotel while their home was rebuilt. Police later accepted that the brothers were innocent of all terrorism offences.
However, the cost to the taxpayer of accommodating the brothers and their family for more than two months rose to £60,000.
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---------- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/03/nterr03.xml Police hunt for terror training camp at a faith school in Tunbridge Wells
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