Home Office lawyers have argued the rights of asylum seekers are more important than those of Epping council, as the Court of Appeal considers the Bell Hotel injunction.

The Home Office and Somani Hotels, which owns the Bell Hotel in Epping, are seeking to challenge a High Court ruling that will stop 138 asylum seekers from being housed there beyond September 12.

In a ruling last week, Epping Forest District Council was granted an interim injunction after the authority claimed the hotel owners had breached planning rules by using the Bell as accommodation for asylum seekers.

"Epping represents the public interest that subsists in planning control in its local area, Home Office lawyers said in documents submitted to the Court of Appeal.

“The [Home Secretary] is taken for these purposes as representing the public interest of the entirety of the United Kingdom and discharging obligations conferred on her alone by Parliament.

“Epping’s interest in enforcement of planning control is important and in the public interest.

“However, the [Home Secretary’s] statutory duty is a manifestation of the United Kingdom’s obligations under Article 3 ECHR [European Convention on Human Rights], which establishes non derogable fundamental human rights.”

In written submissions for the hearing on Thursday, Edward Brown KC, for the department, said ending the use of hotels to accommodate asylum seekers “requires a structured response”.

He also said individual injunction bids “ignore the obvious consequence that closure of one site means that capacity then needs to be identified elsewhere”.

Mr Brown continued: “This injunction essentially incentivises other authorities who wish to remove asylum accommodation to move urgently to court before capacity elsewhere in the system becomes exhausted.

"That creates a chaotic and disorderly approach.”

The Bell became the focal point of several protests and counter-protests in recent weeks after an asylum seeker housed there was charged with sexually assaulting a teenage girl last month.

Ethiopian national Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu has denied the offence and has been on trial this week.

He told Colchester Magistrates’ Court he only said “hello” to the schoolgirl and her friends in Epping, Essex, and nothing more because he was “worried about my asylum case”.

Kebatu, who was a “teacher of sports” in his home country, said the offences he is alleged to have committed just days after arriving in Britain by small boat are “anti-Christian” and that he would “prefer actually to die than to do these kind of things”.

He told the court he was on camera on his knees apologising to one of the alleged victims because she was “drunk” and “agitated” and he was “worried about ramifications on the other immigrants” at the Bell Hotel.

The defendant said he had been living in the hotel for around a week before his arrest after travelling through Sudan, Libya, Italy and France in order to get to the UK.

On Wednesday, Molly Dyas, defending, asked Kebatu if he tried to kiss the girl.

Speaking through a Tigrinya interpreter, he replied: “I’m not a wild animal."