Harben House: Plan to house migrants at convicted criminal's hotel stopped

Siddharth Mahajan was jailed for 16 months in 2019 for perverting the course of justice and using copies of forged documents

Plans to house migrants in a hotel owned by a convicted criminal have been suspended, the local Tory MP said.

The Harben House Hotel in Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, was due to receive 270 asylum seekers.

A BBC investigation revealed its owner, Siddharth Mahajan, 42 was convicted of offences linked to the operation of houses of multiple occupancy (HMOs).

Ben Everitt, MP for Milton Keynes North, said the Home Office had moved all asylum seekers out of the hotel.

He said: "I have been clear that a convicted criminal should not be running asylum seeker accommodation and there are currently no plans to move any more asylum seekers into the hotel while the contractual situation is reviewed."

The Home Office said it did not comment on commercial arrangements for individual sites used for asylum accommodation.

In a statement, it said: "We have been clear that the use of hotels to house asylum seekers is unacceptable.

"There are currently more than 51,000 asylum seekers in hotels costing the UK taxpayer £6m a day."

Harben House Hotel in Newport Pagnell, near Milton Keynes, is due to receive 270 asylum seekers, to be accommodated in about 150 rooms

The London Borough of Barking & Dagenham said council officers investigated Mahajan, from Ilford in east London, for converting three family homes in Barking into HMOs without planning permission.

He falsely claimed they had been in use as HMOs for more than 10 years and were therefore immune from enforcement action, but the documents he supplied as evidence were forgeries.

Mahajan was jailed for 16 months in 2019 after being found guilty of perverting the course of justice and using copies of forged documents.

Harben House is owned by Bluebell Tame Ltd, of which Mahajan became director on 21 July.

That company has since been taken over by his Tulip Real Estates business and the hotel was described on the company's website as "one of the most ideal hotels in Milton Keynes".

The BBC attempted to contact Tulip Real Estate for comment, but did not receive a response.