Revealed: scores of child asylum seekers kidnapped from Home Office hotel

Hove, where unaccompanied asylum-seeking children have been abducted, according to a contractor working for the Home Office. Photograph: Andy Hall/The Observer

Dozens of asylum-seeking children have been kidnapped by gangs from a Brighton hotel run by the Home Office in a pattern apparently being repeated across the south coast, an Observer investigation can reveal.

A whistleblower, who works for Home Office contractor Mitie, and child protection sources describe children being abducted off the street outside the hotel and bundled into cars.