Home Office admits placing lone nine-year-old in Brighton asylum seeker hotel

Disclosure made as council tries to stop government resuming placements in hotel from which children disappeared

The Home Office has admitted that an unaccompanied nine-year-old child was placed in an asylum seeker hotel because of shortages of local authority care placements.

The disclosure came during an urgent injunction application in the high court from Brighton and Hove city council, which is trying to prevent the Home Office resuming placements in a hotel from which a large number of children had previously disappeared. Some of them are suspected to have ended up with traffickers or people who are exploiting them.