In his role as handyman at a guesthouse being used to house homeless people, Ricky Lee had keys to every bedroom.
He had previously been placed at Eastfield guesthouse in Peterborough as a homeless person himself, and had moved into a caravan in the grounds, where he lived for free in return for carrying out maintenance jobs on site.
Lee was later convicted of raping and sexually assaulting women staying at the guesthouse over a seven-month period. He raped one victim twice within hours of her being placed at the property by her local authority in June 2022.
“Lee exploited vulnerable women believing he could get away with it because they had dependency issues,” said DCI Amerjit Singh from Cambridgeshire constabulary. “Most were too scared to report what had happened.”
When he was sentenced to 25 years in prison in January, the judge sentencing Lee said it was “inconceivable management gave you the responsibility they did”.
The shocking case raises questions over the controls being placed on companies housing some of England’s more than 100,000 households living in temporary accommodation, and the quality of the shelter they are placed in.
Analysis by Shelter has found that more than 200,000 children will be living in stopgap housing to keep them off the streets by the end of this parliament, even when government policies to increase housebuilding are taken into account. This represents an increase of 26% over five years, while the cost to the taxpayer is set to rise by 71% to £3.9bn a year.
High street hotel chains, travel agencies and caravan parks are among those making huge sums housing people with nowhere else to go, as waiting lists for social housing soar and private rent becomes more unaffordable.
Eastfield guesthouse received £4.5m of public money from local authorities to house homeless people between 2021 and 2024, and is one of hundreds of companies to have profited from the UK’s temporary accommodation crisis.
Peterborough city council, which spent more than £2.5m on rooms there from 2021-24, said it used Eastfield guesthouse as emergency temporary accommodation when all other options were full. It said the council was not made aware of the incidents until 7 February 2025, after Lee had been sentenced.
“As soon as we found out, we set up weekly meetings with Eastfield guesthouse to find out what had happened and to ensure that residents were safe,” said Matt Oliver, the council’s head of housing needs. “A range of new security and safeguarding measures have been introduced to ensure this can never happen again.”
South Cambridgeshire district council said it was first made aware of the allegations against Lee on 20 June 2022, and after “rigorous checks” the guesthouse is still used to house individuals, and the council currently has one person housed there.
It is not used for families or children, and all Eastfield staff members hold Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks, while casually employed staff are not allowed into guest rooms without another staff member present, the council said. Eastfield guesthouse did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.
Newham council has paid more than £2.4m to a company called HungerBurger, a fast food restaurant, no longer in operation, that has been converted bit-by-bit into a hotel for homeless families.
The Guardian spoke to families living in an off-site extension of the hotel, branded as Barking hotel, where work is seemingly under way to expand the number of rooms.
When Rebecca Adebayo, 44, moved into the hotel in January, her room looked as if it was still effectively under construction. Pictures of Rebecca’s room seen by the Guardian show an exposed wall was visible around a recently fitted window. Exposed wiring could be seen on the outside of the building, although this has since been plastered over. She claims the central heating was not connected when she moved in and she was instead given a portable heater.
“The room has started cracking. They just rushed to build it,” claimed Rebecca. She was placed in a single room there by Newham council with her two toddlers.
More than a dozen families live in the extension and are forced to share a single kitchen. They are charged £9.24 a week for breakfast, which Rebecca said usually consisted of cold ingredients such as bread and cheese.
There are no clothes washing facilities at the hotel, and Rebecca said it cost her about £25 a week to go to the launderette, which she struggles to afford. She has resorted to washing her clothes in the bathroom sink.
One pregnant woman, who has since moved out of the hotel, claimed she was forced to share a bed with her teenage son.
Paul Kitson, Newham council’s corporate director of inclusive economy and housing, said: “We are acutely aware of the pressures of providing much-needed temporary housing.
“An overheating property market, persistent low levels of housing supply and insufficient levels of government funding across many years have led us to this point. We simply do not have enough suitable accommodation to house everybody within the borough.”
He added that the cost of providing temporary accommodation was going up, and the council was reviewing how it could provide best value for money. It is building houses at the fourth-highest rate of any local authority.
“We carry out inspections on properties that we put people into, and take any breaches of housing regulations very seriously. We’d urge anyone with concerns to contact us,” he said.
HungerBurger did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.
