{"id":815561,"date":"2026-10-27T15:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T15:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/815561\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T15:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T15:16:10","slug":"ex-britain-first-leader-arrested-in-hmo-attacks-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/815561\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Britain First leader arrested in HMO attacks investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The former co-leader of the far-right Britain First party has said she was arrested as part of an investigation into attacks on houses in multiple occupation (HMOs). <\/p>\n

In a post on X, Ashlea Simon said she had been held at Manchester Airport after “returning from a family holiday”. <\/p>\n

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said a 37-year-old woman had been arrested on suspicion of “conspiracy to cause criminal damage”, following a spate of incidents in which HMOs were vandalised across the Greater Manchester region. <\/p>\n

Simon, who said in her post that she “hasn’t committed a crime in her life”, was approached for comment by the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS). <\/p>\n

In the post, Simon said she believed the arrest was linked to a series of videos she has made since July.<\/p>\n

In them, she claimed to identify several HMOs in her hometown of Walkden, Salford. <\/p>\n

In a previous video shared by Simon in recent days, she said police had “raided” her home while she was on holiday and she was aware of an “arrest warrant”.<\/p>\n

Simon left Britain First two years ago, and is now the leader of a “pro-English” activism group. <\/p>\n

The news of her arrest came amid a major investigation into a number of vandalism attacks across Salford, Tameside, and Stockport.<\/a><\/p>\n

Police are investigating about 50 incidents in which HMOs and family homes have been vandalised and cars targeted. <\/p>\n

In one incident, a pig’s head was left outside a home.<\/p>\n

Five men have been arrested on suspicion of causing criminal damage and conspiracy to cause criminal damage as part of the investigation, along with a 13-year-old boy.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Ch Supt Marcus Noden said officers “suspect vulnerable people are being exploited and paid to damage buildings they believe are HMOs”.<\/p>\n

“Some of those being exploited are believed to be children and this is just one line of enquiry that we are pursuing,” he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former co-leader of the far-right Britain First party has said she was arrested as part of an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":815562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-815561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/815562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}