DOSSERS have been living at various sites across south Essex:

  • According to neighbours of Sadlers Park caravan site, London Road, Bowers Gifford, a team of Bulgarian workers sometimes live in a mobile home there.

Travellers won planning permission from the Government in 2005 to stay there on grounds only their extended family lived there in four mobile homes.

Yet one of the mobiles, a cheaper building than the others and sited away from them, is reportedly sometimes occupied by workers employed for a blockpaving business.

Ian McCready, who lives next door to Sadlers Park, said Bulgarian men who were once living in the demountable building, have come into their garden and asked to borrow utensils such as a tin opener.

The Echo has seen an elderly man, who is not among the list of official occupants, on the site on several occasions.

He does errands for the family, by tidying up the yard and walking to the shops.

  • In January 2003, Paul Brooks, now 27, from Mablethorpe, Lincolnshire, said he was punched by a traveller and hit over the head with a broom while at a camp in Basildon, which we can't name for legal reasons.

A traveller was arrested, but the case was eventually dropped.

On 13 June, 2005, two travellers pleaded not guilty at Lincoln Crown Court after being charged with the kidnap of Christopher Brooks, also from Lincolnshire.

After being remanded in Lincoln prison the case collapsed on March 6, 2006, when the prosecution offered no evidence.

  • In late 2006, Crays Hill residents said a number of Eastern Europeans were drinking in the Shepherd and Dog pub for several weeks. They said they were living at the Dale Farm traveller site in Oak Lane and working for travellers.

Len Gridley, 48, from nearby Oak Road said around that time he saw a team of men, who he believed were not travellers, cleaning up Oak Lane.