Asylum seeker charged with rape arrived in the UK by dinghy just 40 days ago

A 33-year-old man who has been charged with raping a woman in a Skegness park late at night was staying at a taxpayer-funded hotel believed to be housing migrants.

The man was charged with raping a woman 16 years of age or over and is due to enter a plea at Lincoln Crown Court on July 17.

He was remanded in custody following an appearance at Lincoln Magistrates Court on June 12.

The man had reportedly arrived in the UK just 40 days earlier after crossing the Channel in a dinghy, The Sun reports.

A Lincolnshire Police spokesman said: 'Officers were called to the Tower Gardens area of Skegness just after 10.40pm on Friday, June 9 to a report of a sexual assault.'

Lincolnshire Police said its investigation remains ongoing and specialist officers are working with the victim.

A spokeswoman from the Home Office told MailOnline: 'We do not comment on ongoing legal proceedings.'

Skegness hoteliers are said to receive more than £10,000 a week to close their doors to tourists and house migrants instead.

'Those owners who have accepted the Home Office money tend not to live in the area,' Ross Richardson, events manager at the Savoy hotel, which rejected the offer, previously told the Mail on Sunday.

'We turned it down because the owner is local and doesn't want it to impact on tourism. Overall in this town you've got 400 beds taken up with migrants and these are block-booked for another year at least.

'That's 400 beds that would normally be filled with holidaymakers come for the summer.

'And then there are all the holidaymakers deterred from coming to Skegness because of what's happened. We lost thousands in cancelled bookings over Christmas because of the migrants. We're really worried about what's going to happen when the season begins.'

Skegness was once one of the go-to destinations where hard-working Brits and their families would enjoy donkey rides, the helter skelter and ice creams.

But the once-glorious seaside towns of Clacton-on-Sea and Skegness have been ranked as the worst beach holiday destinations in Britain in a survey released in April.

The list was generated by a Which? Travel survey of over 3,000 holidaymakers, with 'boozed up' day drinkers blamed for the poor rating for Clacton, Skegness and Southend.

The survey asked holidaymakers to rate coastal resorts they have visited across a range of categories including quality of beaches, seafront, tourist attractions, food and drink, scenery, peace and quiet, and value for money.

Skegness managed one star for 'peace and quiet', 'scenery' and 'seafront/pier', two stars for 'food and drink', 'tourist attractions' and 'shopping' and three stars for beaches.