Street sleepers accused of being "fake homeless" are being chased out of a Devon town.

The "Fake Homeless" campaign was launched last week to remove what it calls "professional beggars" from Torquay.

Volunteers in the seaside town have been photographing homeless people then checking with charities to see if they are known to them.

They have also put posters up around the town warning "fake homeless" people they will have their photo taken and will be "cross referenced".

The volunteers said homeless people who do not match up with charities' lists are told to leave Torquay or have their "identities exposed".


Torbay Council, local charities and Devon and Cornwall Police said the campaign was "unacceptable" and was causing "vigilantism".

They said a genuine homeless person has already been accused of being a "fake homeless".

Humanity Torbay, which was accused of running the campaign, told Sky News that professional beggars "take space" yet have a place to go at the end of the day.

A spokesman for the organisation acknowledged that the campaign exists but denied it was run by Humanity Torbay, saying: "We don't support shaming people."

He added: "We are meant to help and support the community - we are not meant to shame them."

The organisation is instead asking people not to give beggars money directly but give it to charities who help with food, clothing and accommodation.

The group says it wants to provide people who are truly homeless with food and shelter.

Ashley Sims, one of the organisers of the Fake Homeless campaign, told BBC Spotlight that 17 people have been photographed but only two were genuinely homeless.

"One thing these people don’t like is being photographed or filmed, so we've gone and done that," he said.

"We have identified who is genuine with the relevant charities and their names and if they are homeless or not, and five of them of them have told us they won't go begging anymore if I don't put their photo up."

Nick Pannell, chairman of Friends of Factory Row, a charity which works with homeless people in Torquay, said the campaign is a "disgrace".

"Begging is generally a desperate bid to scrape together a few coins to buy drugs or alcohol.

"They are not professional beggars changing out of smart designer clothes into rags, but genuinely desperate, sad, lonely, alienated human beings with profound problems who are living at the edge of our communities."

A spokesman for Torbay Council said an individual's circumstances "can frequently change, sometimes on a daily basis" meaning that it is difficult to say if somebody is homeless.

"We are already aware of an individual wrongly identified as 'fake homeless,' who has then been the subject of abuse via social media," he said.

"The actions being proposed by this campaign encourages vigilantism and enables anyone so-minded to target people, and is therefore unacceptable."

Inspector Si Jenkinson, from Devon and Cornwall Police, said the campaign "fails to acknowledge the very complex vulnerabilities and chaotic lives of those concerned".