Church and State blog: Assault and bar in the Whitechapel Mission

Monday, June 18, 2007

Assault and bar in the Whitechapel Mission

This morning at 6.50am I was assaulted in the canteen of the Methodist-run Whitechapel Mission by a homeless woman … then at 9.30am the manager (she is the wife of the Director, Minister Tony Miller) informs Declan and me, in front of two police officers, that we are barred from the premises due to concerns about our safety.

We actually should have known something was up because last night at 10.30pm, while we were sleeping in the porch, two employees entered the office building by the porch (very unusual) and this morning one did the same at 5.05am, 15 minutes before we get up (a first).

Anyway, this homeless woman threw a full roll of industrial kitchen paper at me, one end of the cardboard tube hitting me above the eye. She had already, while I was waiting for Declan to come back from the washroom, pushed me against the wall, thrown a cup of coffee at my feet, called Declan and me all kinds of unmentionables and put her fist to my face and told me she was going to kill me. (A reason? Can’t think of one: I have never talked to her before!)

All of this happened just a few feet away from the kitchen counter, but did any of the kitchen staff take notice of this homeless woman’s shouts and anti-social behaviour? Apparently not. And this homeless was obviously emboldened by the carte blanche too, because the pushing against the wall and the throwing of the industrial roll happened right in front of a kitchen worker who had come out to mop up the coffee at my feet.

When we called into Bethnal Green Police Station, we were told to go back to the Mission and wait for police officers to turn up – which we duly did. After we gave a second account of the assault and a description of this particular homeless woman to two police officers in the manager's office, in came the manager to tell us that due to concerns about our safety she was barring us from the premises.

There was no changing her mind, not when Declan reminded her that there is no other place for us wash and change our clothes before 9.30am (we sell The Big Issue in Liverpool Street most weekdays from 7.30am to 9.00am), nor when he pointed out that the European Court of Human Rights has the Whitechapel Mission as our care of address.

I can see the writing on the wall: unless I bring Declan’s application to the European Court of Human Rights to a finish over the next few days (our introductory letter can be found here), more incidents like this are likely to occur. It raises the question, the Department for Work and Pensions can act as unlawfully as it pleases, but can we exercise our right to submit our case to the European Court?

Declan is not letting the barring go (he is now seeking re-admittance), and will write to Andrew Hind, CEO of the Charity Commission. This afternoon he sent this registered letter to Minister Miller:

Dear Minister Miller

Re: CCTV footage (Crime ref: 4204886/07), bar and care of address

In reference to the assault on me in the canteen of the Whitechapel Mission on 17 February 2007 (Crime ref: 4204886/07), I hereby request your confirmation or otherwise that there is CCTV footage of the incident for a prosecution/conviction.

I enclose copy of letter of today’s date from the Dellow Centre confirming that I can use the Centre as a care of address, which was formally the Whitechapel Mission.

I also enclose copy of my letter and enclosures of 12 June 2007 to the head of the Methodist church in the UK, Rev Graham Carter, regarding harassment and intimidation in the Whitechapel Mission.

I can confirm that this morning my wife was assaulted in the canteen of the Whitechapel Mission and, with two police officers from Bethnal Green Police Station present, my wife and I were barred by your wife, Mrs Sue Miller, Whitechapel Mission Day Centre Manager.

I note that you run a website called “Whitechapel Mission” (http://www.whitechapel.org.uk) and that off the homepage the “Latest Annual Review available” states the following:

Whitechapel is all about a promise – we promise that whatever mess your life maybe in, whomever else may have let you down, at 6am tomorrow morning our doors will open and you will receive a warm welcome. We will not bar you or exclude you. If your behaviour is not acceptable you will be asked to leave, but will be welcome back the next day.

I understand from Mrs Miller that my wife and I have been barred indefinitely from the Whitechapel Mission for our own safety because this morning I “grassed on a client” of the Mission, in what was described by PC Mussell (193 HT) as a “common assault and section 5 [of the Public Order Act 1986] public order offence”.

Yours sincerely

Declan Heavey

Encs

cc Jerry Savill, Chief Superintendent, Bethnal Green Police Station
Rev Graham Carter, President of the Methodist Conference
Andrew Hind, CEO, Charity Commission

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Church and State

MAYOR OF LONDON RSI PROPERTY
DAY 406 IN A WEEKLY PERIODIC TENANCY
SUBJECT TO A SECTION 21 NOTICE

(SEE PARA. 3 BELOW)

1. Our 308 Honorary Associates include 20 Nobel Prize laureates. Declan and I are engaged in a project that deals with the publication of issues significant to social policy in a number of key areas, e.g., climate change, population, futurism, atheism, and free speech. Established as Network for Church Monitoring, a non-profit company limited by guarantee, our main publication, found at the website, Church and State, calls attention to subjects, not the least which have been critical of the interaction between religious and secular institutions. We have been the target of numerous threats and actions, e.g., the former resulting in threats to Declan's life, and the latter, which have led to vandalism. The various incidents are on record with the police and other official agencies.

2. There are no less than 63 Nobel Prize laureates on the Church and State website from 20 Honorary Associates, eight articles, nine book excerpts and 33 petition signatories. (For example, one Nobel laureate signed our Nobel petition in support of human embryonic stem cell research and gave us permission to excerpt from one of his books.) Our list of associates also includes 18 US National Medal laureates, and six Turing Award laureates (the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in computer science). We have published one article and excerpted from the books of seven members of the British House of Lords. And there are 31 knighted professors on the site from 13 Honorary Associates, one book excerpt and 21 petition signatories. These figures are despite the never-ending assault on our email (this link reveals the targeting of our emails to, among others, a close colleague in Washington, DC as well as space advocates and Nobel laureates).

3. This is Day 406 for us living under the threat to life of a 'no fault' eviction by Peabody Trust.[1] We live in a Mayor of London's Rough Sleepers Initiative (RSI) property. Peabody's appalling new terms of tenancy have forced us into an unstable weekly periodic tenancy that poses a threat to Declan's life and inhibits our ability to exercise our rights. Declan accumulated quite a history with the Housing Ombudsman Service before he received the Ombudsman's decision not to investigate a referral from Lyn Brown MP on jurisdictional grounds. The Ombudsman was asked to consider whether or not our tenancy has been renewed like for like; and whether, if not, it should be in light of the landlord having accused us of not signing a like-for-like agreement. The Equality and Human Rights Commission will not accept a referral of discrimination from Ms Brown, the Commission's helpline (EASS) having grossly distorted the complaint against Peabody. We no longer have pro se access to the courts (see next paragraph).

4. This eviction matter came before District Judge Ruth Fine at the Central London County Court on 30 June 2020, when both counsel for St Mungo's (the charity in effective control of our tenancy) and Declan presented their positions. Declan lost the case and was ordered to pay £1,850 in costs. A publishing colleague in America cleared these costs within 24 hours of my blog post about this hearing for strike out on a related issue that was the essence of the claim, i.e., that St Mungo's would take a phone call to confirm that we are clients of the Mayor of London's RSI programme. Within a week of the hearing, St Mungo's had agreed to take this phone call for us both, the Court having ruled that they were not obliged to do so despite our circumstances. This time we escaped bankruptcy (counsel for St Mungo's asked for £3,407.50 in costs), but consider that to seek pro se access to justice in the courts has become far too dangerous for us. Declan currently has before the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman the decision of the Information Commissioner that allows St Mungo's to continue processing coercive support plans without our knowledge or consent and that also poses a threat to his life.

5. When it comes to traffic, we have had 10.7 million hits in the past three years on Facebook; however, I left the platform on 13 March 2021 for one year rather than risk being banned for life. It is indisputable that with any sort of level playing field Church and State would have far exceeded 2.5 million hits last year. In addition to a large variety of blocks without explanation, Facebook had so severely restricted our Page's distribution by October 2020 that it was almost as good as an unpublished page.[2] Currently, we are up to their 85th block since 1 December 2015, and as usual without an explanation. This block records as one half of their 3rd double block in the first five weeks of this year that lasted 60 days. Our traffic has also been curtailed by over 2.5K blocks on access to Church and State since 26 July 2016, including 29 full distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks since 17 May 2019 that have lasted for as long as 54 hours at a time.[3] About 70% of our hits are from Americans.

"This is precisely the hard hitting kind of response needed to clarify the unfair way Facebook is treating your highly reputable site." Don Collins, Founder, International Services Assistance Fund, Washington DC

Last updated: 26/06/21

_________________________

[1] Once a fixed term has elapsed, the landlord has the option to seek eviction even if the tenant has upheld their obligations in full (though of course the landlord must still apply for and obtain a county court order).

[2] 17/10/20: We have permission to publish this ISAF letter of 30 September to Facebook COO Sheryl Samberg. Facebook has so severely restricted our Page's distribution since 4 September that it's almost as good as an unpublished page

[3] Since October 2019, we have been defining a full DDoS attack as having such a high volume of up to 4-minute blocks on access to Church and State that we don't bother recording them all.

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Monday, June 18, 2007

Assault and bar in the Whitechapel Mission

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