Defence for a court

As I explained in the last blog, it is inevitable that I am going to be arrested for begging, so I have been keeping a diary since last Monday to record the number of Big Issues (a magazine sold by homeless people) that Declan and I buy and sell, the hours we stand on our pitches (vendors have their own registered pitches), and also when we are walked off the pitches by other street traders (vendors can be de-badged if they argue with street traders over pitches).

It is going to be very clear to a judge that Declan and I are completely innocent of any wrong doing. In fact, although it rained a lot last week, Declan and I stood in our pitches for hours, which would not win us a prize considering we sleep in our coats – for example, I stood on my pitch all Friday evening, well over two hours, despite only selling one Big Issue. I now have a cold but at least we were able to do without me having to beg. Incidentally, on Thursday evening I had two drunken homeless harassing me while I was on my pitch – I have a railing to one side – one of whom urinated less than a half a metre from where I stood.

Of course, it doesn’t mean we were given a red carpet: on Thursday, The London Paper once again took over Declan’s pitch, The Times having done so Monday. And because we never know when or for how long we will be moved out of our pitches (the Sun newspaper took over my pitch during lunch for over a month and a half), we can only buy a few magazines at a time so that we are left with some money for food whenever we can’t sell The Big Issue.

There is also now a Big Issue vendor who likes to work my pitch when I am not there and I suspect he may want to stir up some trouble: on Friday evening he didn’t leave when I arrived but lit a cigarette and provocatively smoked it close to me for a few minutes. I don’t need to be reminded that in mid-April we lost a shared weekday pitch in trendy Covent Garden (which paid for our weekly bus tickets) to a vendor who had made it very clear to us that he wanted the pitch for himself.

We got wind a few days ago that the rolling winter shelter projects are opening now (you sleep on the floor in a few different locations each week), and of course Declan and I would like to get a place on one of them. For a few weeks last winter, we attended the West London Churches Homeless Concern project – we actually spent 3 hours on buses on many occasions getting to various places – but had to pull out as result of threats and intimidation: for example, on 24 January one of the homeless crossed the hall to where Declan was sleeping and came down with considerable force on Declan’s crotch with a flat hand. It seems there is no such project running in East London (our area) this year either, the nearest that we know of being run out of Camden. That said, it is going to be almost impossible for Declan and I to put together £30 a week to buy the two bus tickets we would need to get around every night. In the past, most of our money came from the pitch in Convent Garden, which Declan worked on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and two pitches in Long Acre, also in Covent Garden, which we got most weekends. All of that is history now.

Aside from the obvious question as to why I am begging – I have my diary and also Declan’s urgent request to the European Court of Human Rights for expedition of his case against the UK, made on 8 September, as an answer – I also expect the judge to ask me why we don’t get a job, apply for benefits or find ourselves a hostel.

With regard to getting a job (Declan also deals with this in his application to the European Court), the answer couldn’t be simpler: you just can’t either find or look for a job while you are sleeping in a porch, in the elements. Sometimes we only get 3 or 4 hours sleep, I have been assaulted, not to mention the deterioration of our health arising from a nutritionally inadequate diet, poor clothing, and being unable to afford transport since July. And yes, I would be telling the judge that when the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) illegally terminated our benefits, I was studying computing in Central University Birmingham – I am no bum. Sadly, neither my Spanish degree in Psychology nor my diploma in Marketing is valid here in the UK.

As for why we don’t sign for jobseekers allowance, well the answer is plainly that we believe that the DWP will find another way to see that our benefits are again terminated. Otherwise, how would any reasonable person explain that, during the year we were on benefits, Declan had to apply to the High Court for leave to apply for an urgent judicial review after our benefits were suspended not once but twice (on 10 April and 24 August 2006, the latter is part of Declan’s application to the European Court)? That our benefits were eventually terminated because Declan didn’t sign on two days before he was due to do so? That when Declan informed not only the jobcentre but also the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions of their mistake, the decision was not changed, in breach of the law? That Declan was not provided with the explanation he was entitled to within a month for an automatic right to appeal to a social security appeal tribunal? Oh, and lastly, the DWP has never provided me with a National Insurance number, despite that a person is not entitled to benefits without one, which I obviously was, and, without Declan, I would have the same rights as an illegal refugee, instead of the full rights I should have, with Irish citizenship.

With regard to why we are not in shelter, well, we did find the West London Churches Homeless Concern and had to quit. We also tried the Missionaries of Charity – the only ones that do self-referral in London – and after spending money we didn’t have on phone calls, it turned out that one moment they had a place for me in one hostel and a place for Declan in another, but when Declan phoned back the women’s hostel, he was told there was no vacancy for me. Eventually we gave up. As for other hostels accessed by homeless, on 22 November 2006 the Dellow Centre recorded on my registration form that St Mungo’s, London’s largest homelessness organisation, had informed the centre that we couldn’t be referred to a hostel “due to not being on any benefits”.

So we are very much in a catch-22 situation: if we go on benefits we lose our European Court case, only to find ourselves back on the streets; and if we stay on the streets, well, we face either starvation or a criminal record for begging. Surely any reasonable person would come to the conclusion that we really don’t have much choice but to keep going on the streets, hoping that somebody in the European Court will take our case off the shelf for expedition. As I have already stated in this blog, the case of Papon v France was expedited by the Court under rule 41 of the Convention because of the advance age and ill-health of the applicant in prison: the case was lodged on 12 January 2001 and on 23 January the Court asked the respondent Government to submit information and comments about the applicant’s conditions and regime.

Today in the Sunday Telegraph there was a front page news item on former Prime Minister Tony Blair complaining that “he had been unable to follow the example of US politicians, such as President George W Bush, in being open about his faith because people in Britain regarded religion with suspicion”. His comments, of course, have been welcomed by the Archbishop of York, Rev John Sentamu, who said: "Mr Blair's comments highlight the need for greater recognition to be given to the role faith has played in shaping our country. Those secularists who would dismiss faith as nothing more than a private affair are profoundly mistaken in their understanding of faith." Declan and I very much wish that “faith” would be regarded as a private affair or we might end up like many homeless, pushing a trolley along and talking to ourselves after decades on the streets.

Anyway, for the record, this is the email that Declan sent on Thursday evening to the executive chairman of Rupert Murdoch’s London-based News International, which owns several newspapers, including The London Paper and The Times:

Subject: The London Paper

Dear Mr Hinton,

I refer further to my letter and enclosure to you of 31 July 2007, a copy of which I sent by fax and registered post to the Chairman & CEO of News Corporation, Mr Rupert Murdoch, and wish to confirm the takeover once again this afternoon of my Big Issue pitch outside McDonald's on Liverpool Street by The London Paper.

As I reconfirm in my email to you of 20 November about the takeover of the same pitch by The Times on 19 November, I am in receipt of a letter of 10 September from Dr John Bird, Founder and Editor-In-Chief of The Big Issue, stating:

I have employed many people over the years to do jobs related to the running of The Big Issue. I have never employed them to do my job; likewise I do not do their job. Please bear this in mind when you are composing your letters. You do not need to address your letters to me, as it is not my job. I would only get involved if you were utterly and totally let down by those whose job it is in The Big Issue. I hope this assists in your deliberations in pursuit of your claims.

Yours sincerely,
Declan Heavey
Big Issue badge no. 1163

cc  Mr Nick Hallett, Distribution Manager, The London Paper
      Mr Paul Joseph, Outreach Manager, The Big Issue