Church and State blog: Police ticket me for begging and forcibly remove me from Liverpool Street Station

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Police ticket me for begging and forcibly remove me from Liverpool Street Station

This morning at 7.30am, while I was begging in Liverpool Street Station (where we wash daily after the Methodist Church-run Whitechapel Mission barred Declan and me on 18 June due to, er, concerns about our safety), I was stopped by two police officers just as I was about to be handed some money.

They took me aside to issue me a ticket – begging is illegal in England. And as the male officer is getting on with the business of writing down some of my details, like I am wearing a red T-shirt over a blue long-sleeved T-shirt, PC 136 was, well, insulting me – "scum of the earth" was one of the derogatory terms she used a few times to describe me. When I politely told her that I would be coming back to the station to beg because I had no choice on the matter, she menacingly told me not to talk back to a police officer or I would be arrested on the spot.

As soon as I presented the ticket to Declan, he headed off to Bishopsgate Police Station to find out how many times I would be ticketed before being subject to arrest and a mandatory court appearance. He was duly told that I was lucky I hadn’t been arrested and that I would be the next time. Declan informed this police officer that he had been run off his Big Issue pitch yesterday evening by a street distributor of the free London Lite (once again on record by email with The Big Issue, although since the founder and editor-in-chief wrote on 10 September telling Declan to more or less stop bothering him, things seem to have fallen on deaf ears) and that I was left with no choice – it was beg or starve. To this, the police officer told Declan that he would personally ensure that not only would I be arrested, but I would be given a "rough ride".

Back in the train station after Declan returned, I was again met by the same two police officers. This time they didn’t waste a second and, each taking me by the arm, forcibly removed me from the station. When I politely asked if I was being arrested, the policewoman again reminded me that I am the scum of the earth, the policeman adding why would they arrest me, to be able to get warm and be given a hot cup of coffee and some food? I won’t be that lucky he told me, as I was pushed onto the wet street.

So why this sudden rush of activity by the police when I have been begging in the train station for so long now? Clearly one reason is to stop us from being able to survive day-to-day … So, despite attempts to consign Declan and me to the trash can, we are somehow still making it, although for how long is anybody’s guess.

For the record, this is Declan’s registered letter last Saturday to the project manager of Medecins du Monde UK’s Project: London, a copy of which he also sent by registered post to Prof Paul Hunt, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to the highest attainable standard of health:

Dear Ms Raymond

NHS Exemption Certificate

I was assured by a member of your medical team on 5 October 2007 that Medecins du Monde UK's Project: London would be applying on behalf of my wife and I for a National Health Service (NHS) exemption certificate for the each of us as rough sleepers, having had our entitlement to jobseeker's allowance ceased by Birmingham Erdington Jobcentre Plus on 27 September 2006 (because I did not sign on two days before I was due to do so on 29 September 2006).

I enclose copy of my letter of 6 October 2007 (without enclosures) to the Registrar of the European Court of Human Rights, citing, among others, Medecins du Monde UK, in further reference to my urgent request for expedition of my case against the UK made on 8 September 2007 under Rule 41 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

I understand that a valid NHS exemption certificate would entitle my wife and I to the following free of charge: (1) NHS prescriptions, (2) NHS dental treatment, (3) sight tests, and (4) glasses and contact lenses.

I can confirm that neither my wife nor I is in receipt of any such certificate to date, and that we have both been in need of an exemption from charges to access healthcare since becoming rough sleepers on the streets of London on 3 November 2006.

Yours sincerely

Declan Heavey

Enc

cc Prof Paul Hunt, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to the highest attainable standard of health, University of Essex (by registered post – with enclosure herein referred to)

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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Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Police ticket me for begging and forcibly remove me from Liverpool Street Station

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