Church and State blog: Letter to the Mayor of London

Friday, May 09, 2008

Letter to the Mayor of London

At 2.20am this morning PC 698B of Bishopsgate Police Station woke us in the porch we sleep in at night. Police are "cleaning" the City of London of rough sleepers and we either leave the porch immediately or we will be arrested, he informed us. We can come back to the porch after a month but until then we will be told to move beyond the City's boundaries or be arrested (a judge will then either impose a fine or jail us, we were further informed). We have been sleeping in the porch since being forced to become rough sleepers on 3 November 2006 and there has never been a complaint against us but that didn't cut any ice, neither the citing of entitlements under the Human Rights Act 1998 – his parting words were how nice Spain is (although I became an Irish citizen before we left Dublin in 2003, I am from Madrid).

The timing wasn't the best because earlier in the evening Declan was told in the Royal London Hospital that he had sprained his ankle (having been given two painkilling tablets, he was transferred from the hospital's Walk-in Centre to its Accident & Emergency Department in a wheelchair). The Certificate of Attendance also states that he was "advised to rest, elevate and ice ankle" – but I am afraid PC 698B must not have seen any impediment. So we had no choice but to leave about 3.00am, Declan dragging his left foot with the aid of his umbrella. As I have stated before (see, for example, blog of 26 March "We are seeking to raise £4,000"), we don't know of any other place we can go so we have no choice but to return to the porch tonight and if we are threatened with arrest again, well, we will just have to get up and walk.

In the seventeen months that we have been rough sleepers, we have never heard that the police would arrest somebody just for sleeping in the street, except of course if you are also intoxicated, causing trouble, or harassing people. So Declan has written to Boris Johnson, Mayor of London covering the City of London, with responsibility for police (the email letter is presented below). Incidentally, there is no mention in any newspaper, by any homeless organisation, or in london.gov.uk that there is any kind of police operation – or that one is going to be undertaken or has ever been undertaken – to expel rough sleepers from the City of London. There was no mention either of any such Nazi ideal this morning in the Sisters of Mercy Dellow Centre (according to their website, the Dellow focuses its efforts on helping anyone who needs them in the City of London and the East End). In fact, things were like any other Friday, opening at 8.30am for those who are verified rough sleepers, and at 9.30pm for everyone else.

Today, the BBC reports in an article titled "'Respect atheists', says cardinal" that the head of the Catholic Church in Britain, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, has urged Christians to treat atheists and agnostics with "deep esteem". I see. Declan and I must be the exceptions then.

This is Declan's email letter to the Mayor of London (johnsonb@parliament.uk):

Subject: The "cleaning" of the City of London of rough sleepers

Dear Mr Johnson

I am writing to you in your capacity as the Mayor of London covering the City of London, with responsibility for police. My wife and I have been sleeping in a porch in the City of London since 3 November 2006. Rough sleepers, as no doubt you are aware, are protected under the Human Rights Act 1998.

Please find attached a copy of my letter of 21 April to the head of the Catholic Church in Britain, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, regarding the Sisters of Mercy Dellow Centre. This letter explains the circumstances under which my wife and I were forced to become rough sleepers (our case is currently before the European Court of Human Rights) and our on-going efforts to get ourselves off the street (in short, by raising £4,000 to run a campaign in support of my petition to the United Nations on therapeutic cloning, which since 22 October has been signed by 518 scientists and academics, including 22 Nobel laureates).

I wish to draw to your attention that last night at 2.20am my wife and I were woken by PC 698B of Bishopsgate Police Station and ordered to leave the porch immediately or be arrested – due to police “cleaning” the City of London of rough sleepers, and despite that earlier in the evening I attended the Royal London Hospital with a sprained ankle. We were further informed by PC 698B that we can come back to the porch after a month but until then we will be told to move beyond the City's boundaries or be arrested.

I beg to point out that there is no mention in any newspaper, by any homeless organisation, or in london.gov.uk that there is any kind of police operation – or that one is going to be undertaken or has ever been undertaken – to expel rough sleepers from the City of London. And there was no mention of it this morning in the Dellow Centre, which focuses its efforts on helping the homeless in the City of London and the East End.

I should point out that all our contacts are within walking distance of the porch, and we have never found a more suitable place to sleep.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey

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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