Saturday, June 14, 2008

Declan is assaulted in the porch

It seemed too good to be true that for the past few days we haven’t been disturbed by the police in the porch we sleep in at night – on Wednesday Declan wrote to Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis Sir Ian Blair (see blog here) after we were threatened with arrest on 2 June (2.35am) and 9 June (3.00am) pursuant to “Operation Poncho II” if we didn’t leave the porch (to beyond City boundaries) so that the City of London's Cleansing service could wash and disinfect the porch floor with immediate effect. In fact, it was. This morning, two minutes before 6.30am, the time our alarm clock gets us up on Saturdays and Sundays, Declan was the victim of a “common assault”.

This guy jumped on Declan’s feet – I am not sure if he jumped over me, landing on Declan’s feet, or if he walked through the gap between our groundsheet and a side wall and then jumped;
Declan is convinced he half-heard him jump in over me – before sitting himself down opposite Declan, overplaying dumb and drunk. (If it wasn’t because Declan sleeps with his runners on inside his sleeping bag, and this guy came down on him right, he might be walking with a limp.)

While Declan was phoning 999 this guy looked cool as a cucumber, even when the police arrived. Declan wanted to press charges but PC 416C wasn’t keen at all: there is no injury, no reddening of the feet, no proof of contact, and my favourite “he didn’t do it on purpose”. Declan insisted and reluctantly PC 416C and PC 424C arrested “Declan Brown” for common assault, informing Declan he had thirty minutes to get to Bishopsgate station to make a statement or Brown would be released without charge. I know this much: if the police arrest me pursuant to Operation Poncho II, I hope it is going to be as amenable as Declan Brown’s arrest and that before I am read my rights I too will be informed there will be coffee and food for me back at the station.

Declan gave his witness statement to PC 383C, and was given a crime reference number (CR/4359/08), but not a copy of the statement. Declan had informed PC 383C that he wanted a copy of the statement for another request for priority to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg – get a solicitor to apply for it, he was told. (We are still waiting for notification from the Court as to whether Declan’s application of 8 September 2007 has been declared inadmissible or the case communicated to the Government. Declan’s most recent letter from the Court is a letter of 22 November stating that it was unnecessary to consider his request for priority because the Court would be examining his application “shortly, possibly by the end of January 2008”.)

This second request for priority under Rule 41 of the Rules of Court will include his letter on Wednesday to Commissioner Blair (if not an update letter to him), in which he refers to a submission he made on 12 May to the Court citing a violation of Article 34 of the European Convention on Human Rights (see blog of 13 May "Letter to the European Court under Article 34") - Article 34 establishes a duty on Convention states not to subject applicants to any improper indirect acts or contacts designed to dissuade or discourage applicants from pursuing a Convention remedy.

I should perhaps say here that this is the first time Declan has been assaulted in the porch, which we have been sleeping in for over a year and a half (since 3 November 2006). I sleep on the outside and have been graced with a few: within two weeks of sleeping in the porch somebody sat on the right hand side of my face; on 5 May 2007 some guy dragged me out of the two-step porch by the ankles while I was in my sleeping bag, then a few hours later I was kicked in the back; and on 22 September a guy repeatedly kicked me in the chest and shoulders as his mates stood by. It was a bit of luck that the police officer who took my statement in Bishopsgate station on 22 September wasn't PC 383C or I wouldn't have gotten a copy of it.