I am arrested for ‘breach of the peace’

At about 12.30am this morning I was put in the back of a police van (LMO5 HZN). I had been read my rights, searched, and told I was being arrested for breaching the peace because I refused to move out of our sleeping pitch for want of anywhere else to sleep. In a pre-arranged move, Declan made himself untouchable by moving. I, on the other hand, was driven to Snow Hill Police Station, left in the van for some fifteen minutes, and then released because female police officer 827B deemed that I wasn't breaching the peace any more! When I asked to be given something in writing about my arrest, I was told to come back in the morning with my lawyer. So I found myself at 1.00am with an incident number (10411), without a clue where I was, and on my own. I'm sure police officers 827B, 361B and 596B - there was a fourth officer but I didn't get his number - had a great laugh at my expense.

As I explained in yesterday's blog "Human Embryonic Stem Cells Reduce Multiple Sclerosis Symptoms", we had been sleeping in this place since Sunday (last Thursday night we returned to the porch we had been sleeping in since 3 November 2006 to find an unlocked trellis gate installed; the next night the gate was locked). It is really just an open space behind some steps but nonetheless, as soon as we are bedded down last night, a security guard comes out of nowhere and tells us to leave immediately. Shortly after this we hear a police siren, and within a couple of minutes we are surrounded by four City of London police officers. The surroundings are owned by the City of London Corporation (the municipal government for the City of London), they haven't given us permission to sleep there, and if we don't want to be arrested we have to move on, we are told.

So we repeat ourselves again and again: we are dead tired of walking trying to find a place; we are in nobody's way; we get up at 4.30am; we don't want to walk the street all night; and Declan's case regarding the termination of our benefits is before the European Court of Human Rights. None of it cuts any ice, however, and we have to leave we are told because the City of London Corporation doesn't want us there. Moreover, when I am released from the van outside Snow Hill Police Station, I am told the security guard can manhandle me and my belongings, and if corporation property gets damaged in the process I will be charged with criminal damage. It gets better: because Declan was told that I might not be released at all but brought before the court as soon as possible this morning, we didn't agree on an early meet up time when we were split up. So I didn't get any sleep at all and walked the streets until 4.00am. I then went to Liverpool Street train station and waited in our usual spot for Declan to arrive at 6.00am. What a night!

A report published last year examines the impact of enforcement on 'street users' in England. The study was carried out by Sarah Johnsen and Suzanne Fitzpatrick of the University of York and published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Arrests as an enforcement tactic against rough sleepers was not used in any of the case studies areas in London. One reason, Johnsen explains to The Pavement, a free monthly magazine for London's homeless, is because "it would be of questionable legality in a lot of places, as people can only be arrested if they have refused the offer of 'freely available' accommodation. In somewhere like London, you cannot say 'here's a bed space available to you right now' because it just doesn't happen that way. There's a real process people have to go through in order to get into a hostel, red tape that has to be negotiated, hoops they have to jump through … It doesn't happen instantly."

So this afternoon Declan wrote to Superintendent Lorraine Cussen of Snow Hill Police Station, a copy of which he sent to City of London Police Commissioner Michael Bowron and to European Court Registrar Erik Fribergh. This is Declan's cover e-letter to Fribergh pursuant to Article 34 of the European Convention on Human Rights (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):

Subject: Heavey v. the United Kingdom (Application no. 22541/07)

Dear Mr Fribergh

I refer further to my second request for priority of 4 July 2008 under Rule 41 of the Rules of Court, for consideration as supplementary to my initial application of 8 September 2007. (As the Court has been made aware, my wife and I are of no fixed abode and have been sleeping rough in the City of London since 3 November 2006.)

Please find enclosed a copy of my email letter and attachment of today's date to Superintendent Lorraine Cussen of Snow Hill Police Station following the arrest of my wife last night for a breach of the peace because she refused to be 'moved on' as result of having nowhere else to sleep.

In my email letter of 5 September, I submitted that the attempts by the City of London Police to move my wife and me out from the porch we sleep in at night to beyond the City boundaries constitute a violation of my effective right of application as established under Article 34. I again respectfully request that the Court take this matter up with the respondent Government. I further request that the Chamber or its President decide to give priority to my application of 8 September 2007.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey

And this is the email letter to Superintendent Cussen:

Subject: Operation Poncho II

Dear Superintendent Cussen

I refer to the attached copy of your email of reply to me of 10 June, wherein you confirm that you are the supervisory police officer who is overseeing Operation Poncho II within the City of London Police. As you were made aware by my email letter of 9 June to City of London Police Commissioner Mike Bowron, my wife and I are of no fixed abode and have been sleeping rough in the City of London since 3 November 2006. (We slept in the same porch until 4 September 2008 when a trellis gate was installed.)

I wish to confirm that at 12.30am last night my wife was arrested under Operation Poncho II for a breach of the peace by four of your police officers because she refused to be 'moved on' as result of having nowhere else to sleep (incident no. 10411). She was subsequently brought to Snow Hill Police Station in a police van, from which she was released at 1.00am because she "was not breaching the peace anymore". Moreover, when she asked to be issued with written confirmation of her arrest, she was told to come back in the morning with her lawyer.

I reconfirm that my case in respect of the ceasing of entitlement to allowances is before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, and that I am currently waiting for notification from the Court as to whether my application of 8 September 2007 has been declared inadmissible or the case communicated to the Government. On 4 July, I submitted my second request for priority under Rule 41 of the Rules of Court, stating:

Since 9 May 2008, the applicant and his wife have been visited on a number of occasions by the City of London Police in the middle of the night, to be ordered to immediately move out of the porch they sleep in to beyond city boundaries or be arrested: on 9 and 17 May, they were told by police officers that the City of London was being "cleaned" of rough sleepers (see copy of letter and enclosures to Prime Minister Gordon Brown of 19 May in Supporting Documents, pp 10-15); on 2 and 9 June they were told by police officers that, under the City of London Police's Operation Poncho II, the City of London's cleansing service had to wash and disinfect the porch floor with immediate effect (see copy of email letter and attachments to Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis Sir Ian Blair of 11 June in Supporting Documents, pp 7-9).

In your email of 10 June, you advise me to find accommodation with the help of Broadway, a homeless charity, and that "the cleansing will continue for the foreseeable future". In respect of finding accommodation, I beg to again point out that on 22 November 2006 the Dellow Day Centre recorded on my wife's registration form that St Mungo's, London's largest homelessness organisation, had informed the centre that neither she nor I could be referred to a hostel "due to not being on any benefits". Most recently, on the night of 24 June, we were visited by three street outreach workers from Broadway to be asked if we would go on benefits, which I declined because I would have to withdraw my application to the Court. (As submitted in my initial application to the European Court, the Department for Work and Pensions ceased our allowance entitlement on 27 September 2006 because I did not 'sign on' two days before I was due to do so on 29 September.)

I should perhaps mention here that as soon as my wife and I raise £450 we will buy a laptop to build within two weeks a 20 or so page website for an international campaign in support of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning. My petition to the United Nations, titled "Consideration at the United Nations of a Declaration on Human Cloning for Therapeutic Reasons", has since 22 October 2007 been signed by 530 distinguished scientists and academics, including 24 Nobel Prize winners.

Kindly note that a copy of this letter and its attachment will be submitted this afternoon to the European Court in further reference to Article 34 of the European Convention on Human Rights. 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.

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey

cc City of London Police Commissioner Michael Bowron