Church and State blog: Letter from the City of London Police

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Letter from the City of London Police

Yesterday Declan received an email letter from Superintendent Lorraine Cussen in reply to his email to her on Thursday (see previous blog) – following my arrest at 12.30am by four City of London police officers for a breach of the peace because I refused to be 'moved on' as result of having nowhere else to sleep. The background is quite simple: on 4 September we returned to the porch we have been sleeping in since 3 November 2006 to find an unlocked trellis gate; and the following night the gate was locked.

As I stated in the blog of 10 September "Human Embryonic Stem Cells Reduce Multiple Sclerosis Symptoms", on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday we slept in an out-of-the-way place; but after some guys decided to hold a fifteen-minute party almost beside us – our road is described on the internet as "a quiet thoroughfare" – we went back to the place we slept in on Friday night. It was also an out-of-the-way place, but that didn't stop me from landing in a police van. (We are now back sleeping in the "quiet thoroughfare".)

This is the second time Cussen has emailed Declan: the first time, on 10 June, was in reply to an email Declan sent on 9 June to City of London Police Commissioner Michael Bowron (see here) complaining that on 2 and 9 June we were threatened by City of London police officers with arrest, under Operation Poncho, if we did not move out of the porch to beyond city boundaries. On the night of my arrest, we were issued two tickets citing Operation Poncho, hence Declan's email to Cussen, the supervisory police officer who is overseeing Operation Poncho within the City of London Police.

Cussen says in her email (presented below) that "this programme is likely to continue for the foreseeable future", which I take to mean that I could be arrested again, unless of course I prefer to walk for the night carrying all my belongings – as I explained to the four officers that arrested me, Declan and I had spent over eight hours looking for an alternative place to bed down. She seems to justify arrest as an enforcement measure to drive rough sleepers off the streets. However, according to the co-author of a report, published last year, which examines the impact of enforcement on ‘street users’ in England, arrests as a tactic is of “questionable legality”, particularly in a place such as London where there is no ‘freely available’ accommodation. Accordingly, I am prepared to have Operation Poncho tested: I don't believe that in a court of law it would stand up to scrutiny under the Human Rights Act 1998. (An article in the April 2007 issue of the Police Review magazine, titled “Rough Sleepers”, points out that "people have the right to sleep in the streets if they want to", and that in this respect police "need to comply with the Human Rights Act 1998".)

This month’s issue of The Pavement, a free magazine for London’s homeless, states that local authorities justify ‘hot washing’ (wetting the streets to discourage rough sleeping) as a deterrent that may encourage rough sleepers to “come inside”. Well, I would say to a judge that Declan and I are working quite hard to “come inside”: by running a petition to the UN on research cloning of embryos and stem cells which has already been signed by 530 scientists and academics, including 24 Nobel laureates; and by seeking to raise £450 so that I can buy a laptop and build within two weeks a 20 or so page website for an international campaign in support of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning.

I would further explain to a judge that we cannot look for accommodation or be referred to a hostel for homeless people because we would have to 'sign on' for benefits, and consequently Declan would have to withdraw his application to the European Court of Human Rights – the Department of Work and Pensions terminated our benefits on 27 September 2006 because Declan did not ‘sign on’ two days before he was due to do so on 29 September (see blog of 8 September 2007 “Application to the European Court of Human Rights”.) And even if we were offered beds that don’t require benefits, we would still be forced to turn them down given the amount of harassment and intimidation that Declan in particular is normally subjected to by other homeless: see, for example, blog of 18 June “Declan robbed in the Sisters of Mercy Dellow Centre”; or blog of 19 June “Declan assaulted in the Manna Centre”; or blog of 16 May “More racially aggravated harassment in the Dellow Centre”; or blog of 10 April “Washing in the street”. Oh, and on 18 June 2007 we were barred from the Methodist Church Whitechapel Mission by the minister's wife due to concerns about our safety, after I was assaulted in an unprovoked attack by a homeless woman in the canteen (see here).

Comedian Sabina Guzzanti insulted Pope Comedian Sabina Guzzanti 'insulted Pope'

Remarkably, my lot is almost a walk in the park if you consider the case of Italian comedienne, Sabrina Guzzanti, who is facing a prison term of up to five years for saying that Pope Benedict XVI would go to Hell and be tormented by homosexual demons (Owen, Times, 12/9). She was addressing a Rome rally in July that was called in part to protest against alleged interference by the Vatican and the Catholic Church in Italian affairs. The joke may have gone done well with her crowd on the Piazza Navona in Rome, the Times says, but not with Italian prosecutors. She is facing prosecution for “offending the honour of the sacred and inviolable person” of Benedict XVI. Prosecution requires authorisation from the Ministry of Justice, for which Giovanni Ferrara, the Rome prosecutor, has applied. The Times: “The incident has strong political overtones as Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been at pains to court the Vatican – and the Catholic vote – since returning to power for the third time in May. Last weekend he accompanied Benedict to Cagliari in Sardinia and attended mass there.”

Meanwhile, Michael Reiss, director of education at the Royal Society, says excluding discussion of creationism and intelligent design from science lessons could put some children off science completely (Randerson, Guardian, 11/9). He said that around one in 10 children comes from a family with creationist beliefs. Reiss, who is an ordained Church of England minister, agreed that creationism and intelligent design are not scientific theories, but he said that did not automatically exclude them from science lessons. "Just because something lacks scientific support doesn't seem to me a sufficient reason to omit it from the science lesson … there is much to be said for allowing students to raise any doubts they have – hardly a revolutionary idea in science teaching – and doing one's best to have a genuine discussion." Well, if there is much to be said for allowing students with creationist beliefs “to raise any doubts they have”, surely the same should be applied to non-religious people. Like Sabrina Guzzanti. Or like us, for that matter.

This is the email Declan received yesterday from Cussen:

Subject: Operation Poncho II

Declan

I am sad to hear that your wife was arrested last night. As you are aware from my previous communication with you, the police are continuing to work in partnership with the City of London Corportion to clean areas of the City and this programme is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

If you wish to make a complaint about the incident then please click on the following link which will provide you with information on how to proceed http://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/CityPolice/Contact/MakeAComplaint/

Yours sincerely
Lorraine Cussen
Superintendent
City of London Police

And this is the subsequent email Declan sent yesterday to the Registrar of the European Court, Erik Fribergh, with Cussen’s email attached:

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

Dear Mr Fribergh

I refer to my email letter and attachments to you yesterday and attach copy of an email to me of even date from Superintendent Lorraine Cussen of Snow Hill police station establishing the arrest of my wife the night before last (for a breach of the peace because she refused to be 'moved on' as result of having nowhere else to sleep).

Specifically with regard to the reference to Article 34 of the European Convention of Human Rights (Right of individual petition), I again respectfully request that the Court take this matter up with the respondent Government. I further request under Rule 41 of the Rules of Court that the Chamber or its President decide to give priority to my application of 8 September 2007.

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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Saturday, September 13, 2008

Letter from the City of London Police

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