Church and State blog: Letter to Archbishop Vincent Nichols

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Letter to Archbishop Vincent Nichols

This morning Declan ventures for the first time in months into the men’s washroom of the Dellow Day Centre of the Catholic Sisters of Mercy Providence Row Charity, and I get fondled by a homeless man!

Declan is just gone when this homeless comes along side me and rubs his hand across my shoulder and down my arm. I shout at him to go away and hit him with the newspaper I was reading. A few minutes later he is back: this time, he touches me inappropriately, right underneath a CCTV camera. I am in disbelief: there are other homeless about the living room; a nun at the kitchen counter and another at reception; and there are two or three workers buzzing about. I am back shouting at him again, and this time a member of staff comes. About 10 minutes later, I am informed by a member of staff that this homeless has been asked to leave for the day, and I ask the guy to put my complaint on record.

This afternoon Declan emailed the new head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, Archbishop Vincent Nichols, in his capacity as Archbishop of the Diocese of Westminster, to which the Dellow Centre belongs; our concern that we may be barred from this day centre is not unfounded: on 18 June 2007 we were barred from the Methodist Church Whitechapel Mission by the minister’s wife after I was assaulted in an unprovoked attack by a homeless woman in the canteen - the barring was due to concerns about our safety!

For the record, this is Declan’s email to Archbishop Nichols:

Subject: Providence Row Charity

His Grace Archbishop Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster.

Your Grace,

I refer to my most recent email of 13 April (attached) to the former head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, His Eminence Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, in his capacity as Archbishop of the Diocese of Westminster, to which the Dellow Day Centre of the Sisters of Mercy Providence Row Charity belongs.

This morning my wife was inappropriately touched and fondled by a client of the Dellow Centre, right underneath a CCTV camera, and despite that there were other people around her and staff about. She made a complaint to a member of staff, Mr. Keith Armitage, and requested of Mr. Armitage that he make her complaint a matter of record. She was subsequently informed by another member of staff that the homeless man was asked to leave for the day.

I can confirm that I continue to wash in the street as a result of harassment and intimidation by homeless people in the Dellow Centre and the Catholic Manna Day Centre (whose building is provided rent-free by the Archdiocese of Southwark), which I have been doing since 10 April last year; and my wife has been doing since 27 February. Since my initial letter of complaint to Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor of 21 April 2008 (almost two weeks after I took to washing in the street), the following are just a handful of incidents from these two day centres:

(1) 16 May 2008: I reported a homeless man to the Metropolitan Police for racially aggravated harassment in the men's washroom of the Dellow Centre (crime reference no. 4212667/08);

(2) 18 June 2008: I was robbed in the canteen of the Dellow Centre of all my and my wife's money and documents (crime reference no. 4215697/08); 24 June: I was informed at Bow Street police station that the case had been struck out due to the police being unable to obtain any CCTV footage whatsoever from Providence Row Charity;

(3) 19 June 2008: the day after the robbery of all our money and documents in the Dellow Centre, I reported a homeless man to the Metropolitan Police for assaulting me while I was queuing for food in the Manna Centre (crime reference no. 3021917/08);

(4) 6 November 2008: I submitted a written complaint to the Chief Executive of the Providence Row Charity, Ms. Jo Ansell, against a homeless woman for the verbal abuse of both my wife and me from the reception desk of the Dellow Centre;

(5) 24 February 2009: I reported a homeless man to the Metropolitan Police for assault in the canteen of the Dellow Centre (crime reference no. 4204029/09); 25 March: I was informed by email from Limehouse police station that the case had been struck out due to the police being unable to obtain the identity of the suspect from the Providence Row Charity “even though they do know his details”.

I should again point out that my wife and I were barred from the Methodist Church Whitechapel Mission on 18 June 2007 by the minister's wife due to concerns about our safety following an unprovoked assault on my wife (crime reference no. 4217341/07). Despite that the Whitechapel Mission's website states that homeless people are not barred or excluded and that I wrote by registered post to the minister himself and to the head of the Methodist Church in the UK, Rev. Graham Carter, neither my wife nor I were readmitted.

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

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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