Church and State blog: We are incorporated as Network for Church Monitoring Ltd

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

We are incorporated as Network for Church Monitoring Ltd

As I said in yesterday's blog, Companies House, the UK Registrar of Companies, refused to register Network of those Abused by Church as a company because it was an "offensive company name". So we had to change the name and this morning the company was incorporated as Network for Church Monitoring Ltd, a company limited by guarantee. Frankly, Declan and I think the new name is much better: it has a journalistic sound to it, which we believe will improve the perception of the organisation at every level, including with other non-profits. Everybody wants to see accountability and monitoring, including of religious institutions. MonChurch is, I think, an important organisation.

Declan is still waiting to hear from Mr Justice Sycamore regarding his claim for judicial review (see blog of 3 December 2010 By Order of Mr Justice Sycamore Declan resubmits his claim for judicial review). Declan is taking on Action for Employment (A4E), a private company and the largest provider of welfare to work programmes on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions (see blog of 6 January Manager of A4E Camden Declan's new Personal Career Coach; this blog features a video of Declan taking on A4E last September outside of a branch of theirs in London that had him escorted from the building by the police the week previous).

Declan is in fact fully prepared to file a claim against A4E at our small claims court, the Central London County Court, on Thursday - at 9.30am tomorrow morning he has his first meeting with his latest employment officer, the manager of A4E Camden, who has been informed by the DWP that the provisions of the Jobseeker's Act 1995 do not apply to A4E (we're waiting to hear from Mr Justice Sycamore on that one); on Wednesday I have to deal with my employment officer with whom I have had plenty of run-ins (see blog of 30 September A4E: Letter to the Irish Minister for Justice, Equality & Law Reform).

On Sunday I published another world exclusive in NAC (it will be MonChurch soon!): an excerpt from Debbie Purdy's book, It's Not Because I Want to Die. Purdy - the face of Britain′s right-to-die campaign - suffers from multiple sclerosis. In July 2009 she won a significant legal victory in the UK’s House of Lords which lawyers have described as a turning point for the law on assisted suicide. We are honoured and proud to promote her book, which I found inspirational.

Over the last few weeks, we have published world-exclusive excerpts from books by the eminent human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC (here), British cultural icon Stephen Fry (here), House of Lords Peer Baroness Mary Warnock (here), as well as the celebrated Debbie Purdy. And that with the wrong name! What is the manager of A4E going to suggest tomorrow, that with a university degree Declan should pack shelves in supermarkets? A4E of course have done absolutely nothing for us; it's the complete opposite, in fact. But more about that later, no doubt, and possibly in more court-filed documents this Thursday.

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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Tuesday, January 18, 2011

We are incorporated as Network for Church Monitoring Ltd

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