Church and State blog: Email to Prime Minister Tony Blair

Monday, November 27, 2006

Email to Prime Minister Tony Blair

I must be getting used to the cold because last night my legs were not as cold as usual. I don't think I woke up more than two or three times.

Things have mushroomed at the Whitechapel Mission since the attempted assault on Declan and the attempted robbery of our belongings there yesterday morning. By the time Declan had brought our breakfasts to the table at 8.00am, he had negotiated no less than six homeless guys who had approached him in one way or another – the first one on the Whitechapel Road at 7.00am as we made our way to the Mission.

We left the Mission at 8.10am to be the first in the queue outside the Dellow Centre. Declan was adamant we do a laundry today, even though that meant we would have to wait outside the Centre in the cold and drizzling rain for 45 minutes until they opened at 9.15am. As it turned out, we were 5th in the queue and found upon entry that the washing machines had already been taken. I was told at reception that a place would be reserved for us tomorrow if we arrived at the same time. That's another 45 minutes waiting outside in the cold and likely rain. Somebody must be having a good laugh.

While Declan was waiting for me at reception at 11.30am (the centre closes at that time), the nun in charge of clothes appeared at the front door from the courtyard with the homeless guy who attempted to rob our belongings yesterday morning. She handed the guy a key and a black bag containing clothes. As well as the Dellow Centre, the Sisters of Mercy run hostels and flats for homeless men and women. Declan is expecting encounters with these guys to escalate, especially as we get closer to our High Court hearing on 11 December. I expect that encounters with volunteers are not going to be a problem!

This morning, by internal form for 10 Downing Street, Declan emailed Prime Minister Tony Blair regarding St Mungo's. We of course don't expect a reply, but the email serves to beef up our narrative heading for the court.

Dear Prime Minister,

Further to my telephone conversation this afternoon with Christine Adeyoola, Assistant Private Secretary to the Minister for Housing and Planning, I wish to complain that whilst my wife and I have been sleeping rough in Tower Hamlets (since 3 November), we have been waiting for St Mungo's, London's largest homelessness organisation, to provide us with a referral to a night shelter.

On 18 November (at 4.05am), my wife was assaulted where we bed down at night. A full account of this assault is contained in her blog at http://network-of-those-abused-by-church.blogspot.com/2006/11/assaulted-while-sleeping-in-our-patch.html.

Please would you advise if the matter of a dereliction of duty of care on the part of St Mungo's falls within the remit of your office.

I can confirm that on 20 November I spoke to the PA to St Mungo's CEO Charles Fraser, but to no avail; on 23 November the Private Secretary to Tower Hamlets Council Leader Cllr Denise Jones informed me that my complaint was outside the remit of the Council; and this morning Ms Adeyoola advised that my complaint was outside the remit of the office of Minister for Housing and Planning Yvette Cooper MP.

On 11 December I am before Mr Justice Walker in the High Court of Justice Administrative Court in London for an oral hearing for permission to apply for Judicial Review against the Department for Work and Pensions. This follows the decision by Birmingham Erdington Jobcentre Plus to terminate my joint claim for Jobseekers Allowance (from 19 September) because I did not sign my declaration that I was available for work on 27 September. I was not scheduled to sign on until two days later.

My wife and I signed on every second Friday, not every second Wednesday. Nonetheless, all my subsequent letters of complaint were ignored, including three letters to Secretary of State for Work and Pensions John Hutton MP.

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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