Church and State blog: Sixth visit by the police

Friday, March 23, 2007

Sixth visit by the police

Last night – I had just got into my sleeping bag – we received our sixth visit from the police. Declan was informed by two police community support officers that all rough sleepers are to be moved out of the City of London, that we can expect to be “harassed” (her word) by the police over the next two weeks, and that we may be asked to move beyond city boundaries.

The question: is this a (ruthless) method by the London Mayor Ken Livingstone to cleanse the city of rough sleepers? Or is this just the latest idea the police have come up with to move us out of our porch and put us at risk? (I should mention here that on 3 November Declan had good foresight when he chose this particular patch for us to sleep in: it has proven relatively safe and quiet, notwithstanding the sleep deprivation techniques that have been used against us, and which I have recorded throughout this blog.)

I already smell a rat. I have spent an hour on the internet in the library Idea Store Whitechapel and my research has yielded no results. There is not one single mention on the internet of an operation by the police to move rough sleepers out of the City of London or that one is going to be undertaken or has ever been undertaken; the Mayor of London website mentions nothing; other homeless organisations are reporting nothing; and the same applies to all the major papers. Even staff at the Dellow Centre told Declan this morning that they have heard of no such policy.

So if the Bishopsgate City of London police think that we are going to voluntarily move out, and put ourselves and our belongings (including legal documentation) at risk, they are mistaken. For a start, Declan is considering writing to Ken Livingstone on this apparent covert police operation.

And then there is the Independent Police Complaints Commission to write to on the manner in which the assault on him (on 17 February a homeless called Ali punched Declan twice in the face in an unprovoked attack in the Whitechapel Mission) is being dealt with by Tower Hamlets police: Declan cannot get the police to take his statement.

In a nutshell, after much trouble on Declan’s part (recorded in this blog), on 1 March PC Richard Bentley (823 HT) left a message on Declan’s mobile stating that as soon as he has arrested Ali, he will contact Declan again for his written statement of 19 February to be formally taken. (Where, for a start, does it say that the alleged assailant has to be arrested before a statement can be taken from the victim?) Needless to say, PC Bentley has never phoned back.

This morning, Bethnal Green Police Station informed Declan that in fact it is not PC Bentley who is investigating the matter at all, but Detective Constable Alexander Head of the Beat Crime Unit in Limehouse Police Station. According to police records, DC Head wrote to Declan c/o Whitechapel Mission on 26 February and 9 March. The mission, however – and this is hilarious – issued Declan a letter this morning stating no mail has arrived there for him since 20 January.

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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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Friday, March 23, 2007

Sixth visit by the police

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