Church and State blog: Request for access to case file

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Request for access to case file

Last Sunday morning, we spent the whole day in the library Idea Store Whitechapel – Declan actually woke me up at our usual time of 5.00am, which I didn’t initially appreciate because Saturday and Sunday we treat ourselves to an extra two hours’ sleep.

Because we are taking Lord/Lady Justice Scott Baker’s order of 22 March (refusing us permission to appeal Judge Walker’s decision of 11 December to refuse us permission to apply for a judicial review against the Department for Work and Pensions) to the European Court of Human Rights, Declan thought the Bishopsgate City of London police might like to rough things up a bit, and we should work fast on our introductory letter to the Register to the ECHR, giving careful consideration to which articles of the European Convention on Human Rights we contend have been breached.

Declan was highly motivated and also wrote a letter to the Deputy Master of Civil Appeals requesting access to the case file and sight of this letter from the Department for Work and Pensions cited in paragraph 32 of the transcript of Judge Walker’s judgment of 11 December, a letter we have never been privy to. (All is made bare and open in Declan’s letter to the Deputy Master of Civil Appeals below).

Yesterday morning we went to The Big Issue head office to have our pitch slip stamped and our pitches registered in pitch listings, minus of course the Covent Garden pitch we had taken off us on Saturday based on the unfounded allegation that we had not been working it for the last two and a half weeks (see previous blog). When we arrived there, a member of staff and a vendor were talking about someone who had recently been debadged by the Big Issue and what bad shape he was in. Assuming he is not receiving any benefit, I wouldn’t doubt he is in bad shape: he is probably destitute if not selling drugs or running the gauntlet of illegal begging.

When I recall the cameo between this staff member and vendor, I am concerned that I too could end up destitute and wonder: should I pass on to head office a written account of the hours I work my regular pitch at the George Pub by Liverpool Street Station, just in case an outreach worker has to investigate pitches in the area?

Last night at 12.10am, we were woken by two workers who went through the door of the porch we sleep in, only to leave the building a few minutes later. At 5.00am, as we were about to get up, the same thing happened; only this time it took the worker 15 minutes to exit. Are the police looking for a complaint against us? Because blocking workers’ right-of-way sounds pretty good to me.

Needless to say, this eventuality was foreseen by us a long time ago and every night we put down in a way that blocks nobody. We have also been sleeping in this porch without complaint since we first arrived in London on 3 November.

Anyway, this is Declan’s registered letter of 2 April to the Deputy Master of Civil Appeals:

Dear Sir/Madam

Re: Access to court documents in the matter of the Queen on the application of Heavey v Birmingham Erdington Jobcentre Plus and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Appeal Court Ref. No. C1/2006/2638)

As directed by the Civil Appeals Office, I am writing to you on the above matter.

I enclose copy of the order made by Lord/Lady Justice Scott Baker on 22 March 2007, which states in respect of my application for permission to appeal that the reasons for refusing permission are explained in the judgment of Walker J.

To precede the lodgement of my case against the UK with the European Court of Human Rights by introductory letter, I hereby request access to the case file.

Paragraph 32 of the judgment of Walker J states:

“… there is a letter from the Department which says that in the letter of 27th September the reference to him having failed to sign on was a mistake. The Department says that there is another good reason for terminating payment ...”

I seek sight of this letter from the Department for Work and Pensions which says that there is another good reason (unspecified by Walker J) for terminating payment of my joint claim for Jobseeker’s Allowance on 27 September 2006, and a copy of same.

I can confirm that I have had no sight of any such letter from the DWP, nor have I been provided with any reason for the termination of payment other than that provided in the letter to me of 27 September 2006 from Birmingham Erdington Jobcentre Plus, namely that I did not sign on (two days before I was due to do so on 29 September 2006).

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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Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Request for access to case file

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