Church and State blog: Tomorrow I may be arrested

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Tomorrow I may be arrested

This morning my Big Issue pitch (from which I sell The Big Issue, a magazine sold by homeless throughout the UK) was taken over by a street distributor of the free ShortList magazine. When I informed this guy that he is standing in my pitch of one year – he was one of the two ShortList distributors that put me out of business last Thursday – he looks at me like he wants me to define the word "pitch". Eventually he moves away, but no more than a metre and a half, pinning me up against a railing, and yes, the whole road free for him to go. (As a Big Issue vendor, I have a registered pitch and cannot move freely.)

Unsurprisingly, I sold nothing. Declan also sold nothing and we were faced with the daunting choice of me going back into the train station to beg or starve for the day, albeit the meagre breakfast the Sisters of Mercy-run Dellow Centre provides Monday to Friday: a bowl of cereal and up to a maximum of three toast (for which you have to queue outside the front gate for anything up to 40 minutes). The train station was a bit tricky, since yesterday morning two police officers ticketed me for the second time in two days for begging. This time I wasn't called "scum of the earth", but was told that the next time I am caught begging, I will be arrested or given a fine of £80, which, if I refuse to pay, will land me in prison.

I am under no illusion whatsoever that this morning I avoided being arrested. So Declan and I are braced for another day of hunger, but tomorrow morning if we don't sell Big Issues – and it sure looks like we won't – I will have no choice but to go into the train station and beg because unfortunately there is no homeless centre open during the weekend and we have no money whatsoever to buy food. We could of course go to the Methodist Church-run Whitechapel Mission for a breakfast for 50p, but we were barred by the minister’s wife on 18 June due to concerns about our safety. Last weekend we faced a similar situation but had enough for the bus and spent part of the weekend in the West End (where there can be a free food drop on the Strand on a Friday night 8.30-10.00pm, and at Lincoln's In Fields on a Saturday night 6.00-7.00pm).

The only reasonable explanation for the police executing a perfect U-turn at full speed (I have been begging in the train station since 11 September without difficulty), is clearly that Declan's petition to the UN in support of research cloning of embryos and stem cells could very well take us and NAC off the street.

Since in the UK police can detain somebody without charge for up to 28 days, I will be taking the opportunity to come out a size 0 and will begin a hunger strike: I am familiar with non-cooperation techniques. As for Declan, he tells me that the police are going to discover that on his own he is not such a soft target after all. If I have to beg tomorrow morning, by the way, I will have all my bags with me so Declan is not a sitting duck while I am in custody.

This is Declan's email this morning to the ShortList circulation director:

Subject: ShortList

Dear Mr Moreton,

Further to our telephone conversation this morning, I wish to reconfirm the takeover this morning of my wife's Big Issue pitch at The George Pub, Liverpool Street by a street distributor of ShortList.

I also reconfirm that I am in receipt of a letter of 10 September from Dr John Bird, Founder and Editor-In-Chief of The Big Issue, stating:

I have employed many people over the years to do jobs related to the running of The Big Issue. I have never employed them to do my job; likewise I do not do their job. Please bear this in mind when you are composing your letters. You do not need to address your letters to me, as it is not my job. I would only get involved if you were utterly and totally let down by those whose job it is in The Big Issue. I hope this assists in your deliberations in pursuit of your claims.

Yours sincerely,
Declan Heavey
BI badge no. 1163

cc Mr Mike Soutar, CEO, ShortList Media (by registered post)
Mr Paul Joseph, Outreach Manager, The Big Issue (by email)

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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Thursday, November 15, 2007

Tomorrow I may be arrested

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