Church and State blog: Declan is assaulted in the porch

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Declan is assaulted in the porch

It seemed too good to be true that for the past few days we haven’t been disturbed by the police in the porch we sleep in at night – on Wednesday Declan wrote to Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis Sir Ian Blair (see blog here) after we were threatened with arrest on 2 June (2.35am) and 9 June (3.00am) pursuant to “Operation Poncho II” if we didn’t leave the porch (to beyond City boundaries) so that the City of London's Cleansing service could wash and disinfect the porch floor with immediate effect. In fact, it was. This morning, two minutes before 6.30am, the time our alarm clock gets us up on Saturdays and Sundays, Declan was the victim of a “common assault”.

This guy jumped on Declan’s feet – I am not sure if he jumped over me, landing on Declan’s feet, or if he walked through the gap between our groundsheet and a side wall and then jumped;
Declan is convinced he half-heard him jump in over me – before sitting himself down opposite Declan, overplaying dumb and drunk. (If it wasn’t because Declan sleeps with his runners on inside his sleeping bag, and this guy came down on him right, he might be walking with a limp.)

While Declan was phoning 999 this guy looked cool as a cucumber, even when the police arrived. Declan wanted to press charges but PC 416C wasn’t keen at all: there is no injury, no reddening of the feet, no proof of contact, and my favourite “he didn’t do it on purpose”. Declan insisted and reluctantly PC 416C and PC 424C arrested “Declan Brown” for common assault, informing Declan he had thirty minutes to get to Bishopsgate station to make a statement or Brown would be released without charge. I know this much: if the police arrest me pursuant to Operation Poncho II, I hope it is going to be as amenable as Declan Brown’s arrest and that before I am read my rights I too will be informed there will be coffee and food for me back at the station.

Declan gave his witness statement to PC 383C, and was given a crime reference number (CR/4359/08), but not a copy of the statement. Declan had informed PC 383C that he wanted a copy of the statement for another request for priority to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg – get a solicitor to apply for it, he was told. (We are still waiting for notification from the Court as to whether Declan’s application of 8 September 2007 has been declared inadmissible or the case communicated to the Government. Declan’s most recent letter from the Court is a letter of 22 November stating that it was unnecessary to consider his request for priority because the Court would be examining his application “shortly, possibly by the end of January 2008”.)

This second request for priority under Rule 41 of the Rules of Court will include his letter on Wednesday to Commissioner Blair (if not an update letter to him), in which he refers to a submission he made on 12 May to the Court citing a violation of Article 34 of the European Convention on Human Rights (see blog of 13 May "Letter to the European Court under Article 34") - Article 34 establishes a duty on Convention states not to subject applicants to any improper indirect acts or contacts designed to dissuade or discourage applicants from pursuing a Convention remedy.

I should perhaps say here that this is the first time Declan has been assaulted in the porch, which we have been sleeping in for over a year and a half (since 3 November 2006). I sleep on the outside and have been graced with a few: within two weeks of sleeping in the porch somebody sat on the right hand side of my face; on 5 May 2007 some guy dragged me out of the two-step porch by the ankles while I was in my sleeping bag, then a few hours later I was kicked in the back; and on 22 September a guy repeatedly kicked me in the chest and shoulders as his mates stood by. It was a bit of luck that the police officer who took my statement in Bishopsgate station on 22 September wasn't PC 383C or I wouldn't have gotten a copy of it.

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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Saturday, June 14, 2008

Declan is assaulted in the porch

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