Church and State blog: Letter of complaint to the chair of The Big Issue Foundation Charity

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Letter of complaint to the chair of The Big Issue Foundation Charity

The Big Issue is a magazine sold by homeless people throughout the UK on registered street pitches. This afternoon The Big Issue Head Office advised Declan that as soon as it has been confirmed by Office staff that we did not purchase a minimum of 40 magazines each week for the four weeks commenced 6 October, we will no longer be able to have a registered pitch - we will be allowed to carry on selling but not have priority on any pitch. This of course means that our pitches will most probably be terminated within the next few days, after two years of us having survived on the streets of London by selling the magazine from the same registered pitches and despite Declan's letter of complaint yesterday to the Chair of The Big Issue Foundation Steven Round (see below).

Issue Foundation is the registered charity arm of The Big Issue organisation. According to the Foundation website, The Big Issue Company Ltd publishes the weekly magazine and sells it to Big Issue vendors (wholesale) “for the purpose of giving them the opportunity to earn a legitimate income, rather than having to resort to criminal activity such as begging and theft”. This is an extremely serious situation for me in particular, in that I am facing possible prosecution for begging. So this letter of complaint to Round was emailed yesterday very much with my defense in mind, and even on appeal, if necessay:

Subject: The Big Issue

Dear Mr Round

I am writing further to the email l received from you on 4 November in your capacity as chair of The Big Issue Foundation regarding my complaint that if my wife and I have not purchased a minimum of 40 magazines each week for the four weeks commenced 6 October, from 10 November we will no longer be able to have a registered pitch - we “will be allowed to carry on selling but not have priority on any pitch”.

I re-present below a copy of my email letter of 7 October to the founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Big Issue, Mr John Bird MBE, to which I did not receive a reply.

In your email of 4 November you stated that you copied the aforementioned complaint to the chief executive of the Foundation and that you would make sure that I get a response. I can confirm that I have not received a response and that this morning at Head Office I was advised by outreach worker Sanjiv Ahuja that our pitch authorisation slips were validated until the end of Tuesday of next week because no one knew the situation with respect to our pitches.

I reconfirm that on 13, 14, 15 and 16 October I emailed The Big Issue regarding my wife's new badge (1170), which, being unavailable for collection at Head Office on Monday, 13 October, did not become available for her to pick up until 1.00pm on Thursday, 16 October. The same Monday at Head Office - following my own rebadging to the end of February 2009 and the validation of our pitch authorisation slips until the end of Tuesday of the following week - I was advised by Office staff that my wife could not purchase or sell The Big Issue without her new badge.

I also reconfirm that the first two working weeks of October culminated in the so-called "Black Friday" financial crash; for two weeks thereafter shares around the world continued their downward trend, especially in London; and our pitches are located in the heart of London's financial district. As you were aware, the week before last temperatures plummeted – the first time London has seen snow in October for 70 years.

Last week the Met Office issued several severe weather warnings for London. This morning we were only able to afford to buy two Big Issues for resale.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey
Badge no. 1163

cc Mr Stephen Robertson, Chief Executive of The Big Issue Foundation

---------------------------

Subject: The Big Issue

Dear Mr Bird

As the founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Big Issue, please find enclosed copy of an email I received yesterday, 6 October, from your Outreach Manager for London, Mr Paul Joseph. On 10 September 2007 you wrote to me, 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.

I wish to complain that if my wife and I do not purchase a minimum of 40 magazines each week for the next four weeks, from 10 November we will no longer be able to have a registered pitch - we "will be allowed to carry on selling but not have priority on any pitch".

Yesterday we were only able to afford to buy two Big Issues for resale, and today will only be able to afford to buy another two magazines. Moreover, I wrote to the Registrar of the European Court of Human Rights on 21 August further to my second application for priority under Rule 41 of the Rules of Court, as follows:

As explained in previous applications, my wife and I survive on the streets of London by selling The Big Issue, a magazine sold by homeless people on registered street pitches, and I have lodged numerous written complaints with The Big Issue Head Office in respect of my wife and myself being walked off our respective pitch by other street traders, including, inter alia, Big Issue vendors. You will note from my email and attachments to the Court of 16 August that not only may my wife be forced into begging (a criminal offence in England), but faces debadging by The Big Issue for so doing.

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey
Badge no. 1163

cc Mr Steven Round, Chair of The Big Issue Foundation

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, November 11, 2008

Letter of complaint to the chair of The Big Issue Foundation Charity

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