Church and State blog: Declan appeals to the Independent Police Complaints Commission

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Declan appeals to the Independent Police Complaints Commission

As I stated in yesterday’s blog, things are very much on the boil, particularly at our sleeping pitch, Salters’ Hall (see blog of 5 June “Salters back in the spotlight” for two Google map photos of the sleeping pitch). Last night around midnight we were harassed by three workers from the homeless organisation Broadway. It was of course two workers from the same organisation who visited us with two police officers on the night of 28 May in what turned out an encounter of surreal proportions (see blog “Last night something surreal happened”). Declan and I did all our talking that night and had no interest in pointless conversation, but these three guys did not seem too happy about it.

“We’re reading your blog and just wonder if you would be willing to air your views to two of our mental health workers that I have here with me,” one of them blurted on being ignored, like all of a sudden we were sleeping not in Britain, but in Russia! (Declan has actually been to the police already about one of these workers for harassment and intimidation; he retains a With Compliments slip dated 29 April from Bishopsgate police station wherein PC Thomas, 409CP, registers his name against front office clerk Claire Stevenson’s description of the guy’s behaviour as “intrusive” and “inappropriate”.)

Well, if they are reading my blog, they shouldn’t bother coming back any time soon: as I have written in previous blogs, I was told recently in the canteen of Catholic Sisters of Mercy Dellow Day Centre that I should “lap dance for donations” (for more on the Dellow in particular, see blog of 14 May “Letter to Archbishop Vincent Nichols”).

Tonight the BBC is showing “Famous, Rich and Homeless” about five celebrities who undertook ten days of sleeping rough, soup runs and hostels in a bid to put homelessness in the spotlight. Bruce Jones told The Sun how he lost control of his emotions when he walked through the front door of his luxury home in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, to be reunited with wife Sandra. He says: “She gathered me in her arms and I’m not ashamed to say that I broke down and wept like a baby.” I suppose our survival of sleeping rough for over two and a half years is pretty amazing. Add to that that I am maintaining a blog, developing a website and we have a petition to the UN on therapeutic cloning that has been already signed by 24 Nobel laureates, and I would say it is probably unique. Not to mention that we have also been through the High Court (see here), Court of Appeal (see here), and European Court of Human Rights (see here).

To add insult to injury, it seems that Declan’s complaint last Thursday to the City of London Police Professional Standards Directorate against two City of London police officers, having been further issued with false records in relation to their encounter with him and me at our sleeping pitch two nights previous, has now been dismissed. Apparently DC Nigel Anderson, in the Directorate, still hasn’t the first clue what Declan is complaining about (see previous blog). Well, this is Declan’s appeal this afternoon to the Independent Police Complaints Commission - an automated generated acknowledgement confirmed they have received the email:

Subject: Complaint

Dear Sir/Madam,

I refer to the attached copy of my email and attachment of 22 June to DC Nigel Anderson, in the City of London Police Professional Standards Directorate, regarding the behaviour of two City of London police officers on the night of 16 June at Salters' Hall, St. Alphage Highwalk, Fore Street, Moorgate, London (CAD 10903).

I wish to appeal to the Independent Police Complaints Commission on the grounds that, in the absence of hearing further from the Professional Standards Directorate, I have not been given enough information about what the investigation has found.

My wife and I are of no fixed abode and have been sleeping rough in the City of London since 3 November 2006. (We slept in the same porch until a trellis gate was installed on 4 September 2008; as from 12 September, our sleeping pitch has been located at Salters' Hall.)

Please would you acknowledge receipt by return email.

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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Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Declan appeals to the Independent Police Complaints Commission

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