Church and State blog: Police close Declan's assault case

Thursday, July 02, 2009

Police close Declan's assault case

Unbelievable! Today Declan heard back from Detective Sergeant Andrew Gattase of Limehouse police station, who was dealing with the assault on him in our local Internet cafe on Saturday night. DS Gattase refers to some incident that never occurred (“the contact made on the stairwell with your shoulder”; at total variance with what Declan actually reported, see previous blog), which he says he has deemed to be an accident and that he has closed the report. In this email to Declan, DS Gattase actually verifies that Declan was the victim of a full blown assault (he says: “In order to be an assault it must be intentional or reckless application of force more than what is normal or reasonable”):

Subject: Crime Ref. 4215223/09

In reply, to your questions raised.

Unfortunately the incident focused upon, I must reiterate and sympathise with your frustrations however based on the evidence documented within the CRIS report, and the contact made on the stairwell with your shoulder, I have had to evaluate and assess whether there would be sufficient evidence to show what occurred amounted to an assault and not a mere accident.

I must stress this is based on the evidential test.

Having read the report made and looked into the scenario, I have evaluated there would be insufficient evidence to show this was an assault. In order to be an assault it must be intentional or reckless application of force more than what is normal or reasonable. I understand your frustrations but I do not feel there is sufficient evidence to show the incident did in fact amount to an assault.

This does not mean I am believing once party over the other, but have based my decision solely on the evidence and the scenario outlined.

As for the words apparently used this was not part of the same incident as that happened some time in the past. Again this was not reported to anybody at the time.

I suggest if this is happening, possibly you think about notifying the owners of the internet cvafe or using an alternative premises.

Being in the company of the suspect is not an offence, it is what goes on and if criminal offences are committed then you have the right to report them to police.

In relation to your report filed it will remain on file in the event of escalation and can be re-visited to assist future offences but at this stage I respectfully submit there is insufficient evidence to proceed and I have closed the report.

Yours Sincerely
DS Andrew GATTASE

DS Gattase suggests that perhaps we should use an “alternative premises”. As I stated in the previous blog, the internet café in question is the only place around in which I can install a program so I can upload pages to the NAC website – I should be able to log in to my SiteGround account with my username and password but I am blocked from doing so (see blog of 9 May “SiteGround confirms our website has been hacked”). This is the email from Declan yesterday that the detective sergeant replied to:

Subject: Crime Ref. 4215223/09

Dear DS Gattase,

I have yet to be summoned by you to give a statement in this case, and I have no way of knowing if this is because the case has been struck out by you for some reason. However, I once again find myself in the company of the suspect at Telecall Internet cafe - for the second time today and the third time since being assaulted by him on the premises on Saturday, 27 June. I do appreciate that I have asked you this question on the two previous occasions I have found myself in the company of the suspect in this Internet cafe, but, without having received a reply and not having had my statement taken, could you please advise if I can phone 999 immediately to have him arrested on the premises?

Yours sincerely,
Declan Heavey

I am still in disbelief.

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, July 02, 2009

Police close Declan's assault case

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