Church and State blog: November 2010

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

WMC: Declan pleads extreme financial hardship

Declan has come home this evening to the reply Mr Justice Sycamore of the High Court ordered the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to provide him with in respect to his claim for judicial review (the Judge's order is contained in the previous blog Judge issues order in Declan's case and more problems with our TV). Surface it is to say that the letter that the DWP has written and their summary grounds for dismissal of Declan's case are in blatant disregard for the provisions of section 9 of the Jobseekers Act 1995 (see blog of 13 November Declan's claim for judicial review). Mr Justice Sycamore also ordered that Declan resubmit his claim, if he still wishes to do so, after hearing from the DWP. He fully intends doing so, and promptly, despite having to declare "extreme financial hardship" in this email of complaint earlier this afternoon to Satnam Gill OBE, the principal and chief executive of The Working Men's College (WMC), one of London's premier adult education colleges:

As for our fifth TV in this our first tenancy off the street - after four TV blow-outs in the first ten months - tonight we have gone from one to two watchable analogue TV channels (see previous blog; this blog provides a link in context to stunning photos of MI5 whistleblower David Shayler who lived for a couple of years in one of the rooms below us). Not that Declan is missing the TV these days! I don't watch it at all.

This video of best selling author Christopher Hitchens debating Tony Blair in Canada last Friday, on whether religion is a force for good or ill, is the most popular video I have ever posted on the NAC website. I posted it on Saturday night and already over 200 people have shared my page through Facebook. When I listen to Hitchens I can't help thinking how sad it is that his voice will soon be cut short. He is terminally ill with cancer.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Judge issues order in Declan's case and more problems with our TV

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has been ordered by Mr Justice Sycamore of the High Court to reply to Declan's claim for judicial review, and Declan ordered to resubmit the claim on the Judge's terms (see blog of 13 November Declan's claim for judicial review). We are more than interested to receive the DWP's reply. Declan says that most certainly he will be resubmitting his claim notwithstanding the Judge's terms (click to enlarge):

As I stated in the blog of 14 August Declan pays £100 to be linked to the cable TV network in the house (this blog contains stunning photos of MI5 whistleblower David Shayler who lived for a couple of years in one of the rooms below us), we had four TV blow-outs within 10 months of what is our first tenancy after more than 2 1/2 years sleeping rough on the streets of London. Our live-in landlady is human rights activist Belinda McKenzie (a video of Belinda speaking in solidarity with the people of Iran can be seen here). This is Declan's email this afternoon to Belinda regarding our problems with TV reception (click to enlarge):

In the NAC section "What we do", we have updated the page Support gay rights. This is an outstanding speech by Archbishop Desmond Tutu on gay rights, which features prominently in Declan's write up.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Department for Work and Pensions will reply to a judge, not to Declan

It is just as well Declan has his appeal pack for the Court of Appeal. This is the response (not a reply) he received in this afternoon's post from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to his letter before claim for judicial review against our jobcentre, Highgate Jobcentre Plus (click to enlarge):

Declan is aware he will only have seven days to appeal a High Court judge on his request for permission to apply for a judicial review of the Jobcentre's decision of 13 September not to adhere to the provisions of Section 9(6) of the Jobseekers Act 1995 (see previous blog). His claim against A4E for our small claims court, the Central London County Court, is already written up and, based on current circumstances, ready to file (see previous blog, paragraph 2).

What is it that the DWP wants the Court to read that they don't want Declan to see first? Well, I look forward to blogging it!

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Declan's claim for judicial review

On Thursday Declan applied to the High Court for a judicial review of Highgate Jobcentre Plus’s decision of 13 September not to refer A4E Holloway's proposed jobseeker's agreement to the decision maker (the Secretary of State) in accordance with Section 9(6) of the Jobseekers Act 1995. The Jobcentre neither replied to the Declan’s appeal of 22 September, nor forwarded his appeal to the Tribunals Service for a ruling whether the appeal may go ahead or not. They then failed to reply to the letter before claim (see blog of 28 October The High Court (Judicial Review): Letter before claim). Now they are going to have to reply ... to the High Court (click to enlarge):

A4E (Action for employment) is a private company, and the largest provider of welfare to work programmes on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). On Wednesday my A4E Personal Career Coach Greg Janiszek told me that we shouldn't be wasting so much time writing letters. Well, he hasn't seen anything yet, because Declan intends taking legal action against A4E for compensation in the Small Claims Court. For the last three months they have given us an absolute nightmare on every conceivable front and wiped us of the little bit of money we had to get back on our feet. And this after we were forced by the DWP to sleep rough on the streets of London for more than 2 1/2 years because Declan did not "sign on" TWO DAYS BEFORE he was due to do so on 29 September 2006 (see blog of 21 June Department for Work and Pensions double breaches the Data Protection Act: Letter to the Information Commissioner). Nice!

Geoffrey Robertson QC – The Case of the Pope

In the NAC section "What we do", we have updated the page Expose abuse in the church. The eminent international human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC has told us we can publish any six-page excerpt from his new book, The Case of the Pope: Vatican Accountability for Human Rights Abuse, which features prominently in Declan's write up. I chose the first six pages from chapter 10 "Can the Pope be Sued?", a world exclusive. And a must read for every bishop!

Tuesday, November 02, 2010

A4E Camden: Declan claims breach of contract

For two months now I have been writing that I don't have the documentation of an illegal immigrant to establish my identity. We were robbed of all our money and documents in the Sisters of Mercy's Dellow Day Centre in 2008, and the case was thrown out because the nuns refused to provide the police with CCTV coverage of the robbery (see blog of 4 September Sisters of Mercy revisited - our first YouTube video). It doesn't seem to matter who Declan or I write to, we cannot get Broadway Homelessness and Support to confirm that they will assist me with requesting my Irish Citizenship Certificate from Dublin (see blog of 13 September Broadway will help me become a Spanish citizen!) - it took Broadway over a year and three applications to retrieve Declan's birth certificate from Ireland!

This is Declan's latest on the issue - the letter he refers to from Home Office Minister Lynne Featherstone regarding the interception of our communications is archived here - click to enlarge:

It also very much looks like Declan will be filing his claim for judicial review against Highgate Jobcentre Plus in the High Court on Thursday week (see previous blog The High Court (Judicial Review): Letter before claim). Not only has the Jobcentre failed to forward his appeal for breach of Section 9(6) the Jobseekers Act 1995 to the Tribunals Service for a ruling whether the appeal may go ahead or not, but they have yet to respond to his judicial review "letter before claim" (published in the previous blog). He already has the judicial review claim form (N461) written up and ready to file!

This is an outstanding video which I uploaded to the NAC petition page regarding SCNT or "therapeutic cloning". I have mentioned throughout this blog that Declan's petition to the UN on this essential research has had to be shelved several times because almost no scientist was getting his email in their inbox (notwithstanding that the petition has been signed by no less than 28 Nobel laureates as well as hundreds of scholars and scientists, including recognised authorities from the world's leading universities and research institutes). It's hard to know what it will take to be able to protect our private communications.

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

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[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.

Church and State blog