Live-in landlady refuses me receipt for £1000 in rent paid

This morning our live-in landlady, human rights activist Belinda McKenzie, refused me a receipt for the £1,000 I paid her in rent for the last month. She then emailed me, stating: “Regarding the payment of rent due today, I will receive the money in the usual way and give you a receipt as soon as you acknowledge receipt of the Possession Notice this morning.” So Declan has emailed Belinda’s solicitors, Messrs Kidd Rapinet, to have what was my payment of rent acknowledged in accordance with the law (see blog of 20 April Declan reports Kidd Rapinet to the Solicitors Regulation Authority):

Click to enlarge

Belinda has had to withdraw her claim for the accelerated possession of our flat due to the “wrong information” she provided the Court, to quote herself. But her stance this morning baffles me. As I said in the previous blog We lose all access to the internet, Belinda recently started up a group called the Association of McKenzie Friends – a McKenzie friend is a lay legal advisor assisting litigants in person. The Association is necessary, they say, “because too many victims of white collar crimes encountered too many problems and their helpers and supporters as well”.

First meeting of the Association of McKenzie Friends, Westminster, with John Hemming MP for Birmingham, featuring Belinda McKenzie and Sabine McNeill.

MI5 whistleblower David Shayler lived in one of the rooms below us for a couple of years, until 2007. Regarding Shayler, this is what we told the Court last week in our defence to Possession Order (see Additional Information, para. 4):

The defendants refute the claimant’s statement that she explained to them that their tenancy was never meant to be a long-term arrangement as she would need the accommodation back for her family at some point. The following email evidence is by no means exhaustive (copy of emails available to the Court upon request). On 24 July 2009, the claimant emailed an associate of the defendants in America stating that former MI5 whistleblower David Shayler lived in the house for a couple of years until 2007 (it is unfortunate that Mr Shayler then declared that he was the Messiah, became a squatter, and was subsequently ridiculed in the press for changing his name to Delores Kane), adding that her house could be an “in-house charity” for impoverished activists supported by “some kind of international fund”. On 18 September 2011, the claimant wrote that the defendants “could have stayed here indefinitely” if they “hadn't been so generally stand-offish”. The Note to the Court goes on to state that the claimant needs the defendants’ flat for her family, but she has repeatedly stated in email correspondence that she wanted the flat for a homeless couple who were expecting a baby.

Human rights activist Belinda McKenzie speaking at the UK Rally against child abuse, 4 June 2011, Trafalgar Square

We lose all access to the internet

It seems our difficulties accessing the internet have escalated, despite internet being very much a part of our out-of-date tenancy agreement that is legally still in force. Following the recent claim for accelerated possession of our flat by our live-in landlady, human rights activist Belinda McKenzie, this is what we told the Court last week in our defence relating to internet connectivity (see Additional Information, para. 4):

The claimant is knowingly misleading the Court by stating that the defendants have showed no signs of leaving the house. Despite losing access to the internet for six weeks from 4 July 2011 and for two weeks in November 2011, and having inadequate and disrupted access throughout this period to this day, the defendants created a Survival Appeal Pledge Scheme for their Network for Church Monitoring (N4CM) at www.churchandstate.org.uk. However, lack of internet access through wireless connection devastated this scheme and the defendants were forced to write to the claimant to take her up on her written offer to allow them to stay in their flat for an extra two months, which she then reneged on (see copy of the defendants’ email dated 5 January 2012 on this reneging in Supporting Documents, pp. 13-15).

Since Belinda withdrew her claim last Friday due to the "wrong information" she admits she provided the Court (see the previous blog Declan reports Kidd Rapinet to the Solicitors Regulation Authority), we have been reduced to “Guest”, the Virgin router/access point located in the room below us and to which we are connected via a cable (see blog here). When we are disconnected from “Guest”, we now lose all access to the internet.

Click to enlarge

On Saturday Belinda threatened that unless we have our Housing Benefit terminated on 26 July, she will have her solicitors do it for us. In the same email she also threatened that unless we do this ourselves, and copy her into the letter, she will not permit/provide an internet hub in our flat. These threats are strange, especially since Belinda recently started up a group called the Association of McKenzie Friends - a McKenzie friend is a lay legal advisor assisting litigants in person.

First meeting of the Association of McKenzie Friends, Westminster, with John Hemming MP for Birmingham, featuring Belinda McKenzie and Sabine McNeill.

On the N4CM About page, I provide a link to the blog Declan lodges our defence to Possession Order. In addition to the defence Declan lodged with the court, this blog also contains some stunning photographs of MI5 whistleblower David Shayler who lived in one of the rooms below us for a couple of years, until 2007. This photograph was published by the Daily Mail in 2009:

Former MI5 whistleblower David Shayler after he was evicted from Hackhurst Farm on 20 August 2009.

Declan reports Kidd Rapinet to the Solicitors Regulation Authority

No sooner did our live-in landlady, human rights activist Belinda McKenzie, notify us this afternoon that she had withdrawn her claim for the accelerated possession of our flat (having admitted in writing yesterday that she provided "wrong information" to the Court), than she threatened in another email to have our Housing Benefit terminated on 26 July. So Declan has lodged a complaint against Belinda's solicitors, Messrs Kidd Rapinet, with the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). If Declan is unhappy with the SRA's response, he will ask the Independent Complaint Resolution Service to review the complaint. The SRA say they will acknowledge this complaint within five working days of receiving it:

Click to enlarge

In the previous blog I published stunning photographs of MI5 whistleblower David Shayler who lived in one of the rooms below us for a couple of years, until 2007. It is unfortunate that Shayler then declared that he was the Messiah, became a squatter, and was subsequently ridiculed in the press for changing his name to Delores Kane - Belinda believes that this sentence defames her because it looks like Shayler went mad under her roof! Belinda is involved in quite a number of causes ranging from abuse in the church to 9/11 (see blog of 7 April Our case against the Home Secretary for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights). Below is the first meeting last month of the Association of McKenzie Friends with John Hemming MP for Birmingham, featuring Belinda and Sabine McNeill. The Association of McKenzie Friends is an association of lay legal advisors assisting litigants in person, necessary they say "because too many victims of white collar crimes encountered too many problems and their helpers and supporters as well".

First meeting of the Association of McKenzie Friends, Westminster, with John Hemming MP for Birmingham, featuring Belinda McKenzie and Sabine McNeill.

Human rights activist Belinda McKenzie speaking at the UK Rally Against Child Abuse, 4 June 2011, Trafalgar Square

Declan lodges our defence to Possession Order

This morning Declan lodged our defence to Possession Order with the Clerkenwell and Shoreditch County Court (see last Thursday's blog Court issues accelerated procedure for possession of our flat - we have until Monday to file defence form). Our live-in landlady, Belinda McKenzie, a human rights activist, wrote a Note to the Court so outrageous that even if we had £1m we couldn't let it stand. She had, for example, written off the first £1,000 we paid her in rent under Haringey Council's Housing Benefit scheme. If we didn't have the receipts for the first two months rent we paid her back in August/September 2009, we could well have been looking at prosecution by the Council. And there's a lot more besides:

MI5 whistleblower David Shayler lived in one of the rooms below us for a couple of years, until 2007. As Declan says to the Court (see Additional Information, para. 4), it is unfortunate that Shayler then declared that he was the Messiah, became a squatter, and was subsequently ridiculed in the press for changing his name to Delores Kane - Belinda believes that this sentence defames her because it looks like Shayler went mad under her roof!

The Esquire article below is mentioned in a Guardian article dated 27 March 2012. It is an eye-opener, highlighting the monitoring and surveillance that Shayler had to live with back in 2000, and the contradictory briefings and slanders that were coming out of the British establishment and the media. The author, Dr Eamonn O'Neill, now a lecturer in journalism at Strathclyde University, also intelligently tries to address the motivations of a whistleblower.

BBC PANORAMA: The David Shayler Affair (August 1998)

According to BBC Panorama, Shayler "caused the biggest crisis of official secrecy since the spy catcher affair". In 2002, he was jailed for seven weeks for breaking the Official Secrets Act.

Court issues accelerated procedure for possession of our flat - we have until Monday to file defence form

So much for my previous blog Our case against the Home Secretary for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. We have just received the live-in landlady's claim for accelerated possession of our flat from Clerkenwell and Shoreditch County Court. The Court issued the claim on 2 April but only posted it to us yesterday, 11 April. It means we have until Monday to file our defence to be sure we will not be denied the opportunity to respond. Most outrageously, Belinda McKenzie, a human rights activist, has written off the first £1,000 we paid her in rent under Haringey Council's Housing Benefit scheme. If we didn't have the receipts for the first two months rent we paid her back in August/September 2009, we could well have been looking at prosecution by the Council.

There's a lot more besides. Most certainly, the Court will have our response on Monday. In the previous blog I list some of the causes Belinda is involved in. I look forward to publishing our response when Declan returns from the Court on Monday.

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

Our case against the Home Secretary for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

Our live-in landlady, human rights activist Belinda McKenzie, had Kidd Rapinet Solicitors serve us with a Section 21 Notice requiring possession of our flat by the 26th of last month despite that she does not have a valid signed Tenancy Agreement (archived here). According to legal websites, it can take between 8 weeks and 12 weeks, a few weeks longer if the property is in London, to get the court to issue a possession order. If there is a problem with documentation, it takes longer because the landlord cannot use the accelerated possession procedure. It remains to be seen how long it will take the court to move on us: in this email today, Declan spells out our case against the Home Secretary for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights:

Click to enlarge

Belinda is not your usual 60+ landlady. I cannot list all the causes she is involved in, there are so many (see blog of 14 January for a photograph of Belinda speaking against child abuse in Trafalgar Square last June). She is active in groups dealing with issues as far-ranging as abuse in the church and anti-war activism, and has been involved with the Iranian community for more than 20 years; she is even described as a "noted philanthropist". As Declan points out in the email above, MI5 whistleblower David Shayler lived for a couple of years in one of the rooms below us, until 2007. It is indeed unfortunate that Shayler then declared he was the Messiah and became a squatter. A New Statesman article dated 11 September 2006 featuring Belinda and Shayler talking about 9/11 gives no indication that he believed he was the Messiah at that time; whilst a Daily Mail interview with Shayler explicitly shows he believed himself to be Jesus by June 2007.

BBC PANORAMA: The David Shayler Affair (August 1998)

According to BBC Panorama, Shayler "caused the biggest crisis of official secrecy since the spy catcher affair". In 2002, he was jailed for seven weeks for breaking the Official Secrets Act.