Check out our news website Church and State to find out about our writers and read some amazing stories: http://churchandstate.org.uk. There are no less than 63 Nobel Prize laureates on the site; for details, see this blog's sidebar under "Church and State".
This morning we woke up to an email in Declan's inbox without its attachments. Even with a company representative on hold over the telephone, who assured us that she had sent the email a second time at 8.43am, we couldn't receive the email with or without its attachments. This is something Declan was well used to when he used to look for Honorary Associates and signatories for our online petition (now signed by 29 Nobel Laureates), but in this instance the ramifications are seismic if he cannot sign these attachments in so far as he could be prosecuted or Network for Church Monitoring (N4CM) removed from the UK's Companies House register of companies.
Interception and manipulation of electronic communications are just two of several issues Declan deals with in his complaint to the United Nations that he is currently updating. Earlier this month he filed a case against the Mayor of London's Greater London Authority (GLA) at the Central London County Court. In my next blog post I will publish an extract from the updated complaint to the UN dealing with the GLA's termination of our eligibility for our flat without the right of review or appeal.
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Citizenfour Official Trailer 1 (2014) - Edward Snowden Documentary HD
'Let me recommend an important web site churchandstate.org.uk. Operating out of London this well-designed and exciting web site covers church-state, population, climate change and other issues. Check it out.' Edd Doerr, President, Americans for Religious Liberty
If you would like to help us personally, please feel free to pick up one of our books (shameless plug, I know, but every sale helps us to work our way out of our precarious situation). There is currently five books available in Church and State Press here, and all proceeds from the first four of these books go to us with the authors' permission. Thank you all for all the support you have given us, and I hope we can keep our Church and State website going despite the constant threats.
In the matter of a claim for damages against the Greater London Authority for depriving the Claimant of his right of review, in respect of its decision to terminate his and his wife's eligibility for their flat, and opportunity to appeal the outcome of the review to an independent tribunal if he was not satisfied.
Extract re GLA Clearing House operated for the Mayor of London by St Mungo's Broadway
14(ii) On 26 August 2015 the Claimant discovered that the information that came back from GLA Clearing House following his Subject Access Request failed to comply with a County Court order dated 8 May 2015 requesting that it removes from its website unlawfully held information about the Claimant and his wife relating to their debts, their employment status and their alleged mental health condition. At a hearing on 8 May 2015, the Court found sufficient evidence that SHP had acted unlawfully in holding or uploading information about the Claimant relating to his debts, his employment status and an alleged mental health condition and ordered it to pay damages to him for distress of £750.
'Let me recommend an important web site churchandstate.org.uk. Operating out of London this well-designed and exciting web site covers church-state, population, climate change and other issues. Check it out.' Edd Doerr, President, Americans for Religious Liberty
If you would like to help us personally, please feel free to pick up one of our books (shameless plug, I know, but every sale helps us to work our way out of our precarious situation). There is currently five books available in Church and State Press here, and all proceeds from the first four of these books go to us with the authors' permission. Thank you all for all the support you have given us, and I hope we can keep our Church and State website going despite the constant threats.
The Claimant challenges the Defendant for depriving him of his right of review in respect of its decision to refer him and his wife from the Mayor of London’s Housing First programme to the Mayor’s Clearing House programme (the “referral decision”), thereby terminating their eligibility for their flat because they are able to live independently. On 12 August 2015 the High Court refused the Claimant permission to apply for Judicial Review, principally because his Claim Form was not filed within 3 months after the grounds to make the claim arose on 4 September 2014. It is evident from the email the Claimant received on 4 September 2014, judicial review pre-action correspondence and the Defendant’s Grounds of Defence (in particular paragraph 13) that the Claimant has been repeatedly deprived of his right of review, and that the Defendant has not properly considered the impact of the referral decision on his family life. It has not taken into account the Claimant and his wife’s needs and vulnerable position as rough sleepers for almost 4 years in total. The Claimant is therefore making an application to the Court for a declaration that the Defendant has acted unlawfully and an order that it reviews the referral decision and provides the Claimant with the opportunity to appeal to an independent tribunal if he is not satisfied with the outcome.
Value
The Claimant expects to recover damages for distress of not more than £1,000.
Threat to life and wellbeing (paragraphs 16 and 17):
Extract re GLA Clearing House operated for the Mayor of London by St Mungo's Broadway
14(ii) On 26 August 2015 the Claimant discovered that the information that came back from GLA Clearing House following his Subject Access Request failed to comply with a County Court order dated 8 May 2015 requesting that it removes from its website unlawfully held information about the Claimant and his wife relating to their debts, their employment status and their alleged mental health condition. At a hearing on 8 May 2015, the Court found sufficient evidence that SHP had acted unlawfully in holding or uploading information about the Claimant relating to his debts, his employment status and an alleged mental health condition and ordered it to pay damages to him for distress of £750.
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As Declan states in paragraph 15 of his particulars of claim, before he issued court proceedings against the Single Homeless Project (SHP) for unlawfully holding or uploading information about him relating to his debts, his employment status and alleged grandiosity, the Chairman of Network for Church Monitoring, Dr. Stephen D. Mumford, founder and President of the North Carolina-based Center for Research on Population and Security, provided the homeless charity with this strong rebuttal of their now fully discredited claim that both he and I are mentally ill:
'Let me recommend an important web site churchandstate.org.uk. Operating out of London this well-designed and exciting web site covers church-state, population, climate change and other issues. Check it out.' Edd Doerr, President, Americans for Religious Liberty
***
We were evicted from our previous flat on 14 March 2013 because according to our then live-in landlady's ex-husband, Dr Nigel McKenzie, a consultant psychiatrist in Highgate Mental Health Centre, our flat was needed for somebody with a mental illness. As Declan mentions in paragraph 16(ii) of his particulars of claim above, former MI5 whistleblower David Shayler also lived with human rights activist Belinda McKenzie in the same political 'safe house' for a couple of years until 2007. It is unfortunate 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. A New Statesman article dated 11 September 2006 featuring Shayler and Belinda gives no indication that Shayler 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. He has never regained his normal self.
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, is a lecturer in journalism at Strathclyde University.
*On 2 May 2013, Issuu removed this pdf from my Issuu account following a copyright complaint by Hearst Communications. I had uploaded the article to my Issuu account in December 2012. In March 2013, when last I checked, the article had been viewed more than 15,000 times. It can be viewed here.
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.
In the matter of a claim for damages against the Greater London Authority for depriving the Claimant of his right of review, in respect of its decision to terminate his and his wife's eligibility for their flat, and opportunity to appeal the outcome of the review to an independent tribunal if he was not satisfied.
From Particulars of Claim
17. The Claimant contends that the Defendant’s decision to refer him and his wife to GLA Clearing House gives rise to a breach of their rights under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act 1998 which provides that authorities must have respect for private and family life. In Connors v United Kingdom (2004), the European Court of Human Rights held that the eviction of a licensee and his family from the local authority gypsy caravan site was contrary to Article 8. The Court found that the legal framework applying to the occupation of pitches on local authority gypsy sites did not provide the family with sufficient procedural protection of their rights. Similarly, the legal framework applying to the referral of the Claimant and his wife to GLA Clearing House that has deprived the Claimant of a review of the decision has not provided them with sufficient procedural protection of their rights. Special consideration should be given to the Claimant and his wife’s needs and the opposition they encounter because of their vulnerable position as rough sleepers for almost 4 years in total.
18. The Claimant is therefore making an application to the Court for a declaration that the Defendant has acted unlawfully and an order that it reviews its referral decision and provides the Claimant with the opportunity to appeal the outcome of the review to an independent tribunal if he is not satisfied. Alternatively, the Claimant seeks leave to appeal under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act.
'Let me recommend an important web site churchandstate.org.uk. Operating out of London this well-designed and exciting web site covers church-state, population, climate change and other issues. Check it out.' Edd Doerr, President, Americans for Religious Liberty
If you would like to help us personally, please feel free to pick up one of our books (shameless plug, I know, but every sale helps us to work our way out of our precarious situation). There is currently five books available in Church and State Press here, and all proceeds from the first four of these books go to us with the authors' permission. Thank you all for all the support you have given us, and I hope we can keep our Church and State website going despite the constant threats.
I am a former social psychologist from Madrid. My husband Declan, a former physical education teacher, is from Dublin. We came to England in 2003 from Ireland with the then-aim of forming a network organisation for those abused by church. We were twice forced, through no fault of our own, to live rough on the streets of London for almost 4 years in total, from November 2006 to July 2009 and from April 2013 to May 2014. Declan established Network for Church Monitoring as a nonprofit company limited by guarantee in 2011. We are currently living under the threat to life of a 'no fault' Section 21 eviction notice from our landlord, Peabody Trust housing association. This notwithstanding that our tenancy is a flat that falls under the Mayor of London's Rough Sleepers Initiative (see paragraph 3 under "Church and State" below). We have no children.
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).
[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.