Church and State blog: Just to keep a roof over our heads: After two County Court actions, we are now looking at a third High Court action against the Mayor of London's Greater London Authority in two years

Friday, April 01, 2016

Just to keep a roof over our heads: After two County Court actions, we are now looking at a third High Court action against the Mayor of London's Greater London Authority in two years

Your efforts have been successful to date and Sally and I have no doubt some sensible higher authority will ultimately see the disgraceful treatment you have been accorded.
- Two friends in Washington DC

What will it take to get a draft version of the agreement for support we will be asked to sign this month before our supported housing tenancy is up for renewal next month? For two years we have been fighting the Greater London Authority (GLA) in the courts on the issue of coercive support that breaches the terms of our tenancy agreement. Following the jurisdictional hearing of Declan's latest County Court action against the GLA, it was finally agreed in writing last February that going forward our support would be voluntary; however, the Mayor of London's Clearing House service, operated for the Mayor by St Mungo's, informed us on 9 March that a meeting will take place in the next week or so to discuss an agreement for support - as if such a meeting had not already taken place and an agreement struck. We, therefore, may be left with no option but to challenge the GLA in the High Court for the third time in two years for the decision of GLA Clearing House to breach its February 2016 agreement with us. With this in mind last Friday Declan emailed his updated complaint to the United Nations under Article 19 (freedom of expression) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to no effect if the title of my blog post last night is anything to go by: "Our access to our Church and State website is blocked for the third time in three weeks, and the second time in two days".

Paragraph 39 of Declan's updated complaint to the United Nations re the suspected sabotage of our tenancy by the Mayor of London's Clearing House service, operated for the Mayor by St Mungo's

39. At the hearing on 3 February 2016, District Judge Silverman rebuked counsel acting for the GLA for saying that the Applicant had refused support, clarifying that there is a distinction to be made between refusing support and not accepting coercive support. He spoke in summation of the "home" the Applicant and his wife have made for themselves with their own money, how impressed he was with the Applicant's behaviour in court, and the commitment he received from the said counsel to arrange round table talks. The Applicant met with St Mungo's CEO Howard Sinclair on 25 February 2016, with the manager of the GLA Clearing House in attendance. It was agreed subsequently in writing that support would be voluntary (see annex 20 and 21, pp 60-65). However, by email of 9 March 2016 the manager of GLA Clearing House informed the Applicant that a further meeting would be arranged in April 2016 to discuss an agreement for support. The Applicant and his wife suspect that this is a manoeuvre to sabotage the renewal of their 2-year supported housing tenancy in May 2016, the week after Family Mosaic had emailed the Applicant a draft version of their renewed tenancy agreement for signing. In addition, St Mungo's has ignored a request from the Applicant for a draft version of the agreement for support that he and his wife will be asked to sign the month before their tenancy is up for renewal.

HEAVEY v. THE UNITED KINGDOM

COMMUNICATION SUBMITTED FOR CONSIDERATION UNDER
THE FIRST OPTIONAL PROTOCOL TO THE
INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS

Court action 1: High Court v Greater London Authority (1 September 2014), para 37(iii), p 13.

Court action 2: County Court v Single Homeless Project (12 September 2014), para 37(iii), p 13.

Court action 3: High Court v Greater London Authority (18 June 2015), para 36, p 12.

Court action 4: County Court v Greater London Authority (10 September 2015), para 36, p 12.

Related blog post 1 (25 March 2016): "Threat to life: Updated complaint to the United Nations"

It's not like we do not have a long history when it comes to St Mungo's. They left us living on the streets for over a year despite the fact that we could pay a deposit on a flat and one month's rent up front (UN complaint, para 28, p 9). On 29 August 2013, Declan filed a claim in the High Court for judicial review against Commissioner of Police for the City of London Adrian Leppard and Home Secretary Theresa May following the decision of the former not to ask the charity (then called Broadway) to engage with us in relation to our welfare and access to its service for supporting clients to find accommodation in the private rented sector. Declan argued in his claim form that it was unreasonable for the City of London Police to refuse to ask the charity to help us find accommodation whilst at the same time threatening us with hosings by street cleaners (UN complaint, para 29, p 10).

Deputy High Court Judge Bidder ruled: "The refusal of the First Defendant to ask the charity 'Broadway' to engage or help the Claimant and his wife with their welfare or accommodation is not arguably unreasonable. It is not its job to intervene in any disagreement between a charity and those seeking that charity's help."

More recent history with St Mungo's (11 February 2016): "Complaint to the Mayor of London: Declan is engaged in a battle royal with the Mayor's Clearing House service (run by St Mungo's) over data held against us in defiance of a court order issued last May" (UN complaint, para 37(v), p 13).

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.

Church and State blog

Friday, April 01, 2016

Just to keep a roof over our heads: After two County Court actions, we are now looking at a third High Court action against the Mayor of London's Greater London Authority in two years

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