Church and State blog: Independent Police Complaints Commission: My Complaint about serious misconduct by HM Revenue and Customs staff involving criminal or near criminal behaviour (WITH UPDATE 12/8/2017)

Saturday, August 12, 2017

Independent Police Complaints Commission: My Complaint about serious misconduct by HM Revenue and Customs staff involving criminal or near criminal behaviour (WITH UPDATE 12/8/2017)

Re: Blocks on public access to our Church and State website since 26 July 2016

From my earlier blog post's Update 10 August (6.50pm):

"And it's not just Facebook blocks, blocks on public access to our Church and State website and the daily targeting to fluctuating degrees of category pages throughout the site that Declan and I are dealing with these days. We have also been dealing with Internet cuts since 26 May. See my blog post of 21 June, Internet cuts: We pay £65 per month for BT Infinity but feel we are in a race against time to stay online (WITH UPDATE 10/8/2017 RE: 125th Internet cut since 26 May 2017)."

12 August (10.16am): 634 blocks on public access to our Church and State website since 26 July 2016 (111 blocks last year). An unprecedented escalation of 52 blocks in one week at the end of April that kicked off with our focus on Denmark's cartoon crisis. 7 blocks on 10 August; 4 blocks yesterday; 3 blocks since midnight today.

621st 10 August 2017, 7.19am
622nd 10 August 2017, 10.01am
623rd 10 August 2017, 1.26pm
624th 10 August 2017, 3.45pm
625th 10 August 2017, 5.32pm
626th 10 August 2017, 8.40pm
627th 10 August 2017, 9.32pm
628th 11 August 2017, 4.00am
629th 11 August 2017, 6.35am
630th 11 August 2017, 8.00am
631st 11 August 2017, 11.25pm
632nd 12 August 2017, 12.38am
633rd 12 August 2017, 2.22am
634th 12 August 2017, 8.17am

The War on Free Expression

HMRC Customer Service Manager for PAYE and Self Assessment: "We previously asked you to complete Self Assessment tax returns because you told us that you would receive self-employed income. However, your 2015-16 return only included income of £2,967 from Network for Church Monitoring and as you had told us that this was PAYE income, we have closed your Self Assessment record" [emphasis added].

I am using the Independent Police Complaints Commission's complaints system to complain about Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC). My completed form goes direct to the Professional Standards Department of HMRC to be dealt with.

Re: Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs

Complaint about serious staff misconduct involving criminal or near criminal behaviour overseen by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

12 August 2017

This morning I received the attached letter dated 4 August 2017 from HMRC PAYE & Self Assessment. Please treat this complaint as a complaint about serious misconduct by HMRC staff involving criminal or near criminal behaviour.

I wish to complain about the updating of my address by HMRC PAYE & SA on 11 July 2017, which was done without my authority. By email dated 9 July 2017, I specifically informed HMRC PAYE & SA that my address had not changed and that such an update may result in the suspension of my husband's Housing Benefit. Nonetheless, HMRC PAYE & SA updated my address against my expressed wishes and with no regard for the detrimental effect this may have on myself and my husband.

I also wish to complain about the then subsequent closure of my Self Assessment account by HMRC PAYE & SA on the grounds that I told them I was self-employed. I have never told HMRC that I am self-employed. The closure of my SA account could only, therefore, have been based on fabricated hearsay evidence which no independent judiciary would accept. HMRC PAYE & SA have reopened my SA account and updated their records to show that I am not self-employed, but they have not provided any evidence to support the closure of my SA account in the first instance.

I am looking for HMRC Professional Standards to uphold this complaint about serious misconduct by HMRC staff involving criminal or near criminal behaviour.

8 August: HM Revenue and Customs: It is our single indisputable narrative going forward that we are being harassed even by HMRC (WITH UPDATE 11/8/2017)

We are well familiar with the IPCC; for example, in 2012, Declan complained to the IPCC about the police investigation into the removal of our flat door.

Re: Removal of our flat door

Paragraph 23(ii) of Declan's updated complaint to the United Nations under Article 19 (freedom of expression) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

On 21 August 2012, Ms McKenzie signed an undertaking to the County Court promising not to harass the Applicant and his wife following her builder's removal of the door to their flat (see Annex 9, p. 31). The Independent Police Complaints Commission later upheld the Applicant's appeal against the police investigation of the incident "on information only", stating that "no further action is required by the force in this instance".

UPDATE 12 August (5.11pm): As soon as I can, I will publish the letter dated 4 August 2017 that I received from HMRC this morning. One of their Customer Service Advisers writes: "[W]e have reopened your SA account and updated our records to show that you are not Self Employed." Surely this letter is not so outrageous that I can no longer upload images or videos to TinyPic? This is my report to TinyPic this morning:

12 August 2017

Dear TinyPic,

I cannot upload any images to the TinyPic website on any of four laptops. I run Windows 7 and 10.

When I try to upload an image all I get is "This image or video has been moved or deleted". Please see the attached screenshot.

Thank you in advance for your assistance in this matter.

Regards,
Lola Heavey

From My Picks:

9 June: Ministry of Justice: Complaint to the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice against the County Court at Central London, Royal Courts of Justice (WITH UPDATE - Day 13 21/6/2017)

'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

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

Saturday, August 12, 2017

Independent Police Complaints Commission: My Complaint about serious misconduct by HM Revenue and Customs staff involving criminal or near criminal behaviour (WITH UPDATE 12/8/2017)

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