Church and State blog: Our battle with the Mayor of London's St Mungo's service continues. In clear breach of the Human Rights Act, Declan is told he will accept a joint visit(s) from the charity whether or not he is comfortable with the arrangement (WITH UPDATE 24/7/2018)

Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Our battle with the Mayor of London's St Mungo's service continues. In clear breach of the Human Rights Act, Declan is told he will accept a joint visit(s) from the charity whether or not he is comfortable with the arrangement (WITH UPDATE 24/7/2018)

Your brilliant web site is a beacon for all seeking truthful insights to knotty problems with governance.
-Donald Collins, President of ISAF, an NGO dedicated to helping women

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan

Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms formulates what is the core of free speech. "Everyone has the right to freedom of expression." In an important interpretation of this article, the European Court of Human Rights in Handyside v. UK (1976) indicated that this "freedom of expression" should be construed as follows. It "is applicable not only to 'information' or 'ideas' that are favourably received, or regarded as inoffensive, or as a matter of indifference, but also to those that offend, shock or disturb the State or any sector of the population." Such are the demands of that pluralism, tolerance and broadmindedness without which there is no "democratic society" (see Cliteur, 2010).

Heavey v St Mungo's (2016)

St Mungo's Executive Director Dominic Williamson successfully had Declan's claim for £400 (in costs alone) dismissed by writing in a Witness Statement to the Central London County Court that St Mungo's were "keen to work with Mr Heavey to ensure that he remains securely housed and does not face homelessness again". (He also maintained and argued the point in two court hearings before two different District Court judges.) It took the scheduling of a preliminary hearing in October 2016 to have case notes from two meetings rectified by Williamson as Declan had requested all along; and that rectification only took place after a failed attempt by an international firm of solicitors, Osborne Clarke, to have Declan's claim struck out on the papers. The judge at the preliminary hearing dismissed St Mungo's application to strike out Declan's claim for compensation, and District Judge Avent's order dated 11 March 2017 does not state why he dismissed the claim.

20 February 2017: The Central London County Court: District Judge Avent dismisses Declan's claim against the Greater London Authority-commissioned St Mungo's that alleged the falsification and fabrication of data against us (WITH UPDATE 16/3/2017)

Declan and I are tenants of the Clearing House, which is run by St Mungo's on behalf of the Mayor of London; see my blog post of 14 July, DAY 59 living in limbo (threat to life): Declan has worked inaccurate personal data into his claim against the Greater London Authority-commissioned St Mungo's for filing in the Central London County Court (WITH UPDATE 24/7/2018). For over two months we have been battling St Mungo's to stabilise our tenancy. Yesterday Declan received a shocking email from St Mungo's Tenancy Sustainment Team (TST) Line Manager Ola Pedro. Basically Declan was told he will accept a joint visit(s) from St Mungo's TST whether or not he is comfortable with the arranangement. "I will be attending the [TST] meeting," Pedro forcibly wrote in an email he cc'd to St Mungo's Executive Director Dominic Williamson. Declan replied to Williamson in a manner that keeps his court action active, albeit in a different form. Williamson has been monitoring our attempts to stabilise our tenancy since he replied to Declan's pre-action letter on 8 June. Nonetheless, in the space of two months, we have gone from one problem with this charity to another. First it was problems with the renewal of our tenancy that took two months to resolve. For a month it has been problems with inaccurate personal data that have yet to be resolved. And now it is a forced joint visit(s) from the charity, and which, of course, could easily become by anyone in attendance and at any time. We await Williamson's reply for the court.

For the attention of Howard Sinclair, CEO, St Mungo's

Dominic Williamson
Executive Director
St Mungo’s

Address removed for email

23 July 2018

Dear Mr Williamson,

I refer to Ola Pedro's email below. Neither my wife nor I are comfortable with any more joint visits from the St Mungo's Tenancy Sustainment Team (TST). Please would you provide me with written assurance that such visits will not in fact be forced upon either of us.

The last joint meeting we had with a St Mungo's TST manager in attendance was on 16 May 2018. At that meeting my wife and I were assured that the next day we would be issued a like-for-like renewal of tenancy. This turned out not to be true and caused us great hardship and expense for two months.

Sofia Pires has already explained her role as a TST North Case Worker (abbreviated TST Worker). Sofia defined her role in less than ten seconds. On 25 June 2018, she told my wife right off the bat that her role is: 1) to find out what my wife's needs are, and 2) to support my wife as best she can.

On 16 May 2018, I was also assured that I would be provided with a like-for-like TST Worker, not a TST Worker that is "in essence" the same. So this too has tuned out not to be true.

I am hopeful that the written assurance herein sought from you will at least be sufficient to ensure that our tenancy is brought into line with Article 8 (protection of family life and home) and Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) of the Human Rights Act 1998. Alternatively, please would you provide me with my rights of appeal.

Until such time as Mark Farley's role is clearly defined, I cannot possibly agree to meet with him. I have absolutely no idea how specifically his role is defined because neither he nor Mr Pedro will define it for me.

Yours sincerely,

Declan Heavey
Managing Director
Network for Church Monitoring

Last May St Mungo's made the international press for all the wrong reasons. They are accused of helping to get rough sleepers arrested and deported. When the story came through my Russia Today (RT) news feed on 14 May, it left Declan gob smacked. He has already spoken with Diane Taylor, the journalist who is covering the story for the Guardian. This is her update article on the scandal:

EU freedom for rough sleepers infringed - shock horror. https://t.co/RuJKrSEiTm
— Andrew Martin (@devonprof) May 14, 2018

UPDATE 24/7/2018 (11.36am): Declan has just phoned St Mungo's to speak with Williamson, but was put through to his voice mail. Declan also tried his office number, but nobody is picking up there either. If we have to file a claim in the Central London County Court to stabilise our tenancy, we of course will. The signs remain ominous.

The Central London County Court is located in the Royal Courts of Justice.

***

We were evicted from our previous flat in 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 states in paragraph 8 of his recent updated complaint to the United Nations, 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. According to BBC Panorama, Shayler "caused the biggest crisis of official secrecy since the spy catcher affair"; he was jailed for seven weeks in 2002 for breaking the Official Secrets Act. It's unfortunate that Shayler declared himself the Messiah in 2007, became a squatter, and was subsequently ridiculed in the press for changing his name to Delores Kane. A New Statesman article published in 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 him the following year reveals he believed himself to be Jesus by June 2007. He has never regained his normal self.

"The MI5 Messiah: Why David Shayler believes he's the son of God" (15 August 2007) https://t.co/nTqlqxonnS
"Call me Delores, says MI5 whistleblower David Shayler" (16 July 2009) https://t.co/tu7yvdh2ko pic.twitter.com/Jl7HsIvUyu
— Church and State (@ChurchAndStateN) August 20, 2021

"Cross-dressing MI5 whistleblower David Shayler is evicted from farmhouse" (20 August 2009) https://t.co/HuegWpZrbB pic.twitter.com/FlAMSfVYBb
— Church and State (@ChurchAndStateN) August 20, 2021

The Esquire article below* is mentioned in a Guardian article dated 27 March 2012. It's 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 read here.

BBC PANORAMA: The David Shayler Affair (August 1998)

Former MI5 whistleblower David Shayler "caused the biggest crisis of official secrecy since the spy catcher affair", according to BBC Panorama. He was jailed for seven weeks in 2002 for breaking the Official Secrets Act.

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

Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Our battle with the Mayor of London's St Mungo's service continues. In clear breach of the Human Rights Act, Declan is told he will accept a joint visit(s) from the charity whether or not he is comfortable with the arrangement (WITH UPDATE 24/7/2018)

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