Wednesday, June 05, 2019

St Mungo's: Declan's email to CEO Howard Sinclair of this Mayor of London-commissioned charity further to pre-action letter dated 26 April 2019 (WITH UPDATE 19/6/2019)

From the update below:

"This obscene disregard for your rights seems to continue unresolved!"
-Don Collins, President of ISAF, an NGO dedicated to helping women

Our Church and State website has no less than 57 Nobel Laureates on it; for details, see this blog's sidebar under "Church and State" (updated today).
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).

County Court at Central London, Royal Courts of Justice

Heavey v St Mungo's (2016)

Trial held in the Central London County Court, Royal Courts of Justice on 20 February 2017.

On 23 August 2018, Declan complained to the Information Commissioner's Office about case notes St Mungo's Executive Director Dominic Williamson assured the Court at trial in February 2017 had been rectified by him but were in fact being held under my name. It took the scheduling of a preliminary hearing in October 2016 to have case notes from two meetings so-called 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. DJ Avent's order dated 11 March 2017 does not state why he dismissed the claim at trial. Williamson: "The court case concerned your complaint about the notes on your record. My understanding is that following the court case it became apparent that the note in contention was mirrored on your wife's record - which I don't recall being aware of at the time - and this was subsequently amended to reflect the change we had made to yours. The court was therefore not misled." We do not accept that the court was not misled (see paragraph 4 of new Particulars of Claim here).

4 January: Information Commissioner: Declan battles the Commissioner's Lead Case Officer over the nature of his data complaint against the Mayor of London-commissioned St Mungo's (WITH UPDATE 31/1/2019) What an experience!

We are not being discriminated against? Declan and I are housed in a flat that is part of the Mayor of London's Rough Sleepers Initiative. Alongside our tenancy is access to the Mayor's Tenancy Sustainment Team (TST) at St Mungo's. It has been acknowledged by the Greater London Authority in court papers that both Declan and I can live independently – we do not have addictions or mental illness or behavioural issues. Our needs are solely related to the harassment, discrimination and intimidation we routinely face. I have updated my post of 21 May, St Mungo's: Will every member of the Board of Trustees of this Mayor of London-commissioned charity ignore Declan's pleadings for the Central London County Court? His case to be filed in the Court without further notice (WITH UPDATE 5/6/2019). The post reveals Declan's email to all 11 members of the Board of Trustees of St Mungo's over two weeks ago. Nonetheless, St Mungo's CEO Howard Sinclair continues to breach protocol by neither resolving nor replying to Declan's pre-action letter dated 26 April 2016; and now also his pleadings for the Court. Declan concludes this morning's summary email to Sinclair by saying: "It is morally reprehensible and completely unacceptable that I should again be forced to file pleadings in court against St Mungo's in an effort to receive fair treatment and put a stop to the above systematic violations of my rights." This is that email for Declan's court bundle:

For the attention of Dominic Williamson, Executive Director of Strategy and Policy, St Mungo's

Howard Sinclair
CEO
St Mungo's

Address removed for email


5 June 2019

Dear Mr Sinclair,

I am writing further to my pre-action letter dated 26 April 2019, to which I have not received a reply. Please find attached the agreed-upon notes herein referred to.

I have been fighting for over three months for notes from the first of two unrecorded meetings, held on 18 February 2019, to be inputted into your Opal system as agreed with St Mungo's Tenancy Sustainment Team (TST) during the second unrecorded meeting over two months ago. In total there are five short notes that were agreed upon between me and TST Caseworker Marc Appleton. Nonetheless, St Mungo's is refusing without explanation to input these notes into Opal as agreed. There should be no reason why these five short agreed-upon notes cannot be inputted into Opal in the same manner as those notes already in the system.

On 1 May 2019, Mr Appleton sent me a barely legible image attachment of notes. I had to use a screenshot programme to crop the text and then blow up various parts of the image to make out the content of these notes. They contain inaccurate and misleading information and reveal, inter alia, prejudicially selected and edited email correspondence in direct contravention of my expressed wishes relating to emails and/or their attachments being used as notes. These notes contain so many problems that I am not attempting to deal with them all here. One of the notes states that I want "to explore training and potentials for LD volunteering". This note is not just vague but untrue. Since the beginning of February 2019, I have not wanted to explore training whilst looking for meaningful long-term voluntary work based on the training I have already done, most recently within the last year.

Another note states: "[F]orwarded email to Sense re; volunteering opportunities - particularly in E13/east London vicinity." This note not subtly implies that I was overly restrictive in my dealings with Sense. This could not be further from the truth. Mr Appleton's supporting email to Sense actually stated that I was prepared to travel to another borough for this sort of voluntary work. Mr Appleton also sent a supporting email to KEEN London on 15 March and made two follow-up phone calls. On 2 April 2019 he wrote: "I spoke with volunteer coordinator at Keen this morning and am waiting for promised e mail application to be forwarded." This information and the two phone calls made by Mr Appleton are nowhere mentioned in the notes he sent me over a month ago.

I have repeatedly requested that those notes be deleted, to seemingly no avail. If they have already been inputted into Opal, my Support Agreement has clearly been breached. This Agreement not only establishes that my support is voluntary, but specifies that "any notes recorded from our meetings will be action notes, these will be brief notes recording any actions agreed by all parties in the meeting". It further states: "The main purpose of the action notes is to record outstanding actions agreed by both parties and then to record if these have been completed or not." On 24 January 2019, TST Service Manager Robert Buck wrote: "Moving forward all and any notes will be agreed upon by you and TST before inputting into our Opal system." It is therefore the case that not only would my Agreement have been breached, but this assurance would be rendered worthless if those notes have been inputted into Opal without my consent. St Mungo's TST will neither confirm nor deny the current status of them.

I received an email on 25 April 2019 from Mr Appleton stating that his Team Leader wanted "to arrange a meeting and ways forward". Please note that neither myself nor my wife is willing to vary, change or alter any of the terms of our support under our tenancy agreement. In fact, this is not the first time that St Mungo's has attempted to meet me rather than delete notes. On 10 January 2019, I responded to St Mungo's Executive Director Dominic Williamson, saying in part: "It is both unfair and unreasonable for you to expect me to meet with you when you will not explain what is preventing you from deleting notes that are held in clear violation of my rights." Those notes were eventually deleted without a meeting having taken place.

In a Witness Statement dated 14 December 2016, Mr Williamson wrote: "St Mungo's has an effective complaints procedure, which our clients can use to address problems they are having. Mr Heavey has bypassed this process and instigated litigation". There are substantial grounds for believing that there would be a real risk of ill-treatment for me by pursuing your complaints procedure. For over a year I have been battling St Mungo's from pillar to post to stabilise my and my wife's tenancy. First it was problems with the renewal of our tenancy agreement, which took over two months and the threat of court action to resolve. For over two months it was problems with inaccurate case notes, which got even more serious when I discovered that notes Mr Williamson assured the court had been rectified by him were in fact being held under my wife's name. For almost three months I battled St Mungo's for a TST caseworker such as my wife would eventually be assigned, during which time I also had to stave off enforced joint visits. In January of this year it was outrageous communication notes that were being held without my knowledge or consent since before our tenancy review in May 2018. Currently St Mungo's is refusing without explanation to input into your Opal system agreed-upon notes dating back to February 2019. And you have personally breached pre-action protocol by not replying to my letter before claim.

It is morally reprehensible and completely unacceptable that I should again be forced to file pleadings in court against St Mungo's in an effort to receive fair treatment and put a stop to the above systematic violations of my rights. It is indisputable that these violations have been regular and thoroughgoing, thereby qualifying as systematic. My ongoing battle against St Mungo's to stabilise my and my wife's tenancy can result in our eviction from our home. I cannot be expected to accept the continuance of such uncertainty since at the very least it impedes both my and my wife's freedom of action.

Yours sincerely,

Declan Heavey
Managing Director
Network for Church Monitoring


Declan taught PE in Glenstal Abbey, one of Ireland's top schools.

Declan has been fighting for over three months over case notes. Among a whole host of other problems, the last two action notes relating to learning disability volunteering were missing from a barely legible image attachment of notes that Declan received on 1 May (see para. 9 of Particulars of Claim here).

18 February 2019[1]
Met with Declan at his home today at 3pm on 18 February. On 1 February Declan and TST North came to an agreement regarding support going forward. Marc: Send supporting email to Sense.

6 March 2019[2]
Marc: Supporting email sent to Sense.

15 March 2019[3]
Met with Declan at his home today at 3.30pm on 15 March. Meeting following Declan's interview with Sense on 7 March. Marc: Enhanced supporting email sent to KEEN London containing up-front reference to Declan's former homelessness.

22 March 2019[4]
Marc: Contacted KEEN London. Volunteer coordinator is due to return next week and shall contact regarding supporting email.

2 April 2019[5]
Marc: Contacted KEEN London. Spoke with volunteer coordinator and waiting for application to be forwarded.

____________________________
1-3 These three notes were agreed upon during said meeting of 15 March 2019.
4-5 The wording of these latter two action notes was agreed upon by email on 17 April 2019.

Last year 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, it left Declan gob smacked. He subsequently spoke with Diane Taylor, the journalist covering the story for the Guardian.

UPDATE 19 June (10.15am): You couldn't make it up! St Mungo's CEO Howard Sinclair breached protocol by simply not replying to Declan's pre-action letter of 26 April. Early last week Declan was shocked to learn that five days after his letter, on 1 May, this Mayor of London-commissioned charity once again inputted outrageous notes into their opal system without his knowledge or consent. Within hours of that discovery, he was assured that the next day all those notes would be taken down and the above agreed upon notes recorded verbatim. Only last Friday did this finally happen. Last January St Mungo's TST Service Manager Robert Buck wrote: "Moving forward all and any notes will be agreed upon by you and TST before inputting into our Opal system." This assurance regarding transparency and trust had already once been rendered entirely worthless. For it to have been rendered worthless twice in as many months would have beggared belief. Last Thursday Declan once again asked St Mungo's to explain why notes that stood in multiple breach of data protection law could not be removed from their system and those notes agreed between him and TST updated on the system. As Don Collins, President of the Washington DC-based International Services Assistance Fund, then observed: "This obscene disregard for your rights seems to continue unresolved!" The assault on our email of course continues with vengeance, according to Mailtrack. As mentioned in my previous post, 117 of our emails this month have not been read (seven from the day before yesterday), including three of Declan's reply emails to those who have agreed to be listed as Honorary Associates. One of these reply emails was to a winner of the Turing Prize, which is the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in technology. We now have among our 233 Honorary Associates 15 Nobel laureates, two Turing laureates and eight knighted professors.



From My Picks

12 July: Threat to life: Updated complaint to the United Nations under Article 19 (freedom of expression) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Mayor of London-commissioned St Mungo's highlighted

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan


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at 4:05 pm