Church and State blog: Threat to life: Declan's breach of duty claim against the Mayor of London-commissioned St Mungo's remains active. Now unreliable support has effectively been deemed satisfactory in both our cases

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Threat to life: Declan's breach of duty claim against the Mayor of London-commissioned St Mungo's remains active. Now unreliable support has effectively been deemed satisfactory in both our cases

9/17/19

Such incredible chicanery!

Donald A. Collins
Founder, International Services Assistance Fund

chicanery
/ʃɪˈkeɪnəri/

noun
the use of deception or subterfuge to achieve one's purpose.
synonyms: trickery, deception, deceit, deceitfulness, duplicity, dishonesty, unscrupulousness, underhandedness, subterfuge, fraud, fraudulence, sharp practice, skulduggery, swindling, cheating, duping, hoodwinking, deviousness, slyness
"political chicanery of all sorts goes on behind closed doors"

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).

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 we can live independently – we do not have addictions or mental illness or behavioural issues. Our needs are solely related to the harassment, discrimination, intimidation and victimisation we routinely face. For well over a year, we have been battling St Mungo's to stabilise our tenancy; see my post of 21 August: St Mungo's: Pleadings for filing with the Central London County Court. No response from this Mayor of London-commissioned charity's Chief Executive to Declan's letter before action on Monday of last week (WITH UPDATE 17/9/2019). We do not believe that we received a fair response from St Mungo's earlier today, in that unreliable support has now effectively been deemed satisfactory in both our cases, thereby placing our supported tenancy at risk (a threat to life). Declan's subsequent email to St Mungo's CEO Howard Sinclair makes clear that his breach of duty claim remains active. This is that email:

Howard Sinclair
CEO
St Mungo's

Address removed for email

17 September 2019

Dear Mr Sinclair,

Please find attached to this email the outcome of the investigation by your Tenancy Sustainment Team in north London (TST North).

As I understand it, TST North has responded inter alia to my claim letter of 12 August 2019 and as such the response constitutes a failure to provide me with satisfactory support. Although my wife is not specifically named, I think it is reasonable to suppose that the same unfair treatment applies to her.

For the entire week commencing 8 July 2019, my TST caseworker failed to uphold his end of our agreement for support (the "original complaint"). It is the seemingly intractable position of TST North that I will not be provided with a reference for learning disability volunteering, and that I believe should be issued to put things right. The explanation for this reads: "This is not something that St Mungo's would usually provide to any client. You are not treated differently or unfairly in this respect. TST North will not be providing this to you."

On 16 July 2019, TST North wrote to my wife: "Caseworkers are able to provide supporting letter or references for clients to support them into employment or training when requested, however case workers are not under any obligation to complete one." Most certainly I believe that I have been treated unfairly in this respect, and in a way that could have serious ramifications for me.

I have repeatedly stated that I found your Quality team's handling of my original complaint to be ineffective, unfair and biased. That complaint was not only not upheld by them, but it was superseded during the complaints process by the subject of my claim letter, which was my complaint against TST North for creating an immediate threat to our tenancy. It should go without saying that I am not willing to go through that experience again.

I therefore reserve the right to file a breach of duty claim, if this matter cannot be satisfactorily resolved.

Yours sincerely,

Declan Heavey
Managing Director
Network for Church Monitoring

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.

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

From My Picks

24 September: DACS's attempt last week to retrieve a fee from us for copyright infringement reminds us of the last time Declan took the Mayor of London-commissioned St Mungo's to court

The Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS) is the UK's premier rights management organisation for visual artists.

'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

http://churchandstate.org.uk/about/

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, September 17, 2019

Threat to life: Declan's breach of duty claim against the Mayor of London-commissioned St Mungo's remains active. Now unreliable support has effectively been deemed satisfactory in both our cases

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