Church and State blog: St Mungo's: Malicious intent and reckless disregard for the truth? Still nothing from the Executive Director of this Mayor of London-commissioned charity who asked Declan to hold off on legal action three weeks ago to the day (Updated 31/10/2019)

Friday, October 25, 2019

St Mungo's: Malicious intent and reckless disregard for the truth? Still nothing from the Executive Director of this Mayor of London-commissioned charity who asked Declan to hold off on legal action three weeks ago to the day (Updated 31/10/2019)

8/14/19

I have looked at the long correspondence regarding your tenancy and clearly you have made a powerful case for the unconscionable behavior of the agency in control of your tenancy.

Donald A. Collins
Founder, International Services Assistance Fund

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 strongly disagree that the court was not misled.

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

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. A thread containing this email has been readied as a court document to be filed with other papers in the Central London County Court without further notice:

For the attention of Dominic Williamson

5 October 2019

Dear Sofia,

I refer to your email below regarding my amends.

During our last meeting, I specifically described as "illogical" being provided with clarification about support that TST can provide as a service when I cannot get the basic support I need from TST North to obtain a position in end-of-life care as a volunteer. In hindsight, I should have used the words 'irrelevant' and 'nonsensical' in the context of a seemingly total failure by TST North to provide me with satisfactory support.

What I said cannot be logically or legally equated with my views of the support TST provides me. It is obvious that I never expressed such views, given that I described as "illogical" being provided with clarification about support that TST can provide as a service when I cannot get the basic support I need. And what I said is already clearly my response to your suggestion of having further clarification about the support TST can provide as a service.

I am satisfied that my amends are concise, transparent, intelligible, and use clear and plain language; easily accessible is not a use of language criterion. The revision you have requested, on the other hand, is clearly illogical, nonsensical and unfair. You say you can agree with my amends. However, if you would still like this revision, can you please provide me with something that is truthful and that I can agree upon? Alternatively, if indeed you can agree with my amends, why not just do so and save us both the bother?

Best regards,

Maria Heavey

St Mungo's is funded by Mayor of London Sadiq Khan to run a number of his rough sleepers initiatives.

Claimant: Declan Heavey
Defendant: St Mungo's

From Particulars of Claim

It is clear from these paragraphs 8 and 9 that there is serious intent behind the ongoing threat to the roof over our heads posed by this taxpayer-funded charity.

8. In an email dated 4 October 2019, the Defendant's Executive Director Dominic Williamson wrote: "I continue to assure you that any issues that you have in relation to working with St Mungo's can be addressed through dialogue with the TST team, and does not need the continual threat of legal action" (SD, p. 12). This statement is both disingenuous and misleading. The Claimant's almost four months of dialogue with the Defendant on the issue of its failure to provide satisfactory support commenced immediately following the most recent rectification of his case notes on 14 June 2019, and culminated in lengthy telephone conversations with the Defendant's TST North Service Manager Ilyas Hussein and Mr. Williamson on 3 and 4 October 2019, respectively. In both of these conversations, the Claimant made clear that by way of resolution both he and his wife would accept as personal referees TST caseworkers who would be willing to do no more than vouch over the phone that they are clients of TST North. Mr. Williamson could not provide the Claimant with an explanation for why this was not possible and subsequently left a phone message assuring the Claimant that he would talk with his TST team for resolution. The Claimant has heard nothing further from the Defendant on this or any other issue. Mr. Williamson is also currently ignoring the Claimant's wife in regard to her case notes. On 3 October 2019, speaking in reference to these notes, Mr. Hussein told the Claimant: "That's Dom's decision to make, it's not my decision to make. It wouldn't be my decision, to be honest." The decision now to make is whether or not to ratify the amends the Claimant's wife made before her TST caseworker's alleged departure from TST North on 4 October 2019.

9. Mr. Williamson's indecision over the Claimant's wife's case notes precludes the Claimant from even meeting with his TST caseworker. It has become apparent from his indecision over the Claimant's wife's amends that Mr. Williamson is not playing with a straight hand and wants only to accuse her and/or the Claimant of not wanting the support that TST can provide as a service, which would provide Peabody with grounds for the termination of tenancy (SD, pp. 1-6). Since 4 October 2019, the Claimant has also effectively been prevented from contacting TST North by phone. Mr. Hussein has not responded to an email the Claimant sent to him that day. It reads: "Further to our emails and telephone conversation yesterday, please can you confirm that no notes have been added on Opal this past week under my name without my authorisation and consent" (SD, p. 8). Following the removal in January 2019 of outrageous communication notes that were being held against the Claimant since May 2018, TST North 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." Subsequent to and despite this assurance, the Claimant's TST caseworker inputted notes on the system without the Claimant's knowledge or consent, including, inter alia, a false and misleading note that the Claimant wanted to explore 'training' as well as LD volunteering. (The Claimant has repeatedly explained that TST North's Employment, Training and Education service is irrelevant, illogical and inappropriate in his circumstances.) The Claimant does not wish to trigger another protracted battle over phone communication in the absence of an up-to-date assurance from the Defendant that there have been no more notes added on Opal other than those previously shown to him; that is, if Mr. Hussein has not already created such a battle for him.

31 October: St Mungo's: Declan files his pleadings today. He is forced to take action against this Mayor of London-commissioned charity to even get our caseworkers to vouch over the phone that we are clients of theirs

See paragraph 6(c) regarding NHS England.

What's so special about the last paragraph?

These are my amends of meeting on 2 October with my TST caseworker that Williamson seems to have a problem with. The bold print in the last paragraph only remains to be ratified by him.

Maria and I met at her home today at 10.55am.

- Sofia has informed Maria that she's leaving TST North service and her last day is this Friday, 4th October 2019.

- Maria has asked to be allocated a TST Caseworker just like Sofia.

- Maria described the Employment, Training and Education (ETE) service as "irrelevant, illogical and inappropriate" in her circumstances. She does not want to be allocated a TST manager or an ETE worker by Anifat (team leader). She wants me to include here that she also does not want to have to battle an enforced joint visit during this period of reallocation (this was not brought up in the meeting).

- Maria needs a TST caseworker as her personal referee when she applies for volunteering work in end of life care. She said that if a reference letter or a fully completed reference form cannot be provided (as was the case when she applied for a volunteering role in St Joseph's), some organisations might accept a reference over the phone (which would at least be severely restrictive for Maria in her search for voluntary roles in end of life care). Sofia explained that TST is not obliged to provide references (either in writing or over the phone) and, if references are provided, TST is not obliged to share those with the person for whom the references are provided. It was agreed in the meeting that Sofia will speak with Anifat this afternoon and pass on that Maria would still like TST North support regarding references for volunteering work in end of life care.

- Maria would like to get a second job in end of life care, but not before having done some voluntary work in the field. For want of a word, Maria described as "illogical" her being provided with clarification about support that TST can provide as a service when she cannot get the basic support she needs from TST North to obtain a position in end of life care as a volunteer. In hindsight, she would prefer to use the words 'irrelevant' and 'nonsensical' in the context of a seemingly total failure by TST North to provide satisfactory support.

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 (UPDATED 31/10/2019)

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

Friday, October 25, 2019

St Mungo's: Malicious intent and reckless disregard for the truth? Still nothing from the Executive Director of this Mayor of London-commissioned charity who asked Declan to hold off on legal action three weeks ago to the day (Updated 31/10/2019)

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