Church and State blog: We're ready to take the Mayor of London-commissioned St Mungo's back to court. No further notice required

Saturday, October 05, 2019

We're ready to take the Mayor of London-commissioned St Mungo's back to court. No further notice required

10/4/19
Glad to learn you are "good to go" as these people don't sound like friendliest!!
Don
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).

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. This email has been readied as a court document to be filed in the Central London County Court without further notice:

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

Dominic Williamson
Executive Director of Strategy and Policy
St Mungo's

Address removed for email

4 October 2019

Dear Mr Williamson,

Thank you for your phone call this afternoon.

Yesterday I received a call from Marc Appleton concerning my recent request for Tenancy Sustainment Team (TST) support. I appreciate his willingness to meet me on 14 October. However, I regret that due to the current and unforeseen problems with my wife's case notes, I am not in a position to meet with Marc or anyone from St Mungo's. And I repeat that I found your Quality team's handling of my original complaint to be ineffective, unfair and biased. I am not willing to go through that experience ever again.

I was shocked to learn from Ilyas Hussein yesterday that Sofia Pires may leave TST North today without agreeing case notes with my wife. Ilyas clarified that any decisions taken with regard to my wife's case notes are made by you as the person who has ultimate responsibility in St Mungo's for information security and governance. Sofia has this afternoon informed my wife that they haven't come to an agreement about notes yet, but has not provided my wife with something she can agree upon. My wife is happy that her amends fully meet the standard demanded by the Data Protection Act and that they are truthful.

As matters stand, there is a failure by TST North to provide me with satisfactory support in respect of a personal referee for learning disability volunteering (either in writing or over the phone), which poses an ongoing threat to life and/or property. I understand that the same may also apply in regard to my wife when it comes to a personal referee for end-of-life care volunteering. This unquestionably constitutes a failure to provide satisfactory support - and this notwithstanding my almost four months of dialogue with your TST team on this issue.

In this situation, I believe that I must seek relief in court.

Yours sincerely,

Declan Heavey
Managing Director
Network for Church Monitoring

Claimant: Declan Heavey
Defendant: St Mungo's

Brief details of claim

The Claimant is a tenant of the Defendant's Clearing House. For the entire week commencing 8 July 2019, the Defendant failed to complete its end of an agreement for support that it had with the Claimant. Since 6 August 2019, the Claimant has fought for a personal reference for learning disability volunteering, and that he believes should be issued to put things right. As matters stand, there is a failure by the Defendant to provide the Claimant with satisfactory support in respect of a personal referee for LD volunteering (either in writing or over the phone), which poses an ongoing threat to life and/or property. The Claimant contends that this constitutes a failure to provide satisfactory support - and this notwithstanding his almost four months of dialogue with the Defendant on this issue. It also comes on foot of a string of other violations of the Human Rights Act 1998 that have had a destabilising effect upon his tenancy month in, month out for well over a year. The Claimant is, therefore, making an application to the Court for a declaration that the Defendant has acted unreasonably and in breach of duty towards him. The Claimant seeks damages for distress and costs.

Value

The Claimant expects to recover not more than £1,000.

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 5/10/2019)

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

Saturday, October 05, 2019

We're ready to take the Mayor of London-commissioned St Mungo's back to court. No further notice required

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