Church and State blog: Declan writes directly to RBS Chief Executive Alison Rose about new Network for Church Monitoring Standing Orders. How will it go in NatWest Stratford Branch Broadway tomorrow? (WITH UPDATE 12/2/2020)

Tuesday, February 11, 2020

Declan writes directly to RBS Chief Executive Alison Rose about new Network for Church Monitoring Standing Orders. How will it go in NatWest Stratford Branch Broadway tomorrow? (WITH UPDATE 12/2/2020)

Our Church and State website has no less than 59 Nobel Laureates on it despite the never-ending assault on our email; see paragraph 2 of 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 has commenced court proceedings against the Mayor of London-commissioned St Mungo's in the County Court at Central London in the Royal Courts of Justice.

Declan can only hope for the best tomorrow.

Alison Rose
Chief Executive
The Royal Bank of Scotland Group

Address removed for email

BY EMAIL AND RECORDED POST

11 February 2020

Dear Ms Rose,

Re: Network for Church Monitoring Ltd

I write further to my e-letter below to NatWest Branch Manager Tom McKeon of NatWest Stratford Branch Broadway. I copied you into that e-letter in the hope that the problems I encountered at the branch could be resolved tomorrow. I am afraid that these problems have subsequently only been exacerbated.

This evening I called into NatWest Chancery Lane Branch. The manager there first set up a New Standing Order on Network for Church Monitoring with an incomplete reference number (herein referred to as the "first erroneous standing order"). I explained that I did not want to provide Newham Council with an Amend Standing Order. The manager understood this and consequently provided me with a "Cancel SO" note for Mr McKeon tomorrow because she was unable to cancel the standing order on the day (please see document 1 attached). She then created two New Standing Orders, which I signed for willingly and without undue influence.

However, despite my very best efforts to come away from the bank with proof of what I actually signed for, all I have to hand is, inter alia, a page 1 New Standing Order document with an incomplete reference number that was derived from the first erroneous standing order (please see document 2 attached), and a related page 2 Standing Order Details document with the full and correct account number that was derived from the first of the two New Standing Orders I signed for without amends (please see document 3 attached). I was repeatedly and forcibly told by one member of staff that if I wanted a copy of the page 1 details I actually signed for, I would have to accept an Amend Standing Order on the first erroneous standing order the manager set up!

The manager showed no willingness to change the bank's steadfast position on this.

Tomorrow it is my intention to return to NatWest Stratford Branch Broadway in the hope that I can in some way come away with what I signed for this evening without amends, and that three erroneous standing orders (two from this morning) are cancelled. I would be most grateful for anything you may be able to do by way of taking measures that would be of assistance to me in this regard.

Yours sincerely,

Declan Heavey
Managing Director
Network for Church Monitoring

UPDATE 12 February (2.47pm): Declan called back into NatWest Stratford Branch Broadway this morning. The bottom line is that he came away without a printout of page 1 of the first standing order he signed for yesterday at NatWest Chancery Lane Branch. All he still has to hand is a page 1 with an incomplete reference number derived from an erroneous standing order from yesterday that was cancelled this morning. This, of course, is wholly unsatisfactory. I will update this post again when there is a significant development in Declan's pursuit of proper SO documentation for Newham Council - with time running out due to an increase in our salaries from the 24th of this month. I'm actually still in disbelief!

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan

26 December: Threat to life: We are facing eviction from our home. Why else would the Mayor of London-commissioned St Mungo's produce falsehoods and slander during court proceedings?

Yet, we are facing eviction because we run a website that criticises religion. http://churchandstate.org.uk/about/

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

From My Picks:

30 January: Newham Council: Today we learn that Declan lost 32 hours of volunteering earlier this month due to technical issues. We are still left asking, "What's next from the Council?"

Heavey v St Mungo's

What the issue in these court proceedings boils down to is whether the Court will decide that Declan and I should face the prospect of eviction back to the streets (a death threat) rather than St Mungo's take a call to confirm that we are clients of theirs, and that such a position is not harsh, unjust and unreasonable.

Our need for this support continues to escalate?

'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 (1930-2020), (then) President, Americans for Religious Liberty

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, February 11, 2020

Declan writes directly to RBS Chief Executive Alison Rose about new Network for Church Monitoring Standing Orders. How will it go in NatWest Stratford Branch Broadway tomorrow? (WITH UPDATE 12/2/2020)

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