Letter to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council

For the record, below is the email that Declan sent this afternoon to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council, Councillor Lutfur Rahman, concerning Idea Store Whitechapel, the borough’s flagship library, learning and information service. We frequently run into trouble in this library, especially with internet access and computer bookings; but this afternoon it was particularly bad: I was bullied by two security guards into vacating (which I didn't do) the computer I had booked, and told by a member of staff that I was lying. Although Declan is tired of writing to Cllr. Rahman on the subject, he felt he was left with little choice in the circumstances.

Subject: Idea Store Whitechapel

Dear Cllr. Rahman,

I am writing to you in your capacity as Leader of Tower Hamlets Council to refer further to the attached copy of my most recent correspondence with the former Head of Idea Stores, Mr. Ian McNicol, to whom the former Leader of Tower Hamlets Council, Cllr. Denise Jones, referred my original complaint of 21 January 2008 regarding Idea Store Whitechapel and the repeated loss of computer bookings and internet access on both my wife's card (card no. D000350314) and my card (card no. D000355837) since 14 November 2007.

I wish to draw to your attention that this afternoon my wife had computer 13 on floor 1 in Idea Store Whitechapel booked from 1.15pm to 2.15pm; she made the booking yesterday evening. As soon as she logged in, the computer re-started with another name, Suhel Miah, on the monitor. Not wanting to vacate the floor in the circumstances, she asked a security guard if he would be so kind as to call a member of staff to her table. Ten minutes later no member of staff had appeared but along comes Mr. Miah, and he wants my wife to vacate her chair. Two security guards then appear and rudely, aggressively and in a bullish manner attempt to move my wife out, and this despite her pointing out to both guards that she had been waiting for almost 15 minutes for a member of staff and that she had booked the computer for the hour. A member of staff then comes along and also insists that my wife moves out: there is another name on the monitor. This member of staff is followed by a supervisor: she hadn't booked a computer from 1.15pm to 2.15pm, my wife is told by the supervisor, and there is nothing wrong with the computer; she must vacate. My wife is let log in after 1.30pm.

I reconfirm that since my complaint of 21 January 2008 to Cllr. Jones, my wife and I not only have experienced repeated loss of computer bookings and internet access, but several other problems to boot. For example:

(i) 1 February 2008: the Principal Idea Store Manager, Mr. Sergio Dogliani, wrote to me advising that the restriction by Idea Store Whitechapel of both my wife and I to a 3-hour maximum free computer use per day as from 29 January stands, despite that for several previous months we were given "additional time" subject to computer availability and in accordance with the Council's then and current "Idea Stores PC Usage Policy";

(ii) 24 June 2008: at approximately 12.30pm, a member of staff threatened my wife with security if she did not give her computer up to another card holder, despite that thirty minutes earlier a member of staff had confirmed in writing that my wife had booked the computer from 11.30am to 2.30pm;

(iii) 3 August 2008: both of the computers my wife and I had booked the previous day contained an identical virus which spread to the two USB drives we were using. This rendered my wife's portable programs inoperable. It also corrupted some of my most valuable data: a Word document containing a categorised list of over 150 British signatories of a petition of mine to the United Nations on therapeutic cloning, and a related database containing the names, email addresses and contact information for over 3,000 scientists and academics from around the world;

(iv) 6 August 2008: at approximately 2.45pm, MIMEsweeper blocked access to my Google Mail account due to "Porn Detected". At 3.10pm, following the restoration of my access to the account, I was informed by the store's technician, and without explanation, that "it may happen again for any length of time".

As I explained in my original complaint to you of 4 August 2008 following (iii) above, since 22 October 2007 my wife and I have been using computer time in Idea Store Whitechapel to contact scientists and academics to invite them to sign my petition to the United Nations on somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), sometimes referred to as "therapeutic cloning". This petition to date has been signed by 591 scientists and academics, who include recognised authorities from the world's leading universities and research institutes, as well as 24 Nobel Laureates.

I once again acknowledge receipt of an email of 7 August 2008 from your Personal Assistant, Ms. Rachel Bielby, stating: "Cllr. Rahman is now on leave until the end of August. I have asked the office of the Director of Communities, Localities and Culture's office to deal with your correspondence." I reconfirm that on 9 January I received an email from Senior Management Support Officer, Ms. Sharon Ball, questioning only whether any of the reconfirmed information above is "actionable" by Tower Hamlets Council.

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey

New NAC website very much in the firing line

This morning Declan thought it best if we left the Catholic Manna Centre at 9.00am, for the third Saturday in a row (see blog of 21 January “Violence and economic strangulation”); on this occasion, Declan was man-handled in the men’s toilets by a homeless who insisted that he engage in conversation with him. We left without Declan getting a bite to eat.

Declan continues to wash in the street, which he has been doing since 10 April last year as a result of all the harassment he has received from other homeless: see, for example, blog of 16 May 2008 “More racially aggravated harassment in the Dellow Centre”; or blog of 18 June 2008 “Declan robbed in the Sisters of Mercy Dellow Centre”; or blog of 19 June 2008 “Declan assaulted in the Manna Centre”. On 18 June 2007, we were barred from the Methodist Church Whitechapel Mission by the minister’s wife due to concerns about our safety after I was assaulted in an unprovoked attack by a homeless woman in the canteen (see here). Declan has written on several occasions to the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, in his capacity as Archbishop of the Diocese of Westminster, to which the Dellow Centre belongs (see blog of 6 November 2008 “Letter to Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor”).

It seems that the new NAC website that I am building in support of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning at http://network.obxhost.net/index.html is still very much in the firing line: Declan had no problem accessing it this morning from the local internet café but I was once again unable to access it or the web host from our local council’s Idea Store Whitechapel (see blog of 23 January “Letter to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council”). In fact, I still can’t, meaning I can’t upload an article by Steven Pinker entitled “The Stupidity of Dignity” (see below).

Pinker, world-renowned thinker and Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University (and an honorary associate of NAC and early signatory of Declan’s petition to the UN on therapeutic cloning), argues that the concept of dignity is natural ground on which to build an obstructionist bioethics. It’s not surprising, then, he wrote on 28 May last, that ‘dignity’ is a recurring theme in Catholic doctrine: The word appears more than 100 times in the 1997 edition of the Catechism and is a leitmotif in the Vatican’s recent pronouncements on biomedicine. In its most authoritative declaration on bioethics for more than 20 years, the Vatican released on 12 December a 32-page document titled “Dignitas Personae” (the dignity of a person).

As I stated in the previous blog, we received our first donation last Monday and I believe this may be influencing things: perhaps to discourage somebody else for doing the same. For example, this morning I emailed 35 scientists and academics in New York State inviting them to sign Declan’s petition to the UN on therapeutic cloning but received no autoreplies and no-one has signed – I received one undelivered email to my spam box. To date, the petition has been signed by 589 scientists and academics, who include recognised authorities from the world’s leading universities and research institutes, as well as 24 Nobel Laureates.

This is the document (three pages) I am waiting to upload:

Still problems with the new NAC website

It seems our difficulties with the new NAC website I am building in support of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning at http://network.obxhost.net/index.html (launched the Monday before last) are well from over. Declan was once again unable to access the site from our local council’s Idea Store Whitechapel; we frequently run into trouble in this library, especially with internet access and computer bookings (see, for example, last Friday’s blog “Letter to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council”).

I had no luck either. After working on a piece for our homepage - relating the FDAs announcement last Friday that it had cleared the way for the world’s first clinical trial of a therapy derived from human embryonic stem cells - I couldn’t upload for well over two hours; the web host obxhost.net kept informing me that “permission was denied”. Not even two trips to the local internet café resolved the matter, and in fact it is only a few minutes ago that I was allowed to upload the piece, citing “a new era in medicine”. According to their website, OBXHost.net is “a leading Free Web Site Hosting Provider” whose “service is highly reliable”. They add that they only use “quality high end servers”.

As I said in the previous blog following the blocklisting of our new site only the day before yesterday, perhaps I am just unfortunate with the websites I build. On 8 March 2008, the original NAC website was suspended due to what turned out to be spam as reported via SpamCop on 6 March (see blog of 14 March “SpamCop reports Declan as a spammer”). I believe there is link between SpamCop’s report to our web host branding us as spammers and an email Declan received the day previous, on 5 March, from the Home Office advising in response to several emails he addressed to Home Secretary Jacqueline Smith that no warrant to intercept his communications had been issued (see blog of 9 March Home Office denies warrant to intercept communications - since 22 October 2007, I have been emailing scientists and academics inviting them to sign Declan’s petition to the UN on therapeutic cloning; to date, the petition has been signed by 589 scientists and academics, who include recognised authorities from the world’s leading universities and research institutes, as well as 24 Nobel Laureates.

This is the email Declan sent this evening to the acting Idea Store Whitechapel manager:

Dear Ms Randall

With reference to my recent email to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council, I am in receipt of an email from the Council stating: “Ms Lisa Randall, the acting Idea Store Whitechapel Manager, is available and willing to discuss the detailed matters you have raised with regard to the service [at Idea Store Whitechapel].”

I wish to confirm that this afternoon at Idea Store Whitechapel, between 1.10pm and 2.10pm, I was unable to access my website at http://network.obxhost.net/index.html; MIMEsweeper stating: “DNS look-up failed for ‘network.obxhost.net’”. I subsequently experienced no such difficulty on the same computer between 2.10pm and 7.10pm.

I would be obliged if any discourse between us on this matter would be confined to writing in order to avoid any misunderstanding that may occur.

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey
Card no. D000355837

Letter to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council

For the record, below is the letter that Declan sent this afternoon by email and registered post to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council, Councillor Lutfur Rahman, who is also the Leader of the Labour Group, concerning the Council’s Idea Store Whitechapel, the borough’s flagship library, learning and information service. We frequently run into trouble in the library, especially with internet access and computer bookings (see, for example, the previous blog: all day yesterday I couldn’t access the new NAC website at
http://network.obxhost.net/index.html from the Idea Store; in fact, I couldn’t even access the web host OBXHost.net to upload my work).

In response to Declan’s last email of 9 January to Cllr Rahman, a senior management support officer replied within minutes as follows:

from: Sharon Ball
to: Declan Heavey
date: Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 2:21 PM
subject RE: Idea Store Whitechapel

Hi Sergio
Please could you have a look at the email below, I am unsure who/how it should be actioned.

Sharon Ball
Senior Management Support Officer
020 7364 5965

Declan hasn’t heard further from this support officer but as the word ‘actioned’ is somewhat ambiguous, he has included the full contents of his email letter of 9 January to Cllr Rahman in the email he sent earlier this afternoon:

from: Declan Heavey
to: cllr.lutfur.rahman@towerhamlets.gov.uk
date: Fri, Jan 23, 2008 at 4:08 PM
subject: Idea Store Whitechapel
mailed-by: gmail.com

Dear Cllr Rahman

I am writing to you in your capacity as Leader of Tower Hamlets Council to refer further to the attached copy of my most recent correspondence with the Head of Idea Stores, Mr Ian McNicol, to whom the former Leader of Tower Hamlets Council, Cllr Denise Jones, referred my original complaint of 21 January 2008 regarding Idea Store Whitechapel and the repeated loss of computer bookings and internet access on both my wife's card (card no. D000350314) and my card (card no. D000355837) since 14 November 2007.

In the absence of a response from Mr McNichol with respect to the aforementioned complaint, I wish to draw to your attention that yesterday at Idea Store Whitechapel between 1.15pm and 7.15pm I was unable to access either my website at http://network.obxhost.net/index.html or the associated web host OBXHost.net (see second attachment for a copy of a snag of a MIMEsweeper notice stating: "DNS look-up failed for 'network.obxhost.net'"). According to their website, OBXHost.net is "a leading Free Web Site Hosting Provider" whose "service is highly reliable". They add that they only use "quality high end servers that are constantly monitored 24 hours a day to ensure your site is always online".

As I mentioned in my previous email to you of 9 January, a member of staff at Idea Store Whitechapel on 8 January could not offer an explanation as to why the computer I had booked was the only computer out of a network of 24 computers on the floor to have slowed down to a virtual standstill when no other computer on the floor had a complaint of any description against it. I reconfirm that since my complaint of 21 January 2008 to Cllr Jones, my wife and I not only have experienced repeated loss of computer bookings and internet access, but several other problems to boot. For example:

(i) 1 February 2008: the Principal Idea Store Manager, Mr Sergio Dogliani, wrote to me advising that the restriction by Idea Store Whitechapel of both my wife and I to a 3-hour maximum free computer use per day as from 29 January stands, despite that for several previous months we were given "additional time" subject to computer availability and in accordance with the Council's then and current "Idea Stores PC Usage Policy";

(ii) 24 June 2008: at approximately 12.30pm, a member of staff threatened my wife with "security" if she did not give her computer up to another card holder, despite that thirty minutes earlier a member of staff had confirmed in writing that my wife had booked the computer from 11.30am to 2.30pm;

(iii) 3 August 2008: both of the computers my wife and I had booked the previous day contained an identical virus which spread to the two USB drives we were using. This rendered my wife's portable programs inoperable. It also corrupted some of my most valuable data: a database containing the names, email addresses and contact information for over 3,000 scientists and academics from around the world, and a related Word document containing a categorised list of over 150 British signatories of a petition of mine to the United Nations on therapeutic cloning;

(iv) 6 August 2008: at approximately 2.45pm, MIMEsweeper blocked access to my Google Mail account due to "Porn Detected". At 3.10pm, following the restoration of my access to the account, the IT technician informed me without explanation that "it may happen again for any length of time".

As I explained in my original complaint to you of 4 August 2008 following (iii) above, since 22 October 2007 my wife and I have been using as much of our computer time in Idea Store Whitechapel as possible to contact scientists and academics to invite them to sign my petition to the United Nations on therapeutic cloning, also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). To date, this petition has been signed by 589 scientists and academics, who include recognised authorities from the world's leading universities and research institutes, as well as 24 Nobel Laureates.

I once again acknowledge receipt of an email of 7 August 2008 from your Personal Assistant, Ms Rachel Bielby, stating: "Cllr Rahman is now on leave until the end of August. I have asked the office of the Director of Communities, Localities and Culture's office to deal with your correspondence." I confirm that on 9 January, minutes after my previous email to you, I received an email from Senior Management Support Officer, Ms Sharon Ball, questioning only whether any of the reconfirmed information above is 'actionable' by Tower Hamlets Council.

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey

No access to new NAC website

With respect to the new NAC website in support of embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning (see blog of 19 January “NAC website launched”), I was hoping to upload more New York State documents today, minus a “Take action” on payment for egg donation which the ethics committee of the Empire State Stem Cell Board is currently discussing. Alas, after spending an hour putting the finishing touches to a new banner, I found out that I couldn’t access the site at http://network.obxhost.net/index.html from our local council’s Idea Store Whitechapel. In fact, I can’t even access the web host OBXHost.net to upload the work.



According to their website, OBXHost.net is “a leading Free Web Site Hosting Provider” whose “service is highly reliable”. They add that they only use “quality high end servers that are constantly monitored 24 hours a day to ensure your site is always online”. I find it a bit difficult to believe that OBXHost.net has been down for over five hours now.

Perhaps I am just unlucky with the websites I build. On 8 March 2008, the original NAC website was suspended due to what turned out to be spam as reported via SpamCop on 6 March (see blog of 14 March “SpamCop reports Declan as a spammer”); only the day before SpamCop’s report to our web host branding us as spammers, the Home Office emailed Declan on behalf of Home Secretary Jacqueline Smith to confirm that no warrant to intercept his communications had been issued - since 22 October 2007, I have been contacting scientists and academics to invite them to sign Declan’s petition to the UN on therapeutic cloning; to date this petition has been signed by 588 scientists and academics, who - despite excessive spamming (see, for example, blog of 5 December “On red alert”) - include recognised authorities from the world’s leading universities and research institutes, as well as 24 Nobel Laureates.

This is the new NAC banner:



With no access to the new NAC website to upload more NYS documents, tomorrow I will turn to a “Take action” in respect of payment for egg donation which will make the case that donors should not be paid for their eggs, but rather they should be compensated for the burdens of egg retrieval (reference: Steinbock B. Payment for egg donation and surrogacy. Mt Sinai J Med 2004;71:255-265). This take action - for the NYS subsection entitled “Empire State Stem Cell Board” - will be uploaded here as some previous NYS documents have been.

Letter to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council

For the record, below is the email letter that Declan sent this afternoon to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council, Councillor Lutfur Rahman, who is also the Leader of the Labour Group, concerning the Council's Idea Store Whitechapel, the borough's flagship library, learning and information service. We frequently run into trouble in the library, especially with internet access and computer bookings (see, for example, blog of 5 January "New York State home page"; while at a computer in the library, I was pushed quite hard by a guy after I refused to let him borrow my USB drive).

The email was copied to Sharon Ball, with whom the former Manager of Idea Store Whitechapel Zoinul Abidin advised Declan yesterday to communicate. She replied to Declan within minutes as follows:

from: Sharon Ball
to: Declan Heavey
date: Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 2:21 PM
subject RE: Idea Store Whitechapel

Hi Sergio

Please could you have a look at the email below, I am unsure who/how it should be actioned.

Sharon Ball
Senior Management Support Officer
020 7364 5965

And this is Declan's email this afternoon to Cllr Rahman, to which Ball referred:

from: Declan Heavey
to: cllr.lutfur.rahman@towerhamlets.gov.uk
date: Fri, Jan 9, 2008 at 2:16 PM
subject: Idea Store Whitechapel
mailed-by: gmail.com

Dear Cllr Rahman

I am writing to you in your capacity as Leader of Tower Hamlets Council to refer further to the attached copy of my most recent correspondence with the Head of Idea Stores, Mr Ian McNicol, to whom the former Leader of Tower Hamlets Council, Cllr Denise Jones, referred my original complaint of 21 January 2008 regarding Idea Store Whitechapel and the repeated loss of computer bookings and internet access on both my wife's card (card no. D000350314) and my card (card no. D000355837) since 14 November 2007.

In the absence of a response from Mr McNichol with respect to the aforementioned complaint, I wish to confirm that yesterday afternoon at approximately 2.15pm the computer I had booked from 2.00pm to 3.00pm slowed down to a virtual stand-still. According to the staff member on floor duty, in the absence of the IT technician (who was "not at work") he could not offer an explanation as to why the computer I had booked was the only computer out of a network of 24 computers on the floor 1 to have a complaint of any description against it.

I reconfirm that since my complaint of 21 January 2008 to Cllr Jones, my wife and I have not only experienced repeated loss of computer bookings and internet access, but several other problems to boot. For example:

(i) 1 February 2008: the Principal Idea Store Manager, Mr Sergio Dogliani, wrote to me advising that the restriction by Idea Store Whitechapel of my wife and I to a 3-hour maximum free computer use per day as from 29 January stands, despite that for several previous months we were given "additional time" subject to computer availability and in accordance with the Council's then and current "Idea Stores PC Usage Policy";

(ii) 24 June 2008: at approximately 12.30pm, a member of staff threatened my wife with "security" if she did not give her computer up to another card holder, despite that thirty minutes earlier a member of staff had confirmed in writing that my wife had booked the computer from 11.30am to 2.30pm;

(iii) 3 August 2008: both of the computers my wife and I had booked the previous day contained an identical virus which spread to the two USB drives we were using - rendering not only my wife's portable programs inoperable, but corrupting some of my most valuable data: a Word document of a categorised list of British signatories of my petition to the United Nations on therapeutic cloning, also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT); and an associated database containing the names, email addresses and contact information relating to over 3,000 scientists and academics from around the world;

(iv) 6 August 2008: at approximately 2.45pm, MIMEsweeper, the filter software used by the Idea Store network, blocked access to my Google Mail account due to "Porn Detected". At 3.10pm, following my access to the account, the IT technician informed me (without explanation) that "it may happen again for any length of time".

As I explained in my original complaint to you of 4 August 2008 following (iii) above, since 22 October 2007 my wife and I have been using as much of our computer time in Idea Store Whitechapel as possible to contact scientists and academics to invite them to sign my petition to the United Nations on SCNT and the use of stem cells for research and for the treatment of disease. To date, this petition has been signed by 588 scientists and academics, who include recognised authorities from the world's leading universities and research institutes, as well as 24 Nobel Laureates.

I again acknowledge receipt of an email of 7 August 2008 from your Personal Assistant, Ms Rachel Bielby, stating: "Cllr Rahman is now on leave until the end of August. I have asked the office of the Director of Communities, Localities and Culture's office to deal with your correspondence." I can confirm that I have not heard from this office, nor indeed from anyone for and on behalf of Tower Hamlets Council, or, for that matter, Idea Store Whitechapel. (On 21 January 2008, the same date as my original complaint to Cllr Jones, the former Manager of Idea Store Whitechapel, Mr Zoinul Abidin, emailed me to advise that I should direct any complaints I might have to the Council's corporate complaints section. He added: "In future please approach them for any queries, as opposed to sending e-mails to me." Mr Abidin's last day of service with Idea Stores/Tower Hamlets Council was on 7 November 2008.)

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey

cc Ms Sharon Ball, Manager, Idea Store Whitechapel (by email)

Our Big Issue pitches are terminated

This morning, The Big Issue Head Office – The Big Issue is a magazine sold by homeless people throughout the UK on registered street pitches – confirmed that our pitches have been terminated, after two years of us having survived on the streets of London by selling the magazine from the same registered pitches and despite Declan’s email letter of complaint to the chair of The Big Issue Foundation (see blog of 11 November “Letter of complaint to the chair of The Big Issue Foundation Charity”). This is an extremely serious situation for me in particular, in that I am facing possible prosecution for begging.

It also means that it is highly likely that Declan will be unable to keep our account in the local internet café (£3 for seven hours) going, so it seems we will be restricted to the 3-hour maximum computer use per day at Idea Store Whitechapel library that our local council imposed on each of our membership cards on 1 February, despite that for several months previous we were given “additional time” subject to computer availability and in accordance with the council’s then and current “Idea Stores PC Usage Policy”. Notwithstanding that, we frequently experience difficulties with internet access and computer bookings in this library (see, for example, blog of 13 October “Letter to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council”).

With such restrictions, I now have to adapt my blog. Up to today I have been selecting themes in embryonic stem (ES) cell research and therapeutic cloning, also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), and developing each with reference to news, articles, and/or opinion pieces from leading scientists and academics. From now on it will be about researching everything that is going on in the field in ES cell research – conferences, news, reports, discoveries and applications, major research institutions throughout world, joint international efforts, bloggers, etc – and producing blogs with links that will serve as an interesting source of material.

Declan tells me that the litmus test for a successful blog is one that I will revert to myself for information as soon as I have a laptop – to build within two weeks a website for our campaign in support of ES cell research and SCNT. The blog of 1 November “Can a cell have a soul?” includes a brief description of what this website will contain: for example, the subsection “Embryonic stem cell research” will be broken up into the associated subsections “Science”, “Law and Policy”, “Ethics” and “Applications”.

Criticising the restrictions introduced in August 2001 by President George W Bush that prevent federally funded researchers from working on all but a few sources of embryonic stem cells, Robert Lanza - chief scientist at Advanced Cell Technology, a stem cell company in Worcester, Massachusetts (and a signatory of Declan’s petition) – told New Scientist: “We’ve been operating for the past decade with one hand tied behind our back.” This is exactly the way Declan and I are being forced to operate. We believe though that we can work this situation to our advantage, and are quite excited at the prospect of doing so.

Library blocks access to Google Mail account

This afternoon at about 2.45pm our local council’s Idea Store Whitechapel’s filter software blocked access to Declan’s Google Mail – the account we use to email scientists and academics around the world inviting them to sign Declan’s petition to the UN on therapeutic cloning. I had actually been on a computer since 12.00 noon and had already emailed 31 scientists; although perhaps I shouldn’t have bothered: I only got one autoreply. (As I explained in the blog of 2 August “I am urinated on in the porch”, the number of out-of-office autoreplies is my best indication as to whether Declan's emails are going to inbox or spam: two or three autoreplies within a batch of 10 would be a good indicator of the former).



Anyway, I had just pasted into Drafts a very long list containing the names, emails and phone numbers of the academic staff of the School of Law of The University of Manchester (from where we have a very distinguished signatory) when it happened. I should perhaps add that on Sunday both our booked computers in Idea Store Whitechapel had a virus which infected the two USB drives we were using (see previous blog). I got Google Mail back some twenty minutes later, after which the technician informed Declan that “it may happen again for any length of time”. So this is the email letter that Declan sent this evening to Councillor Lutfur Rahman, the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council at cllr.lutfur.rahman@towerhamlets.gov.uk (further to an email letter he sent him on Monday on the deletion of data):

Subject: Idea Store Whitechapel

Dear Cllr Rahman

I refer further to the attached copy of my most recent correspondence with Mr Ian McNicol, Head of Idea Stores, to whom the former Leader of Tower Hamlets Council, Cllr Denise Jones, referred my original complaint of 21 January regarding Idea Store Whitechapel and the repeated loss of computer bookings and internet access on both my wife's card (card no. D000350314) and my card (card no. D000355837) since 14 November 2007.

In the continued absence of a response from Mr McNichol in respect of the aforementioned complaint of 21 January, I wish to further confirm that this afternoon at approximately 2.45pm MIMEsweeper, the filter software used by the Idea Store network, blocked access to my Google Mail account due to "PornDetected" (see attachment "MIMEsweeper"). At 3.10pm I was again able to access the account, after which the technician informed me that "it may happen again for any length of time".

I reconfirm that since my complaint of 21 January to Cllr Jones, my wife and I have encountered the following sample problems while trying to access the internet in Idea Store Whitechapel:

(1) 1 February: the Principal Idea Store Manager, Mr Sergio Dogliani, sent me an email advising that the restriction by Idea Store Whitechapel of my wife and I to a 3-hour maximum free computer use per day as from 29 January was irretractable, despite that for several months previous both my wife and I had been given extra hours of free computer use, subject to computer availability;
(2) 10 February: my wife lost her booking to another card holder and had to spend 10 minutes dealing with a member of staff before the computer was re-booked in her name;
(3) 11 February: a member of staff had to move me from one computer to another because it was not possible for me to access the internet; no other computer user reported any such difficulty;
(4) 23 June: at approximately 3.30pm, my wife was asked by a member of staff to give her computer up to another card holder, despite that a member of staff had confirmed in writing that she had booked the computer for my wife from 2.30pm to 5.30pm;
(5) 24 June: at approximately 12.30pm, a member of staff threatened my wife with security if she did not give up her computer up to another card holder, despite that thirty minutes earlier a member of staff had confirmed in writing that my wife had booked the computer from 11.30am to 2.30pm;
(6) 3 August: both of the computers my wife and I had booked the previous day contained a virus which spread to the two USB drives we were using, rendering my wife's portable programs inoperable and corrupting some of my most valuable data.

As explained in my email letter to you of 4 August, since 22 October 2007 my wife and I have been using as much of our computer time in Idea Store Whitechapel as possible to contact distinguished scientists and academics to invite them to sign my petition to the United Nations on therapeutic cloning and the use of stem cells for research and for the treatment of disease. To date, this petition has been signed by 520 scientists and academics, including 22 Nobel laureates.

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey

cc Mr Zoinul Abidin, Manager of Idea Store Whitechapel (by email)