Church and State blog

Monday, October 04, 2010

Mary Ward Centre: Letter to Principal Ceri Williams

Ceri Williams, third from the left, standing next to her Chair Diana Good (click to enlarge)

The Mary Ward Centre is one of London's premier adult education colleges. In Saturday's blog Mary Ward Centre threatens me with expulsion, I published a letter I received that morning from the college's Head of Computing, IT and Business Clive Allum informing me that I didn't notify them I wouldn't be attending their two-day course "Excel Introductory" on 23 and 30 September, adding, "As a result we have to cancel any future computing enrolments you may have on our system." Well, it turns out that I have been "the victim of an administrative error", according to Vice Principal Suzanna Jackson this afternoon.

I had been concerned that if the college did not rectify this situation, our jobcentre could have taken our benefits since I am not turning up for courses! For the record, this is the email I sent this morning to the college's Principal Ceri Williams, copied to her Chair Diana Good (a former litigation partner at Linklaters, one of the UK's highest ranking law firms, who has a part time judicial appointment):

Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens would have made few friends in the Catholic community after they triumphed in opposing the motion in the Intelligence Squared debate (2009) "The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world". It has been said that here Stephen Fry is much more like Goebbels' prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials.

Saturday, October 02, 2010

Mary Ward Centre threatens me with expulsion

Today I received a letter from the Mary Ward Centre, one of London's premier adult education colleges, whose aim it is “to promote public education and social service for the benefit of the community”. They say that I didn't notify them I wouldn't be attending their two-day course "Excel Introductory" on 23 and 30 September, adding, "As a result we have to cancel any future computing enrolments you may have on our system."

In fact, not only did I go to the trouble of turning up in person at the college on 21 September to explain why I may be up to two hours late for the first lesson on 23 September, but Declan turned up with me. And the valid reason I had for having to be late was that on the morning of 23 September we had to sign on at our local jobcentre; and although a claimant can arrange to sign on another day if he has a good reason, things were way too rough for us with the jobcentre to even consider doing so (see blog of 21 September Two allegations against Declan within a week!). The person who the enrolment officer put me through to on the telephone to explain all this was the Head of Computing, IT and Business, Clive Allum. This is the letter I received this morning from Allum:

Allum was adamant when we spoke over the telephone that students couldn't be more than 30 minutes late for a class no matter what the excuse and that they had to cancel my enrolment for the course in question. As a result I also had to cancel my enrolment for the follow-up course "Excel Advanced" and was lucky to get a place on a six-week Microsoft Office course, which I have attended the last two Fridays. It is not clear from the letter above if my enrolment on this course has now been cancelled too.

First thing on Monday morning, Declan and I are back to the college to hand-deliver a letter addressed to the Principal, Ceri Williams, which will also be dispatched by registered post. This is not the first time I have had to deal with this college. Last June they informed me via email that the follow-up course I had booked, "Access Advanced", had been cancelled due to a lack of interest, and they then sent my refund cheque to the wrong address (see blog of 22 June The Mary Ward Centre).

The Mary Ward Centre is a registered charity. According to their website, "The Mary Ward is the friendly place to learn"; and even better, "All Centre staff know about the importance of customer care and are proud of the reputation the Centre has for treating people right." What is going to happen on Monday? Am I going to be told that in effect I am expelled from the college for the rest of the academic year?

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

Monday, October 04, 2010

Mary Ward Centre: Letter to Principal Ceri Williams

Saturday, October 02, 2010

Mary Ward Centre threatens me with expulsion

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