Thursday, May 03, 2007

Third request for access to case file

This morning Declan received a letter from the Administrative Court Office of the High Court in London in reply to his letter of 18 April to the head of the office requesting a copy of this letter from the Department for Work and Pensions which says, according to Judge Walker in his judgment of 11 December, that the termination of our unemployment benefit because Declan did not “sign on” was a mistake, but that there is another good reason for terminating payment.

Declan didn’t receive a copy of the letter requested (which we have never seen), only a copy of a letter he had already provided the court. So, on 22 March Lord/Lady Justice Baker of the Court of Appeal dismiss our claim for judicial review against the Department for Work and Pensions “as being totally without merit” for reasons “clearly explained in the judgment of Walker J”, and such a letter is unavailable to us?

It raises the question: did Judge Walker fabricate the evidence? Even hinting at such a possibility would surely see us through the admissibility phase of our application to the European Court of Human Rights. Anyway, this is the letter Declan received from the Administrative Court Office:

Dear Sir or Madam

Thank you for your correspondence received in this office on the 19th April 2007.

I have enclosed a copy of the letter referred to in your correspondence, copied from the court file which you in fact sent to us with other documents, on the 30th September 2006, under the recorded delivery number DP 8563 8629 5GB.

Thank you.

Yours faithfully

Philip Lewis
Administrative Court Office, Issue Section


And this is Declan’s reply to the Head of the Administrative Office, Lynne Knapman, which he sent by registered post this afternoon:

Dear Ms Knapman

Re:   Access to court documents in the matter of the Queen on the application of Heavey v Birmingham Erdington Jobcentre Plus and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Administrative Court Ref. No. CO/7092/2006)

I refer to the enclosed copy of your letter of reply to me of 25 April 2007 (received today) signed by Mr Philip Lewis, Administrative Court Office together with enclosure therein referred to, viz copy of letter to me of 27 September 2006 from Birmingham Erdington Jobcentre Plus (which I sent to your office with other documents, on 30 September 2006).

I also enclose copy of my letter and enclosure to you of 18 April 2007, to which your letter of reply refers.

Under Article 38(1)(a) of the European Convention on Human Rights (and to precede the lodgement of my case against the UK with the European Court of Human Rights by introductory letter), I again request access to the papers that were before Mr Justice Walker on 11 December 2006.

As stated in my letter to you of 18 April 2007, paragraph 32 of the judgment of Mr Justice Walker states:


... there is a letter from the Department which says that in the letter of 27th September the reference to him having failed to sign on was a mistake. The Department says that there is another good reason for terminating payment ...

Again, I seek sight of this letter from the Department for Work and Pensions which says that in the letter to me of 27 September from Birmingham Erdington Jobcentre Plus the reference to me having failed to sign on is a mistake, and copy of same.

Kindly note that in my letter to you of 18 April 2007, I did not request a copy of the letter to me of 27 September 2006 from Birmingham Erdington Jobcentre Plus, but the letter that Mr Justice Walker referred to which states that the reference to me having failed to sign on is a mistake.

Yours sincerely

Declan Heavey


Declan has had some more unsavoury dealings with homeless this week in the – surprise, surprise – Methodist-run Whitechapel Mission. On Monday, while shaving in the men’s washroom, a homeless sitting to one side of a sink with both feet in the water, told Declan to get him toilet paper. Declan’s response? Go and get it yourself.

Homeless asking Declan to fetch things doesn’t seem to do the trick, so now he has this homeless ex-prisoner on his case since last Tuesday, both in the Whitechapel Mission and the Sisters of Mercy-run Dellow Centre. Declan has brushed him off so far, but homeless are extremely unpredictable and can blow for nothing really – Declan should know: he has been assaulted twice, and has narrowly escaped being assaulted twice also.

Next time (probably tomorrow morning at 6.00am) this homeless decides to pester Declan, he is going to be told assertively to stop the harassment. Who knows, Declan may be assaulted again – this time in the washroom (the last time it was in the canteen area). Will the police be told there is no CCTV footage of the incident, as they were told the last time?

No comments: