The Real State of Camden Council
In Camden's ruthless efforts to present a false image of the council as being ideal, democratic, innovative and worthy of various coveted awards and endorsements, the council has been misusing the ASBO and other Statutory powers to smear, intimidate, destroy and silence complainants and whistleblowers.
Residents of Camden have a right to bring issues of injustice and maladministration, by council officers, to the attention of the council and to expect the matter to be properly investigated and resolved fairly. We should not be subjected to endlessly torturous punishment for doing so.
The abuse of power by council officers has not been helped by the fact that the previous local Labour administration had been in power for at least 30 years, such that they had become very complacent and drunk with power. This had resulted in the local labour administration readily complying with the equally power-drunk senior council officers in treating Camden residents with total contempt and in going to extraordinary lengths to cover up wrong doings of council officers. The council was no longer interested in serving or helping the residents. Instead the officers and labour members focused on self-promotion and in scratching and watching over each other's backs.
Using the council's lengthy Complaint Procedure to complain about injustices or maladministration is usually an agonising waste of time and energy. This is mainly due to the lack of integrity, fairness or objectivity in the so-called investigation of complaints. If the complainant manages to take his/her complaint as far as, the Central Complaint Unit, he/she is usually faced with having to endure the trauma of seeing the issues and evidence of the complaint unreasonably trivialised and/or dismissed by the Central Complaint unit without any genuine investigation.
If the complainant has not given up at this point and decides to take the matter further by referring it to the Ombudsman, he/she is in for a nasty shock and further frustration. The usual scenario is that council officers would withhold documents that support the complainant's argument and supply the ombudsman with untrue and defamatory allegations against the complainant. The usual outcome is that the Ombudsman, who appears to be incapable of questioning or disagreeing with any allegation from council officers - even blatant lies - will not uphold the complaint. Furthermore, once the ombudsman has made his misinformed decision, it becomes extremely difficulty for the complainant to win his/her case in court. This is because judges are extremely unlikely to disagree with the views of the Ombudsman. Judges always work on the assumption that the judgement of the ombudsman is always correct and trustworthy without realising that the decisions of the ombudsman can be wrong if they are based on untrue and misleading information supplied by council officers who are trying to cover up their wrong doings.
With the Ombudsman, Councillors and the Central Complaint Unit failing to conduct genuine/accurate investigation or resolution of complaints, Camden council officers are not accountable to any one. They are free to do as they please which includes misusing ASBO, smears and injunctions to intimidate and silence any resident whose complaint may expose the wide spread corruption and abuse of power in council. The consequences of this reality is that Camden residents have no affordable means of getting issues of injustice or maladministration investigated or resolved fairly.
I am one of many complainants who have been at the receiving end of this devastating corruption and abuse of power. My 'crime' was that I was living next to a drug dealer and an active Labour supporter who had powerful friends in the local labour party, when I made my complaints. Another one of my neighbour has since bought at least two separate council properties and is currently living in a third one.
I had complained to the council because I naively believed that this was the lawful and sensible way for me to resolve persistent trespassing, assaults, verbal abuse, threats, harassment and damage to my property by my aggressive and bullying neighbours. At the time, I did not know that these neighbours had illicit connections in the council, which made them untouchable. I would not have made any complaint if I had known what my innocent children and I would be subjected to as a result.
The council has not only been routinely ignoring and dismissing my complaints but it had proceeded to endorse these neighbours' regular and devastating abuse of my children and I by:
- Serving me with a Notice of Seeking Possession;
- Applying for an injunction against me without interviewing me or giving me notice of the application such that it was impossible for me to present my case to the council or to the court;
- Ignoring recommendations made by the ombudsman in my favour;
- Ignoring my requests for the matter to be referred for mediation;
- Refusing to monitor or resolve the matter according to any of the council procedures;
- Ignoring and trivialising evidence from me;
- Refusing to investigate many incidents that I have reported;
- Discouraging my M.P., the police, ombudsman and the court from helping me by misrepresenting the facts and making defamatory and malicious allegations against me (i.e. that I, an obese and quiet woman in my forties, had assaulted a muscular, drug-dealing young man, in his twenties/thirties and his partner, also in her twenties/thirties, simultaneously);
- Withholding alleged notes of all the meetings I had with housing officers regarding the assaults and harassment incidents.
My predicament has been so dreadful that it is extremely difficult for me to effectively describe or quantify the severity of the pain, suffering and damage that the council and my neighbours have inflicted on my young children over the past 5.5years. It is needless to say that this problem has not been resolved to date and that it is getting worse with my children and I existing in constant fear of and at the mercy and whims of our aggressive neighbours. The extremely oppressed, dangerous and unhealthy conditions we live in make us extremely vulnerable in every sense with our basic human rights being repeatedly unjustly violated by both the council and our neighbours.
I have recently discovered that I am not the only Brookfield Park resident that the council has failed to protect from harassment and assault by a drug-dealing neighbour. The other suffering resident is also a woman whose council property was managed by the same former estate officer as mine in 2001. I understand that this former estate officer used to buy illegal drugs regularly from the perpetrator of the assault and harassment against this poor female resident. I recall observing and expressing my concerns, in 2001, that there appeared to be an inappropriate association between this estate officer and my drug-dealing neighbours, which was compromising the estate officer's ability to do her job fairly or properly. I recall that the council had automatically dismissed this concern as usual.
Like with me, the council had also dismissed this female resident's complaints of assault and harassment by her bulky, drug-dealing male neighbour without conducting any genuine investigation and had accused her of instigating and carrying out the assault on him instead.
The nature of this female resident's predicament has revealed to me the extent of my own difficulties and vulnerability in the borough. I am not only cursed by the fact that I had made complaints about the behaviour of neighbours with illicit connections in the council. I am also cursed because I am living in an area with a flourishing illegal drug- abusing/dealing culture in which at lease one of my estate officers and my drug dealing neighbour were illicitly involved.
In August 2006, Camden New Journal reported the so-called Borough Solicitor, had accused a 'rookie' Lib-Dem Cllr, Author Graves, of being 'offensive' and 'inappropriate'.
This was the response of Ms Lowton when Cllr Graves carried out his duty and pointed out the fact that council officers should be beating a 10-day deadline to answer queries and complaints from the public. When a member of the council is reprimanded, with such strong words, for reminding council officers to do their work according to the council's guidelines/policies, what chance have ordinary residents of Camden got of persuading council officers to deal with issues according to the law, council policies or procedures?
Camden Council and the Local Government Ombudsman
The fact is that the London Local Government Ombudsman is ineffectual and his so-called investigations lack objectivity and integrity. He has a sad and ironic habit of avoiding and trivialising evidence against the council such that, at times, he appears to be defending the council instead of seeking facts. The only people that the Local Government Ombudsman is helping is himself because his organisation relies entirely on residents making complaints against the council for its existence and business is certainly booming for it.
Recently, the Local Government Ombudsman has shamelessly tried to defend his devious investigation methods by pointing to the fact that there has been a huge surge in number complaints that he has had to deal with. He does not seem to be willing to acknowledge that the corruption and contempt, which are now intrinsic in Camden Council, have something to do with the failure of the Local Government Ombudsman to do the very job that he was appointed to do.
He does not seem to be able to see the link between his repeated failure to conduct proper investigations and correct maladministration in the council and the considerable drop in the quality of services provided by the council.
Over a period of ten years, I have made about four formal complaints against Camden council regarding issues including failure/refusal to carry out repairs, unfair discrimination, failure to adhere to council policies and procedures and misrepresentation/distortion of facts. The London Local Government Ombudsman arrived at the same decision as the council on each of these occasions.
For more than four years now, my neighbours have been putting my children and I through hell. The housing manager dealing with the matter was not interested in the incidents that I was reporting to him. He ridiculed and refused to investigate many of them and his seniors did not want to get involved.
There is also the fact that one of the neighbours involved is a Freemason. Once I discovered this fact, I began to realise how difficult my position was. It is no secret that many senior council and Local Government Ombudsman officials are Freemasons and I am convinced that the links between them transcend the organisations that they work for and influence the way they work and make decisions.
In the past four years my neighbours have:
- Intimidated and threatened me with assault;
- Proceeded to assault me twice;
- Verbally abused and ridiculed my children and I many times;
- Repeatedly made insulting and sexist remarks about me;
- Intimidated and verbally attacked my children;
- Thrown mud balls at my kitchen window;
- Thrown rubbish over me;
- Left objects and scattered rubbish near my front door and gates;
- Kicked and damaged my front door;
- Repeatedly invited strangers to walk through my front gate and front door area;
- Tampered with and damaged the gate and fence that separate me from them in an attempt to muddle and dispute the boundaries;
- Told me that they intend to get me evicted;
- Repeatedly refused to participate in mediation that I had organised with Camden Mediation;
- Had frequent loud and late night sessions of drinking alcohol, smoking marijuana and cigarettes, playing music outside such that the noise and smell of marijuana entered and polluted my home almost every night last summer.
- My belongings, including my children’s bikes and scooter have mysteriously disappeared soon after my neighbours told me that something would happen to them;
- My windows have been found mysteriously broken several times;
- My rose bushes have been damaged several times;
- Phlegm has been spat at my front door;
Although the police had finally given some of these neighbours harassment warning, the council and the Local Government Ombudsman still share the view that the incidents did not amount to harassment.
After my reporting of the most recent assault on me by my neighbours, the council applied for injunction against me and took me to court, without interviewing me or giving me opportunity to prepare or submit my defence, claiming that I had assaulted my neighbours. Needless to say that the injunction application was littered with lies, inconsistencies and omissions.
The council has still not sent me a copy of my tenancy file for which they had received £10 payment more than six months ago.
After the council had refused to investigate my previous formal complaint about the appalling handling of harassment incidents, Mr. Swingler had advised me to take my complaint to Local Government Ombudsman. I have not bothered because I know that I would be wasting my time and inflicting more pain on myself in doing so.