As regular visitors- and my SiteMeter reveals there are a few- to this blog know, I have serious criticisms of these Orders. They are becoming no more than “vigilante training”.
You can find a list of some of the more unusual examples of these orders at
http://www.statewatch.org/asbo/ASBOwatch-extreme.htm
But there is an example in this week’s Private Eye.
HARTLESS?
“ At 9pm on 29th October 2004, police served Susan Hartless with an anti-social behaviour order, saying three and her four children had to leave their home immediately.
The order was a complete surprise: the family knew nothing about ant ASBO hearing and had not been warned about the behaviour of anyone in the family.
Last week the high court ruled that the family could stay in their home in Liphook, Hampshire, so long as they were on their best behaviour.
Moat Housing Association used consultancy firm Community Assist to take out the ASBO and the possession order against Ms Hartless, her partner Carl Harris (who was staying elsewhere on the day of the eviction but normally lives with the family) and their children, aged 14, nine, eight and seven,
Luckily for the family the police did not think that chucking the family on to the street that evening was a great idea and so gave them until the morning to leave. Overnight Ms Hartless found a solicitor who contacted a high court judge at 1.30 a m to get the order put on hold.
At the High Court this month, Lord Justice Brooke found that most of the evidence gathered from neighbours and presented at the ASBO hearing by Community Assist boss Angus Macdonald was hearsay, and much of it lumped the Hartless family in with a different family in the same street, who were also served with an ASBO and evicted last year. The judge said MacDonald gave “statements of the utmost generality without identifying the source of his inevitably second hand or third hand evidence”.
Decades of housing law says eviction should only be used as a last resort and “without notice” evictions should only be used in extreme circumstances. Lord Justice Brookes said there had been no previous warnings, no attempt to get Social Services involved in resolving the behaviour problems and none of the family had criminal records.
The two middle children had glowing school reports and Ms Hartless’ eight- year- old daughter was to appear in a carnival with her Brownie Guide pack the day after the ASBO was served. The teenage boy’s behaviour on the estate had been unacceptable (fighting and shouting abuse) and both parents had rowed with their neighbours; but making the entire family homeless was unreasonable, said the judge.”
As I was reading this, I found out that more and more local authorities are using ASBO’s to rid themselves of troublesome tenants. In the Hartless case, Moat Housing used an outside organisation-Community Assist- to do the legal work. I understand South Tyneside Council, stuffed to the gunwales with lawyers are farming their ASBO work to a Newcastle firm of expensive commercial lawyers, who instruct counsel AND send members of their staff to hold counsel’s hand during the application before the magistrates. The fees paid by the local authority would make a local council taxpayer weep. And it’s not as if persuading South Tyneside magistrates to grant an ASBO presents insuperable difficulties!
Cheers
t
I'm approaching 60 : I'll admit to having been a 'rebel' most of my life.. I still am, BUT this never prevented my respect for the law - However, that respect has now diminished.
I've been taken to court many times for owing council tax/rent + been threatened with eviction, accompanied by dozens of threatening/ harassing letters + bailiffs involved.
I've counter-claimed re: repairs not done for years, etc.. but the judge always ignores FACTS I present & comes down on the council's side.
Over the last couple of years, I've had continuous problems with anti-social parking (preventing me from getting in/out of my own gate on my pushbike).
I've had words with the parkers, some of which have been distorted & reported to W'ton Council -who then threatened ME with an ASBO - based on slanderous hearsay.
The tenant whose slanderous hearsay formed the basis for the council threatening me with the first ASBO had actually ADMITTED spreading cat shit on my path/doormat to the housing manager -but nothing was done to him.. (perhaps 'cause he's apparently an ex-councillor!)
I've got nowhere with the council, highways dept or police : who've all backed up the parkers' triple parking/pavement parking/parking alongside a continuous dropped kerb/preventing peoples' access to their premises, etc..etc.. This includes council vehicle drivers.
The pavement is also almost HALF as wide as the LAW states it should be!- a fact completely ignored by authority.
Yesterday, the housing Manager phoned me saying a tenant whom he 'could not name' for fear of 'recriminations against them!'.. had reported me as being 'abusive' to a person she knows (over parking). The manager would not tell me what the person had actually accused me of.
This came as a complete surprise as for several weeks now I'd given up trying to politely request bad parkers to allow me enough room to ride my pushbike, & said nothing to anyone - leaving matters in the local MP's hands : which appears to also be going nowhere.
When I told the Housing manager his actions amount to harassing me, he denied he's now threatened me with 2 x ASBO's ..
On tv, it was recently stated that Wolverhampton is becoming a 'Metropolis':-
the injustices I've suffered at the hands of the council, from the word go, back up the fact they've been a metropolis for decades!
Metropolis = Dystopia - a highly mechanised society in which individual rights are suppressed by a ruling elite.
My point being : This whole british society is 1 big Metropolis!
Posted by: Chris Deacon | 01 August 2008 at 11:20 AM