Tag Archives: Nick Hooper

POSH DROOPER’S ASBO FLOP

A thick smog of hopelessness, crisis and meltdown drifts aimlessly through the air at Bristol City Council these days. We now discover that useless posh twit housing boss Nick “DROOPER” Hooper is threatening local residents in Bristol with LEGAL ACTION for, er … Delivering a letter to their councillor!

The posh underperforming middle management buffon sent a legally vacuous letter to two Avonmouth residents this week THREATENING them with legal action – despite being neither a copper nor a lawyer – for “causing harassment, alarm or distress to others” after they visited Avonmouth Community Centre and HAND DELIVERED a letter to their local councillor, Wayne “DEE” Harvey.

Drooper also requested that they “refrain from such conduct in the future” and “where issues persist we may have to take ACTION against those responsible”! Ooh er missus! Don’t go delivering letters to councillors on Drooper’s watch! Or he’ll use those DRACONIAN powers that only exist inside his deluded mind to punish you!

One resident has described this ‘incident’ to us in all its criminal glory:

“I entered the Avonmouth Community Centre with Steven Norman to present Cllr Harvey with a set of written questions as he had refused to answer our enquiries. I asked where Cllr Harvey was and was directed to the back room.

“The door was open and I walked in and apologised to the person sat with Cllr Harvey and asked if I could just drop the letter off and not take up any further time. This I did and asked Cllr Harvey to respond in writing at a later date. I then left the building to attend a remembrance ceremony for the victims of the Bhopal chemical crime.”

What a crime! Call the cops! A letter’s been delivered!

You really have to ask what pea-brained dick head Drooper’s playing at here. This OVER-PROMOTED posh wanker, no doubt with an expensively purchased MA in vacuous bollocks, is currently overseeing the worst HOUSING CRISIS in living memory in the city and doing fuck all about it apart from picking up a fat salary every month.

Surely this lazy-arsed failing boss has more important things to do than write dumbass letters full of pseudo-legal DRIVEL and EMPTY THREATS to local residents? Why doesn’t he, er, do his actual job? Sorting out the social housing crisis in the city or maybe even the homelessness crisis in the city or finding somewhere for the city’s army of battered women to live?

Coincidentally, Drooper’s absurdist legal assault on resident correspondents to councillors came the day before it was revealed that the Environment Agency’s brief dust monitoring programme at Avonmouth Port will be pulled IMMEDIATELY with the full backing of Bristol City Council’s officers. No doubt these two events are entirely unrelated?

There may be trouble ahead …

BENEFIT SHAMBLES

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City’s Housing Benefit service is collapsing thanks to cuts while bosses hide in cupboards and do nothing!

The BRISTOLIAN has been contacted by numerous housing officers, advice workers and claimants who tell us that Bristol’s HOUSING BENEFIT system is CLOSE TO COLLAPSE.

Due to local government cuts, staff numbers are down and those left cannot process the work in time so new claimants are having to wait THREE MONTHS to receive any money in most cases. This is leading to EVICTIONS of claimants and landlords refusing to take tenants on benefits, including Working Families Tax Credits (WFTC).

As a result, Housing Benefit staff are under INCREASING PRESSURE, missing more deadlines and having to deal with angry service users who are FACING HOMELESSNESS. Many staff are going off sick or just jacking it in. Meanwhile their managers barricade themselves in their back room offices.

Worse is to follow for the staff, as the council now has yet another admin review on the go, having decided that all admin jobs are the same and they can FORCE DOWN rates of pay further. This also means that admin workers from different parts of the council are being forced to work in housing with no experience of housing or benefit claims. This will make the situation worse.

Furthermore, if there are ANY changes in your circumstances, your housing benefit will STOP and have to be reprocessed. For example, if you are working and getting WFTC and your hours increase or decrease, you have to tell the benefit officers who will STOP THE CLAIM altogether, even if the change is only slight.

You will then wait THREE MONTHS – and the backlog is growing – before you get your benefits back. Landlords are evicting claimants during this period and even the council are sending eviction notices for those in local authority housing despite the fact it’s down to their own mismanagement…. idiots!!!

Also of major concern is the AUTOMATION of many services. People threatened with homelessness have to spend long periods on the phone, being passed from one pointless robotic voice recording to another. One elderly lady racked up £8 in telephone bills! Some kind advice workers have advised us that you can apply for an interim payment, but many do not know this, and the fucking robots on the blower won’t tell you!!!

This is affecting THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE across the city. In the meantime the police, who apparently cannot investigate your crimes, are evicting tenants and squatters while thousands of properties are left vacant in the city as rich property speculators wait until the price is right; nice one!!

What is NICK “LORD SNOOTY” HOOPER, head of housing doing about all this then? What is the red trousered fuckpot doing about this? A big FA. Thousands of families could end up homeless in our city and don’t ignore this – because it could soon be you.

OH SHIT! NOW IT’S HIT THE FAN …

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Oh no! It looks like the gypsy community have just poured a large bucket of shit over the heads of council housing director, Nick “No” Hooper, Mayor Fergo, his glamorous assistant, Zoe Sear and council legal boss Liam “Malfoy” Nevin.

Alas, promises from No Hooper that Thursday’s High Court hearing would sort out the ongoing ‘Avonmouth Shit Scandal’ proved to be, er, shit after the council’s legal team, headed up by rookie lawyer Malfoy, got a pasting in the High Court from the gypsies’ smart-arsed brief.

So rather than packing up and leaving as promised by No Hooper, the gypsies are now there for at least another six weeks! And in a remarkable u-turn, No Hooper is now promising to install a portaloo as requested!

It’s another win for the newspaper that counts! Full steam ahead through the shit!

Here’s No Hooper’s climbdown in full:

From: nick.hooper@bristol.gov.uk
To: s-norman123@hotmail.co.uk
CC: mayor@bristol.gov.uk; zoe.sear@bristol.gov.uk; tom.gilchrist@bristol.gov.uk; steven.hearsey@bristol.gov.uk

Subject: RE: Unlawful gypsy and traveller encampment

Date: Fri, 2 May 2014 13:26:35 +0000

Dear Mr Norman

I promised to contact you when we knew the outcome of the High Court hearing on the injunction preventing the Council using its eviction order. This was considered yesterday in the High Court in London. The judge did not agree to lift the injunction, and instead has decided that he will hear both the injunction and the eviction order in due course, once the Council has provided him with more information about the case. That hearing is likely to be in about 6 weeks time. I am sure you will be disappointed by that result, as is the Council. In view of the decision by the judge, and the extended time that the travellers will be where they are currently, I have decided exceptionally that we will provide a portaloo for their sole use whilst they are there. It will be delivered tomorrow.

Yours.

MORE SHIT

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A wealthy bloke from leafy West Bristol has decided that the residents of Avonmouth must, literally, live in shit so he can have a dick waving contest with a group of gypsies.

Council Service Director, Nick Hooper, has ruled that a portaloo cannot be provided to a temporary gypsy site in Avonmouth in case it “create[s] any impression that the Council is sanctioning the use of this land”.

Naturally, as a council boss, Hooper is far more concerned with “impressions”, “brand”, “image” and tolerating public health hazards conveniently situated several miles away from his own upmarket home than the health and welfare of ordinary Bristolians and their children.

But wouldn’t it be interesting to go and dump a load of shit on Hooper’s street, tell him it’s a good thing and see how he and his family react?

Here’s the latest council email on shit. Read it and weep some more …

From: nick.hooper@bristol.gov.uk
To: s-norman123@hotmail.co.uk
CC: zoe.sear@bristol.gov.uk; tom.gilchrist@bristol.gov.uk; steven.hearsey@bristol.gov.uk
Subject: Unlawful gypsy and traveller encampment
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 18:03:38 +0000

Dear Mr Norman

I refer to Zoe Sear’s message to you earlier. I am the director responsible for the Council’s work with gypsies and travellers, including enforcement where that is necessary. I fully understand your concerns and those of nearby residents, and we are doing all we can to deal with the unlawful encampment. Steve Hearsey was quite right to say that we would not provide a portaloo – it is vital that we do not create any impression that the Council is sanctioning the use of this land for travellers by installing facilities. Instead we will do all we can to remove them from the land, through proper legal process. I am sure that Mr Hearsey explained that we have obtained an eviction order to recover the land. However lawyers for the traveller household obtained an injunction preventing us from using the eviction order. As part of the process to try and quash the injunction we have a duty to ensure that we have done all that we can to assist the travellers to meet their needs, as well as be as certain as we can that we will win the case. There has been contact, by Mr Hearsey and other council staff, with the traveller household to make sure that we fully understand their needs and that we have done what we can to assist them, which will will form part of our evidence. Part of the process of gathering evidence has also included complaints we have received from yourself and others about the impact of the unlawful encampment.

Tomorrow there is a hearing in the High Court in London at which the Council will be seeking to get the injunction lifted. Once we know the outcome of the Court’s decision, and assuming the Council is successful, we will be able to determine how quickly we can evict them from the site, or they may decide to go voluntarily. If we have to evict them then this may take a couple of weeks. After the court decision we will review the next steps, about which we will keep you informed. This will include any further cleaning needed and considering the question of barriers to deter future occupation.

Yours sincerely,

Nick Hooper

And here’s the response to Hooper, neatly pointing out he’s sidestepping the question of whether he’s tolerating a public health hazard in our city because he wants to act the tough guy (from the safety of his secure Counts Louse office, natch) and score a few points against some, er, gypsies!

(It’s also worth noting that while Hooper is merrily laying off staff to save money, he seems to have an unlimited budget to pay for privatised shit shovellers).

From: s-norman123@hotmail.co.uk
To: nick.hooper@bristol.gov.uk
CC: mayor@bristol.gov.uk; zoe.sear@bristol.gov.uk
Subject: RE: Unlawful gypsy and traveller encampment
Date: Thu, 1 May 2014 08:23:47 +0100

Dear Mr Hooper,

Thank you for your email the contents of which have been noted.

I however note with interest that it does not address or provide answers to the three direct questions asked in my email to Mayor Ferguson. Nor does it address the questions asked regarding costs of cleaning and how those costs compare to the installation of a portaloo. These can clearly be found out after the matter has been resolved through an FOI request if you are not prepared to supply these figures at this moment in time.

I find it quite amazing that educated and highly paid officers of the council can trivialize a public health problem with the word IMPRESSION. Now, without wishing to sound facetious, I feel sure I could muster up enough fellow constituents to clean-up and bag the excrement free of charge and deliver it to your’s and Mayor Ferguson’s abodes. Clearly it is your intentions to take us back to the dark ages in Shirehampton/Avonmouth because deciding to act otherwise will give the wrong ‘impression’.

I fail to see why those fortunate enough to live in leafy suburbs should not have some of what we are expected to accept and tolerate.

In your email you mention the welfare of the Gypsies. Well I would have thought toilet facilities would be included in the word welfare. It would to most rational thinking people. After all is said and done, even prisoners are provided with hygienic conditions.

Clearly it is accepted that gypsy encampments are a problem for BCC. However that does not exonerate the local authority from avoiding its responsibilities or legal duties under public health and safety laws. It would be extremely helpful if you could provide me with a copy of the section of legislation or public health & safety law you rely on for denying the installation of portaloos or what part of the law or legislation states you can deny this based on ‘impression’.

In any event your current argument for not installing portaloos, whilst the legal process is being played out, is sinking faster than the Titanic on a cold April night and is like the deck chair attendant trying to rearrange the deck chairs after the event.

Clearly the installation of a said temporary toilet would not be sanctioning the site but would merely show BCC acting as a responsible authority and protecting the health and public safety of residents in the vicinity of the site and preventing the possible spread of life threatening diseases such as hepatitis.

To be quite frank and brutal, the contents of your email amounts to nothing more than bureaucratic waffle that has no legal foundation and your decision is being endorsed by a group of narcissistic nodding dogs around a table.

I would now ask that either you or are esteemed Mayor answer the three questions that were directly asked in my first email and those questions asked in my second email.

Q, Are You Happy That Humans Are Expelling Human Body Waste In A Public Place

Q Is It The Intention Under Your Mayor ship To Take Us Back To The Dark Ages

Q, Do You And Your Overpaid Officer Accept Full Responsibility That The Expelling Of Human Waste & Urine Can Create A Public Health Problem

Will you also please clarify if a cleaning team will be on 24hr call out or if it will be attending on a daily bases to remove the excrement and toilet tissue and what the cost of such an operation will be compared to the cost of hiring a temporary toilet whilst BCC get back possession of the land.

Clearly it may be the case that I need to consider seeking an emergency injunction from the court seeking BCC to install a portloo in the interest of public health & safety. I certainly believe I have a strong prima facie case for the court to consider

Yours Sincerely

Mr Stephen Norman

And here’s the mayor’s response. Again sidestepping the issue of whether they’re deliberately leaving a load of shit and a public health hazard in the middle of Avonmouth. So much for straight talking …

From: mayor@bristol.gov.uk
To: s-norman123@hotmail.co.uk
CC: mayor@bristol.gov.uk; nick.hooper@bristol.gov.uk
Subject: RE: Unlawful gypsy and traveller encampment

Date: Thu, 1 May 2014 09:20:48 +0000

Mr Norman,

To re-iterate the final section of Nick Hooper’s note, today is a key date, in that there is a hearing in the High Court in London at which the Council will be seeking to get the injunction lifted.

Once we know the outcome of the Court’s decision, and assuming the Council is successful, we will be able to determine how quickly we can evict them from the site, or they may decide to go voluntarily.

If we have to evict them then this may take a couple of weeks. After the court decision we will review the next steps, about which we will keep you informed. This will include any further cleaning needed and considering the question of barriers to deter future occupation.

The Mayor’s Office

NOT JUST ‘MS X’ – HOW BRISTOL CITY COUNCIL FAILS TO REHOUSE DOMESTIC ABUSE VICTIMS

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Do you want the good news or the bad news first?

Today The BRISTOLIAN can exclusively reveal that domestic abuse survivor ‘Ms X’ – whose case we featured prominently through November – has finally been rehoused. Yet this excellent news is overshadowed by figures released by Bristol City Council that show others like her face an astonishing SIX MONTH WAIT.

We understand that Ms X received the keys to her new home yesterday, following a rush of activity in recent weeks by senior council officials whose sudden interest in her case mysteriously only took hold after The BRISTOLIAN took up the cudgels in support. She had up until that point been ignored by the Service Director, housing managers and the Mayor’s office, despite being at a very real risk of serious violence from her abuser.

Meanwhile, after a long wait for the data on how many others like Ms X there are out there in Bristol, the council today responded to a Freedom of Information request by a BRISTOLIAN reporter with statistics that are EVEN MORE HORRIFIC THAN FIRST FEARED.

For the year 2012-2013, Bristol City Council received 396 applications for rehousing due to domestic abuse. Just 228 were rehoused – that’s a success rate of under 58%*. Incredibly, domestic abuse victims had to wait on average more than 185 days to be found a place of safety. ONE-HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-FIVE DAYS at risk of violence, sexual assault, mental torture and much more besides.

Whilst budget cuts have clearly made the situation worse over the past year, the figures show that this scandal has not appeared out of thin air. In 2008-09, UNDER 40% OF 224 ABUSED APPLICANTS WERE REHOUSED, with an average wait of 120.5 days.

The following year, 2009-10, there were more applicants – 275 – but better performance from the council, with 61% rehoused and the wait down to just over 112 days. 82% of 307 people were found safe homes in 2010-11, with the wait cut to three months – though that means there were still MORE THAN FIFTY PEOPLE AT RISK OF ABUSE LEFT OUT IN THE COLD.

However, by 2011-12, fewer than three-quarters of the 347 people seeking help were rehoused, with the wait jumping up to 132.4 days. As the data clearly shows, there has been a steady rise in the need for rehousing – NEARLY DOUBLING in just five years.

This comes at the same time that researchers at the University of Bristol have released findings from a study of homeless women in the city which show that nearly 80% had suffered domestic abuse in the past, with almost a quarter of them facing it currently or recently.

So just how are Bristol’s overpaid, self-regarding political élite – whether arrogant Mayor Fergo and his City Hall hangers-on, or the top service bosses in their nice, warm offices – going to solve this sickening scandal? Is their plan to wait for vulnerable women, children and men to just die off, either through the violence of their abusers or the unforgiving harshness of being homeless?

That’s certainly one way to improve the statistics without actually doing anything.

* BCC supplied the data in slightly different forms for numbers of DV applications, which were given by year up to a given date in March; and both ‘successfully rehoused’ numbers and ‘waiting’ times, which were each supplied covering the financial year (April-March). This means that the precise percentages cited in this article may be slightly different to that recorded by BCC – but any variance will be miniscule. If you doubt our figures, check the data provided by BCC in the link above.

MS X & BRISTOL CITY COUNCIL’S FAILURE TO REHOUSE VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: A BRIEF UPDATE

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We know many readers have been following the ‘Ms X’ story – in which Bristol City Council has WASTED MONTHS and FAILED TO REHOUSE a vulnerable victim of domestic violence who has faced DEATH THREATS – and hoping for a happy ending.

Unfortunately we are not currently in a position to report any such thing.

However, we understand that the wheels of rehousing are – very slowly – moving forward for Ms X, and that she recently (and for the first time) met PAUL SYLVESTER, the optimistically-titled ‘Rehousing Manager’ who seems to be very effective at neither rehousing nor managing.

The Council’s position now appears to hinge on the VAGUE “hope” that she might be rehoused “in the next couple of weeks”, so keep your fingers crossed – and if you haven’t already, please do let officers and councillors know you are taking an interest in this…

Meanwhile, in reporting this story, we have discovered that Ms X’s situation is – depressingly – FAR FROM UNIQUE.

We have uncovered evidence of others forced to suffer twin attacks: both the extended fear of brutal attacks from abusers, and the indignities of ‘BANDING LIMBO’ thanks to BCC’s worryingly inhumane interpretation of housing law.

As soon as we are in a position to publish the full, shocking details of this scandal, we shall.

MS X: NOW THE COPPERS SAY “REHOUSE HER”!

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Now joining The BRISTOLIAN and the sensible public at large in demanding the immediate rehousing of vulnerable domestic violence victim – Ms X – is the Avon & Somerset Constabulary.

We understand that police have this week spoken with Bristol City Council’s Housing Department and told them Ms X needs to be urgently relocated for her own safety.

It now seems like everybody, except those with the power to help, want Ms X rehoused as a matter of urgency. Indeed it’s beginning to look like Ms X is now being used as little more than a prop to shore up their fragile egos by Housing Department middle managers Paul Sylvester and Nick Hooper. They are refusing to admit, in the face of a barrage of evidence, that they have made errors and they are refusing to acknowledge the real danger Ms X is in.

Instead, in an effort to prove they are right at any cost, they have resorted to fluent bureaucratese insisting she is ‘Band 3’ and there’s no more they can do. This is bullshit. They could rehouse her tomorrow. They do it all the time. Why won’t they do it now?

The BRISTOLIAN continues to receive outraged emails from councillors on this matter, with some that are especially critical of Housing boss Hooper. The only people now actively supporting Sylvester and Hooper in their fool’s errand of refusing to rehouse Ms X is Zoe Sear, “right hand woman” of Mayor George Ferguson (Happy Anniversary!), and the mysterious, unnamed ‘Safer Bristol Domestic Violence Co-ordinator’ who apparently insists Sylvester and Hooper are acting correctly by doing absolutely nothing and leaving a vulnerable young woman in danger of her life.

Sylvester and Hooper have ignored a death threat; they’ve ignored a ‘substantial threat’; now will they ignore police advice too?

MAYOR’S ENFORCER ‘THREATENS TO OUT’ BATTERED WOMAN

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Zoe Sear – really shit at blackmail

The pressure of trying to hold together Bristol City Council’s creaking domestic violence policies whilst also backing oafish housing managers Nick Hooper and Paul Sylvester – who “take domestic violence seriously” by ignoring urgent correspondence on the subject in favour of putting their feet up for the weekend – seems to be taking its toll on the Mayor’s troubleshooting sidekick ZOE SEAR.

Yesterday when Sear spoke to ‘Ms X’ on the telephone, she decided that the domestic abuse-surviving working class young mum wasn’t playing ball by doing what she was told by her ‘superiors’. In frustration the former PR hackette HISSED DARKLY, “your name could be slipped to the mainstream press!”

Really, Zoe? And how might that happen? And what mainstream publication would possibly print the name of a vulnerable domestic violence victim?

Here in Bristol the only outlet possibly vile enough to do such a thing might be the ~~Evening~~ Bristol Post, and the only hack sleazy enough to be prepared to write such a piece would be Shitty Hall scribbler Ian ‘Copy Typist’ Onions.

Mind you, even as a special favour for his BFF Mayor Gorgeous the Post‘s editor, Führer Mike Norton would surely baulk at such a distasteful course of action…

‘IT’S HER FAULT, HONEST GUV!’ HOW BRISTOL’S HOUSING CHIEFS TRIED TO PLAY THE BLAME GAME WITH AT-RISK YOUNG MUM

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If this wasn’t such a serious issue – the abject FAILURE of Bristol City Council’s senior ranks to obey the law and find an appropriate place of safety for a young mum who has been the victim of sickening domestic violence – then the inept way council officers have attempted to QUIETLY BRIEF against ‘Ms X’ to councillors and others would be funny.

Today, though, they’ve come out into the open with a statement attributed to “a Bristol City Council spokesman” explaining that, err, they think it’s all Ms X’s fault!

We dissect it line-by-line below…

We take very seriously people experiencing domestic violence or abuse. It is a high priority within our rehousing policy, and we have a number of protocols with Next Link and the police.

On her initial approach to the council, Ms X was offered a place in a refuge or safe house by both the council and Next Link…

…Which Ms X very clearly said from the outset she could not accept, for the very pertinent reasons she articulated then and now…

…was offered a lock-change service, and was also offered help to find a new private tenancy. She declined these offers…

…having noted that a private tenancy would give much less chance of security than a local authority or other social housing property, and be considerably more expensive!

She applied to Home Choice to go on the housing register. Unfortunately…

Now there’s an interesting word, “unfortunately”…

…there was then a delay in assessing her place on the housing register…

By “delay” they actually mean that managers within BCC repeatedly failed her – at a time when there were real dangers to her physical wellbeing from her abuser, who continued to contact her, and she most needed to be in a place of safety rather than wading through the quagmire of council red tape.

…which is not acceptable.

No, it’s not acceptable. It wasn’t acceptable three months ago when it happened, nor two months ago, one month ago or even one week ago.

We apologise wholeheartedly…

“Wholeheartedly” – a nice, cosy, emotional word to imply that ‘hey, we have hearts too!’ Except, of course, they’re sitting in their comfortable offices enjoying their management perks whilst making what in effect are life-and-death decisions about the likes of Ms X.

…for this and we are reviewing how this happened.

Note that they have only apologised NOW, after being embarrassed in public – is that really an apology worth having?

Ms X was placed on the register in Band 3, a priority band which includes other victims of domestic abuse, homelessness cases and others urgently needing to move…

Of course that begs the question, if people being threatened with serious physical, sexual or emotional abuse are not the most preeminent concern, then who is? Managers’ mates?

She has been bidding on properties, but unfortunately has been restricting her selection of property type and location…

Aha! There’s that word “unfortunately” again! Note that the statement uses the same word to describe something that the council did – the “delay” in properly processing the housing application – and something that Ms X did. That suggests that they are comparable: ‘we were a little wrong, you were a little wrong’.

Except what the council did was make an error that is in their own words “not acceptable”; what Ms X did was make a choice about what was most suitable for her and her child.

Let’s have another look at Bristol City Council’s own policy on Domestic Abuse: “[Don’t] Pressurise an individual into a specific course of action… [Don’t] Be judgmental of the individual’s choices and actions”. Seems pretty clear.

And yet this statement attempts to suggest that if the original banding was a mistake, then so if Ms X not wanting to be forced into unsuitable housing. It puts her exercise of free choice on a par with the potentially life-threatening mistakes of senior council officers – could there be anything more judgmental (or offensive) than that?

Had she bid on all suitable properties there are 11 that have been advertised,

Note that there is not even an attempt to actually discuss the quality or suitability of those properties – do you not wonder why?

…and since her application was placed in Band 3 she would have been the successful bidder.

And guess what: there’s no way anyone could verify this! In other words, they’re making stuff up as they go along.

Either that or they’ve got a really good crystal ball up at City Hall. Perhaps Mayor Fergo could use it to place a bet at Paddy Power on a rank outsider to win – then he won’t need to cut the budget for things like rehousing vulnerable people…

Ms X has a support worker at Next Link, and the Safer Bristol…

In case you were unaware, the ‘Safer Bristol Partnership’ is a multi-agency quango managed by, erm, Bristol City Council!

…domestic abuse coordinator has reviewed the case.

And who is this mysterious, all-seeing, all-knowing wise person? Have they met with Ms X? Are they a Bristol City Council employee or from another agency? Name them!

Their conclusion is that all agencies have done what they should have.

Now that is a real surprise! But, um, by “all agencies” they can’t possibly mean to include Bristol City Council, can they?

Presumably not, seeing as BCC is an organisation which even by its own admission FAILED to properly band Ms X in the first place. It also WASTED three months, IGNORED Ms X’s wishes to not be dumped in a refuge, and has used THREATS – such as exposing her full identity to the mainstream media, withdrawing all possibility of housing support, and briefing inaccurate information to those who have shown an interest in the case.

…in order to help.

If that all counts as “help” then heaven help those you really don’t like!

We continue to offer on-going support and the case is a priority.

Hang on, did you say “the case is a priority”? If that’s true, why has the council never said that to Ms X, either verbally or in correspondence?

Overall, the whole statement reeks of desperation. This whole sorry affair began more than three months ago. The BRISTOLIAN has been reporting on it for five days.

Yet the best this motley crew of management mediocrities and self-styled ‘communications gurus’ could come up with were some half-baked half-truths, the odd smear, and a bunch of wildly inaccurate claims.

Shameful, pathetic, beneath contempt.

BRISTOL DOMESTIC ABUSE SURVIVOR ‘MS X’ IN HER OWN WORDS – REFUSING TO BE BEATEN DOWN BY HEARTLESS HOUSING CHIEFS

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If you have been following the saga of Bristol City Council’s FAILURE to rehouse ‘Ms X’, a young mum who has suffered horrific domestic abuse, then this is a must-read – it’s a statement from her, in her own words…

Three months ago with the aid of a friend I gained the strength to contact a domestic abuse organisation who have helped me to understand that I am a victim and this is not my fault.

I then made an application for Urgent Housing Needs to Bristol City Council, backed up by a referral from the domestic abuse organisation in support of my application. I hoped the process would be straight forward and that common sense would prevail – but this was not the case.

Firstly there was a delay in processing my application, and then the department lost the referral and I was placed in the lowest housing band, Band 5. The referral was resent by the domestic abuse organisation and I was eventually placed in Band 3.

During this disorganised chaos I was referred to the homeless section. This is the only part of the council where I feel that they have shown me any compassion for or understanding of my plight. I was offered a place in a women’s refuge, which I had to turn down. I am not willing to be forced into a refuge for the simple reason that I have a young child (who fortunately has never witnessed the abuse) who has regular contact with her father, who is not the abuser.

I should not have to disrupt my young child’s life or her father’s for my mistake in choosing the wrong partner – I just want to rebuild my life and provide stability for mine and my daughter’s future.

It seems people are telling me what is best for me. How do these people know what is best for me? Do I not have the freedom of choice? I am told there is nothing contained under Section 177 Housing Acts (1996) that states I must go in to a women’s refuge.

Since The Bristolian highlighted my campaign it has brought a great deal of support. The response of Mr Hooper & Mr Sylvester to this support is once again to offer me a refuge and deny me a property – so in over three months my housing application has made no further progress.

I now ask Mr Hooper and Mr Sylvester to do three things:

Show me which part of the housing legislation states I must accept a place in a refuge;

Show me one good reason why three months on that you are unable to provide me with proper accommodation;

Show me any risk assessment you have carried out in reference to my situation.

To date I have had not one face-to-face meeting with a re-housing officer, although I have been informed by my advocate that a meeting is being organised to discuss my case. However, I would like to say that if the council intends only to offer me a refuge against my wishes yet again, please save the expense of travel as my decision is unchanged.

This process is affecting my mental health and well being, but I refuse to be a victim twice. I ask for nothing more than what the law of the land says I am entitled to, if I am not entitled to rehousing again I say show me the law you rely upon.

Ms X

As you can see, it clearly REFUTES many of the lies and misrepresentations that have mysteriously been swirling around City Hall since this shameful episode blew up in public (and particularly since we emailed every councillor in the city to let them know what was going on).

Just imagine that ‘Ms X’ was your friend, your sister, your mum or aunt or daughter: subjected to sickening violence, and then abused a second time by a bunch of clueless bureaucrats with not an ounce of compassion or common sense between them.

Ms X shouldn’t have to take this shit, and nor should any woman, child or man.