My great grandfather was Spanish. Salvador was a railway engineer by trade, who rose to be a transport minister for the Republican Government of Spain in the civil war against Franco's Fascists. Dudi, as we call him, stands over our family like a colossus, spreading his shade.
Family history and myth relate the moments when he decided to flee Spain. His car was stopped by gun-men from his own side at a roadblock. After giving his name he was politely escorted to a bullet-pocked wall and relieved of his jacket. An overzealous official double checks his first name as the firing squad cock their rifles.
“I'm Salvador, not Andres” says Dudi. “Sorry comrade” says the official and sends him on his way.
Dudi took his Scottish wife and two daughters to England and became a refugee. Many years later, after he had settled in Switzerland and written scores of books, he found himself landing in an aeroplane in Franco's Spain due to weather conditions. He tells the air-crew he might be shot if he lands, so they keep him on board and hide his presence, while they take on fuel. Can you possibly imagine that this could happen post 9-11?
Fatma and her daughter were granted refugee status, and now the daughter teaches. Hussein who is gay receives his leave to remain, because he has a civil spouse and, if he was deported with his husband, why they'd both be lynched on a crane. Case after case, I've seen deserving families given succour. The great convention on refugees still stands to protect those who have suffered persecution (as long as they have a lawyer).
Sadly, swingeing cuts mean really great charities like the Refugee Legal Centre closed their doors this year after 40 years or so. They tried to re-brand, but to no avail. The public sympathy is against refugees.
At least 64% of people receiving civil legal aid will lose a service in Hackney. That's 5,000 people, one tenth of the 50,000 people in London who will lose out. Sadly, there will be no funding anymore for social welfare law in almost all cases, and immigration will be cut to the bone.
And so Dudi, you great European Liberal, your dream of rights for refugees is still alive, and the shade your generation casts means we still observe the Refugee Convention and the Human Rights Act.
Only 10 Lib Dem MP's rebelled against the LASPO Bill in the third reading in the Commons. That was 10 brave people. 51 Lords spoke against the bill. That was 51 experts giving the bill a real kicking. We shall see.
Wednesday, 23 November 2011
Thursday, 10 November 2011
Walk the Line
3,000 people walked through our doors in the last year. That's at least a 40% climb in people seeking legal advice. There are a dozen salaried staff, many part time. Wonderful volunteers defend the parapets.
We run out of stamps, our photocopiers break down, and suddenly we find it is almost impossible to print a letter. Without the ability to print letters we are a little like Silvio Berlusconi, all fur coat and no knickers.
Staplers break, pens stop working. It's all a bit spooky.
Chorouk observes that when she tries to print a letter the little twiddly gears on the photocopier start to melt. For every page she prints or copies she has to extract 9 mangled pages from the bowels of the beast, one at a time. She's a trainee solicitor, with oak leaves.
The Xerox call centre in Manilla promises a speedy response when we pay our bill. The thing is, our Legal Aid funding was cut by 10% last month. So already the bills are a problem.
Paula arrives without 3 of her 5 children. The kids are beautifully behaved. She's homeless tomorrow.
Hossein who is mentally ill arrives distraught and he also is homeless tomorrow!
Rita, Sue and Bob come in to talk about housing, benefit and immigration rights. The money problems have to be put to the back of the queue. It's not nice because if your giro's stopped you're going to be upset and worried. However evictions and deportations top our resource-meter (to use management speak) because they are catastrophic events.
Emails are sent, writs are drafted in our heads and we generally run around like chickens doing the Legal Aid dance.
When the dust settles no-one is homeless tonight and no-one has been deported. Good result? I hope so.
Volunteer Miranda walks in while the dust settles with the client with no name we all forgot about. She's housed a person with a few phone calls and has no idea why we start to cheer.
Walk the line, do the right thing, fear no-one. It's getting to be so difficult. Which is why we're closing our doors to new clients for a month.
We run out of stamps, our photocopiers break down, and suddenly we find it is almost impossible to print a letter. Without the ability to print letters we are a little like Silvio Berlusconi, all fur coat and no knickers.
Staplers break, pens stop working. It's all a bit spooky.
Chorouk observes that when she tries to print a letter the little twiddly gears on the photocopier start to melt. For every page she prints or copies she has to extract 9 mangled pages from the bowels of the beast, one at a time. She's a trainee solicitor, with oak leaves.
The Xerox call centre in Manilla promises a speedy response when we pay our bill. The thing is, our Legal Aid funding was cut by 10% last month. So already the bills are a problem.
Paula arrives without 3 of her 5 children. The kids are beautifully behaved. She's homeless tomorrow.
Hossein who is mentally ill arrives distraught and he also is homeless tomorrow!
Rita, Sue and Bob come in to talk about housing, benefit and immigration rights. The money problems have to be put to the back of the queue. It's not nice because if your giro's stopped you're going to be upset and worried. However evictions and deportations top our resource-meter (to use management speak) because they are catastrophic events.
Emails are sent, writs are drafted in our heads and we generally run around like chickens doing the Legal Aid dance.
When the dust settles no-one is homeless tonight and no-one has been deported. Good result? I hope so.
Volunteer Miranda walks in while the dust settles with the client with no name we all forgot about. She's housed a person with a few phone calls and has no idea why we start to cheer.
Walk the line, do the right thing, fear no-one. It's getting to be so difficult. Which is why we're closing our doors to new clients for a month.
Monday, 31 October 2011
Violence at Home
And so to Parliament again to hear about the impact of Legal Aid cuts on victims of domestic violence in a report by that very British group, the Women's Institute.
Jean suffered domestic violence 40 years ago. Her husband and assailant was a wealthy man. He held her under his sway. He put her in the hospital, and were it not for Legal Aid she would not have obtained her divorce or custody of the children. Her husband was convicted of causing GBH. She tells us that without Legal Aid, she would have gone home to the man who put her in intensive care.
Sam learnt that her partner had been convicted of tying up and raping a child. When she asked him to go he refused to do so. Eventually he went to prison for what she saw as an attempt to kill her by stabbing or breaking of the neck after she'd put the kids to bed. He went to prison, but for years after he stalked her, even in Court. She says that without a doubt she would now be dead if she had not been able to get help from the Courts.
Claudia managed to escape, but has to tolerate her daughter asking why her dad, who has contact with their daughter regularly, tells her that Claudia's not her mum. “You're white and she's black” he says. A wise child knows her own father I think, but most know their mother.
The proposed Legal Aid cuts are catastrophic.
If, in the last 12 months you have managed to get the man who used to hit you into prison or get him on trial, if you have managed to get any judge anywhere to state on the record that your allegations of domestic violence are proven, then you will get a service. If it happened more than a year later you won't get any help if psycho husband turns up.
If you manage to get a social worker concerned about the impact of the domestic violence that's good. If the police and the social workers have a meeting and declare that you are likely to suffer GBH or something worse that will help to get you a service.
Good luck with that then.
To get Legal Aid for domestic violence it is not sufficient to walk into a police station with a black eye. Convictions for rapists and assailants are very low. But if you have managed to achieve a conviction against your assailant in the last 12 months (no longer) you could get Legal Aid.
The government line is that objective evidence must be obtained that the woman is at a high risk of violence. The matter is being debated as we speak. But as anyone who knows anything about domestic violence will tell you, often the only witnesses to violent events are the victim and the perpetrator. Victims feel undermined and isolated, hiding their bruises, failing to report their rapes. They are cowed, they blame themselves.
One survey found that 70% of women in refuges failed to report their abuse to the police. With pitiful conviction rates for offences like rape, you can see their point.
The government's adoption of a new definition of domestic violence for which funding will be available will prevent many domestic violence victims, as recognised by by the Association of Chief Police Officers, from getting Legal Aid and thus they will have to represent themselves. They will have to be subjected to cross-examination by their assailants, something which in criminal rape trials is becoming a thing of the past.
Baroness Scotland, the Shadow Attorney General, tells us that in the last government domestic violence was reduced by 65%, constituting a saving of £7.5 billion pounds in social costs. It seems that this trend will now go into reverse.
In the debates the Legal Aid Minister Jonathan Djanogly states "I am not questioning the integrity of genuine victims. However, many people during the legal aid consultation were concerned about providing an incentive for unfounded allegations and the government shares this concern."
What really? The 5,000 response to the consultation included a significant response from rational people who felt it was too easy for battered women to get Legal Aid. I rather doubt that.
My brain fries at a certain point. I don't do family law, I just smell something that's not right. Justice doesn't smell like this. Not right, not fair.
Write to your MP. It takes 30 seconds on Justice for All's website http://act.justice-for-all.org.uk/lobby/12
Jean suffered domestic violence 40 years ago. Her husband and assailant was a wealthy man. He held her under his sway. He put her in the hospital, and were it not for Legal Aid she would not have obtained her divorce or custody of the children. Her husband was convicted of causing GBH. She tells us that without Legal Aid, she would have gone home to the man who put her in intensive care.
Sam learnt that her partner had been convicted of tying up and raping a child. When she asked him to go he refused to do so. Eventually he went to prison for what she saw as an attempt to kill her by stabbing or breaking of the neck after she'd put the kids to bed. He went to prison, but for years after he stalked her, even in Court. She says that without a doubt she would now be dead if she had not been able to get help from the Courts.
Claudia managed to escape, but has to tolerate her daughter asking why her dad, who has contact with their daughter regularly, tells her that Claudia's not her mum. “You're white and she's black” he says. A wise child knows her own father I think, but most know their mother.
The proposed Legal Aid cuts are catastrophic.
If, in the last 12 months you have managed to get the man who used to hit you into prison or get him on trial, if you have managed to get any judge anywhere to state on the record that your allegations of domestic violence are proven, then you will get a service. If it happened more than a year later you won't get any help if psycho husband turns up.
If you manage to get a social worker concerned about the impact of the domestic violence that's good. If the police and the social workers have a meeting and declare that you are likely to suffer GBH or something worse that will help to get you a service.
Good luck with that then.
To get Legal Aid for domestic violence it is not sufficient to walk into a police station with a black eye. Convictions for rapists and assailants are very low. But if you have managed to achieve a conviction against your assailant in the last 12 months (no longer) you could get Legal Aid.
The government line is that objective evidence must be obtained that the woman is at a high risk of violence. The matter is being debated as we speak. But as anyone who knows anything about domestic violence will tell you, often the only witnesses to violent events are the victim and the perpetrator. Victims feel undermined and isolated, hiding their bruises, failing to report their rapes. They are cowed, they blame themselves.
One survey found that 70% of women in refuges failed to report their abuse to the police. With pitiful conviction rates for offences like rape, you can see their point.
The government's adoption of a new definition of domestic violence for which funding will be available will prevent many domestic violence victims, as recognised by by the Association of Chief Police Officers, from getting Legal Aid and thus they will have to represent themselves. They will have to be subjected to cross-examination by their assailants, something which in criminal rape trials is becoming a thing of the past.
Baroness Scotland, the Shadow Attorney General, tells us that in the last government domestic violence was reduced by 65%, constituting a saving of £7.5 billion pounds in social costs. It seems that this trend will now go into reverse.
In the debates the Legal Aid Minister Jonathan Djanogly states "I am not questioning the integrity of genuine victims. However, many people during the legal aid consultation were concerned about providing an incentive for unfounded allegations and the government shares this concern."
What really? The 5,000 response to the consultation included a significant response from rational people who felt it was too easy for battered women to get Legal Aid. I rather doubt that.
My brain fries at a certain point. I don't do family law, I just smell something that's not right. Justice doesn't smell like this. Not right, not fair.
Write to your MP. It takes 30 seconds on Justice for All's website http://act.justice-for-all.org.uk/lobby/12
Wednesday, 19 October 2011
Cancer: LSC doesn't give ATOS
Hard core devotees will remember the case of Annie who was refused benefits although she had cancer. For the rest of you here's a refresher. http://frontlinehackney.blogspot.com/2011/07/cancer-who-gives-atos.html.
It had a happy ending. We went to the Tribunal twice, but she got her benefits reinstated. Even better, an appointment with a British doctor was likely to be made soon, and there was every hope that she would start getting help from the NHS she so badly needed.
So I shut the case down, bundled it up and sent the file off to the Legal Services Commission for them to look at my bill.
A few weeks ago they wrote back saying they weren't going to pay me for 80% of my work because since the LSC won't pay for advocacy in the Tribunals (I was doing that bit for free) they would not pay for preparation for the hearing.
Never mind that we won and righted a great wrong. Never mind that this interpretation of the rules was counter to the last 10 Tribunal cases we had done. Never mind that this Legal Aid Funding has always been for all steps up to but excluding the actual hearing.
I only had 14 days to appeal. My appeal is late.
While my fortnight was ticking by we helped scores of people in danger of losing their homes, met immigration appeal deadlines of a week or less, housed homeless families at the 11th hour. My partner was in hospital, my secretary's daughter was in the hospital, we spent the time we had to help real people with real problems.
And now it seems we won't get paid for the work we did for Annie.
In a last ditch experiment I shall be sending our appeal late, and attaching copies of this blog. I shall be appealing to their humanity and British common sense. Then I shan't be holding my breath.
It had a happy ending. We went to the Tribunal twice, but she got her benefits reinstated. Even better, an appointment with a British doctor was likely to be made soon, and there was every hope that she would start getting help from the NHS she so badly needed.
So I shut the case down, bundled it up and sent the file off to the Legal Services Commission for them to look at my bill.
A few weeks ago they wrote back saying they weren't going to pay me for 80% of my work because since the LSC won't pay for advocacy in the Tribunals (I was doing that bit for free) they would not pay for preparation for the hearing.
Never mind that we won and righted a great wrong. Never mind that this interpretation of the rules was counter to the last 10 Tribunal cases we had done. Never mind that this Legal Aid Funding has always been for all steps up to but excluding the actual hearing.
I only had 14 days to appeal. My appeal is late.
While my fortnight was ticking by we helped scores of people in danger of losing their homes, met immigration appeal deadlines of a week or less, housed homeless families at the 11th hour. My partner was in hospital, my secretary's daughter was in the hospital, we spent the time we had to help real people with real problems.
And now it seems we won't get paid for the work we did for Annie.
In a last ditch experiment I shall be sending our appeal late, and attaching copies of this blog. I shall be appealing to their humanity and British common sense. Then I shan't be holding my breath.
Saturday, 1 October 2011
Gerrymandering Homeless Children
Henrietta left her council flat when her husband got a job abroad in Las Vegas. It seemed like a logical choice at the time. They were both going to make it big.
For a while everything was good. Her husband had a dream job, they were going to have a baby.
But when the child came along their relationship crumbled. Some men can't cope with proper responsibility. Having a real baby, shitting and grizzling is stressful- and some men can't take it. I guess they think of their dicks as a magic wand that has no payback.
When their marriage broke down, when her husband stopped paying for housekeeping for his kid, when she didn't have diapers or food, she realised that this man was no good for her or her baby, so she went home to the UK.
She stayed with a friend in Westminster, poshest of boroughs. After six months of ignoring her when she came asking for help and advice, Westminster booked her in to one of the two hotels that they have bought in Hackney.
Then Westminster told her that it was her fault that she had not hired a US lawyer to protect her interests, told her that it was her fault that her marriage broke down, that she was homeless. Told her that it was unacceptable that she should come home and ask for help for her and her baby.
And then Westminster evicted her.
And because the homeless child is now present in Hackney- where Westminster dumped the family- it so happens that social services in a poor East London borough now have to pick up the tab, try to work out how to stop Henrietta's baby being put on the street, or taken into care.
Well we got an injunction over the phone from a High Court Judge. Henrietta and her baby have an overpriced room in a hostel where the linen hasn't been changed, and both of them are eaten alive by bed bugs. The case is ongoing.
Meanwhile Westminster continues to keep its rates low by shipping unemployed people into Hackney and the East End, dumping them on our social services, and getting away scot free, smelling of roses.
Smelling of roses to the well-heeled residents of Westminster perhaps. Get rid of the poor unfortunates, send them to us. To me it smacks of gerrymandering.
Some of you with long memories will remember Dame Shirley Porter, fined millions of pounds unfairly (some might say) for trying to socially engineer the right sort of tenants and the right sort of voters in Westminster, so that we have the right sort of people in a Tory flagship borough.
This week Westminster trumpeted that it was going to give increased priority on its council flat waiting list to people with jobs because they want to reduce their Housing Benefit bill. So millionaire's row will be sending its single parents and its disabled elsewhere.
Under the new dispensation it's respectable to send people like Henrietta and her baby into poor boroughs to enable the rich boroughs to reduce their rates still further. I don't know about you, but I find the naked cynicism predictable and disgusting.
For a while everything was good. Her husband had a dream job, they were going to have a baby.
But when the child came along their relationship crumbled. Some men can't cope with proper responsibility. Having a real baby, shitting and grizzling is stressful- and some men can't take it. I guess they think of their dicks as a magic wand that has no payback.
When their marriage broke down, when her husband stopped paying for housekeeping for his kid, when she didn't have diapers or food, she realised that this man was no good for her or her baby, so she went home to the UK.
She stayed with a friend in Westminster, poshest of boroughs. After six months of ignoring her when she came asking for help and advice, Westminster booked her in to one of the two hotels that they have bought in Hackney.
Then Westminster told her that it was her fault that she had not hired a US lawyer to protect her interests, told her that it was her fault that her marriage broke down, that she was homeless. Told her that it was unacceptable that she should come home and ask for help for her and her baby.
And then Westminster evicted her.
And because the homeless child is now present in Hackney- where Westminster dumped the family- it so happens that social services in a poor East London borough now have to pick up the tab, try to work out how to stop Henrietta's baby being put on the street, or taken into care.
Well we got an injunction over the phone from a High Court Judge. Henrietta and her baby have an overpriced room in a hostel where the linen hasn't been changed, and both of them are eaten alive by bed bugs. The case is ongoing.
Meanwhile Westminster continues to keep its rates low by shipping unemployed people into Hackney and the East End, dumping them on our social services, and getting away scot free, smelling of roses.
Smelling of roses to the well-heeled residents of Westminster perhaps. Get rid of the poor unfortunates, send them to us. To me it smacks of gerrymandering.
Some of you with long memories will remember Dame Shirley Porter, fined millions of pounds unfairly (some might say) for trying to socially engineer the right sort of tenants and the right sort of voters in Westminster, so that we have the right sort of people in a Tory flagship borough.
This week Westminster trumpeted that it was going to give increased priority on its council flat waiting list to people with jobs because they want to reduce their Housing Benefit bill. So millionaire's row will be sending its single parents and its disabled elsewhere.
Under the new dispensation it's respectable to send people like Henrietta and her baby into poor boroughs to enable the rich boroughs to reduce their rates still further. I don't know about you, but I find the naked cynicism predictable and disgusting.
Wednesday, 21 September 2011
The Inner City Came Knocking
The inner city came knocking on Tuesday.
I visited St Joseph's Hospice, Hackney, where smokers are encouraged not to smoke outside the door when ambulances are bringing people in, but to smoke at a bench in the garden. There's a fountain. There are flowers growing. There's a guy in a wheelchair with a tube up his nose having a fag. It's lovely.
The occasion was the launch of a social report “Try Being in My Shoes”, by Social Action for Health, a project that sees patients in GP surgeries who have benefits and social problems.
They save GP time, help benefit patients with sturdy paperwork, try and help patients with their anxieties. If the problems become too complex, they refer the cases to local law centres and other legal aid lawyers. Cases are titrated very cheaply, thousands and thousands of benefits income is saved for sick people,the NHS saves money. It's all win win.
The room is packed. Almost 100 delegates turn up. Healthcare professionals, voluntary organisations, people from the Council, youth-workers, we're all worried and angry.
The report dwells on a transformation of the welfare benefit landscape,cuts in the East End of London and sixteen case studies of ordinary people who the project helped.
Mostly the stories are of disabled men and women who face losing their benefits because of the robotic Work Capability Assessment to decide whether they are fit for work. Their experience of the new dispensation was mostly terrifying and bewildering.
One benefit claimant in the case study was diabetic. She was injecting insulin for her type 2 (late onset) diabetes. Her interview with ATOS broke down when the physiotherapist who was being paid for the 20 minute test disbelieved that she was injecting insulin. In his mind a type 2 case couldn't be using insulin like a type 1 case. Well, my partner has exactly the same condition, I could have told them.
Another patient will have to go on public transport for the test, as the DWP no longer sends doctors to visit the seriously ill. Even if the person is recovering from a heart attack or is agoraphobic. So she says she won't be able to go. She just can't cope. If she doesn't go they'll fail her, but if she does they will discount her disability because she managed to reach the interview, and most-like fail her too.
Vicky Hobart, an expert in public health (“The science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health” Winslow 1920) leaves me in no doubt that people have been living longer in Hackney over the last 10 years, and makes me worried that with these cuts people will be dying sooner.
50,000 people will lose civil legal aid in London , more than 5.000 will be in Hackney. That's a 64% cut in Hackney. Nationally 6,000 children will lose legal aid, and 70,000 youths (18-25).
Hah! We got off easy! In Liverpool 10,000 people will lose legal aid!
“Riots are what happens when the inner city comes knocking, and we're afraid to listen.”
Dianne Abbot MP was quoting more or less Ian Duncan Smith, a Tory MP and former party leader with a zeal for welfare reform based on some serious minded study of inner city deprivation, the causes and effects.
The riots in Hackney are Banquo at the feast. The elephant in the living room. The totally bloody obvious.
Today also the inner city began to knock.
I visited St Joseph's Hospice, Hackney, where smokers are encouraged not to smoke outside the door when ambulances are bringing people in, but to smoke at a bench in the garden. There's a fountain. There are flowers growing. There's a guy in a wheelchair with a tube up his nose having a fag. It's lovely.
The occasion was the launch of a social report “Try Being in My Shoes”, by Social Action for Health, a project that sees patients in GP surgeries who have benefits and social problems.
They save GP time, help benefit patients with sturdy paperwork, try and help patients with their anxieties. If the problems become too complex, they refer the cases to local law centres and other legal aid lawyers. Cases are titrated very cheaply, thousands and thousands of benefits income is saved for sick people,the NHS saves money. It's all win win.
The room is packed. Almost 100 delegates turn up. Healthcare professionals, voluntary organisations, people from the Council, youth-workers, we're all worried and angry.
The report dwells on a transformation of the welfare benefit landscape,cuts in the East End of London and sixteen case studies of ordinary people who the project helped.
Mostly the stories are of disabled men and women who face losing their benefits because of the robotic Work Capability Assessment to decide whether they are fit for work. Their experience of the new dispensation was mostly terrifying and bewildering.
One benefit claimant in the case study was diabetic. She was injecting insulin for her type 2 (late onset) diabetes. Her interview with ATOS broke down when the physiotherapist who was being paid for the 20 minute test disbelieved that she was injecting insulin. In his mind a type 2 case couldn't be using insulin like a type 1 case. Well, my partner has exactly the same condition, I could have told them.
Another patient will have to go on public transport for the test, as the DWP no longer sends doctors to visit the seriously ill. Even if the person is recovering from a heart attack or is agoraphobic. So she says she won't be able to go. She just can't cope. If she doesn't go they'll fail her, but if she does they will discount her disability because she managed to reach the interview, and most-like fail her too.
Vicky Hobart, an expert in public health (“The science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health” Winslow 1920) leaves me in no doubt that people have been living longer in Hackney over the last 10 years, and makes me worried that with these cuts people will be dying sooner.
50,000 people will lose civil legal aid in London , more than 5.000 will be in Hackney. That's a 64% cut in Hackney. Nationally 6,000 children will lose legal aid, and 70,000 youths (18-25).
Hah! We got off easy! In Liverpool 10,000 people will lose legal aid!
“Riots are what happens when the inner city comes knocking, and we're afraid to listen.”
Dianne Abbot MP was quoting more or less Ian Duncan Smith, a Tory MP and former party leader with a zeal for welfare reform based on some serious minded study of inner city deprivation, the causes and effects.
The riots in Hackney are Banquo at the feast. The elephant in the living room. The totally bloody obvious.
Today also the inner city began to knock.
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