Forum Topic

Ealing Council awarded £1600 costs against me

ok guys very few of you seem to give a toss but anyway , I have just concluded a remote hearing with Brentford County Court , the court agreed with Ealing Council that they do not have any statutory duty to respond to local ratepayers and residents , this means that Ealing Council are free to ignore all local residents at their sole discretion REGARDLESS of the issues , you however are not allowed to not pay rates . so we have a legal one way street . i am going to apply for a transcript, in my opinion the district judge was partisan . i draw your attention to the stated policies of Ealing Council that claim they will treat people with respect , despite that these nice sounding words are actually totally without meaning . Do you think being ignored is being treated with respect ? i think the entire judicial process is bentDo you accept that there has to be a law requiring ealing to respond? that makes no sense at all. There is also no law saying Ealing Council must not respond Ealing Council spent a lot of money fighting me, whats more Ealing Council denied my Subject Access request for emails , asking for 3 months rather than the standard 1 month even though emails are simple to retrieve where do I go from here as I really cant stand Ealing Council and do not see how they can be allowed to get away with it

P Taylor ● 1371d7 Comments

thank you Andrew , the logic of the court escapes me , small claims are supposed to be places for small claims and should by their very nature be simple and low cost , the idea that the council can claim as you say that an absence of a law is somehow a law . that is a nonsensethere may be no law that says they must respond but that cannot be used as if it was a law that they must not respond the mere absence of a law is in effect a nothing . it does not make any sense , there are bilions of things that have no laws and many laws that exist that are redundant in practice the councils argument was in essence specious and I strongly suspect that the judge who tried my case is a freemason and they have an oath to always help fellow freemasons which means that in effect i would not be able to obtain justice , i emailed the editorial team at this site and hope I can bring this case to the attention of media because mark my words if they can ignore me they can ignore ANYONE

P Taylor ● 1371d

I suppose, in a court of law, the law determines the outcome.  The Council’s case to strike out Mr Taylor’s claim was that there is no law that compels it to respond to residents’ representations.  Strange.  A law that does not exist used as a permission for the Council to ignore us. It has been challenged unsuccessfully up to judicial review – which does not make it right MORALLY.  It is in conflict with one of the Seven Principles of Public life: Accountability. The Seven Principles are not law.  They are ethical standards for people in public service. They become obligatory if written into the code for councillors. This was.  The code reads: Accountability.  You should be accountable to the public for your actions and the manner in which you carry out your responsibilities, and should co-operate fully and honestly with any scrutiny appropriate to your particular office.   Except in a court of law, Councillors are obliged to make themselves accountable, obliged to respond.  So we need put up with none of the nonsense used in in Brentford when we need to call a Councillor to account. Mr Taylor needed documents for his case.  He made a SAR.  He was told he had to wait three months instead of one month (the rule).  There can be delay due to circumstances.  What was the impediment here?  Officers were working at home but presumably had access to records.  If they didn’t, how could they be working at all?    Are they dossing about at home at our expense? 

Andrew Farmer ● 1371d

Sounds like a loophole. Unfortunately, as many find, you don’t get justice in our legal system, just the law. Anyone who studies how this works will know that some statutes are so badly written that they are open to any interpretation. It’s a real problem when so many laws are introduced reactively, or sensible ones are removed to ‘make life easier’.Ealing Council is notoriously litigious, as it knows there will always be (our) money to spend. It’s not a good look when the very people it is supposed to serve spend so much time, money and stress mounting legal challenges to clearly wrong-headed policies. Warren Farm and Ealing Town Hall spring to mind.It does sound like you have no real options left. And you may well be right about the Masonic thing. I’ve seen it operate first hand in the legal system.

Simon Hayes ● 1371d

the SAR request was considered inadmissable , anyway the councils skeleton argument was that there was nothing in law that compels them to respond , this argument means essentially that all of us can be ignored at any time by Ealing Council regardless of what we are communicating about, in my case I required urgent assistance with a rogue landlord who had been featured in media reports see ' Investing Solutions' meanwhile Ealing Council claim to treat residents with respect and you can see their charter on their website , Unfortunately I think the Judge was a freemason . its never been more obvious that the law is not designed to help the average individual

P Taylor ● 1371d

Ealing Council is failing. If it was a business it would have gone bust years ago. The antipathy towards residents - the people who pay their salaries and allowances in part - is dreadful. This applies to many of the councillors and many of the officers who are employed there. At least the councillors can be removed at elections. The officers are in a cushy job and sanctions seem to be non-existent.I’m sorry that the court has decided against you. It seems odd that it ignored the failure to disclose the emails you requested. Did you not ask for an adjournment?

Simon Hayes ● 1371d

so you agree with Ealing that they are not obliged to respond to local residents and ratepayers , very odd considering you want them to remove leaves frpom the road ? presumably you think they can ignore you as well

P Taylor ● 1371d

To be fair to Ealing Council they did spend money fighting you but at least they got some of it back.

Andy Jones ● 1371d