Hackney Council writes off £millions

However, the are still intent on spending thousands on lawyers to pursue market traders in a campaign of harassment.

Read this and then compare it with the Hackney Gazette report below ...

In Thames Magistrates Court yesterday market trader and 'Metric Martyr' Colin Hunt (left) faced the most bizarre of criminal charges. (What must be borne in mind, and must be placed in context, is that Colin Hunt, one of the original five Metric Martyrs, is the brother of Janet Devers, the 63 year old Hackney trader who currently faces charges by Hackney Council of selling goods by the pound ... the first such prosecution for 6 years).

The charges ... obstruction of the public highway by having his mango boxes 12" over the white line ... his pitch boundary.

What staggered the court was the fact that the council's evidence clearly showed people walking past the boxes. However, Colin produced damning evidence ... perhaps finally revealing the true agenda behind the Metric Martyr's prosecution ... two separate written statements from former Market Inspectors claiming that their bosses had been conducting a deliberate campaign against the market trader, currently on sticks at work recovering from a hip operation.

The Magistrates immediately adjourned the case and the witnesses have been requested to appear in court to give evidence.

Perhaps now, finally the truth will out.

COUNCIL WRITES OFF MILLIONS

Hackney Gazette
mailto:hg.editorial@archant.co.uk
07 August 2008

A Gazette investigation has uncovered millions of pounds of taxpayer's money written off by Hackney Council. Almost £40million of debt went uncollected in the last financial year, an audit of the town hall books revealed.

Opposition councillors and campaigners slammed the council for its inefficiency and unfairness.

Parking fines accounted for more than half the £38million of debts Town Hall officials wrote off in the last financial year. An audit of the town hall books found council's parking officials failed to collect more than £21million in parking fines. Mark Wallace, campaign director at public spending watchdog, Taxpayers Alliance, said it seemed that the council was using the parking fines to make money off people who would pay the first time of asking but let those who didn't get away with it.

He said: "I think this has become a total farce. It makes a mockery of the law."

Most of the cash was lost through parking tickets expiring and errors when issuing the tickets.The council also pays Central Parking System (CPS) almost £3million per year to give out parking tickets. No provision is made in its contract with CPS to be fined for mistakes made when issuing tickets and the company receives thousands of pounds in bonuses for meeting its targets.

Council tax was the next sizeable chunk written off with more than £6.7million in debt not collected, nearly double the amount written off in the previous year. The council said that this was due to the debts being irretrievable as they were more than six years old, the amount owed was so small it would be uneconomical to collect or the person had died.

A similar explanation was given for the £6.5million outstanding in rent arrears on council properties. The failure to collect council tax and rent arrears, Mr Wallace added, sent a message that people didn't have to pay it.

But while the council were writing off millions of pounds they were also spending significant amounts as well. The Gazette ploughed through the council's finances after they were made public at the end of last month. More than £42million was spent on agency staff by the council in 2007/08, £11million more than neighbours Tower Hamlets. On top of this, nearly £3million more was paid to consultants.

Mr Wallace also slammed the council splashing out £545,000 to produce and distribute its newsheet Hackney Today. "It is utterly outrageous that the money paid by hard working taxpayers is being squandered on council propaganda that hardly anyone reads." If they want to publicise themselves, they should do a good job.

The Power of the Jury

As the Metric Martyrs eagerly anticipate the committal hearing for Hackney Market Trader Janet Devers to set a date for her trial by jury we are reminded of the power of the jury in the case below.

A pensioner, driven to protest after his calls for a public inquiry into a 26 year planning dispute were ignored, had admitted criminal damage but was found 'not guilty' by a jury.

It all started when an industrial park sprang up around the bungalow he was building by hand just outside Llandovery.

He claimed that his life has been made a misery and it all goes back to an illegal decision to allow that lorry park next to my home.

But the jury found him not guilty of causing criminal damage, and also cleared him of threatening to carry out a further attack.

They had heard him represent himself at the trial and argue that he was justified in protecting his home.

What is highlighted here, again, is that some people, ridden roughshod over by council officials are driven to extreme measures in order to rectify that injustice.

The jury heard the arguments and delivered its verdict.

Carmarthenshire Council said the verdict was "beyond belief" and "not a good day for the justice system."

Unfortunately, this IS the justice system and the jury dispensed JUSTICE.

When Janet Devers comes before a jury in her Crown Court trial accused of selling goods by the pound, alleged offences committed days after the Vice President of the European Commission claimed it was perfectly lawful to do so in statements which made the front pages of the biggest selling national newspapers, let us hope that JUSTICE, and common sense prevails.

Police and Hackney Council staff in the news again ...

... and this time a man is dead.

Read the BBC report here about how a pensioner died after being forcibly evicted from a Hackney property.

Perhaps a moment of reflection for heavy handed officials across the land ... just remember that the person you are dealing with has worries, concerns, feelings and family. Just pause and think for one minute ... 'What if this was my Dad?' or in the case of Janet Devers whose scales were unceremoniously seized, 'What if this was my Gran, trying to earn an honest living on an open air market at the age of 63?'

The other story involves another misuse of the DVLA data base which led to the death of another pensioner, this time after a parking dispute.

A pensioner's fatal heart attack was "highly likely" to have been caused by a brick being thrown through his window, a court has heard. BBC report here

The three defendants (left) have admitted conspiracy to cause damage to property.

Now consider the post about access to the DVLA data base by anyone who wishes to set up a 'Parking' company. What could they do with that information?

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith says it's not safe to walk the streets in Hackney. Want to know why?

In today's Mail Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was asked whether she would feel safe walking the streets of Hackney, one of the most deprived parts of London, she replied: "Well, no, but I don't think I'd have ever have done."

Asked why she would not feel safe on Hackney's streets at night, the Home Secretary replied: "Well, I just don't think that's a thing that people do, is it, really?"

May I humbly suggest Ms. Smith that redeploying Police Officers on street patrols may have a beneficial effect ... instead of using them to assist Trading Standards Officers seizing imperial scales from market traders (as shown in the picture below)!

The case of Janet Devers has been listed at Thames Magistrates Court for 7th March 2008 for committal proceedings to Crown Court for trial by Jury.

Meanwhile, Janet is still having difficulty walking from a knee injury sustained on a street beside the market after falling down a pothole which has still to be repaired by the council.

No Police on the streets.

Drugs being sold by the ounce or by the gramme.

Holes in the roads yet Hackney Council has the money to spend £2000 prosecuting a market trader for the heinous crime of selling vegetables in imperial measures.

Is the penny starting to drop Ms. Smith as to why it may not be safe to walk the potholed streets when your Government and Hackney Councils have such a distorted sense of priorities?

The New Metric Martyr

Meet the shopkeeper who is the latest to have been penalised for her imperial measures
By CHRISTOPHER BOOKER -
More by this author »

Last updated at 01:08am on 15th January 2008

For Janet Devers, a 63-yearold pensioner who still runs the fruit and veg stall on an East London market started by her mother at the height of the Blitz in 1940, Christmas 2007 was the most frightening she can ever remember.

On Friday, Janet will step into the dock of a courtroom to face 13 criminal charges - putting her at the centre of one of the most shameful farces of recent British politics.

She has become Britain's latest "Metric Martyr" - under EU directives compelling Britain to use only the metric system of weights and measures. She faces financial ruin for breaking that same law which, in 2002, created the original "Martyrs" - the five traders who were found guilty of the crime of selling goods in pounds and ounces.

Since the Metric Martyrs' case aroused massive publicity, around 40,000 market traders all over the country have continued to sell in pounds and ounces without further prosecutions.

But on September 13 last year, trading standards officials from Hackney Council, supported by two police officers, arrived at Janet's Ridley Road market stall to confiscate two sets of imperial, non-metric scales.
Initially, when the metric-only rule came into force in 2000, Janet complied. She went back to her old scales only when her mainly Afro-Caribbean customers protested that they found grams and kilograms baffling.
What makes Janet's plight even more bizarre is that only two days before Hackney's officials seized her scales under EU law, a senior EU Commissioner claimed in Brussels that no such law existed.

On September 11, Brussels announced it had abandoned its 26-year old battle to make Britain an exclusively metric country.
The reason for banner headlines such as "EU Backs Down On Metrication" and "Victory For The Metric Martyrs" was a statement by Gunther Verheugen, a vice-president of the European Commission, that the EU had changed its mind over one of its flagship policies.

Commissioner Verheugen wished to point out that it was never Brussels' intention that it should be a criminal offence for the British to sell in pounds and ounces. We could continue drinking our beer in pints and marking our signposts in miles for as long as we wished.
Mr Verheugen went further. Astonishingly, he insisted that the claim that it was an offence to sell in non-metric measures was merely an invention of Britain's "tabloid press", which had "repeatedly and erroneously" printed stories about "people having to buy their food from markets in kilograms rather than pounds".

Equally startling, in November one of Mr Verheugen's senior aides stated, in a letter to the British Weights and Measures Association, that "the use of pre-2000 weighing instruments in imperial-only units" had always been legal in EU law. "The Directive does not prohibit the use of such instruments."

So what is going on? Why, this week, will Janet Devers appear in court, charged, under EU law, with offences which the EU itself assures us never existed?



This baffling story goes back to the time in 2000 when the EU's compulsory metrication policy exploded into a national cause celebre, after it became illegal to sell any goods in Britain in non-metric weights and measures.

When Sunderland market trader Steve Thoburn became the first person in Britain to be charged with the new crime of selling a pound of bananas, and four more traders were prosecuted soon after, they were scornfully dubbed, by a senior trading standards official, "the Metric Martyrs".

Although the Martyrs took their case to the Court of Appeal - backed by more than £70,000 contributed by readers of the Daily Mail, and thanks to the skillful campaigning of Mr Thoburn's friend and fellow Sunderland market trader Neil Herron - they finally lost.

However, their cause had won such support that no other prosecutions followed - and Brussels was left uncomfortably aware that in Britain the case had done the image of the EU much harm.
This was one reason why, last September, Commissioner Verheugen was keen to show that the EU had softened its line.

But something else which lay behind its U-turn was that, for more than a year, some of the biggest industrial firms on both sides of the Atlantic had been lobbying Brussels to withdraw another highly damaging provision of its metrication policy which was about to do them serious damage.

Still due to come into force in January 2010 is what was intended to be the final step in making Europe totally metric - a law making it illegal for any business not just to sell goods in non-metric measures but to make any reference to them.

After the ban on imperial measures came in seven years ago, businesses were still allowed to assist their customers by providing translations from kilograms into But at the end of next year even this will be forbidden. To mention non-metric measures in any context whatsoever will become illegal. It will even become a criminal offence for McDonald's to sell a "quarterpounder".

These big companies explained to Mr Verheugen that for thousands of firms in the EU and the non-metric U.S., this final step in the drive to total metrication would create havoc.
It would it cost U.S. firms billions of dollars to eliminate any mention of non-metric measures from sales literature or packaging on any goods they exported to Europe.
Even more absurdly it would ban European firms from referring to pounds or inches when selling to customers in America.

On this, the EU finally saw sense. But in announcing his U-turn on one aspect of metrication (although the law is still on the EU and UK statute books), Verheugen went out of his way to make those further claims about how it had never been an offence to sell in non-metric measures in the first place (so absurd was his suggestion that this had all been invented by the "tabloid press" that this particular claim has been removed from the Commission website).

But all this raises a question mark over Hackney Council's decision to charge Janet Devers with an offence which Verheugen maintains never existed.

Just before Christmas, she was served with a 67-page document, setting out 13 charges, such as weighing her goods on the scales seized by the officials, and ordering her to appear at Thames Magistrates' Court on Friday.

Most alarming of all for Janet is a warning that, if she loses the case, she will face massive costs. Just for the work officials have done so far, the bill is nearly £2,000 - the time of two trading standards officials alone is costed at £68 an hour, a rate equating to £141,000 a year each. But this might seem like peanuts when the costs of Hackney's lawyers are added to the bill.

All this, plus the possibility of fines up to £5,000 on each charge, is what Janet faces this week.
When her ordeal began, she and her brother Colin Hunt - one of the original five Martyrs, who runs a stall in the same Hackney market - turned to the Metric Martyrs Defence Fund, so helpful before but which has now run out of money.

Council officials will argue that they are only doing their duty by enforcing the law as it stands. In a sense they are right. Despite Mr Verheugen's huffing and puffing, the laws under which Janet faces prosecution are still on the statute books.

But the fact remains that the UK regulations were only nodded through Parliament under the European Communities Act, to implement a directive which Verheugen insists was never intended to make the use of Mrs Devers's scales illegal.

This is such an absurd anomaly that it would be an affront to justice if her case was not presented with all the force that it deserves.
Opinion polls have consistently shown that more than 90 per cent of the British people are opposed to making it a criminal offence to sell goods in the measures most understand and prefer. In that sense, Mrs Devers will be standing in the dock on Friday on behalf of all of us.

• To offer support, contact Metric Martyrs Defence Fund, PO Box 526, Sunderland SR1 3YS (or e-mail metricmartyrs@btconnect.com).

For the avoidance of doubt ... here is the letter from the Commission's Vice President

Gunther Verheugen has thrown the cat well and truly amongst the pigeons ...

Steve Thoburn was prosecuted for having 'destamped' scales.

The scales were 'de-stamped' because they could not weigh in metric and were seized on a subsequent visit.

According to Verheugen the scales were lawful.

If anyone had wanted to buy in metric Steve had metric scales on the premises.

Janet Devers case in Thames Magistrates this Friday becomes rather important.

AND FROM HACKNEY COUNCIL

If anyone was in any doubt as to why Hackney Trading Standards are being so vexatious and 'personal' when all other local authorities have stayed well clear one need look no further than the 'flyer' put round the market by a Senior Trading Standards Office a few months ago.

We will reveal the origins of the content in good time but someone it appears wants to 'stick two fingers up to the Metric Martyrs.'

Such contentious and 'personal' opinions should not be handed out in such a manner by paid public officials, especially without any header or provenance as to the source of the opinions.

However, the Freedom of Information Act is a very useful piece of legislation and the author will no doubt be regretting putting such personal opinions into the public domain, in due course.

... and I cannot remember claiming that I had saved the Crown on the Pint, but after half a dozen who knows?

New Metric Martyr Faces 13 Charges

Christopher Booker's Notebook
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 13.1.08

New metric martyr faces 13 charges

An extraordinary thing happened one week last September. Gunther Verheugen, a vice-president of the European Commission, announced that Brussels had abandoned its policy of forcing Britain to go exclusively metric.

The British, he said, could use non-metric weights and measures as long as they wished. Indeed he went further. The belief that it was a criminal offence under an EU directive to sell in non-metric measures, he said, was an invention of the "tabloid press", which had "repeatedly and erroneously printed stories" of "people having to buy their food from markets in kilograms rather than pounds".

Mr Verheugen's announcement won front-page headlines in the national press. Yet, only a day later, trading standards officials made a mockery of his statement by seizing two sets of "illegal" imperial scales from a stall run by the sister of Colin Hunt, one of the five original Metric Martyrs, in London's Ridley Road market.

This event was totally ignored - except by this column.

Just before Christmas the stallholder, Janet Devers, a 63-year-old pensioner, received a 67-page document from Hackney Council charging her with 13 criminal offences, including use of her old imperial scales. Yet only a month earlier, in a letter to the British Weights and Measures Association, one of Mr Verheugen's senior officials had stated that "use of pre-2000 weighing instruments in imperial-only units" remained entirely legal under EU law, since "the directive does not prohibit the use of such instruments".

Mrs Devers was told the council's costs, for the time of the officials who seized her scales (£68 an hour each, equivalent to £141,000 a year) were already £2,000. Fees for Hackney's lawyers will bring the total much higher - apart from any fines to which she might be liable (up to £5,000 each), for offences which Mr Verheugen insists do not exist.

Next Friday Mrs Devers will appear at Thames Magistrates Court in east London. So important are the issues raised by her case that a firm of solicitors, Bates, Wells & Braithwaite, and a barrister, Nicholas Bowen, have already volunteered to defend her at no charge. In light of those statements from Brussels, they believe her case is very strong. Six years ago generous support from readers of this column (some £110,000) enabled the original Metric Martyrs to fight their case up to the Court of Appeal.

Anyone wishing to support Mrs Devers should contact

Neil Herron,
Metric Martyrs Defence Fund,
PO Box 526, Sunderland SR1 3YS
(or email metricmartyrs@btconnect.com).

New Metric Martyr Case in Hackney could lead to Metric Martyr retrial

Metric Martyrs Press Release: Immediate

New Metric Martyr in Hackney

Hackney Court Case could help overturn Metric Martyr Steve Thoburn's conviction as European Commission's Vice President's statement indicates that the Metric Martyr was 'wrongly convicted'

In a remarkable and dramatic twist to the whole metrication drama a statement on behalf of the Vice President of the European Commission, Gunther Verheugen, throws doubt not only on the conviction of Sunderland greengrocer Steve Thoburn but also on the pending case of 63 year old East End market trader, Janet Devers.

Mrs. Devers faces a number of charges relating to alleged metrication offences relating to selling by the bowl, but two of the charges mirror Steven's, namely using imperial only scales which did not bear an official stamp. The stamp had been removed by a Trading Standards Officer on a previous visit. The scales were subsequently seized when Trading Standards Officers were accompanied by the Police. Photographs and report here

All this occurred after the recent banner headlines which gave the impression to traders and public alike that the Metric Martyrs had indeed been victorious and the pound and the pint had been saved.

The case of Hackney v Janet Devers is listed before Thames Magistrates on 18th January 2008 at 2pm.

However, in the period between being made aware of this and the case being listed for trial, we received a letter from a Metric Martyrs and British Weights and Measures Association supporter, which detailed a response he had received from the Reinhard Klein of the European Commission's Enterprise and Industry Directorate-General on behalf of the Vice President of the Commission, Gunther Verheugen. He had sought clarification from the Commission in light of the headlines in which Verheugen stated that the Metrication Regulations were never intended to apply to market traders.

In the letter of response (shown in full here) Reinhard Klein states:

" The Commission does not consider it necessary to change the current provisions on the use of pre-2000 weighing instruments in imperial only because the Directive does not prohibit the use of such instruments."

This clarification that 'equipment' also includes pre-2000 weighing instruments quite obviously changes everything.

Therefore, both Steven Thoburn and Janet Devers were using scales which were expressly authorised by the Directive.

The removal of the certification stamps by the Local Authority's Trading Standards Officers 'because they were not capable of weighing in metric,' is an action which could be seen as an abuse of process.

The subsequent prosecutions under the 1985 Weights and Measures Act 11(2) for having / using scales 'which did not bear an official stamp' it will be argued were therefore unlawful as the stamps had been removed unlawfully.
Metric Martyrs Campaign's Neil Herron states: "This obvious conflict, now clarified by the Vice President of the European Commission between the Directive and its application or interpretation throws absolute doubt on the conviction of Steve Thoburn who only faced the charges after his legal scales had been 'de-stamped.' We anticipate in light of this to get the Metric Martyrs case before the Criminal Cases Review Commission and back to the Court of Appeal. The fact that Hackney are pursuing the case against Janet Devers, the sister of Colin Hunt, one of the original five Metric Martyrs smacks of a personal and vexatious action by Council officials. Indeed Trading Standards officials have already handed out misleading and inappropriate leaflets around Ridley Road market which are the subject of an ongoing complaint."

The timing of the new Metric Martyr prosecution could not be better as on Thursday 17th January at 1pm in Westminster Neil Herron hands over the 16,000 strong petition calling for a Royal Pardon to Sunderland MP Chris Mullin to present to Parliament. Chris has also agreed to assist the campaign in bringing the matter before the Criminal Cases Review Commission a body set up after he exposed another miscarriage of justice in the case of the Birmingham Six.

Supporters are welcome to attend the Court on Friday.

ENDS

Contact:

Neil Herron

YOU CAN STILL SIGN THE PETITION ONLINE HERE

DONATIONS:
Metric Martyrs Defence Fund
PO Box 526
Sunderland
SR1 3YS
e-mail: metricmartyrs@btconnect.com

Tel. Office 0191 565 7143
Mob. 07776 202045

LINKS:
BBC Coverage of Metric Martyrs Case here

WEBSITE:
http://www.metricmartyrs.co.uk/