Gordon Brown. 'Cannot remember if I met him'. 'Don't remember if I received money'. 'Cannot remember what bloody day of the week it is - but, nevertheless I want to develop a vision to run the country for another 15 years.' <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2967444.ece">Slime</a>. <a href="http://dizzythinks.net">Graft</a>. <a href="http://www.spectator.co.uk/stephenpollard/374026/mr-abrahams-and-the-labour-party.thtml">Lies</a>. <a href="http://www.order-order.com/2007/11/mendelsohn-offered-to-launder-money-for.html">Spivs</a>. <a href="http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2007/11/another-day-another-government.html#links">Criminals</a>. Jesus, what a pathetic hopeless useless godawful state Britain is in.
It starts right at the top from an administration that knows only <a href="http://the-tap.blogspot.com/2007/11/brown-is-lying.html">how to lie</a>, cover up, creep and leap. It goes down from there all the way to street level where Policemen, Councillors, Teachers, Health workers, anyone trying to do the right thing are giving up. Gangs and criminals are having a field day. Honest people are leaving.
I received this email from my tenant in West London this week. I don't need to add to it. He tells his story as well as anyone. It is ugly, I warn you and shows what was once a good country, is being allowed to become. Read the full text if you want. It's only a microcosm of the way collapsing government, and corruption is allowing things to develop in Britain.
I am posting this as the victims have disappeared, and I am worried about their safety and their whereabouts. Also those involved in the local Council might start to see the problens being created by their non-enforcement of the planning laws, or the Police by failing to enforce the criminal law, or even interview the criminals. Maybe by posting this story, some good will come of the situation, and an evil act be put right. A Police Officer or a Council Worker will have second thoughts, or realise this is a more dangerous situation than they first realised.
If you're not interested in the details, please move on and get back into the politics of other posts. There's enough depressing things to read at the moment anyway.
If you are interested, real life is not easy to edit. It's here in full. Labour Party donors are effectively bribing to win planning favours. That of course means driving out of business those who don't bribe, and who play by the rtules. I have heard of many parallel stories like this one, where government is either actively assisting criminals or is passively allowing them to build mini-empires capable and willing to pay bribes.
The stories coming out at the moment like Abrahams (of two names - also known as Martin) are finding corrupt individuals who have found that they can manipulate government to provide them with overriding power in their own backyards. That's worth paying for. The wider consequences of this lower down the tree, thouggh, how this affects the little guy, are not yet being thought of or focused on. Maybe the story below gives some idea of what many people are now going through - people who imagined Britain to be a fair=minded, law-abiding country, where hard work amd playing by the rules will bring you success. Think on.
SUMMARY -
This is a story of two ex-council flats, one on top of the other. The one above tapped into first the hot water supply, and then the electric supply of the one below. Both these acts are illegal, and against Council rules, and yet neither resulted in any action being taken by the Police or the Council against the perpetrators. (The Council even informed the perpetrators which individual had reported them - resulting in damage being carried out to a car).
The upstairs flat was a two bedroom flat, which is now a four bedroon flat housing up to 8 people. This is also an illegal alteration affecting safety and noise levels. Nothing has been done, or is being done by the Council. The floor needs sound-proofing after an incorrect alteration. A lawyer's letter was sent to the Council. They did not even bother to reply.
The people living in the upstairs flat are Polish immigrants some of who are working for their landlord. He has managed to persuade them to carry out a course of intimidation against the occupants of the flat below. This was reported to the Police, who did nothing. In fear for their lives and their safety, the occupants who had lived there for two years have now disappeared.
That's the summary. This is a mini-story, not one that attaches directly to Harriet Harman, taking filthy money from a crook, or Gordon Brown. But it shows how the culture of corruption at the top of British society, for which Gordon Btrown is responsible, is allowing the rule-breakers everywhere to leap ahead and crush the little people, paying off or threatening as they go. Britain has become a grubby grubby unpleasant dangerous place.
<a href="http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2007/11/29/the-dodgy-funding-scandal/">John Humphrey of the BBC</a> might not be interested in hearing any more about labour Party corruptiom. Maybe he needs to start thinking of how this is changing the country he lives in, (and presumably still loves) from his privileges position of safety. Others are not so lucky.
<em>23 November 2007. Miss J and Mr P H
Flat 39 VVVVVVV House
Somewhere
West London
RE. the situation surrounding the discovery of electricity theft from flat 39 by flat 43 VVVVVV house, and reported to the council, EDF energy and the local police(CAD 4405 11/11/07).
Dear councillor/minister,
I feel I need to bring to your attention the problems my partner(XXXXXXXXXXXX) and myself(YYYYYY) have been having regarding neighbours who moved into 43 VVVVV house about 1 and a half to 2 years ago.
I know this is usually a local council matter, but if you can bear with me you will see that everything surrounding the problem isn’t as straight forward as it seems, and the end result is both mine and my partners lives are now endangered by a criminal gang that operates on the Alton estate. So far the council and the police have been unable to do anything, but I will go into that in detail later.
I feel I need to give you all the details, so that means starting back in April of 2004 when we both moved into the area and started renting flat 39 from Miss G(she is now back in her native FFFFFF).
Miss G was the partner(possibly marriage partner?) of the owner of flat 43, a Mr Chris Bovill. They had both properties with an eye to letting one out, which was the one we ended up renting.
The partnership with Miss G and Mr Bovill didn’t end well apparently and a child was involved so it got messy as these things do. During that period I would meet Mr Bovill from time to time and we would talk about this situation. I had known people who had gone through this and was happy to talk to Mr Bovill about it all. My own father had upped and left when I was young, so I did my best to console him that his child would always want to know whom its father was. Anyway I was nothing but a friend to Mr Bovil during this period.
My dates are a bit hazy, but about the time Mr Bovill moved out of flat 43 VVVVV house(end of 2005/start of 2006?), both my partner and I started to have problems with the new neighbours that moved in. They often played loud music until the early hours of the morning and during the day. I did contact the council about this on a few occasions and Mr Bovill (their landlord) directly, and this did eventually solve that problem. At the time of the tenants moving in we put up with lots of heavy DIY for a few months(which we didn’t complain about as it’s what happens in these situations),but they were drilling into heavy concrete a lot – and this is important for later on.
Then we started to be woken up early in the mornings by random bangs and thumps on the floor above our bedroom. This started to happen quite regularly until I decided to contact Mr Bovill again about his tenants and their behaviour. I have the saved copies of the emails. Things would get better for a bit, then start again with the same kind of problems, and is an ongoing problem to this day.
More recently we had been experiencing a small but steady leak from their bathroom into ours, this took about six months to eventually get sorted, but that was probably only because I had written to and spoken with Mr. Mark Grundy the estate manager and I suspect he hurried up that situation. Again I have most of the email correspondence that past between myself and Mr Bovill’s letting agent from that time.
I should make it clear that all through this time I had no idea that possibly Mr Bovill might be behind the problems so far reported, that didn’t ‘click’ until the most recent(and scary) events as described by the title of my letter to you.
About a year ago Miss G was looking at selling the flat, she spoke to us about it and alluded to some very bad behaviour on Mr Bovill’s part being the cause of their relationships breakdown, and that she just wanted to get as far away from him as possible.
She later sold the flat to a Z, about six months ago, who is now the owner of flat 39 and our new landlord. It was during this period I learnt that Z was an old childhood and life long friend of Mr Bovill’s.
He told me some rather sinister details about Mr Bovill’s character that I found hard to believe, and also explained that during the break up of Miss G and Mr Bovill, he had found he had to support Miss G due to Mr Bovill’s actions.
Z and Miss G are also scared of Mr Bovill, that much has been clear when I have spoken to them about him. Z told me Mr Bovill liked the excitement of mixing with shady characters, was prone to dodgy and illegal DIY, giving bribes and using intimidation.
I feel I’m now the subject of Mr Bovill’s attentions, and this brings us to the main current issue, and why I feel I need to make you aware of what has been happening this last week and a bit.
On the 14th of November I decided to switch of the fuse for flat 39’s ceiling lights to change the bulbs in the kitchen (which had a tendency to blow). As I did this in the daytime I forgot to switch the fuse back on.
That evening after I had picked my partner up from work we came into the flat (around 6pm) and shortly noticed hearing the light switches in flat 43 being flipped on and off, many times, in both the upstairs toilets, bathrooms and kitchen area. We could hear a girl doing this and speaking loudly (sounding confused) to someone else. They were not speaking English so I don’t know exactly what they were talking about. It was just something that caught our attention, as unusual behaviour from the flat above, we hadn’t heard it before.
Then I remembered Z telling me about Mr Bovill’s DIY tricks, and we have in our flat an example of an illegal water tank Mr Bovill had installed in flat 39 to connect it directly to flat 43 and steal the heating and hot water(this has since been disconnected, and I think the council know of it – it was before we moved into flat 39).
So I decided to leave our ceiling electric fuse off. During the next day I could again hear people testing the switches in flat 43. Then on Thursday evening(15th of November) around 7pm while I was making dinner I heard cables being ripped out of the floor above my head and lots of DIY started to be done in many of the rooms of flat 43.
I realised they had discovered I knew what they had been doing and were trying to cover it up.
So I did a bit of research on the Internet and called my electrical supplier(EDF) and notified the local police who gave me a CAD number(CAD 4405 11/11/07) and some advice.
The electrical company said as it wasn’t involving direct connection/tampering to the meter they were not interested, so I went back to the police and they said they could not do anything until the electrical company gave them a report. Catch 22.
I eventually managed to get EDF to agree to send someone (they were going to come on Wednesday), then that fell through when I called them back to tell them about all the DIY work going on in flat 43. As my bills are not high and I’m a good bill payer, they decided not to pursue it further. It wasn’t about the money for me, running of the ceiling lights would limit the amount of heavy-duty electrical appliances they could run of their illegal tapping. I suspect that was why it was just the light switches we kept hearing being flipped. Maybe over the year and a half it might have cost me an extra £150-200 in bills. So the money wasn’t the issue – more the illegality of it.
I did seek advice from British gas about this also, they were quite surprised that EDF didn’t want to investigate, but they could not help me not being my supplier.
All over that weekend, and on and off until present they continue to do spots of DIY work to cover up the evidence, that’s my strong suspicion. I did contact the council to send someone around to witness the work(just so it wasn’t just my report of it). Sadly by the time they came around on Sunday the 18th, all noise from flat 43 had stopped. They told me that as these were both private lets they couldn’t actually get involved.
Since reporting this all to the council offices in 38 Holybourne Avenue on the morning of Friday 16th I have not heard anything from them. When I made that report I also suggested that as Mr Bovill owns various properties on the estate, most of which he lets out via his company Speedlets(used to be Ezylets), it could be possible that these properties might also have been tampered with in the same way flat 39 had been.
The residents in flat 43 are Polish builders he uses to work for him in doing up his properties, and I understand many of his tenants are from Eastern Europe. I don’t bring this up for any other reason than to make it clear it is from these people that I now feel threatened, and a conversation I had with a local police officer(I foolishly didn’t get his name) looking into the CAD report I had made was quite odd.
He basically said that as an experienced officer of 15 years who had dealt with this kind of thing before, I could count myself lucky, due to the fact that nothing ‘worse’ had not happened to me yet! And maybe if I left the issue alone, they would leave me alone!
I think I’m going to take that up with the police complaints board, because if anything the advice I was getting from that officer was surprising. He said things like “what does your girlfriend think about this?” and now I’ve had time to go over that conversation, it was completely inappropriate because in effect he was telling me that as EDF wouldn’t be looking into it, the police couldn’t do more and I should worry about the safety of both myself and my girlfriend. This just doesn’t sound right to me after reporting a crime that carries a 6-month to 5 years sentence(stealing electricity) if proven.
I only know the first name of one tenant in flat 43, Bart(no idea if it’s his real name). He is the only one of 5-6 tenants I’ve seen in flat 43 that seems to speak English, and it was usually him I would deal with over the leak problem etc. He drives two cars, a green metallic VW Golf reg: S979 OVP, and a black Peugeot 206 reg: LG53 HCF.
On Monday evening while going to the bus stop to pick up my partner, he must have been waiting for me to leave the block, and drove like a lunatic to get in front of me so he could turn around to drive towards me and make a threatening gesture. It was dark and his lights were on, but it did look like he made a ‘pistol’ gesture at me as he drove by. I only noticed because a few people at the bus stop were looking at his car in interest, I assume because he was racing it hard to be able to turn around to be on the right side of the road to gesture at me.
Since then I have not seen either of his cars around the VVVV house block, although I believe he is still in flat 43 due to the banging on the floors + occasional DIY etc.
Again I know this should all be dealt with on a local level, but to be honest the response I’ve got(or lack off) through much of the issues around flat43 has raised my eyebrows somewhat, and I do wonder if Mr Bovill’s bribery allegations might be true. I think if you decide to take this issue up this may be of interest in itself.
What it all boils down to I now suspect is Mr Bovill wishing to make it difficult for first Miss G and now Z to let out flat 39. The break up of Miss G and Mr Bovill may have pushed him over the edge, and now anyone in the way of his anger over this is in danger.
All I wanted to do was to report a crime, now a very murky situation has evolved that I don’t really have the resources to deal with(courts/lawyers etc). No crime has been proven to have taken place, but now we are both stuck with intimidation from Mr Bovill’s gang, and no one to offer help or assistance so far.
We have both been pretty terrified these last few days, I now accompany her all the way to her work place, and back again home in the evenings.
Please take this letter as serious as it sounds, I just have a feeling that until the activities of Mr Bovill and his Polish gang are properly looked into(and possibly not just on a local level) other people are going to suffer. I suspect, all sorts of illegal activity would be uncovered – the pieces that have now fallen into place for me just point in that direction, and the reactions so far from the residents of 43 might indicate the same.
Yours earnestly and in good faith,
X and Y </em>
THREE LOCAL POLITICIANS HAVE BEEN NOTIFIED OF THE CASE – MP Justine Greening , MEP Gerard Batten AND A LOCAL COUNCILLOR. THE COUNCILLOR AND Gerard Batten MEP HAVE REPLIED OFFERING TO HELP BUT ARE NOT SURE WHAT THEY CAN DO. AS YET NO ACTION HAS BEEN TAKEN BY LOCAL POLICE OR WANDSWORTH COUNCIL.
SINCE SENDING THIS LETTER, BOTH X AND Y HAVE DISAPPEARED. NO DOUBT WISELY PUTTING SAFETY ABOVE ANYTHING ELSE. THEIR MOBILES DON'T ANSWER. THEIR EMAILS DON'T REPLY. OR AT LEAST I HOPE THAT IS THE REASON.
