Forum Home → Discussion → Other areas of social welfare law → Thread
12 weeks in Wormwood Scrubs for Squatting
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/london-squatter-first-to-be-jailed-8181647.html
The new squatting law is now in.
During the passage of the legislation, assorted Housing Professionals assured us that the law was not needed, and would in practice make little difference anyway…
The argument being that the police could only arrest in certain circumstances and would in any case not want to get involved in a civil matter…..
Clearly The Police were not listening to these professionals.
Mr Haigh who on admitting to being a squatter (telling the truth) got banged up for 12 weeks….
Who were his solicitors
Surely they must start JR proceedings because there is an immediate question of proportionality here
Might be worth putting him onto the Howard League
It’s an outrageous sentence in my opinion, utterly disproportionate for the “offence” of living in a property which the housing association owners admit had been empty since 2011. The scandal isn’t squatting, the scandal is the amount of empty homes sitting idle.
This makes any sane person angry.
He was a 21 year old, unemployed bricklayer from Plymouth looking for work in London. Doing what the government expected of him. The residential property owned by London & Quadrant Housing Association (that well known, enlightened body) had been empty for a year and was no one’s home (apart from the squatters).
Imprisonment is a disgraceful, damaging and disproportionate sentence. The offence criminalises poverty and unemployment.
It’s back to the type of law we had in Victorian times when homeless, unemployed people were imprisoned under the vagrancy laws.
Mr Haigh was squatting a London and Quadrant property.
This is from the London and Quadrant website.
“Homelessness was vivid in the public imagination in the 60?s. This was the era when squatting was rife and shark landlords like the infamous Peter Rachman were terrorising tenants in London.
Gospatric Home, a member of the 1958 club, met Reverend Nicolas Stacey after the latter gave a talk about homelessness to the 1958 Club. The two men then organised a visit to a hostel in Plumstead, South East London. What the group saw there prompted them to start an organisation that would aim to provide quality housing for people in housing need.”
It appears in this case L and Q have ensured a home at Her Majestys Pleasure at a rough cost of £7000 to your average taxpayer.
From what I can see there was no mitigation in the case. So presumably we can expect this type of sentence in the future.
From the press reports it sounds like he wasn’t represented in court and didn’t appreciate the importance of it, so presumably no mitigation was put forward.
His lack of previous convictions, young age, search for work and need for a home, the fact the property was empty and not anyone else’s home would all have been important mitigation points.
This is of course assuming he really was guilty - his admissions might be inadmissable, the procedure may not have been correctly followed, etc. One should never assume it’s a straightforward issue of guilt “...‘coz he done it”.
As someone who had the film Cathy Come Home seared into the memory at a very young age this appals me. The days prior to 1977 saw landlordism at its most ugly. Homelessness was a problem that was a real threat for anyone struggling to pay the rent or mortgage, or who tried to get the landlord to keep the property in good repair and condition. It could split up families as children were taken into care while the parents were left to the streets.
1977 saw the beginning of long overdue legislation designed to give tenants more protection. The Rent Act gave tenants in the private sector security of tenure and rent control. This was extended to council tenants in the 1985 Housing Act. The Protection from Eviction Act for the first time made it an indictable offence to evict a tenant without due process of law. Then there was the 1985 Landlord and Tenant Act which enshrined in law landlords’ repairing obligations. Local authorities have also been given various powers to regulate landlords.
With those abuses largely addressed, in spite of the introduction of the Assured Shorthold Tenancy in 1988, homelessness became less of a stain on the public consciousness. Organizations like Shelter and CPAG had established themselves as forerunners in the mainstream campaign against homelessness and child poverty and homelessness began to slip down the political and public agenda. Thus, the issue of homelessness became, by and large, an issue of the left and was subsumed into a wider left wing agenda that expressed itself in political protest across the whole political spectrum of the 1980’s and 1990’s.
What has emerged in the minds of many of the Establishment is an idea of the squatter as some kind of long haired, unwashed, leftist, anarchist freeloader who is just as likely to be trying to prevent the construction of the latest motorway bypass or to be protesting the Iraq war as to be squatting. This oversimplistic prejudice, sharpened by the disorder of 2011, is likely to be sitting at the forefront of many, largely middle class, magistrate’s minds as they hand down sentences. The issue of homelessness is still bound up with poverty, unemployment and mental illness, amongst other things, and concerns us all. Twelve weeks custodial for a first offence for, what is to all intents and purposes, a victimless crime, is outrageous. Time will tell if this becomes a trend or is hopefully an overreaction of an over zealous bench.
From the press reports it sounds like he wasn’t represented in court and didn’t appreciate the importance of it, so presumably no mitigation was put forward.
His lack of previous convictions, young age, search for work and need for a home, the fact the property was empty and not anyone else’s home would all have been important mitigation points.
I agree, although I would have thought that the fact that he admitted to the offence should have reduced the sentence?
The astonishing point is that a simple arrest following an admmission of the act of squatting resulted in a 12 week sentence.
Come on the Howard League for Penal Reform, anyone got any contacts there?
They must get involved to put right this injustice.
The CPS guidelines.
http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/trespass_and_nuisance_on_land/index.html#a14
Excert…..
Squatting: Specific Public Interest Considerations
A prosecution must always be both necessary and proportionate.
Some public interest factors which should be considered when deciding on the most appropriate course of action are listed below. The following list of public interest considerations is not exhaustive and each case must be considered on its own facts and on its own merits:
• Whether entry was forced.
• Whether damage has been caused.
• Whether there has been use of utilities (gas/electric/water).
• Whether there were any other options available, such as local authority accommodation or assistance, accommodation with friends or family or a tenancy.
• Mental health of the suspect.
I am not sure it even meets the necessary and proportionate.
The overturning of the mis-application of new squatting laws continues. Note the DERELICT COTTAGE, none of the cases, so far, feature the mythical own occ who returns from holiday to find their property squatted.
Its not front page news, but it makes Legal Action (Hat tip)
R v Tristan Dixon
6 November 2013
The defendant was arrested by police and evicted by them from a derelict cottage he was occupying as a trespasser. He was charged with squatting in residential premises contrary to the Legal Aid etc Act 2012 section 144. He said that he had never intended to reside in the cottage but simply wanted to use the land around it to grow trees and vegetables. He was convicted at Welshpool Magistrates’ Court and appealed against that conviction. On the hearing of the appeal, at Mold Crown Court, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) conceded that the appeal should be allowed and the conviction quashed
Minister for Prisons and Rehabilitation told parliament yesterday that in the first four months (sept to dec 2012) after squatting was criminalised, 32 people were found guilty of and sentenced for the offence. Of these:
- 14 were fined. The average fine was £113.79;
- 10 were given a conditional discharge;
- Five were given a community sentence;
- One was sentenced to immediate custody of seven days;
- Two were otherwise dealt with.