R Kingsley Edward v Royal Borough of Greenwich
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mrs Justice Lang |
| Judgment Date | 17 May 2017 |
| Neutral Citation | [2017] EWHC 1113 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | Case No: CO/214/2017 |
| Date | 17 May 2017 |
[2017] EWHC 1113 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Mrs Justice Lang DBE
Case No: CO/214/2017
The Claimant appeared in person
The Defendant did not appear and was not represented
Hearing date: 27 April 2017
Approved Judgment
The Claimant has renewed his application for permission to apply for judicial review of the decision of the Defendant dated 18 October 2016 to exclude him from its housing register under Part 6 of the Housing Act 1996.
Pursuant to the order of May J., dated 19 April 2017, the Claimant attended the oral hearing by video link from Woolwich Crown Court. A medical report dated 2 March 2017 from Dr Gaete, Specialty Doctor in Psychiatry at Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust, advised that he was not fit to attend a court hearing in person because he suffers with "severe and enduring mental illness". He has been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and emotionally unstable personality disorder.
The Claimant's application for permission to apply to commit the Defendant for contempt was listed on the same occasion as the Claimant's renewed application for permission to apply for judicial review, as ordered by May J.. However, the hearings were conducted separately because the Defendant declined to take any part in the judicial review claim, on the grounds that it was not appropriate for it to waste further public funds on a completely meritless claim. It did not file an Acknowledgment of Service.
Permission to apply for judicial review was refused on the papers by HH Judge Coe QC, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, on 20 February 2017. After reviewing the history, she concluded that this claim was an abuse of process since it raised essentially the same issues as previously raised by the Claimant in other proceedings. In relation to the grounds not previously raised, she found that the Claimant had no arguable case.
HH Judge Coe QC also refused the Claimant's application for disclosure of documents. An urgent interim application for disclosure of documents had earlier been refused by Lavender J. on 16 January 2017, on the papers.
Following refusal of permission by HH Judge Coe QC, the Claimant applied to renew his application for permission. However, on 18 April 2017, he filed a notice of discontinuance in respect of the following grounds pleaded in his Statement of Grounds and Additional Grounds: (1) perversion of the course of justice; (2) res judicata; (3) perversity and irrationality; (4) breach of the Housing Act 1996; (5) breaches of the Children Act 2004 and the ECHR. He stated that he wished to continue with the following grounds in his claim form:
i) Unlawfulness and misapplication of the Defendant's Housing Allocation Scheme, resulting in the decision of 18 October 2016 excluding the Claimant from the housing register (pleaded in paragraphs 1 to 9 of the Statement of Grounds);
ii) Violation of the Data Protection Act 1996 (pleaded in paragraphs 10 to 12 of the Statement of Grounds);
iii) Violation of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (pleaded for the first time in the Grounds for Renewal).
History
The Claimant was born in Nigeria on 20 July 1970, and is resident in the UK.
On 16 January 2009, the Claimant was sentenced to 7 1/2 years imprisonment for the offence of being knowingly concerned in the evasion of a prohibition or restriction on the importation of a Class A drug. He entered a guilty plea. A confiscation order was also made.
The Claimant was released from prison in August 2012, and submitted an application to join the Defendant's housing register, disclosing that he had just been released from prison. The application was approved and he was placed on the register in December 2012. His address history on the Defendant's records listed his prison addresses between November 2008 and August 2012.
On 10 September 2014, the Claimant was sentenced to 7 years imprisonment by the Dublin Circuit Court in the Republic of Ireland for possessing a controlled drug with intent to supply. The last four years of the term were suspended.
The Claimant was transferred to a UK prison in August 2015. Prior to his release, the Prison Service made a homeless application referral to the Defendant. Following his release from prison on 13 April 2016, the Defendant refused to provide him with temporary accommodation.
The Claimant was admitted to a psychiatric hospital on 20 April 2016 and subsequently discharged.
The Defendant's Housing Options and Support Services Form, dated 18 April 2016, set out the Claimant's offending history stating that he had "2 x drug smuggling offence" in 2008 and 2014, and referred to the length of the sentences imposed and the time spent in prison for each offence.
On 27 April 2016, the Defendant's Allocation Team wrote to inform the Claimant that:
"…the council has decided to exclude your details from the housing register for the following reasons: due to you not meeting the five year residency criteria and your past offences. The Council will exclude from the register applicants who have been guilty of unacceptable behaviour which makes them unsuitable to be a tenant. Unacceptable behaviour is any criminal or anti-social behaviour, or any significant breach of tenancy conditions such as serious rent arrears."
The Claimant appealed against the decision. His appeal was considered and dismissed by the Defendant's Case Review Panel. The decision letter, dated 29 June 2016, informed him that his appeal against exclusion from the housing register had been unsuccessful because "….you do not meet the 5 year residency rule and there is evidence of a previous address in Glasgow prior to prison and your offences are considered to be anti-social". The minutes of the meeting stated that he was currently released on licence (in prison for drug smuggling offences) which did not expire until 21 May 2017.
On 28 July 2016, the Claimant sent a pre-action letter warning the Defendant that he intended to apply for judicial review of its decision.
On 2 August 2016, a copy of the Claimant's criminal record from the Police National Computer ("PNC") was emailed to Ms Sewell, Access and Allocations Manager, and another housing officer. It showed a Glasgow address for the Claimant, and gave details of the two convictions I have referred to above.
On 3 August 2016, Ms Elliott, Senior Housing Lawyer, wrote to the Claimant in response to his pre-action letter stating that the Defendant would withdraw the previous decision and carry out a fresh review by 23 August 2016. She confirmed that the decision related to exclusion of a new application, as his previous registration was cancelled in December 2014, when the Claimant failed to renew it. The Claimant was previously unaware it had been cancelled and had not made a new application.
On 23 August 2016, Ms Sewell emailed the Claimant advising that the review would not be completed until 9 September 2016, and saying that " it has also been decided that your past conviction will not be taken into account in considering your eligibility to join the housing register".
On 14 September 2016, Ms Sewell wrote to the Claimant informing him that the Case Review Panel had upheld his appeal and decided that he could join the housing register because " you fall within a reasonable preference category as you are homeless and are therefore exempt from the Council's five year continuous residency requirement to join the housing register". He was to be placed in Band B2.
On 17 September 2016, the Claimant threatened to bring legal proceedings on the basis that he should have been placed in a higher priority band than Band B2.
Throughout this period, there a number of communications between the Claimant and the Defendant concerning his ongoing application for housing as a homeless person under Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996.
The Claimant wrote on 23 August 2016 to his Dublin solicitors asking for confirmation about the circumstances in which he was sentenced, including exceptional circumstances which led to a reduced sentence, and authorising them to provide the information direct to Ms Howarth of RB Greenwich, who was conducting an enquiry for the purposes of his homelessness application, to establish the circumstances of his offence and how he came to lose his accommodation in Glasgow in 2014.
On 5 September 2016, the Claimant filed a judicial review claim CO/4519/2016 challenging the Defendant's handling of his homelessness application.
On 13 September 2016, Ms Howarth emailed the Probation Service, describing her difficulty in obtaining any further information from the Irish courts, and Mr Aroh of the Probation Service said that he had not received information from the Irish courts, and only had information from other sources, such as the internet.
During this period, the Housing Allocations team, the Homelessness team and the legal team were receiving a large number of emails and telephone calls from the Claimant, which included allegations about their conduct, which caused concern.
On 21 September 2016, the Defendant held a meeting to discuss the Claimant's case. The minutes stated:
" Part 7 [Homelessness application]
Further enquiries required:
On loss of last settled accommodation including any possession proceedings for rent arrears.
The offending history including imprisonment prior to loss of accommodation.
Part 6 [Housing register]
Information from the Part 7 enquiries show the extent of the offending history, namely two convictions (not one) for drug related offences and new...
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