High Court judge rules housing officers entered a conspiracy to 'harm' tenant

[Tony Gosling]

Judge blasts Southwark Council for evicting 
Sudanese tenant and destroying all of his possessions


High Court judge rules that housing officers 
entered a conspiracy to 'harm' refugee

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/judge-blasts-southwark-council-for-evicting-sudanese-tenant-and-destroying-his-possessions-9796994.html
<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/http://www.independent.co.uk/biography/cahal-milmo>CAHAL 
MILMO
Author Biography
 Thursday 16 October 2014

Housing officers conspired to unlawfully evict a 
Sudanese refugee from his council flat and 
destroy his possessions, including memory sticks 
holding thousands of hours of work, before then 
covering up their wrongdoing, a judge has ruled.

The victim, who was granted British citizenship 
after fleeing Sudan’s civil war in 1985, was made 
homeless for a year and forced to sleep on the 
streets after officials acting for Southwark 
Borough Council entered his home while he 
attended a court hearing in April last year over rent arrears of £18 per week.

All his possessions, including his passport, 
credit cards, furniture and computer equipment 
containing several years of research and personal 
material, were removed on the day of the eviction 
and destroyed in a waste disposal facility.

In a swingeing ruling, a High Court judge found 
that housing officers entered into a conspiracy 
to “harm” the man, known only as AA, by securing 
his eviction from his flat in Peckham, south 
London, and then conceal their actions from investigators.

Judge Anthony Thornton QC said: “The various 
officers conspired to evict AA by unlawful means, 
to seize and destroy his possessions by unlawful 
means and to cause him harm and loss by evicting 
him and dispossessing him of his possessions.”

In his own complaint, AA, who had sought £2.4m in 
damages, said he felt he had been “robbed of my 
dignity and pride” by the local authority.

Southwark, which is London’s largest social 
landlord with 40,000 properties, and which bills 
itself as providing a “great place” for its 
tenants to live, admitted that it had “got things 
very wrong” when dealing with AA.

But the local authority refused to say whether 
three officials singled out for particular 
criticism - income officer Christiana Okwara, her 
line manager Brian Davis, and resident officer 
Johanna Ashley -  were still employed.

The decision to evict AA, who had been a council 
tenant for 23 years, and previously ran a charity 
helping children in Sudan, was the culmination of 
a lengthy process during which he had fallen into 
arrears on his rent due to an £18 shortfall 
between his housing benefit and the sum due to the local authority.

By the time of his eviction, which the council 
said followed multiple attempts to reach an 
arrangement to make up the deficit, AA owed £2,353 in unpaid rent.

The High Court ruled that by early 2013, Mr Davis 
and Ms Okwara had become determined to have AA 
removed from his flat and had a motive which was “eviction at all costs”.

Procedures for securing evictions, including 
obtaining permission from a judge to start 
proceedings, were not followed and a requirement 
that all flat clearances take place in the 
presence of two council officers was ignored, the judgment said.

Added to the fact that Ms Ashley knew AA’s 
possessions, which were of “incalculable and 
personal value” to him, were at risk of being 
destroyed, it was clear that the actions of the 
three officers made them liable for “misfeasance 
in public office” or the misuse or abuse of power, the court found.

Judge Thornton said: “They each acted with the 
intention of harming AA by evicting him when 
there were no reasonable grounds for evicting him 
and by arranging for his possessions to be seized and destroyed unlawfully.”

Southwark Borough Council, which had originally 
offered AA £6,400 in compensation for the 
destruction of his belongings, said it had 
reached an out-of-court settlement with the man.

Councillor Richard Livingstone, a cabinet member 
for housing, said: “We realise we got things very 
wrong when dealing with this person and their 
possessions. We have apologised for any distress 
we may have caused. We acted swiftly and took 
strong disciplinary action against our staff when this came to our attention.”

The council said it could not discuss the details 
of disciplinary action against individual staff.

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