David Laurence Philips - Wealden District Council's Enforcement ManagerDavid Laurence Philips - Wealden District Council's Enforcement Manager

David L Philips - Wealden's enforcer






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WEALDEN
ACTION GROUP


Investigating and lobbying against corruption in
Wealden District Council's legal & planning departments




HACKHURST LANE PIGGERY



Wealden's conspiracy with Criminals ?



Derek Holness, Chief Executive, Wealden District Council, Pine Grove, Crowborough, East Sussex TN6 1DH   18th June 1998


Dear Mr Holness,
Thank you for your letter dated 4th June 1998, in which you confirm that you have read and understood my recent letters to you, Mr Bates and Mr Bradshaw.

In summary, five and a half years ago we were the victims of harassment and attempted illegal eviction from our home of 18 years, by our new landlord, who half demolished the property in his attempts to make us leave. Within hours of this crime we asked Wealden District Council (WDC) to take action against the landlord. Eventually, you refused saying you could not get involved in a landlord/tenant dispute. Within days of the crime the landlord asked the WDC Enforcement Department and I believe also the Legal Department to assist him by putting pressure on us.

Wealden Officers immediately began a series of unjustified actions to put us under severe financial pressure, to render us homeless and to devalue, and ultimately destroy our farming business. This can only be called persecution.

The actions taken by WDC were initially in “response” to a vast number of complaints (mostly false or exaggerated) from a single complainant, which began in the week after the landlord’s demolition attack on our home. This complainant is in receipt of valuable enforcement favours and said under oath that: “he began making complaints because he was asked to do so by the Council, to help them out”. Two other complainants, also in receipt of valuable planning enforcement favours, appear to have made their complaints because they were asked to. In one case the managing director of Merrydown PLC appears to have re-drafted a letter of objection to my planning application after correspondence and telephone conversations with WDC enforcement manager. The final draft of this objection was libellous and full of false complaints about things, which he had been “reliably informed” were going on.

During the time between 30th January 1993, when our landlord carried out the demolition attack on our home, and Autumn 1995, when he was remanded in custody after admitting to falsely reclaiming £750,000 VAT, he had plenty of time to hide all this money abroad. WDC had chosen not to prosecute him and the various notices they had served on us effectively diverted us from pursuing our civil claim against him until all his money was safely hidden abroad. Some £30,000 of ratepayer’s money was spent by WDC in pursuing the notices they served upon us. In Court, under oath, it transpired that in one case officers had served a completely different notice to the harmless one approved by the planning committee. In another case they had required us to make expensive alterations despite their own evidence, legal opinion and independent advice to the contrary.

In 1996 the ombudsman found WDC guilty of maladministration for not taking legal advice on the possibility of prosecuting the landlord for harassment and failing to require him to repair our home to a habitable condition. The ombudsman made it clear that the local authority and the local authority alone can bring a prosecution under the protection from eviction act 1977 and that this crime can carry a penalty of up to 2 years imprisonment.

In 1996 a County Court Judge awarded us record damages against the landlord (As yet unpaid since the money is hidden) in what he described as one of the worst cases of harassment ever to come before a court. The Judge went on to set out the legal position, i.e. that everything the landlord had done was unlawful. You have had a transcript of these finding for nine months.

Clearly, criminals should be prosecuted for their crimes, but this is not the only reason I have asked you to prosecute the landlord. He is, at present, serving that part of his sentence, which relates to his refusal to disclose where he has hidden the money. He is penniless in this country but confidently expects to be re-united abroad with his £750,000 when he is released from prison, and, in the circumstances, I believe he would be willing and eager to explain exactly what his relationship with WDC’s enforcement and legal departments was in 1993. It appears that his interaction with Wealden’s officers at this time resulted in we, the victims, being persecuted and the criminal being protected from prosecution, enabling him to hide the proceeds of other crimes.

In your letter, you confirm that WDC could prosecute the landlord but still chooses not to, so as not to waste public money. What a shame you didn’t suffer such an attack of frugality when acting against us in the landlord’s interest. Perhaps these are reasoned choices? Lest there be any mistake, the local authority alone can bring a prosecution, the Police didn’t, as you say, also chose not to prosecute - if they had the powers they would have used them.

You confirm you have read all the matters summarised here. You condone and support the decision to assist a viscious criminal to avoid prosecution and punishment, possibly to ensure that his exact past relationship with WDC’s suspiciously motivated officers cannot be scrutinised. Your support of, and complicity in, WDC’s suspiciously motivated and unjustified attacks on our lives and livelihood over the last five and a half years is unforgivable in one who’s duty it is to ensure that WDC officers serve and protect the public.

I call for your immediate resignation.


Yours sincerely,   Anne Harris                Mrs Anne Harris



One week later a copy of this letter was sent to all councillors with a postscript noting that
one of the solicitors on the criminal landlord's team was an ex WDC solicitor who had now returned to Wealden as their enforcement solicitor. The Geoff Johnson (Wealden lawyer) page

(see Daily Telegraph item below)







THE LORD NEWTON'S PETITION


Public Petition To Full Council Meeting 16th July 1997
into
(Wealden District Council Officers using false, selective and misleading information in their reports
in order to obtain the planning or enforcement results of their choice.)



In 1997, in line with government guidelines, the elected councillors of Wealden District Council initiated the facility for public questioning and public petition with more than ten signatories, to be presented to full council meetings.

The question or petition had to be lodged with the council two weeks before the meeting, and then if it was accepted, the questioner or petitioner had to read it out in person, in public at the meeting. The following is what I (Anne Harris) read out on behalf of the twelve signatories of the petition to the public meeting of Wealden District Council on 16th July 1997. The first part (in bold) was the written petition, the second part (in italics) I added at the presentation. All of it was spoken in public before all councillors, recorded by Meridian television and BBC local radio and broadcast.

"We the undersigned insist that the elected councillors of Wealden commission an independent public investigation into the following allegation: -
Wealden District Council Officers use false, selective and misleading information in their reports and/or commentaries to elected Councillors, Planning Inspectors and Courts in order to obtain and/or maintain the planning or enforcement results of their choice."

"The call is for a full, independent public investigation into the prevailing situation not a piecemeal appraisal of the merits of individual cases.
Enough documents demonstrating instances of the alleged malpractices are available in the Council antechamber to convince you, and other interested parties, of the need for an independent investigation. One of the allegations is that officers use enforcement notices and unfavourable recommendations to target individuals, disrupting their businesses and causing them huge expense. Clearly, most people with evidence of this, who intend to continue to live and work within the District, feel they be unwise to put evidence forward to anyone other than a completely independent investigator."

The Councillors were then asked to take the matter most seriously and the Leader of the Council assured the petitioners they would. The petitioners said they consider the petition open and mentioned others who wished to put evidence forward.

A second petition of forty signatories wishing to offer further evidence of officer impropriety was lodged with the Council two weeks before the next full Council meeting, but they refused to accept it.

Wealden District Councillors are, on the whole, a collection of well meaning but gullible retired gentlefolk who believe that all council officers are jolly good chaps who would never deliberately do wrong things.

Having taken advice from the council’s officers and insurers they set up a panel of three councillors to deal with the petition. The Chairman of the panel, Councillor The Lord Newton, began the “impartial” enquiry by announcing publicly that he was quite sure that the officers had done nothing wrong. He then set the remit of the panel to be so narrow that almost all of the evidence was excluded.

The panel’s findings, with summaries of the petitioner’s cases, were published in January 1998. It can be viewed at the Wealden Council offices at Crowborough and Hailsham and is well worth reading. It shows the enormity of what the councillors were prepared to ignore. The phrase ‘beyond our remit’ appears more than sixty times in this report.

The councillors voted never to accept any more petitions or deal with any more complaints on this subject but voted for funding for bouquets of flowers for the panellists wives.

The matters alleging criminal actions had been deemed beyond the remit of the panel and referred to the Police. At a full public Council meeting the WDC Chief Executive, Derek Holness, handed the Chairman, Raymond Parsons, a letter received by him from the Police to read out in public. The press reported it’s contents i.e. the Police had investigated the petitioner’s complaints and had found nothing untoward.

Some long time later an Action Group member was at a Police station with a senior district councillor making further allegations. One of the two police officers present was a very senior officer, he mentioned in passing, with apology, that the Petitioner’s complaints had not been investigated. When asked about the letter sent to Derek Holness by the police, this senior police officer said that Derek Holness had drafted that letter himself and had asked the police to send it to him on their headed notepaper.

The WAG member went home and wrote to the senior police officer accepting his apology and detailing the content of their conversion. This letter was acknowledged and no part of it contradicted.

The new Chief Executive of WDC, Sheila Douglas, when confronted with these facts refused to refer the apparent collusion to the appropriate authorities for investigation. She also refused to provide a copy of the original Police letter, though it had been read out at a public meeting and was therefore in the public domain. Shortly afterwards she resigned.

The panel's report clearing the planning department of misconduct was published in January 1998.

Sequel

In February 1998 East Sussex County Council prepared a shortlist of sites for an above ground rubbish tip for East Sussex. The advice they took on sites was solely from WDC - from the refuse department re convenient central location and from the planning department re specific site locations.
Three sites were short listed for the above ground tip: -
One was later deemed unsuitable, not just for poor road access, but it was adjacent to a working airfield and a large residential caravan site and would therefore be a nuisance and a danger. The second site also had poor road access but was also in five ownerships and was protected woodland criss-crossed with footpaths. The third site had excellent road access and though very far from ideal, was the only real contender.

This site belonged to Councillor The Lord Newton, Chairman of the panel.

When the shortlist was published in the summer of 1998 both WAG and a locally formed independent anti-tip pressure group sought estimates of the increase in value of short listed sites and the eventual chosen site. The results were consistent; £1million for short listing, up to £10 million once planning consent is given (by WDC).
Councillor The Lord Newton, also Chairman of the planning committee and strategic plans committee denied all knowledge of how his site had been chosen and said he didn’t want a tip on his land.
He resigned from both committees due to the conflict of interests.
Local objections eventually scotched plans for all three sites.

Foul play thwarted? Or a good man set up?

In July 1999 I supplied the Chief Constable of East Sussex with a huge dossier for his personal attention. He would not investigate. I have formally complained about the Chief Constable’s refusal to investigate. Such a complaint has to be investigated by an officer of equal rank i.e. another force. So far the Police refuse to progress the complaint for investigation by an outside force.




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