Local goverment ombudsman

I suffer from dyslexia and have been unable to get this document checked before i email it. Sorry for any outstanding fopars

Secondly, because of this, it may be easier for me to come up to see you to detail any of these points and i express things much more fluently than when i type them

If needed, i can come up at any pount this week

Government OMBUDSMAN

email : george@secretgardener.co.uk

From

Dear Sir/Madam

i wish to complain that members of north east lincs council tax and law and democratic services have allowed serious maladministration to be carried out against me and my businesses.

I am suggesting the following and i believe i can prove

But first a foreword.

_________________________________________________________

I have had incidences exactly the same as the ones mentioned happen to me regularly since 2000. I have previously complained about council tax mistakes and had over 27 accounts worth over £ 10,000 incorrectly charged against me and i have been chased for payment.

Up to 2003 ( When we complained ) i can accept that even though the amounts of time and money involved were substantial, that they were mistakes, or unavoidable or more important to me, NONE VINDICTIVE.

_________________________________________________________

Howerever the actions i have detailed below, since 2005, and specifically regarding a meeting between lds ( law and democratic services ) and ct ( council tax ) autumn 2005 , removal of paperwork from system before compleating requests for information ( Various occasions ), failure by Alin madin ( LDS ) to act when we identified documents being reffused. Attempt by alan madin to refuse to accept information.

— serious failure of democracy —

By alan madin when we asked for our allagations of removing documents and falsifying records commited by mrs Pauleen Bishope . Mr Alam Madin ( LDS Put Pauleen bishipe in charge of sorting it out ) ———-

Let me just state at this point we believe that Mr Madin see what Mrs Bishope had done and then gave the job to her so no one had to cover up for her.

( i am suggesting at this point that Mrs Pauleen Bishope, supervisor of council tax, removed documents from the files of 48 Lambert road, grimsby before allowing a subject access request to be fulfilled. )

( i am also suggesting that Mrs Bishope changes some other documents in relation to 120 Grimsby Road, Cleethorpes at this time. These were documents that had previously been withheld from us despite repeated requests )

and i believe that my persuant of this alligation of totay undemocratic behavuor ( See note lds1 ) lead, after Mrs Bishope was on longer working for them ( Most conveneint timeing in the world ) two couyncil tax officials decided to go for me ( Apparantly becoause of what happened to there boss Mrs Bishope )

When you look at the paperwork provided by the council and there actions since august September 2006 i believe you are going to notice that we new this and attempted at every chance to stop them doing it. Firstly by contacting Law and democratic Services directly and saying “ Please don’t let them move my money without conciliation” ( See note ) this was the first of many attempts i made to stop this happening.

If law and democratic service would have acted accordingly, none of this would have happened and more importantly, the tax payer would not substantially out of pocket.

More serious than that

I believe that i can show that from 12^th September 2006 the council tax and law an d democratic service department seem to have intentionally ignored there own recommendations, council tax law, general policy and allowed certain employees to pursue me for bankruptcy regardless of consequence and law.

And i believe that the ten points of defense below show serious maladministration and fraud by council employees )

And i believe that 3 council tax officials have made statements at court that they know to be false statements.

And i believe that the council tax bailiffs ( Rossendal ) ( under direction of the same council tax official ) gave a false statement in relation to accounts generated against me and this was presented at court.

And, most importantly, they tried to hide there mistakes in paperwork ( See changes in council tax due ( Sept 06 and Feb 07 ) and then look at when the individual accounts were added.

As well as contacting you with this i am also in the process of detailing this to every elected official in north east lincs council, the ward councilors and after that i am going to contact every government department involved.

.

My name is George David cant, i am a single parent to a 14 year old, i work full time ( on working family’s tax credit )and up to today i currently pay approximately £ 300.00 per calender month in council tax and business rates.

But after today thats all going to change, and within a week i have been forced go on benefits, and soon, the benefits system is going to be paying me probably somewhere around £ 1200.00 to £ 1300.00 per month

Our council tax department has just made me bankrupt and to achieve this they have

1. Withheld documents

2. Lied in court as to the existence of council tax accounts

3. refused to meet for over 9 months to sort out payments

4. misappropriated approx £ 3000.00 worth of payments

5. and generally took the council tax regulations and thrown them out the window

6. o and i forgot, they got there bailiffs to lie as well ( rossendales )

Sounds like rubbish

Below is my defense filed at court today witch was not even read, indeed the council refused to look at it because i filed it late.

I have a large bundle of documents that are itemized in here that i will provide you if you require but i have included some of the important ones

I have slimed down the documents and will put the lot on line this weekend because i am currently writing to every elected official and ward councilor that works for north east lincs, all government offices and the law society re gardening the events which have lead to this, and i wish to keep the amount of paper used down.

I will also provide you over the next week, ( as soon as i have finalized my complaint ) with some more serious allegations that were not included in my defense. These involve other people and property’s and i have to contact them first to tell them whats there being blamed for.

EVERYTHING BELOW IS A STATMENT OF FACT AND I CAN PROVE THE COUNCIL HAD FULL AND COMPLEATE KNOLEDGE OF THERE MISSTAKES . I BELEIVE THAT I HAVE CLEARLY INDICATED THERE MISTAKES AND INDEED HAVE DONE EVERYTHING AVAILABLE TO A MEMBER OF THE PUBLIC TO STOP THSES MISTAKES HAPPENING

MOST IMPORTANTLY. WHEN I BELIEVE COUNCIL TAX OFFICERS HAVE MADE MISTAKES, I HAVE INDICATED IT TO THERE DIRECT MANAGMENT. THEN DIRECTLY TO LAW AND DEMOCRATIC SERVICES

my defense

1. The Council have refused to accept payment on this account when offered.

   -

The council started proceedings against me on 12^th sept 2006 and i attend the customer access point at council offices on the 13^th sept ( item 1 ) with a list of bank payments( Item 2 ), documents and money. I was refused access to documents, specifically payment arraignments set up with Head of debt collection Mrs Pauleen bishope after a meting with her in sept 2005 and initially they refused to provide me a receipt to prove that i had attended. I was refused the facility to make a payment off arrears relating to these accounts

At this point the were no costs or charges and i had over £ 1000 in cash on me and my bank debt card ( Also see point 6 for this ). Most importantly, i was maintaining the agreement made under the direction of law and democratic services from September 2005 of paying more than the yearly amounts on each account and therefore paying more each 12 month period than was owed.

Prior to first hearing i had contacted the council by phone and i faxed a document to council tax to request they meet at court so we could sort it out. ( Item 3 ) |I have previously sorted many correct and incorrect council tax’s and sorted payment arraignments in this manner with the councils old court officer Mr Martin Clay. item 4 as you can see by this a lot of costs against me were canceled due to the fact that accounts were in payment or payments had been taken from other accounts to pay outstanding accounts ( item 4 ). I also requested that they bring a copy of the payment arraignments with them on each attendance at court. ( item 2)

I have also, at every appearance and visit to the council, offered payment.

The council, in January offered me the chance to pay the debt within three months to avoid action and then refused to meet me or sort out any payment schedule.

Upon this offer of stopping bankruptcy i immediately contacted my bank and they agreed to lends me the money, but the council have since refused to take any money offered, and money has been offered to the council ( at the main desk ), there solicitors on three occasions and at court direct and even to the inslovancy service.

After the first hearing costs were awarded against me and even though it was still going on, the council would not deal with me so when i received a letter from the council solicitors ( Steven eade cook and Ashton ) ( Item 6 ) i telephoned them and told them i could not pay immediately and could they set up a payment arraignment with me, they replied to me stating that it would be added to the council tax bankruptcy

I contacted the council by telephone and requested a payment arraignment and they refuesed,

I attended the council again in January’s ^th ( Item 7 ), prior to court to try and sort it out again with documents and money, trying to sort out payment and was even refused an offer of payment at the cashiers desk due to the action being taken against me, at this date the council are telling me to pay there solicitors and the solicitors had instructed me to contact the council arraign payment. The council were not only refusing to take payment at this point they are also refusing to meet me at the customer assess points.

I attended court Jan 30^th ( item 7 )and i attended the council before and after woods to try and sort it out, again with money and documents.( item 7)

All of the above i believe show my complete willingness to pay and that i was prepared to give up my own time to attempt to sort this out prior to court and prior to any costs. I state that if the council would have accepted payment on any of the occasions above, and specifically on 13^th September 2006, no further action would have been taken and there would have been no costs incurred.

2. The council have not applied payment correctly from falsely generated accounts and have lied by stating that there are none other than what they have provided.

I have been paying through the bank from sept 05 for a false account of 120 Grimsby road and an incorrect account for 4 freeman street, ( Item 2 )because these are nothing to do with my business i paid them from my wages, yet only days prior to issuing the first bankruptcy proceedings, the council finally accepted that the account 120 Grimsby road, was falsely( Item 10 ) generated and without giving acknowledgment to my request of a list of payments and a request to not move payments between accounts without consultation with me ( Item 11) , decided to pay my business account up for 138-14 cleethorpes road that was in payment from my bank (item 2), instead of paying one of the private accounts on my home 48 Lambert road up .

In relation to the disputed account for 4 freeman street ( Post feb 2005 Item 8 ). The council tax have ceased to re fair and refused to discuss this any further. I can not understand where the money that was paid to this from my bank has gone. I have paperwork that charges ranges from £ 600.00 to under £ 200 and i am concerned that this account has been treat in the same way as the account of 120 Grimsby road ( Item 10 )

In front of the judge the council tax official stated that there were no other council tax accounts and have requested a copy from there bailiffs of all the accounts presented to them. A copy was given to me on feb —— 07 ( Item 12 ) a few days before court.

The statement that this was a complete list of generated accounts from is false on both sides. The council clearly knows that they have generated way over 17 other incorrect accounts and have charged them to me over the period 1999 to 2005 totaling over £ 10000 of incorrect council tax liability’s, some of these accounts are even listed on the court paperwork ( Item 13 ) ( 30 lestrange street ). All of these accounts had action taken against me by the council ranging from being passed to the bailiffs to having liability orders granted at the court against me. About 75% of these were recognized after my repeated complaints in 2003. ( item 13 )

I have attempted to get a list of these accounts from the council tax recovery dept, and have been refused. ( item 12)

I have been attempting to get information specific to some of these accounts from the council for over two years and i have been dealt by Mrs Copeman one of the woman who attended the court for the council. At the la\st hearing when the bankruptcy was given against me the Judge asked the two council woman attending the hearing if there were any other accounts other than what were provided on the paperwork for the court and they stated no.

other accounts i have been charged for that are nothing to do with me and the council have pursued me for

( Item 14 )

3 out of the 4 flats at 19 Ainsley street

30 lestrange street cleethorpes ( Thats on the court paperwork for the first application )

149 a and b Columbia road Grimsby

66 a and b henry street Grimsby

this is just a short list of many

above are just 8 incidences of council tax accounts attributed to me incorrectly spanning from 1999 to 2006. I believe that there have been over 20 incorrectly generated accounts by the council tax and i believe the above listed and more have been pesuerd through bailfs and charges added on ( item 13)

I require, as i have made it clear to the council, a full list of all accounts so i can make sure that no accounts have had money paid to them and then been canceled, as you can see by the council records they have moved around account numbers a substantial amount of my payments with no consultation with me

1. Most of these accounts were in payment under an agreed payment arraignment with pauleen bishope

after a meeting with Robert Walsh and Mrs Bishope in September 2005 ( Item 15 )at the council offices. Payment on these accounts commenced at the end of September 2005 directly from my bank and was uninterrupted until this bankruptcy commenced ( Item 15.1 ). I was also paying under this agreement arrangement’s for a falsely generated account of 120 Grimsby Road and a mistakenly generated account for 4 freeman street to avoid further costs and a court appearance. The council show indication of this agreement in the solicitors letter dated, ( item 16) but have flatly refused to acknowledge since. I requested to them in my letter dated 17/10/06 ( item 3 ) that they bring a copy of this to court so we could correct what was wrong. With both correct and incorrect accounts in payment, i was maintaining their agreement of paying more than i owed on each account in each financial year.

I believe that this may allow me to claim estople “ ie, the debt was in arraignment to pay set up by the council tax.in sept 2005 for and this was paid and maintained by me through my bank for over a year until bankrupts proceedings commenced against me, and is still today in payment

And this is how i claim this

On the 19- feb 2007, after finally correcting by there own admission ( item 17 ) thousands of pounds worth of mismanaged payments, and refusing all payments offered from us from September 12^th 2006 ( see note 17 ) they came up with a figure that i owed of £ 4716.97. this breaks down as follow

£ 676.38 for my current business address for that current years business rates ( Acc 4404039954 )

and £ 4040. for Lambert road accounts and if you look at ( item 17 ) you can see that one liability order was granted 31.10.2006 ( weeks after i had attended the council to sort the others out ) and two weeks after they started proceedings for bankrupts against me ( 12^th Sept )

So on the 13^th Sept 2006 when i attended the council customer access point, after you account for all the payments paid to the council to that date that they now agree and have corrected

I owed on three accounts for my home

2 for prior years

£ 1030.64 for order granted 23.6.2004

£ 1077.17 01.6.2005

And one for current year

“ 1110.73 31.5.2006

Total £ 3211.54

The agreement made with Mrs pauleen Bishope after a meeting with her and rob walsh in the council in September 2005 was that as long as i paid for my current years business rates and council tax and paid some of the debt constantly, i would avoid further action. I agreed to set up a standing order on all different addresses so i could vary them as my income changed and i agreed that i would make up the lump sums each year as i found it easier to plan for. I set up the payments at the end of September 2005 and they were constant every two weeks ( see bank Print outs) until they refused to sort the accounts in 13^th September 2006 but, most importantly for me the payment for the accounts for my home 48 Lambert Road mentioned above, has been in payment from the date of the agreement with pauleen bishope and is still is ( item 2 )

By there corrected figures supplied on 19^th Feb 06 ( 5 month after asking ) ( Item 17 ), taking into account that all the outstanding accounts are in payment under the above agreement.

This would leave outstanding £ 676.38 for ndr account 4404039954 liability order 31.5.2006. this would be the 2006 – 2007 business rates. So in September 2006 ( 5 months into that rateable year ), this account was as up to date as any business that pays monthly.

By what i have read about essopal all my Lambert road accounts were in agreed payment from 2005 , i owed less than £ 750.00 in fact ( £ 676.38 on liability order 1.5.2006 ) on 13^th sept 06. ( and that was for the 6 month from Oct 06 till Apr 01 – 2007 ) (and this was still in payment by standing order on sept13th 2006)

And if you take into account that i had over a thousand pounds on me plus my bank card on this day to get my account for Lambert road ( of which under the agreement above i had until the end of September to make sure my 2 weekly payments covered what we agreed )

And i have offered this payment ( first sept 13^th 2006 ) severel times to the council, there solisoter, the court office and even on the day i was made bankrupt to the insolvency office ( March 2007 )

Lastly, if my argument of esstople with the agreement for the accounts of Lambert road is valid, on the date that the bankrupt’s was granted ( March 2007 ) i still only owed £ 676.38 ( again less than £ 750.00 ) for the ndr account 4404039954 . and i had over a thousand pounds on me that day ( item2 ) ready to pay.

4. They have not followed there own recommendations set out after an upheld complaint in 2003 that caused over 17 instances of falsely generated council tax account applied to me and they have withheld access to these account that are ONLY AVAILABLE to them, ( item 13)

As you can see by the document here( No 13 ), i have had many many problems with incorrect council tax accounts, the problem was supposed to have been sorted when i had a complaint upheld and as part of this they brought in there own guidelines that, should they been adhered to would have stopped the mix up that has lead to this.

5. The council have moved a large amount of payments between my domestic and commercial accounts without consultation after i specifically requested that they do not do this without consultation. ( Item 11 )This has left me money paid from my personal account instead of being repaid to me so i could pay it off one of my home arrears accounts, being paid to a commercial account that was under the agreement.( item 120 gy road,my pers acc,paid 138 140 gy road, my business )

My problem with how the council have moved my payments around is as much to do with the timing in relation to this bankruptcy action. I have clearly requested consultation to them moving payment.( Item ) I was trying to make sure that they only paid valid accounts and make sure that they did not pay any incorrect accounts and then close the council tax files on them accounts, thus making it nearly impossible for me to check payments that have been moved. ( I believe the actions of the council tax department on this instance could only be described as fraud )

The council state on there paperwork that they discovered one mistake around the 7^th sept 06 ( 120 gy road ) ( 5 days prior to date that they started proceedings ) and have paid over 500 from a false account to a correct account. On or around the 11^th September – 06 ( 1 day prior to date that they started proceedings )according to the council tax payment lists, they noticed the bank payments totaling over £ 2000 but don’t seem to have applied them to the balances at this time. Indeed i still have an un replied letter to the council in response to there letter dated feb 07————– asking them if they have applied the payments they state in the letter and i was told that the court was dealing with this so they refused to

6 I believe that on the 13^th September 2006 when i attended the council offices at knoll street cleethorpes i was refused a meeting at the customer assess point i had all documents and bank records to prove that if all falsely generated council tax accounts had been corrected, all payments made under the agreed arraignment from the previous year sept 2005 applied and the corrected payments applied to the right accounts, the two liability orders for accounts for this year ( 2006-2007 ) would not have been applicable and therefor would have been settled on this date with no further costs or time to both sides.

you can clearly see that i have spent a lot of time attempting to sort council tax out even going as far as paying false accounts for over a year ( 120 gy rd, 4 freeman street )

7. The account ( 550288038) i do not under stand by the paperwork you have provided how this account is not chargeable to mr M J Wishart. ( item 14 )

Your legal team reviewed this decision a few times and found that the current law says Mr Wishart is charged for this. ( Any review of application of himo legislation would bring in several other disputed accounts ) this account was also reviewed by Mr Alan madin director of financial services after a complaint of maladministration involving this and other accounts, and the dissension’s to charge Mr Wishart was confirmed again. This seems to have been added to beef up your claim,

regardless of this i made payments on this and the council know this and have refined to the payments in some correspondences when they are charging Mr Wishart ( the owner up to may 2003 ) but not when they charge the account to me

8 I have not been given enough time to evaluate, verify and challenge account statements provided by the bailiffs on 3^rd March ( 3 days before hearing and 5 days later than the 28days the judge gave us both to provide documents and payments to him.

( Item 15 )

To add to the above statement, the council have again refused to discuss any of these as the case went against me and they no longer need to answer questions on them, yet i am struggling to understand still were some payments have gone

Also, i have had to spend the last few weeks preparing to collapse my business and this has taken up all of my time. Upon being made bankrupt i immediately contacted, as instructed, the official receiver ( in fact i did this from inside the court, offering them the payment that the council refused ) to discuss with one of the assistance there what i could and could not do, and as suspected, i realized then that the trading restrictions of being bankrupt would make it impossible for me to carry on much beyond the next month or so.

9. I have request before during and after each court appearance to sit down with the council tax and there solicitor and sort this out and have been flatly refused even though i have had payment on me on each occasion and all the paperwork required to sort it out.

1. i believe that by the councils now corrected accounts, on 13^th September when i attended the customer assess point and was refused access to paperwork you, by your own records , i would have been less that £ 1000 in arrears and i had this on me to pay at that time. Although the council have refused to see me between august and October 06 they reduced my liability’s substantially, paid up monies that they now now where paid from us, they reduced our liability from around 9000 – 10000 to two thousand, but then added two more liability’s for this year to make it look like no action had been taken by us. I also believe that if the oft requested benefit apps were applied and account number () was cleared/sorted/explained, i owed less than 750.00 arrears on the date of 13^th September 06, the day after the council started proceedings against me

1. The council have refused total to sit down and deal with me in relation to repaying these debts even though the wrote to me inviting me to pay them over 3 months 2 ovoid bankruptcy during these proceedings. Even when the judge ordered us to sit down and discuses or accounts.

1. 12 . Still after over 10 months the council have spent £ 1000,00 s of pounds of tax payers money on pursuing bankrupt’s against me but have refused to sit down with me at the customer accsess points, in the court before the application or by letter to sort out what i correctly owe and where my missing payments are. And they have refused all offers of payment

Documents to follow :: Copy of paperwork for item 1 to item 15