Tony Dunkley

It's not just a statement by Garner, he has produced it as a document to be used as evidence, and submitted it to the Court. There are more details about it on Post 547.

That sounds a lot like falsifying records, with C&RT able to blame the computer system when they get caught doing it. Do you think that the system is alright but the people using it are unfit for purpose?

That sums up the activities of C&RT's Enforcement Team perfectly. They have put in a lousy performance in pursuit of their primary objective which was Licence evasion, and succeeded in diverting attention on to a problem which exists only in some particular areas of the country, but mainly in the minds of some C&RT management and as the subject of endless numbers of meetings in their offices.

But that is precisely what C&RT have been doing, based on documentation produced from a computer system which, by their own admission, can amend previous entries when a new entry is added. From the OP : -- ' When questioned about this C&RT's local Enforcement superstar, Stuart Garner said . ." Oh it's that `thing` with our system". He obligingly went on to explain that when a new location for a boat is being entered how their system can erase the previous locations and re-enter them as the same as the new location.'

If anyone from NABO is following this, may I invite them to compare the wording in the C&RT e-mails (originating from C&RT's own Solicitors) on Post 541,with the following extract from NABO News published on 27 June 2014. Maybe a bit less friendly and a lot more critical would be appropriate here. "We intend to remain a ‘critical friend’ of CRT and to be proactive in our dialogue. In this spirit we also publish this month the response from CRT’s Jackie Lewis to the issues raised in May by our legal-beaver, Geoffrey Rogerson. Of serious importance is the unequivocal statement that if you have a home mooring then you are NOT subject to any continuous cruising requirements. This, incidentally, blows a hole in the present interim trial arrangements on the K&A, where boaters with home moorings on this canal have been asked (told?) to comply with the trial proposals relating to continuous cruisers." I have raised this with Parry, but his reply did nothing other than confirm that their issue with me, as someone with a home mooring, is solely with mooring and boat movement when away from my home mooring. Richard Parry <Richard.Parry@canalrivertrust.org.uk> Jul 1 to me Dear Tony My answer was given in response to a question posed at Leicester, which said we should check, in advance of issue, that a licence applicant (without a home mooring) didn’t have children in school or some other such personal circumstance that would, in the view of the questioner, make it very difficult to undertake bona fide navigation. As I understand it, this is rather different from your case which is concerned with your actual pattern of mooring and movement. Regards Richard Richard Parry Chief Executive Canal & River Trust

Both of those two e-mails were sent in response to a request to C&RT to tell me if they knew where my boat had been between two specified dates, so they're not much use in answering your question, but I could ask on Monday for a printout showing my boat location for that period. I have made an FOI Request which may possibly bring out a bit more useful info, but if there are any additional questions you think would help, then I am more than happy to ask them. Tony Dunkley Aug 20 (10 days ago) to Sarina, richard.parry, roger.hanbury, Steven, tracey.bose Request for Information I refer to your communication dated 6 August 2014 which neither addresses my concerns or answers the question I asked. My concern is that Canal and River Trust has provided information to the Court (a printout on Page 83 of Exhibit SAG1) which purports to show 19 financial transactions relating to my boat "Halcyon Daze" Index No.52721, a great many of which never took place. The document also indicates that, since 2003 (a period of 11 years), the vessel has always been declared, for Licencing purposes, as having a ‘home mooring’ at Barton In Fabis. This is untrue and seriously misleading, as when read in conjunction with a list of boat sightings at Holme Lock on the River Trent, also contained in Exhibit SAG1 as evidence of "overstaying" at that location, the printout disguises the fact that for part of the period covered by the list of sightings, I was paying BW for a Long Term mooring at Holme Lock. In the absence of any meaningful response from you regarding the appropriateness of FOI or SAR, I have taken some further advice. The advice received is that you should have informed me that it it is not necessary to be specific regarding FOI or SAR and that you should have told me that was the case. Perhaps I should be questioning why C&RT, in the person of Stuart Garner, produced this document as evidence knowing that it is inaccurate. However, I am told that this better left to the Court. The document, which consists of column headers and 19 rows of data was extracted from your database. However, it does not accurately record my financial transactions with the Trust (and its predecessor British Waterways). Neither, does it accurately record declarations of home moorings made in order satisfy you regarding the British Waterways Act 1995 Section 17 (3)©(i). In this request, I will refer to several database terms which are in common usage. However, I understand that sometimes different terminology is used so please contact me immediately if you are unsure about the information I am requesting. Please provide the following:- The metadata for each column header in the attached document. The SQL (or similar) used for the query which produced the document. The database schema as it relates to the document (i.e. tables, together with columns within those tables, indexes and relationships etc). Please note, I am only asking for the part of the schema that relates to the query that produced the document. I note from other information that you have supplied to the Court (a licence renewal document) that my customer number is 8040832. This number only appears in the last 10 rows of the ‘Sold to’ column (rather than all 19 rows). Please provide - 4. The customer information relating to the first nine rows (or confirm that the first nine rows do not relate to financial transactions between us or declarations I have made in regard to the BW 1995 Act). I note that the ‘SaTY’ (Sales Type?) consists of a two digit alpha code optionally followed by an optional two digit numeric code. 5. I believe that ‘ZL’ is is the code for licence transaction and ‘ZM’ the code for a mooring transaction. Also that the numeric code represents the number of months and its absence one month. Please confirm this or provide corrected information. 6. I note that five ‘ZM’ rows (mooring transactions) contain the code ‘ - L6 Mooring’ after Barton In Fabis. Please provide a list of these mooring codes with their meanings. 7. Please provide details of any audit or historical information logged when data relating to the columns in the document is created, amended or deleted. Please treat this as a request, in all or part, as a request under the FOI, EIR and DPA as appropriate. Signed A.K.Dunkley.

I think one of these two must be the one you have in mind, but they're not really very specific about anything :-- Dear Mr Dunkley Thank you for your email below. If the current absence of your boat from the vicinity of Holme Lock is an indication that you are starting to cruise that is encouraging. As we explained to you at court on the 4th of July 2014, our interest is in being satisfied that you cruise when you navigate your boat away from your home mooring on inland waterways controlled or managed by CRT. If you are keeping a record of your boats movement and the short periods of not moving your boat whilst on CRTs inland waterways and you provide us with these details, we can take these into account together with our own sightings to satisfy ourselves that you are cruising. It would be as helpful to you as it would be to us if you informed us of the current location of your boat. We would have to monitor the situation over a period and would have to have your assurance that you would not be reverting back to what has been the pattern of movement that led to your licence being revoked. We would only consider suspending the enforcement action if there is demonstrable evidence that you are willing to cruise. This could then progress to the issue of a new licence. or :-- Dear Mr Dunkley I refer to your email below. Since your boat moved from the Holme Lock vicinity from 17th July, we have not seen the boat as yet. We endeavour to check our inland waterways every 14 days. If in the course of those checks we do note over a period that any specific boat is not complying with the licence terms and conditions then the enforcement process may be followed; this is what happened in the case of Halcyon Daze resulting in the action we have taken to date. As our licence terms and conditions apply to the inland waterways we own or control, it follows that our checks are confined to those inland waterways. We do not check sections of rivers and waterways that are not within our ownership and control and we do not check marinas or other moorings where boats are moored off the waterway. As stated in my email of 23 July 2014, if we find from our monitoring data going forward that over a period of time Halcyon Daze is cruising when it is on the inland waterway and not overstaying during stops whilst cruising then we would be willing to suspend the enforcement action. If you wish to provide your own evidence of the movement of your boat whilst on the waterway (such as a movement log which may include photographs), we would consider it together with our own monitoring records. The provision of your own supporting evidence is a matter for you, you are not obliged to provide it, but if you wish to show that you are now complying with our rules for using the inland waterways, then you may take the view that your supporting evidence may be of assistance to you.

Well, glad we can agree on something at last, C&RT certainly do perform like something from another planet.

So C&RT's printouts would read correctly if done on cubic pieces of paper rather than sheets. Wouldn't this make them very expensive to send through the post?

Are the two dimensions you're thinking of a wide range of tall stories?

This really does depend on what that purpose may be. It has been acknowledged by C&RT that it can produce 'records' that say what they want said, as in this extract from an e-mail . . . From Sarina Young [C&RT FOFI officer] - "To explain, the information held within our corporate systems can be extracted and displayed in many different ways depending on the reason or purpose it is needed." Could this be an early example of the new 'openness' as proclaimed by Mr Parry?

I am not all that sure it's themselves they're trying to convince, but you are quite right about how it feels when trying to have a useful and sensible conversation with them. A few days ago, someone fairly new to the joys of talking to and dealing with C&RT described the experience as something akin to attempting to nail sh*t to a wall.

Spot on . . . the inside and outside referred to the two sides of the cut, inside being the towpath. Instead of port and starboard as the two sides of a boat, canal boatmen (and women) always spoke of chimney side or sidebed side. Two particular pieces of line were also called strings( fore-end and stern, more usually pronounced as 'starn) and when not in use the butty's stern string was generally in a small diameter coil over the T-stud, while the motor's was in a similar sized coil on the cabin top, just ahead of the can, which incidentally was itself hard up against the chimney and not part way down the cabin top as frequently seen these days.

That is disappointing . . . I can't imagine why.

Do you think I should apply for the job?

Yes, you should be OK doing that Alan, particularly when you consider that C&RT have just invited some bloke with an unlicenced mobile houseboat to cruise around for free in that area.

When C&RT bring their Place Map into use, it could possibly help to reveal more about the defects in the Boat/Location Logging System.

That actually reads as if you may be agreeing with me, and, if so, it could land you in big trouble. I have been told that C&RT read these Forums.

No, in complete contrast with their approach to maintenance and repairs their enthusiasm for the surveillance of boat owners knows no bounds.

C&RT personnel will identify him by the state of his knees.

Yes that's true, but have you bothered to consider why you are only seeing one side? Do you think abuse of powers and inappropriate and money wasting litigation that could result in someone being made homeless are not important? PS. Full marks for a bit of really nauseating grovelling. I don't think you'll be getting any "tickets" on your boat for a while.

. . . or one more opportunity to show his true colours. He had 3 weeks to respond to that in private, and had been patronisingly dismissive in replies to previous moderately worded and very unthreatening communications.

Thanks for your good wishes. C&RT never actually went as far as accusing me of permanent mooring near Holme Lock, but they claimed "overstaying", and then, in effect, withdrew that themselves by admitting in writing that I had been "moving after 14 days".

Thanks for that, most people seem to think I should be a lot more tactful. It's already started really. There was a very short Hearing on 4 July 2014 when C&RT attempted to get a Declaratory Relief (boat removal) and Injunction Application past the Court by means of an inappropriate County Court Procedure (for uncontested Applications), the paperwork for which was served on me by their Solicitors without a Response Form or the explanatory Notes for Defendant. The outcome expected by C&RT, as they confidently told me before going in to the Court ( they've done this before) was that they would be granted their Relief and Injunction and I would not be permitted to offer any kind of defence. I won't go into the reasons here, but this time it didn't work. The Judge made an Order for the case to be transferred to the correct procedure and time for me to prepare and file a Defence. A preliminary Hearing in the form of a Case Management Conference has been fixed for 1 September 2014. As far as trying to sort it out with C&RT, well I applied to renew my Licence in June (the unlawfully revoked one expired on 30 June anyway) but C&RT refused to issue a new one (unlawfully) and then on 23 and 28 July 2014 they sent the e-mails (the ones on Post 367) inviting me to cruise around in my unlicenced houseboat in order to convince them that I would comply with their T&C's in future and that they should issue me with a new Licence. Since the two e-mails there has been nothing but a brief notification that they need more time to reply to my response and the prohibition on C&RT staff communication with me, imposed by CEO Richard Parry in April, remains in place.

Yes, some weeks ago, but they don't assist non-members. I've asked for a Membership Form, but I'm still waiting for it.