C&RT returns seized boat after legal action taken against them

[Alan de Enfield]

From NBW

 

Canal & River Trust returns unlawfully seized boat

 PUBLISHED: WEDNESDAY, 30 DECEMBER 2020

THE Canal & River Trust (CRT) was forced to return a seized boat following the threat of legal action by its live-aboard owner, explains the National Bargee Travellers Association.  (NBTA).

The charity had seized the boat, which actually had a valid licence at the time, on 6th August 2020 without obtaining a Court Order, which is unlawful if a boat is used as a home. The Human Rights Act 1998 entitles citizens to have the proportionality of removing their home assessed by an independent court and to defend themselves in a fair trial.

Proceeding against Canal & River Trust

The boat, Milasa, was returned to its owner Paul Buga on 24th November 2020 after his solicitor commenced Judicial Review proceedings against CRT.

CRT had claimed that the boat was not Mr Buga’s home and that there was no evidence that he lived in it.  However, Mr Buga lives in a pair of boats of which Milasa is the motor boat. Milasa was therefore Mr Buga’s only means of complying with the law regarding boat movement.  The Solicitor argued that Milasa had a valid licence, was an essential part of Mr Buga’s home and that it had moved in accordance with CRT’s current requirements.  A Claim Form should have been issued giving Mr Buga the opportunity to defend himself in Court against the removal of the boat.

NBTA stepped in for his wellbeing

Paul Buga had previously been on hunger strike for more than two weeks outside Downing Street in an attempt to get his boat back from CRT.  Alerted to concerns for his wellbeing, the NBTA stepped in to support him and to find him a solicitor.

The photograph shows Paul Buga on day 17 of his hunger strike outside Downing Street.  Photograph by Jay Brown.

CRT returned the boat to the owner on the River Lea free of charge, paying for craning and road haulage from Chester. The boat had been seized by CRT and its subcontractors Commercial Boat Services (CBS), who took it to premises believed to be under CBS control at Greenwall's Farm, Dodleston, Chester. The NBTA believes from previous experience that all boats seized by CRT are taken by road to these premises.

Paid 12 months but only recorded as six

In the course of assisting Mr Buga, the NBTA identified a number of defects in CRT’s online licensing system.  Mr Buga applied online for a 12 months Rivers Only licence, paid for it, and was provided with a correct receipt for the licence. However, the CaRT online licensing system recorded this as a six months Standard Canal & River Licence, which happened to be the same price. This occurred twice.  This discrepancy was central to CRT’s decision to seize the boat, as CRT’s computer system wrongly flagged the boat as unlicensed when in fact the licence had six more months to run.

This appears to be a systemic problem with the CRT online licensing system. The NBTA advises boaters to check that the licence that they bought and received a receipt for is the same as the licence recorded on their CRT online licensing account.

[Jon johan]

He used the legal process of judicial review, which I provided information of recently within a post on this forum.

For those of you who attempted to undermine and ridicule that particular course of action, I sincerely hope that heavy humble pie is not sticking in your throat. 

[nicknorman]

8 minutes ago, Jon johan said:

He used the legal process of judicial review, which I provided information of recently within a post on this forum.

For those of you who attempted to undermine and ridicule that particular course of action, I sincerely hope that heavy humble pie is not sticking in your throat. 

One issue with a JR is that the process can be terminated at any time simply by the defendant agreeing to reverse their decision. So that is fine if your only aim is to get your boat back. On the other hand if your aim is to expose the routine illegal activities of an organisation to the court’s scrutiny, with the hope that they won’t continue to repeat the illegal activity, then it is useless. Clearly CRT know full well that they acted illegally, otherwise they wouldn’t have capitulated so easily, but I very much doubt it will make them change their behaviour in the future. You only have to look at their attempts to subvert statute by their new, stronger “terms and conditions” to see that they are still hell bent on operating outside the law and statute.

Edited December 31, 2020 by nicknorman

[dmr]

I think this story comes from the NBTA so will be rather one sided with some possible economy of the truth for political ends, but it does sound like yet another bit of spectacular incompetence from CRT.

We had a little bit of trouble with CRT recently and they do tend to "apply the rules" with no regard to reality.

 

...............Dave

[Bee]

Being inept is excusable (Well I think it is - others will disagree) Being heavy handed and deaf to protests about injustices is not excusable, that is the way of monopolies and dictatorships. BWB did it to me  years ago, I renewed a licence, they cashed the cheque then refused to issue the licence because they said I didn't have a mooring, I did and it was one of theirs. That was 30 years ago and living with threats from BWB / CRT wears you down unless you are very thick skinned indeed and I am not. We had two very young children on the boat at the time.  There is a lesson in this though, from time to time there are calls for CRT to 'tidy up' various boats or groups of boats that people object to. There is sometimes an assumption that CRT or 'The authorities' need more powers to deal with 'the problem'. I would say that they have plenty of power and to be careful what you wish for and that goes for all authorities from the government to the local parish council.   edit... no idea why crt is underlined, I'm not shouting - honest.

Edited December 31, 2020 by Bee

[Jen-in-Wellies]

6 minutes ago, Bee said:

edit... no idea why crt is underlined, I'm not shouting - honest.

It isn't you. If you are on a laptop, or similar with a mouse cursor interface, hover the cursor over many abbreviations in posts, including CRT and it will show you what it stands for. Canal River Trust. Who knew?! Works for CWDF as an abbreviation and I'm sure others too. Has been coded in to the forum by those clever people who look after it. Can't remember if it works with touch screen phone type interfaces or not.

Jen

[dmr]

I would like to know some background to this story.

 

Did CRT contact the owner, probably many times, before removing the boat, and did the owner respond?

Does the owner have a "history" with CRT?

Did the owner "encourage" CRT to seize his boat, TD style, as part of a political battle with CRT?

If CRT have seized a boat without warning and when totally in the wrong then its a serious situation.

 

...............Dave

[Tracy D'arth]

5 minutes ago, dmr said:

I would like to know some background to this story.

 

Did CRT contact the owner, probably many times, before removing the boat, and did the owner respond?

Does the owner have a "history" with CRT?

Did the owner "encourage" CRT to seize his boat, TD style, as part of a political battle with CRT?

If CRT have seized a boat without warning and when totally in the wrong then its a serious situation.

 

...............Dave

We may never know.........................................................................................................................................................

[Alan de Enfield]

59 minutes ago, dmr said:

I think this story comes from the NBTA so will be rather one sided with some possible economy of the truth for political ends, but it does sound like yet another bit of spectacular incompetence from CRT.

We had a little bit of trouble with CRT recently and they do tend to "apply the rules" with no regard to reality.

 

...............Dave

 

One would hope that the basic story / facts are correct, but there will undoubtably be a bit of 'halo-polishing' by the Baton Twirlers.

 

If the story as presented in true then C&RT have spectacularly failed to follow their own Section 8 policy guidlines.

 

There is a 13 page 'flow chart' that takes many many months to work thru, starting with 'Warning letter No1' and (maybe) 12 months later the actual seizure

 

It should not come as a surprise to anyone that 'action is being taken - there are a number of opportunties during the process for the facts to be presented or argued long before it gets to seizure.

 

Process Summary :

Edited December 31, 2020 by Alan de Enfield

[Jon johan]

11 minutes ago, dmr said:

I would like to know some background to this story.

 

Did CRT contact the owner, probably many times, before removing the boat, and did the owner respond?

Does the owner have a "history" with CRT?

Did the owner "encourage" CRT to seize his boat, TD style, as part of a political battle with CRT?

If CRT have seized a boat without warning and when totally in the wrong then its a serious situation.

 

...............Dave

Did you read this part of the article by any chance?

  [The Solicitor argued that Milasa had a valid licence, was an essential part of Mr Buga’s home and that it had moved in accordance with CRT’s current requirements.  A Claim Form should have been issued giving Mr Buga the opportunity to defend himself in Court against the removal of the boat].

 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

It isn't you. If you are on a laptop, or similar with a mouse cursor interface, hover the cursor over many abbreviations in posts, including CRT and it will show you what it stands for. Canal River Trust. Who knew?! Works for CWDF as an abbreviation and I'm sure others too. Has been coded in to the forum by those clever people who look after it. Can't remember if it works with touch screen phone type interfaces or not.

Jen

Not on my tablet using Chrome. Touching the underlined CRT brings up a window at the bottom of the screen with 'Cathode Ray Tube' in it. So it shows what the abbreviation could mean just not referencing the Trust in my case.

 

C&RT seems to work though.

 

Edit. actually touching any single word (not just underlined ones) brings up its definition at the bottom of the screen. Every day's a school  day.

 

As we were people back on topic.

Edited December 31, 2020 by The Happy Nomad

[Arthur Marshall]

It would appear that CRT seized the motor, not the home, so that appears legitimate if it was unlicensed. It was returned as it was, in fact, licenced and CRT had made a cockup, and I hope he gets compensation. If they knew the home was a butty, then it should have been obvious they were connected and taking the motor was just daft as that would make it impossible for the remaining craft to fulfill conditions - unless the butty was in fact not registered as such but as a boat.

But surely there must have been some communication prior to their seizing the boat when this could have been pointed out? Everyone else I know who has had erroneous overstay or licence  letters from crt have had several, in plenty of time to phone up and get it put right - especially if this was the second time this had happened. Maybe he just ignored them, not believing they could make the same mistake twice.

One is, however, always a bit suspicious of phrases like "moved in accordance with current requirements", as that usually means skirting the edges of legality and doing the absolute minimum you think you can get away with. Of course, in this case it might just be legalese.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

It would appear that CRT seized the motor, not the home, so that appears legitimate if it was unlicensed. It was returned as it was, in fact, licenced and CRT had made a cockup, and I hope he gets compensation. If they knew the home was a butty, then it should have been obvious they were connected and taking the motor was just daft as that would make it impossible for the remaining craft to fulfill conditions - unless the butty was in fact not registered as such but as a boat.

But surely there must have been some communication prior to their seizing the boat when this could have been pointed out? Everyone else I know who has had erroneous overstay or licence  letters from crt have had several, in plenty of time to phone up and get it put right - especially if this was the second time this had happened. Maybe he just ignored them, not believing they could make the same mistake twice.

One is, however, always a bit suspicious of phrases like "moved in accordance with current requirements", as that usually means skirting the edges of legality and doing the absolute minimum you think you can get away with. Of course, in this case it might just be legalese.

One can certainly imagine a scenario where somebody deliberately ignores correspondence in the hope that they become some sort of 'martyr' to the cause of persecuted boaters. Of course I am not saying this is what has happened here but it is certainly not unknown in cases of people when they come up against an organisation like CRT.

 

I had an acquaintance (I no longer count them as a friend) who did it with his council tax. He had paid it, could prove he had paid it but the council insisted he hadn't. He received various correspondence which he carefully filed away unanswered 'for his big day in court'.

 

Eventually when things started to get sticky he decided to whip out the proof he had actually paid several months previously and of course the council backed off. He 'made his point' though and in the process wasted a lot of council time when highly probably at the very first query the whole issue could have been resolved.

 

I told him I thought he had been a bit of a dick head which is why he no longer is a friend.

[Arthur Marshall]

The danger with the "I'll be a martyr and that'll show them" thing is that no-one really cares, and certaily a beurocracy doesn't. And if it happens in most courts, as Nigel endlessly pointed out, it doesn't set a precedent so it makes no odds in the long run.

But that mistake by CRT should be so simple to correct that it certainly shouldn't have happened twice.

I don't know the River Lea at all - is it a much lived on waterway?

[David Mack]

16 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

 

I don't know the River Lea at all - is it a much lived on waterway?

 

I think the London end of the Lee is the origin of the term "continuous mooring". The whole of the towpath is an endless line of boats!

[Tim Lewis]

47 minutes ago, David Mack said:

 

I think the London end of the Lee is the origin of the term "continuous mooring". The whole of the towpath is an endless line of boats!

Not all, North of Tottenham you will find moorings.

[dmr]

3 hours ago, Jon johan said:

Did you read this part of the article by any chance?

  [The Solicitor argued that Milasa had a valid licence, was an essential part of Mr Buga’s home and that it had moved in accordance with CRT’s current requirements.  A Claim Form should have been issued giving Mr Buga the opportunity to defend himself in Court against the removal of the boat].

 

Yes, I did read that, but it does not really answer any of my questions. There should have been extensive communication well before it got to this stage, and the solicitor is really just arguing a point about the residential status of a pair of boats.

There must be some question about boat movement if the solicitor had to argue the point.

I really feel that we are only getting one half of the facts here. CRT do need bringing to order over much of their bad behaviour but there is an old bit of wisdom about keeping your powder dry.

Was this all part of an engineered political trap for CRT to fall into?

 

.............Dave

[Jon johan]

15 minutes ago, dmr said:

Yes, I did read that, but it does not really answer any of my questions. There should have been extensive communication well before it got to this stage, and the solicitor is really just arguing a point about the residential status of a pair of boats.

There must be some question about boat movement if the solicitor had to argue the point.

I really feel that we are only getting one half of the facts here. CRT do need bringing to order over much of their bad behaviour but there is an old bit of wisdom about keeping your powder dry.

Was this all part of an engineered political trap for CRT to fall into?

 

.............Dave

The fella got his boat back, obviously because the CRT had tried it on with avoiding due process. 
Your own views attempting to undermine the nbta and their statements comes across as quite negative, and for me anyway, cancels out any of your opinions. 
I am all for debate, but if you cannot even grasp the basics, there’s little or no point going further.

[David Mack]

According to the link the boat was removed because CRT said it was unlicensed, their records showing that the 6 months licence had expired, whereas in reality it was still within the 12 month licence period. So apparently CRT had removed the boat within 6 months of the apparent licence expiry. That just doesn't compute with CRT's processes and timescales for unlicensed boats. So there is something else going on which we haven't been told about.

[David Mack]

2 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

If they knew the home was a butty, then it should have been obvious they were connected and taking the motor was just daft as that would make it impossible for the remaining craft to fulfill conditions - unless the butty was in fact not registered as such but as a boat.

 

Yes the butty would be registered as a boat. Unless it is small enough to count as a Tender, then a butty is registered in exactly the same way as a boat. The only difference is that you can't declare the engine power, but a quick look at the canalplan boat listings shows plenty of boats with 999hp engines, presumably because the actual engine power is not recorded.

[Jon johan]

7 minutes ago, David Mack said:

According to the link the boat was removed because CRT said it was unlicensed, their records showing that the 6 months licence had expired, whereas in reality it was still within the 12 month licence period. So apparently CRT had removed the boat within 6 months of the apparent licence expiry. That just doesn't compute with CRT's processes and timescales for unlicensed boats. So there is something else going on which we haven't been told about.

[Mr Buga applied online for a 12 months Rivers Only licence, paid for it, and was provided with a correct receipt for the licence. However, the CaRT online licensing system recorded this as a six months Standard Canal & River Licence, which happened to be the same price. This occurred twice.  This discrepancy was central to CRT’s decision to seize the boat, as CRT’s computer system wrongly flagged the boat as unlicensed when in fact the licence had six more months to run.

This appears to be a systemic problem with the CRT online licensing system.]

[Alan de Enfield]

I don't think anyone is questioning the fact that C&RT issued a licence and their system incorrectly showed it as a 6 month licence.

 

The point is that C&RT would have sent several letters, he would have had several discussions with bankside enforecement, emails, phone calls etc and would appear to have ignored them for several months.

 

OR

 

Are you suggesting that on the 6-month + 1 day, C&RT rolled up, kicked him out if his boat and towed it away ?

 

Something is getting very smelly now 'like a rotting Pike'.

When we get to hear the 'other side' of the Baton Twirlers stories it is often very much at odds with how they report it.

 

Maybe the truth will one day come out.

[Jon johan]

7 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

I don't think anyone is questioning the fact that C&RT issued a licence and their system incorrectly showed it as a 6 month licence.

 

The point is that C&RT would have sent several letters, he would have had several discussions with bankside enforecement, emails, phone calls etc and would appear to have ignored them for several months.

 

OR

 

Are you suggesting that on the 6-month + 1 day, C&RT rolled up, kicked him out if his boat and towed it away ?

 

Something is getting very smelly now 'like a rotting Pike'.

When we get to hear the 'other side' of the Baton Twirlers stories it is often very much at odds with how they report it.

 

Maybe the truth will one day come out.

Good luck with your conspiracies, I’ve no doubt all will be revealed under the 25 year system. ?

[Alan de Enfield]

1 minute ago, Jon johan said:

Good luck with your conspiracies, I’ve no doubt all will be revealed under the 25 year system. ?

 

No conspiracy, its called experience and knowledge of the S8 system.

 

 

So you cannot answer the question then.

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, Jon johan said:

Good luck with your conspiracies, I’ve no doubt all will be revealed under the 25 year system. ?

Better than it coming out now I guess and expose what might actually be a whole different story.