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CRT evictions of disabled boaters


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As I said much earlier on these treads Nigel helped me understand why a section 5 would have been a better outcome But CRT maybe had a reason for not going that route? All our deliberations dont really help because I suspect we dont know all the facts? i just want to use my boat, moor where I am allowed see other licensed boats doing the same. I dont want to see huge amounts of boats moored blocking waterways creating problems for boaters and land based residents.

I also at some point want to go CCing and obey the rules that go with that and worry that if their is constant confrontation between CMers and CRT that current right might be much more difficult in the future.

I feel for Maggie and her predicement but the court must have taken this into consideration? I showed this thread to a magistrate customer of ours and he thought all the facts must have been presented to the court. I hope that people dont think I am getting at anybody because I am not their were no real winners in this affair surly nobody would have wanted the outcome that happened?

 

 

Peter

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. . . a section 5 would have been a better outcome But CRT maybe had a reason for not going that route?

 

As a generic point, the reasons for preferring s.8 over s.5 are those outlined by Andrew Denny in a Waterways World magazine edition of some months ago. It is basically that the fines attendant on the CCJ are considered inadequate. Neither do they send out a sufficiently strong deterrent message. Confirmation and approval of the rationale appears in the judgment in BWB v George Ward as published on CaRT's website.

 

To quote His Honour Judge Denyer QC: "Other than removal of the boat the only sanction provided for in the legislation in respect of a contravention of the Rules by a person such as the Claimant is that of a derisory fine. I think it has now reached the sum of £50. If they are not entitled to take these steps i.e. removal of the boat from the river they are in truth substantially powerless to enforce the obligations of those who use the waterways. I do not regard the ability to take debt recovery proceedings as being a sufficient alternative remedy. Aside from anything else they would face problems of enforcement."

 

Of course, the judge was not always correct in his understanding and assessments of various points here and elsewhere in the judgment, but the above is certainly an accurate representation of the rationale of CaRT and the County Courts relating to your question.

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Is there really an 'ignore button'? If so, where is it and what exactly does it do?

Yes.

 

The ignore facility allows you to ignore any or each of the following.

 

Posts by a particular member.

 

Private messages from a particular member.

 

Signatures of a particular member.

 

Its in your profile ~ settings ~ ignore preferences.

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Is there really an 'ignore button'? If so, where is it and what exactly does it do?

 

Yep, although it's not a 'button'.

 

Click your username at top, select 'My Settings', then you'll see the 'Ignore' option on the left.

 

MtB

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You don't see the person's post or avatar, just a line of text that says This post is hidden because you have chosen to ignore posts by <whoever the member you're ignoring is> View it anyway?

 

If you click on "view it anyway" you'll see the post, so you get the option to have a look if you really can't resist :)

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Thanks to both, I'll have a look. No occasion to use it, just curious. Does it mean that posts won't appear on my computer in any thread from someone I ignore?

If you ignore someone you will see

 

'You have chosen to ignore posts from member xxxx click here to see their post anyway' or words to that effect.

 

If somebody quotes a member that you are ignoring you will see what they posted in the quote.

 

PM's are blocked by

 

"This members has chosen not to receive massages from you" or again similar

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. . . the above is certainly an accurate representation of the rationale of CaRT and the County Courts relating to your question.

 

 

I should perhaps revise that as too sweeping, having had another look at the case outcomes provided by CaRT in their response to a Geoff Mayers FoI request -

 

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/117111/response/323955/attach/4/List%20of%20Court%20Cases%20Geoff%20Mayers.pdf

 

To be clear, none of these case are brought under s.5, so no fines are involved; the sums in the right hand column are awarded costs. It is curious that these are awarded in a minority of cases only.

 

For those interested, I’ve extracted the following, as best I can from the details given.

 

Concluded cases between March 2009 & June 2012 30

 

Possession Order & Injunctive relief obtained [removal sanctioned] 18

Court ordered pay schedule &/or time to obtain mooring and/or licence 4

Court Order for boater to remove from waterway 2

Voluntary boater removal from waterway/sold 2

Settlement by consent 1

Proceedings stayed pending settlement 2

Legal proceedings discontinued 1

 

So it appears that even amongst the County Court judges, there are differing views on the appropriate measures to take, and some at least, acknowledge that seizure does not have to be the inevitable outcome of any finding in favour of the authority. Some judges have given time to pay outstanding licence fees, or given the boater the option to remove the boat themselves, and/or given time to find a suitable mooring, etc.

 

Interestingly, In the majority of Possession Order cases, there is no recovery of licence fees owed [presuming there were any], so that would constitute a dead loss unless CaRT followed up with s.5 proceedings anyway, on top of the s.8 process. Presumably the assumption in the case of valuable boats is that all sums due could be recovered through sale of the boat.

 

The alternatives above do of course require co-operation of the boater once the Order is given; perhaps such variant orders were issued by reason of the expressed willingness to abide by such Orders. But at least CaRT then have the Contempt of Court sanction available to them.

 

It should be noted in line with my previous suggestions, that the fact that CaRT are given court approval for removal via a Possession Order, does not oblige them to proceed with that; armed with the Court Order, CaRT could still present the boater with the choice of removing the boat from CaRT’s jurisdiction themselves, at a considerable saving to the authority.

 

For those unwilling to co-operate even then, the fact that every Possession Order is accompanied by an Injunction against the boat remaining on/being returned to CaRT waterways [with a strict timetable for compliance], naturally creates the choice [as I have explained earlier] to go the Contempt of Court route as an alternative to removal or seizure of the boat by the authority.

 

It is not as though having boaters imprisoned for contempt of court is unfamiliar to BW/CaRT; they had Brentford boater DeVere sent to Wormwood Scrubs for weeks until he got a professional solicitor to help "purge his contempt".

 

One significant element of these optional alternative resolutions of the problem is how they impact upon the HRA. The test there, is whether an action "is necessary in a democratic society" for various reasons. If the legitimate purposes of the authority [receiving their legitimate income/removing the boat from their jurisdiction/ encouraging compliance] can be accomplished by means other than seizure of home and property, then such actions cannot be legally compliant. I have not yet seen this argument presented to the courts. The Denyer QC argument that the alternatives are insufficiently punitive would surely not wash with the higher courts, and certainly not in Brussels.

 

The emphasis should be on recovery of sums due and ensuring compliance with statutory governance, not on punishment - the level of which is set at £100 anyway, not the £50 thought by the previously quoted judge.

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From Narrowboatworld:

 

Enough is enough

 

thursday, 16 january 2014 10:01

 

UNLESS there is fresh information concerning 'Maggie', and the involvement with Canal & River Trust and its Section 8 action, no further comment will be published.

 

We believe all has been stated concerning this matter, often repeated, and believe it now lacking interest.

 

Of course, should a further aspect concerning this come to light, we will of course publish, as would be expected. It is hoped that readers will understand.

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From Narrowboatworld:

 

Enough is enough

 

thursday, 16 january 2014 10:01

 

UNLESS there is fresh information concerning 'Maggie', and the involvement with Canal & River Trust and its Section 8 action, no further comment will be published.

 

We believe all has been stated concerning this matter, often repeated, and believe it now lacking interest.

 

Of course, should a further aspect concerning this come to light, we will of course publish, as would be expected. It is hoped that readers will understand.

 

Slight disconnect between head of post and signature -

 

"NARROWMINDEDWORLD the voice of the waterways... telling it as it isn't"

 

A new convert perhaps? Time for a new signature?

Edited by NigelMoore
  • Greenie 2
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Slight disconnect between head of post and signature -

 

"NARROWMINDEDWORLD the voice of the waterways... telling it as it isn't"

 

A new convert perhaps? Time for a new signature?

I dont see any contradiction in my post heading or signature.....
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Perhaps, Nigel, some of us are fed up with you using this Forum as the method for your diatribe against CaRT!!

 

Then go and read the other threads , the forum is not yours so why try and dictate what is posted by anyone else , the mods and the owner are aware of what is being posted and until such time as they get fed up .

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I don't think that Nigel is using the forum as a CaRT bashing platform , he is joining discussions on the subject of legal actions taken

against some of their customers.

 

I'm starting to form the opinion that a more pragmatic approach needs to be taken on dealing with the small number of boaters who are in conflict with the authority. I don't think spending vast amounts of money for so little return is a good use of money.

The whole enforcement process needs overhauling to take into account a number of issues.

 

Falling foul of the human rights legislation could come back and bite them on the bum and cost a lot of money.

  • Greenie 1
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I think BW/CRT have been overly soft and wooly-minded with this 'getting a court order' thing before Section 8-ing a liveaboard. They even say themselves the need for it has not yet been tested in court and they only do it to prevent a later attempt to have th S8 set aside on the grounds that it is the persons' home.

 

Given the excessive cost and excessive delay introduced by applying for the possibly unnecessary court order, I think they should carefully choose a belligerent boater sticking two fingers up at them, and run a test case to find out for sure.

 

MtB

 

 

(Edit to re-phrase and clarify a sentence)

Edited by Mike the Boilerman
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BW should have sorted the problem out years ago BUT they got rid of the lengthsmen/lockkeepers . Who lived in the lock keepers cottages and supervised their areas .

 

There's a lot of merit in what you say. The appearance of a person in uniform saying "you can't do that" is guaranteed to put most folks back up. Conversely "a quiet word" from a local warden will often calm things down and an amicable solution agreed upon.

 

Perhaps I'm thinking too idealistically.

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There's a lot of merit in what you say. The appearance of a person in uniform saying "you can't do that" is guaranteed to put most folks back up. Conversely "a quiet word" from a local warden will often calm things down and an amicable solution agreed upon.

 

Perhaps I'm thinking too idealistically.

Idealistic? Not at all, at least not in the sense of unworkable fantasy - I would say it is highly practical and strikes at the origin of most of the genuine problems.

 

The extra half million per annum assigned to enforcement could have paid for a good number of local linesman.

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About 20, actually.

 

That's 100 miles of cut each.

 

MtB

Ah I see you would sack all the existing staff and redeploy the volunteers on that basis definately can't see it happening. Being serious one of the biggest problems of enforcement is being even handed unfortunately like society there are some unpleasant souls on boats and it's all to easy to ignore them and focus on the more compliant or more vulnerable. No easy answers here for CRT.

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I think BW/CRT have been overly soft and wooly-minded with this 'getting a court order' thing before Section 8-ing a liveaboard. They even say themselves the need for it has not yet been tested in court and they only do it to prevent a later attempt to have th S8 set aside on the grounds that it is the persons' home.

 

Given the excessive cost and excessive delay introduced by applying for the possibly unnecessary court order, I think they should carefully choose a belligerent boater sticking two fingers up at them, and run a test case to find out for sure.

 

MtB

 

 

(Edit to re-phrase and clarify a sentence)

I think you have a good and valid point. It may well scare some people and also stop others from believing they are teflon coated

 

Peter

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