Please note that names in italics are fictional for legal purposes.
The State:
1. Gives Me A Criminal Record Number,
2. Gives No. 56 To Nationwide Building Society,
3. Gives All My £13.000 Equity to Nationwide, all on the same day.
The 180 days within which I had been ordered by the Department of the Environment's Planning service to remove the old mobile school classroom and which came into effect on April 21st 1986, expired on October 18th the same year.
The old classroom was still in place. I had absolutely no intention of removing it. I was not breaking any law of the land. The law enforcers were not enforcing the law of the land, but were forcing a brand of gangsterism on us which they operated over and above the law of the land, and had operated this excuse for government long before November 29th 1976.
On May 5th 1987 Planning Service officer Edward Bailie sought my permission to allow the photographer who accompanied him to take pictures of the buildings at 11 Newcastle Road.
This was almost seven months after the 180 days had expired. What were the bullies in the Planning Service so afraid of? What was keeping them from taking action against me? Surely my reputation in court wasn't something to be afraid of? Or was it.
I gave my permission willingly. Obviously the Planning Service were not going to take any chances with me. It was then almost seven months since the 180 days had expired, thirteen months since I was ordered to remove our living accommodation, nineteen months since the Planning Service had told me that they could not give me either temporary or permanent planning permission for our living accommodation and three years and four months since my previous temporary planning permission had expired.
Almost four months, almost four months, was still to pass before the Clerk of the Petty Sessions signed a summons on August 28th 1987 commanding me to appear at the Courthouse in Downpatrick on September 17th 1987. What were they all waiting on? Was my reputation in so many different courts beginning to make some people nervous? When I told Planning Officer Edward Bailie that I would have a surprise for him at the court was it taken so seriously?
I had meant what I said and really did have a surprise for them all in the court hearing. The biggest surprise is that such educated people even with photographic evidence still made a big blunder.
Jimmy McMullan was in the Court with Gemma and me from before 10.30 am and we sat through the now familiar list of cases that are heard at the beginning of such court days until my case was called.
Another of my problems is that I do not hear well and Gemma had to tell me when my name was called out. As I walked up the courtroom I was asked, as usual, if I was being legally represented, and I said that I was not.
The magistrate, Mr. Mills, was immediately told that the Planning Service was prepared to offer me an adjournment of the case for one month in order to allow me to apply for temporary planning permission. I was shocked at hearing this. Now I was taken completely by surprise. I had a letter in my briefcase from the headquarters of the Planning Service in Belfast which was a reply to a letter of mine dated July 12th 1985 to the Prime Minister.
The Planning Service letter dated October 28th 1985 states;
"Dear sir,
UNAUTHORISED MOBILE HOME, 11 NEWCASTLE ROAD, BALLYNAHINCH, CO. DOWN.
I have been asked to reply to your letter dated 12 July 1985 addressed to the Prime Minister.
You will be aware from previous correspondence from the Department that the siting and residential use of the above-mentioned mobile home, constitutes a breach of planning control by reason of the fact that the temporary planning approval granted in respect of this mobile home expired on 7 January 1984.
Whilst the Department is not averse to a permanent dwelling on this site, it is not Departmental policy to grant planning approval for the siting of a mobile home on a permanent basis.
Furthermore the Department would not be prepared to grant another temporary approval for a mobile home on this site (my emphasis)and consequently the Department has no option but to instigate enforcement proceedings, requiring the removal of the existing unauthorised mobile home.
You may of course, if you so desire, submit a planning application for a permanent dwelling on this site.
Yours faithfully,
pp J V Allister.
On October 28th 1985, J V Allister, a spokesperson for the Prime Minister laid down the law, 'no temporary planning permission and no permanent planning permission for the mobile home'. No planning permission whatsoever for the mobile home. Yet, on September 17th 1987 in a court of law, the local Planning Service officials in Downpatrick were openly countermanding that Central Government decision. Who was behind that?
My immediate reaction to this turn of events in the courtroom was to bluntly refuse the offer of an adjournment for one month in order to allow me to apply for temporary planning permission for the simple reason that, as I told the magistrate, I just could not afford the £53.00 fee the planning Service required for the privilege of making an application.
In normal circumstances, I thought, citizens only had to make one application yet here was I punished enough already and being required to pay a second time for these officials' permission for something I was being forced to do for my family's protection.
I was now in a good mood for facing anyone.
I told the magistrate, Wishart Mills, that while this statutory notice from the Planning Service of the Department of the Environment ordered me to remove a mobile home from my property I was also in possession of another order from the Rates Department of the same Department of the Environment forbidding me to remove anything from the same property. Mr. Mills mumbled something to the effect that it must be from some other Department. Of course it WAS from the same DOE and was imposed on me because I had become unable to pay my rates and the DOE (Department of the Environment) then took possession of everything on my property until the Rates were paid for and prohibited me from removing anything from my property.
I also stated that I wished to challenge the validity of the Statutory Notice from the DOE. Mr. Mills told me to take a seat and said,
"It will be heard sometime".
I was called again a short time later and after Edward Bailie went into the witness box and the case was outlined against me by the Clerk of the Court, I pleaded not guilty.
I asked Edward Bailie to identify the Statutory Notice in my possession and he took the time to read through the first page and confirmed its authenticity.
I asked him to check that the second page with the map was likewise and he did.
I then asked him if he was aware that the same Department of the Environment had issued an Order through the Judgements Office, which I produced, ordering me under pain of six month's imprisonment not to remove anything from the same premises.
He said he was not aware of this.
Mr. Mills asked to see the two conflicting pages and after reading them handed them back to me stating, "I don't think that is relevant."
In other words Mr. Mills did not make a proper judgement.
I then asked Edward Bailie if during his many visits to the site in question, if he had requested my permission to take photographs of the site, He said "Yes".
I asked him if he had obtained that permission.
He said "Yes".
I asked him if the photographs had been taken.
He said "Yes".
I asked him if he had those photographs in court.
He said "Yes".
I asked him if he would let me see those photographs.
After some hesitation a photograph was produced.
The instant I began to refer to the photograph, the Planning Service solicitor very strongly objected to my line of questioning and Mr. Mills upheld his objection saying he felt the same as the solicitor did.
I turned on Mr. Mills who was only one meter away from me and told him what I noticed almost as soon as the Statutory Notice was served on me by Edward Bailie.
I told Mr. Mills that there was a very big mistake in the drawing of the buildings on my property on the Government prepared Ordinance Survey Map.
I stated that while there were three distinct buildings on my property, viz. the workshop, the old cottage and the old mobile school classroom, which is confirmed by photographic evidence, there were actually four distinct buildings drawn on to the Ordinance Survey map.
Three of the buildings permanently drawn in position were the workshop, the old cottage and the old mobile school classroom, but these were drawn by mistake, ninety degrees out of perspective, and the large building drawn on the Ordinance Survey map beside these three buildings, drawn in green pen or green pencil by the Planning Service staff, and specifically identified on the Statutory Notice for removal, was a fourth building which in fact did not exist!
I told Mr. Mills that the old mobile was drawn twice on the Ordinance Survey map.
It was drawn in black ink along with the other two buildings, although ninety degrees out of perspective, and it was drawn in a second time for removal.
I told Mr. Mills that there were not two mobiles, but one mobile on my site, one drawn in legally even if ninety degrees out of perspective, and drawn in again in green as illegal.
I told Mr. Mills that this building could not be legal and illegal at the same time.
I was enjoying myself.
Mr. Mills abruptly told that I was introducing a red herring.
I asked Edward Bailie if it was not unusual for the Planning Service to grant temporary Planning Permission.
He said it was.
I asked him if it wasn't true that special circumstances had to exist before temporary planning permission was granted.
He said "Yes".
I read out the piece included on my initial planning permission at "Reason" which stated that my case would be looked at in the light of circumstances then pertaining.
I asked Edward Bailie what those circumstances were.
He blustered saying among other things, while looking past me at the magistrate as was proper, that he did not think they were relevant in this case.
It was beginning to seem to me that nothing was relevant in this case except that I was a bloody nuisance and everybody else was being allowed to state it by implication.
I turned sharply to Mr. Mills and said,
"Your Worship, can we have a month's adjournment to enable this Department to get someone here who can answer my questions?"
Mr. Mills retorted,
"You'll get no adjournment, you have already been offered an adjournment and refused it".
I was equally blunt,
"That was for a different reason, Your Worship."
The case was eventually adjourned. I turned to Edward Bailie and said,
"Is it not a fact that your great courtesy towards me in all your dealings with me and the Department's great sympathy with my case is because of the local building fraud?"
There was complete silence. Edward Bailie did not speak. The DOE solicitor did not speak. Mr. Mills did not speak nor did he require Edward Bailie to answer my question. Even I was so surprised at the completeness of the silence that I was, for once, speechless. That question must have been relevant! I regret not having insisted on that answer through sheer inexperience.
I then began to tell Mr. Mills that my family had been punished most unfairly in the past twelve years but he cut me off stating that I had been offered a reasonable alternative and did not take it.
He told me that I could either remove the home or take the opportunity presented to me and if I didn't he said he would impose a severe penalty.
"Take that," he said, "as a final warning and don't stretch the indulgence of this court any further."
He adjourned the case himself for a month. Of course I was well used now to bureaucracy's big deaf ear, creeping injustice, incompetence and official self-preservation.
As I sat with Gemma for the next hearing of my case on June 27th 1988, the solicitor for the Planning Service approached me and asked me if I was legally represented. I know that I should have told him that it was none of his business but I denied myself such a luxury in the interest of preserving my personal dignity which I had kept uppermost in my mind for so long.
I did not realise that I was attending this hearing just to receive my punishment. The Planning Service solicitor, who looked to me like a teenager, informed the magistrate, Mr. Mills, that the fine for a conviction in a case like mine was not to exceed £1000.00.
He said other things but that was all I heard. When he had finished Mr. Mills told me that I had ten seconds to say my piece. In the ten seconds of silence I did all in my power to refrain from telling Mr. Mills that if he gave me ten hours I would only then be halfway through saying what should be said. He proceeded to tell me what he thought of me saying among other things that I had no respect for the law.
That hurt, that really hurt. It hurt so much that I decided to have my ten seconds after all. I told Mr. Mills, as I pointed around the court at the policemen,
"There are people in this court to-day, Your Worship, who are risking their lives and unfortunately some of them are losing their lives because of their stand for justice under the law, but I have only risked and lost my assets."
I hardly knew what I was saying but think it staggered him a little. After a pause he only fined me £250.00 and warned me that I could be committing a continuing offence if I did not comply with the law. I immediately asked him for permission to appeal his judgement and he required me to pay £10.00 into the Courthouse at a later date. I believe I should have had that £10.00 returned to me but I never received it.
The appeal was a farce. The first thing the barrister said to me when I met him in the temporary courthouse waiting area, was that "We are not going to win in here today". I told him he needn't worry that we could take the matter further. It was a very straightforward case as far as I was concerned. He wanted me to apply for Planning Permission. I refused since I could not afford to. He went in and out of the courtroom several times while I stood outside. Judge Rowland, a man I respect, would only grant me legal aid if I did apply for Planning Permission so in the end I told the barrister that I would apply if he would present the letter I received from the Planning Service H/Q to the Judge. The barrister refused to do this. Our voices were so raised outside the courtroom door that the barrister took me into a little room adjacent to the courtroom. There we argued and fought about what should be presented to the Judge including the facts I had attempted to present to the magistrate at the earlier court hearing. Eventually I had my way as far as the presentation of the letter was concerned and the case was adjourned. I got legal aid. The barrister and solicitor were getting paid. I regret that I did not represent myself. The solicitor, a lady, had offered to pay the planning fee and then I could pay it off when I could. Reluctantly I agreed to this. When I saw at the next hearing of the case that the facts as I had them and facts that were in the possession of the solicitor were not to be put forcefully before the Judge I again fought with the barrister. The case was adjourned again and the barrister left the case. I was not aware of this until I attended the third hearing of the appeal and this young upstart of a barrister told me exactly what was being done and all I could expect was a possible reduction in my fine. My case had not been called by lunchtime and Gemma and I went to her mother's house in Killyleagh. While we were there I telephoned to hear what had happened in the High Court in Belfast.
I had been summoned to the High Court in Belfast on the same day, by the Nationwide Building Society who were trying again to take 56 Carlisle Park off me. I couldn't be in two places at once, not even by judicial command, so this time the Nationwide had a free run in the High Court and I found out on the phone at the dinner-time break from the County Court that I lost No. 56 in the High Court in Belfast that morning.
I was at a very low ebb when I returned to the Courthouse in Killyleagh. I said very little to the judge, not Judge Rowland. It was as if all the fight had been knocked out of me. I did tell him about losing No. 56, that morning. I do remember the Judge saying before reducing my fine to £100.00;
"Mr. Rice must have some responsibility in the matter."
I was so depressed I wasn't even able to challenge what, with hindsight, seems to have been a subtle invitation to do so. I have always found High Court and County judges reasonable men.
The Down Recorder changed its front-page story to the headline,
"COURT TAKES HOUSE FROM BATTLER GERRY"
and did a good story on the two cases on the same day. It is rather incredible that all that time and legal energy should have been spent in punishing me for refusing to do for local Planning Department officials what Central Government had stated in writing was unavailable to me, namely any sort of Planning permission. The alternative was to remove my old mobile, or go back to 56 Carlisle Park, Ballynahinch, or maybe into that tent in the garden that Alfie Jameson suggested. With a lot of hindsight, I believe that the local Planning Department was indirectly trying to force me back into 56 Carlisle Park.
The following is an aerial photograph of our home site at 11 Newcastle Road, Ballynahinch, Co. Down, BT24 8NE.
Next is an enlargement of my site on the Ordinance Survey Map highlighted and checked by the local Planning Office in Downpatrick and sent to me to tell me that I must remove the building in green within 180 days. I would ask the reader to make a very careful study of it as what follows in this section demonstrates graphically the total incompetence of Planning Office staff, incompetence which resulted in these same stupid and corrupt people using the law to impose a criminal record against my good name.
To make it easier to compare the layout of our property in the above aerial photograph with the layout of our property in the 'drawing' of this same site by professional planning officers, I have turned the map upside down as follows, to have both the photograph and the map pointing in the same direction.
As can be seen from the aerial photograph, there are three buildings on our site.
1. The old derelict cottage with the reddish slates on the roof.
2. The quite large L-shaped garage with the rectangular sky-lights.
3. The old mobile school classroom we were forced to erect because Down District Council refused to make the builder put our home in Ballynahinch right according to the law. This was the building the Planning Department were forcing us to remove. Remember that there were, and still are, only THREE buildings on this site.
On the Planning Department's highlighted map, however, there are FOUR buildings. I have coloured two of these buildings in the next picture for ease of identification.
I have left the L-shaped garage uncoloured (white) as it was. I have coloured the old derelict cottage in pink and the building I have coloured in blue is actually the old mobile school classroom which the Planning Department required us to remove. The reason the old mobile classroom was shorter on the Ordinance Survey Map then than it is now is probably because the extension we built on to it must have been completed after the Planning Department officials made this drawing. But the Planning Department officials in their wisdom, or maybe in their intoxicated state, did not identify this building for removal. No, they ADDED the green building for removal, A BUILDING WHICH DID NOT EXIST. This is what I was trying to explain to the Resident Magistrate Wishart Mills when he told me I was introducing a red herring.
As you have probably seen from comparing the photograph with the highlighted site on the Ordinance Survey Map, the professional Planning Officials entered our site on the Ordinance Survey Map ninety degrees out of alignment in an anti-clockwise direction. Yet, despite the fact that they had photographs taken of these buildings on this site with my permission, these professional Planning Officers still could not do the job they are highly paid to do.
The lady solicitor representing me at the magistrate's court loaned me the money - I think it was £53.00 - to apply for planning permission as she felt I was going to be further punished on a daily basis if I did not apply for that planning permission.
Despite the fact that the letter written by J V Allister (above) in reply to my letter to Prime Minister Thatcher states that I would not be given temporary or permanent Planning Permission for our Mobile School Classroom, I received the following documents from the local Planning Department in Downpatrick.
After having me fined and given a Criminal Record Number for failing to remove the old mobile school classroom we were forced by this building fraud to live in, these Planning Officers actually gave me five years planning permission on April 25th 1988. They even sent me the very same faulty Ordinance Survey map with the very same ADDITIONAL green building which did not exist, informing me that they had given me planning premission for this non-existant building and as you can see at "3." on the Explanatory notes above, it states, "Any failure to adhere to the details of the approved plans and specifications or to comply with conditions attached to the permission/consent constitutes a contravention of the Planning (Northern Ireland) Order 1972 (or, in the case of advertisements, of the Planning (Control of Advertisements) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1973) and may result in the taking of enforcement action by the Department."
Now I wonder just what colour of a herring Magistrate Wishart Mills would have called my actions if I had been foolish enough to have gone ahead with the instructions that the Planning Office people had sent me and ended up in front of him again for doing what I was told to do.
I had been given permission to erect a mobile school classroom (the green one) all the way across in front of the derelict cottage, the front of the garage and the end of the existing mobile school classroom. If I did not adhere to the details of their permission it would constitute a contravention of the Northern Ireland Planning Order 1972. If indeed I had erected the SECOND mobile school classroom where they had given me permission to erect it, this SECOND classroom would have been sitting over the edge of, and on the A24 road as in the following drawing, given the proper scale of the buildings which the Planning Department did not seem to be concerned about. Travellers on the A24 road would have had to drive around it or maybe the Planning Department would then have given permission to erect traffic lights. I studied engineering drawing at school and did very well in my exams in that subject, just as I did in all my other subjects.
First, here is a copy of the enlarged old cardboard mockup of this drawing fiasco I prepared but never got an opportunity to explain in court. The circular disc incorporating the drawings of the buildings as the Planning Department had them on the Ordinance Survey Map is separate from the rest of the site and can be moved around in a circular movement. This following picture is as the Planning Department had drawn it on the Ordinance Survey map.
Now here is the circular disc turned clockwise ninety degrees to the proper layout of the buildings on my site, and as the Planning Department officials should have drawn them, as you can confirm by looking at the aerial photograph above and look where I had been given permission to put a SECOND mobile school classroom!
All the above is in addition to what I have already written in Chapter 1, part of which you can read here
I kept a Mourne Observer report dated October 7th 1987 of another case brought before another magistrate, Mr Gerard Harty, under the heading,
"'NO SUCH PLACE' SUMMONS IS THROWN OUT".
This time too, a solicitor produced an Ordinance Survey map in court to prove his point. The magistrate called the prosecution 'very slap-happy' and dismissed the case against a drunken driver!
I recalled having read a report on January 26th 1988 where Lord Hailsham was reported to have stated, quote,
"Courts are there to provide the collective conscience of society."
Very nice in theory but in June 1988 I did not think very highly of the collective conscience of the society in which I lived. Was it really any wonder that paramilitary organisations had taken over the high ground thus causing everybody else, including government personnel, church leaders and politicians of every constitutional creed to continually react to their bloody activity? Was my society not paying the price any ship has to pay whose captain and crew abandon it and go their own selfish ways? Justice exists where people have become adjusted to one another, bearing in mind that workers are people, employers are people, judges are people, society's rulers are people.
In 1988 the justice apportioned to me by the collective conscience of the people of Northern Ireland was as follows. In return for many years of Rates payments enforceable by law, I was refused the most important service administered by Down District Council. This was refused because to have provided me with that service would, of necessity, have exposed the negligence through corruption of the same Council's Building Control service.
When I complained to the Environmental Health Department at Stormont, the civil servants there refused to take any action simply because their fellow civil servants in the Department of Housing Subsidy Branch, a Department also charged with the judgement of the acceptability of the use of terralux in housing according to Mr. Clarke, had paid out subsidy on No. 56 according to the Parliamentary Written Reply when in fact that money should not have been paid out.
The National House-Builders Registration later known as the National House Building Council refused to acknowledge the defective structure in No. 56 because to have done so would have involved them in paying all the repairs not only to No. 56 but to all the other house holders who privately stated that they would seek the same compensation we would get. The NHBC would have been bankrupted so its managers kept faith with local officers, those officers' political employers, viz Down District Councillors and Central Government civil servants.
Other members of this elitist club then were required to show their solidarity and did so with scrupulous dedication. Solicitor after solicitor after solicitor shored up what has now become a monument to fraud in the building trade unequalled by any fraud that paramilitary organisations have been caught at, or attempted.
To all these people Gerry Rice and his wife and children just had to be, not just allowed to suffer but, made to suffer. The alternative was inconceivable - to them.
As Mr. Allen, the DDC Chief Executive had told Down District Councillors, 'to help Gerry Rice would be opening the flood gates'. On another occasion he told councillors that if DDC paid out any compensation to us, it would have to come out of Councillors' own pockets.
The problem for DDC was that in order for compensation to be paid out to me by the Council's insurance company, my case would of necessity have to be taken to court and proven, but as has been seen I was actively prevented from taking my case to court by the legal profession, so even if DDC did obtain insurance cover at some time against the mistakes of their Building Control officers which early on in my campaign was denied to them, the Council's insurers were never at any risk, hence the reason why councillors would have to pay my compensation personally according to Mr. Allen.
Yet according to the Belfast Telegraph article, the Belfast City Council officer stated that such compensation would be put on the Rates. So what was Mr. Allen up to. Was he trying to shut up those Councillors who would have been sympathetic to my plight?
By now all my meagre assets had been frozen. The Allied Irish Bank had the deeds of No. 11 Newcastle Road and around £15,000 was set against them because I made the mistake of trying to repair the mess the authorities had made and refused to take responsibility for. My business, such as it was, remained at a standstill having lost fourteen and a half years of development. My health and that of my wife was damaged. I know that I had made enemies for being honest. Now my one time home was taken off me legally in the Highest Court in Northern Ireland, and in the County Court, my punishment was confirmed, though lessened, for daring to refuse to remove my 'temporary home' on the instruction of the DOE who had issued me with a contrary instruction at the same time. For this I was also given a criminal record number. It just could not get any worse. I was wrong there too.
Our enforced poverty was no match for the multi-millions of the Nationwide Anglia Building Society. Their riches, or rather the invested funds of people with more money than they needed to live well, gave them access to the best equipped legal talent in the UK.
When the Society spoke, the legal profession jumped. When I spoke, the legal profession paid little or no attention. The advice given to me by one of my solicitors was that there was no point in contesting the High Court case.
The legal law of the land made by men gave me little or no chance of keeping No. 56 while I could not continue to make my mortgage payments, simply because it was a very biased law.
The fact remains that the Nationwide Building Society loaned their investors' money on the security of No. 56 which they, through a surveyor of their choice and at my expense, accepted. That surveyor was wrong to advise the Nationwide that No. 56 was security for those funds.
Even I, a motor car repairer, found that out for myself and I knew nothing at the time about building. Mr. Davidson, the Northern Ireland manager of Nationwide stated in his letter to me dated September 1st 1978, quote,
"..the need to protect the funds advanced by the Society against the security of your house will become paramount and action will be taken immediately through the Courts."
Even though Building Societies in this United Kingdom carelessly hand out money entrusted to them by their investors on a dwelling which so obviously does not provide any security for that money, Building Society boards of management make scapegoats out of their members rather than take responsibility for their own totally unprofessional conduct. Even worse is the fact that the law in this same United Kingdom causes the highest courts in the land to accept the pleadings of the highest officers of the same courts, viz barristers or Queens Counsellors that people such as I must be made scapegoats in the name of justice.
As I said before, justice exists where people have become adjusted to one another. What sort of adjustment was made in my case? The Highest Court in Northern Ireland put the whole contract between the Nationwide and me so far out of adjustment that the stinking rich Building Society who made the mistake got off scot-free, and made even more money out of the contract. I did not make a mistake other than to trust the law and professional safeguards, and I lost not only my defective home which I paid far too much for, but I also lost all the thousands of pounds I had paid to the stinking rich Building Society.
The Nationwide Anglia Building Society later employed an estate agent to sell No. 56 at an asking price of £9,750, less than half the market value of similar houses in the same estate. It was sold with windows boarded up but because I had so much work done to the walls of the house and had my chimney lined costing ME almost £4000.00, No. 56 was the safest of the four houses in that block of four houses. I never received one penny of the £10,500 that the Nationwide eventually received for No. 56, nor did I receive one penny back from the Nationwide of the £13,200.00 I had paid them over the years in mortgage payments.
I had written to the Nationwide some time earlier for an estimated figure of what my payments to them over the years would have been with interest had I put the money in a Nationwide Building Society account instead. They told me in writing that the figure would have been approximately £13,200.00. Not only did the Nationwide get all their money, they had asked £9,750.00 for No. 56, they actually made money on the deal over and above that to which they saw themselves legally entitled to. I wonder where the other £750.00 went. I never even received one penny of the near £4000.00 I spent on trying to put No. 56 in liveable order. As Bruce Forsythe would say,
"Didn't they do well."
I was still doing some picket duty at DDC H/Q as councillors entered to attend council meetings, but less often than in previous years. My effort to embarrass local councillors was now concentrated in the messages I displayed on my large eight feet long by four feet high wooden sign at the road side at No. 11 Newcastle Road. I decided one weekend to change my sign and painted out the lettering with white paint I had saved from respraying a car for a customer. On this white background I painted the face of Councillor Kane with an appropriate message beside it. Councillor Kane travelled past twice on each school day to and from to St. Colman's High School in Ballynahinch.
After some time I added the faces of Alfie Jameson and Danny Sloan. I found three white feathers and placed one on top of each face.
Sometime during 1988 Gemma came out of a shop in Ballynahinch to see two schoolgirls talking to one of our girls as she waited for her mum in the car. The two girls ran off when Gemma came to the car and when she got into the car she noticed that tears were falling from our daughter's eyes.
When Gemma asked what was wrong she was told that the two school-girls, from St. Colman's High School, had been taunting her about the spots on her face. Nothing more was thought of this until we noticed, or rather Gemma noticed some time later, that our daughter was a little pale and a little thinner than usual. She was obviously not eating properly in order to try to get rid of the spots. This was just another problem to deal with and we asked one of the older girls to help us to make sure that she did eat something at meal-time both at home and at school and if she spent too long in the toilet after a meal to let us know.
On September 28th 1988 our lovely family sprang a wonderful surprise on Gemma and me for our 25th wedding anniversary. We were expecting Christine to bring the food she was supposed to be preparing in her house around to No.11 for a family get-together with Gemma's mother and sister to be present as well.
The girls left after getting dressed to help Christine, or so we thought. When Gemma's mother and sister arrived we were informed that we were to go instead to Christine's house where the children were. I had had a few words with one of the boys who had left earlier after getting dressed to see some of his mates. I asked him rather bluntly if he couldn't spend this particular night at home when Christine was going to so much trouble. Gemma's sister insisted that we go around to Christine's house in her car so Gemma and I got in only to be informed that we first had to go to get a bottle of champagne to celebrate.
My protests about champagne being unnecessary were not listened to and I just had to content myself as my sister-in-law Nuala drove the short distance to the Park House Inn on the Newcastle Road. When we arrived at the Inn we were now informed that we were to have our meal there, but when we went upstairs and opened the door the silent place erupted in laughter, cheering, music and singing and we were ushered into a sea of happy smiling faces. It seemed as if everybody in the whole country knew about this surprise party except Gemma and me. Members of my family from as far away as Kerry, members of Gemma's family, friends and neighbours. The place was full of people.
There was a massive buffet beautifully prepared by our good friend Mrs. Kathleen Lyons and our wonderful night was captured on video by a local lady. It was a wonderfully kept secret.
Five days later, unknown to Gemma and me, our daughter who was taunted by her school 'friends' went to the aforementioned teacher at St. Colman's High School in Ballynahinch and asked her permission to get out of school to walk the quarter of a mile to the doctors' clinic in Ballynahinch.
Our daughter did not have a letter from either Gemma or myself giving the teacher authority to allow her out of school and the teacher did not even telephone us to ask us if we would allow our daughter out of school to go to the clinic. This was the same teacher who had given the four other girls so much trouble over the 'boots in school' issue.
We found out later that our daughter wanted to go to the clinic to ask the nurse why her period had not come. The simple reason was because she was undernourished because she was not eating enough food. Of course she should have confided in her mum and the explanation would have been simple as we were patiently watching, encouraging and waiting quietly in the expectation that her eating would return to normal in a reasonable time.
We already had experience of this problem and had sorted it out in another family member. Gossip is an awful cancer in society especially among people in positions of trust, and the following morning, Tuesday, when our daughter went into school, the teacher took our daughter out of her class, put her into an empty classroom and for a whole period, interrogated our daughter, again without our knowledge or permission, about keeping company with boys, whether she got into cars with men, etc. When that period was finished, the teacher made our daughter stay in that empty classroom and put another student in with her while she, the teacher, went to take another class.
When the teacher returned she took our daughter from the school without our knowledge or permission and took the child to the teacher's home area in her car.
The teacher, again without our knowledge or permission, had a pregnancy test done on our daughter. The teacher then took our daughter without our knowledge or permission to her own home in Xxxxxxxxx where she, the teacher, telephoned the police and told the police that our daughter had been raped. This of course was just not true.
Our daughter came home from school at the normal time all that week but never said anything about what had happened. I was also to find out later that our daughter had taken laxative tablets in the teacher's home and the teacher had told her that she should not take them but the teacher never informed us about this, or anything else that she had done that week. We were obviously concerned about our daughter's weight loss but we were confident that as before we would deal with it.
On Monday October 10th 1988, Gemma received a telephone call from a doctor in the clinic in Ballynahinch who told her that our daughter was in the clinic in a very distressed condition. I was unwell that day and unable to travel into Ballynahinch and asked someone to go with Gemma for company. I shall never forget the look on Gemma's face when she returned, as she had to be helped out of the car with our daughter.
Only then did I hear of the news that our daughter had been raped. We kept our daughter at home for the rest of that week. She would look at us but she did not seem to see us. Two CID officers from the RUC, one male and one female, called several times that week and our daughter was taken to Belfast to be medically examined as is usual in such cases.
Neither Gemma nor I could go with our daughter. Another lady went on our behalf. The RUC officers could not have been kinder or more understanding.
By the end of that week both Gemma and I were beginning to realise as we thought of all the "facts", as they had been given to us, that the story of the time and the place of the rape did not seem to ring true. The teacher had called at No. 11 and had spent time with our daughter in her room. The teacher had also taken our daughter out in her car and spent time talking to her while parked near a local filling station.
By the end of that same week I was beginning to feel uneasy about the teacher spending so much time on her own with our daughter. I didn't really know why.
On the Saturday morning of that second week, I had gone out to work in the garage as usual after nine-o-clock, and at that time I found it very difficult to concentrate. Around 10.30 am I just could not stand the strain any more. I had kept myself from putting our daughter under any more pressure during that week for fear of hurting her in a very big way, but my unease and that of Gemma about what actually had happened just had to be discovered and I decided that getting to the truth was the only way our daughter was going to be brought out of her stupor.
I closed up the garage and went into the house and brought our daughter into a room. For two and a half hours, alternating between loving kindness and some shouting as if in anger, I coaxed and worried the truth from my lovely young girl, while Gemma came in and out and in and out of the room not knowing whether, like myself, I was doing right or wrong. I just knew that I had this terrible thing to do and I willed myself to do it.
Eventually to my great relief, tears began to fill the staring eyes and I couldn't keep my own eyes from filling up. Tears are a wonderful relief, but the tears in my eyes only added to the greater relief at hearing from our beautiful daughter that what had been told to the CID and then to our daughter's school chums almost two weeks previously by a catholic lady teacher in charge of children in a school I am required by law to send my children to, and had earlier been forced by law to send them back to, was nothing but a parcel of lies.
I immediately removed my large sign from outside No. 11 and stopped all my picketing outside DDC H/Q in Downpatrick. I began to spend more time researching this story in more detail. It just had to be told.
Gemma and I went to the same lady solicitor I had engaged to appeal my £250.00 fine in the County Court, and for once the lady solicitor did really listen. This solicitor was even angry and was prepared to do something about it. Unfortunately Gemma felt she could not consent to any action by this lady saying that she had to protect not only our daughter who was the victim of what had taken place, but our other children who were to follow her through St. Colman's school.
I would not go against Gemma's wishes. After a few weeks we allowed our daughter to go back to St Colman's school. If we had sent her to another catholic school, the political friends of those who had been making victims of our children at St. Colman's school would be there. If we had sent her to a non-catholic school our own church clergy would not have been very happy and the younger members of the family had yet to be confirmed. We decided to stick with the people we knew. The solicitor I had spoken to emphasised the fact that because our daughter had been kept in a schoolroom by a teacher for a purpose other than that which was in the school curriculum was akin to false imprisonment.
Looking back on this affair, I can only say that the decisions made were a result of many years of endurance of official wrongdoing, and now acceptance, that because of the people now involved in trying to hurt us, there was sure to be an even greater cover-up of that wrongdoing.
I received a letter dated November 28th 1988 from the Rating Division of the Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland as follows;
"WITHOUT PREJUDICE
Dear sir,
ARREARS OF RATES, 11 NEWCASTLE ROAD, BALLYNAHINCH
I refer to arrears of rates and costs which are due by you in respect of the above property and which total £3,224.23 for the period ending 31 March 1988. Current year rates of £557.75 are now also overdue.
The Department is now considering the options available to it to recover these outstanding amounts and I must now advise you that future legal action could result in seizure of goods, possession and sale of property, Bankruptcy, and in certain circumstances committal to prison.
You should therefore make arrangements before 8 December 1988 to discharge this debt since failure to do so will result in the Department proceeding with one of the options stated."
The letter was signed on behalf of K. Carlisle.
I received another letter from the local rates department in Downpatrick dated January 6th 1989, the rates being in respect of, quote, "WORKSHOP/HOUSE/OUTSHED". So my old temporary mobile school classroom was now a house. It was nice to see from this letter that what I had tried to get a previous court to accept was actually true, viz, that there were only three buildings on the site at 11 Newcastle Road.
The letter read;
"An application is now being made to the Enforcement of Judgements Office for the recovery of the above debt (£3,782.58) and I have called at your premises on one occasion to advise you of this.
I must now inform you that the application will be lodged on 16/1/89 and should this course of action prove necessary extra costs of £91.60 will be added to the debt. Once lodged in the Enforcement of Judgements Office debts may, in certain circumstances, be recovered through deductions from benefits, wages, etc., or by way of the seizure and sale of goods and property.
If you wish to avoid this course of action and the additional costs involved you should contact this office immediately."
The fact that the £3,782.58 differs in only a few pence from the total of £3781.98 in the previous letter is of no real consequence. What is of real consequence is the fact that as far as I was concerned and still am concerned, there was no debt whatsoever since the services I was being asked to pay for were never available to my family and still to this day are not available to any family who find themselves in the same position as us.
Yet this government department was using blackmail to obtain money to which it was not entitled.
Nearly another year went by before the next step in this farce was taken.
Just before Christmas 1989 I received a letter from the Crown Solicitor's Office in Belfast advising me that if I did not have my debt paid in ten days I would have committed an act of bankruptcy. I rang the Crown Solicitors Office in Belfast and told the person that I spoke to, that if the Crown Solicitor caused me to become bankrupt, the Crown Solicitor would automatically become a party to the cover-up of the biggest building fraud in the United Kingdom. Nothing happened in the following twenty days.
I received the following letter from the Crown Solicitor's Office dated February 20th 1990;
"Dear sir,
DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT V YOU
I have received instructions from the department of the Environment, Rating Division, of Oxford House, Chichester Street, Belfast, to request from you payment of the sum of £3,833.69 due by you for rates and costs on foot of decrees granted in the magistrates Court under the Rates (Northern Ireland) Order 1977, the said sum being made up as follows;
Year Rates Due Cost of Decree Date Decree Granted Total
1.4.82 to 31.3.83 373.26 5.00 6.1.83 378.26
1.4.83 to 31.3.84 386.78 7.00 29.3.84 393.78
1.4.84 to 31.3.85 407.51 9.00 15.11.84 416.51
1.4.85 to 31.3.86 430.50 9.00 28.11.85 439.50
1.4.86 to 31.3.87 483.91 11.00 18.9.86 494.91
1.4.87 to 31.3.88 514.87 8.00 8.10.87 522.87
1.4.88 to 31.3.89 557.75 8.00 6.10.88 565.75
1.4.89 to 31.3.90 614.11 8.00 20.7.89 622.11
I would advise you that if payment of the said sum is not received within 10 days I am to apply for the issue of a Debtor's Summons against you.
I would also point out that if you fail to pay the amount outstanding (or provide security for the debt) within 10 days of service of the Debtor's Summons you will have committed an act of bankruptcy and in that event, I am further instructed to present a petition to have you adjudicated a bankrupt.
Yours faithfully,
Elaine Dickson
For Crown Solicitor."
That word 'security' was used again.
I typed out a long three page letter on my old typewriter to the Crown Solicitor in Belfast. Explaining in detail why the Crown Solicitor would automatically become a party to the cover-up of the biggest building fraud in the United Kingdom if he caused me to become bankrupt.
I received the following letter from the Crown Solicitor's Office dated March 16th 1990.
"Dear sir,
Thank you for your letter of 22 February 1900. I have noted the contents, but as you are aware I am instructed by my client, the Department of the Environment , Rates Department, to seek recovery of the sum of £3,833.69 and that I have further been instructed to have a debtor's Summons issued against you which, if you fail to respond to within 10 days, could lead ultimately to you being adjudicated bankrupt.
I would most strongly urge you to pay the sum involved as bankruptcy would have very serious implications for you and your business.
I appreciate that in the final page of your letter you set out what you regard as security for the debt. However, I must advise you that none of your offers constitute an acceptable security for my client.
As you know you have had an opportunity to defend the claim brought by my client at the Magistrates Court, but the Magistrate was nevertheless satisfied that the amounts were properly due and owing and so gave decrees.
Accordingly I would ask you to carefully consider this matter and to forward payment or provide acceptable security in respect of same.
I will hold any further proceedings for 10 days to allow you an opportunity to reflect.
Yours faithfully,
James Conn.
for Crown Solicitor."
I thought that the name of the writer was rather revealing.
At the time of writing (1990) the Crown Solicitor has held any further proceedings for just over 200 (two hundred) days.
THAT WAS SOME TIME TOWARDS THE END OF 1990. I HAD SPENT THREE YEARS RESEARCHING AND TYPING AND HAD BECOME QUITE EXHAUSTED WITH THE WHOLE THING. NOW, TEN YEARS LATER, I HAVE SPENT SEVERAL MONTHS RE-TYPING IT INTO MY NEW COMPUTER. IN THE MEANTIME I HAD SENT THE MANUSCRIPT TO PUBLISHERS IN LONDON, DUBLIN AND BELFAST BUT NOBODY WANTED TO KNOW.
I HAVE GONE OVER THIS STORY MANY TIMES TO ENSURE THAT ALL THE FACTS ARE ACCURATE AND EQUALLY IMPORTANTLY I HAVE REMOVED MUCH TO ENSURE THAT WHAT APPEARS ON MY SITE IS WITHIN THE LAWS OF LIBEL - FOR WHAT THEY ARE WORTH. MY MAIN AIM HAS BEEN TO TELL THE TRUTH.
I have also replaced actual names of people directly involved in this sordid affair with fictional names. I only wish to tell MY story and not to deliberately hurt anyone else.