In Court with Pink Floyd
“Good morning, Worm your Honour”.
“Good morning, Worm your Honour”.
On 4th January 2023 I am to appear in front of a Judge at a local County Court in relation to a near ten year “debt” with a now defunct, and much maligned, “Energy” company. It’s quite the tale I can tell you, which I hope to do so here and all whilst accompanied by the lyrics to “The Trial” by Pink Floyd. I was thinking of flouncing into court singing “An Innocent Man” by Billy Joel but I see my rising anger at this outrageous albatross I’ve carried around for nearly a decade now meriting the bittersweet words of Roger Waters instead.
Following Roger’s introduction will be a rough transcript of the “evidence” I will provide to the Judge for a hellish nightmare that’s been a decade in the making.
“Good morning, the Worm your honour
The crown will plainly show
The prisoner who now stands before you
Was caught red-handed showing feelings
Showing feelings of an almost human nature
This will not do
Call the schoolmaster!”
Your Honour,
When Gayle (a very kindly sounding lady) telephoned to confirm receipt of my defence filing and indeed the date for this very morning’s Court Hearing, she asked me (for fear of mis-quoting her), what I wanted from the hearing itself and what else did I wish to put before you? We had a somewhat perplexing conversation, two in fact, but the first was the more notable as I simply stated that this “debt” had lain dormant for nearly six years, was effectively nine years old, had blighted my very existence and mental health for nearly a decade and now, from nowhere, yet another opportunistic vulture had spun the algorithmic roulette wheel, landed on my number, and made my last four months a living nightmare once more.
I’d taken advice from the fantastic people at the “Citizens Advice Bureau”, filled in the requisite forms and hoped my written defence was enough to have the case, if I may use your language, “thrown out”, and sense finally prevail. Alas, here we are this morning, just like I was five years and eleven months ago on 15th September 2016, when first I had to defend myself and my honour against this egregious debt. But here we are again.
Over six years later.
The last thing, the very last thing, someone suffering from and riddled with anxiety, depression and dark moods, is to tell someone else their “story”. You become so wrapped up in that story that telling it again and again to others really doesn’t help. Not really. You have to start from the very beginning otherwise your actions or indeed the middle or latter part of the story doesn’t make any sense. To anyone. So in answer to Gayle’s question, I have a story to tell you, from the beginning, and the beginning of a story that I have no wish whatsoever for telling you. But I am going to and I hope against hope that finally, someone is actually going to listen and make sense of my story.
I won’t presume you to be a local your Honour, but not ten minutes from these Halls of Justice can be found a World Heritage Site named “Ironbridge”. Resolutely and defiantly stuck in a different century, this little piece of heaven has an aura, an atmosphere and a time zone all of its own and whenever I am in earshot of the bells of St Luke’s Church I have a somewhat inner peace. I moved to Ironbridge in May 2013 on the suggestion of the lady whose heart I’d splintered into a thousand pieces as we divorced after a Bakers Dozen of years and one beautiful son. I realised a dream of sorts, to move to my spiritual home, and I was helped all the way by the very lady who shouldn’t have helped me in any way at all. I was more than lucky to have a friend such as this and I was lucky to be living slap-bang on the high street of one of the most beautiful places in all the world. I had a river view from one of four flats and two shops in what was once a pub and for a year I said sorry to the lady whose heart I broke and tried to start a new life.
I realise I only have 30 minutes allotted me for this Hearing and I fear I will need every single one of those minutes. The following is provable fact and can be provided if necessary. The emails and correspondence are date stamped, full of anger, despair, incredulity and hopefully, occasionally funny. What is blazingly apparent is that this has nothing whatsoever to do with Azzurro Associates. If you are indeed here, I will address you at the very end if I may. Rather, this has everything to do with I believe a now defunct “Energy” company then called “NPower”, and the three years of tortuous misery they inflicted on me.
It was jointly agreed when I moved in that my Direct Debit for electricity be set at £33.00 per month but soon after it was increased to £55.00 per month and there it stayed, trouble free, for many months, until I checked by bank account on 1st May 2014 to find that NPower, without consultation or confirmation with me, had increased the monthly Direct Debit to an eye watering £327.00.
PER MONTH!
This is where the real story begins.
“I always said he’d come to no good
In the end, your honour
If they’d let me have my way
I could have flayed him into shape
But my hands were tied
The bleeding hearts and artists
Let him get away with murder
Let me hammer him today”
1st May 2014 — First notification sent to NPower’s “Complaints Team”. A five-fold increase in my Direct Debit (from an agreed £55.00 to £327.00) is preposterous and faintly absurd.
QUOTE: “This brings an end to 12 months of hell and frustration with your company, and now I am overdrawn with my bank. Thank you”.
8th May 2014 — Following a back and forth exchange of emails and evidence with Nicole Blackmore of The Daily Telegraph, I agreed to her using a portion of my evidence in her weekend article for the newspaper cataloguing the multitude of complaints being lodged against the energy supplier.
8th May 2014 — The first of many, many opus length emails to Carole Allison, NPower Complaints Executive. Amongst many topics I state categorically, and again “There is a major problem here” and “I moved here to be free of debt. Now I am a debtor again. But I am not”.
QUOTE: “You state I use £132.00 per month of electricity. £132! How does this tally with an increase in my Direct Debit to £327.00 per month and how does this tally with the preposterous and huge outstanding sum on my account?”
QUOTE: “£132! If I had the entire cast of the Moscow State Circus living here I still couldn’t possibly consume that amount of electricity!”
QUOTE: “I am not a debtor. I have done nothing wrong”.
23rd May 2014 — Email to Carole Allison, NPower Complaints Executive confirming the bank indemnity claim against them for the two payments of £327.00 taken in April and May. I also confirm that I agree to a resumption of £55.00 per month and that my Direct Debit is “live”.
The Account balance, even without the reclaiming of the £654.00 above, already stands at over £1,000.00. Absurd beyond belief.
QUOTE: “Again as I have stated to you and a number of your colleagues I have done nothing wrong or underhanded yet I am being heavily penalised”.
23rd June 2014 — One of many continuing emails with my Landlords confirming that I am thinking of moving, despite loving life in Ironbridge away from this nightmare.
QUOTE: “Have you investigated the meters here? Can you please? Have they been tampered with?”
1st July 2014 — Email to Carole Allison, NPower Complaints Executive with a copy to both my Landlords and Nicole Blackmore of The Daily Telegraph newspaper.
QUOTE: “Who amongst the three people reading this email thinks this is stone cold, flat out, fantasy land and absurd? I cannot have consumed or continue to consume this level of electric usage. Carole, you are merely looking at figures on a computer screen. And those figures are wrong”.
3rd July 2014 — Complaint forms received and returned to The Ombudsman service.
15th July 2014 — Appointment made with NPower to fit a “Check Meter” on the electric meter on 28th July 2014.
16th July 2014 — Opus email and supporting evidence sent to The Ombudsman (Ref. 1114478) and copy sent to Carole Allison, NPower Complaints Executive, Nicole Blackmore of The Daily Telegraph and my Landlords.
22nd July 2014 — Confirmation of receipt and official investigation underway by The Ombudsman.
4th August 2014 — Email confirmation to NPower and Landlords that yet another meter test is scheduled for 15th August.
19th August 2014 — Email of frustration sent to Carole Allison, NPower Complaints Executive, confirming the “Check Meter” literally piggybacks from the meter itself and doesn’t in fact “check it” or challenge the veracity of the information received.
19th August 2014 — Email to Landlords seeking and demanding help.
22nd August 2014 — Further email and reply to Landlords. In agreement with them and NPower I have yet again kept a meticulous schedule of energy consumption for the previous month, equating to an agreed amount used of just £44.00.
There is currently an overdue balance on account of £905.00 with a staggering £1,800.00 “under query”.
No date available — The Ombudsman finds in my favour, adjudicating that the sum of £1,635.36 be written off and a further £355.222 awarded to me as a refund. My Account with NPower is reduced to zero.
(Please Note: The Citizens Advice Bureau requested a “Subject Access Request” on my behalf in December 2022 requesting confirmation of my various registered complaints to which they replied “We regret to inform you that we do not keep records going back to 2014”)
The remainder of 2014 was the calm before the 2015 storm.
“Crazy
Toys in the attic,
I am crazy
Truly gone fishing
They must have taken my marbles away”
“Crazy
Toys in the attic
He is crazy”
12th February 2015 — Lengthy opus email sent to Carole Allison, NPower Complaints Executive upon receipt of a bill and demand for £588.00 for the period October 2014 to January 2015.
QUOTE: “Here we go again”.
QUOTE: “I have used £588.00 in electricity only (no Gas) between the middle of October and the end of January. Are you out of your minds?”
QUOTE: “I will not be paying this sum and am yet again stuck in a recurring nightmare and it’s affecting my mental health”.
QUOTE: “One obvious point of note: £588.00 for ostensibly one yearly quarter of electricity? Imagine if I had the luxury of gas too!”
QUOTE: “I reiterate again — I am one flat of four in one building with two additional shops. We don’t need to call in the Police to solve this particular riddle now do we!”
QUOTE: “There is something systematically wrong here. How many more times do you need to see this before it becomes evident?”
25th February 2015 — Lengthy opus email sent to Carole Allison, NPower Complaints Executive after 13 days and still no reply to my earlier email.
QUOTE: “There is a continuing endemic problem and I am not spending hours and days on end working on your behalf to resolve this as I did for the majority of last year”.
QUOTE: “I demand a vigorous investigation into my billing”.
7th March 2015–Lengthy opus email and 12 point bulletin to Gillian O’Flynn, NPower Ombudsman Liasion Team.
QUOTE: “When is somebody going to say “You know what, maybe this Mr Blackford chap may have a point?” Unless he has the entire cast of EastEnders, Coronation Street and the remaining members of Brookside living in his flat, surely he can’t be consuming this vast amount of electricity?”
QUOTE: “I demand a thorough investigation of ALL the electric meters jammed together in the tiny alcove that accommodates the tangled meters for all 4 flats and the 2 shops”.
QUOTE: “Finally, if my selfishly extravagant use of electricity is in fact correct WITHOUT even those shoddy aids of a central heating system, a cooker, a washing machine, a tumble dryer or a dishwasher, and that I am still, even without these, still recklessly using so much electricity, I will of course need to settle my criminal activity with a payment on my account. But first Gillian, let me invite you to this beautiful and idyllic hideaway in the county of Shropshire and believe me, it’s well worth the drive! I’ll escort you around this quaint old town, give you the “guided tour” if you will, and all around the restaurants and shops that dominate this World Heritage Site. I’ll even treat you to some fish ’n’ chips from the highly recommended chip shop and we’ll walk to the centre of the bridge, drink in the view and giggle our time away as we look on in awe at the wonderful view of the gorge and the gently rolling River Severn beneath it. I’ll prostrate myself at your feet and beg for your forgiveness for my extravagant use of electricity and promise to cut back on the enormous drain I am putting on the electrical grid and promise never to do so again. Then we can watch the spaceships land on the river and we’ll join together with a lusty rendition of Louis Armstrong and “What A Wonderful World” and I for one, cannot wait”.
That one got me into trouble! What larks!
Spring hadn’t even sprung and 2015 was already weighing heavy with the albatross again crushing my spirit and soul.
Here we go again. Alas.
“You little shit, you’re in it now
I hope they throw away the key
You should’ve talked to me more often than you did,
But no, you had to go your own way.
Have you broken any homes up lately?
“Just five minutes, Worm your honour, him and me alone”
11th March 2015 — Email reply from Gillian O’Flynn, NPower Ombudsman Liasion Team. She wasn’t happy with my email! She also confirmed a further “Check Meter” would be fitted and I replied with a short demand for a full and thorough audit of ALL the electricity meters for the building.
16th March 2015 — Opus, lengthy, 4 point email to Gillian O’Flynn, NPower Ombudsman Liasion Team confirming (yet again) that the “Check Meter” hadn’t been fitted or apology received for another day wasted.
I have also received a “Right To Enter Your Home” demand from NPower.
QUOTE: “Yet again my valuable time has been wasted. Yet again I am sat here writing an email to you and yet again I’m stuck in an unholy mess not of my creation and I’m still working for you and on behalf of my Landlords”.
QUOTE: “How would you feel, this constant near two year weight of anxiety hanging over you every week, every month?”
QUOTE: “I am a mere customer here. I wouldn’t walk into a high street store, purchase an item and then hang around and actively help to try and change their distribution network or look to amend their cost base”.
27th March 2015 — Email sent to Gillian O’Flynn, NPower Ombudsman Liasion Team requesting a response to previous emails as well as a scathing 4 point bulletin as to how inept and unhelpful the supposed “Ombudsman Liasion Team” is. I also confirm the constant threats from an outside debt collection agency (name not noted in email) to force entry into the flat and disconnection.
31st March 2015 — Lengthy email (another to follow separately) to Gillian O’Flynn, NPower Ombudsman Liasion Team.
QUOTE: “May I just remind everyone on this email that I’m your customer? And furthermore a human being that is under considerable strain from a situation that I did not create?” May I remind you of the man here, the customer even, writing emails he shouldn’t have to write who’s then anxious about NOT receiving replies to the emails he shouldn’t have to write in the first place?”.
31st March 2015 — Lengthy email (second of the day) to Gillian O’Flynn, NPower Ombudsman Liasion Team, confirming the third day in a row that I’ve been chased and harassed by a debt collection company called “Credite”.
QUOTE: “In view of the ongoing investigation and the litany of errors and outstanding actions still to be resolved within these constant back and forth emails, isn’t this action (debt collection agency) wholly unwarranted, intrusive and completely over the top? Can I just reiterate that you are the Ombudsman representative here? Surely the debt collection actions and threats will be viewed dimly by the Ombudsman?”
9th April 2015 — Email received from the Ombudsman confirming they settled the matter last year and I cannot raise a new complaint until I pass a 9 month threshold AND have a new complaint.
16th April 2015 — Reply sent to Ombudsman confirming that whilst this is an “old” complaint, the situation is ongoing, never been resolved and “new”. Vast amounts of correspondence sent to The Ombudsman, referencing the old and the new and that zero had systemically changed after their financial decision last year. Request for my case to be re-evaluated.
3rd May 2015 — Email exchange with The Ombudsman to set up a convenient date for a telephone interview rather than constant emails.
6th May 2015 — Telephone interview conducted with Kayleigh Miller of The Ombudsman and all in order to proceed with a fresh, new complaint.
31st May 2015 — Email sent to Gillian O’Flynn, NPower Ombudsman Liasion Team confirming yet another debt collection agency hassling me. Name not noted, but the third such debt collection company so far.
QUOTE: “There is an ongoing complaint here, both internally and via The Ombudsman, a process we are just 4 weeks into out of 8”.
2nd June 2015 — Self explanatory email sent to Gillian O’Flynn, NPower Ombudsman Liasion Team.
QUOTE: “The “Check Meter” appointment of between 2pm and 4pm came and went and suffice to say, no NPower representative arrived or apologised or telephoned to rearrange. Yet more wasted time. Thank you NPower! This cannot continue Gillian. How would The Ombudsman react to yet another missed appointment and the wasting of a customer’s time?”
4th June 2015 — Self explanatory email sent to Gillian O’Flynn, NPower Ombudsman Liasion Team.
QUOTE: “I have received four separate communications from a debt collection company called “BCW Debt Collections” since my last email two days ago. This is the fourth such company in a matter of months”.
11th June 2015 — Email sent to The Ombudsman for an urgent update.
29th June 2015 — Email reply from Andrew Kirkland, Ombudsman Investigating Officer. He concludes in a “full and final settlement of my complaint” that NPower should re-bill me correctly based on the “Check Meter”, a full explanation given as well as a fully detailed statement and breakdown of the charges on account, a suitable payment plan and an apology.
I reply, confirming I wholly disagree with the decision.
QUOTE: “A simple apology is nowhere near adequate enough here”.
30th July 2015 — Email exchange between myself and Andrew Kirkland, Ombudsman Investigating Officer. He states I haven’t responded to their “full and final settlement of my complaint” I send him my immediate response as noted above on 29th June 2015.
QUOTE: “NPower contacted me and we have found a suitable proposal moving forward and I have agreed to their proposal to write off the current outstanding balance and no charges are to be incurred on the account until they have completed the full investigation I have long since requested”.
The email guns fall silent at this point and presumably I gave myself some time off from being an unpaid employee of NPower and liaison with The Ombudsman.
“Babe
Come to mother, baby, let me hold you in my arms
M’Lord I never wanted him to get in any trouble
Why’d he ever have to leave me?
Worm your honour, let me take him home”
1st March 2016 — Email to NPower Complaints Department and The Ombudsman. Without notice or any written communication (email or standard mail) from either party since 30th July 2015, I am now being chased by a fifth debt collection agency, this time called “Westcot Services Ltd”.
Altogether now — Here we go again.
“Crazy
Over the rainbow
I am crazy
Bars in the window
There must have been a door there in the wall
When I came in”
“Crazy
Over the rainbow
He is crazy”
19th July 2016 — Lengthy, opus 11 point email detailing the entire history to date to both the NPower Complaints Team and The Ombudsman.
The “debt” on account is now £1,400.00.
QUOTE: “The harassment has to stop. The account has to be “frozen”. Major steps need to be taken immediately. I’ve told friends and acquaintances of this year in, year out situation and they laugh. I don’t, and can’t laugh”.
QUOTE: “Ombudsman — Please register this now as an official complaint yet again at the ineptitude and farcical nature of my energy account”.
18th August 2016 — Email to Tom Lumsden of the NPower Ombudsman Team replying to his assertion that the “case is closed”.
QUOTE: “Applying for a “Warrant of Entry” doesn’t help matters in the circumstances and in the face of an ongoing investigation and must be stopped immediately”.
30th August 2016 — Email to Tom Lumsden of the NPower Ombudsman Team and The Ombudsman. The 10 week consultation and decision period is up and I request and seek their response.
The “debt” on account is now nearly £2,000.00.
QUOTE: “£2,000.00 on electricity alone? For a 2 bedroom flat? With only 6 rooms. Of which 3 barely use any electricity whatsoever. £2,000.00. For 3 rooms. This is utter madness. There is something seriously wrong here and still no-one is addressing it”.
6th September 2016 — Email to Tom Lumsden of the NPower Ombudsman Team and The Ombudsman, requesting an urgent update from each.
15th September 2016 — I am taken to the County Court by “Face to Face Contacts”. For the first time in my 44 earthly years I am taken to court.
I arrive at 9.30am for the 10am start and sign in with the security at the front desk and the usher, before taking my place outside the appointed court. Just before 10am I am approached by a squat man in a black bomber jacket, a “Heavy”, a “Bailiff” and certainly, with respect, not a man of the legal bar. I’ll remember the following until the day I depart from this earthly plane:
QUOTE: “You are not on the list. You should have been notified. You do not need to be here this morning. We will contact you separately from the court”.
My big day in court, it turns out, was quashed by a bailiff who, when seeing me signed in and ready to defend myself, well he must have accidentally lost my paperwork, mustn’t he? Silly man!
I’m no legal expert your Honour, but I’d bet all the money in your pocket that’s what happened and that’s exactly the conclusion I came to with the witness who attended with me.
21st September 2016 — Lengthy, opus 11 point email sent to representatives (all previously named) of NPower, The Ombudsman, Landlords and Managing Agents. In this I confirmed being taken to court on 15th September, appearing and meeting with the gentleman described above, a Mr A.Bettelley, who confirmed that “Face to Face Contact” had taken me off the list (a fine story!) and they would, I quote, “contact me separately from the court”. All the time wasted, stress and anxiety caused for a first court appearance in my entire life.
All for nothing.
I telephoned both NPower and The Ombudsman, spending another wasted half an hour with each. I demanded to lodge a formal complaint against each organisation:
NPower — Debt due and passed to outside agents. Case closed.
Ombudsman — No further assistance can be provided.
I had a lengthy statement prepared your Honour, much like this one today, whereby I detailed the entire horrendous story together with evidenced emails, telephone calls, meter readings, my almost semi unpaid employment with NPower and my liaison between them and The Ombudsman. I had comparisons ready to present to the Judge from friends, family, neighbours, comparison websites and the litany of mis-management by NPower for other customers throughout the UK.
But I wasn’t on the list apparently, and my court appearance on 15th September 2016 was a wasted one.
QUOTE: “This was my first time in Court in 44 years. Today I felt like a criminal”.
QUOTE: “NPower — I have had some hellish times with you”.
31st October 2016 — Lengthy email sent to representatives (all previously named) of NPower, The Ombudsman, Landlords and Managing Agents in which I heavily criticise the Ombudsman for refusing (still) to re-open my case and/or allow a “new” one. I criticise their lack of judgement and impartiality and NPower for their continued refusal to see any reasonable sane human sense, and my Landlords for their total lack of care for my tenancy or the building they continue to this day to rent out. One wonders how much the electricity is now! I also request NPower to continue dialogue with me but on email only.
QUOTE: “I also wish to conclude and to state and have it noted that I continue to dispute these insane charges, as they are, well, insane, and have no basis in human reality. But no-one cares. Lucky it isn’t you, eh?”
I heard nothing from any of the characters noted above from the day of my court appearance on 15th September 2016 until 5th August 2022.
Yes you guessed it! 5 years and 11 months later.
Nearly 6 years after the carnival of the macabre had left town, it returned.
The kicker was, it was under brand new management.
“The evidence before the court is incontrovertible.
There’s no need for the jury to retire.
In all my years of judging
I have never heard before
Of someone more deserving the full penalty of law.
The way you made them suffer —
Your exquisite wife and mother —
Fills me with the urge to defecate
(Go on, judge. Shit on him.)
Since, my friend, you have revealed
Your deepest fear
I sentence you to be exposed before your peers
Tear down the wall!”
I realise I’m probably running short on time now your Honour but if you’ll permit me, I have a raft of questions, the first of which burns at my very soul:
Why was a CCJ registered against me on 15th February 2017 when “Face to Face Contact” didn’t contact me “separately from the court” at all? Why was I not notified? And why did I only know of this when I received the “Notice of Enforcement” from the Court Enforcement Services on 5th August 2022?
You see the frustration here, surely?
Oh of course I could conduct an internet search and check my credit history and perhaps vehemently deny it and challenge it, but who has time for such frivolity and what a horrid world that looks like and furthermore, haven’t I worked on this “case” enough by now?
And who do I bill for services rendered?
Little jokes, your Honour! I hope you take them in the way intended. But I do have a lot more questions, such as:
Who are the Court Enforcement Services?
Who are Azzurro Associates Ltd?
Are they the lucky sixth debt collection company to have had their filthy hands on my account and personal details? Whatever happened to those other debt collection companies? It’s a rhetorical question your Honour, and yes I can get answers to all my rhetorical questions from the internet but I really don’t feel obliged to do so.
No-one is paying my current bill as it is!
But more seriously — Who are Azzurro Associates Ltd?
I haven’t contracted with them. I have neither bought any goods from them, nor sold them any, offered them credit, or entered into an agreement. We simply haven’t exchanged any energy whatsoever in this supposed transaction and they have no skin in the game.
So who are these wraiths and vultures, these vexatious vermin, these chancers, these traders in the misery of their fellow human beings, these gamblers in our human family’s worst times, these despicable disaster capitalists not standing on the shoulders of giants but stomping on the face of humanity. They have no idea as to the near decade that has dragged us all to this point today and lest we forget, a singular man stuck in this horrifying whirlpool of doom. Who are they and why are they here?
More of a legal question your Honour — After having heard absolutely nothing, from anyone, for nearly six years, is it acceptable to demand money by menaces by knocking on someone’s door after just a single letter? Because that’s what a Mr Hill did, for the Court Enforcement Services, Elliott Davies and presumably our mystery guests, Azzurro Associates. On 5th October of this year, and just two months on from their initial lucky letter out of nowhere, Mr Hill threatened me with a “control of goods order” and if I didn’t contact him within 2 hours he was going to apply for a “Warrant of Entry”.
Surely this is disproportionate, excessive and ludicrous considering the fact that contact had only been started by these organisations two months before they started knocking on my door at 9.20am in the morning and demanding that I reply within 2 hours or they’d force entry to my property?
These interlopers and wraiths have no idea as to the background to the case. Nor did they know that I had filed the requisite court paperwork that sees us having this barrel of laughs today. They also have no idea of my Doctor’s diagnosis that I am currently dealing with childhood PTSD or that I am speaking with a grief counsellor following the deaths of my Mother and Sister and nor would they know that I’ve spoken with a counsellor from the Mental Health charity MIND since the Summer of 2020 and without who’s help, the “Angel on my Shoulder”, I hesitate to state where I might be right now.
But they’ve barrelled into a situation that has zero to do with them. Nada. Zilch. Null. Cero. Zero to full out harassment in two months. This can’t be legal and acceptable surely?
So who are these chancers and why do we allow them blight our collective existence?
“Tear down the wall!
Tear down the wall!
Tear down the wall!
Tear down the wall!
Tear down the wall!
Tear down the wall!
Tear down the wall!
Tear down the wall!
Tear down the wall!
Tear down the wall!
Tear down the wall!
Tear down the wall!
Tear down the wall!
Tear down the wall!”
18th and 26th October — Emails sent and exchanges with the Court Enforcement Service confirming my filed “defence” as well as my apoplexy at their representative and their threatening letters and ridiculous visits to the property. As previously noted, they have no knowledge of the story I have just told, no history, unaware of the legal assistance provided by the Citizens Advice Bureau and no idea as to my fragile mental health position.
I request an immediate cessation in their actions and any further proposed property visits. They refuse stating the case is “live”.
Deep joy.
QUOTE: “I cannot continue to live under the circumstances and fear of someone, a stranger, knocking on my door. I cannot do this. My mental health position will not allow it and I cannot and will not allow it to fall any further or I fall further in this regard. From nowhere at the end of August, I’m now in fear of someone knocking on my door. This is despicable and wrong”.
8th November 2022 — Email received from the “Welfare” team at the Court Enforcement Services confirming receipt of my GP letter confirming the diagnosis of my childhood PTSD, a letter from the bereavement charity CRUSE from September 2022 and a letter from the Mental Health charity MIND confirming that I’ve received counselling since the Summer of 2020.
The “Welfare” team confirm that no further visits will be made or threatening actions taken until the result of today’s court appearance.
Your Honour,
I was asked what I wanted from you in regard to this case and what else I wanted to present before you today. I hope the “story” told answers the second of these loose questions and the answer to the first is I want the impossible:
I want someone to hear this story and see the insanity.
I want this nightmare to end.
I want an apology for the hurt and stress and distress caused in just the last four months alone.
I demand my CCJ be scrubbed from the record.
I’d like you to set a legal precedent and not only dismiss this case but penalise Azzurro Associates Ltd (whoever they are) and stop any further companies such as these either starting up or continuing to prey on our fellow human beings when they are at their lowest and most desperate. These suckers of the human soul and human family are despicable chancers, spinning the algorithmic roulette wheel with a blatant disregard for who they pressurise, harass and distress.
Set a life changing precedent your Honour.
Failing this, heavily fine Azzurro Associates Ltd. This will achieve two things (1) Maybe they’ll find a different way in which to make a living and (2) England start their tour of New Zealand next month on my birthday and I quite fancy some down under sunshine on my face for my birthday whilst watching some Test Match cricket.
I don’t know about you your Honour, but it sure would make up for the last 30 minutes of having to re-tell this story to you this morning and who doesn’t fancy a few weeks in New Zealand watching cricket?
Afterword
I arrived at the Court this morning just after 10am for my 10.30am date with legal destiny and, well, would you believe it, no-one wanted to hear my “story”. I wasn’t on the list again, nearly six years to the day when I first wasn’t on a list I shouldn’t have been on in the first place. What larks eh? The Judge (Judge Keyser) wasn’t even due in today and I wasn’t even scheduled for the 10.30am slot that was very firmly in black and white on the various pieces of paper I presented to the poor overworked and bedraggled court Usher. After much rushing around, telephone calls, carrier pigeons sent, smoke signals raised into the sky and my desperate howls to an absent moon, I was very definitely correct, my case was scheduled, Judge Keyser was assigned the case and yet, nearly six years to the day, yet again this cavalcade of the horribly bizarre took another surreal turn as I found myself yet again set squarely in yet another situation not of my making.
What larks eh?
I sat and waited for two hours to see another Judge for two minutes in which he barely looked at me and he only did so cloaked in annoyance that I interrupted him to lodge my utter frustration at this continuing nightmare. I was loosely advised that my “story”, for good or ill, is immaterial, as a Judgement has been cast and I’m defending the merits of its enforcement. I was given the name of a legal case study (Denton) and that is the basis on which my case will be decided, not any life story I may wish to provide. There are three key criteria apparently that I need to fulfil in which to “win” the case and without these, the judgement I wasn’t aware of for nearly six years for an eight year old “debt” will be enforced. So I now have to be Rumpole of the Bailey or Saul Goodman, and a legal expert capable of quoting a legal case study and how my case should be awarded in my favour on this basis, and this basis only.
What larks eh?
The case has been re-scheduled for Monday 18th January at 10am.
What’s another two weeks between friends?
(Editor’s Note: It’s at this point that my client usually breaks into a lusty and occasionally funny rendition of Ireland’s Jonny Logan and his 1980 Eurovision winner “What’s Another Year?” but I fear he hasn’t a fucking laugh left in him these days).
Thanks for reading. For less serious fare, here are three examples that can be found in the cave of wonders that are my archival lists here:
My Top 10 films of 2022
It had to be “Nope”. Yes! Nope!medium.com
“Shambolic” Reds stung by the Bees
Brentford 3 Liverpool 1, 2nd January 2023.medium.com
Here’s a Christmas idea I can get behind
And you thought YOU loved Christmas?medium.com