The council, the judge and the TV company.
by Ken Norman
Mrs Barbara Simpson, aged 60, was given a month in Holloway for feeding birds in
her own back garden. She suffered a heart attack there. The evidence convicting her
was grossly falsified: a bird table stated in court to be 24ft long was in fact 2ft
by 3ft and had been approved by a council employee.
After her release Carlton TV wrote,
phoned and called, expressing great sympathy; they wanted her to take part in a programme
in the “Neighbours from Hell” series so that she could expose her next-door neighbour.
Mrs Simpson was delighted; she asked friends and relatives to watch. I received such
a call from her, and can verify that she had enormous expectation.
The programme,
in fact, was angled in favour of the man whose complaint had led to her imprisonment.
Mrs Simpson suffered a severe heart attack and spent days in hospital. The neighbour
jeered and mocked outside her home. I have been in correspondence with the so-called
Independent Television Commission, who could see no fault in this, despite admission
that archive footage of birds and pictures “from a variety of sources” were used.
The programme included a huge mass of crows ( so enormous as to practically black
out the screen as they rose into the air (when Mrs Simpson has never seen a crow
in her garden)
.
There was also a swarm of rats, yet Carlton now claims “the commentary
did not claim that the rats infested Mrs Simpson’s garden.” The film most certainly
did. The words used by the programme presenters to persuade Mrs Simpson to take part
were unrecorded. But since this was one of a series of “Neighbours from Hell” is
it conceivable she would have agreed to take part, had she been aware that she was
to feature as that week’s visitant from Hell?
Now the borough council is claiming
£40,000 damages from her for the pleasure of having been mocked and jailed. Legal
aid has been refused. Mrs Simpson has pleaded for adjournment for a few months so
that she might sell her few possessions, such as her wedding ring, to employ an assessor
who has said he could reduce the claim to perhaps £2,000. The judge has refused to
adjourn for more than a fortnight.
This is a witch-hunt: a jail sentence, mockery
on television, two heart attacks, and a £40,000 bill which will be followed by loss
of her home. The penalty for feeding birds . . . and the whole thing could have been
settled amicably if the council had given her permission to scatter bird seed in
a park or a disused area. A fair name for a new TV programme about Mrs Simpson might
be "The Council (Weymouth), The Judge (Titheridge), and the television company (Carlton)
from hell.
www.slimeylimeyjustice.org