Camden News - by PAUL KIELTHY Published: 25 September 2008
ARSON HELL OF DISABLED YOUNG MUM
Woman forced from home after terrifying attacks on flat
A DISABLED woman whose flat has been attacked by arsonists six times has pleaded to be rehoused after being forced out of her home. Kim Blake, 31, who has a four-year-old daughter, has left her home in Kentish Town for a secret location while police investigate the string of letterbox attacks at her Grafton Road flat.
When she returned to the property on Thursday to speak to the New Journal, Ms Blake was forced to alert police again after finding that arsonists had struck for the sixth time since June.Camden Council have told her that with 16,000 people on its waiting list, the harassment she is experiencing is not enough to entitle her to a new home.
Ms Blake said: “I’m not going to stay there until me or my daughter gets hurt. But it seems as though that would be the only way that housing will deal with this – if someone is actually hurt, or killed. Detectives from Holborn called me and told me that they were taking this investigation very seriously. It doesn’t feel as though the council is.”
While Ms Blake’s father Jim stays at the flat in the hope of catching her attacker, the family are trapped in the council’s housing allocation system.
Properties are awarded according to a bidding system, in which applicants are given a set number of points according to their circumstances. Ms Blake, who uses a mobility scooter and cannot use stairs, has 320 points, including 100 “harassment points” awarded because of the fires.But a two-bedroom ground-floor flat in Camden typically requires between 400 and 500.
Although the council has offered her temporary accommodation – effectively bed and breakfast – accepting it would mean she would face many years on Camden’s long waiting list. “When I speak to housing they basically say ‘that’s tough luck’,” Ms Blake said. The council do not say as much officially but because of the pressure on the system, six arson attacks in three months only reaches the lower threshold of the council’s harassment weighting since rehousing Ms Blake is considered merely desirable, rather than the only option.
If the violence was “worse”, she would receive 200 harassment points. While the council will put her up in temporary housing, her harassment points will lapse after six months, further weakening her bidding power- and she would have to surrender her tenancy.A Town Hall spokesman said the council’s anti-social behaviour team was looking into the attacks on Ms Blake’s property.
She added: “We have clearly explained to Ms Blake that in order to get a more permanent property with the council she needs to bid through our Choice Based Lettings process. The points that she has been allocated already take into account her harassment issues. It might take Ms Blake longer to find a property as her disability means that she may need a specifically adapted property – and there aren’t as many of those available. “Ms Blake also wants to find a property in a specific location in Camden to be near her parents – which again restricts the amount of properties she can get through Choice Based Lettings. Ms Blake has our contact details and knows she can always phone us if she needs to talk through her housing options further.”
UPDATE Dec 2009
http://www.thecnj.com/camden/2009/120309/news120309_04.html
Camden News - by PAUL KEILTHY
Published: 3 December 2009
Mum in ‘arson hell’ case cleared
A WOMAN accused of starting fires in her own flat during a bitter housing dispute with Camden Council was cleared of all charges by a crown court jury on Monday.
Disabled single mother Kim Blake, 32, was arrested within weeks of telling the New Journal that the council had refused to rehouse her despite a string of arson attacks on her flat in Grafton Road, Kentish Town, last summer.
The jury at Blackfriars Crown Court returned not guilty verdicts against her indictments for arson and for perverting the course of justice.
Although the arson attacks stopped, Ms Blake has had the court case hanging over her since her arrest in September last year.
Ms Blake said: “I just wanted the attacks to stop, and once it was in the paper it did stop. I am disabled and I have been dragged through the courts. But now I have been cleared of all charges. “I’m now in a wheelchair, my health is deteriorating rapidly and I have had to go to court, but I was never worried, because I knew I hadn’t done it.”
The letterbox and front door of Ms Blake’s ground-floor disabled-adapted flat had been repeatedly damaged by fires in six incidents that began last June.
Ms Blake, who was seeking to be rehoused by the council at the time, had been in dispute with the housing office about the urgency of her case. But a council and police investigation into the fires produced covert CCTV footage of a person carrying out one arson attack, and Ms Blake was arrested and charged.
“They said that the woman in the film was me, but it wasn’t,” said Ms Blake.
Following the not guilty verdict, a council press official said: “The council will be considering the outcome of the verdict in this case after discussions with the police.
“At this stage we are unable to state whether further action will be taken and any decision on the next step will be communicated directly to Ms Blake.”
A Met spokeswoman said: “We have exhausted all current inquiries in this case but if new information comes to light we will investigate further.”
1 comment:
yes it is, but unfortunately to have 300 points or over your situation must be terrible. i have 365 and have been waiting 5 months after spending 3 months homeless and 8 months in a hostel. i have been to court twice as a victim of an extrememly serious crime, have a psychiatric condition i have been hospitalised for a number of times, i also have seizures and osteoporosis. you would think that i would get a property soon, but no, number 50/300 for a studio flat. this woman should look for private rented accomadation and get the council to help pay for that. thats what im going to do. i'll get a nicer place.
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