Disabled woman moves to escape abusive neighbours – only for York council to relocate them to same street
City of York Council has been ordered to apologise after it relocated abusive neighbours to a home close to the victim who had moved to escape their threats.
The Local Government Ombudsman has also told the council to pay the woman compensation.
It followed a complaint from a woman only identified as Miss Q.
Related
She suffers from various health problems including post-traumatic stress disorder, severe anxiety, problems with her joints, and a panic disorder. She is disabled and has a recovery assistance dog, the Local Government Ombudsman report found.
Miss Q suffered serious harassment from a man and a woman who lived next door, saying they verbally abused her, threatened to kill her dog, and harassed her.
She feared they would hurt her. The abuse lasted for six months, during which time she began to self harm.
In October 2016, the council agreed to move Miss Q and her partner, who was also her carer, to another property. But that wasn’t the end of her problems.
Suffered a panic attack
Two and a half years later, the abusive neighbours needed to be rehoused. And they successfully bid on a council property across the road from Miss Q.
The council said its systems “could not identify previous neighbour disputes or management transfers. Nor could it identify whether a tenant moving to a new address has a connection with another tenant living nearby.”
A council officer later realised the connection – but was too late to stop the relocation
“The officer spoke to Ms S and Mr T when they signed the new tenancy and noted, ‘they seem happy to stay away from’ Miss Q,” the report says.
The relocation left Miss Q feeling intimidated and afraid to leave her home.
When the neighbours visited the same local shop as Miss Q “their abuse of her began again”.
She reported this to the council along with one of the neighbours “riding past her with his middle finger raised and of an object thrown at her window by an unidentified person”.
More harassment followed. “Their behaviour left Miss Q so scared she had a panic attack,” the report notes.
Failed to warn her
The ombudsman found City of York Council was at fault for not having a system to identify “tenants who harassed and abused other tenants.
“This failure meant the council had no way of checking whether the transfer allowed known perpetrators of antisocial behaviour to move close to their past victim.”
It was also found to be at fault for failing to warn her that her abusers were moving close by, and for failing to contact the abusive neighbours to say they would not tolerate their behaviour.
The ombudsman wrote: “I consider these failures meant Miss Q was put to the time, trouble, inconvenience, and avoidable distress of moving for a second time with all the related costs this included.
“It took 4-5 months to move from this property during which time she worried about further harassment and abuse.”
The council was ordered to apologise, pay Miss Q £1,500 for the distress its failures caused, and a contribution of £1,293.60 towards the overall cost Miss Q incurred when moving and preparing her home.
What the council agreed
The council also agreed, within 4 weeks of the Miss Q moving in to her new accommodation, to:
– pay her an additional £250 for the avoidable distress the failures caused which have resulted in her having to move from property 3 to another property;
– remove the existing carpets in the property and fit new ones;
– pay a contribution towards the redecoration costs of the new property up to a maximum payment of £1,000, subject to her providing satisfactory receipts, and will try to arrange for a community-based organisation to do the work;
– provide her with a ‘paint pack’ which includes paints and brushes, for example, sufficient for a 2-bedroom property;
– pay a contribution towards her moving costs up to a maximum of £150 subject to her providing satisfactory receipts;
– pay up to £1,200 for any improvement works Miss Q wishes to carry out to the existing fence, which already meets its empty property standard, subject to her providing satisfactory receipts.
In addition to the above requirements, the council also agreed, within three months of the date of this decision, to carry out a review of its policies and procedures to improve:
its systems and procedures to identify potential problems of perpetrators moving close to their victims; its consideration of discretion to prevent moves involving perpetrators who might end up living near their victims; its ability to be more proactive when known perpetrators do end up living close to victims; its record keeping; its investigation of reports of harassment; its consideration of discretion when rehousing applicants next door to tenants with violence and behavioural issues; its consideration of human rights.