After a long battle in the courts that involved Camden council who tried to use me as a means to change the law, which would have stopped anyone from claiming housing benefit to help pay for their license fees, I won my case.

It meant that every single boater who lost their jobs or the ability to pay for their license was now able to claim housing benefit.
I’d risked losing my home, the incredible Shalom an old wooden lifeboat, because I believed that thousands of people’s lives and homes were worth more than just mine.

I was delighted for the boating community that with some unbelievable people who helped me and represented me from NBTA and also two extremely caring and brilliant Barristers, that we finally beat Camden Council, the corrupt disgrace of a council, a company with absolutely no morals.

If we hadn’t beat them in court before this covid issue, there would quite possibly be thousands of boaters on the streets who would have had no way of paying their rent or license fees.

I cannot be proud of myself for fighting them as it was the right thing to do.
But I’m certainly hugely proud of Nick Brown (NBTA) and my Barristers and others who helped along the way.

There should be a statue of Nick Brown on the canal for all his love and dedication to the lives of the boating community!

I’ve been street homeless and lived in a wooden shed without amenities and swarming with thousands of rats.
Although this has had some lasting effects on me and my life, I believe it was important for me to risk losing my home so that others would not be subjected to the suffering of being street homeless, where many of them would not cope as well as myself in such harsh conditions.

Please this is not meant as an insult to anyone, nor is it meant to sound like I’m stronger than anyone else.
It’s simply the truth.

After winning my case in the court of law, I’ve yet to receive one penny from Camden Council and neither has The Canal River Trust received one single penny towards my license, which was supposed to be back dated through my whole battle.

This to me is a clear message that Camden Council are doing everything they can to delay their responsibility by law and corruptly have myself and my home (a piece of beautiful history, a national treasure) removed and destroyed.

If anyone believes that I deserve my fate, that is ok with me. (Even though this battle was not about me).

However, if you believe that Camden Council should pull their fingers from out of the place where the sun doesn’t shine, please leave a message or some way of me being able to show any support from others.

I’m not the best at this sort of thing and I have learning difficulties and struggle to coordinate or set up some kind of petition.
Any help from anyone would be very special to me.

With all my love to all of you, I wish you all to stay safe and care for each other.

Only together are we strong ❤️♾