Silencing the Spirit
Our story in last month’s magazine about Spirit’s appeal seems to have touched a raw nerve at Hackney Council – but they didn’t tell us! Instead, Spirit himself received a letter from Gifty Edila, Hackney’s legal boss since February, requesting that he (as she put it) “desist from misrepresenting the facts to the media”.
Hackney continues the culture of control freakery that has marked it down as the most Orwellian of London’s Councils. When he was still the tenant, the posters on Spirit’s shop which explained how the Council had sold the property to an offshore company for £15,000 less than Spirit was offering were removed by Council operatives. In October last year, Hackney’s Mayor, Jules Pipe, personally intervened to prevent local author Ian Sinclair from reading his book at any Council owned building because it sought to expose the Olympics legacy “as a con being perpetrated on the people of the East End.”
When we approached Ms Edila and Hackney’s extensive media management team about her allegations we got the reply “It is not appropriate for the Council to comment on outstanding legal matters.” Which is curious because we would have thought that Ms Edila’s letter was a comment on outstanding legal matters.
The most curious thing about the letter, however, was that they assumed Spirit had “misrepresented the facts” to EASTeight. He didn’t. Our story was written on the basis of the court records of the case. We think he deserves an apology.
So, not content with taking away Spirit’s home and the business that he built with his own bare hands, it now appears that Hackney object to his freedom of speech.
Background:
The Spirit of Broadway
Dispossesed
Dispossessed and evicted
Spirit sues Hackney
for a map
How very unattractive – veiled threats of defamation to shut Spirit up?
If Hackney have an alternative version of events, why don’t they tell us what really happened?
We won’t hold our breath as we could be waiting a very long time – they wouldn’t want to commit their bullshit story to writing….
Tsk.