Middlesbrough Council - News Forum - Setting a light to the News

Thousands on secret council blacklists:
Personal details kept of residents who dare to complainNearly 9,000 people are on database Data held includes phone numbers, car registrations and even nicknames

What an absolute nightmare we are in. Welcome to the UK 2011 where the law abiding taxpayers end up on a computer database for daring to raise a grievance to the very people whose salaries we are forced to pay. The population has indeed sleep walked into a police state. It won't be long now before some start disappearing in the middle of the night after being woken up by the stasi police.
- maxine, London, England, UK, 16/7/2011 0:45

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Good citizen treated like a criminal
When she spotted a drunk trampling flowers in a park, Jane Clift saw it as her public duty to report him.
But her efforts led to a nightmare in which she was branded potentially violent and put on a council blacklist with thugs and sex attackers.
Her details were circulated to public and private bodies, including doctors’, dentists’, opticians’, libraries, contraceptive clinics, schools and nurseries.
Their staff were advised not to see her alone. The 44-year-old former care worker was forced to withdraw an application to become a foster parent and to leave the town where she had lived for ten years.
Her ordeal began in August 2005 when she called the police after the drunk threatened her in a park in Slough, Berkshire.
He had fled by the time police arrived, but they advised her to contact the council, which was running a campaign to persuade people to report anti-social behaviour. When a worker in the anti-social behaviour unit allegedly failed to take action, Mrs Clift went to a higher level. A co-ordinator claimed she became ‘very difficult’ during a phone call.
In December 2005, Mrs Clift received a letter from the council to say she had been put on the register of potentially violent people.
After a four-year legal battle, the High Court ordered Slough Council to pay her £12,000 in libel damages.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1SNGUml00