WARRANTS OF ENTRY & UTILITY COMPANIES//SIX OF THE BEST

I`m obviously pleased that since this blog`s inception almost four years ago at WWW.THE JUSTICEOFTHEPEACE.BLOG.CO.UK it has had almost half a million  viewers.  However continuing techie problems there persuades me that a permanent switch to this site at BLOGGER will enable me to continue posting in a trouble free environment.

Amongst the most commented upon subjects in the last four years has been that of utility companies and their threats of cutting off electricity or gas supply to ordinary consumers.  In order to do so they generally must have a warrant of entry signed by a magistrate. The following six posts are on this topic and were published between December 2009 and April of this year.  

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• THEY ARE STILL THREATENING TO CUT OFF YOUR ELECTRICITY!

by TheJusticeofthePeace @ 19. Dec. 2009. – 11:40:29

We hear a lot about "Human Rights" these days. I am not referring to our rights as human beings but to a particular consequence of The Human Rights Act of 1998. Until that became a part of the English legal system utility companies after due process including the obtaining of an entry warrant at a magistrates` court could cut off the supply of electricity at an address where there appeared to be no possibility of obtaining payment of money owed by the consumer of electric power. Depending on the diligence of individual benches the power companies` representatives, occasionally employees with some local knowledge of the situation, but usually bailiffs, could seek a warrant of entry from a bench offering only the scantiest information regarding the individual concerned and forcibly enter the premises and cut off the power supply. Since the above act became law power companies have had to comply with strict guidelines prior to going to court; eg making personal visits and attempting to talk to the account holder, ascertaining whether or not vulnerable people [elderly or young children] live in the property etc and above all sending out letters warning of the intention to seek a warrant and advising the householder of his/her human rights under the legislation. Upon making an application at Magistrates` Court a diligent bench can ask many questions to ensure that entry is warranted.....eg have there been previous attempts to obtain a warrant at the same address, has there been a broken payment agreement, how much is actually owed in unpaid bills, has there been a dispute over the amount claimed, is the person responsible for the debt still in occupation at the address or is somebody new living there, and many other other questions depending on the individual case. Only after a bench being satisfied the request is in order will or should a warrant be granted. And even so rarely in domestic cases will the power be disconnected. A pre-payment meter will be installed.

Seems quite straightforward. The householder can`t or won`t pay the bill and the supply company can`t cut off the supply unless there is a health risk. But you`d be quite wrong. Many organisations rely on their superior knowledge and menace the individual citizen into compliance when these empty threats have no basis in law and are just the tactics of a bully. It happened last week to an aquaintance of mine. He had had his place refurbished before renting it to a friend. After receiving estimated bills for part of the period he informed Southern Electric by phone and letter of the dates for which he was responsible and informed them again when his friend moved in. Meter readings were sent at the changeover date. A couple of days ago he received another bill of the same estimated unit usage and across the bill was written, "NOTICE OF ELECTRICITY DISCONNECTION"...."unless we receive full payment immediately we will have no alternative than to disconnect the supply of electricity to...."

Advised by me my friend knew it was an empty threat. But consider a harrassed single mother or father without the ability to ascertain her remedies in such a situation. Stress and worry piled on increasing hardship and other tensions. Or an elderly person on her/his own in poor health and with lonliness an only companion or somebody new both to this country and the terror tactics used by some businesses to intimidate customers. Hang your head in shame SOUTHERN ELECTRIC.

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• WARRANTS OF ENTRY AND APPLICATIONS TO DISCONNECT UTILITY SUPPLY

by TheJusticeofthePeace @ 23. Mar. 2010. – 17:51:54

Amongst the "extra" matters dealt with in Magistrates` Courts I have recently commented on statutary declarations.  Another common function for all JPs is deciding whether or not to grant Warrants of Entry for utility companies either to disconnect supply gas or electricity [usually at vacant or business premises] or to replace a regular meter with a pre-payment meter.  It has been and might still be the norm for these applications to be "rubber stamped" without too much investigation.

However with many colleagues in various courts all over the country I have been consulting a "good practice guide" which encourages courts to take a more inquisitorial approach to these applications in spite of the time taken when there is a crowded list.

A magistrate from a neighbouring court told me recently that when he was sitting outside his own court he was surprised at the novel questioning of the applicants by the chairman.  It had never happened when he was sitting at his own court.  In the session one application was to disconnect the landlord`s supply in a block of flats the tenants having no say in the matter.  In practice it would probably have meant no lighting to the common parts eg entrance hall and stairways. In view of the possible danger to infirm or elderly occupants falling down stairs that bench refused the application and suggested no further application be made until there was a firm refusal from the absentee landlord to pay the outstanding bill of c£300.  He also described an application to fit a pre-payment meter [always a higher tariff] to an occupier he discovered was two weeks late in an arrears payment previously agreed.  This history was discovered he reported  by the chairman`s questioning the bailiff in quite some detail.

He told me that he had never previously sat on a bench which had refused an application to disconnect and fit a pre-payment meter.  Information from that episode he said would be conveyed to his "home" court.

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• SOUTHERN ELECTRIC THINKS JPs WILL RUBBER STAMP THEIR ENTRY WARRANTS

by TheJusticeofthePeace @ 01. Jul. 2010. – 16:43:24

On 19th December 2009 I reported how Southern Electric, one of this country`s major utility suppliers, was sending threatening letters to overdue payers. These "red" bills had a message which was in effect pay now or your supply will be cut off. The actual wording [unless it has been changed] is "NOTICE OF ELECTRICITY DISCONNECTION"...."unless we receive full payment immediately we will have no alternative than to disconnect the supply of electricity to...." This is an empty threat and has no power. A domestic supply cannot be cut off for non payment of a bill without a warrant having first been obtained by the supplier or its agent at a Magistrates` Court. It is an absolutely disgraceful example of practices which for the most part retailers and suppliers have stopped using. But it seems to have gone from bad to worse for Southern Electric and they are still disregarding approved practice.

I sit on a bench where I personally [with colleagues] deal with applications about once every three weeks from utility companies. Our strict inquisitorial approach to such suppliers or their agents when applications are before us for dis-connection, or as is most likely, installation of a pre-payment meter has been extremely worthwhile insofar as they usually appear with most of the information and answers we require to ensure as far as we can that not a single case of entry could have been avoided. That is all but Southern Electric who still seem to think that all they have to do is appear before a bench of magistrates and say, "at 1111 Main High Street, the occupier owes £xxx and here is a warrant of entry for you to sign." Last week that is exactly what took place except of course these scanty details were on the information document presented. The agent was unable to supply any real information at all, answer any question on detail and in one case confirm the identity of the account holder. He was told politely to get lost and not to return until he had the information available for each warrant as might be required under the agreed Best Practice Guidance on this topic.

Millions of households are in difficulties paying gas and electricity bills. That is no excuse for Southern Electric pursuing such payments by threatening actions which can cause such distress and which they know they cannot carry out against these vulnerable people . 

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• CUTTING OFF SUPPLY BY UTILITY COMPANIES AND OFGEM`S POSITION

by TheJusticeofthePeace @ 16. Nov. 2011. – 08:07:39 

I had thought I had written all that had to be written about utility companies and J.P.s and their previously long held attitudes that in order to secure a warrant to enter a customer`s home or business to disconnect supply or fit a pre payment meter all they had to do was to turn up at court and ask for the bench to issue such. At my court owing to pressures made to our senior staff this is no longer the case and many of my colleagues are now following the Best Practice guide. By so doing this ensures that warrants are not showered upon the companies` bailiffs like legal confetti. But thanks to information from commenter Tianc there is much more to be said on this topic.

Ofgem is the organisation which regulates the electricity and gas markets in Great Britain. As such it stands between suppliers and consumers. It is or should not be allied to either side of the market in energy. “Colleagues” is a word that could be defined as fellow officials or workers in an organisation, business or profession. Colloquially I would assert that the connotation of the word denotes those whose objectives are similar or collaborative.

On 16/08/2010 a letter was sent by OFGEM to “Holders of Gas and Electricity Supply Licences, consumers and their representatives, consumer bodies and other interested parties”. That letter addressed the recipients as “Dear Colleagues”. Pedantic I might be but that form of address in a letter which can be accessed here in the circumstances to be outlined gives perhaps some cause for concern that the poor consumer who pays for everything at the end of a long supply line is an afterthought. The essence of the letter is the increasing distribution of smart meters. With these in situ remote changes can be made to a customer`s supply. Tariffs can be changed including changing to pre payment meters and supply can be cut off. Pre payment meters are a bone of contention; when fitted they are designed to use a portion of the payments made to collect unpaid balances. It is a source of disquiet to some colleagues that J.P.s` legal powers are not those to authorise debt collection in these matters. What is of more significance in OFGEM`s letter with regard to cutting off supply is that nowhere do they discuss the current legal requirement for a magistrates` warrant of entry to be issued before forced entry can be made. If remote disconnection is contemplated, more likely for business rather than domestic premises there is an important question as to how the application is to be investigated prior to any direct action by the supplier unlike the current position with the requirement of a personal appearance at court by applicant to be questioned by the bench on the particulars of the application. If there is being contemplated a diminution of the guidance particulars as currently being increasingly practised every day in every magistrates` court in England & Wales that will be a very bad day for individual consumers.

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• APPLICATION COURTS MUST SCRUTINISE DETAILS

by TheJusticeofthePeace @ 26. Jan. 2013. – 17:06:43 

It seems that some utility companies still can`t get into their corporate heads that it is only under very limited circumstances that they can switch off the gas or electricity to a domestic property. I have posted here more than once on warrants of entry and indeed that subject is the source of very many page views to this blog.

Recently for the first time this year I sat in such an applications court and the representative of a major utilities supplier presented us with two dozen warrants of entry the wording of which subsequent to the stated intention of fitting pre-payment meters was that the company retained an alternative of cutting off supply. This was of course after his repetition of the “human rights” mantra including words to the effect that the company would not disconnect. Usually the applicant will state in open court that any households with a vulnerable* person will not be amongst the applications. Despite some initial observations from our L/A we scored through the offending words re disconnection, initialled at the side and then signed off the warrants.

There is no doubt in my mind that including in the warrant words as above is no more than a threatening posture. Such actions will only cease if all colleagues take a similar forensic action and closely question such applications according to the Good Practice Guide.

*

Industry Vulnerable Customer Safety Net

In September 2004 the Energy Retail Association (ERA), the dedicated trade association for the six major UK energy suppliers, published a report on the issues of debt and disconnection in the energy sector following a challenge from Ofgem to industry to develop measures to protect vulnerable customers from being disconnected. This report presented the definition of a vulnerable customer which member companies will seek to abide by, that “a customer is vulnerable if for reasons of age, health, disability or severe financial insecurity they are unable to safeguard their personal welfare or the personal welfare of other members of the household.”

References to ‘customer’ in the Standard Licence Conditions refer to the bill payer. The ERA has stated that industry’s intention is to protect all those who are vulnerable and at risk from disconnection, which has prompted the inclusion in its definition of vulnerability that the bill payer must also be able to safeguard the welfare of other members of the household.

In order to ensure that genuinely vulnerable customers are not excluded from the definition the ERA has also produced guidance to suppliers on identifying vulnerability, noting five separate circumstances which, if applicable, could lead to energy suppliers determining that the customer is vulnerable. These are:

1. A customer is caring for an elderly person in the household;
2. A permanent member of the household is disabled and unable to support themselves or has a long-term medical condition;
3. A carer, social worker, health visitor or physician has indicated that a member of the household may be vulnerable;
4. Households on a low income/state benefit with young children; or
5. A customer dependent on medical equipment that is operated by electricity e.g. a stair lift, electric wheelchair, defibrillator or dialysis machine.

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• UTILITY COMPANIES STILL DON`T GET IT

by TheJusticeofthePeace @ 25. Apr. 2013. – 12:24:56 

Blog analytics show that among the most visited pages on this site by what I assume are non legally minded viewers are those concerning entry warrants by utility companies or, as often is the case, by bailiffs appointed by them.

As a newbie magistrate I was concerned at the rubber stamping of such applications without so much as a cursory inspection of the warrants` terms or inquiry in any individual case. To a certain extent that situation has improved and more of my colleagues are taking an inquisitorial role in their questioning of such applications. There is no doubt that since the requirement to send out “human rights” letters many utility companies consider that there is no other investigation required on their part prior to an application to install a pre payment meter for those who have an outstanding debt. Searches here will produce many previous posts on this subject. I had thought that the “message” was beginning to get through to the companies and their representatives; this court applies the principles enshrined in the “Good Practice Guide” for utility companies. I have been over optimistic.

A bailiff before our bench not so long ago was simply that; a bailiff. Unlike the companies who employ their own staff to make application and who have visited every address on their list of warrants this person had absolutely no knowledge of any individual case except that some were domestic and some commercial and that each owed a certain amount which in one case was less that £150. She had no knowledge of when any previous payment had been made, denied that a person opposing in person a warrant being applied for on the grounds that she was making arranged payments to clear her account had indeed been on a payment arrangement scheme, All she had to support her applications was an address, sometimes without an occupant’s name and an uncorroborated outstanding amount. In addition the warrants` wording was such that an application to cut off supply not exclusively on health and safety grounds was included. After some brief discussion we scored through the offending words where required and returned unsigned about half the applications.

I would hope that colleagues throughout the country are being thoughtful enough about individuals` rights to be strong enough to consider carefully such warrants even in the face of some legal advisors` impatience to get on with the morning`s list.

JUSTICE GONE WITH THE BIG YELLOW TAXI

Without the rule of law a society cannot exist as such.  The law might be unjust or weighted to suit particular interests or political factions but it must exist in practice or the only law which will be in place will be the law of the jungle.  I suppose as a rough guide a primative legal system emerged in England with the establishment of farming communities about 2000 BC although about 8000 years earlier in the Middle East hunter gatherers began the process of civilisation we know today. A few hundred years before Mosaic law was offered to the children of Israel the Babylonian Hammurabi issued the Code of Hammurabi which he claimed to have received from Shamash the Babylonian god of justice. Unlike earlier Sumerian law codes such as the Code of Ur-Nammu, which had focused on compensating the victim of the crime the Law of Hammurabi was one of the first law codes to place greater emphasis on the physical punishment of the perpetrator. It prescribed specific penalties for each crime and is among the first codes to establish the presumption of innocence. Although its penalties are extremely harsh by modern standards, they were intended to limit what a wronged person was permitted to do in retribution. The Code of Hammurabi and the Law of Moses in the Torah contain numerous similarities. For law in general or laws in particular to be respected by a population they must be simple to accept and understand.  Indeed we are all aware of the old adage attributed to Thomas Jefferson;   “Ignorance of the law is no excuse in any country. If it were, the laws would lose their effect, because it can always be pretended.”  But if simplicity in the eyes of the public is a necessity for "good" law it appears that as society has developed in ways unimaginable just a century ago that simplicity has all but disappeared and those who are charged with administering law and justice from parliament to the court are like sailors of old without a compass and only the stars as a guide. Indeed the changes and complexity of sentencing I personally experienced when active in the magistrates court are but a childhood game of snakes and ladders compared to the current sentencing guidelines at the crown court. 

Recently 21 year old Nathan Fairhurst admitted possession of a bladed article in a public place.  All readers will have heard various Justice Secretaries over the years preaching that such activity must be punished by a custodial sentence. Twenty years ago before sentencing guidelines were mandatory judges (and magistrates too when appropriate) would use a structured sentencing outline  and their own initiative and experience to sentence. Nowadays they must follow Sentencing Guidelines or explain their failure to so do.  The complexity of Guidelines is obvious. It was the US state of Michigan around a decade and a half ago which originated the idea of a formulated almost mathematical chart to aid sentencing.  Current practice in  England would seem now to be antiquated and could be replaced by algorithims as so many other aspects of our society are. 

With Justice Secretaries coming in and going out like commuter trains another common theme is the numbers of foreigners in our jails and the numbers expelled on completion of their sentences.  There are about 10,000 foreign nationals or about 11% of the total prison population. Under Section 32 of the UK Borders Act of 2007, non-EU “foreign criminals” sentenced to 12 months or more in prison are subject to automatic deportation. 4,700 foreign national offenders were removed in the year to March 2020. The number of such returns fell from 6,200 in 2016. Of course there is the ongoing scandal of those who evade deportation after completing their sentence as the chart below idicates. 

So when we read that Palfi Csaba Hungarian hard man will be deported we can only hope and not assume that the order will be carried out. The problem is that nobody cares about justice and the rule of law.  Of course legal bigwigs and government toadies will talk the back legs of donkeys to justify their support for the current legal fashion. Where was all the support for justice locally since 2010?  Now MPs are complaining that around half of all constituencies have no local court.  There was little opposition when the courts were being closed.  Now they wail and bemoan the loss.  

Nobody has said (sung) it better than Joni Mitchell when describing loss of essentials to our life experiences in the first two verses of Big Yellow Taxi

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swinging hot spot
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot

Oh, bop, bop, bop
Oh, bop, bop, bop

They took all the trees, and put em in a tree museum
And they charged the people a dollar and a half to see them
No, no, no
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone
They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot

ALLOW MEDIA TO SPONSOR LIVE TELEVISING MAGISTRATES COURTS

For some years there have been musings from quarters on high on the televising of events at the criminal courts.  Since its inception the Supreme Court has been available for those interested to view on line. I`m sure that nobody then would have predicted that during the Brexit legal shenanigans prior to October 31st last year at its height over 2.8 million viewers gave up some of their valuable time to watch the live proceedings.  However with regard to the every day process of justice at magistrates and crown courts with the decline of local print media that process has become ever more invisible to the general public in England and Wales. However for those north of the border the criminal justice in my opinion bears much more relevance to this new millennium than its southern counterpart.  

  
Guide to Jury Service Eligibility and Applying for Excusal in Scotland
Are you qualified for jury service?
Subject to the information included in boxes A and B below, you are qualified for jury service if:
 you will be at least 18 years old on the date that you start your jury service;
 you are registered as a parliamentary or local government elector; AND
 you have lived in the United Kingdom, Channel Islands or Isle of Man for any period of at least 5 years since you were 13 years old.
You are not qualified for jury service if you do not meet all of these criteria, or if anything in box A applies to you, and you should complete the enclosed application and return it to the court as soon as possible.
You are ineligible if anything in box B applies to you, and you should complete the enclosed application and return it to the court as soon as possible.
You may apply for excusal as of right if the information in box C applies to you. If you wish to apply you should complete the enclosed application and return it to the court as soon as possible.
WARNING: It is an offence to serve on a jury knowing that you are not qualified for jury service or are ineligible or disqualified from jury service.
Part 1 of your application
You must fill in this section carefully or the court will not be able to process your application. Please make sure that you include your name, address, person ID (this is the number which is in brackets after your name on the front of your citation, it is 7 or 8 digits long), date of birth (where requested).
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You are disqualified from jury service if:
 you are on bail in or in connection with criminal proceedings in any part of the United Kingdom;
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 or you have in the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man –
 in the last 7 years (or 3.5 years where you were under 18 on the date of conviction) served any part of a sentence of imprisonment or detention, which was for between 3 months and 6 months; or
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 in the last 7 years been detained in a borstal institution;
 in the last 5 years (or 2.5 years where you were under 18 on the date of conviction) you were convicted of an offence and one or more of the following disposals was made:
 a drug treatment and testing order;
 a restriction of liberty order;
 or a community payback order;
under the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995; or
 a community order under the Criminal Justice Act 2003;
 a youth community order under section 33 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000;
 a community order under the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 1996; or
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You are ineligible for jury service if any of the categories mentioned below apply to you:
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 you are the chairman or the president, the vice chairman or vice president, the registrar or assistant registrar of any tribunal;
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 you are an Advocate or a solicitor, whether or not in actual practice as such;
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 you are an apprentice of, or a legal trainee employed by, solicitors;
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 you have, at any time within the 5 years immediately preceding the date at which your eligibility for jury service is being considered, come within any description contained in the categories above in box B;
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SCS003Pilot
 you are a member or employee of the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission;
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Offenders etc. (Scotland) Act 2005;
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 for the purposes of that treatment, detained in hospital under the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 or the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995;
 for the time being subject to guardianship under the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000.
Are you eligible to apply for excusal?
Box C – Persons excusable as of right
If you come within one of the categories noted below, you have the option to apply to the court to be excused as of right. Please Note: you will only be excused ‘as of right’ if you apply within 7 days of receiving the Jury Citation. If you apply outwith this period then you will be required to state a good reason for excusal. The clerk of court will consider your request, taking account of all relevant circumstances and you may be required to attend for jury service. This does not apply if you are aged 71 or over - in these circumstances you can apply for
exemption up until the date you attend court.
 you are a peer or peeress entitled to receive writs of summons to attend the House of Lords;
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 any Voluntary Aid Detachment serving with the Royal Navy.
However, if your commanding officer certifies that it would be prejudicial to the efficiency of the force of which you are a member, should you be required to attend for jury service, you may apply for excusal as of right up until the date you attend court;
 you have attended court for jury service within the last five years but were not selected by ballot to serve on a jury (this only applies where your previous attendance was on a date prior to 10th January 2011);
 you have attended court for jury service within the last two years but were not selected by ballot to serve on a jury (this only applies where your previous attendance was on a date on or after 10th January 2011);
 you have attended at court for jury service and were selected by ballot to serve on a jury, within the last five years;
 you were excused by direction of any court from jury service for a period which has not yet expired;
 you have reached the age of 71.
SCS003 Pilot V19.02.19
Applying for excusal
Box D – Applications for excusal on the grounds of ill health or physical disability
If you wish to apply for excusal on the basis of ill health or physical disability then you must enclose a medical certificate along with your response. This can normally be obtained free of charge from your GP, in terms of Article 4 of Schedule 4 and regulation 25 of The National Health Service (General Medical Services Contracts) (Scotland) Regulations 2018 (2018/66). If your doctor considers your condition is long term or unlikely to change, please ask your doctor to include this information in your medical certificate.
Box E – Applications for excusal due to other special reasons
If you wish to apply for excusal due to another special reason, for example commitments at work, cancellation of which would cause abnormal inconvenience either to yourself or others, or holiday plans which would be difficult or expensive to rearrange, you should complete the relevant sections of part 3 of the form. You must also provide evidence of this, for example booking confirmation or letter from your employer.
Whilst all applications for excusal will be considered sympathetically, you must understand that court staff may not be able to excuse you from jury service. Rules of court state that a jury cannot be balloted where there are less than 30 of those named on the list of jurors present in court, meaning that it may not be possible for court staff to excuse jurors in all cases.

English requirements are available here. Perhaps the biggest differences between the two trial systems is that the Scottish jury of 15 has to meet only a simple majority for a verdict to be reached and that there is the third verdict of not proven available. In Scotland rather than the police who lead an investigation in England it is the procurator fiscal who takes a much greater role than the CPS in the active role of investigation. "Double- sourcing" evidence is unknown in English law. In Scotland it describes the corroboration of evidence which is all important in serious offences.  In practice in addition to a complainants`s evidence there must be additional evidence preferably DNA related or else the case cannot proceed. It could be said that some aspects of the process are akin to the French way of conducting matters insofar as their examining magistrates initiate investigations and issue warrants. Indeed I have long advocated here and elsewhere that Justices of the Peace take a more investigative position especially when trials involve unrepresented defendants. 

However the major difference is that those wise Scottish legal eagles have allowed television into the criminal court.  That decision was further reinforced recently when edited sections of a murder trial were on our televisions recently  Admittedly this was not a live broadcast but it probably dismayed those in the senior English judiciary who would still murmur in private that things have already gone too far in removing the supposed sacred aura surrounding the legal system. 

For the last decade successive governments have allocated ever decreasing funds to a justice system which is more and more seen as having to pay its way in contrast to the historical concept that it had been considered a public service and not a pay to use activity. The demise of local court reporting which has been commented upon more than once on this site has left the door open for enterprising media companies to sponsor live TV broadcasting from magistrates courts. The financial input would be welcomed by HMCTS and the idea of "open" justice would be a reality.  It might not be until the end of this decade but I have no doubt it is just a matter of when and not if. 

Previous posts which might be of interest are available here,  here and here.