Necessity Still Breeds Ingenuity - Archive of SQUALL MAGAZINE 1992-2006

News Shorts & Other Busyness

Hackney Council Is Not All Here M’Lud

Squall 5, Oct/Nov 1993, pg. 25.

There were tears of rage and frustration over a recent mass eviction court case against squats on the Trowbridge Estate in Hackney. This time, however, it was the Council Barrister who didn't get his way, not that the Master at the Court didn't give him every opportunity. He read out the address and details of every case one at a time, before saying after each: “Is the plaintiff, Hackney Council, in court?” to which there an absent silence.

Immediately after he finished laboriously going through each individual case and postponing them due to missing Hackney Council persons, the missing person was suddenly heard shouting outside.

Apparently, having just turned up, he was venting his opinion at the cleric of court that the cases should be heard again. Neither the Clerk or the Master would have any of it as they considered their time had been wasted enough. The Hackney Council bod then stormed off seething, only to be encountered again by the very same squatters on the bus home. By the time the squatters alighted the bus to go back to their unevicted homes, the geezer was apparently exploding bile and expletives all over the top deck, in an effort to let the squatters know just exactly how much harm they’d done to his chances of promotion.