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Abstract

A council tenant has narrowly escaped a jail sentence after he was found to be in breach of an injunction the Town Hall controversially took out against him last year.

Islington Council applied through the civil courts to have Pleydell estate resident Sacha Van Spall put it in prison after he wrote slogans including “I did not lie” in his own blood on offices belonging to council housing workers and building contractors – breaching an order taken out against him eight months ago.

In January, the Town Hall was granted an injunction for 12 months forbidding Mr Van Spall, 48, to “engage in conduct which causes harassment, alarm or distress” to any council employee or building contractors working on his estate.

The authority began legal action following six incidents last year during which it claimed the journalism student was either “verbally abusive” or “intimidating” towards staff on the estate, near Old Street – allegations denied by Mr Van Spall.

Following the hearing, central to which was an allegation of racism he vigorously denied, and of which he was unanimously cleared by a crown court jury in June, Mr Van Spall suffered a breakdown.

“Being accused of racism to me is worse than being accused of being a murderer,” he told Central London County Court on Tuesday. “It was the most devastating thing.”

The student admitted daubing slogans including “I did not lie” and “Newman [a reference to a council officer] is corrupt I did not lie” in his own blood on the window of Finsbury Library and on an office of the Breyer Group construction firm on his estate on January 29.

“It was not premedita­ted,” he added. “I started off in Upper Street and I don’t know how I ended up in those locations. I had consumed five or six cans of strong cider, I had a double whiskey and a lager. I found myself in Whetstone the following afternoon.

“My interest was to highlight what had happened to me, to express my belief that [council officers] had acted in a corrupt and vexatious manner in this.”

Mr Van Spall pleaded guilty to the offences and was given a conditional discharge for causing criminal damage by magistrates in June. But he denied a third allegation, that he daubed the words “I did not lie” on the office of the Pleydell estate tenants management organisation (TMO) two weeks later, pointing out that there was no CCTV evidence and that he had not been prosecuted for it.

Barrister John McCafferty, for the council, argued that the discovery of the slogans had been distressing to council staff and building contractors and that Mr Van Spall had therefore breached the order. The fact that Mr Van Spall had daubed another slogan on the TMO office two weeks later constitu­ted “harassment”, he added.

Circuit Judge Jan Luba QC found that, on the balance of probabilities, Mr Van Spall had also been responsible for the daubing on the TMO office.

Delivering his judgement following a three-hour hearing, the judge said: “Mr Van Spall clearly feels passionately that he is being wronged by council officers. He could barely contain the agitation in his emotional responses about the conduct of officers. It is quite clear that he retains a burning sense of grievance.

“His actions did cause distress and alarm to council officers and that’s precisely the sort of conduct that the order was designed to prevent, the actions of the defendant have flouted that.”

The judge imposed a prison sentence of 28 days, suspended for the duration of the injunction, which is in effect until January 28, 2017.

Mr Van Spall has always maintained he was victimised after “passionately” raising health and safety issues on the estate, where construction firm Breyer Group were undertaking maintenance work.

Mr Van Spall, who is entirely reliant on student finance, said he would appeal against the injunction and the award of costs in November.