29/08/2013
At a
rough estimate, in the 20 years since the introduction of Council Tax in 1992, local authorities have fraudulently extracted about £4 billion from unwilling taxpayers. Billions more has been stolen by bailiffs, in illegal fees, on the back of harassment, threats and occasional physical violence.
Contrasted with the total lack of interest in addressing this illegal behaviour, we have the government storming in to recover a sum said to be in the "low tens of millions", overcharged by the
services provider Serco, identified after irregularities in records kept for its £285m prisoner escorting contract had been discovered.
Neither has Serco been the only company alleged to have overcharged the government. The security firm
G4S has also been implicated in a scam involving electronic tagging of released prisoners.
But the contrast between the alacrity the government seeks to redress perceived wrongs against itself, and the official indifference to the wilful overcharging and illegal application of fees by local authorities and bailiffs has
Autonomous Mind suggesting that the state is waging a war against the people of this country, a view with which
we thoroughly concur.
What really does stick in the craw is the indifference of the authorities, from the police who acknowledge that bailiff fraud is a crime but refuse to investigate it, to local authorities who in law are responsible for the actions of their agents, the bailiffs, yet more often than not refer complaints about bailiffs to the bailiffs themselves.
The situation is exacerbated by the failure of the media properly to report this growing outrage, although the
Telegraph today makes slight amends by recording that more than a million motorists face bailiff threat.
Of particular note is the comment from an AA spokesman voicing concern about the readiness of councils to use bailiffs. "It is disappointing", he says, "that some mistakes are made yet councils seem to readily wash their hands of drivers trapped in a cycle of threats from debt collectors and bailiffs".
The spokesman goes on to say that, "The bailiff process is virtually unstoppable, even for the innocent and getting someone to listen is virtually impossible", reflecting exactly the experience that so many of us have had.
But even then, the report, and this one by the
Mail, pussyfoot around the subject, failing to understand (or report) that what is being experienced is criminal activity. The entire bailiff industry is built on criminality. The business model is dependent on extortion and fraud, with the knowing complicity of local authorities.
Instead, the British Parking Association (which counts bailiff firms as its members) gets a free pass, being allowed to say that, "At the end of the day it is about individuals who have received tickets and havenât paid them. They have received a number of reminders and appeals and have reached the point where they still haven't paid it".
"The only method of enforcing it is to register the fine at a court and instruct the bailiff to gather the debt", says the Association, not beginning to recognise that this in no way authorises or legitimises criminal action.
But that indeed seems to be the rationale which sustains both local authorities and the bailiff industry. To owe money to officialdom places the citizen outside the protection of the law. Sex offenders and murderers get better treatment. But then we ought to know that the only "offences" the State is really interested in are those committed against itself.
However, once people realise that the only real concern of the State is its own self-perpetuation and enrichment â as is beginning to happen â attitudes will change. A state perceived as the enemy is not going to find to so easy to continue its business of criminal extortion.
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