Last year, I wrote about a client whom I named Ngor, a respectful, delightful person who made misguided and dangerous decisions at times – her issues were complex. One day, towards the end of a Housing appointment, she handed me some letters from Bailiffs. It transpired that she had been stopped on London transport and accused of evading her fare of £1.75 I doubted this event very much as she always had an Oyster card on her person when I saw her. Ngor was using a relative’s address for correspondence but she didn’t collect her mail frequently and she was banned from entering the area her cousin resided in due to allegations about an altercation. These allegations were subsequently dropped and she started visiting her cousin again.
Ngor’s visit to me seemed to be her first attempt to address the issue of fare evasion. Ngor had been fined, the matter went to court, but Ngor didn’t attend. The combined court costs and fines amounted to approximately £900, which the Bailiffs had attempted to recover from Ms Ngor’s cousin’s home. Ngor was outraged at what she saw as an attack on her integrity and started taking pictures of the letters during the appointment, threatening to upload them on to Facebook.
I called the debt recovery company telling them what I knew about Ngor’s circumstances and saying that she vehemently denied evading her fare and disputed the version of events given by the TFL representative. The company gave a stay of execution of the warrant. In that time, I contacted the court explaining what had happened and providing evidence of Ngor’s mental health condition. Ngor did not concede that she had mental health issues but unfortunately her behaviour said otherwise. Ngor often walked with paperwork and I asked for the medical documents which she had attempted to give me previously – she didn’t have them with her.
Ngor finally agreed to a temporary accommodation placement (she had been declining the placements so this last was a great win). When I told the Housing Officer about that and the Bailiffs matter, he told me that he could ask the mental health professionals on his team who were well acquainted with Ngor, to write a letter of attestation to her poor mental health. It appeared that she had been sectioned at least once before.
I received the supporting letter from the mental health professional two days before the deadline given by the court, I didn’t have an email address for the court so I decided to hand deliver the appeal When I arrived, I learned that particular court had been closed for years – why it is still named in proceedings puzzles me. I called and a helpful official gave me an email address for another court which would be handling the matter. I sent it by email and received an acknowledgment of the appeal.
Just before Christmas I received an email advising that the charge of fare evasion would be withdrawn and that Ngor would not be required to attend. I learned today 16/01/26 that the case had been referred to court and the offence had now been withdrawn. When I called her Housing Officer later, to update him, I learned that Ngor had sadly been compulsorily sectioned just after Christmas.