Institutions

Institutional Context & Systemic Failure Mapping

1. West Midlands Police

• • Institutional failure:
    West Midlands Police repeatedly failed over a period of approximately ten years to intervene effectively in documented harassment, threats, and assaults by an aggressive neighbour, despite prior reports, safeguarding concerns, and the existence of video and photographic evidence.

  • Pattern of concern:
    The harassment was not isolated or occasional. It was reported as a persistent pattern of daily intimidation and hostile behaviour dating back to at least 2014, with a harassment complaint recorded in 2013. Despite this history, and despite police and council awareness of the evidence, no effective protective action was taken.

  • Escalation and consequence:
    Multiple opportunities to prevent escalation were missed. In particular, a reported death threat in 2017 was minimised rather than treated as a serious safeguarding risk. This failure to act contributed to the conditions that led to physical trauma and, subsequently, Ree’s 2018 L4/L5 spinal cord injury. That injury now directly shapes Ree’s physical capacity, mobility constraints, access needs, and daily living systems.

  • Unresolved accountability:
    To date, Carl has not been questioned or prosecuted in relation to the four prior alleged assaults, the reported death threat, or the wider documented pattern of harassment, despite long-term police and council awareness of supporting video and photographic evidence.

Mr Clift can be seen ripping out his own plants in this video, viewed by Nik Wooldridge, Evan Hughes, Gina Meek and other staff members of SMBC and WMP. SMBC and WMP arrested me for threats to others and Malicious communications for sending an angry email to the SMBC staff involved in 2021. Carl remains uncharged for harassment, five assaults, a public death threat and theft.

Please note the Institutional difference in approach between myself and Carl.

2. Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council (SMBC)

• Internal Contradictions: SMBC’s own internal records and staff logs explicitly document that council staff visiting me were themselves subjected to harassment by the same aggressive neighbour, confirming the external reality of the threat while the institution failed to resolve the housing or safety crisis. Carer notes and advocacy notes explicitly document safeguarding concerns repeatedly and a 2013 harassment complaint was upheld, in 2018 Nik Wooldridge ignored complaints that staff were ignoring escalating assaults and a death threat before closing a community trigger and colluding with WMP Gary Capwell to minimise the death threat and ensure that Carl was not questionned by West Midlands Police. Nik and SMBC management then began delaying, deflecting and simply ignoring valid concerns. When I sent angry emails to the ASB Team concerned  in 2022 during a meltdown over excessive life admin due to housing and social care failures at the inaccessible bungalow SMBC housed me in, Nik wrote misleading Witness Statements for the team I was unable to secure legal advocacy even then, I had been trying to access legal advocacy since 2014 and the harassment was recorded across organisations like the NHS and West Midlands Police as well as multiple advocates who tried to support communication with SMBC.

• The Failure: Failed repeatedly over a ten-year period to intervene in, manage, or halt documented daily harassment by an aggressive neighbour and then covered it up and kept the victim intentionally destabilised by witholding financial support, access to basic services, housing adaptations, fair charging and DRE assistance, and via unequal enforcement.

• The Consequence: Multiple opportunities to prevent the escalation of harassment were missed, and a 2017 death threat minimised directly resulting in the August 2018 physical trauma and subsequent L4/L5 spinal cord injury (SCI) that now dictates Ree’s physical and mobility constraints.

• Housing Adaptations: Following the SCI Ree moved to a bungalow SMBC Housing Staff described as wheelchair accessible. Ree sent angry emails to the Tipton ASB Team who promptly issues Breach of Tenancy and WMP charged Marie with malicious communications and threats to others.  When Marie arrived a magistrates court with boxes of letters Evan Hughes and SMBC solicitor downgraded the hearing so Marie was not able to submit paperwork to court.  Marie would very much like to submit 15 years Sandwell correspondence to ANY COURT.

• Cllr Jackie Taylor 2021 to 2023, MDT March 2023 – not one action was followed up – scores of emails to all members of SMBC Leadership during 2025 and 2026.

• SMBC housing officers formally committed in October 2023 to complete emergency home adaptations within 6 to 8 weeks.

• As of June 2026 (32+ months post-fire), the adaptations remain incomplete, leaving the user displaced and forced to manage their SCI in non-adapted housing 9 years after the preventable SCI, 8 years after the diagnosis and 6 years after moving in.

• Financial Withholding: SMBC and the DWP have systematically withheld entitled housing payments, council tax reductions, and Universal Credit disability uplifts since Easter 2024. This has forced the user to manage their entire survival, mobility, and medical infrastructure on a hard ceiling of approximately £1,130 per month (£360 UC + £770 PIP).

Mandy Amos and Lisa Fletcher recorded March 25th 2025 at Manifoldia Grange, described as Wheelchair Accessible by James McLaughlin Assistant CEO, SMBC Housing Officer Janet Millet and Customer Service Manager Lisa Ellis, who was assigned by Sarah Ager, Asistant Director of Housing, to look into the delays back in 2024.

3. NHS Trusts (Sandwell & West Birmingham NHS Trust / Black Country NHS Trust)

• • Clinical Misdiagnosis: GPs and mental health teams repeatedly diagnosed the user with Personality Disorder and Bipolar Disorder, pathologizing the physiological and psychological presentation of complex trauma and unrecognised AuDHD under active, chronic threat.

  • The Deflection Pattern: Clinical teams repeatedly told the user, "there is nothing wrong with your mental health, your problems are social, call the council," completely ignoring that the council (SMBC) was the active source of the systemic trauma.

  • The Evidence Trail: The NHS trusts' own clinical notes documented the external harassment, the neighbour's aggressive behaviour toward staff, and the physical/neurological impact on the user—yet clinicians continued to attribute the distress to internal psychiatric pathology rather than the documented, severe external environment.