Michael O’Brien's anti-social ‘hell’ diary was handed out to the public
Pensioner’s anger over catalogue of complaints the Town Hall lost
Published: 01 July, 2010
by CHARLOTTE CHAMBERS
A PENSIONER who spent two years recording details of late-night “hell” outside his home has criticised the council after one of his diaries was accidentally given away.
Michael O’Brien, who lives in Camden Town, compiled a series of detailed complaints in an Incident Book provided by the Town Hall after he was constantly kept awake by disturbances and handed it to housing officials.
But instead of keeping his written notes safe, the Town Hall handed it to another resident.
The New Journal was contacted on Tuesday by a woman who had been given Mr O’Brien’s book at the Gospel Oak District Housing Office. The woman, who does not want to be identified, said she handed it to us in order to draw attention to failings at the housing office. The council has admitted a breach of data protection.
When the New Journal traced Mr O’Brien and returned his incident book, he accused the department of being a “waste of time”.
“I’ve gone through hell for the last two years,” he said. “I’ve handed in at least six or seven of these. The department are a waste of time. You go in there and they say, ‘what do you want?’ If it’s not one excuse it’s another. The only time you see someone is if they write to you and give you an appointment. Whoever is in there is making mistakes.”
Last year, Camden’s housing patrol team were called out more than 4,000 times over complaints of anti-social behaviour on estates – or just under 80 times a week.
A council spokeswoman said the log book was handed over by “mistake”.
“We would like to apologise for this mistake, which appears to be a case of human error,” she added. “While we always try to offer residents the best possible service, mistakes do occur from time to time and we will be taking the necessary action to resolve this.
“We will be investigating this case to see how it happened and to prevent any similar mistakes occurring in future. We take anti-social behaviour very seriously and would always encourage residents to report it to the council, as otherwise we are unable to tackle the problem.”