Council offers £2,000 compensation to Hackney newsagent over Olympic bunting bungle
Vindicated: Hamdy Shahein outside his newsagents shop in Stoke Newington High Road. Photograph: Hackney Citizen
Hackney Council has offered compensation to a Stoke Newington newsagent who was harassed and humiliated over the decorating of his shop with Olympic bunting.
In a letter the council offered Hamdy Shahein the sum of £2,000 for loss of trade and a further £200 for the “inconvenience caused” by the actions of the Town Hall’s trading standards officers.
In his reply Mr Shahein said the offer was “not proportionate”.
He said the £200 offered was a “paltry sum” and accused the council of causing damage to his reputation.
However, Mr Shahein, who runs Hamdy’s News, indicated he would accept the offer and said he would give the money to charity.
He told the Hackney Citizen he sought advice from a solicitor, who told him he may be awarded more money if he went to court.
“The way I look at it, it’s taxpayers’ money,” he said, “I’ve got my apology. I don’t want to negotiate about money.”
Of the compensation, he said: “I’m giving it to charity, and if they want to increase it, for that reason only I would talk to them.”
Mr Shahein, a highly respected newsagent, was wrongly accused of selling fake or unlicensed Olympic goods and ordered to remove his bunting by council officials hours before the Olympic Torch relay was to pass his shop. Buoyed by his supportive customers, Mr Shahein requested a public apology and considered suing the council for loss of trade.
The council were forced to admit that trading standards had made a mistake and apologised for the actions of their officers. They also confirmed that the council had provided a newspaper with false information about Mr Shahein soon after the incident of 21 July.
Mr Shahein has received letters of apology from Mayor Jules Pipe and Peter Tonge from the council’s legal office, who delivered his letter in person.
Mr Tonge’s letter said there was a mix-up between old and new Olympic brands, and that “it was a LOCOG requirement for all local authority Trading Standards teams […] to protect the Olympic brand.” He apologised for the “inconvenience and distress” the officers caused.
Mr Shahein said he wants to put the episode behind him, and thanked his customers and well-wishers in the community for all their support.
Asked if he had a message for the council, Mr Shahein said: “I hope they learn a lesson from what they’ve done, and will not do it to anyone else.”
Hackney Council has far too many faceless, morally corrupt, incompetent and unaccountable bureaucrats. That Hamdy’s has been harassed by council inspectors trying to justify their overpaid existence is unsurprising given the shift in the balance of power from citizen to civil servant. I salut Mr Shahein for taking his balls back from the government vise.
Trading Standard Apologise
Date 20 August 2012
Dear Mr Tonge,
Thank you for your letter 14 August 2012 and 17th August 2012 respectively. The latter was handed to to me in person by Mr Tonge.
AS you must be aware I had a massive support from the community regarding this unfortunate incident. It was a member of the public seeing the injustice felt it necessary to complain to Hackney Council.
Although your apology and the offer is a step in the right direction. Obviously circumstances dictated this once you had found out that the Trading Standards Officers had erred contrary to your initial position. If I am being honest the offer is not proportionate to the many aspects of the law that has been breached. Furthermore the amount of £200 is a paltry sum of money, since it does not take into account slander, libel and/or harassment to name a few statutes of law that has been breached by the council.
So in other words if I was going to pursue this matter further within the courts. I am sure you are aware that I would be awarded more than the sum offered at present. And to compound
issues there is the matter of costs also. However, I do not intend to pursue this course of action, even though many within the community have been encouraging me to do so. I have taken into consideration primarily my past working experience with Mr. ( the T S Officer was on duty that day) as it relates to the matter of firework inspection within my store.
The offer that you propose to send I will be donating to a respectable charity. So if you do feel the need to increase the sum then I am sure the charity
concerned (viz McMillan Cancer Care) will be very appreciative, especially in this current economic climate.
Thanks for your consideration.
Hamdy Shahein
Director
The bigger man has won, without any the resources of the Council at his disposal, but with the support of the general public in Hackney. Mayor Pipe, hang your head in shame!