So why have you went to all this trouble to hightlight Social injustice?...
That is the question that I`m sure many people will ask themselves as they click on this page. But take your time to think about this - do you feel safe enough to go outside at night, or travel home from work using public transport after your backshift? I think for the vast majority of people in this country the answer to that question would be no. For me that is an injustice in itself. Having been brought up in the west of Scotland for the majority of my life, I myself have been the victim of injustice many times myself.
The first time I was a victim of social injustice was as a young teenage student. I had moved out of my Dads house and was staying with my Gran - I went to North Lanarkshire Council to put my name down on the waiting list for a place of my own. The woman I dealt with advised me to register as homeless which I did - I also advised her that I was a quiet big guy and I just wanted a quiet place to live and she told me not to worry because I would three chances at viewing properties before I would be put to the back of list. Having left the building with the promise of getting my own home in as little as 3 months, I was really excited at the thought of getting my own space.
I was offered a flat shortly afterwards just as I was promised. The guy that handed me the keys told me it was quiet place to stay and as it was just round the corner from the college I was attending at the time I decided to accept. It was a few months down the line when I realised something was dodgy - I was just heading home to get ready for work when a guy who had had just came out of my neighbours house and was clearly under the influence asked me if "I wanted a fight" as he put it. Being the quiet humble man that I am I just looked him in the eye, smiled and delined his "offer" if you can it that. I thought that it would maybe be a one off but how wrong I was. Injustice number 1.
It was a couple of weeks later that I bumped in to my Neighbours brother who informed me that his Brother was just released from Carstairs. Imagine how I felt finding this out. I was promised a quiet place to stay by North Lanarkshire Council and instead I was given a flat next to some nutter. Now my Girlfriend was scared to visit me. Who could blame her? Even though I`m over 6ft tall I was scared myself. Injustice number 2
Then there was the neighbours upstairs who constantly blasted their music late at nights while I was in my bed trying to get some sleep before work the next day. It was these same neighbours who had the cheek to complain when I was using my punchbag in the afternoon. I politely pointed out this irony to him and his response was to get abusive, he claimed his 6 month old daughter was trying to sleep and that I better stop using the punchbag so I felt I had no option to report him to the council which I did. Injustice number 3
What do you think their response was? You guessed it. You need proof. Well ok that sounded fair enough - I was told to keep a diary of any incident and report these to the police - it wasn`t mentionend that the police don`t actually have to come out and visit you when you log a complaint to build a case against someone. So off course I never phoned the police once. Neither would anyone who noticed about 10 rough looking guys going in to the flat upstairs. Injustice number 4
But stop to think about this a moment - I was just a teenage boy with no experience in handling this kind of situation - the council employee failed to inform me that the police don`t need to be called out for you to log a complaint, in fact you can phone the contact centre for the police and just log a complaint and get the reference number for the complaint to build a case! I think it is a scandal that I wasn`t informed about this, I don`t know if the council employee never knew about it herself or if I was just given the old brush off and left to get on with it .Either way if employee never knew about it then the she wasn`t trained right which is not right, and if it was the second senario then that is even worse.
To sum this sorry mess up, the Council are there to provide a service and by not providing me with the correct advice I suffered many a sleepless night through no fault of my own and had to endure the worry of living next to the neighbours from hell. Infact the whole situation is just full of injustices
I did eventually move to another flat with my girlfriend. Problem solved, I was no long a victim of social injustice right? Wrong! This time it was South Lanarkshire Council that done the dirty - they moved us in to flat knowing that there was a homeless unit below us and never told us. Now I won`t go in to all the details - lets just say that that while staying in that flat I had baseball bats swung at me, punches thrown at me and many a sleepless night while the person in the homeless unit blasted their music etc etc.
Finally I have got out of that place and now live in a quiet, peaceful street. But I have never forgotton the injustice I suffered and I never want anyone to go through what I have been through in my life. This website is (hopefully) my way of fighting back, by getting people to think about the state the country is in and to to fight social injustice by having their voice heard. The politicians won`t act unless people start causing a fuss, so feel free to contact me with any story you have, or if you wish to join in the debates in the Forum. Who knows what can be achieved in time if enough people stand up for what they believe in and name and shame those add to the social injustice
