HSPCA

According to a story in the London Evening Standard, a Labour Councillor has taken the flat of a young family after they were evicted to make way for her.

Paul Harris, his sister Diane and her 10-month-old son Tommy had to leave the house in Covent Garden after their father died and the managers invoked “appalling” succession rules.

Sue Vincent, a director of Seven Dials housing association, then moved into the three-storey home. She is also a Labour member on Camden council. Mr Harris, 28, said the decision had left the family devastated: “We were very hurt. I can’t put it into words. When I found out Sue Vincent had moved in there I couldn’t quite believe it. It was an incredibly difficult time for us and we thought she was very insensitive.”

The family have 100 years of links to the West End and had lived in the house in Endell Street, in the heart of theatreland, since 1986. In that year, Paul and Diane’s parents Joan and John were given a joint tenancy with one succession, meaning the property could be passed on only once.

After Joan died aged 44 in 1997, John raised their four children alone. When John developed cancer, Paul and Diane returned to the house to care for him.

But they were ordered to leave when he died in April 2008. Seven Dials claimed the Harris “succession” had occurred in 1997, when Joan died, and the siblings had to leave as “there are many families in housing need in Covent Garden”. Diane, 25, had to live in a hostel in Grays Inn Road and Paul moved in with an older sister. Both siblings are single parents surviving on benefits.

Locals were astonished when the new tenant was revealed to be Ms Vincent, who sends her daughter to £14,000-a-year City of London School for Girls. Her ex-husband Paul Abraham lives in a nearby Seven Dials property.

A neighbour said: “I was disgusted with Sue Vincent. I thought Labour was supposed to be on the side of the low-paid, working classes.”

Seven Dials Housing Co-operative is a “mutual society” trading for the “benefit of the community” under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act 1965.

Such organisations must file accounts once a year to the Financial Services Authority. But it has not filed accounts since 2003. A source at the FSA said: “This is most unusual – if Seven Dials has been trading for the last eight years and not filed accounts there will have been a breach of the law.”

A member of Seven Dials, who would not give his name, said: “Everything’s changed. Seven Dials ceased to be run as a co-operative and it felt like it was each man for himself. We were appalled at what happened to the Harris children but we were powerless to prevent it.”

Ms Vincent represents Holborn and Covent Garden ward and is also Camden’s Cabinet member for the environment. She said: “I can understand people might look at this and think, ‘Woah,’ but the reality isn’t anything like that. The allocation of the house was done in an appropriate way.

“It was very unfortunate what happened to the Harris children but the rules are the rules and we had to abide by them, even if we don’t like them.” She said she would look into the situation concerning Seven Dials’s accounts.