Hello friends,
hope and trust that all is well at your end.
Yesterday I wrote this article COVID and social distancing is assisting bitter separations, divorces, and the unmarried where children can’t see the parent with the least power
For the first time in my blogging history did I ever see the following:
- Six hours (midnight for me) from posting the above article (in italics) and link it shot to the top of my Instagram insights getting a whopping 169 organic views. Never in my blog writing history did I ever see an article bypass and overtake the others in terms of the views it got within such a short space of time on Instagram.
- Then seven hours later at 8:30 in the morning, the views were sitting at 269.
- I noticed that my article had a massive error on the website, but the views kept rising. I got in touch with my Hosting company because for some reason the backend of my site wouldn’t open up for me to change the error. The error was that the article was duplicated (a first-time error in this aspect for me) on the same page. This didn’t change the fact that the views still kept increasing. Then in the shower, this topic came up the underpaying outsourced employer, the Gujarati SA victim, the Gujarati UK Home Office lawyer, the Chinese trainee barrister, the retiring British Judge and the outdated legislation/act, not only that I had a list of topics that I wrote down for this week, but this particular one felt very urgent.
- At 15:23 375 views of yesterday’s article and still rising.
- At 19:15 390 views and still rising.
Okay, some time ago I wrote this article and the part I want to pull out in this article is the part that says, “No matter whose fault it is, just focus on cleaning your side of the street.” Some weeks ago I joined a summit where there were several speakers, and one of the speakers said, “Often the most people doing the self-improvement work are the ones who need it the least than the ones who think they don’t.”
Are you one of those people? Are you putting in or have always put in many hours consistently over the years at working on yourself and continue doing so or are you the one who expects the ones cleaning their side of the street to keep taking the blame? Isn’t that the reason why we have bin days?
This, my friend, is a very crucial question because if everyone cleaned their side of the street then for the sake of the next generations and my generation and older, we’d stop creating a vicious circle. The world today, is sick of sentences like, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” this sentence has been going around forever and it has also been one of the sentences that pushed me forward for many many years but it’s force faded somewhere along the line for millions if not billions of people. The truth is that we’ve been killing people all this time because every person on this planet got their load to handle and the biggest mistake we’re making is by thinking that others don’t have it hard (or even just having a self-check), or that others have it way harder and guess what? This continuous comparison has created the vicious circle. How? We add more on top of people because someone else has done it to us. “Hurt people, hurt people so let the ones doing the self-improvement take the blame.” Nope, the ones doing the self-improvement are slowly and surely pulling themselves out of the vicious patterns’ equation. Besides not many people actually admit their struggles in the moment.
Okay for instance, how many times you have to call companies or think about how many times you buy something and send it back because it didn’t turn out to be what you thought it would be. One action causes another person’s reaction, fortune, misfortune… this list goes on and this is why we’re discussing the underpaying outsourced employer, the Gujarati SA victim, the Gujarati UK Home Office lawyer, the Chinese trainee barrister, the retiring British Judge and the outdated legislation/act.
I basically asked myself at one point in my life, how much more should I keep taking the blame for? I’ll still keep cleaning my side of the street and one day I will be able to set life up to my way, but until then where I can refuse to be part of entering any vicious circle consciously I’ll do that. Where did I learn this part of the lesson? I’ve learnt it at this chapter of my life; the underpaying outsourced employer, the Gujarati SA victim, the Gujarati UK Home Office lawyer, the Chinese trainee barrister, the retiring British Judge and the outdated legislation/act.
If you’ve been following these posts and me, you don’t need to guess which one is me in the underpaying outsourced employer, the Gujarati SA victim, the Gujarati UK Home Office lawyer, the Chinese trainee barrister, the retiring British Judge and the outdated legislation/act. Yes, I’m the one in bold…
The fact that legislations/acts or that mums and dads can’t see their children, I thought this subject is a really good continuation of it, I want to show you something. Something you will be very shocked with.
The underpaying outsourced employer
The company was an outsourcing company from India who hired these men in India to oversee the negotiations in the United Kingdom, my two supervisors were Indians from India (one male one female).
I took on the job with excitement, then when my supervisors and their managers began negotiating my contract the first month after I started the new job in January 2014 being in a vulnerable state I was offered an underpaid salary, with an unstable work contract which they said they’ll renew every two months and no overtime pay. I still did overtime; the work was so much that even two people couldn’t finish the cases all in one day. Optimistic, with courage I said I’m going forward, better being here then what I left behind. I soldiered on. After two months I wondered if I should go and find something else.
The Gujarati South African victim (Stick with me you will find out why I use this)
Here I was after a trail of stalking, psychological/emotional abuse which goes down as part of domestic violence, online stalking and online defamation, I mean the whole Shazam can be read on this article My number one tip for women who just came out of a relationship with domestic violence. The pressure surmounted with the letters that arrived from the UK government, the number of passwords I had to change each time a new notification hit me of a platform which my ex-partner used to leave vile comments about me for the public to see, workplace bullying, stalking (there are articles on this too on my blog) and then finally stalking me on Skype. At first, it was exciting working there, I mean I never met that many Indians all at once and to get to know people from India was so exciting. Why? In Spain, if you found an Indian person firstly to engage and talk with that alone is a lucky thing. There weren’t many Indians in Madrid, Spain.
I literally couldn’t change jobs, I used the lunch hours to go and see the lawyer to bring and take home paperwork, it was near to the office. I was tied in with the landlady on the room I’ve taken and the rent I paid there, I was in a middle of this case applying for indefinite leave to remain on the basis of domestic violence, no savings left at the end of the month, I was paying the lawyer off in part sums. Stuck as hell. The lawyer said (she was nice), “We’re going to give your case a shot, but I must warn you, there is a glitch in the legislation which does not work in your favour. It excludes cases like yours which in all honesty is very unfair. If I were you, I will fight, this is very unfair.” So basically, I was paying and broke for taking a chance. The legislation/act summarised in the nutshell the following, “An unmarried non-EU partner to a British national can be granted indefinite leave to remain on grounds of domestic violence, a married non-EU-partner to an EU national can be granted indefinite leave to remain on grounds of domestic violence, a married non-EU partner to a British national can be granted indefinite leave to remain but a non-EU unmarried partner to an EU national has been left out of the loop and DEPENDING ON BUT NOT GUARANTEED they could be granted indefinite leave to remain on grounds of domestic violence.”
The Chinese trainee Barrister
So, here we are, I am like at this point absolutely tired to the six months run-up to the day where I don’t even have enough money to hire one of the best barristers to help me win this case now that I have the court date, sometimes my lawyer had to sit there listening on my lunch break all about that day’s bullying while I did some more drop off and pickups of documents for the case. You must know, I also had to pay a translator to translate documents from Spanish to English for the case. Not cheap at all that itself was another fee on its own that hit me hard. I don’t know, maybe I was expecting a grand miracle, I mean, this was all new for me, this whole thing, so what the monkies would I know about courts, lawyers, barristers, and all? I get told the range of offers I have according to the money in my pocket for a barrister, and of course, guess what? I can only afford the very cheapest (I mean I still owe the lawyer herself outstanding fees). I tried my luck if I can take a barrister on deposit too, but that doesn’t have pay little now and if you win the case or not the rest of the payment can be done later deal. So, there it is. five hundred pounds the cheapest barrister. So, can I pick her? NO. Can I pick from several? No. How do I know who I’m getting or if he or she will be experienced, good at this? Of course, over time (it took long) but I figured it out, the answer to this question is you won’t ever until a month or less before the court date that’s what you get for five hundred pounds. You can’t call her in advance, you can’t talk about your case in advance, only on the court date and you better be there early.
So, here we all are (I know most of you with lawyers right now and have been to court several times have felt this very feeling), my lawyer isn’t around, I am going to meet someone who has an English name with a foreign surname. I am there one hour early, and she arrives thirty minutes later. I am super nervous. I just have to keep looking at the door and hope when she sees me, and I see her we can recognise each other. My friends came all the way from Wales to be a witness for me. We somehow get through this bit and I start talking to her. A lawyer has to show confidence otherwise the client has already lost the case. I found that out that day, and not only that, that’s the day I found out she’s a trainee from China getting her qualifications in the UK, she was indeed a very intelligent lady. I felt a little hopeful, I left it to the universe after I realised I didn’t have the best barrister, at least it’s not her first time coming to court, she’s a trainee, so she is very detached from the client and whether this case wins or not. She spoke to the witness, she read my files, she said to me with compassion, “What’s happened to you is very unfair, I saw the information and the picture around the public humiliation you had on Facebook.”
My barrister decided not to use my witness, yet my witness really wanted to be there and stand up for me. The fourteen-year-old friendship we had (counting then) wasn’t enough to testify as to the person I am known to be. My witness saw me in vain for six months while I asked for a separation from my ex, I was living with them at the time. Because she saw the actions, the impact, the effects it had on me and all my conversations, she wanted to be my witness and stand up for me. I had no idea until then that she actually saw those moments until she talked and told the barrister, that’s how deep I was in my internal state that I hardly paid attention externally. The barrister asked her, “Do you speak Spanish? Do you understand it?” When she replied, “No” that was it, I had no witness left. The barrister said to my witness, “The judge is going to ask you this question and if you don’t understand Spanish it could make her case weak.” So, walking into the courtroom on my own, trying to build courage for myself, with a trainee barrister who I just had to trust felt unnerving.
The part where I use in the title of this article the underpaying outsourced employer, the Gujarati SA victim, the Gujarati UK Home Office lawyer, the Chinese trainee barrister, the retiring British Judge and the outdated legislation/act. Yes, that part, The Gujarati South African victim is used with cynicism
Why I used this is because I refused to behave as the victim in my case or in the courtroom even if that is what I kept being referred to in all the paperwork etc. I refuse to attach me to the word victim purely because I’ve chosen to begin the inner work of self-improvement and I didn’t want this word to dominate what it kept doing for the whole six months through all the terminology and all other things going on. I wanted to stay in my own power yet still fight what is true of this case, I believe this attitude did not work in my favour because when I was asked to respond to the Judge, I spoke fearlessly, clearly, and as an intelligent woman who was aware of her injustice (almost at the equal language as the Gujarati United Kingdom born Home Office Lawyer with no default in my English but not sounding British) I came across pretty intelligent to the Judge and not as the victim who should have been sitting there sad, quite, feeling self-pity, looking scared, having the whole pity look, let’s just say the whole outer casing that goes with the word “victim”. I had a smile on my face when I walked into the courtroom (not false just natural), I don’t know, Should I have pretended to be sad? Friends, I’m no actress… I can’t contain what comes naturally to me.
The Gujarati United Kingdom born Home Office Lawyer
So, I really wanted to meet Indians, all casts everyone from everywhere. By this time, I was so fed up that I remembered why I left my culture in the first place. It’s only today when I look back, I can tell you how much xenophobia I’ve faced (even with my own cast of people in Great Britain), compared to the time I was living in the UK when I just arrived there the first time, I was now living in Great Britain from the eyes of a grown woman, no longer the twenty-one-year-old who left her country with one thousand three hundred pounds to start a new life in Great Britain. So, this felt like a further slap in the face, why? The Gujarati United Kingdom born Home Office Lawyer was super cold, almost like she was perfectly groomed to eradicate immigrants and especially Indians even though her ancestors came from there. How did I know she was Gujarati? Trust me the name, surname, face, ways, all that is something I know in and out and also working with an Indian outsourcing company I became more knowledgeable. Still, I didn’t take it personally. I took it as the statement the Home Office made, here, get served by one of your own kind, born here. Every argument my Barrister was making was served with counter-power statement almost sounding like, “This is my place, it’s my entitlement, it’s my right, this is my courts, who the hell are you to come here.” What did I expect when I walked in? I don’t know maybe she was going to greet me with a “Namaste!” It was cold war for me. Oof, I still remember her face, her face was like, we’re not here to make friends. You’re the enemy.
The retiring British Judge
The case ended, I didn’t know where I was sitting in terms of feeling, all unfamiliar ground. Battered or “beaten.” I was left dumb a bit in terms of court terminologies and the words used in the court and wondered “Are we the beaten, the beaters or the batter?” – T. Dench Patel, 14 July 2020, 21:01 Oof, I don’t ever want you to ever feel that feeling, that feeling I felt when I walked out of that courtroom, even intuition wasn’t signalling anything. All I remember is I took God’s name, the angel’s names every name that was associated with the higher power before I walked into that room. When leaving I saw the barrister kind of trying to rub shoulders with the judge and if I knew what I know now back then, then I can now say, it’s more than just the client it’s got something to do with winning the case and climbing the ladder.
The barrister says, “The judge said he’s retiring in three months.” Of course, I didn’t know what to think anymore. I just tried blessing anything and everything trying best to transmit the positive from within me even though I did not feel it.
The feelings settled and I asked why do I feel like it’s been a war between lawyers and not about the actual cause?
Time goes by, and the final letter arrives, not a strong case for domestic violence along with a list of things and the subsequent legislation holding strong. Women’s group could not intervene, timing, I guess. Not enough preparation and knowingness around this whole thing. I wondered, how come, the police records were quite a file, how come?
Then I spent months paying back the lawyer.
The outdated legislation/act
So, here we are, the immigrations officer turns up at my apartment one fine day in October 2018. To that date from the court day in 2014, to this fine day, I was back and forth with the police, all contact my ex made online with me was updated on the records. He never stopped. A new lawyer wanted to help, I met him through a mutual friend two years back and he’s been helping me ever since. He took on my case (voluntarily) only because something about this case hit him and that I have spent a lot of money on it before. He said he became a lawyer because of what happened to his mum. First, we fought deportation then we appealed the case, and that’s when I could use all information that had come after the court day.
Now, this is important for you to know. More evidence could not be added to my case after the court date was given. So, a ton of evidence had been left out in the previous case before the court day because they draw a line from points of occurrences and the lawyer has to and used what they have to build a case, extra information just complicates everything.
So, my lawyer begins fighting my case, I provide everything this time until he draws the line. He sat up late nights with all my docs, printing, studying, building the case etc and put in my case and sends the application in before the beginning of November 2018.
Guess what dear friends,
A letter comes during February 2019, now listen to this. This is like a stupid evil game. The letter says, “Domestic violence had occurred in the relationship according to the application, but since we rejected your appeal on this law you filed your application on we could have still applied the evidence of domestic violence for this case. Your lawyer did not provide this.”
How can a lawyer provide any evidence to reveal physical violence when there were none and the United Kingdom’s domestic violence legislation and laws only uphold their justice if there was strong physical abuse, so knowing his work in and out he applied accordingly to the acts and legislation. How was my lawyer to know that in December 2018 the United Kingdom was going to change the legislation by finally adding in psychological abuse as part of domestic violence? The application already was in by November 2018.
So, what I wanted to demonstrate by writing this article to you is what I am saying comes from what I know, that our laws and legislations have doomed so many innocent people in this world.
This is one of the biggest reasons I wrote the books The South African: True Colours, The South African: Roamer and Light. All my books are available on Amazon, Kindle and some bookstores. The books assist in terms of unknown knowledge which you might require so that you can understand clearly how your kids and family members are affected by vicious circles and try to see signs and ways to obtain a much more intentional life.
Yours sincerely,
T. Dench Patel
Thank you for the comments and support. Thank you for offering to donate if there was a donate button on here. I prefer not to take donations. You can support by either purchasing one of my books (Paperback or Kindle), The South African: True Colours, The South African: Roamer or my children’s book Light. These books can be found on Amazon mainly and other sites in your country.
The audiobook for The South African: True Colours is available on iTunes, Apple and Audible. The South African: Roamer and Light will be released soon.
Note: Do keep referring back to this site as much as possible, as I grow, a more profound perspective may form and so I will always come back to each of these articles to re-evaluate them.
