Council says no eviction warrant sought as it defends handling of SEND family’s case

Hackney Council has said it has not applied for a warrant to remove a family with an autistic child from a home they have occupied for nearly 20 years, disputing several accounts of a case the borough’s Green Mayor backed before taking office.

A court hearing on 6 July concerned an application by Charity Oppong to remain in the property, which was dismissed, the council said. It added that it had “not yet applied for a warrant to reclaim the home”.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) has reported that the council secured a fresh warrant on or around 6 July. However the council disputes this, saying no warrant has yet been sought.

The council also rejected the suggestion that Ms Oppong had ever been its tenant. A spokesperson said she had “never” been acknowledged as a tenant and was not paying rent, but was an unauthorised occupant paying “use and occupation” charges — payments made by someone occupying a property without a formal tenancy.

This is disputed by supporters, who say that after identifying in 2021 that Ms Antwi was no longer resident, the council issued Ms Oppong with a renting card recognising her as a paying tenant, even as it pursued eviction on the grounds of tenancy fraud.

Asked about the impact of a move on Ms Oppong’s seven-year-old son, Kayden, who is autistic, the council said it had a legal duty to ensure any offer of a home to a homeless family was suitable, taking account of size, affordability, health needs and location. It said that while it was legally required to make only one offer of temporary accommodation, it had made an exception in this case.

The council said it had offered the family a four-bedroom, ground-floor home at Woodberry Down in the north of the borough, which it described as council-owned and suited to the family’s medical needs, adding that such properties were in very short supply. The family had previously been offered a home in Newham and, in March 2025, one in Walthamstow.

The Mayor of Hackney, Zoë Garbett, who as Green co-leader before May’s election urged the previous administration to grant Ms Oppong the tenancy, said her office was “listening to the Oppong family and their representatives, and trying to find a solution that meets their wants and needs”.

“The housing crisis is real, and this is the brutal impact that it has: pitting families on waiting lists and in desperate need against one another,” the Mayor said. “Systemic problems require systemic answers. As we fight for that nationally, we will continue to do everything we can for the Oppong family and countless others locally, to minimise the harms they face every day and correct this injustice.”

The Mayor’s office did not say whether the pre-election pledge still stood. Before the local elections, deputy Mayor Cllr Dylan Law said a Green administration would “definitely amend the succession rules” to let the family stay.

How the case began

Ms Oppong moved into the flat nearly 20 years ago, when her sister-in-law, Janet Antwi, held the tenancy. According to the council, its Fraud Investigation Team contacted Ms Antwi in America in September 2021, and she confirmed she was not returning to the UK, had been away from the home for a considerable period, wished for the council to take the property back and would not contest proceedings.

The home was then classified as abandoned and Ms Oppong treated as an unauthorised occupant. The council said subletting is a criminal offence and that it has a legal duty to allocate social housing strictly in line with its policies.

An earlier warrant, granted in 2025, was suspended by a judge in March following two “eviction resistance” actions in which activists, joined by Green councillors, blocked bailiffs from entering the property.

The London Renters Union (LRU), which has campaigned for the family alongside Ms Garbett and Cllr Law, said the council “hadn’t taken the family’s needs into account”.

“Hackney Council needs to stop their attempts to evict children from a home where they have lived all their lives. Council officers have the power to let the family stay but are choosing to go ahead. We call on them to listen to the community and stop wasting resources on an unfair eviction,” a spokesperson said.

Supporters have warned that a move would be damaging for Kayden, taking him “over an hour away” from St Paul’s and St Michael’s Primary School, where he is settled, and have cited a King’s College London report warning that neurodivergent children face “torture-like” conditions in temporary accommodation. Sudden changes in routine can be deeply distressing for autistic children.

The council said it was unaware of any proposal for Kayden to travel by bus with an assessor to test the family’s account of his response to public transport, and that no such exercise had taken place. It added that, as the family has a child with special needs attending school in Hackney, it had offered to help them apply for home-to-school transport.