Thought the story of the medical secretary who lay dead in her London flat for 1/2 years couldn’t be more shaming? Read on
In March, we exposed the failings behind this horrifying parable of loneliness and neglect. Now there are haunting new twists
might think, the Met also won’t be taking any further action in relation to another bizarre element of this case. One that casts more questions over the beleaguered force’s competence.
Prompted by another neighbour’s concerns, police were first persuaded to visit the stinking flat in October 2020. According to this neighbour, officers then reported they had ‘made contact’ with the occupant and established she was ‘safe and well’.
Peabody has confirmed this account to me, saying the police’s message of reassurance led them to believe ‘everything was fine’.
If true, this seems astonishing. Why would the officers have said that when, by that time, Miss Seleoane had been dead for a year? Cause for an inquiry, surely? Not in the eyes of the Met. Though they admit to attending the address that month — on two separate occasions — they have told the Mail ‘it was not deemed by the officers that there were sufficient grounds to enter the premises’.
The force’s Directorate of Professional Standards has looked at the actions of the officers involved, they added in a statement, and ‘not found any reason to launch an investigation’.
But back to that letter from Mr Cazar. In it, he acknowledged people living in the housing block had suffered ‘distress’ and been offered free counselling. However, angry residents claim he made other promises which haven’t been kept.
For one thing, they were assured that Miss Seleoane’s flat would soon be refurbished, by ‘very experienced contractors’ who would handle their task ‘sensitively’. This week, however, one resident sent me a new photograph of that locked door.
It looks exactly as it did after her body was found, with the battering ram’s cracks unrepaired, instructions scrawled on the cracked paintwork, and rivet holes around the frame.
This seems to be yet another disgraceful lapse, given some of Miss Seleoane’s neighbours are still struggling to overcome the trauma of living beside a corpse.
One mother says her children are tormented by nightmares.
‘Everyone living on Sheila’s floor has asked to be rehoused in another block, but nothing at all has been done,’ says one resident, who intends to take the matter to the housing ombudsman after the inquest and report are published.
‘Peabody says they plan to refurbish the flat and re-let it. But to my mind it is a grave. Nobody should have to live there. It ought to be left permanently empty.
‘The trust is supposed to care about its residents — that’s why it’s there — but it obviously couldn’t care less about us. It just wants it all to be forgotten.’
Perhaps so. Whether or not this is a fair assumption, in South Africa, at least, Miss Seleoane will be remembered. At her second funeral, I am proud to say, a family speaker expressed gratitude to the Mail for our role in delivering her back to her ancestors.
‘It was a beautiful service. We will be forever thankful for what you did for Sheila and for our family,’ said Miss Seleoane’s niece, Itumeleng, a school library assistant, who organised the event.
Peabody has repeatedly expressed contrition over this case. Doubtless it is genuine. Barely a month after Miss Seleoane’s body was found, however, the trust came under scrutiny again.
Inside Housing magazine revealed that the body of another of its residents, Terry Watkins, who was in his 60s, had been found in his low-rent flat in Westminster — several months after his neighbours began raising concerns about his welfare with Peabody.
THIS time it will not shoulder any blame. A spokesman insisted that the circumstances were very different, adding that it was ‘difficult to see how we could have known about this situation’.
In relation to Miss Seleoane’s case, he said there was no evidence that anyone had entered her flat. Police had ‘declined to investigate this’.
Responding to residents’ other complaints, he said it might have been ‘insensitive’ to refurbish Miss Seleoane’s flat before she had been laid to rest in South Africa, but the work would be done.
Rehousing requests had not been ignored. Peabody was ‘working with one resident’ but others rejected the new homes offered.
This venerable old organisation promises to learn lessons from the forthcoming inquest and independent report.
We must hope it does.
Yet I fear that no official inquiry will answer the questions of a faraway family with very different values to ours.
These community-minded people may never understand how, in Britain — a country they so much admire — a decent, professional woman could be allowed to vanish without so much as a care.
DEAR BEL,
I AM at my wits’ end and angry at the lack of a peaceful life. I have moved home twice because of very rude, ignorant, selfish neighbours and I thought my last home was going to be the haven I needed.
I have severe mental health issues, mainly because of the trauma of the previous neighbours. I used to be woken at 6.30am to very loud music above and below me. Arbitration did not resolve the issues, so I had to move house.
My second home was fine for a couple of years, until one neighbour retired and decided to ‘save’ a parking space for his 40-year-old daughter until she returned home. When she was due home, he would rush to move his car so she could have a parking space.
Eventually, I had to have a disabled bay fitted by the council because of my disability, but when another neighbour (with Parkinson’s) took to hitting my car every time he returned home, I started to feel quite down-heartened.
This took its toll on my mental health and I made numerous attempts at my life.
But then I moved again, this time out of London to a quiet cul-de-sac with a driveway to my detached house. It was bliss for a few years. Then neighbours moved and new people moved in. Nightmare. They park over dropped kerbs and block my drive. The council refuses to assist me.
A new tenant next door has two children who constantly hit my fence with their footballs. They’ve even hit me in the face.
She is a youngish woman who has a ‘man friend’ who stays over for ‘favours’. She plays loud music while mowing the lawn.
Her man friend moves his cars so she has no problem exiting her driveway. Yet he often blocks mine and is aggressive.
Will I ever find peace and quiet and the space to enjoy where I live? Or am I chasing something that will never exist? All I want is to feel comfortable and relaxed in my own home without interruptions from these ignorant, rude people.
I know this is a widespread issue, but also see neighbourhoods where everyone gets along. I feel so sad I have not achieved this.
I’ve tried the friendly approach, but nobody wants to know. What is the answer?
JENNIFER
Your letter has a similar tone to one I received from TN, complaining about the vindictive behaviour of several shop assistants and also mentioning suicide, mental health, pettymindedness and victimisation.
Both you and TN ask for advice I find it almost impossible to give, for fear of rubbing salt into wounds.
Both situations are worthy of compassion, yet also very frustrating.
It seems obvious to me that you would both benefit from serious help from professionals, since it sounds as if you carry the seeds of unhappiness deep within.
Perhaps you know the story of the person arriving in a new place who is asked what the people were like in the last town she lived in. She replies in terms similar to yours and TN’s: that the people were unfriendly, selfish, mean-minded, bigoted, bullying — entirely horrible.
Then she inquires what the folk are like in this new place.
‘oh, unfriendly, selfish, mean-minded, bigoted, bullying — entirely horrible’ is the reply. of course.
Do you see? Yes, it is true that many people suffer with appalling neighbours who make their lives miserable. But your email clangs out warning bells.
Those prurient words, ‘ man friend’
and ‘favours’ are unpleasant. How many footballs actually ‘hit you in the face’?
What superhuman sight makes you so sure that, in those other places, ‘everybody gets along?’ Might they just try hard to live and let live?
And if you were to move into such an imaginary place, would you still find your neighbours ‘rude and ignorant’? It worries me that you throw off: ‘ I made numerous attempts at my life.’ It sounds just one vague cry for help in a letter full of them.
I don’t doubt that you find neighbours difficult, but what do you mean by, ‘I’ve tried the friendly approach’? What form did it take?
So strong is the vein of angry unhappiness and misanthropy running through your email, it is impossible for me to imagine how you would define friendship. Easter eggs for those footballing boys? A glass of wine with the ‘youngish woman’ while you chat to her about parking woes and ask for a bit of help? A cheery wave to her boyfriend, rather than a glower?
I wonder if all your anger is really an expression of loneliness and that your dislike for others is (sadly) transferred from yourself.
I do feel sorry that discontentment seems to follow you wherever you live, just as I pity the mental disturbance that feels so evident within that other letter, from TN.
But all I can suggest is that both of you consider that the fault may lie as much within you as with other people, so that seeking proper counselling for these issues would be a positive step forward.