The paperwork presented was very poorly written on. Lack of detailed explanation, etc. The Alleged officers did not present any proof of identity, badge and not even a business card.

Reportedly their overall behaviour was so unprofessional, abusive and unlawful that the residents of the residential dwellings who interacted with them seriously doubted they were actual civil servants at all and they thought they were being victim of some scam.

This is in contrast with the meetings we had with members of the city council throughout the UK; where respect and politeness is always maintained throughout a professional interaction.

 

Copy of the the poorly presented paperwork left by the alleged officers.

 

 

Requests under the freedom of information act. 

1. Under the freedom of information act we formally request a detailed explanation of the reasons for a surprise visit which lead to a series of clear abusive behaviours and clear illegal acts at our registered address in Nottingham.
2. We hold a copy of the phone conversation between myself and the alleged officer. As the reason of this surprise visit (that later turned out into an illegal entry of residential premises without a warrant as required by law) the officer stated that this was requested by the MHRA. This is not legally possible as we do not make any medical devices and the Beutyteck has not got any medical intended uses as confirmed by the MHRA several times in writing (we hold copies of correspondence with the MHRA). Also there are clear statements on our websites reminding the visitors of this fact. Therefore since this is a clear illegal pretext, under the freedom of information act we formally request all the documentation related to this request issued to Nottingham City Council by the MHRA to be disclosed to us.
3. Also under the freedom of information act we request the MHRA and Nottigham City Council to disclose all files and all documents already available in connection to this case and any documents which will be produced by both the MHRA and the Nottingham City Council in connection with Areton Ltd. up to now (15/04/2016) and in the future.

 

Complaints of acting clearly on illegal ground, disproportionately and abusive behaviour.

The alleged officer leading was supposedly named “Choi” the other alleged office was listening and following the other.

Definition of abuse of office and abuse of power of a public officer: “Any behaviour carried out under the normal working time which is out-with its duty, any requests made out of line with the duty of the specific case at hand, deliberately ignoring legitimate complaints made during its duties, acting outside its legislative duties, acting disproportionately and making clear misrepresentations, providing false information.” For more information on the UK legislation about the matter please click here.

Please note that the officers had no right to access a residential address without a warrant. Even the police is required by law to obtain a warrant to access any residential premises, it is preposterous that criminals have more protection from the police than legitimate business by the abuses of Trading Standards. Accessing residential  premises without consent is clearly illegal as these are not commercial premises. Please note that many companies in the UK use LEGALLY (several examples can be quoted should this become a court matter) postal addresses or other residential addresses as their registered corporate addresses and they operate or control the activities from other locations. Additionally a warrant would very unlikely to be granted for this purpose because entry to the promises are not required for the alleged purposes of the alleged officer. The information required could be obtained by reading the information on the websites and contacting us directly in advance for further advise.

 

We had a number of serious complaints from the people residing in the house at the time of this incident:

Please note that Unfortunately the person who dealt with these officers did not take a footage of this interaction. It was made a complaint that the person allegedly representing the Council had an “AGGRESSIVE AND ARROGANT” attitude. Allegedly, the alleged officer stepped into the premises while “ASKING TO GET IN WITHOUT OBTAINING PERMISSION” (asking for permission to enter while walking in anyway). Also, they had never presented any credentials to prove they are who they say they are. And they had never clearly explained the purpose of the visit before entry to the property. In fact, the officers were made aware that this was only a company register address and the director of the company was not there; and the property is a private dwelling before they entered the property; however, they still insisted to enter instead of contacting the company directly as told or leaving information to pass onto the director of the business. According to the resident the officer clearly took advantage of the good nature of the person in the house at the time. The resident at the time was taken by surprise because this is not a behaviour which is normal or considered appropriate and polite in any normal professional, formal or informal situation. This unusual type of behaviour, as the residents stated, had made them uncomfortable and unprepared to deal with.  The person in the house at the time felt as if she was being interrogated, while one of the alleged officers was trying to find contradictions to what the resident was saying to the alleged officers.

According to the complaint made to myself, one of the alleged officer tried to imply that the person in the premises at the time, was either running the business or representing the business or working in the business. The alleged officer (unwelcome inside the residential premises) apparently insisted in this continued assumption even if the person residing in the premises  insisted that she was not involved in the business at all and had other errands to do at the time. This made the resident very nervous and uncomfortable in her own home as she felt obliged to comply given the officer status declared verbally by the individuals. The resident complained about this specific behaviour as abusive behaviour. The Resident also stated that she become very suspicious about the identity of the individuals when the alleged council officer tried to “prove” that she is not a resident by stating that she was wearing a hat indoor. The resident at the time was very confused of the reason for the alleged office to try and disprove the fact that she resided in her home. In fact, she only just came back into the house to wait for the plumber to come at 10am, witnessed by another resident in the house; and she was about to get out to do her own things after giving the plumber access to the property. But the officer unprofessionally made an assumption and implied she was lying while she had no reasons to do so, which made her very uncomfortable and upset.

The resident also stated that she became more and more uncomfortable when the officer kept referring her as a representative of the company asking similar questions over and over again in an interrogatory fashion, to apparently try to have her fall in contradiction. The resident was baffled at this apparent erratic attitude of the alleged officer. Apparently the alleged officer was trying to establish by various means whether the resident was resident or not (which we know is irrelevant to the duty of the alleged officer anyway). Amongst the other comments made was that the officer although seemed to understand the English language seemed not to understand the clear repeated statements of the resident that she was not working for Areton Ltd or representing the company.

The resident complained that by taking advantage of the fact that she was distracted while trying to reach the Managing Director responsible for the company (me, Andreas Russo) the alleged officer started to open doors and gain  unauthorised access to the private parts of the domestic dwellings. Please note that it is a polite and normal behaviour to stay in close proximity of the person you are being hosted by and you must not violate the privacy of a private residential dwelling without a warrant; and clearly in this case it was even without a single appropriate or lawful reason. This clearly constitutes a violation of the privacy of the residential dwelling by an alleged officer. This also intensified the suspicion in connection with the identity of the individuals claiming to be working for the council. In retrospect the resident stated that even the police in the UK do not behave in such a rude manner when invited into residential premises, and on top of this in this case these people were uninvited and NOT welcomed.  She (the resident) made various complaints about the overall interrogation style deeply unsettling interaction she had to endure (in order to try and keep being polite) with this alleged council officer. Apparently the alleged officer asked unrelated questions in regards to the size of the house and other inappropriate questions.

A Nigerian Postgraduate student residing in the residential promises who also was in the premises stated that the alleged officers proceeded to ask him questions while he was in the Kitchen. Apparently according to the female resident this happened while she was trying to contact over the phone the Managing Director of the company and the alleged officers started to wonder about the residential premises opening doors, not only uninvited but in clear violation the residential privacy (commonly also referred and interpreted by the residents as to an abusive behaviour).

 

 

Phone conversation with the alleged trading standards officers.

Once the female resident managed to locate the Managing Director (me) over the phone she passed the call on to me. I was made aware of the abusive behaviour of the alleged officer/s and this set the conversation on an usual bad note. I tried to explain to the alleged officer over the phone that we keep all information of public domain on purpose and most of the information she was after was of public domain any way. I explained that their request was unlawful as the device BeutyTeck is a professional tool and not a consumer device and this was stated publicly throughout our websites videos, training platforms, on-line assessment on the use of the device etc. At this the alleged officer stated a clear false statement saying that the product is a consumer device due to the terms and conditions of sales (click here to access them) which she read in advance. I firmly stated that was more than misleading, and a false statement. I stated that if it were true she should have used it as evidence.  I tried to explain that all information including labels, declaration of conformity have already been submitted to the relevant authority, the HSE (health and Safety Executive) . The alleged officer proceeded to ask the name of the person we submitted the documentation to in the HSE, we stated that we would not disclose this information as she had no right or duty to ask this question (the device is out-with the scope of Trading Standards anyway) and also given that the matter was already been dealt with. We asked the alleged officer from trading standards who prompted this enquiry and the officer stated, this was done by the MHRA.  We were very surprised because (as we explained over the phone) we had also made several enquire with the MHRA in writing and they confirmed that none of the intended uses are considered medical. We have kept all the correspondence on file for future reference. For some strange reason once the phone conversation was over the alleged officer tried to refer to one of the residents in the house as “your colleague”.

This is a very isolated episode because we had several meetings with members of the city council in the past and they all showed clear identification or presented a document to identify them. Also they always conducted themselves in a polite and civil manner. It is also customary for them to leave business cards. In this case none of this happened increasing the doubt over the true identity of the individuals.

 

To summarise the behaviour of the alleged officer is believed to:

1. Have behaved in an abusive manner. Because, she has provided false information stating that we sell the device as a consumer product.  Acted unprofessionally all throughout the interactions. Made entrance without been granted permission. Made several inappropriate questions and requests according to the accounts made by the people legitimately in the residential promises at the time. Made a particular resident feel uncomfortable in her own premises without any real reason as she is unrelated to the business. She insisted in falsely insinuating one of the persons was connected in some way with the business even if the alleged officer was reminded several times she was not.  The unwelcome alleged officer took advantage of the distraction to contact the person in charge of the company to roam around unrestrained in private domestic dwellings opening doors on her own accord.
2. have caused a general unnecessary upset inside a normal private domestic dwellings. (Violation of basic civil rights), abusing of her alleged authority status.
3. have wasted public resources.
4. Additionally the visit was inappropriate as all the requests as the device in question is a professional tool as shown openly in the vast amount of information published on our website. Therefore it is out of the remit of trading standards anyway. This was confirmed by trading standards authorities themselves at the time of the voluntary submission of the relevant documents. This submission although is not required to be done before placing the product on the market it was carried out voluntarily before placing the product on the market and done by our own accord without the need for any formal or informal request. This is a standard routine of our due diligence.
5. Moreover ,even if the matter were a remit of the trading standards (which it is NOT) the behaviour is not justified any way. All the interactions conducted as formal request in writing, via email, or over the phone would have been appropriate. In such a case these series of incidents would not have occurred and would have not been reported.
6. Also this surprise visit and unauthorised entry was very likely illegal in any case and the people have not got the rights of entry into a residential dwelling unless a search warrant is granted. The police themselves do require a warrant to enter domestic dwellings, regardless of the activities are alleged or suspected to take place in those premises. The entry and search warrants are required to be obtained throughout the UK as a means of restraining such abuses like the one alleged to have taken place on the 14th of April 2016 to occur.  We believe the argument that residential premises become commercial because a business is registered there and allowing this type of behaviour is clearly unfunded .

 

All information relating to compliance has been already submitted in early 2015 to the relevant authorities voluntarily before the BeutyTeck was placed on the market.  This was done without any formal or informal request from the authorities as part of our “due diligence”.

If the purpose of the enquiry is just a simple compliance as stated in the paper work, a simple phone call or a request in writing or via email would have sufficed. There is no need to waste public funds and upset several people, by conducting such an unprofessionally and unlawfully visit; and violating civil rights through accessing residential premises without the required warrant.

Please note that the tone of this letter would have been completely different or we would not have been writing this compliant at all if the authorities had acted appropriately by simply contacting us in a civilised way without this “criminal interrogation/investigation attitude” as stated by some of the people in the house, acting unprofessionally, and making their way throughout the premises without authorisation by trying to catch random people completely unrelated off guard by bombarding them with unrelated random questions and desperately trying to pin duties to the residents who do not have clearly.  We are appalled by this type of behaviour and cannot find a justification. Some people involved in this absurd situation believes this is because the business is run by a foreigner and officer believes we are not aware of the UK legislation.

Areton Ltd. and the Director welcome any safety or legal challenges of any types in connection with ANY of our products and ANY of our activities (Including the involvement of any governmental institutions). In case of abuse of any kind, or misconduct which causes distress and loss of time will be recovered from the relative parties including authorities if required.  Besides, Areton Ltd. will participate in exhibitions in the aesthetic market as we deem fit to promote our electrical arcing devices.

Any behaviour which may be interpreted, suspected or identified as abusive made by anyone including civil servants will not be tolerated; will be investigated and published; and legal challenges may be brought to the courts if necessary (including individuals, companies and public authorities).  For the sake of clarity we remind that ANY public authorities (including civil servants paid with public funds) are subject to the same jurisdiction of the same courts (civil and criminal as already occurred in the past) which any other individual or business in the UK are subject to.

For Areton Ltd

The Managing Director

Andreas Russo