Whilst the Post Office was prosecuting Subpostmasters for crimes they didn’t commit, it was also asking its investigators if their suspects were “Negroid Types”. This was as recently as 2008. The document (which you can read here) has come to light as a result of diligent and tenacious FOI work by Eleanor Shaikh. In its…
On 2 June 2023 I sent a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Metropolitan Police, London’s police force. I asked: “Could you tell me when the police stopped using the word “negroid” in its racial identification codes? Please can you supply me with documentation supporting this?” To give the Met’s FOI department some context,…
The mystery of who at the Post Office (or Bond Dickinson) decided to shred minutes relating to an important meeting at the Post Office to discuss problems with the Horizon IT system got a little more dramatic today as Martin Smith, a solicitor working for Cartwright King, gave evidence. Smith was a prosecuting solicitor who…
Chris Aujard presents as thoughtful, intelligent and professional – a very different person to the one boasting about his crisis management skills shortly after leaving the Post Office in 2015. Older and wiser, perhaps, or better at image projection. Aujard was involved in a deliberate attempt to frustrate Second Sight’s independent investigation into the Post…
This short series of blog posts reveals the contents of a letter sent by the barrister Paul Marshall to the Post Office Horizon Inquiry. The letter shares Marshall’s concerns at the Post Office/Government compensation schemes and the way they are being run. It was written on 9 January 2024. Part 1 deals with the section…
On 14 May 2021 Teju Adedayo had her criminal conviction quashed at Southwark Crown Court. Parmod Kalia, who had been convicted of theft, had his conviction quashed alongside Teju. In 2005 Teju took responsibility for £52,864 going missing from her branch and provided the Post Office with a “confession”, explaining she took £50,000 out of…
In the course of preparing for a recent Sunday Times piece into the latest on the Post Office disaster, I spoke to a number of people. For reasons of space, many of their contributions were edited down to a couple of short quotes, or they simply didn’t make it into the piece at all. Nonetheless,…
Following a Q&A with one member of the independent Horizon Compensation Advisory Board (Lord Arbuthnot) earlier this week, I am delighted to bring you another. Richard Moorhead is Professor of Legal Ethics at Exeter University and a respected industry blogger. He has taken a close professional interest in the legal failings which contributed to the…
Last week the Sunday Times asked me to write a piece about the Post Office scandal. The result can be read here. In the course of researching the article I picked up a lot of interesting material which, for reasons of space, didn’t make the final cut. Rather than let some good stuff go to…