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The Ismay Report
Read More…: The Ismay ReportThis is Rod Ismay. In 2010 he wrote what has become known as the Ismay Report. It was written as an internal Post Office response to the formation of the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance, the questions raised by MPs about the Horizon IT system and the first journalistic investigation into the Post Office’s wild, decade-long prosecution spree. The Ismay Report only became public in 2021, during the Court of Appeal proceedings, which eventually saw 39 Subpostmasters have their convictions quashed. I cannot understand why it was not disclosed during Bates v Post Office at the High Court in 2018 or…
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Andrew Winn: the Over-promoted Postie
Read More…: Andrew Winn: the Over-promoted PostieI first became fascinated by the Post Office’s willingness to place loyalty and length of service over ability in 2018 at the Bates v Post Office litigation at the High Court. During the litigation’s first trial, a succession of Post Office witnesses took the stand. Some were sharp, some were the dimmest of dim bulbs, but all had one thing in common – the extraordinarily long amount of time they had been working for the Post Office. The smallest period of unbroken service was ten years. The longest nearly forty. Almost all had worked their way up after joining the…
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Post Office v Castleton – a second category Abuse of Process?
Read More…: Post Office v Castleton – a second category Abuse of Process?An extraordinary piece of evidence has been raised at the Post Office Horizon Inquiry. It came during the day long car crash which was Andrew Winn’s testimony. Winn was a hopelessly over-promoted former postie who eventually fetched up reporting to the Post Office’s Head of Product and Branch Accounting, Rod Ismay (author of the infamous Ismay report). Winn admitted he was completely unsuitable for the role he found himself in, which required a detailed knowledge of the Horizon IT system (he had almost none). More on Mr Winn here. I want to draw your attention to a document mentioned by…
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Pushing the Neidle: “Don’t pay the tax now. Don’t take any step now, because I think there will be an exemption”
Read More…: Pushing the Neidle: “Don’t pay the tax now. Don’t take any step now, because I think there will be an exemption”Nadhim Zahawi’s nemesis Dan Neidle, founder of Tax Policy Associates very kindly gave his time to appear on the latest episode of Investigating the Post Office Scandal. Dan got involved in this story after reading Tom Witherow’s 16 Feb article about Francis Duff in the Daily Mail. Mr Duff, a former Postmaster, was awarded £330,000 by the Post Office’s Historical Shortfall Scheme. No sooner had he received the offer, he was told that £251,359 would be taken from him to resolve his bankruptcy and a further £71,533 would be recouped by HMRC in tax, leaving the 80 year old Mr…
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Inquiry re-start preview
Read More…: Inquiry re-start previewPart 2 of Phase 3 of the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry gets underway today. There will be three more weeks of evidence before another break until May, punctuated by another compensation hearing on 27 April. There are going to be some intriguing witnesses over the next three weeks. I have picked out a few. Richard Roll – Thu 9 March Richard Roll is something of a hero of this story and gets chapter to himself in my book. He is the Fujitsu whistleblower who appeared on our first Panorama programme and subsequently became a star witness in the Horizon…
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Isabella Wall
Read More…: Isabella WallI was contacted by Gavin Wall in September last year in my role as a trustee of the Horizon Scandal Fund. Gavin’s mum Isabella had been diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. Isabella was one of the 555 litigants who took the Post Office to court and won in 2019. The fund provided some financial help to Isabella, but shortly before Christmas Gavin wrote to let us know his mum had sadly died. I asked Gavin if he would consider posting a tribute on this website. It follows below: Isabella Wall passed away peacefully on 19 December 2022 after a short…
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Altman General Review finally published
Read More…: Altman General Review finally publishedOn Friday, a key document in understanding the Post Office scandal was brought to the surface. It is the 15 October 2013 General Review into the Post Office’s past prosecutions and future prosecution policy, written by Brian Altman KC. The Review came up almost in passing during former Post Office auditor Chris Gilding’s evidence to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry*. As soon as it had been mentioned, I asked the inquiry to publish the Review, which they kindly did. I have published a searchable version of the Review below this blog post. What’s the Review about? Brian Altman KC…
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A Christmas message to the Post Office CEO
Read More…: A Christmas message to the Post Office CEOSusan Craddock (above) has multiple sclerosis. She runs Largs Post Office in Ayrshire on Scotland’s West Coast. She cc’d me in the letter below. When I asked her if I could publish it she agreed, describing herself and many other Postmasters as “desperate”. There is something Dickensian in the tone of Susan’s letter. I couldn’t help thinking of Bob Cratchit and Ebeneezer Scrooge when I read it. Maybe it’s the time of year. I asked the Post Office for a response to Susan’s letter, ideally from the Post Office CEO, Nick Read, himself. They have provided me with a statement…
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Government ‘unveils’ compensation scheme for Subpostmasters in Bates v Post Office litigation
Read More…: Government ‘unveils’ compensation scheme for Subpostmasters in Bates v Post Office litigationThe government has announced some details of its compensation scheme for the civil claimants in the Bates v Post Office litigation. You can read the ‘process document’ here. The scheme will be run by BEIS, the government’s business department, and overseen by an ‘independent advisory board’ to ‘ensure the scheme works effectively’. Although there is no mention of the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance in the press release, the independent advisory board includes Lord Arbuthnot and Kevan Jones MP, both of whom have campaigned for more than a decade for Subpostmasters. The new business minister, Grant Shapps says: “I am acutely…
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From the archives…
Read More…: From the archives…The gentleman behind this website – Andrew Neale, Master of the Dark Arts – is currently engaged in a mammoth project which involves taking every single secret email newsletter I have written and converting it into an archive. Each newsletter will then get posted up on this site once it is six months old. A lot of interesting reportage and information has been exclusive to newsletter subscribers (as it should be), but I think there is some sense in ensuring the older posts can be made available once they have lost their immediate news value. For example, nearly four years…
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