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Issy Hogg
Read More…: Issy HoggIssy Hogg, the criminal defence solicitor for Subpostmasters Jo Hamilton and Seema Misra, has sadly passed away. She was 64 years old. Issy (pronounced “Izzy”) was diagnosed with terminal cancer in March 2020, just before the first Covid lockdown. She was given six months to live – perhaps longer with some challenging treatment. Issy decided to take the treatment and live life to the fullest, documenting her “odyssey” on Facebook and in an extraordinary self-published book, Covid Cancer Craic: Coping with a death sentence through memories and laughter, which is available on Amazon. On 26 November, Seema Misra wrote on…
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Proposed amendment to legal presumption about the reliability of computers
Read More…: Proposed amendment to legal presumption about the reliability of computersI am grateful to the journalist Tom Webb, who specialises in data protection, for alerting me to an amendment to the Data (Use and Access) Bill, currently going through the House of Lords. It concerns the legal presumption that “mechanical instruments” (which seems to be taken to include computer networks) are working properly if they look to the user like they’re working properly. This has come in for quite a kicking in recent years. I was first alerted to it in 2013 by the barrister Stephen Mason. Mason has spent longer than a decade telling anyone who will listen it…
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Dame Sandra Dawson vs Paula Vennells’ lawyer
Read More…: Dame Sandra Dawson vs Paula Vennells’ lawyerI am publishing this blog post largely as an excuse to use one of my favourite screenshots of the entire Inquiry. See above. Corporate governance experts Dame Sandra Dawson and Dr Katy Steward wrote two lengthy reports about the Post Office’s corporate governance responsibilities and failings when it came to the scandal. On 12 and 13 November they were invited to answer questions about them. For a deep dive into their findings, please read this forensic and frankly much more sensible substack post by Professor Richard Moorhead. For those of you who sometimes just like a snapshot of esoteric weirdness,…
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Post Office Inquiry costs to top £50m
Read More…: Post Office Inquiry costs to top £50mThe cost of the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry is likely to be well over £50,000,000. Reports for the last financial year alone reveal the Inquiry cost £26,198,625 to run, more than the previous three years combined. Figures quietly published on the Inquiry website show that in the twelve months to the end of March 2024, £8m was spent on Inquiry lawyers (with a generous £1.7m going to the Chair, Sir Wyn Williams, and his assessors). Core participant lawyers cost a further £6,149,696 with “external document review lawyers” costing £5,523,680. The first three years of the Inquiry’s existence to the…
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Chris Head: an open letter to Gareth Thomas, Post Office minister
Read More…: Chris Head: an open letter to Gareth Thomas, Post Office ministerIn 2006, Chris Head became Britain’s youngest Subpostmaster at the age of 18. He was given the keys to the West Bolden branch near Sunderland. According to an interview he gave to The Sun newspaper, Chris had small discrepancies from the start of his tenure. In 2014, Chris says the Post Office’s Horizon IT system at his branch “went out of control“. One week Chris had a £40,000 shortfall. Within a few weeks it had more than doubled to £88,000. Chris was suspended in 2015 and the Post Office pursued him through the civil courts for the cash they say…
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Lisa Busch KC
Read More…: Lisa Busch KCLisa Busch KC, one of the most significant unsung heroes in the Post Office scandal, has died after a short illness. Busch represented former Subpostmasters Seema Misra, Janet Skinner and Tracy Felstead at the Court of Appeal Hamilton hearings in 2021 after the barrister Paul Marshall and his junior Flora Page were forced to stand down. It was Busch’s advocacy, using arguments grounded in Marshall and Page’s work, which persuaded the Court of Appeal that the Post Office perpetrated a Category 2 abuse of process in its prosecution of innocent people. I watched Ms Busch make her arguments in court…
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Kemi Badenoch: I’m Great
Read More…: Kemi Badenoch: I’m GreatThe Kemi Badenoch Show came to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry today, along with significant media interest and attendance from a good number of Subpostmasters in the hearing room. Badenoch, as leader of the Conservative Party, is a potential future Prime Minister. She was, until July this year, the Business Secretary. Badenoch had the advantage of becoming (on 7 Feb 2023) a senior minister with responsibility for the Post Office whilst the public inquiry was already up and running. That meant she knew she would be questioned on oath about every single email and pronouncement she made whilst in…
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Make Good: the Post Office scandal musical
Read More…: Make Good: the Post Office scandal musicalThe third theatrical production concerning the Post Office scandal came to London yesterday. Make Good played to a sold-out Omnibus Theatre in Clapham. The production is put together by a theatre company called Pentabus, with a script from Jeanie O’Hare and music and lyrics by Jim Fortune. Both write in the programme: “This project began with the human impact statements from the Inquiry, followed by a lot of legal and computer stuff. Then when we felt we knew what questions to ask, we spoke to ex Subpostmistress Rubbina Shaheen in Pentabus home county of Shropshire. Her generosity in sharing her…
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Chisholm: helping Paula Vennells fail upwards
Read More…: Chisholm: helping Paula Vennells fail upwardsSir Alex Chisholm KCB was one of the most powerful government civil servants during a crucial phase of the Post Office scandal, and to nerds like me, his evidence was always going to be of some interest. Chisholm made it quite clear (watch it here) he was crawling all over the Post Office’s disastrous defence to the Bates v Post Office group litigation, but that every duff decision was its to make alone. “I was very clear in my advice to the Secretary of State”, Chisholm told the Inquiry, “that the department need to be a neutral party in relation to…
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Hollinrake’s legacy: Postmasters dying without full redress
Read More…: Hollinrake’s legacy: Postmasters dying without full redressThe day began with a tolling of the metaphorical bell. Before the former Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake gave evidence, the chair of the Post Office Inquiry, Sir Wyn Williams, told us that another former Subpostmaster has died, again without receiving full and final compensation. Her name was Carol Riddell. She was the Subpostmaster at East Bolden, near Sunderland, between 1992 and 2000. Sir Wyn told the Inquiry: “During her time as sub-postmistress, Mrs Riddell had to contend with a very serious armed robbery at her post office, during the course of which she was blinded by having acid thrown…
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