-
Read Admits All 736 Post Office Convictions Are Unsafe
Read More…: Read Admits All 736 Post Office Convictions Are UnsafeI am not going to attempt to rehash the entire BEIS select committee hearing earlier today as you can still watch it in full here and you can read the transcript here. If you want a blow-by-blow account you can read my live-tweets, carefully collated into a single, readable web-page by the brilliant thread reader app here. The news lines which came out of the sessions (in my mind, anyway) are: 1) Nick Read describing all the 736 convictions of Subpostmasters (prosecuted at a rate of one a week between 2000 and 2013) as “unsafe”. Up till now we knew…
-
Post Office CEO in the Hot Seat
Read More…: Post Office CEO in the Hot SeatThe continued unwillingness of any Post Office executive, past or present, to be interviewed by broadcast journalists on the subject of the Post Office Horizon scandal speaks volumes. We hacks are therefore wholly reliant on MPs to do the job for us. Execs can refuse journalists’ interview requests with impunity. It is rather more difficult to turn down a parliamentary select committee, which has the power to summon people to attend. If someone refuses a formal parliamentary summons, they can be held in contempt. Being in contempt of parliament could lead to fines or imprisonment, but as this entertaining article…
-
Look North 16 Dec 2021
Read More…: Look North 16 Dec 2021This news report by Mark Ansell features former Postmasters Harjinder Butoy and Alison Hall with a contextual cameo from me at the end.
-
“This guy should never be let near a witness-box again”
Read More…: “This guy should never be let near a witness-box again”The above photo is of Dr Robert Worden, who was an expert witness for the Post Office in the Horizon trial, which was part of the Bates v Post Office group litigation. You can read about my experience of watching Dr Worden be cross-examined here, and you can read Mr Justice Fraser’s thoughts on the value of Dr Worden’s work here. There follows, reprinted with permission, an article published yesterday by Jeremy Dawson. Jeremy lives in Australia and holds a PhD in Pure Maths and a Diploma of Law. He has spent 5 years in research and practical statistics, 3…
-
Compensation, Compensation, Compensation
Read More…: Compensation, Compensation, CompensationTuesday 14 December 2021 was a busy day in Westminster during which three sources of compensation for three distinct groups of Subpostmasters were discussed in various parliamentary corners. At just after 9am yesterday morning the Business (Postal Affairs) Minister Paul Scully (left) published a written statement announcing the government was going to underwrite compensation for Subpostmasters whose convictions have been quashed – or in minister-speak: “making funding available to facilitate Post Office to make final compensation payments to postmasters whose convictions have been overturned.” We knew the Post Office was unable to meet its compensation obligations which had arisen during…
-
More Opposed Cases Fail at Appeal
Read More…: More Opposed Cases Fail at AppealTwo Subpostmasters appealing their convictions at the Court of Appeal have failed to have them quashed. Roger Allen and Alan Robinson, who were prosecuted by the Department for Work and Pensions, were told today by a panel of three judges that Horizon evidence was not essential to their prosecution, and therefore their convictions would stand. They join Wendy Cousins, Stanley Fell and Neelam Hussain, whose convictions were upheld on 23 April 2021. In April 2004 Roger Allen was sentenced to six months in prison at Norwich Crown Court after pleading guilty to the theft of £37,000 between 30 June 2000…
-
Govt Reverts to “Full and final” Mantra
Read More…: Govt Reverts to “Full and final” MantraIt seems the government has given up on trying (if it ever was) to find a way to offer proper compensation to the 555 claimants who settled with the Post Office for £57.75m in December 2019. As we know, £46m of that compensation was spent on lawyers and legal success fees with each claimant receiving and average of £20,000 each. When I interviewed the Business Minister Paul Scully for Episode 11 of the Great Post Office Trial in May this year, he told me (during a section which I’m not sure made the final cut in full): “We want to…
-
Inquiry Confirms All Compensation Is Under Scrutiny
Read More…: Inquiry Confirms All Compensation Is Under ScrutinyA week is certainly a long time in this story. Last Friday I was telling you Alan Bates had pulled the JFSA from the Statutory Inquiry into the Post Office Horizon Scandal because scrutiny of the compensation for the 555 was not explicitly present in the inquiry chair’s List of Issues. Bates encouraged his members to stop co-operating with the inquiry, asking them to: “withdraw your applications and show solidarity over the failure of the Inquiry to be concerned in the slightest of the victims’ greatest priority and most desperate need.” This provoked the inquiry chair to ask Howe and…
-
Seven More Convictions Quashed
Read More…: Seven More Convictions QuashedSeven more Subpostmaster convictions have been quashed at the Court of Appeal, bringing the total number to 72. This represents just under a tenth of the 738 people convicted using Horizon evidence between 2000 and 2015 when the Post Office stopped prosecuting people. Pauline Stonehouse, Greg Harding, Angela Sefton, Anne Nield, Janine Powell, Marisa Finn and Jamie Dixon were told Horizon evidence was essential in the cases against them, and there was inadequate investigation and/or disclosure in all cases. In two cases – Greg Harding in 2010 and Jamie Dixon in 2013, the Post Office only accepted a guilty plea…
-
JFSA Withdraws From Inquiry
Read More…: JFSA Withdraws From InquiryFounder says “the powers that be have decided the real and desperate needs of the victims are of no importance.” Alan Bates, the leader and founder of the Justice for Subpostmasters’ Alliance has decided not to co-operate with Sir Wyn Williams’ statutory inquiry into the Post Office Horizon IT disaster. Yesterday, Sir Wyn published the List Of Issues the inquiry will pursue. Alan Bates says the list contains “just two paragraphs purporting to deal with financial redress. Neither of them have any relevance at all to the victims group – probably, because in their eyes, we have had full and…
Archives
Most Popular
Tags
Alan Bates alice perkins Alwen Lyons Andrew Winn Andy Dunks Andy Parsons Bates v Post Office BBC Bonusgate CCRC Chris Aujard Clarke Advice DBT False Accounts Fujitsu Gareth Jenkins Grabiner HCAB Horizon Inquiry Interim Report Janet Skinner Jarnail Singh Kevin Hollinrake Lee Castleton Lord Arbuthnot Nicki Arch Nick Read Noel Thomas Paula Vennells Paul Marshall Post Office Rebecca Thomson Receipts and Payments mismatch bug Richard Moorhead Rob Wilson Rod Ismay Rodric Williams Second Sight Seema Misra Simon Clarke Susan Crichton Swift Review Tom Cooper Tracy Felstead
Categories
- Appeals (18)
- Blog (17)
- Book (11)
- Civil litigation (47)
- Compensation (44)
- Corporate (23)
- Fujitsu (32)
- Inquiry (121)
- IT (40)
- Live Events (6)
- Podcast (7)
- Police investigation (13)
- Prosecutions (47)