Good morning

Some very sad news. Issy Hogg, the criminal defence solicitor for Subpostmasters Jo Hamilton and Seema Misra (amongst others), has sadly passed away.

Like Lisa Busch, Issy was another unsung legal hero of this scandal. You can read more about Issy’s life and work here.

If you have any tributes to Issy you would like me to add to my blog post, please hit reply with whatever you want to say.

Lords A-mending

I am grateful to the journalist Tom Webb, who kindly got in touch to alert me to a proposed amendment to the infamous legal presumption about the reliability of computers. Lord Arbuthnot is on manoeuvres again.

You can read more about that here.

Best Screenshot of the Inquiry

I have published the transcript of an exchange which took place on the last day of Phase 7 of the Inquiry. IT was between Dame Sandra Dawson and Paula Vennells’ barrister Paul Casey.

I have posted the exchange partly because whatever Vennells is up to is of interest, but also because it gave me the opportunity to use a picture of Dame Sandra Dawson and Dr Katy Steward looking utterly bemused by Mr Casey’s line of questioning.

Dawson and Steward were commissioned by the Inquiry to write two reports about the expected shape of corporate governance at the Post Office (Report 1) and where it went wrong (Report 2). I have not yet read Report 2, but Professor Richard Moorhead has, so you can read his clever and sober analysis here. I am just enjoying looking at the screenshot of Steward’s expression during Casey’s questioning. It’s priceless.

Otley in the Cold

Thanks very much to everyone who came to the Otley Courthouse on 22 November to hear Janet Skinner talk about her experiences at the hands of the Post Office. Especially given the theatre’s boiler had packed up and the room temperature required everyone to huddle together in their coats whilst sending out the youngest and fittest among them to raid the bar for hot drinks. It was, nonetheless, a powerful occasion.

One attendee (a secret emailer – hello!) wrote to me afterwards to say:

“Janet has lost years that she’ll never get back (as you pointed out) and she’s suffered beyond belief – but what an amazing role model for her children (and an example to us all) – standing up for herself when the odds were completely stacked against her.

I can’t believe that she’s now able to retell parts of the story with such humour – I loved her anecdote about throwing her handbag containing house keys to her partner from the dock after sentencing.

“Grace under pressure” as Hemingway would put it.

She should be immensely proud.”

Hear hear. Thanks to Janet and the dozens of people who travelled huge distances (Scotland, NW England, East Anglia, London) to be in Otley that day. I learned new things about Janet’s story and it was a delight to meet so many people I’ve corresponded with over the last few years.

New Gender Blog

I spent two days at the Supreme Court last week live-tweeting their attempts to work out what a woman is. Their lord and ladyships called it “complicated”. Some feel it’s pretty obvious:

UK law might decide to depart from biological reality when the Supreme Court makes its decision next year. To follow this and other related matters I have started a gender blog, excitingly called Nick’s Gender Blog.

If you are at all interested in the issue of allowing biological males into women’s spaces and sport, giving distressed young people powerful hormones and the practice of shouting down anyone who disagrees as a bigot, please have a click around.

It doesn’t look very good and its content is miniscule, but so was Post Office Scandal when it first started. Three years down the line I think we’re starting to crack it.

If you have the time and inclination, please also consider signing up to the Gender Blog Newsletter which sends you new blog posts and a free newsletter (when I eventually get round to writing it).

I have a feeling the gender blog newsletter will be even more sporadic than this one. Let’s see. Hopefully it will grow to become vaguely useful.

That’s me for a bit

Unless something spectacular happens and even if it does I am unlikely to send you another newsletter until the Inquiry closing statements come round in a fortnight’s time. If you feel you will miss my journalistic input terribly, please do tune in to Times Radio at 10pm this Thursday and then at 1pm Mon – Thu next week when I will be sitting in for Andrew Neil.

Thanks again for your support

Nick