Castleton v Post Office Round 3
Hello!
Former East Bridlington Subpostmaster Lee Castleton will be back at the High Court’s Rolls Building in London tomorrow for Round 3 of his legal battle with the Post Office.
You may have heard last year that Lee had made a £4m claim against the Post Office and Fujitsu at the High Court. This follows on from the High Court action that the Post Office took against Lee in 2006/7 (see “Post Office auditor signed Court statement containing info she knew was false” and “Nothing personal, Mr Castleton. It’s just justice…“) and the Bates and others v Post Office group litigation in 2016 – 2019 (in which Mr Castleton was one of the 554 others). And now this.
Although Lee’s legal team filed the claim in August, the Post Office and Fujitsu have yet to enter a defence. Until they do so, the Court will not make public the particulars of Lee’s claim, nor the Post Office/Fujitsu’s defence.
Now I hear both Fujitsu and the Post Office are trying to argue Lee has no case against them. Hence tomorrow’s hearing. I will be there live tweeting (find them here), and I will do my level best to get both a newsletter and blog post out after the hearing is over, but I will prioritise a newsletter for subscribers.
I will also ask Andrew of the Dark Arts to put the live tweets up on the live tweets section of postofficescandal.uk so you will not miss a thing even if you are not on X/twitter.
Hopefully by attending the hearing, I will also get sight of some useful documentation. We’ll see.
Post Office Panorama Round 4
I haven’t had a sniff of involvement in this one, so I’m very keen to see what it has to say. Post Office: Who’s to Blame? will be broadcast on BBC1 at 8pm this coming Monday unless you live in Northern Ireland, which seems unfair on Deirdre Connolly, one of the Northern Irish Subpostmasters interviewed for the programme.
I am sure it will be available on the BBC’s iPlayer soon after it is broadcast though. The only other things I know about it is that it is being presented by Andy Verity, who has been working on this episode for a while, and as well as Deirdre, it may well feature Seema Misra – her fourth Panorama!
The prog blurb says: “With the public inquiry due to deliver its final report later in 2026, the Metropolitan Police says it is looking at more than 50 ‘persons of interest’. They include managers, investigators and lawyers. Reporter Andy Verity investigates some of those responsible for decisions that saw innocent postmasters jailed, lives destroyed and reputations ruined.”
Could be a good one.
The Great Post Office Cover Up
I am delighted to tell you the end is in sight for the above book, which many of you have already been kind enough to put money down for. I am currently writing up 2024 and I hope to get up to date and deliver the unfinished product to my editors in early Feb.
The manuscript won’t be complete until we’ve had a good look at Sir Wyn Williams’ final Inquiry report, but I am hoping that once we’ve done so we can finish off the text and start the printing presses rolling in double-quick time.
Oh and if you missed the YOU magazine special I did at the end of December on four people I think have questions to answer about their role in the scandal, you can find it here.
Right, that’s it. If you can, I would be very grateful if you could forward this newsletter to anyone you think might be interested in my reporting from court tomorrow. My time on things like this is purely donation-funded and it would be great to get some new people on board.
More soon!
Best
Nick
I am (still) writing a new book about the Post Office scandal called The Great Post Office Cover-Up. You can put your money down now for a copy which will arrive after Sir Wyn Williams’ final report. Buying a pre-publication copy of the hardback (£15 + P&P) or paperback (£10 + P&P) will be cheaper than the post publication price, help support an independent publisher (by buying direct) and offer you the opportunity to join my secret email mailing list. For more info about the book, click here!
