Hi everyone,

After what feels like two months of hard work I am delighted to tell you that Episode 18 of The Great Post Office Trial goes out on BBC Radio 4 at 8pm today (Tuesday). It’s a 45 minute one-off episode. Once it has been broadcast it will go up on BBC Sounds here.

Ep 18 takes you through one of the most extraordinary phases of the Post Office scandal (ie all of 2024 – but we start in 2023…) and hopefully pulls out some of the most memorable bits.

Once more my thanks are due to Genius Producer Bob for his work on the episode (he had to do even more heavy lifting than normal) and everyone at Whistledown Productions for their efforts in getting the episode to air.

I am obviously also deeply grateful to every single person who gave their time to speak to us, particularly those who travelled some distance. I carried out at least 20 interviews for this episode and I am afraid not every single one made the final episode. Apologies to everyone I spoke to whose voice will not be heard in the final edit. We had to make some really difficult decisions whilst working on the narrative and structure of the finished piece.

One person who does get a mention is 92 year old Betty Brown, who wowed everyone after her birthday appearance on a Newsnight Post Office special in January. if you don’t know Betty’s story I urge you to watch the Newsnight special, or read it in the Times here. Betty has been appallingly treated and seems like an inspirational human being.

Two rather depressing news lines have come from our episode:

1. The current Post Office minister, Gareth Thomas MP, has refused to guarantee that all compensation will be paid by the end of this year.

2. The Post Office interim CEO Neil Brocklehurst (in his first interview in post) has refused to say whether those people still working for the PO who have been implicated in the scandal will still be working for the organisation by the end of the year.

I am delighted we have managed to get some insight into what was happening inside government in the first part of last year, and of course, we finally have the thoughts of the Reverend Vennells from her words at the Inquiry to parse and consider.

I hope you will find it illuminating.

How is the writing going, Nick?

I’m so glad you asked (if you didn’t, you might want to skip this bit – the short answer is fine, it’s all going fine).

January was a bit of a shock to the system. Whilst putting together the last two books I found the best time of day to write was between 4am and 7am. But then I realised I wrote the last two books during the summer months of 2021 and 2022 when it was starting to get light around 5am. Last month I tried getting up a 4am every morning and was soon defeated and had to look for other ways of finding the peace to write.

The other issue is that this is both a book for people who might have read my first book and know loads about the Post Office scandal whilst also being a book for people who possibly haven’t even seen Mr Bates vs The Post Office and who definitely haven’t read my first book. This means I’m telling the story of the scandal again without repeating any of the information in the first book, although this one will obviously have the advantage of covering the Inquiry and the aftermath of the ITV drama.

I’m hoping both books can be read individually or read in either order without repeating anything but the barest chronological facts. I agree, it’s a stupid idea. Why on earth did I agree to it?

It doesn’t matter. I’m in the swing of things and committed to getting the first draft finished by June.

One thing we don’t know is when the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry will report, and that is causing me some anxiety. I always tell my kids not to worry about something they can’t control and now I’m doing exactly that.

In the meantime

Here are just a few things to have caught my eye recently, in no particular order.

A great substack post from Richard Moorhead on the Post Office’s closing statement to the Inquiry. They apparently choose to hang Womble Bond Dickinson’s Andy Parsons out to dry.

“Post Office prosecutions set to begin this summer, says SRA” – John Hyde at the Law Society Gazette.

“Campaigners slam government for handing over £67m contract to Fujitsu” – Asian Trader

“Postmasters inform strategic direction of Post Office as part of new council” – Post Office press release

“UK biz dept overspent by £208M prepping to pay workers hurt in Post Office IT scandal” – The Register

“‘Families need to be compensated too’ – ex-postmaster” – BBC

“Post Office unveils new wave of cuts to fuel transformation plan” – Sky News

“Computer evidence under scrutiny in criminal trials” – The Times (that ol’ legal presumption again…)

“Over 2,000 new Post Office scandal compensation claims – minister” – BBC

That should keep you busy for a bit. I won’t be back for a while, but I hope when i do have some good news about the book and plenty of other stuff to tell you about.

Thanks again for subscribing.

Nick