Secret email about the Post Office Scandal. Shh!

Vennells breaks her five year silence

Going down in a blaze of inglory

A busy day today and I’ve promised my son I’ll take him down the park for a kickabout after tea, so I’ll try to keep this brief.

This morning I posted a website piece about Paula Vennells stepping down from the Church of England’s Ethical Investments Advisory Group.

I also realised it was a year to the day I published Tracy Felstead’s harrowing story for the first time. And a piece on doorstepping a government minister to find out exactly what they knew about the Post Office Scandal.

Then at around 9.30am I got a call from a parliamentary source warning me all hell was about to break loose. The BEIS Select Committee inquiry was about to publish a letter from Paula Vennells about the Post Office Horizon scandal in which she drops massive blame bombs (and inadvertently, imo, detonates a few in her own front yard).

I live-tweeted a fisking of the letter (beautifully formatted by threadreaderapp onto one web page here) AND I’ve written it up for the Post Office Trial website with added critique-y-ness. Both readings contain quite fruity language on my part. I am sorry if that sort of thing is not your cup of tea.

The BEIS inquiry also published letters from Fujitsu and Nick Read, current CEO of the Post Office. I fisked them by tweet and will write them up for the website if I get a chance tomorrow.

Your donations funded my work today. I simply couldn’t do this without you. I hope the results are valuable to you and people beyond this mailing list and that they have some infinitesimal effect. I also hope Ms Vennells’ legal representatives don’t take too much issue with my reading of her letter. What opinion I have volunteered is honestly held, if sarcastically expressed, m’lud.

Right. Off to the park. Don’t forget to listen to Radio 4’s Feedback at 4.30pm tomorrow if you’re interested in hearing a bit about how we put together the recent Great Post Office Trial series. It would be good to get your… er… feedback.

Sorry – I’ll get my coat.

Stay out of trouble now.

Nick


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