Archives :
February 2022
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“Good news” for the 555 “in the next few days”
This scandal has been characterised by many things, but one of the most striking is the absolute relentless determination of backbench MPs and peers to hold the government to account. To my mind, it is a racing certainty that without consistent pressure from parliamentarians of all stripes, the government would not have made available £1bn…
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“They never want the truth to come out.”
Malcolm Simpson was a Subpostmaster at Boxgrove Post Office near Chichester, West Sussex. Malcolm came to the inquiry on 24 Feb with his wife Lesley (pictured above). Malcolm and Lesley bought Boxgrove village shop in 2003. It had a Post Office counter which was run completely separately by the incumbent Subpostmaster. The Subpostmaster left in…
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Numbers Matter
The number of people affected by the Horizon scandal is a question news editors used to ask me and journalists used to ask themselves when trying to get some kind of handle on scale of this story. This was in the bad old days when the Post Office refused to give out information and no…
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Recusal Top Dog Revealed
One of the most extraordinary episodes in the Bates v Post Office group litigation was the Post Office’s attempt in March 2019, in the middle of the Horizon trial at the High Court, to have the managing judge, Mr Justice Fraser, recuse himself on the grounds his first (Common Issues) trial judgment was somehow biased.…