Archives :
Corporate
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The First Lady of Flat Earth
It is possible that Angela van den Bogerd and her senior colleagues (Rodric Williams, Mark Davies, Susan Crichton, Chris Aujard, Jarnail Singh, Patrick Bourke) were just not very bright. They were all aware of evidence which pointed to the exact opposite of what they were telling MPs, Subpostmasters and journalists about potential miscarriages of justice…
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Former Post Office Hatchet Man gives himself the chop
Chris Aujard answered questions at the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry yesterday. The day before, he resigned as General Counsel for five separate companies, and the day before that, he chucked it in at another. Is it mere coincidence he ceased to be an active director of any UK company within 48 hours of giving…
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The Hatchet Man: Aujard gives evidence
Chris Aujard presents as thoughtful, intelligent and professional – a very different person to the one boasting about his crisis management skills shortly after leaving the Post Office in 2015. Older and wiser, perhaps, or better at image projection. Aujard was involved in a deliberate attempt to frustrate Second Sight’s independent investigation into the Post…
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The Bleatings of a Sorry Scapegoat: Lady Susan’s Pity Party
Susan Crichton cut a sorry figure at the Inquiry today. A woman apparently trying to do the right thing, but not trying hard enough. A woman whose stated intentions were not borne out (and occasionally downright contradicted) by the documentary evidence. A woman who came up against a company board more interested in reputation management…
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PR Week puts departed Post Office Comms Director in its “Power” Book
On Tuesday 27 February, the Post Office’s Director of Communications, Richard Taylor, left the Post Office. He had been suspended since 12 January after two recordings of him were made public by TalkTV. Curiously he has just been included in PR Week’s Power Book 2024, which celebrates “the most influential and respected comms professionals in…
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Staunton shoots back
On 18 Feb, the Sunday Times published this extraordinary interview with Henry Staunton, the sacked chair of the Post Office. Staunton said there was a “toxic” culture within the Post Office, alleged that the government had told him to go slow on compensation payments and that the Post Office CEO had written to the Business…
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The unredacted Project Sparrow board minutes
On 26 Jan the BBC’s excellent economics correspondent Andy Verity published a story. Andy had eyes on two confidential Post Office documents which had previously only been published under FOI in heavily-redacted form. They were Project Sparrow board sub-committee meeting minutes from 9 and 30 April 2014. Project Sparrow was the codename given by the…
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Lord Arbuthnot: “I feel we are heading in the right direction”
Last week the Sunday Times asked me to write a piece about the Post Office scandal. The result can be read here. In the course of researching the article I picked up a lot of interesting material which, for reasons of space, didn’t make the final cut. Rather than let some good stuff go to…
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Nick Read: The First Interview
On 20 June I was waiting outside Committee Room 6 at the Houses of Parliament, waiting to hear Post Office CEO Nick Read and his fellow execs grilled by Darren Jones MP and various members of the Business Select Committee. I was in the process of putting together Episode 12 of The Great Post Office…
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Inquiry to consider yet more delays
UPDATE: The inquiry’s hearings have now been postponed at least until 25 July, possibly until after summer. ORIGINAL COPY: The statutory public inquiry into the Post Office Horizon IT scandal is looking very wobbly. Last month’s hearings were postponed as the Chair, Sir Wyn Williams, was ill. Last night we heard Sir Wyn is considering…