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Fujitsu
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Post Office legal strategy: “force the claimants to burn money”
The second day of Andy Parsons’ evidence (see here for a piece on the first) was short with only a few new documents to consider. One was another piece of corroboration that the Post Office strategy during Bates v Post Office – the seminal legal battle which blew the lid off the scandal – was…
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Post Office lawyer: Postmasters are liars
A civil litigation lawyer instructed by the Post Office branded campaigning former Subpostmasters Jo Hamilton, Noel Thomas and Seema Misra “liars and criminals” whilst discussing PR strategy with his clients. Andy Parsons from Bond Dickinson was advising the Post Office on their media response to a 2015 episode of Panorama which featured all three Subpostmasters.…
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Lord Grabiner: Never Mind “That Bollox”
Lord Grabiner strode into the Inquiry hearing room wielding a walking cane. As he didn’t appear to be using it to support himself it rather gave the impression it might be utilised to punish impertinence. Jason Beer KC, who asked questions on behalf of the inquiry, appeared unruffled. Grabiner was called to explore his apparent…
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De Garr Robinson’s Jenkins problem
Poor old Tony Robinson, just trying to make an honest crust defending his client, whilst being misled by his instructing solicitors (Womble Bond Dickinson), his client’s supplier (Fujitsu) or possibly even his client – the Post Office! As leading counsel for the Post Office in the Horizon Issues trial during Bates v Post Office, de…
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Vennells Day 2: Cover-up finally acknowledged
During her evidence to the Inquiry today Paula Vennells finally admitted there was cover-up at the Post Office on her watch. Counsel to the Inquiry Jason Beer took her to a letter dated 12 July 2013. It was from the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), the statutory body which investigates potential miscarriages of justice in…
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Keeping their knees on Seema’s neck
Today we got some insight into the catastrophic and frankly sinister failings of a group of lawyers at the heart of the Post Office scandal. The lengths Brian Altman (then) QC et al went to to avoid their post-conviction disclosure duties to former Subpostmaster Seema Misra (who was sent to prison whilst eight weeks pregnant)…
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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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Institutional investigative ignorance
Paul Whitaker, as it says in the screengrab above, used to be a Post Office Investigator (and, almost inevitably, before that, a postman). In his evidence to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry on Thursday, Mr Whitaker was taken to a 2011 email chain regarding his investigation into a Post Office branch in St John…
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What Was She Drinking? The Elaine Cottam Experience
It’s hard to know where to start with yesterday’s Inquiry hearing. Karl Flinders from Computer Weekly decided to cover yet another Post Office disclosure disaster. I am going to attempt to analyse the evidence which came courtesy of Elaine Cottam. Ms Cottam was a former Post Office Retail Line Manager. She was called to give…
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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…