Archives :
Prosecutions
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Shoreham, Ropetackle Arts Theatre 2 July: The Great Post Office Cover-Up
On Thursday 2nd July I will be delivering my first (and so far only) public talk this year on the Post Office scandal. It will be at the Ropetackle Arts Theatre in Shoreham-by-Sea and I’m very much looking forward to it. A lot has happened since we did that run of dates in 2024. I…
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Post Office’s Jane MacLeod “significant individual” in criminal investigation
The detectives running the investigation into possible criminal activity at the Post Office have indicated that former Post Office General Counsel, Jane MacLeod, is a “significant individual” to their criminal investigation. Operation Olympos is a long-running police investigation formed in the wake of the Bates v Post Office civil litigation. It used to be headed…
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More info is revealed about Project Brisbane
I am once more grateful to Eleanor Shaikh and Matthew Somerville for bringing important information into the public domain. Matthew runs the “Dracos” Inquiry website which mirrors the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry website whilst making every document on it searchable. There is a manual element to Matthew’s work, which involves scanning the Inquiry website…
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Project Brisbane – a report the Post Office is desperate to keep secret
In January 2022 the researcher Eleanor Shaikh was poring over some written evidence submitted by the Business Department (then known as BEIS) to the Business Select Committee in March 2020. In an annex to the evidence, there was a timeline. One line of the timeline read: “September 2015: The Post Office Minister commissions POL’s new…
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No action taken against Post Office barrister who broke the rules
Some of the Subpostmasters who had their convictions quashed at the Court of Appeal in 2021 have been sent a letter notifying them that Nick Vamos, a barrister working for Peters and Peters, the law firm acting on behalf of the Post Office, was “not authorised” to carry out the litigation he conducted. The letter,…
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Closing statements: Day 2 – Circular Firing Squad
There were some good points made today, but the main one was a big shrug – “not me, mate”. In this blog post I’m going to focus on what was said by the various core participants’ barristers. For more on what it was like to be there and why there’s a basket full of chocolate…
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Closing statements: Day 1
The hearing room was packed today as Subpostmasters, their supporters, lawyers, journalists and members of the public attended a long day of submissions at Aldwych House in London. First out of the blocks was Ed Henry KC who sought to draw the line of conspiracy upwards through the executive to the Post Office board. Henry…
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Issy Hogg
Issy Hogg, the criminal defence solicitor for Subpostmasters Jo Hamilton and Seema Misra, has sadly passed away. She was 64 years old. Issy (pronounced “Izzy”) was diagnosed with terminal cancer in March 2020, just before the first Covid lockdown. She was given six months to live – perhaps longer with some challenging treatment. Issy decided…
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Independent board demands quashing of ‘Capture Convictions’
UPDATE: A government spokesperson has today [25 October 2024] issued the following statement in response to the HCAB’s letter: “The Post Office Offences Act 2024 was a truly exceptional response to unprecedented circumstances where hundreds of convictions based on evidence from the Horizon system were considered to be unsafe. “The Criminal Cases Review Commission is…
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Ben Foat: On His Terms
What a difference a bit of time off makes. The last time Ben Foat was questioned by the Inquiry, he looked like a rabbit in the headlights, nervously surveying the mess he’d made of the Post Office’s disclosure responsibilities. Today Foat gave evidence from a remote location, having declined to turn up in person, due…
