In which dates are set for the stages by which the Capture cases will come to trial
29 tweets
Good afternoon and welcome to Court 7 of the Royal Courts of Justice. We are here for a directions hearing to deal with two Post Office CAPTURE IT system appeals which are slowly making their way through the courts. But this is not just about Capture…
… One appellant – Gareth Snow – is appealing his conviction in which evidence from a different (ie non-Horizon, non-Capture) was used. Another – Simon Edgecombe – is pursuing an appeal of a conviction from Post Office prosecution in 1983 which doesn’t involve any IT at all.
The order of business was:
– dealing with Mr Edgecombe's application
– setting dates to deal with the other appellants
Mr Edgecombe's application to appeal was turned down on the basis that there was no paper evidence whatsoever to aid his application. He was representing himself in court.
It is the most extraordinary story which I think I'll have to bring you another time. He listened as Lord Justice Edis gave his judgment in real time, setting and then dismissing Mr Edgecombe's grounds of appeal.
At the end, Edgecombe, who'd been sitting, listening attentively throughout, called the judge "sir" and asked if he could say something. Edis said he could but would be grateful if it were short as they had a lot to get through.
Edgecombe made a direct appeal to the panel of judges.“Please do not trust what Post Office tell you," he said. "I’ll leave that one with you.”
The judge thanked Edgecombe for his comment and turned to Tim Moloney KC, the barrister representing the three remaining appellants.
TM set out the proposed schedule for getting the case ready for the appeal hearing. The agreed dates are:
– 26 June any fresh evidence from the appellants served
– 31 July PO (R – respondents) to respond, serve any fresh evidence of their own and complete disclosure…
7 September – bundles agreed
14 September – appellants' skeletons served
28 September – respondents skeletons served
2 Oct – both parties serve and file completed bundles to court
at which point the case would be ready to be heard. TM made the point that the widower of one…
… of the appellants (Patricia Owen who sadly died in 2003) was unwell himself and was hoping for a date for the full appeal hearing this year.
The problem is there are three judges in the panel and they need to find a week for the three day hearing. Monday to read into it, Tue – Thu to hear it and then Friday to "reflect" and at least make a start on their judgment. This is difficult as the other judges…
… Farby and Picken (who were the side judges for Holroyde during the 2021 Hamilton hearings) have other cases to hear and Edis was keen that the same "constitution" see the matter through.
So he said he felt it was unlikely the full hearing would be scheduled until 2027.
And that was pretty much it, save for Simon Baker KC (representing the Post Office) leading the discussion on providing the Post Office's grounds of response to the media.
The Post Office are happy for us to see their response and the appellants are happy to see their grounds. The court is also similarly satisfied that they should be released if the parties agree. The fly in the ointment is the CCRC. It has not and will not released its…
… statement of reasons, but according to the court doesn't seem to mind if someone else does. The appellants' grounds in particular apparently won't make much sense if the CCRC's statement of reasons aren't made public as they are based on them…
… so what is going to happen is that Baker and Moloney will confer, try to deal with the CCRC issue and then come to an agreement about what can and should be released to the media and inform the courts as to what they've done.
I hope this means that soon we'll get an idea of what line the Post Office will be taking when it comes to responding to the Capture (and other IT) Post Office appeals ahead of the hearings in 2027. Then when it comes round to the full appeal there will be developed…
… arguments, and, if the CCRC refer more potential appellants, a larger cohort of people for the court to rule on.
As not a huge amount happened today in court (other than the judgment on Simon Edgecombe), I won't write up a court report, but I will send out a newsletter to subscribers with a bit of the usual colour in it.
If you want to subscribe to that, please consider making a donation here. I am here by the grace of your crowdfunding, and it's only a one off donation and you are on the mailing list for life, or until you unsubscribe…
www.postofficescandal.uk/donate/
The donations also help me chuck the odd bone to Andrew of the Dark Arts, who put in several hours over the weekend developing a live-tweets plug in on both the Post Office Scandal website and the Genderblog website. If you have a look at the…
… Post Office Scandal front page page right now, you'll see there is a little LIVE button next to the Live Tweets menu item
www.postofficescandal.uk
… or at least there is if you have a look at it on a desktop – not sure about what happens on a mobile. Either way – when you click on the Live Tweets menu item – you get taken to a webpage which is updating the live tweets direct from twitter into that webpage. Screenshot:
How cool is that? It means you don't have to be on twitter to see my live tweets in real time when I'm live tweeting about Post Office things on the Post Office website and Gender things on the Gender website. Have a look: www.postofficescandal.uk/live-tweets/
Andrew has also built a widget which allows me to archive the tweets with links and pictures immediately on the same page, which is what I'm about to do now.
So once I've archived this, the Live Tweets icon will disappear from the front page, the live box will become an archive box and the website will stand ready waiting for the next time I attempt to live tweet something. Andrew is amazing. Hire him. Seriously.
Okay. Goodbye and thanks for reading.