Enter Alan

Morning secret emailers

It appears I am now in the habit of rising early, something I developed whilst putting the Great Post Office Trial series together in order just to get the work done.

This morning I am prepping to go on BBC London to give an update to listeners about the wider Post Office Horizon Scandal Story So Far.

One thing I have been able to confirm about the story so far is that the Criminal Cases Review Commission’s Commissioners are meeting today to discuss the fate of the remaining 22 Subpostmasters or counter staff who have not yet been referred to the Court of Appeal. A little secret email exclusive for you there.

We are not sure if there will be any decisions by the commissioners today (March’s meeting ran for two days), but this will be a time of great anxiety for the 22 people in this position, one of whom I spoke to last night. The commissioners could decide to refer all 22, reject some outright, or decide they need more information on some or all of the applicants cases. Many of the 22 applied to the CCRC after the publicity surrounding December’s high court win for the claimants in the Bates v Post Office civil case.

Housekeeping

I have spent a productive hour this morning tidying up some of the Post Office Trial website. There is now a judgments page which contains links to all the Bates v Post Office judgments (all six of them), plus all the judgments from Lord Justice Coulson at the Court of Appeal, including the one in which he describes the Post Office as acting like a “mid-Victorian factory owner”.

The page is short, easy to navigate, and hopefully will become a permanent and useful resource for students of this case and casual visitors alike.

900 prosecutions

I am still personally reeling from the revelation the Post Office prosecuted nine hundred people between 1999 and 2014. Do have a read of my write-up if you missed that yesterday.

Enter Alan

Finally – there is some sort of radio series going out on Radio 4 at the moment which may be of interest.

Episode 2 starts today. I wanted to call it “Enter Alan”, but I was overruled. It is now known as “The Bloodiest Mind in Wales”. Both titles refer to the same person. I wonder if you can guess who.

You can tune into Radio 4 live here (the series continues at 1.45pm today) and you can listen to all the episodes after they go out here.

Right – I’m on BBC Radio London at 7.15am so I had better go. It’s also my son’s birthday today which means pain au chocolat for breakfast. Oh to be 9 again…

Have a great day and thanks for all the lovely comments about yesterday’s series launch.

Yours

Nick