Morning secret emailers!

I hope you are well. Our next door neighbour has lost his sense of smell. This is a symptom of Covid-19 so he is going into isolation to see if those symptoms develop further. They have also run out of washing up liquid, so yesterday I went and put some on his doorstep, rang the bell and ran away. Who would have thought the skills learned playing Knock Down Ginger as a child would be so useful during a global pandemic?

I’m being flippant again, aren’t I? Sorry. This email is to alert you to a new blog post which I started in January and kept meaning to return to. It is part two of my fisking of the Horizon Issues trial and concerns the evidence of Angela van den Bogerd. I’m currently reading the whole judgment again for a thing, which gave me the perfect excuse to return to the blog post.

I think (as I did with the Common Issues trial), it’s worth pulling out some of the meat in the judgment and giving it as much exposure as possible. Within three weeks of the first trial judgment landing, I was able to fisk it in five parts and write a complete bluffers guide, all the while dealing with reporting the ongoing Horizon trial and the recusal application.

I am sorry the fisking of the Horizon Issues trial judgment it is taking a lot longer. It is because a) important things keep happening and b) I nowadays get asked to do stuff as a result. Consequently, my blog maintenance has fallen behind.

In some ways, so much as happened since December that what the judge has to say about Angela van den Bogerd, Post Office director, feels irrelevant. But when you look at his conclusions, it still fair takes the breath away.

The 22 left behind

Amid the joy at seeing 39 peoples’ cases submitted to the Court of Appeal last week by the CCRC, I have spoken to two long-standing campaigners who weren’t referred. Their pain (partly caused by the lack of explanation as to why) mirrors some of the outrage I felt from the civil case claimants who received relatively paltry sums as “emergency” payments from Freeths last week, again with no explanation.

I spoke to the chair of the CCRC last week and she was clear she expected “most” of the remaining 22 to go through, but by no means all. She also made it clear that the 22 currently on hold are not all new applicants, and that is not the reason their cases have not been referred.

There are no guarantees, but if you are one of the 22, take a quantum of solace from the fact your application has not been rejected – yet – and that even if it is, you have course to appeal that decision. But I wouldn’t sit on your hands. Contact the CCRC to see what they need to get your case over the line and see if you might be in a position to provide it.

Here comes the weekend

I hope you have all been able to get your hands on a copy of the Private Eye Special which came out on Wednesday and will only remain in shops for another week or so. I realise that for those of you who don’t subscribe, buying a copy might potentially be something of a mission impossible in the current circumstances.

I wanted to send a copy to someone who I know can’t get to the shops and realised I honestly don’t know if I can buy the magazine anywhere in Walton now everywhere is closed. If anyone does have a stash they can sell and post to me, please let me know. The Special is, for me, the culmination of nearly ten years of work so it would be nice to have a few copies to stick in the attic for future generations to marvel at, providing we do survive the oncoming pandemopocalypse.

I’m being flippant again. Probably unwise. Have a lovely weekend – I know the days all feel the same at the moment – but after a week of watching Mrs Wallis patiently try to home school our youngest whilst keeping on top of her own work, there will be some among us looking forward to a break.

Keep well. Stay safe. Protect the NHS etc…

Nick