Hello all

I hope you had a relaxing festive period. Before we go any further, this email was mainly to let you know I’ve put up a piece on the judge’s comments in court on 16 Dec as I now have the transcript of what he said. My thanks to barrister Stephen Mason who approached the court directly and shared the transcript with me earlier today.

In other news

Well this has all rather taken off, hasn’t it? In just under a month we have had:

a) a sudden settlement to the case with an apology from the Post Office and a cash figure.

b) a second big event happening five days later (the handing down of the Horizon trial judgment).

c) loads of claimants and their supporters turning up to court with a banner, willing to be photographed.

d) news editors finally realising how big a story this is

e) the willingness of people like Jo Hamilton and Seema Misra to keep giving interviews for days even though they must have been exhausted.

f) the willingness of Lord Arbuthnot to respond to media requests, no matter how much personal inconvenience to him.

g) the judge opening up a new flank by passing a folder to the DPP specifically about the evidence given by Fujitsu employees.

h) the post-election, pre-Christmas dearth of Brexit and other political news.

I know this is part-special pleading, but whilst lawyers will take you a long way, this story needs to register in the court of public opinion, and the curious conflation of the above events has given that a lot of impetus.

In the days after the settlement, but particularly after the judgment, journalists who knew I’d been working on the story for years were coming up to me and telling me how shockingly these poor Subpostmasters had been treated. I of course nodded along as I heard them out… but now we appear to be getting exactly what this story needs – lots of clever journalists (and lawyers, and parliamentarians and IT professionals and forensic accountants) really scrutinising what has been going on.

The claimants have played a massive part. I promise you, without that banner and those cheers outside court the Simon Gompertz piece would not have got on the BBC’s Ten O’Clock News. You probably will have seen the pieces in the Daily Mail. Private Eye, Computer Weekly, The Sunday Times, The Times, the Sun and the Mirror and likely many more.

You could still chuck a brick and still not hit that many people who have heard of the Post Office story, but journalists are now fully aware of it, and I don’t think it’s going to go away, given the potential developments ahead.

Claimants

That’s the upside. The downside is probably being felt by the claimants and those who have grievances who weren’t claimants. A post-costs settlement of £8m – £11m shared between 550+ claimants is not likely to feel like much to anyone.

There appears to be some confusion around non-claimants who feel they have a grievance against the Post Office. Can they raise a group claim with another solicitors?

Apparently Freeths are telling correspondents that the Post Office is going to set up something to help them out. That will send shudders down some spines. I might be wrong on that latter point and will, when I get a moment, investigate further, but there will be people who had high hopes for their own personal circumstances at the end of this litigation, and I suspect, some will feel let down by the final settlement figure.

2020

It’s going to be an interesting year.

1) The CCRC have promised to contact those claimants with criminal convictions by the end of the month.

2) Will the government agree to an inquiry? If so, what form will it take?

3) Who knows what the DPP is going to do with the judge’s folder?

There’s lots more of course, but do read the transcript and a brief piece on exactly what the judge said in court on 16 Dec. Also don’t forget to read Minh Alexander’s blistering letter to the Care Quality Commission requesting a review of Paula Vennells’ fit and proper person status in the light of the litigation.

Finally, I am told there will be a thundering op-ed piece by Lord Arbuthnot in Monday’s Computer Weekly. I am looking forward to reading it!

Thanks!

Thanks so much for the continued donations which keep this project afloat and hello to everyone who has found the blog as a result of the mainstream media coverage of this story.

I am actually hoping that as the Post Office story gets picked up by more outlets, this blog and the secret email become increasingly redundant as the information will be out there and visible in the public domain.

I’ll keep plugging away, though, for the time being, at least!

Have a lovely weekend.

Nick