The long game

Hello secret emailers

I had always expected to spend today “on the clock” doing an admin day. The plan was to mop up everything from the first two weeks of the trial, get some evidence posted up and ensure the Horizon Trial Menu was up to speed (right now it’s very much not, so I’m not going to link to it!)

With yesterday’s events being so spectacular, I am going to work through today and Monday.

I obviously try to spend as much time as I can producing timely content for your consumption (the blogging/tweeting equivalent of that beloved TV phrase “all the money’s on the screen”), but that sometimes comes at the expense of important admin which I need to do to keep on top of things.

Workflow

I have three pieces I want to produce for the blog between now and Monday – the reaction to yesterday’s move by the Post Office, the stunning Fujitsu evidence, and what the recusal and potential judgment appeal means going forward. I am tempted to commission the latter piece – if you are or know a lawyer who knows a thing or two about High Court processes, group litigations, recusals, recusal appeals etc etc it would be great to get a road map so we can all see where this litigation might be going assuming the Post Office are going to keep up this level of attrition.

I am also:

– trying to winkle out actual documentary evidence from the trial process for future publication.

– keeping my media brethren across the tale

– tweeting things as they occur

– totting up the funding situation for publication on Monday

– dealing with the private correspondence, which is building up significantly, so apologies if I haven’t yet responded to you.

Recusal reaction

Thanks very much for putting fingers to keyboard to send me your thoughts on the recusal application. Those which came through on twitter are published already so I won’t ask permission from you to put them on the website. Those of you who contacted me privately and who haven’t already, please let me know if you are happy for me to publish what you have written. Don’t worry though – I will not publish anything with your name attached to it unless I have your explicit permission.

I’ll give you the formal reactions now though. This is what the Post Office had to say:

“We have reflected in great depth on the proceedings and detailed judgment from the first trial and will continue to consider all options. “As part of this, we have made an application today for the sitting Judge to be recused from the ongoing and upcoming trials. We are acutely aware of the significance of this application. “We will continue with our programme to improve the way we work with postmasters and are urgently considering how we can accelerate this work and address the criticisms about our operations raised in the judgment. We recognise that we must always continue to do better in the interests of our customers and postmasters. “We continue to believe that the group litigation remains the best opportunity to resolve long-standing issues in order to ensure a stable and sustainable Post Office network for the benefit of the communities who rely on our services every single day.”

This is just in from JFSA:

“When Post Office began moves to sack the Judge yesterday it brought back memories of the time when it had terminated, in the nicest possible way, Sir Anthony Hooper… [chair of] the Initial Complaint Review and Mediation Scheme that Post Office also terminated because it didn’t like the truth of matters being revealed.

“It seems to me, that as more truth about the way Post Office treated Subpostmasters is exposed, the more desperate Post Office becomes to defend the indefensible and a Board and Executive which seems totally out of control and being allowed to run riot by its sole shareholder, the Government.

“To me, it seems that Post Office’s current move is little more than what, in American Football, is known as a ‘Hail Mary’. Having already thrown the ‘kitchen sink’ at the case, what is left for Post Office, nailing the doors of the court shut?”

Gossip

Either my initial source was correct or I now have two duff sources (always a potential worry!). According to both, Tom Moran, Network Development Director & Group Strategy Director of the Post Office is leaving to go to the Cabinet Office (where Paula Vennells has taken up a non-Exec role).

Please do keep sending me information (ideally verified) if you have a nugget, or just forward me any emails you think I might find interesting.

I operate entirely independently from everyone (including, just for the record, my crowdfunders) and I am wholly reliant on what people to choose to send me.

The only information I am guaranteed to receive about anything to do with this story is witness statements presented to court (by right under law) and transcripts of proceedings, by express order of the trial judge (which still tickles a bit).

I am particularly interested in any internal stuff anyone gets from the Post Office, the NFSP, Freeths, WBD, the JFSA, their MPs, FOI requests, useful and/or interesting articles directly or indirectly connected to the story and personal and professional insight. I can promise you I never reveal a source without the written express permission of that source.

I really would love to have a few more professional guest bloggers – lawyers, forensic accountants and politicans especially. If you do feel you’ve been hard done by the Post Office, the victim testimony section of the website could do with a few more tales. I have one in the works which I think will really make an impact. If you’ve already sent me one and I haven’t published it yet, please remind me!

*********************

Okay – that’s me. If you haven’t already read it, please do have a look at the piece I wrote about the recusal application yesterday and share it far and wide. Computer Weekly’s take is already up, and Richard Brooks from Private Eye was in court when the application went in, so make sure you buy a copy of the magazine when it’s out week after next.

Best regards

Nick

Please feel free to forward this email. The more people who read it, the more people find out about what is the biggest trial going through the UK courts right now.