All you good good people

Hello secret emailers – apologies for the delay in getting this to you.

www.postofficetrial.com I have begun the labourious process of naming, uploading, tagging and cataloguing the court documents I have received over the last three weeks. I’ve put them on Scrib’d which then allows me to embed those documents on www.postofficetrial.com. You can download the documents if you go to the main Scrib’d website.

Scrib’d is very user-friendly, but appears to first want you to create a login (which you can with your Facebook account) and then charge some kind of subscription after you’ve been using it a month. I’m not quite sure exactly what the deal is, but if I were you, I would get a login, and get on there whilst you still have your free trial period to download what you need.

I am also going through the process of checking the source documents I have requested and those I have received, and I am trying to chase transcripts. I keep getting told I will get transcripts, but so far, none have materialised.

Also whilst I would admit I am not the fastest writer in the world, one thing which really surprised me when I started doing this was the sheer amount of time it takes to format my own content and get it up online or delivered to you via email. I use Blogger for www.postofficetrial.com and Mailerlite for the secret emails. Once written, I have to find links and pictures, format the text, format the pictures, make sure I’ve got everyone’s email addresses saved into the system etc etc. It’s boring telling you about it. Imagine having to do it.

Why just one trial when you can have three

A matter you may be more interested in is the date of the third trial. I admit my heart sank when I heard about the possible existence of this trial back in October. This litigation has every chance of turning into Jarndyce vs Jarndyce and I suspect some people would quite like it to.

There was a 40 minute discussion on Thursday between the two QCs and the judge during which the judge pushed for a third trial date in June 2019, but the Post Office QC was quite adamant things could not be done properly before 2020. Even the claimants’ QC wasn’t happy with June.

The QCs’ thinking appears to be that nothing can be done about preparing for the third trial until the judgement for the first trial has been received. I do have some sympathy with this as it might be pointless even having a third trial if the first judgement is weighted very strongly in one party’s favour. That said, the first trial judgement should come through in January which gives the parties a good five months to argue the toss.

Yes but, say m’learned friends, we have the small matter of the Horizon trial (which starts on 11 March 2019) which will eat into the preparation time for a June trial and possibly lead to a judgement which could have a significant bearing on any the potential outcome of the case (you’d hope it might have some bearing, otherwise what is it that this litigation is about?)

The problem is, the longer this drags on, the older we all get, the more the costs mount up and the longer people (some of whom have been waiting 17 years to have their grievances properly dealt with) have to wait for an outcome.

On Thursday the managing judge, Mr Justice Fraser, pointed out that the legal action was launched in early 2016. He said his task is to manage this litigation to a conclusion effectively and as swiftly as possible, or he was not doing his job properly. He told the court this case is something that neither party should have hanging over them, and the public would struggle to understand how a claim launched two years ago might not see the first settlement until 2020.

The QCs were adamant next June is out of the question. It looks as if late October 2019 is now the favoured date. We’re going to pick this up in court on Monday, but an awful lot could happen between now and October. But it will only happen if everyone accepts that the legal process is not the be all and end-all (despite what various lawyers might tell you). It is only part of the solution.

He’s going to get on his hobby horse again, look

As a journalist I have seen the value of shining a light on an issue. It very soon generates political heat, and that can end up getting things done. I wonder, for instance, what conversations the Minister for Postal Affairs would be having with Paula Vennells if there was a lot of publicity about this case. Right now, I doubt she’s felt the need to even pick up the phone.

I still maintain it was a mistake not issuing photos of the Lead Claimants and allowing them to do interviews with the media. Imagine if all six were available to be filmed before the trial started. They could have been all over Sky, the BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5 and ITV news – it could have led to a couple of really strong pieces and a raised public awareness of this story, about which there is almost none, and we might have had some satellite trucks outside the Rolls Building on the first day of the trial.

At the very least, newsgathering operations would have become aware of the personalities behind the case, the trial, and the issues involved and would be ready to go when some of those documents which have come out during the trial were released. Don’t forget the Post Office have said this action represents an “existential threat”. If the Post Office believes its very existence is threatened, my friends, that is something even the busiest news editor could get their head round.

That said I want to give a massive thank you to the claimant Subpostmasters who have spoken to the media over the last three weeks.

Lovely people

Some have done it before and already have their names in the public domain, some have never done it before but considered the requests and made the difficult decision to go public. Some are still considering it and some have said no. Every person has a different reason for their decisions and, I fully respect that. It has been great to see former Subpostmasters I have interviewed before over the past few days. It has also been wonderful to meet other claimants for the first time – some of whom have been here on most days, some of whom have travelled hundreds of miles, just to be in court for a few hours.

Much as I think this has the potential to be one of the single biggest public affairs stories of our time, it is still just a story, which I as a journalist want to tell, and want to have told. One thing this trial has brought home to me is the truly horrendous experience so many claimant Subpostmasters have gone through.

When I speak to them it is apparent that, for many people, the pain of what happened is still raw and sitting just below the surface. Whether they went through the creeping dread of dealing with inexplicable losses in their branch, the indignity and shame of being publicly turfed out of a respectable position, or suffered the further humiliation of being prosecuted, criminalised and possibly even thrown in prison – the experience of being in court and having to be reminded of an evidently traumatic time is a reminder that there is a huge human cost right at the heart of this story, and it needs to be resolved.

It is so moving to see so many claimants sitting silently and respectfully throughout proceedings, bearing witness.

I remind myself, these are people who may have lost nearly everything, many of whom have suffered for years. They are still months away from knowing anything about what might happen, and they are the the only people in the room who are not getting paid.

Housekeeping

Okay – in-between ferrying various children to football matches, fishing random bits of spare flooring and paint out of the loft and doing the weekly shop I am going spend what time I can today and tomorrow putting together the public blog post (with document links etc) which will go up this weekend.

Court is only currently sitting on Monday next week, with the last day of evidence from the Post Office witnesses. I’ve been given a special projects job by ITV News completely unconnected to this which will occupy me for the rest of the week but I’ll do my usual write-ups on Monday, and I’ll try and keep the emails and blog posts ticking over even when court isn’t sitting.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

PS your feedback remains the main thing that is keeping me going throughout this trial. I am immensely grateful to you for the kind words, constructive feedback, subject ideas, musings on the litigation and, in some cases, your own brilliant journalism (I’m looking at you Eleanor). Please keep it coming and please accept my apologies for not being able to acknowledge or action every single communication. I promise you I read them all.