plus: Back to the Valleys

Hi all

I’m on a train back from Wales having spent a day filming in the village of Nelson where I spent some time behind the counter of Steve Phillips’ Post Office having a chat for the One Show on BBC1.

I first met Steve in 2014, and to my shame I have not been in contact since. At the time Steve was under a huge amount of pressure. The Post Office had accused him of losing £28,000. The Post Office’s Angela van den Bogerd (now infamous due to the ITV drama) had allegedly accused him or his staff of stealing. He was in danger of losing his job.

Luckily, Steve had joined the CWU, which brought him into contact with the “redoubtable”* Mark Baker. Mark alerted my former colleague Tim Robinson at BBC South to Steve’s plight. He also put Steve in contact with Alan Bates’ Justice for Subpostmasters’ Alliance.

Steve held firm. He told the Post Office they would have to prove any negligence, carelessness or error on his part before they took any action against him. He told me when he went to his first JFSA meeting he was the only serving Subpostmaster present. He joined the group litigation at the High Court, which he followed from behind his counter in Nelson. And he came through everything relatively unscathed.

Mind you, I noticed that on one of the handwritten post-it notes behind his counter, Steve still had the number of his lawyers, Freeths, stuck to the frame. Just in case.

Steve is due a small amount of redress under the GLO compensation scheme. He has agreed a five figure sum which should land in his bank account soon. It was good to see him again.

It was also wonderful to see Sue Knight again. Sue and Steve featured in the same sequence of films we made for the One Show in 2014. Sue had kindly driven to Nelson with her husband Nigel to join us. Unlike Steve, I had seen Sue since we first filmed at her home on The Lizard in Cornwall, because she came to the High Court hearing in 2019. You can read about Sue and Nigel’s epic journey in my book.

Sue was present in court for the announcement of the recusal application. We reminisced about that and the truly horrendous experience she was put through by the Post Office.

When we first filmed with Sue in 2014, all we knew was that her prosecution by the Post Office was halted in mysterious circumstances. She had refused to plead guilty (despite, I think, her own legal counsel’s recommendation) and the case was progressing towards trial. We later found that the Post Office had dropped the prosecution on receipt of the Clarke Advice. Of course she wasn’t told.

Sue was ruined, losing her job and then her house as the debts piled up. The Post Office refused to reinstate her, despite 32 years of loyal service. Sue is one of the kindest, community-minded people I have ever met. Quite how the Post Office came to think she might be a criminal is an utter travesty. We all now know this, but the damage done is incalculable.

There were some tears as Sue and I filmed our interview, and her reaction on walking into Steve’s Post Office will, I think, end up being seen by millions of people next week. I am deeply grateful to Sue for agreeing to put herself through the experience for The One’s Show’s cameras. If you’re reading this promise we will be careful to honour your story.

* It’s not every day someone gets called “redoubtable” in a High Court ruling. Mark Baker was. Read the ruling here, search the word “redoubtable” and find out why.

Channel 4 News exclusive

I am grateful to those who have alerted me to the various news lines which have sprung up over the last 48 hours. I’ve spotted a few myself and I have been aided by That Twitter and the google news alert service which searches for various relevant terms and often grubs up stories I have missed.

In no particular order:

– Channel 4 had a pointy-headed eleven-minute news piece featuring Lee Castleton, Paul Marshall, the Clarke Advice and – revealed for the first time – a document which proved the Post Office board was had alerted its insurers about a potential massive problem coming down the pipe as a result of the Clarke Advice. Watch it here.

More news lines…

– Fujitsu have written to the government telling them they won’t ‘voluntarily’ bid for new government contracts until the Post Office Horizon Inquiry reports.

– At the Inquiry yesterday, an email was shown which came from a Fujitsu manager, Peter Sewell, calling former Subpostmaster Lee Castleton “a nasty chap”.

This is factually wrong, as I have met Lee Castleton several times and can attest that he is a very nice chap. Sewell was questioned at the Inquiry yesterday. He confirmed he hadn’t met Lee, nor had any reason to call him a nasty chap. Watch the barrister Flora Page eviscerate Sewell here.

Paul Patterson, the European CEO of Fujitsu (who gave evidence to parliament on Tuesday) is giving evidence at the Inquiry today. Even more news lines will come from that, I have no doubt. Watch him here.

Robinson Rides Again

Tim Robinson (pictured) and I worked very closely over a period of months between 2014 and 2015 to get various iterations of the Post Office story out on regional and national television in a through-line from BBC Inside Out to The One Show to Panorama. Tim is a brilliant journalist and as soon as Matt Bardo and Andy Head at Panorama spotted his potential, they swooped.

Tim wrote that recent article about the pressure the BBC came under from the Post Office to stop reporting the Horizon story, and you can see him discussing it with Helen Skelton and Rav Wilding on Morning Live here. Tim rarely gets out from behind the camera, and it’s great to see him getting some credit and explaining the story with his usual aplomb.

Scotland News

I am deeply grateful to those who keep me across what’s happening north of the border, and my thanks to a Scottish Secret Emailer for drawing my attention to this debate in the Scottish Parliament, posted by the Scottish Sun. The Sun says:

“At First Minister Questions today Douglas Ross questioned the Scottish government on their position regarding the mass exonerating of subpostmasters after the Lord Advocate told parliament earlier this week that prosecutions should be looked at on a case-by-case basis.

“Mr Ross said: ‘So Humza Yousaf has said there should be a blanket exoneration, but the Lord Advocate believes the current process for appeals shouldn’t change with each case being considered individually.’

“Humza Yousaf also blamed the ‘UK Post Office’ for lying over the Horizon scandal, deflecting blame from the Scottish Crown Office who did the prosecuting in Scotland.”

As my correspondent (herself affected deeply by the scandal) notes, the Scottish position is muddled. It may be that whilst the arguments continue, Scottish victims, through no fault of their own, will have to wait longer for exoneration than their English and Welsh counterparts. She adds that the Crown Office in Scotland “is saying only 16 convicted claimants have come forward out of a possible 100… utter madness.”

Other things of interest

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has sent out an “update” about its investigation “on” the Post Office Horizon IT scandal which takes an entire page to tell us nothing, other than:

“We expect to be in the best position to take any meaningful action to get the right outcome after the full facts and all the relevant issues have been aired through the inquiry.”

Thanks for that. Wait, hang on, there’s more:

“But we are keeping our position under constant review. We will continue to engage with the inquiry to make sure we are aware of any issues that may require more immediate action. At the moment, we do not have evidence to show that any solicitor presents an ongoing risk to the public that needs to be addressed through urgent action.”

Oh right. Well what about the Met Police investigation then?

Don’t expect any prosecutions of anyone at the Post Office or Fujitsu for another two years – says the head of the Met Police.

Oh right.

More things to read whilst we wait:

The NFSP has called for a radical overhaul of the Post Office – I would politely suggest any radical overhaul should include the NFSP.

Fixing Horizon bugs would have been too costly, Post Office inquiry told.

Barrister who prosecuted sub-postmaster writes public apology.

Plus a couple more awful stories…

Kent sub-postmistress used £10K of savings to cover shortfalls.

Sub-postmistress ‘banned from seeing daughter by Post Office’

Finally…

The LBC broadcaster James O’Brien has a podcast called Full Disclosure which I briefly mentioned in a previous newsletter. I recorded a conversation with James on Tuesday, which has now dropped online.

We cover the Post Office scandal and a little bit about how and why I became a journalist. You can find it on all your podcast platforms or listen to it here.

Thanks for all the correspondence and links to material, your thoughts, questions and relentless good humour. I am still not in a position to answer anything just yet, but I did get a sense things were slowing down a little at the back end of this week, so I am hoping I can start going through the emails and messages I’ve missed.

I’ll leave you with a meme which has been doing the rounds. As the wider public are now aware of this scandal, there have been some attempts at humour. Some of it has been tasteless, some of it has just not been funny, but I think the picture below is rather heartwarming. Thanks to the various people who have passed it on to me.

Have a great weekend and I’m sure I’ll be writing again early next week.

Very best

Nick