Watching Alice

Morning!

Yesterday former Post Office Chair Alice Perkins gave evidence to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry. I have given her testimony write up here.

Despite giving us plenty to chew over, there wasn’t a strong top line, which is why most journalists had a slightly different favoured quote. Here are a selection:

Ex-Post Office chair says senior executives misled board over Horizon issues – The Guardian

Ex-Post Office chairman told relationship with Fujitsu was ‘too nice’ – Daily Telegraph

Post Office chair was aware of Horizon concerns from day one but failed to act – Computer Weekly

Ex-Post Office chair was told of IT risks in 2011 – BBC

I went with Perkins in Wonderland.

The top is too long, but I was just getting my thoughts down in a splurge before reviewing the actual content of the day.

It was hard to mark (ho ho) Perkins, really. She clearly had good intentions going into the job, but appears to have been sideswiped by the realisation she had allowed her independent investigators to uncover a huge miscarriage of justice, and appeared to spend the rest of her tenure trying to cover it back up, rather than letting it out into the open.

Perkins wasn’t well-served by her execs, and she was surrounded by mediocrity at boardroom level, but she was no great shakes herself. What we don’t know is if she acted with genuine incompetence or was part of a criminal conspiracy to hide the truth.

Janet, live in Leeds

For various serendipitous reasons I am going to do another Post Office Scandal: the Inside Story event, this time at the Otley Courthouse near Leeds.

I am delighted to be able to tell you that Janet Skinner has very kindly agreed to join me on stage to share her story, and offer her reflections on the inquiry, which should be over by then.

You can buy tickets here. I haven’t yet put the date on my website, nor have I formally announced Janet’s participation (the theatre doesn’t know yet).

It’s only a tiny room and I expect it will sell out quite quickly, so if you live anywhere near, do please come along. It would be great to see you.

Varchas and the Samosas

It was a good to spend the day at the Inquiry yesterday in the company of fellow Horizon Scandal Fund trustee Varchas Patel, who had come up to see Alice Perkins’ evidence. Varchas was sent by his mum Jayshree with a care package of samosas. They arrived in a bouji cool bag with ice-blocks. I shared some with my fellow grateful hacks, had two for lunch and brought the remainder home to power me through today. Thank you, Jay and Varchas.

Right, I’m heading back to London for Day 2 of Perkins. I’ll be live tweeting here and writing up a (hopefully shorter) report before the end of the day.

Thanks to everyone who has signed up to this newsletter in recent days. Don’t forget you can get email alerts to everything I write on Post Office Scandal by just putting your email address in the sign-up box on the website.

Yours

Nick