plus: if it’s Saturday, it must be Crewe

Hello there

Welcome to another newsletter written using speech-to-text dictation software.

Apologies in advance for any errors. I will try to check this thoroughly, but I also want to get it out of the door as soon as possible.

Gurney time

I had my operation yesterday. Producer Tom very kindly drove me from Shrewsbury overnight to my home in Surrey after our final talk at the Severn Theatre on Sunday.

At 7 o’clock yesterday morning he got out of bed and drove me to hospital, where a highly-efficient and friendly squad of NHS clinicians asked me questions, told me what they were going to do, explained the risks, and knocked me out cold before proceeding to slice into my wrist, hack away in my bone, try not to cut any arteries or ligaments and then screw a titanium metal plate to the distal fracture on my right radial before closing me up, waking me up and making me eat a tuna fish sandwich on brown bread. Only then was I ready to leave.

Thursday and Friday at the Inquiry

I attended the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry in person on Thursday, where I witnessed the evidence of former Post Office managing director David Smith. Smith commissioned the Ismay report. This disastrous document gave the post office continuing confidence to prosecute more than 100 people between 2010 and 2013.

The author of the report, Rod Ismay, previously told the inquiry that David Smith instructed him (without written terms of reference) to essentially undertake a rebuttal exercise of the various challenges to the Post Office’s Horizon IT system which were being raised in the media, by MPs and campaigners.

This alleged instruction was disputed by Smith in language so obtuse that on Thursday, after a tortuously long exchange which Smith felt was “semantics”, the chair of the Inquiry, Sir Wyn Williams, intervened to try to make sense of his evidence. Eventually the chair suggested:

“You did intend that he [Ismay] should effectively draw together conclusions which had already been arrived at. It was not an exercise in testing those conclusions.

Smith replied: “That is correct. It was not.”

I did my best to live tweet Smith’s evidence, typing with my left hand to give a brief flavour of what was happening whilst screenshotting and posting some of the interesting documents that came up on the live feed in the hearing room.

I have collected them via threadreader into a single webpage for you to read. It is mainly how I intend to cover the Inquiry on the days that I am there with my wrist in a cast, although I will try to pull a couple of blog posts together. You can watch ALL Smith’s evidence and read the transcript by clicking on this link here.

Incidentally, at the end of the day Flora Page, one of the barristers representing postmasters, asked Sir Wyn-Williams to read a self-incrimination warning to David Smith. When the Chair asked why, Ms Page told him she believed the Ismay report was “a cover-up”. The chair duly obliged. During his questioning by Ms Page, Smith denied any cover-up.

The Cook non-Report

I was on the train to Darlington listening to the Inquiry for most of the evidence on Friday. Two senior executives with oversight of the post Office business gave evidence. First, Alan Cook, was memorable for telling the hearing he had no idea that the post office was a prosecuting authority and that the decision to spend more than £300,000 suing Lee Castleton at the High Court did not reach the Post Office board. Cook fingered Paula Vennells as being the most likely person to have authorised that expenditure. Another line of questioning for the Inquiry to put to her when she gives evidence on 22 May.

Crozier (who my speech-to-text software keeps rendering as “Crazier”), seemed entirely unable to untangle or explain the reporting lines between the Royal Mail and Post Office when it came to using Royal Mail prosecutors to charge Subpostmasters on behalf of the Post Office.

You can watch and read Cook and Crozier’s evidence in full here.

Darlo

The last few days have been some of the most inspiring and intense of my career. On Friday night in Darlington I had the honour of walking more than 400 people through the Post Office scandal with Lee Castleton (with many more former Subpostmasters and their partners watching from the audience).

I was also delighted that David McDonnell came along to reveal himself as the source behind my Computer Weekly article published on 19 February 2021, and as “Clint”, the pseudonymous source in my book.

David gave evidence at the Inquiry in 2022, but was not quite ready for me to make the public connection back then. I was thrilled when he suggested doing so on stage in Darlington. Aside from the piece of literal theatre, David gave a wonderful interview, with real insight into what was going on at Fujitsu back in 1998, when he was tasked with trying to fix the Horizon system.

Lee was fantastic, as he always is. He has done just as much dedicated campaigning as Alan Bates, with a fraction of the media attention. Nonetheless the high profile role his story played in the ITV drama means he is turning into a bona fide (albeit very reluctant) celebrity. We took some pleasure in watching him get mobbed as he went out into the foyer of the Darlington Hippodrome during the interval.

Lee is one of the most inspiring men I’ve ever met, and his extraordinary good grace and humility belies the goddawful experience he was put through by the Post Office. I don’t know how he does it, but I’m grateful that he was willing to come and speak on stage and accept the audience’s admiration.

My thanks also to Izzy Makepeace from BBC Radio Tees. Izzy has been a huge supporter of this story and my work, and I was delighted she was willing to take up my invitation to introduce the talk on stage. This was Izzy’s first bit of public-speaking to a live audience, which she delivered with aplomb.

Crewe and Shrewsbury

I was going to tell you all about Crewe and Shrewsbury, but sadly I’ve been at this newsletter for three hours. I have to wake up my manager, then we have to go delivering posters for the Walton talk, before getting into the car and driving from Surrey to Evesham, whilst listening to the Inquiry.

I’m hoping to be on BBC radio Scotland at 1:10 pm, to go through today’s evidence session. Then it will be a case of checking in at the hotel in order to prep for tonight’s presentation at The Regal.

I do want to say how grateful I am to Steve and Scott Darlington for speaking so brilliantly on Saturday in Crewe, to Mohamed and Rubbina Shaheen for their extraordinary and very moving interview in front of an emotional and highly charged audience in Shrewsbury, where they ran a post office.

If you don’t know, Rubbina was sent to prison. The couple lost their house and ended up living in a van for several weeks until they could find temporary accommodation. Mohammed thanked the audience for their support during the troubles he and Rubbina had been through, and I will never forget him asking me to read out Rubbina’s despairing “goodbye” note, at a time when she had decided to end it all. We are all very grateful she didn’t.

Another pair of intensely moving interviews was given by Tracy Felstead and Tim Brentnall, this time during the evening show at the Severn in Shrewsbury.

Tracy brought her family with her to watch her talk about her experiences of being sent to prison aged 19. Her father was in court when it happened. I had the privilege of meeting him on Sunday (along with Mrs Felstead!) for the first time.

Tim had driven from Pembrokeshire in Wales (bearing gifts of waffle cakes!) with his very pregnant wife Steph. It was such a joy to see them all, and I’m particularly grateful to Tracy for opening up again to talk about what she went through. It was a tough listen, and must’ve been incredibly difficult to talk about. There were grown men in tears in the audience. I’m so sorry such a dreadful thing happened to such a wonderful person. Thank you, Tracy

For anyone who knows Tracy, the photo above may look a little odd. Tracy is 5’3″ tall and Tim is 6’5″. During the interval I asked if at the end of the talk a small box could be provided for Tracey to stand on, so the height differential didn’t show too much when it came to the final photo. When I asked for the box to be brought in at the end of the evening, Tracy was presented with an 18″ table which she was asked to clamber on to and graciously did and graciously did. Oh well, there are some things you can control during a live event and some you can’t!

Tim is kindly coming back for more next month. I can’t wait to see him. If you would like to experience one of these live events please click on this link and choose a venue which suits. I’m not going to be doing anything like this again, and I promise you they are unique occasions.

Onwards

I am aiming to be typing with two hands within two weeks, which will hopefully be in good time to give some of the significant figures amongst the Inquiry witnesses the scrutiny I feel they deserve.

Thanks to everyone who has signed up to this newsletter in the last few days. I am sorry if the output is not as prodigious perhaps you had hoped. I’m very happy to sort you out with an instant refund if you have buyers regret. Please just hit reply to this email and let me know.

Thanks again to everyone for all the correspondence. I am particularly grateful for all the best wishes messages before my op. The consultant surgeon seemed really pleased with the way it went, which is encouraging.

Oh and please forward this email to anyone you might know who might be in range of some of the Post Office Scandal – the Inside Story over the next couple of months. Our last show was a sellout. Some are less than half full. It would be great to see you, or your friends!

Enjoy watching the inquiry this week.

Best

Nick

Post Office Scandal – The Inside Story

In April and May 2024, I’ll be visiting various theatres in towns around England in the counties of Cheshire, Shropshire, County Durham, Dorset, East Sussex, Devon, Cornwall, Essex, Oxfordshire, Worcestershire, Hertfordshire, and Surrey, including my home town of Walton on Thames.

At each venue I’ll be joined by a former Subpostmaster (apart from Walton when Second Sight’s Ian Henderson will be in the chair). There will be plenty of opportunity to ask questions and learn even more about the scandal.

All the dates and box office links are here. Please do have a look, see if there’s a venue near you, and if you fancy it, book a couple of tickets. Please also feel free to forward this newsletter to your friends who may live near a venue!

I’ll be around after each show in the foyer or bar and look forward to saying hello if you can make it.