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Prof Moorhead: “Crass does not come close”
Read More…: Prof Moorhead: “Crass does not come close”Following a Q&A with one member of the independent Horizon Compensation Advisory Board (Lord Arbuthnot) earlier this week, I am delighted to bring you another. Richard Moorhead is Professor of Legal Ethics at Exeter University and a respected industry blogger. He has taken a close professional interest in the legal failings which contributed to the Post Office Horizon scandal. You can read his dedicated substack column here. Prof Moorhead’s thoughtful and measured contributions brought him to the attention of the government, which led to his invitation to sit on the HCAB. In recent weeks we have had the Bonusgate revelations…
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Lord Arbuthnot: “I feel we are heading in the right direction”
Read More…: Lord Arbuthnot: “I feel we are heading in the right direction”Last week the Sunday Times asked me to write a piece about the Post Office scandal. The result can be read here. In the course of researching the article I picked up a lot of interesting material which, for reasons of space, didn’t make the final cut. Rather than let some good stuff go to waste, I am going to publish it on this website. We’ll start with an interview with Lord Arbuthnot. James Arbuthnot, formerly the MP for North East Hampshire, became the leading parliamentary campaigner for Subpostmasters back in 2010. He has continued to campaign from the House…
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Nick Read: The First Interview
Read More…: Nick Read: The First InterviewOn 20 June I was waiting outside Committee Room 6 at the Houses of Parliament, waiting to hear Post Office CEO Nick Read and his fellow execs grilled by Darren Jones MP and various members of the Business Select Committee. I was in the process of putting together Episode 12 of The Great Post Office Trial. My producer Robert and I had already bid for an interview with Mr Read, but we were cannoning towards our deadline and time was running out. The day before we had been told that despite initially positive soundings, the CEO was unlikely to be…
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Inquiry to consider yet more delays
Read More…: Inquiry to consider yet more delaysUPDATE: The inquiry’s hearings have now been postponed at least until 25 July, possibly until after summer. ORIGINAL COPY: The statutory public inquiry into the Post Office Horizon IT scandal is looking very wobbly. Last month’s hearings were postponed as the Chair, Sir Wyn Williams, was ill. Last night we heard Sir Wyn is considering postponing most of this month’s hearings until after summer because of the Post Office’s failure to properly disclose documents to the inquiry, which might be of relevance to this month’s witnesses. We’ve already seen the second postponement of Gareth Jenkins’ evidence (the Fujitsu engineer under…
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The Burton Report
Read More…: The Burton ReportWhen it transpired the Post Office had chosen to award itself bonuses for co-operating with the public inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal, it caused something of a storm. The somewhat crass idea that the Post Office should reward itself for co-operating with the inquiry was bad enough. Even worse was the fact the bonus metrics were said to have been met with approval from Sir Wyn Williams, the inquiry chair. This was entirely false. Sir Wyn Williams had done no such thing. He wasn’t even aware the Post Office had a bonus scheme related to his inquiry. To compound…
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The Post Office Race Equality duty in the application of its prosecutorial powers
Read More…: The Post Office Race Equality duty in the application of its prosecutorial powersDr Minh Alexander is back. Dr Alexander contacted me a few years ago when she was alarmed to hear that The Reverend Paula Vennells had sailed into a job running an NHS Trust. Dr Alexander felt The Revd Vennells’ active attempts to play down and possibly suppress the Post Office scandal whilst CEO of the Post Office made her exactly the wrong sort of person to be running a large NHS Trust. The NHS has form when it comes to trying to suppress revelations about serious wrongdoing. Bringing someone in whose instinct, it seemed, was to cover-up a scandal could…
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Help Noel translate his book into English
Read More…: Help Noel translate his book into EnglishUPDATE: Noel has done it! Here is a message sent to everyone who donated to the campaign, sent on Friday night: “On behalf of the Thomas Family, I would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone for the wonderful response to our crowdfunder. We have by now received support from nearly 200 individuals from all parts of the UK. I had set a target of £6,000 to cover the costs of translating and adapting “Llythyr Noel” into English with a closing date of August 2, 2023. But by today, June 23, this sum has already reached an amazing sum…
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What were they thinking?
Read More…: What were they thinking?Whilst the Post Office was prosecuting Subpostmasters for crimes they didn’t commit, it was also asking its investigators if their suspects were “Negroid Types”. This was as recently as 2008. The document (which you can read here) has come to light as a result of diligent and tenacious FOI work by Eleanor Shaikh. In its response to Eleanor (which you can read here) the Post Office called the document “obsolete” and apologised for the “unacceptable” language. In a social media post earlier today the Post Office went further, saying: “The racist language used in this document was unacceptable. We don’t…
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Sam Harrison, former Nawton Subpostmaster
Read More…: Sam Harrison, former Nawton SubpostmasterSam Harrison was was one of the 555 claimants in Bates v Post Office. Sadly, she passed away earlier this month. She was 54. Sam is, by my reckoning, the 61st known compensation claimant to have died before receiving proper redress for the losses inflicted on her by the Post Office. I was contacted by one of Sam’s three sons, Will, who wrote the following the following notice: “It is with great sadness that myself, Edward and Charlie are announcing the passing of our mum Sam Harrison on the 11th May 2023 at the age of 54 following a three…
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Current Post Office Horizon IT issues
Read More…: Current Post Office Horizon IT issuesThe Post Office’s Horizon IT system was described as in a 2019 High Court judgment as being “not remotely robust” between 2000 and 2010. Between 2010 and 2017 it was described as “slightly more robust… but still had a significant number of bugs, errors and defects”. The same judgment also said that after 2017 Horizon was “far more robust than either of the previous two iterations of the system.” What follows is a current list of (known and published) problems with the Horizon system in May 2023. Pre-2020, this sort of information was not shared with Subpostmasters, nor their criminal…
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