Hello secret emailers

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks. Normally journalists approach me looking for context or contact details for claimant Subpostmasters.

At the moment everyone is trying to find someone from within the Post Office or Fujitsu who might now be willing to speak about their experience of working on Horizon, or dealing with the complaints Subpostmasters were making.

I don’t hold out much hope. But I do know that there are some existing and former Post Office employees and IT people who are secret emailers. There might be a Fujitsu employee or two lurking on the mailing list, too. In which case, welcome, friends. The secret emails are for everyone.

If you are working for or did work for the Post Office or Fujitsu and feel you might have something meaningful to say in the light of the recent settlement (and the judge’s announcement that he would be passing a file to the DPP), I would be very, very interested in hearing from you.

I am looking particularly for any people who were involved in the decision-making processes with regard to problems with Horizon, investigations, prosecutions etc

You might know someone (eg a contractor) who worked for the Post Office or Fujitsu who had some disquiet about what was going on whilst they were there and who now might be willing to have a chat about what they know. Please forward this to them, or give them my email address nick@nickwallis.com

All contact is treated with the strictest confidence. No one will know you are getting in touch except me – just hitting reply to this email will set up an email to go straight to my inbox.

Inside Out South – nine years of Horizon films

Apologies for the inactivity of late on the blog. I have actually been paid to work on the Post Office story by other news organisations who understandably like to keep information to themselves until the time is right to reveal it.

I think I can safely tell you now that I am in the process of making a film with Seema Misra and Jo Hamilton for broadcast in the South region on BBC1 at 7.30pm on Monday. I first found out about the Post Office story through Seema’s husband Davinder, back in 2010. In 2011 we broadcast our first investigation on Inside Out South, which featured Seema (by proxy as she was still in prison), Davinder, Jo Hamilton and a nice chap from Odiham called David Bristow. You can still watch it here.

Last week I went back to visit Seema and Jo and catch up with them nearly 9 years on. There’s no real kind of resolution to a story like this, but the conclusion of the litigation gave us an important staging post. David wasn’t part of the litigation or the mediation scheme and has moved on to other things, but we are still in touch.

I saw a rough cut of the film yesterday and it looks great – the team have pulled together footage from our 2011 broadcast, our 2015 Inside Out piece, the Panorama and the BBC News footage which was filmed outside the High Court on the 16 Dec last year.

Do watch the programme if you can. I will circulate the link on iplayer for those outside the region when it is posted up.

I’m also working on a number of other interesting projects and keeping my ear to the ground wrt to parliamentary activity. Basically there is going to be a wait before anything happens because it takes a while for everything to bed-in after an election.

The JFSA

Alan Bates sent out a note to JFSA subscribers last week exhorting them to start contacting their MPs about an inquiry. Mr Bates has gone directly to the postal services minister Kelly Tolhurst, sending her a copy of the Horizon trial judgment and invoicing her for the litigation costs!

As Mr Bates says: “If BEIS or successive governments had actually carried out its duties as it was meant to, the debacle surrounding POL and our need to pursue POL through the courts may never have been needed. Government is the only shareholder of POL and as such has a duty to take responsibility.”

At the same time Mr Bates was invoicing Ms Tolhurst, the indefatigable Eleanor Shaikh was writing a letter to her boss, Andrea Leadsom, demanding an immediate public inquiry into the Horizon scandal and setting out exactly why. It is a tour de force You can read it here.

Freeths

An interesting circular from Freeths went round earlier in the week telling claimants not to get carried away when thinking about how much they’re going to receive from the litigation settlement. Freeths said:

“It continues to be extremely important that you do not make any assumptions about how much money you will receive and you should not commit to any expenditure or take on any liabilities in reliance on receiving money. Your proportionate share of the settlement monies will be significantly less than your losses due to the unrecoverable funding and legal costs paid which were necessary to allow the Group Litigation to be brought.”

There’s also an interesting note on those claimants who suffered mental health difficulties after trying to deal with the situations the Post Office put them in. Freeths say:

“A proportion of the settlement monies have been earmarked for use to provide support for members of the Claimant group suffering from mental health problems and stress-related illnesses… “We are in the early stages of exploring if we can cost-efficiently help the claimant group have easier access to mental health facilities. One option we are exploring is whether we could arrange introductions to a service for any claimants who may need it to have access to a specialist assessment service through which you could have a free initial consultation with a mental health professional who could assess your needs. The intention would then be to put you in touch with a relevant medical professional.”

But be aware: “The initial consultation / assessment and help accessing services would be covered by the scheme but the costs of any private treatment would need to be paid for by you from your proportion of the settlement money.”

Reminder

Just a reminder of the request at the top of this email – I would really like to hear from those who worked at Fujitsu and/or the Post Office who heard or knew anything about the Horizon scandal and who might be able to offer any insight. All communication will be in complete confidence, I can promise you that. Just hit reply to this email – or if it’s been forwarded to you, my address is nick@nickwallis.com

Yours

Nick