Bittersweet triumph for Subpostmasters

Well, well, well.

In a few short words, Her Honour Judge Taylor, Recorder of Westminster, quashed the convictions of six former Subpostmasters today, some of whom had been wrongly branded criminals for sixteen years.

After the preliminaries had been observed, Judge Taylor simply said she would enter a not guilty verdict in relation to all appeals.

The convictions were quashed, and history was made.

You can read the live tweets in one curated web-page, here.

You can watch the piece I made for ITV News here.

You can read my report for the Post Office Trial website, here.

You can read Computer Weekly’s write-up here.

You can read the Daily Telegraph’s write-up here.

I am deeply indebted to all the Subpostmasters – Susan Rudkin, Vipin Patel, Kamran Ashraf and Jaswinder Barang – and all their family, supporters and legal representatives who so kindly gave their time to me or my colleagues today.

From nothing to history in 72 hours

The speed at which today’s “mention” hearing turned into something rather different caught a lot of news desks by surprise.

I was alerted to it early by someone who was surprised as I was, and I was subsequently tipped off by someone very close to the process that this could be a really significant moment.

It gave me the confidence to sell it as a TV piece to ITV News desk, who I happened to be working for today. They liked it and invested time and money in sending assets to Leicestershire, Southwark and Oxfordshire (2 x correspondents, 2 x film crew, 1x satellite truck and engineer) in order to put together 2 minutes of television on what, until 11.15am this morning, was a punt.

That would not be possible were it not for the secret emailers and contacts who keep me across what is going on.

Without getting information from those who know what’s what, I am wholly useless. I remain continually indebted to those who pass on tidbits of information, documents and forward emails. In fact, one of the most helpful things people do is forward me information which is already in the public domain.

F’rinstance, whilst we were all wondering what was going to happen at the Court of Appeal on Thursday last week, the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust quietly published Paula Vennells’ resignation on their website.

If that was a coincidence then I am a banana. But even if I wasn’t desperately trying to extricate documents from the Court of Appeal, I would never think of idly clicking on an NHS Trust website in case it contained some news.

Quite what motivated one secret emailer to do just that, I don’t know, but he sent me a link on twitter, and suddenly, we had a story which got picked up nationally.

What I am trying to say is please, please don’t assume I will know stuff about this story. I can almost guarantee I won’t. Keep sending me things. Your anonymity is guaranteed as default.

And finally…

It was very difficult watching the range of emotions being experienced by some of the Subpostmasters and families I spent a good chunk of time with today.

I am almost certain I wouldn’t have survived what some good people have been through.

When I think of the hours of human capital which have been wasted on putting right a horrendous wrong, it makes me shudder.

I would like to pay tribute to the individuals, their families and their supporters who have kept fighting against overwhelming odds, just to keep their heads above water.

The full truth of this matter is not out yet, and I’ll do my best to keep digging around until it is.

Have a good weekend.

Nick

PS Vipin Patel is going to be on BBC Breakfast tomorrow morning!