Horizon trial day 3 preview
Good morning all
After yesterday’s car crash my hopes are not high. Anup Patny will continue to be cross-examined in the witness box, then it will be the turn of Anup Patny’s son, Aakash.
Later today we can hear from our first female witness, which will make a change. We have been listening exclusively to male voices (judge, all barristers and all witnesses) over the last two days.
And then, probably starting Thursday, it’s back to the blokes – Richard Roll, now a podiatrist, but formerly of Horizon support, sixth floor, Fujitsu HQ in Bracknell.
I spoke to Richard extensively in the past. If he is able to tell you the same stories he told me, it will make your toes curl.
The final witness is Ian Henderson, director of Second Sight. If you want to know what Ian is going to say, have a read of his performance at the oral evidence session of the select committee inquiry into Horizon on 3 Feb 2015. Given second sight’s employment by the Post Office was effectively ended a few weeks later, it’s hard to see what else he’s going to be able to add.
Dates
The dates of the second half of the Horizon trial have been changed. At a pre-trial review, the judge was adamant the QCs would only get 2.5 days to cross-examine the expert witnesses.
Having seen their final reports the judge is now more sympathetic to the QCs request for more time. He has now told Mr de Garr Robinson he can have four days to cross-examine the claimants’ independent IT expert, starting Mon 1 April.
Mr Green, the claimants’ QC, has been told he can have four days to cross-examine the Post Office independent IT expert starting Mon 8 April. He has indicated he will only need three days, but we’ll see.
Yesterday the parties and the judge agreed to hold closing arguments on the 8/9 May.
I need you
I am away w/c 8 April, which means I will miss three or four days of Patrick Green QC cross-examining the Post Office independent expert.
I am hoping to sub-contract the report-writing/live-tweeting gig to someone who is prepared to do three or four long days for £250 a day. If you think that person might be you, please get in touch by hitting reply, or forward this email to someone suitable. A journalist or journalism student would be ideal, especially as this is happening during the Easter Holidays, so it wouldn’t (hopefully) get in the way of their studies.
On another administrative note, I am aware that the Horizon trial menu has not been updated. The trial menus are useful as they put everything in the same place – transcripts, reports, documents, supplementary articles, live tweets etc so I’ll try to get on that today.
Matthew Wright
Sam Greenhill’s brilliant article for yesterday’s Daily Mail caused a stir. It was read by Matthew Wright who tweeted his outrage about what had happened to the Postmasters who were featured in the piece.
Matthew and I have some mutual friends who immediately tweeted Matthew telling him he should get me on his radio show on TalkRadio that afternoon.
Matthew’s producer tweeted me during Adrees Latif’s evidence, and in the eight minute break during Mr Latif’s evidence, I went out of court and pre-recorded a short interview with Matthew about the case. I didn’t hear the interview, which went out between 1-4pm as I was in court. If anyone did hear it I’d be grateful if they could tell me where I might find it.
Onwards
Right I’m going to get the kids to school and then make my way up to town.
Thanks again to everyone who has emailed and tweeted and re-tweeted and replied and donated and generally taken an interest in my reporting of this case. Keep the comments coming – it helps ensure I am better tailoring and delivering the service you have paid for.
Live tweeting starts at 10.30am. Let’s see what the day brings!
Bonus article about Day 1: “Robustness”
More bonus material – Daily Mail, FT and Computer Weekly pieces about day 1
Please feel free to forward this email. The more people who read it, the more people find out about what is the biggest trial going through the UK courts right now.