No fun, no games
Apologies for troubling you twice in a week. I wasn’t aiming to write much, but I’ve put up two blog posts you might be interested in and there has been quite a bit of journalistic activity elsewhere.
Former Post Office auditor, investigator and disclosure officer Helen Rose gave evidence on Tuesday. Rose had never been trained as an auditor, investigator nor was she ever told of her specific responsibilities as disclosure officer. Things like that seem quite common within the Post Office, which is probably why they’re in the doo-da.
Rose also couldn’t remember being given any formal training on the Post Office’s Horizon IT system. But hey.
I have watched dozens of existing and former Post Office people give evidence over the last 5 years in a variety of settings, and I think Rose was one of the worst of a genuinely terrible subset of people. Not the worst, but not far off. Half way through her evidence Rose agreed she had signed a witness statement to the High Court which she knew contained false information. She had no idea how or why, nor apparently how serious that was for her (now) and for Lee Castleton at the time.
You can read my write up of Helen Rose’s day giving evidence to the Inquiry here.
Other reports include:
Post Office witness statement left out ‘unhelpful’ details, inquiry hears – Law Gazette
Auditor’s ‘inaccurate’ court statement resulted in subpostmaster’s bankruptcy – Independent
Post Office employee changed story for witness statement used to destroy subpostmaster – Computer Weekly
Don’t Dilley
Today Stephen Dilley, litigation partner at Womble Bond Dickinson, spent the day before the Inquiry, describing his job building the Post Office’s High Court case against Lee Castleton.
There are far better write-ups of what happened than mine. If you tune in quick you can see Emma Simpson’s a piece for the BBC1 6pm news (her accompanying website piece is here), but you are welcome to read my limited take on things, which is more of a compare and contrast exercise than a report.
It was great to see everyone at the Inquiry today, especially Lee and his wife Lisa. It’s so much better attending in person than watching on youtube.
£600,000 offer
If you missed it, here is my write-up of the govt’s £600k compensation offer to certain Subpostmasters.
Here’s the BBC’s take – Post Office Horizon scandal: £600k compensation ‘an insult’ – victim
Do tune into BBC Radio 5 live at 4pm tomorrow and Monday. I’ll be co-presenting with Clare McDonnell both days.
The piece I’m putting together for ITV News will not be broadcast for at least a couple of weeks, and all this week ace producer Bob has been watching the inquiry like a hawk, extracting documents for our forthcoming 5-part BBC Radio 4 series.
Keep well,
Nick