Thursday 14 September – 6pm – London EC1

Would you like to walk round Shakespeare’s London, in the company of a quite superb and knowledgeable guide?

Are you free at 6pm on Thursday 14 September? Can you get to EC1?

If so, Ian Fagelson, Anne Page and Jane Anderson (all pictured in the photo above) have just the event for you.

It is a guided walk, led by Ian, round Shakespeare’s London at 6pm on Thursday 14 September, starting at 10 Saint Martin’s Le Grand, London, EC1A 4EN.

The walk is being held to raise money for the Horizon Scandal Fund, a charity Ian helped set up. For more on the Fund, scroll to the bottom of this newsletter or click here. If you already know about the Fund and just want to book a place on the tour, this is what you need to do:

OPTION 1

1. Click on this link:

2. Find and click the RED button marked “Select a date” (at the bottom on a mobile, to the right on a desktop).

3. In the new window, click on the only date available from the calendar – 14 Sep. The calendar will disappear and you will be left with confirmation of the time, date and location of the walk and a RED button marked “Tickets”. Click on that.

4. In the new window you will be confronted by three boxes, each asking you to make a donation (suggested donation £15). Don’t panic.

5. If just one person is coming, put your donation in one of the boxes. If two people are coming, put two separate donations in two of the boxes. The little totaliser will add them up for you. If three people are coming use all three boxes. You can donate as much or as little as you like, and you can donate different amounts per person if you want. Go crazy.

6. Once you have settled on your total number of tickets and donations, click on the RED button at the bottom marked “Check out”.

7. This takes you to a whole new world of pain. Another screen will open. You will see eventbrite will have added a few pennies to your donation to pay their administration fee. You will be asked to enter your name, payment method choice, tick a gift aid box and various other bits of marketing hoo-ha.

8. Once you have navigated that, click on the RED button at the bottom of the page marked “Place your order” – then you have to go through the usual banking palaver, depending on what method of payment you have chosen.

9. Then, and only then, will you receive confirmation of your place on the walk (via email), and Ian, Anne and Jane will have some idea of who is coming along.

OPTION 2

Turn up on the day at the allotted time and make a cash or card donation via Ian’s funky new-fangled mobile card-reader.

Believe it or not, we would prefer you to go via Option 1 as it helps Ian, Anne and Jane keep across numbers. Think of it as a sort of initiative test.

By the way – Ian really is a superb guide: helpful, well-informed, entertaining and conscientious to a tee. We had such a good time on the last walk (which ended in a pub). I cannot recommend his walks highly enough.

But I can’t make it to London EC1 at 6pm on 14 Sep

That’s okay, there is another way to relieve you of your cash, and you don’t even have to get off your sofa.

It involves sponsoring my publishers (Helen and David from Bath Publishing), who are running the Bath Half Marathon in aid of the Horizon Scandal Fund. I mentioned this in the last newsletter. They don’t have a separate sponsorship page, but would instead like you to donate directly via the Horizon Scandal Fund donate page. I’ve just donated an experimental tenner and there’s no way of leaving a message, so I don’t know how they are going to tell which cash is sponsorship and which cash is from donors who have no idea they are running a half marathon.

Perhaps it doesn’t matter, but it will mean they’ll never know how much they raised by running themselves ragged over 13 long miles. Nutters.

Here is a picture of David and Helen, still standing after last year’s Bath Half. Scroll past it for more information about the Horizon Scandal Fund charity.

What is the Horizon Scandal Fund?

The Horizon Scandal Fund has been up and running for nearly two years, it became a registered charity last year and gained a patron in Lord Arbuthnot along the way. I am a trustee (though I don’t make decisions about grants) as are David and Helen. The full list of trustees can be found here.

For the last (nearly) two years we have been accepting donations and disbursing grants to people in need (and some of the situations which have been brought to our attention really are desperate).

Admittedly we are not very good about telling everyone about what we have been doing. We keep discussing some kind of publicity campaign every trustee meeting and then it never happens BUT we have, I know, made a difference to a growing number of people who have come to us with dreadful tales about the state of their lives and finances as a direct result of action taken against them by the Post Office over Horizon discrepancies.

I know many secret emailers will have made donations to the Horizon Scandal Fund, and I know we owe it to you to start telling you about the (actually quite interesting and varied) ways we have been able to help people. I think once Helen and David have published their latest book that might happen. David has put a brief summary of some of the ways we have been able to help on the Horizon Scandal Fund website.

If you are a former Subpostmaster or a member of family who became directly affected by the Post Office’s punitive methods during the Horizon disaster years (broadly 1999 to 2019) and would like to apply for a grant for anything which might help (hardship cash, a respite break, therapy, legal advice etc), the process is very easy – simply click on this page of the website and get in touch.

Interesting meeting minutes shocker

Meeting minutes are usually dull. Not these. The 31 July meeting of the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board (its sixth meeting) notes that Post Office lawyers Peters and Peters came in and gave a presentation to Lord Arbuthnot, Professors Hodges and Moorhead and Kevan Jones MP on how and why they are contesting so many appeals. Peters and Peters believe they are correctly interpreting instructions from the Court of Appeal.

The HCAB noted that whilst this may be lawful it was potentially unfair and could stop innocent Subpostmasters from getting their convictions quashed:

“The Board noted that the overall process seemed likely to lead to only a small number of convictions being overturned, when it was clear to them that many more were ill-founded. Whilst this was not a reflection of [Peters and Peters] work, it was not acceptable… the Board took the view that most convicted postmasters would be unable to get justice”

This is the exact opposite of getting off on a technicality and suggests that the law (or the CoA’s interpretation thereof) is fundamentally unjust. How ****ed is that?

This link will take you to the minutes page.

Disclosure Tuesday

Sir Wyn Williams’ determination to ensure the Post Office is disclosing all the documents it should be to his Inquiry will manifest in a hearing this coming Tuesday. I’ll be going along to see what is said. A blog post and newsletter may follow.

Okay that’s it. Enjoy the rest of the weekend! Book a ticket for the Shakespeare Walk! If you can get there on the 14th (a week on Thursday) I promise you will have a great time.

Yours

Nick