Next Court of Appeal cohort coming through

Hi everyone

There are 31 new appellants lined up waiting to have their cases heard at the Court of Appeal. There is a directions hearing scheduled for 19 July. If I am not called away by more urgent business, I’ll be there in my usual spot.

Some interesting numbers:

10 of those 31 appellants are not going to have their appeals opposed by the Post Office

Three of the appellants were not prosecuted by the Post Office, but by the DWP (read what I have to say about that here).

All but one of the appellants applied directly to the Court of Appeal – the one who didn’t was Roger Allen, who came through the CCRC. He was also one of the appellants who was prosecuted by the DWP.

All but one of the appellants is represented by Hudgells who are doing a corking job on getting these cases in front of the courts.

I have interviewed one of the ten appellants who knows he will have his name cleared. His name is Tim Bentnall. Read Tim’s story, plus more about this intriguing DWP connection here.

University College London seminar

After re-posting the link to Paul Marshall’s speech in my last newsletter, I was reminded by many secret emailers there was an excellent UCL seminar recently which featured several leading lights, four of whom had been directly involved in the recent Court of Appeal process and many others who could offer some very useful insight into good business practice, legal ethics, criminal prosecutions etc. They’re all good talkers, and it is worth a watch.

Although the transcript does not yet appear to be available, one of the contributors, the barrister Flora Page, has kindly posted up what she said at the seminar on LinkedIn here. If you are not familiar with the site, you may need to create a login, which is free.

A Head of IT speaks!

Secret emailer Nic Oatridge describes himself as “a student of IT disasters, partly out of professional interest and partly to avoid becoming part of one”. He has had a quick fisk of the corporate governance at the Post Office and concluded that “they are unlikely to detect the next scandal, any more than they did the last one.” Do have a read on LinkedIn here.

Finally – I said in my last newsletter no one knew of anyone who had had a settlement from the Historical Shortfall Scheme. Now I do, by proxy. A secret emailer and serving Subpostmaster writes:

“As far as SPMs who HAVE received payment from the HSS I know of one only.

He retired about 18 years ago and on handing over to new operator was astounded to be told the cash was (around) £250 down.

As the second generation SPM he had no history of significant shortfalls. He expressed disbelief at the attendant POL Auditors finding a shortfall (in those days it was a weekly full balance). He grudgingly coughed up but was very bitter about it.

This lad’s branch was in Nottingham and he subsequently retired. He has done sterling service for me on covering holidays etc.

As such I have kept him up to speed over the last few years & he submitted a claim under the HSS.

Within weeks he received an offer of £450 to cover his claim on condition that such being accepted resulted in no further claims being allowed.

He accepted the offer.

I have submitted a claim a few months ago of just under £5,000 dating back to October 2010, which I made good within two weeks.

I’ve had three emails to say they are still investigating my claim “so please do not think we are not dealing with it”.

Am not confident but will let you know what their decision is once I know it.“

I am deeply grateful to my correspondent for the information. It also rather confirms my suspicion that the first settled claims would be relatively low value. It of course makes sense to send out cheques for claims of less than £1000 without too much quibbling, because the cost of investigating would soon supersede the value of the claim.

Given my correspondent has not received any cash or even an offer for his not insubstantial, but still modest-ish claim, it’ll be interesting to see how that pans out.

Okay – I’m done. Thanks for reading, as ever. Have a great weekend.

Nick