Angela the Automaton
Morning all.
I’m going to have to get quicker at writing on-the-day copy. I find it the hardest element of being a journalist because it’s the thing I’ve done the least.
Yesterday’s session was done before 4pm and I didn’t file to the website before 10pm. Analysing the evidence, picking the “best” bits out, writing them up, listening and re-listening to the youtube feed to get it all verbatim, and that’s before the hour or so spent formatting, choosing and uploading the pictures, spell-checking, sense-checking etc etc… quite the palaver.
Anyhoo – its there, or rather, here:
Post Office rewarded director after she lied in court
It’s quite long, but even so, there was so much I had to leave out, notably Sam Stein KC’s line of questioning about branch closures in the early 2000s.
Branch closures
When the Post Office needed to close hundreds of branches, the right thing to do would be to negotiate a fair settlement with the Subpostmaster to close down the counter. The problem with that is that it costs money and occasionally set off a community campaign to keep the branch open. At the very least it might cause bad feeling in the community towards the Post Office.
It would be much cheaper for the Post Office to target a branch, fail it at audit, blame the Subpostmaster (who would then become the focus of community ire, rather than the Post Office), and if you can force money out of them for the discrepancy, it can even be a profitable exercise.
Don’t forget executives were given bonuses for closing branches, investigators’ bonuses were dependent on the level of “asset recovery” and auditors were given bonuses bases on the number of branches they failed.
Of course, to pursue the latter course of action would require a brutal, unsympathetic, corrupt and criminal mindset, so there’s no way… oh… hang on…
Mr Stein tackles the subject well during his session at the end of the day, For the full live tweets collated into a single page on my website, expertly created by Andrew of the Dark Arts, click here.
To watch it all again, click here. At the time of sending this, the transcripts still aren’t up.
Bogey in the news
Here’s a selection of other takes on AvdB’s evidence:
Post Office tried to ‘hush up’ case of worker who killed himself, inquiry hears – The Guardian
Post Office chief received bonus in same year she ‘misled High Court‘ – The Telegraph
Ex-Post Office boss shown letter blaming company for sub-postmaster’s suicide – ITV News
and another great piece from Tom Witherow (and Peter Chappell):
Post Office ‘held gun to my head’ to agree deal after husband’s suicide – The Times
The Weekender is here
Right, I’m off to a memorial service for a dear friend and then Helen and David from Bath Publishing are picking me up and taking me to Bishops Stortford for the beginning of our Hertfordshire/Essex weekender.
I’ll be back in harness on Tuesday for another week of Inquiry tweeting. I don’t think it’ll have the same fireworks as this week, but you never know…
Thanks to everyone who signed up over the last week. It’s good to have you here. If you want to get a ticket to any upcoming live shows, the info is below.
Keep well
Nick
Post Office Scandal – The Inside Story
In April and May 2024, I’ll be visiting various theatres in towns around England.
At each venue I’ll be joined by a former Subpostmaster (apart from Walton when Second Sight’s Ian Henderson will be in the chair). There will be plenty of opportunity to ask questions and learn even more about the scandal.
All the dates and box office links are here. Please do have a look, see if there’s a venue near you, and if you fancy it, book a couple of tickets. Please also feel free to forward this newsletter to your friends who may live near a venue!
I’ll be around after each show in the foyer or bar and look forward to saying hello if you can make it.