Plus: Moorhead vs Smith

Hi everyone

I hope you had a relaxing Bank Holiday.

Before looking forward to today, I just want to thank everyone who came along to the five talks we did in Walton, Shoreham, Hailsham and Hayes over the weekend. I am deeply grateful to Parmod (above), Sami, Helen and Ian (in the photos below) who gave such compelling insight into their stories. If you came along, bought a book, had a chat and helped make the events what they were, thank you thank you thank you. They have been so special.

We have five dates remaining in Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire, Surrey (preview interview here) and Essex starting this Saturday for five straight days, and then I am going to hang up my powerpoint for a while and focus on the Inquiry.

Most of the remaining dates look on for a sell-out save the vast cavernous space which is Swindon. We have sold very few tickets at the Wyvern Theatre. If you can, please come to Swindon. It’s pretty much your last chance to see an event like this. Details here.

Early bird

It’s just gone 5am. I’m up with the lark as I’ve got no idea if I’m going to get to London today due to the train strike.

I want to, because I’ve got an event I’m hoping to attend tonight and I really want to be in the Inquiry room to watch the evidence of Belinda Cortes-Martin (née Crowe).

Ms Cortes-Martin’s actions when she worked on the Complaint and Mediation Scheme deserve scrutiny. Until now, very few people reporting on this scandal know anything about her.

As far as I can make out – and this might be contradicted by her evidence/the facts (surely the same thing, eh?), Belinda Crowe was brought in by the Post Office to keep an eye on the 2013 – 2015 Complaint and Mediation Scheme Working Group.

At the time, her role was never properly explained to Second Sight, but it now transpires her job title was Programme Director, Project Sparrow.

Privileged tweeting

Project Sparrow was the secret name the Post Office gave to all matters pertaining to the Post Office scandal at the time. The Post Office had a habit of assigning animal names to its projects. The fact Postmasters complaining of miscarriages of justice deserved the codename Sparrow perhaps suggests how important and significant their complaints were to the Post Office.

During the High Court hearings, the Post Office insisted the word “Sparrow” was privileged, to the clear bemusement of Mr Justice Fraser.

Crowe was in fact a former senior civil servant, presented to Second Sight as someone who was helping out the Working Group secretariat. It now looks like she had a bigger role than that.

Remember Post Office Chair Alice Perkins’ complaining to Post Office General Counsel Susan Crichton that there was no one “marking” Second Sight’s activities as they would have done with any civil service investigation?

“Marking” in civil-service eupho-speak apparently meaning “attempting to bend someone’s influence towards ours whilst providing constant feedback to us on their activities and intent”.

Shortly after Crichton’s departure, in came Crowe. There to “help” Second Sight, or perhaps to obstruct them. Or neither. We’ll find out, hopefully from her evidence today.

Meester Moorhead

Whilst I was faffing abaht in Surrey, Sussex and Hayes over the weekend, Professor Richard Moorhead was getting his teeth into former Cartwright King lawyer Martin Smith’s evidence to the Inquiry.

In a triptych of substack posts, Prof Moorhead takes a cold hard look at the quality of Smith’s lawyering and the environment in which he was operating. Smith does not come out of this well, at all. They are very easy-to-read posts. I would recommend reading them and signing up to Moorhead’s free email alerts which deliver the posts straight to your inbox.

1) Fundamentally, what? Martin Smith and Competence

2) Fundamentally…. under the radar?

3) Fundamentally… proper disclosure?

Part of me is actually glad I missed Jarnail Singh’s evidence to the public Inquiry on Friday. I watched the first half in despair before having to turn my attention to other matters. What did we learn? He was fundamentally bad at his job? This is the BBC’s write-up of his performance.

There was another news line knocking around this weekend with the Times reporting that Fujitsu global have given Fujitsu UK £200m. The paper speculates this might be a Subpostmaster compensation provision. It’s certainly, as The Times notes, unusual.

I often dream of trains

A warm welcome to all the new subscribers garnered over the Bank Holiday weekend. It’s good to see you.

Right, I’m off to battle South Western Railways. If I fail, I’ll come home and live-tweet the inquiry from there. If you can’t be bothered with that Twitter, at the end of the day I reformat all my tweets (and screenshots of important documents discussed during the hearing) into a single web-page and post it on my website here, for your easy-reading convenience. My thanks to Andrew of the Dark Arts for setting this up and teaching me how to do it.

Have a good day.

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. There will be plenty of opportunity to ask questions and learn 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.