Cover-ups and destruction at the Post Office

It was jaw-dropping to listen to Tim Moloney’s opening submission this morning. Most of what he had to say was not new to me, but when a summary of an appalling scandal is compiled and delivered to a courtroom by a skilful QC it can be devastating stuff.

You’ll notice I haven’t quoted a word of what he said in my piece on the website, because there were even more revelations to come. Who would have thought the Post Office wanted documents discussing weaknesses in Horizon to be shredded? It’s devastating stuff.

Jo, Seema, Tracy, Nicki and Janet

It was a real privilege to see so many former Subpostmasters in court today. Because of COVID rules no one was allowed to bring a partner or supporter to court that meant many people couldn’t face travelling to court on their own (especially as there was a chance they’d be stuck in the overflow court). But the appellants who could make it represented, giving their time to the journalists who wanted to speak to them and agreeing to be photographed. I would call the atmosphere professional and confident, rather than tense or giddy. There were some good people who’d been through a lot asserting themselves on the public stage today and I give them credit for the way they did it so unselfconsciously.

After a lot of to-in and fro-ing I have lucked out with my position in court. The court clerk has given me a judge-level view of proceedings from the jury box, and I can watch and hear what is going on. The only other journalist in the well of the court is Sam Tobin, one of the Press Association’s ace corps of court reporters who has helped familiarise me with the ways of the Royal Courts of Justice. Tom Witherow from the Daily Mail battled the terrible audio in the spillover court and Karl Flinders was watching and listening at home. I am looking forward to seeing their reports as soon as they are up.

Tomorrow

I am not sure we are going to get better revelations than today, but it’ll be interesting to see how the Post Office develops their argument. What came out of today was that the Post Office knew what was going on at the highest level. The truth is slowing beginning to come out. It might be easy to avoid culpability for the mutton-headed decision to prosecute on the evidence of a bunch of techies at Fujitsu over the word of hundreds of upstanding, innocent Postmasters, but it will be far harder to explain the cover up.

There won’t be a secret email preview tomorrow morning. The first thing you’ll get is live-tweets from the Court of Appeal starting at 10.30am, then, as today, a court report as soon as I can, followed by another secret email.

Thanks to everyone who has joined up over the course of the last 24 hours, some on the back of the live tweets. Rob Rinder and the Rev Richard Coles, who have gazillions of followers between them have both taken a close interest in this case and very kindly shared some of my tweets. If you came to here through either Rob or Richard, or however you found this – hello and thank you for taking the plunge.

À bientôt.

Nick