Three or four more remain opposed

Good morning. I am off to the Court of Appeal this morning for the first day of a hearing during which seven former Subpostmasters may have their convictions finally quashed.

I suspect, given the basic requirement not to delay justice, the court will rule on the seven unopposed cases first thing before dealing with the three or four opposed cases over the next couple of days and then ruling on them at a later date.

The reason the opposed number is not certain is because when I last spoke to the court, the Post Office had still not decided whether to oppose the case of Steven Duke. I know nothing about Mr Duke, but I suspect I will find out more soon.

Not all these cases are Post Office prosecutions. Some people were prosecuted by the DWP and so the CPS is acting as respondent (the DWP having lost its prosecution function some time ago). It’s a further complication which may slow things down.

Logistics

If all goes as I suspect it will (and there is no guarantee), I have a logistical problem. Those whose convictions are quashed will want to leave court and may be photographed and interviewed on the court steps whilst the hearing into the opposed cases continues inside. I think grabbing photos and interviews is the priority, but apologies if I miss anything important inside. As I say, it may go differently, so I’ll suck it and see.

I’ll be live-tweeting events from my usual perch in the jury box in Court 4 from 10.30am. If you want to follow the tweets blow-by-blow,.

Book arrivals

All being well, all those of you who ordered pre-sale hardback books via the crowdfunding campaign or Bath Publishing should receive them today. They were sent second class on Thursday.

If you don’t mind me using it on social media or in an online gallery, please send me a photo of you or your nearest and dearest holding, reading or just staring at the book (cats do good stares).

If you happen to find yourself with the book in an unusual location, please consider having a snap taken with the book there. It would a) prove to me that the books are reaching people and b) make for a nice visual metaphor showing how far word of the Post Office Horizon Scandal is spreading. I’ll repost some of the best from secret emailers in this newsletter.

Once you have read the book, if you could post a review on Amazon I would be very grateful (whether you bought it from Amazon or not).

Each review tickles the Amazon algorithms and gets them all excited. This encourages Amazon to start including the book in recommended lists across its platform. At the moment you can only post a review on the Kindle edition because Amazon haven’t pulled their finger out and got the hardbacks properly listed yet. That will hopefully change this week. Amazon have the books, they just need to process them through whatever vast systems they operate to get them in a position to dispatch to customers.

Join the secret emailers… tell your friends!

Thanks to everyone who has bought a book via the publishers and signed up to this secret email newsletter as a result. I am very grateful. People who buy the book through other outlets will not get an invitation to do so, but if they contact me directly via email or direct message on social media I will happily manually sign them up.

I’ll try to get a report of today’s activities in court up on the postofficescandal.uk website blog later, and I’ll send out another secret email at the same time tomorrow with more on today’s hearing and news of the launch of the Horizon Scandal Fund. Lots going on!

Yours

Nick

I have written a book about the Post Office Horizon scandal, which is available for £25 as a hardback and £8.99 (or £30 for both) from Bath Publishing. Please click here to buy it. Alternatively, please do forward this email to a friend. Everyone who buys a copy of the book through Bath Publishing will automatically be invited to join the “secret” email list. This is what some people have said about The Great Post Office Scandal:

Dame Joan Bakewell: “Nick’s narrative has the power of a great thriller.”

Ian Hislop: “An extraordinary journalistic exposé of a huge miscarriage of justice.”

Mishal Husain: “The definitive account of the scandal.”

Rev Richard Coles: “A tale brilliantly told. I urge you to read it.”