A “chilling” moment, by Hunt’s account
Hi all
Hope things are okay with you.
Straight to business as I must get some fresh air before it gets dark today.
A little vignette in Jeremy Hunt’s constituency newsletter was spotted by the eagle-eyed Eleanor Shaikh, who kindly forwarded it to me.
The MP describes a “chilling” encounter with the then Post Office CEO Paula Vennells as he tried to raise the plight of his constituent Chirag Sidhpura. Chirag was a Subpostmaster who had been sacked in 2017 for an inexplicable £57,000 discrepancy at his branch in Farncombe, Surrey. I’ve posted it up here. At the time of writing this neither the Post Office nor Ms Vennells’ lawyers have got back to me.
Eleanor is working with my publishers to put on a book reading and Q&A event in Farncombe on 18 March. I am hoping both Mr Hunt and Mr Sidhpura can be there. If you would like to come along, you can buy tickets here.
Journalism news
The mighty Karl Flinders from Computer Weekly has written up the recent Horizon scandal debate in the House of Lords, initiated by James Arbuthnot. Karl focuses on Fujitsu’s role in this scandal.
Legendary journalist Tony Collins has begun what could be an epic series of blog posts detailing some of the biggest public-sector IT disasters in history of which, of course, Horizon is one.
Booking Dues
I’ve made an appearance on a couple more podcasts since the Human Risk one was published last week. On Tuesday the Union Dues podcast put out a Post Office special. Given it was presented by a former CWU officer and featured contributions from two current CWU officers, you can guess the main target of their ire. I appear for a ten minute scene set at the beginning.
This morning The Booking Club podcast on the Post Office scandal went live. Journalist Jack Aldane had some questions to ask me over breakfast at the famous Andrews café on Grays Inn Road. I did my best to answer relatively coherently.
And the nominations are…
The executive chairman of Hudgell solicitors Dr Neil Hudgell and Doughty Street Chambers (who have between them helped several dozen Subpostmasters get their convictions quashed at the Court of Appeal and Southwark Crown Court) have been nominated at the LexisNexus Legal Awards 2022. Hearty congratulations to them. More info here. The winners will be announced on 30 March.
That’s it from me for now. Sorry that this feels a bit rushed, but hopefully it is of some use!
Have a great weekend.
Nick
The Post Office Horizon scandal is available for £25 as a hardback and £8.99 for an ebook (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.