Archives :
November 2024
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Post Office Inquiry costs to top £50m
The cost of the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry is likely to be well over £50,000,000. Reports for the last financial year alone reveal the Inquiry cost £26,198,625 to run, more than the previous three years combined. Figures quietly published on the Inquiry website show that in the twelve months to the end of March…
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Chris Head: an open letter to Gareth Thomas, Post Office minister
In 2006, Chris Head became Britain’s youngest Subpostmaster at the age of 18. He was given the keys to the West Bolden branch near Sunderland. According to an interview he gave to The Sun newspaper, Chris had small discrepancies from the start of his tenure. In 2014, Chris says the Post Office’s Horizon IT system…
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Lisa Busch KC
Lisa Busch KC, one of the most significant unsung heroes in the Post Office scandal, has died after a short illness. Busch represented former Subpostmasters Seema Misra, Janet Skinner and Tracy Felstead at the Court of Appeal Hamilton hearings in 2021 after the barrister Paul Marshall and his junior Flora Page were forced to stand…
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Kemi Badenoch: I’m Great
The Kemi Badenoch Show came to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry today, along with significant media interest and attendance from a good number of Subpostmasters in the hearing room. Badenoch, as leader of the Conservative Party, is a potential future Prime Minister. She was, until July this year, the Business Secretary. Badenoch had the…
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Make Good: the Post Office scandal musical
The third theatrical production concerning the Post Office scandal came to London yesterday. Make Good played to a sold-out Omnibus Theatre in Clapham. The production is put together by a theatre company called Pentabus, with a script from Jeanie O’Hare and music and lyrics by Jim Fortune. Both write in the programme: “This project began…
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Chisholm: helping Paula Vennells fail upwards
Sir Alex Chisholm KCB was one of the most powerful government civil servants during a crucial phase of the Post Office scandal, and to nerds like me, his evidence was always going to be of some interest. Chisholm made it quite clear (watch it here) he was crawling all over the Post Office’s disastrous defence…
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Hollinrake’s legacy: Postmasters dying without full redress
The day began with a tolling of the metaphorical bell. Before the former Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake gave evidence, the chair of the Post Office Inquiry, Sir Wyn Williams, told us that another former Subpostmaster has died, again without receiving full and final compensation. Her name was Carol Riddell. She was the Subpostmaster at…
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Recaldin: Post Office remediation is “Shot to Pieces”
Simon Recaldin is the director of the Post Office remediation unit. He is also the last Post Office person to give evidence to the Inquiry. I sincerely hope one day he agrees to be interviewed by a journalist because the imprecision of some of his answers at the Inquiry today were maddening. This morning, Recaldin…
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Simon Recaldin: The Process Gnome
Simon Recaldin is both in charge of the Post Office’s remediation approach and wholly at the whim of it. He claims he is trying his damnedest to get compensation to Subpostmasters post-haste whilst also agreeing the whole process takes too long. “Could it be quicker? Could it be more efficient?” he asked the Inquiry at…