Archives :
2024
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Belinda Cortes-Martin (Crowe): Sir Humphrey would be proud
Belinda Cortes-Martin had a dual role. Whilst she was supposedly heading up the Post Office’s Complaint and Mediation Scheme’s Working Group secretariat, supporting and answering to the Working Group’s independent Chair, Sir Anthony Hooper (a retired Court of Appeal judge), Cortes-Martin was also Programme Director for Project Sparrow, the top secret Post Office body set…
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Keeping their knees on Seema’s neck
Today we got some insight into the catastrophic and frankly sinister failings of a group of lawyers at the heart of the Post Office scandal. The lengths Brian Altman (then) QC et al went to to avoid their post-conviction disclosure duties to former Subpostmaster Seema Misra (who was sent to prison whilst eight weeks pregnant)…
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Martin Smith and the Instruction to Shred
The mystery of who at the Post Office (or Bond Dickinson) decided to shred minutes relating to an important meeting at the Post Office to discuss problems with the Horizon IT system got a little more dramatic today as Martin Smith, a solicitor working for Cartwright King, gave evidence. Smith was a prosecuting solicitor who…
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What Hugh Didn’t Do
Hugh Flemington is a very careful man. The former Post Office Head of Legal spent his morning in the Inquiry witness chair characterising his involvement in the Post Office scandal as accidental, at best. The problem was, the documents do seem to suggest he was involved at some level, though he couldn’t recall how. He…
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Post Office rewarded director after she lied in court
Damning evidence about the culture within the Post Office at the very highest level was brought to light during the course of Angela van den Bogerd’s second and likely final day of evidence at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry today. You can read my live-tweets and see the screenshots of documents posted up during…
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The First Lady of Flat Earth
It is possible that Angela van den Bogerd and her senior colleagues (Rodric Williams, Mark Davies, Susan Crichton, Chris Aujard, Jarnail Singh, Patrick Bourke) were just not very bright. They were all aware of evidence which pointed to the exact opposite of what they were telling MPs, Subpostmasters and journalists about potential miscarriages of justice…
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Former Post Office Hatchet Man gives himself the chop
Chris Aujard answered questions at the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry yesterday. The day before, he resigned as General Counsel for five separate companies, and the day before that, he chucked it in at another. Is it mere coincidence he ceased to be an active director of any UK company within 48 hours of giving…
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The Hatchet Man: Aujard gives evidence
Chris Aujard presents as thoughtful, intelligent and professional – a very different person to the one boasting about his crisis management skills shortly after leaving the Post Office in 2015. Older and wiser, perhaps, or better at image projection. Aujard was involved in a deliberate attempt to frustrate Second Sight’s independent investigation into the Post…
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The Bleatings of a Sorry Scapegoat: Susan Crichton’s Pity Party
Susan Crichton cut a sorry figure at the Inquiry today. A woman apparently trying to do the right thing, but not trying hard enough. A woman whose stated intentions were not borne out (and occasionally downright contradicted) by the documentary evidence. A woman who came up against a company board more interested in reputation management…
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The Second Sight Interim Report
I’ve been talking a lot recently about Second Sight’s Interim Report, written by Ron Warmington and Ian Henderson. It is a game-changing, short, easy-to-read document, released on 8 July 2013 which sets out all of the Post Office’s problems to them in clear language. It used to be published on the Post Office website, but…