Archives :
Inquiry
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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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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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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…
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Ben Foat: On His Terms
What a difference a bit of time off makes. The last time Ben Foat was questioned by the Inquiry, he looked like a rabbit in the headlights, nervously surveying the mess he’d made of the Post Office’s disclosure responsibilities. Today Foat gave evidence from a remote location, having declined to turn up in person, due…
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It’s Mike’s World. We just live in it.
It seems like we’ve got the Post Office scandal all wrong. The moment in 2012 the Post Office caved and finally agreed to get independent investigators Second Sight into the building was nothing to do with the campaign by MPs and Alan Bates’ Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance. It was, in fact, all down to the…
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Post Office misleads public inquiry over compensation
The Post Office Chief Executive has admitted withholding important information from the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry. The revelation came right at the beginning of the second day of Post Office Chief Executive Nick Read’s testimony to the Inquiry, but related to a comment he made on the first. On Wednesday Read had told Jason…
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The Untouchables: someone’s lying
It’s only a minor point, but it speaks to integrity, so I’m going to make it. Nick Read – current Post Office chief executive – has been “accused” of describing certain people within the organisation as “untouchables”. During his first day of evidence to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry Read denied using the term,…