Archives :
Inquiry
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“They never want the truth to come out.”
Malcolm Simpson was a Subpostmaster at Boxgrove Post Office near Chichester, West Sussex. Malcolm came to the inquiry on 24 Feb with his wife Lesley (pictured above). Malcolm and Lesley bought Boxgrove village shop in 2003. It had a Post Office counter which was run completely separately by the incumbent Subpostmaster. The Subpostmaster left in…
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Numbers Matter
The number of people affected by the Horizon scandal is a question news editors used to ask me and journalists used to ask themselves when trying to get some kind of handle on scale of this story. This was in the bad old days when the Post Office refused to give out information and no…
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Post Office CEO in the Hot Seat
The continued unwillingness of any Post Office executive, past or present, to be interviewed by broadcast journalists on the subject of the Post Office Horizon scandal speaks volumes. We hacks are therefore wholly reliant on MPs to do the job for us. Execs can refuse journalists’ interview requests with impunity. It is rather more difficult…
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Govt Reverts to “Full and final” Mantra
It seems the government has given up on trying (if it ever was) to find a way to offer proper compensation to the 555 claimants who settled with the Post Office for £57.75m in December 2019. As we know, £46m of that compensation was spent on lawyers and legal success fees with each claimant receiving…
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Inquiry Confirms All Compensation Is Under Scrutiny
A week is certainly a long time in this story. Last Friday I was telling you Alan Bates had pulled the JFSA from the Satutory Inquiry into the Post Office Horizon Scandal because scrutiny of the compensation for the 555 was not explicitly present in the inquiry chair’s List of Issues. Bates encouraged his members…
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JFSA Withdraws From Inquiry
Founder says “the powers that be have decided the real and desperate needs of the victims are of no importance.” Alan Bates, the leader and founder of the Justice for Subpostmasters’ Alliance has decided not to co-operate with Sir Wyn Williams’ statutory inquiry into the Post Office Horizon IT disaster. Yesterday, Sir Wyn published the…
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Sir Wyn Receives Privilege Waiver
If you don’t ask, you don’t get. After hearing several arguments from knowledgeable and expert legal types at his statutory inquiry’s first open hearing last week, the chair of the inquiry, Sir Wyn Williams, took the initiative. He wrote to the Post Office, the government (specifically the Business department and UKGI, its corporate arm) and…
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What Sir Humphrey Told Swinson
An enthusiastic follower of the Post Office Horizon Scandal has unearthed a document via the Business department which I am sure will be of interest to Sir Wyn Williams’ statutory inquiry. John O’Sullivan asked BEIS to send him (via the excellent whatdotheyknow.com website) any briefing documents given to Jo Swinson about Horizon when she took…
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Sir Wyn Requests Privilege Waiver
Inquiry chair writes to the Post Office, Fujitsu and government immediately after hearing Today’s hearing at Juxon House (in the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral just over the Millennium Bridge from the Tate Modern, hence the picture above) was described by Sir Wyn Williams as the first “truly open session” of the Post Office Horizon…
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Post Office Inquiry Hearing Preview
Once again, disclosure and privilege come to the fore The perennial frustration with this scandal is the Post Office and government’s jealous guarding of documents which might provide evidence of serious wrongdoing. It has taken eight years to find out the Post Office Head of Security ordered the shredding of documents in 2013. What other…