Archives :
Inquiry
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Compensation Hearing 1
A barrister acting on behalf of postmasters claiming compensation from the Post Office last week described the process as a “scandal within a scandal.” Speaking at the first compensation hearing at The Oval cricket ground in South London on 6 July 2022, Howe & Co’s lead counsel Sam Stein QC, on behalf of 153 of…
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Tim Brentnall’s Closing Statement
Tim Brentnall ran the Roch Post Office in Pembrokeshire. He was convicted of false accounting in 2010. His conviction was quashed at the Court of Appeal on 19 July 2021. Tim gave evidence to the Post Office Horizon Inquiry on 1 March 2022. Tim’s closing statement is a powerful piece of rhetoric aimed at reminding…
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Horizon Remote Access 2016-style
Sue Edgar is Chair of the National Federation of Subpostmasters and a serving Subpostmaster. Her story is fascinating. The evidence she gave to the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry on the afternoon of Fri 4 March will undoubtedly be seen as significant for a number of reasons, but I would like to focus on what…
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“She didn’t even have the guts”
For obvious reasons I have spent many hours dealing with sacked and convicted Subpostmasters, rather than those still working. The evidence given to the Post Office Inquiry has come from both serving and former Postmasters. I am currently watching the focus group session on the afternoon of Fri 4 March – particularly because of some…
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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 Statutory 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…