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Inquiry
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Police interview third suspect in Post Office scandal investigation
Four-and-a-half years after their investigation into the Post Office scandal began, the Metropolitan Police have finally interviewed a third suspect under caution. The two other individuals were interviewed in October 2021 and again in September 2022. They are believed to be former Fujitsu engineers Gareth Jenkins and Anne Chambers. The third individual has not been…
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Post Office torpedoes its relationship with MoneyGram
The Post Office has ceased to trade with MoneyGram, a company which Post Office customers can use to send money abroad. One Subpostmaster told me “these transactions were a pain but they were one of the very few that paid a decent remuneration.” Writing on Monday, Ed Dutton, the Post Office’s Product Portfolio Director told…
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Board member spells out Post Office executive dysfunction
The utter dysfunction of the Post Office as an organisation has been laid bare by one of its serving directors. Saf Ismail was one of two Subpostmasters (the other being Elliot Jacobs) appointed to the Post Office board in 2021. Ismail appears to be a decent man, wholly unprepared for the mediocre, venal nature of…
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Majority of Subpostmasters still getting unexplained Horizon discrepancies
A majority of serving Subpostmasters have told the public inquiry into the Post Office scandal that they are still getting unexplained discrepancies generated by the Post Office’s Horizon IT system. Over the last twelve months, 57% of Subpostmasters told a wide-ranging independent survey that they have recorded unexplained discrepancies in their accounts. A whopping 92%…
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Were some Subpostmaster discrepancies down to internal fraud?
Since the rollout of the Horizon IT system in 1999/2000, the Post Office has been unable to tell the difference between computer error and fraud. Whilst relentlessly pursuing innocent people, it potentially failed to spot the multiple ways public money could be leaking out of its network. In a podcast I hosted last year (Ep…
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Guest Post: Eleanor Shaikh on The Rt. Hon. Greg Clark
This post has been submitted by Eleanor Shaikh, a much-loved campaigner and activist, creator of the famous “SOS – Support our Subpostmasters” red banner, and author of the epic Origins of a Disaster, published on the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance website by Sir Alan Bates himself. Eleanor has chosen to address the evidence of The…
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Post Office Paula in Pant Topper Showstopper
I suppose it was only a matter of time. Even so, the first Horizon IT Inquiry-themed post box topper to materialise in the UK is quite the talking point. The well-executed tableau appeared overnight last night. It immortalises a crucial week of the Inquiry in May this year, when Lead Counsel Jason Beer KC questioned…
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Ghost Storey
Usually when thinking about how to write a summary of the day’s evidence, there are one or two moments or lines which have made an impression. I’m struggling to think of anything Susannah Storey said during today’s session worth reporting. I realise I’m not exactly selling what you’re about to read, but it did feel…
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Asleep at the Neil
Neil McCausland was a non-executive director (NED) at the Post Office. In fact, he was the Senior Independent Director (SID), responsible during board meetings for robust examination of the executive’s actions and responsible outside board meetings for doing his research, marshalling the opinions of the other NEDs and communicating them to the Chair and executive…
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Furious Swinson claimed Paula Vennells deceived her
During her evidence to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry former minister Jo Swinson today highlighted the mendacity of the Post Office and what she saw as the conniving “duplicitous” behaviour of her chief civil service advisor. It all centres on the first Clarke Advice, the legal document written in July 2013 which was kept…