Archives :
Inquiry
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Post Office legal strategy: “force the claimants to burn money”
The second day of Andy Parsons’ evidence (see here for a piece on the first) was short with only a few new documents to consider. One was another piece of corroboration that the Post Office strategy during Bates v Post Office – the seminal legal battle which blew the lid off the scandal – was…
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Post Office lawyer: Postmasters are liars
A civil litigation lawyer instructed by the Post Office branded campaigning former Subpostmasters Jo Hamilton, Noel Thomas and Seema Misra “liars and criminals” whilst discussing PR strategy with his clients. Andy Parsons from Bond Dickinson was advising the Post Office on their media response to a 2015 episode of Panorama which featured all three Subpostmasters.…
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Lord Grabiner: Never Mind “That Bollox”
Lord Grabiner strode into the Inquiry hearing room wielding a walking cane. As he didn’t appear to be using it to support himself it rather gave the impression it might be utilised to punish impertinence. Jason Beer KC, who asked questions on behalf of the inquiry, appeared unruffled. Grabiner was called to explore his apparent…
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De Garr Robinson’s Jenkins problem
Poor old Tony Robinson, just trying to make an honest crust defending his client, whilst being misled by his instructing solicitors (Womble Bond Dickinson), his client’s supplier (Fujitsu) or possibly even his client – the Post Office! As leading counsel for the Post Office in the Horizon Issues trial during Bates v Post Office, de…
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Post Office refuses to say how much Grabiner and Neuberger cost
On 4 October 2023, I asked the Post Office to disclose the fee notes for Lords Grabiner and Neuberger under the Freedom of Information Act. I thought it would be interesting to know just how much public cash the Post Office used to spend on their advice, which informed the Post Office’s decision to demand…
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More dispatches from the Post Office bunker: the PR guy goes Tonto
On 1 Dec 2014 I was in Cornwall, where Tim Robinson, Jane Goddard, Joe Cooper and I had been filming with former Subpostmaster Sue Knight. After 32 years service Sue had been sacked and prosecuted by the Post Office for false accounting. Although the prosecution had been dropped, Sue’s life was falling apart. She had…
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The taxi for Paula Vennells which never quite came
A powerpoint slide deck was the most newsworthy element to leap out of former Post Office chair Alice Perkins’ second day of evidence at the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry today. Thanks to an anonymous nine-page presentation, we know that in February 2014 the government was tempted to sack Post Office CEO Paula Vennells because…
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Perkins in Wonderland: Day 1
The Post Office scandal did not happen, or get covered up because of a single Machiavellian baddie. It happened because a bunch of serially incompetent people spent oodles of other people’s cash groping their way around a crisis without the competence or moral backbone to do the right thing. Alice Perkins, Chair of the Post…
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Perkins Preview: what secrets will Lady Humphrey reveal?
Alice Perkins was Chairman of the Post Office for four years between 2011 and 2015. She got the job after a career spent in the civil service. One of the people who ostensibly worked for her during that period told me Perkins was “patronising… wooden and inarticulate”, complaining she “couldn’t connect with people at all……
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Grey Day gives little away
Chris Day, former Post Office Chief Financial Office had all the hallmarks of a low-wattage witness. He met that expectation square on. I think I was the only journalist present today. More fool me. Taken at snail’s pace through multiple documents we’ve seen before, Day was unable to see the real risks in the Horizon…