Archives :
HCAB
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Independent board demands quashing of ‘Capture Convictions’
UPDATE: A government spokesperson has today [25 October 2024] issued the following statement in response to the HCAB’s letter: “The Post Office Offences Act 2024 was a truly exceptional response to unprecedented circumstances where hundreds of convictions based on evidence from the Horizon system were considered to be unsafe. “The Criminal Cases Review Commission is…
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Horizon Compensation board Chair calls for Standing Compensation Authority
The Chair of the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board, Professor Chris Hodges, has called for the formation of a new compensation authority, with the statutory power to assess, decide and deliver compensation for victims of scandals. In a paper recently published on the HCAB section of the government’s website, Professor Hodges believes there is a need…
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Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Act becomes law
Congratulations to those Subpostmasters who no longer have convictions blighting their lives. A huge cohort of people now have access to a minimum of £600k each by way of compensation. Two important groups are currently excluded. 1) Scottish Subpostmasters. Thanks to foot-dragging by the Scottish authorities, Scottish Subpostmasters are not (yet) having their convictions quashed.…
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The Post Office vs Teju Adedayo
On 14 May 2021 Teju Adedayo had her criminal conviction quashed at Southwark Crown Court. Parmod Kalia, who had been convicted of theft, had his conviction quashed alongside Teju. In 2005 Teju took responsibility for £52,864 going missing from her branch and provided the Post Office with a “confession”, explaining she took £50,000 out of…
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Ed Henry KC: “You couldn’t contrive a more ridiculous state of affairs”
In the course of preparing for a recent Sunday Times piece into the latest on the Post Office disaster, I spoke to a number of people. For reasons of space, many of their contributions were edited down to a couple of short quotes, or they simply didn’t make it into the piece at all. Nonetheless,…
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Prof Moorhead: “Crass does not come close”
Following a Q&A with one member of the independent Horizon Compensation Advisory Board (Lord Arbuthnot) earlier this week, I am delighted to bring you another. Richard Moorhead is Professor of Legal Ethics at Exeter University and a respected industry blogger. He has taken a close professional interest in the legal failings which contributed to the…
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Lord Arbuthnot: “I feel we are heading in the right direction”
Last week the Sunday Times asked me to write a piece about the Post Office scandal. The result can be read here. In the course of researching the article I picked up a lot of interesting material which, for reasons of space, didn’t make the final cut. Rather than let some good stuff go to…