It has been a while since the last update was posted. I am sure we all know there has been a major crisis with Coronavirus going on so things have been put on hold for a few weeks.
There are new press reports from The Daily Mail that Post Office has unearthed a further 900+ cases where they have prosecuted Postmasters since the launch of Horizon in the year 2000. That is on top of the 557 that were part of the recent group litigation and the 60 wrongful convictions that are currently with the CCRC. This really is the largest miscarriage of Justice in UK legal history. You can read the article here :-
In addition the tenacious journalist Nick Wallis who has over many years been the voice of those suffering Sub Postmasters, pushing for press coverage and live tweeting the High Court litigation which really opened up the lengths Post Office were willing to go to in order to lie and cover up the truth. When things started to go from bad to worse they decided to attempt to recuse judge Justice Fraser and restart the trial. When they lost that recusal application they went further to the Court of Appeal to try to overturn that decision. This is what the Court of Appeal judge Justice Coulson said 'The recusal application never had any substance and was rightly rejected by the judge.'
The recusal application was made just 6 days after the initial judgement was handed down by Justice Fraser where he stated 'There can be no excuse, in my judgement, for an entity such as the Post Office to mis-state, in such clearly expressed terms, letters that threaten legal action, the extent of the contractual obligation upon Sub Postmasters for losses. The only reason for doing so, must have been to lead the recipients to believe that they had absolutely no option but to pay the sums demanded. It is oppressive behaviour.'
Then the appeal hearing judge Justice Coulson went further, 'I set out the reasons for the conclusion in greater detail than usual, only because of the volume and nature of the criticisms that have been made of the judge, and the importance of the group litigation to both parties. I do not do so because of the merits of the application itself, which in my view is without substance.' He was highly critical of the timing of the application, 'The Judge learned of the recusal application by accident just before the afternoon session of the last day of factual evidence on the Horizon issues trial (trial 2). This was at best discourteous, at worst, it betrayed a singular lack of openness on the part of the Post Office and their advisors.'
Nick Wallis has a blog at http://www.postofficetrial.com where he writes regularly about this scandal, you can read his latest update here :-
https://www.postofficetrial.com/2020/05/post-office-reviewing-900-prosecutions.html
Also reported in the press yesterday by the Sunday Mirror was that Post Office bosses are preparing to spend £115 million on a full re-branding exercise due to the damage of the Horizon Scandal. The questions that must be asked is where is this money coming from? They spent £100 million on legal fees for the litigation, £58 million on a settlement and now £115 million on re-branding. All this while they can barely post a profit in their annual accounts. We are being told by Paul Scully MP, who is the postal minister that a Judge Led inquiry (which was promised in the House of Commons by Boris Johnson Prime Minister) would take too long and be too costly. The true cost would be a tiny fraction of the legal costs Post Office spent on the litigation. It will also ensure that those responsible for the decisions over the years to hide the truth and cover this appalling scandal up are brought to account, the main reason this fight continues. He talks about conducting a 'review'. We all know this will involve words like 'Post Office has learned from its past mistakes and we now have proper government framework in place to control the Post Office'. This simply is not good enough, the fact this framework only came in a few weeks ago prove the government has been negligent (especially BEIS department) in its overview and control of the Post Office for two decades.
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/sunday-mirror/20200524/281526523257495
Finally starting today, weekdays on BBC Radio 4 - The Great Post Office Trial series begins today at 13:45 for 15 minutes each and every day until Friday 5th June. This has been put together by Nick Wallis and Robert Nicholson both of whom I met in London when handing over this petition you all kindly signed. You can tune in live or listen back on iplayer once it has been broadcast. Here is the link below :-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jf7j
You can also view the timings and schedule for each broadcast here :-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jf7j/broadcasts/upcoming
There will be a further update coming next weekend as we embark on the next part of our journey to finally bring real justice, accountability and compensation to all those involved. We have heard far too many stories that even with the litigation those most affected have received paltry sums of compensation, some as low as £5,000 for 19 years of suffering, mental health issues and mounting debts as their recompense from the Post Office. We can not let this rest until the government put this scandal to bed once and for all and everyone can move on.