On Wednesday 10th June Postal Minister Paul Scully from the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy announced he was launching an 'Independent Review' into the Post Office Ltd Horizon IT system. Unfortunately yet again this department and the government are attempting to bury this mess and move forward from it, something we cannot and will not allow to happen. 'The review will consider whether Post Office Ltd has learned lessons from the Horizon dispute and court case.' The scope of the review is as follows :-
- Understand and acknowledge what went wrong in relation to Horizon, leading to the Group Litigation Order, by drawing on evidence from the Horizon judgments and affected postmasters’ experiences and identify what key lessons must be learned for the future;
- Assess whether the Post Office Ltd has learned the lessons from the criticisms made by Mr Justice Fraser in the “Common Issues” and “Horizon Issues” trials and those identified by affected postmasters and has delivered or made good progress on the organisational and cultural changes necessary to ensure a similar case does not happen in the future;
- Assess whether the commitments made by Post Office Ltd within the mediation settlement – including the historical shortfall scheme – have been properly delivered;
- Assess whether the processes and information provided by Post Office Ltd to postmasters are sufficient to i) enable both parties to meet their contractual obligations; and ii) to enable postmasters to run their businesses. This includes assessing whether Post Office Ltd’s related processes such as recording and resolving postmaster queries, dispute handling, suspension and termination are fit for purpose. In addition, determine whether the quality of the service offer for postmasters and their relationship with Post Office Ltd has materially improved since the conclusions by Mr Justice Fraser; and
- Examine the governance and whistleblowing controls now in place at Post Office Ltd and whether they are sufficient to ensure that the failings that led to the Horizon case issues do not happen again.
The minister went on to say that this is what the Postmasters want. Well I can say in no uncertain terms this is NOT what we want nor what we have repeatedly asked for alongside many politicians on both sides of the house. I know this feeling is echoed by all of the 555 claimants. I made sure that I let Paul Scully know the anger for using that quote, that this is what we had wanted. You can see the exchange to the minister on twitter -:
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The leader of the group Justice for Sub Postmasters Alliance, 'Alan Bates' has written to the minister Paul Scully to notify him that the group will not be engaging with this review and will refuse all invitations to attend or submit documentation and labelled it a 'sham'. MP Kevan Jones MP of North West Durham said it was a 'pathetic and pointless review.'
We need to know who in Government took such disastrous decisions, and who failed to undertake their duties that led to us having to pursue Post Office through the courts. Who lied? Who knew what? That's what we want to know, not what lessons have been learnt to help Post Office and Government going forward, that has no interest to us as a group.
Alan has said he cannot stop members of the group giving evidence if invited but his recommendation is to refuse the invitation. Yesterday afternoon Second Sight Independent Investigators have confirmed that they would not take part unless it was judge-led, they know that the trials validated everything, and disproved nothing, and that they reported the real problems way back in April 2015 but Post Office, the Civil Service and BEIS have never acknowledged that. Further to that if our legal team in the litigation 'Freeths' are asked to attend they would need permission from the group and that permission will also be withheld until a time a judge led inquiry is announced.
There have been two interesting debates over the last 2 days, one in the House of Commons and the other in the House of Lords. The commons debate was particularly explosive with MP's causing minister Paul Scully to continually bluster. MP Alistair Carmichael of Orkney and Shetland Islands said :-
'It is noble of the Minister to offer himself up as a human shield for the Post Office in this way, but I hope that, when he returns to the Department today, he will tell his officials, who, I fear, have perhaps not briefed him as well as they might have done, and Post Office senior management that this review will just not cut it. He says that this is a complex case spanning a long period of time, and he is absolutely right about that. That is why it requires a judge-led inquiry. That is what will happen eventually, so why not just cut to the quick and do it now?'
You can watch the debates (highly recommend the House of Commons debate) below. I have cut to the exact time intervals below :-
House of Commons Debate - https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/a7468777-1570-483c-b245-b72c85e08bb7?in=12:43:27&out=13:49:05
House of Lords Debate - https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/2e2da932-3667-40f9-b3e8-bd3e83a55e68?in=18:16:24&out=18:27:23
An EDM (Early Day Motion) has been tabled in the House of Commons by Kevan Jones MP and Andrew Bridgen MP. It is EDM number EDM593 tabled on the 10th June 2020. The motion states as follows :-
That this House recognises the life-changing injustices experienced by subpostmasters throughout the Horizon scandal; notes with the deepest sadness that subpostmasters have served custodial sentences and suffered bankruptcy for offences they did not commit; recognises the role of the Government in prolonging this crisis through not fulfilling their role of shareholder representation on the board of Post Office Limited; expresses concern at the scope and formation of the inquiry currently outlined by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy; and strongly urges the Government to institute a judge-led public inquiry into this matter at the earliest opportunity.
If you have never yet contacted your MP, you can find out who it is at https://members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP
Please contact your MP (it can be done in writing or via email using the details in the link above to locate your local MP) and ask them to sign and support this EDM - tell them to watch BBC Panorama 'Scandal at the Post Office' if they have not already done so :-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gpbv
We need hundreds of MP's to be signing this motion. (Anyone on the front benches of either party CANNOT sign the EDM, only backbench MP's). It will only take a few minutes to drop them a quick email. Please also let them know that you support our calls for a Judge Led Independent Inquiry and this was promised by Prime Minister Boris Johnson at PMQ's on Wednesday 26th February 2020. Here is the link to stay up to date with the EDM and who has currently signed :-
https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/57102/judgeled-public-inquiry-into-the-horizon-scandal
Finally again as I said in the last 2 updates we have ONE shot only at making the complaint to the Parliamentary Ombudsman so that we can table a maladministration claim against BEIS. They can recommend that victims are put back into the position they were before the maladministation took place and if that cannot be done then a financial remedy would be suggested. They also have powers that are analogous to that of a High Court judge to compel witnesses to give evidence and documents and emails to be released. Victims of this Horizon Scandal deserve to at least receive back the money they paid to Post Office Ltd that they did not owe which now sits in their profit and loss accounts and has been used to pay obscene bonuses to the Ex CEO Paula Vennells. This is before these Postmasters receive damages for loss of their business, damage to their reputations, mental health damage, destroyed families, suicides, homes repossessed and bankruptcy. This complaint could at the very least compel the government to cover our £46 million legal costs we had to endure to expose the failings of Post Office, BEIS, Civil Servants and ultimately the government.
We currently sit at £38,564 pledged of £98,000 with 18 days remaining, so time is running out. Please pledge whatever you can afford and share the link to as many people as possible via social media platforms, email, whatsapp and word of mouth. Your support is greatly appreciated. Remember it is ONLY a pledge, should the total not be reached then your card will not be charged. The number of signatures on this petition has risen by over 2,500 in the last 2 weeks alone to just shy of 8,000. If each person is able to pledge £5-£10 we will get there. We have received some extremely generous pledges and we cannot thank people enough. The most important thing is you SHARE, SHARE and SHARE some more.
Thank you very much
The link below takes you to the Crowd Justice Pledge Site