First of all I would like to thank all those who have signed the petition in the last couple of days.
Well what a day it was on Friday, history has been made, 39 Postmasters had their convictions overturned at the Court of Appeal. That is now 45 in total as 6 were quashed back in December in the Crown Courts. This is now the UK's biggest ever miscarriage of justice. It was an emotional but joyous day to see all those people with smiles and tears of joy and the relief knowing that this nightmare was almost over. They have all been through years of hell but the determination and bravery to clear their names never stopped. The champagne bottles were well and truly flowing on the day and probably well into the night aswell!
The list of those who had their convictions overturned are :-
Mohammed Rasul, Wendy Buffrey, Kashmir Gill, Barry Capon, Vijay Parekh, Lynette Hutchings, Dawn O’Connell (deceased), Carl Page, Lisa Brennan, William Graham, Siobhan Sayer, Tim Burgess, Pauline Thomson, Nicholas Clark, Margery Williams, Tahir Mahmood, Ian Warren, David Yates, Harjinder Butoy, Gillian Howard, David Blakey, Pamela Lock, Seema Misra, Della Robinson, Khayyam Ishaq, David Hedges, Peter Holmes (deceased), Rubina Shaheen, Damien Owen, Jo Hamilton, Hughie Thomas, Allison Henderson, Alison Hall, Gail Ward, Julian Wilson (deceased), Jacqueline McDonald, Tracy Felstead, Janet Skinner and Scott Darlington.
The 3 cases that were not overturned, the judges said that the Horizon IT evidence had not been central to their cases, therefore their convictions stand.
It has been such a busy two days, I had given 4 radio interviews before heading to the court at 9am on Friday. Another 5 were complete by 1pm and then an article provided to my local newspaper the Shields Gazette. Today I was interviewed for the Sunday Times where they will concentrate on the failings of multiple ministers to stop this scandal in its tracks over many years. Were they complicit in all of this or just asleep at the wheel, if they have nothing to hide I am sure they won't mind a Statutory Inquiry! Here is the article I wrote for the Shields Gazette:-
I wanted the story to be about those who had seen their convictions overturned and what must happen next. This is what I had to say;
'Today is the day that history is made for those worst affected by this scandal. Their lives have been destroyed for up to two decades. Imagine living with this knowing all along you had done nothing wrong. As it has been said before this will be the largest miscarriage of Justice in UK history. After this is over they can all begin the slow and hard process of rebuilding their lives.
Although it has been the failing of multiple Governments on every side of the house it is the Government that is currently in power that must ensure this all ends now. Every single victim in all of this deserves fair justice, answers on who knew what and when so that those who have orchestrated this mess are finally brought to account. The only way this can be done is through a statutory inquiry that I was promised in parliament by the Prime Minister last year. We have to compel witnesses to give evidence under oath to ensure they are held accountable. Everyone, including those in the civil litigation, must be compensated the same as those 2,400 people will be in the new Historical Shortfall Scheme. Nothing less will do.'
I managed to catch up with all the wonderful people who have helped us expose the Post Office failings, misleading of parliament and the courts, failure to disclose and the ongoing coverup. I spoke to the lawyers, QC's, Lord Arbuthnot and Ron Warmington. Kathleen Donnelly who was of the lawyers who represented us in the civil litigation was kind enough to message me thanking me for the ongoing campaigning when really the thanks needs to go to her and the team at Freeth's for taking on the case, a case she described as 'once in a lifetime'. In the House of Lords, Lord Arbuthnot has campaigned tirelessly for our cause firing bullet after bullet at the government and ministers. Ron Warmington headed up Second Sight who were drafted in to investigate Post Office but then were sacked before they were allowed to finish their second report. After speaking to all the leading lawyers acting for the appellants it was clear that this was the most damning judgment they have ever seen handed down in the Court of Appeal, doesn't really put the Post Office in very good light does it! You can read the judgment in full here, it is in two parts, the summary and the full piece:-
https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/hamilton-others-v-post-office-limited/
If you haven't got time to read it, although I suggest you as it is a sensational piece I will quote some of the judges findings below :-
'Post Office's failures of investigation and disclosure were so egregious as to make the prosecution of any of the ‘Horizon cases’ an affront to the conscience of the court.'
'There was a culture, amongst at least some in positions of responsibility within POL, of seeking to avoid legal obligations when fulfilment of those obligations would be inconvenient and/or costly'
Lord Justice Holroyde said 'the Post Office had failed to investigate the shortfalls and disclose information that could undermine the robustness of Horizon, during the trials of Sub Postmasters.'
'By representing Horizon as reliable, and refusing to countenance any suggestion to the contrary, POL effectively sought to reverse the burden of proof, it treated what was no more than a shortfall shown by an unreliable accounting system as an incontrovertible loss, and proceeded as if it were for the accused to prove that no such loss had occurred.'
We conclude that POL knew there were serious issues about the reliability of Horizon. It had a clear duty to investigate all reasonable lines of enquiry, to consider disclosure and to make disclosure to the appellants of anything which might reasonably be considered to undermine its case. Yet it does not appear that POL adequately considered or made relevant disclosure of problems with or concerns about Horizon in any of the cases at any point during that period.''
'On the contrary, it consistently asserted that Horizon was robust and reliable. Nor does it appear that any attempt was made to investigate the assertions of Sub Postmasters that there must be a problem with Horizon. The consistent failure of POL to be open and honest about the issues affecting Horizon can in our view only be explained by a strong reluctance to say or do anything which might lead to other SPMs knowing about those issues. Those concerned with prosecutions of SPMs clearly wished to be able to maintain the assertion that Horizon data was accurate, and effectively steamrolled over any SPM who sought to challenge its accuracy.'
The damning statements just continue throughout the judgment. They said Post Office had brought the justice system into disrepute and this is what leads to a lack of confidence in the judicial system.
Nick Read Post Office CEO responded to the damning judgment by saying :-
'I am in no doubt about the human cost of the Post Office’s past failures and the deep pain that has been caused to people affected. Many of those postmasters involved have been fighting for justice for a considerable length of time and sadly there are some who are not here to see the outcome today and whose families have taken forward appeals in their memory. I am very moved by their courage.
The quashing of historical convictions is a vital milestone in fully and properly addressing the past as I work to put right these wrongs as swiftly as possible and there must be compensation that reflects what has happened.'
It was great to meet up with Nick Wallis and Karl Flinders of Computer Weekly who between them have reported this story for over a decade now and without these people this story would never have received the airtime it has. Between them and Alan Bates knighthoods would definitely be well deserved. Tom Witherow of the Daily Mail has been another major champion of our cause, running articles for many years, so it was great to finally meet him in person although we have spoken a few times previously.
I will leave you with a number of articles that covered the story on the day. Be warned now I seem to have made it into most of them!
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1427016/Post-Office-Horizon-system-scandal-high-court-case
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/postmasters-convictions-quashed-by-court-of-appeal-50pn7qm8v
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-56859105
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56718036
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56859357
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/taxpayers-paid-1bn-post-office-23976396
https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/breaking-thirty-nine-former-post-23967400
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/14741684/post-office-scandal-postmasters-ruined/
I will send another update once I have had the meeting with Post Office CEO Nick Read on Friday 30th April at 11am.