Thread by @nickwallis

Okay @ArchNichola is being sworn in as the last witness of the day. She is the also the last sworn witness of this current phase of human impact statements. This is Nicki’s story - it’s well worth reading:
postofficetrial.com/2019/09/i-hate…

#PostOfficeScandal

@ArchNichola Julian Blake (JB) is asking the questions.

@ArchNichola Nicki (NA) is talking about her background working as a relief worker in Post Offices around Stroud. By 1998 she was at Chalford Hill PO. The SPM passed away with terminal cancer. Her husband applied to take over and appointed NA to run it.

NA described him as “what we call a ghost postmaster” as he was never present - Nicki was effectively in charge, running the counter and the retail business.
NA was 27 when she started at Chalford Hill.

NA “When Horizon came about… I welcomed it because I’d bought all new...

… fittings in the shop and modernised so the thought of modernising the PO as well I welcomed … also it took so long to do it all manually…”

[NA goes on to describe Horizon’s installation]

NA “Well, they turned up.. well there was one gentleman who was the engineer and set it up. It was a very tiny PO so he sort of went in about half an hour before… set it all up so it was running and left. Then we opened the Post Office and the trainer was sat with me...

… and every time a transaction needed to be done we were trying to do it at the same time and within a couple of hours the trainer left and left me with a big manual and said anything I needed to know thereafter would be in this manual”
JB “so you were being trained...

… whilst people were coming in and out of the Post Office?”
NA: Yes

Nicki was not taught how to balance. Her first balance was out by £1000. But she had checked everything manually and knew it wasn’t her maths or anything wrong in her branch.

NA called the Horizon helpline straightaway.

“she said well it’s only the first week, what am I expecting. I should just wait for it to settle down. It will correct itself and teething problems are bound to happen and that I should stop being negative about being modernised."

In week 2 Nicki’s £1000 discrepancy doubled. “Because I’d kepy my dailt totals as I did the first week I did exactly the same the second week and I kept my calculator printouts each day. I looked on the weekly and the weekly generator total from Horizon was completely different..

… short again and it had doubled the shortage.”

Nicki’s shortages doubled every week. She continued to call the helpline. In week 7 she had an audit. She was £32,000 “short”.

She was taken by an auditor to Stroud crown office to answer questions, but was not allowed to take...

… her own car. They insisted she went in the back of the auditors’ car.

She was not offered legal representation once she got to the Crown Office “because were going for what I thought was a chat"

Nicki was taken into a room. It was locked. The “auditors” started recording the conversation…

“the gentleman then said 'I don’t think you actually realise how much trouble you’re in' and I was just taken aback"

The “auditors” were Post Office investigators.

“He then went on to say that he’s ex-CID, he had met people like me before, he knew a liar when he saw one, and rather than waster more time could I just tell them what I’ve done with the money so they could all go home."

“Obivously I hadn’t touched any money whatsoever so I made it crystal clear to him that there’s no way I was going to say I’ve taken money when I haven’t taken a penny."

Nicki was interrogated for 5 hours.

“they said they would have to come back to me again because I’ve continually lied to them all day which he was very annoyed about… I just let him get on with it. I thought ‘that’s your opinion… whatever.’"

“Then he took me back and he said ‘you do realise you will never step one foot in that Post Office ever again?’”

JB were you able to get in the PO

NA "No. He kept hold of the keys subce the audit had finished… he locked the door… and I never had the keys back ever."

“I’d gone to work that morning as normal, looking forward to the day - yes there was problems, but nothing for me to worry about and then all of a sudden everything had gone… I just got in my car, went straight home… I rang my Mum and my fiancé… and I was absolutely...

… hysterical at that point.”

Nicki was sacked by the Subpostmaster

“It was 7.30 in the evening the same day and he said the Post Office had been to his home and basically said that he either gets rid of me or they will go after him and he was a 74-year old...

… gentleman. He had just lost his wife four months prior to that of cancer and he’d been married to her for 49 years and he just said I can’t go through that, which I could sort-of understand.”

Nick’s world collapsed.

“I could not get my head around it. I was in a state...

… of shock. I was put on antidepressants. I just could not accept that I’d gone from starting a new happy life with a new business to losing absolutely everything on that day.”

Nicki appeared in the local paper. She was spat at twice.

“It was all in my hair...

… and it got to the point which I think was part-paranoia and part was true, but I felt everyone was talking about me…. so just stayed indoors and never ever went out."

Nicki was prosecuted for theft and fraud. She and her fiancé Steve had to sell their house cheaply to avoid defaulting on their mortgage. They moved in with her parents.

She was advised by her solicitor she faced seven years in prison if she insisted on pleading not guilty. The PO were not co-operating with her:

“Every single piece of evidence that I asked for, including my calculations that I’d done on the calculator...

… the Post Office refused to supply them to me. They’d also destroyed the recording so I couldn’t have a copy of the recorded interviews either, and so the solicitor basically said that due to the lack of evidence he was really concerned that I was going to struggle to...

… prove my innocence… I wasn’t even allowed to go back in the shop. I asked for my printouts of my calculations so that I could actually stand a chance of explaining what was happening because I could see what the problems were. But I was refused entry. Even my cash...

… register and everything I bought. Everything, they kept. Didn’t have nothing back.”

Nicki and Steve discussed suicide by taking their antidepressant pills “we’ll drive off somewhere nice and just eat all the tablets and it seemed like quite a good option at the time."

The trial was a farce.

“I had prison officers next to me, obviously. I’d been in the trial for two days by the time I was called up. The Post Office barrister was really aggressive. He was very frustrated with what he would describe as my attitude - the fact I was...

…. wasting everybody’s time by denying it. He threw a bundle of pension dockets actually at me at one point, and luckily the judge… stopped it and said 'that’s enough. She’s not going to say anything different now, so can you move on.’ and he just sat down then."

Nicki explains how her former boss and colleague were witnesses for the prosecution, but they didn’t help the Post Office as they just stuck up for her. Nicki was found not guilty in less than two hours.

Sir Wyn Williams intervenes:

WW “When you say that the Post Office called witnesses to give evidence against you, like, for example, the subpostmaster himself, I take it those persons gave oral evidence at the trial?”
NA yes
WW “Can you remember whether [prosecution] statements were read to the jury...

… for example, about what Horizon had found?”
NA “No… I remember them asking each individual ‘do you know Nicki? What do you think happened to the money?’…
WW “That is what is slightly confusing me Mrs Arch. At some point in time the Post Office would have to...

… try to establish that money had gone missing…”
NA Yes
WW “I’m wondering what evidence they may have called either read or orally to establish that money was missing.”
NA "They literally went by the weekly balance sheet of what Horizon told them."

WW “Well I think you’ve answered my question now. So there was evidence before the jury about what Horizon had said?”
NA “They had the documents… the weekly report."

NA is winding up with a magnificent speech about the attitude and behaviour of the Post Office post High Court judgment and the failures of the justice system

“There’s hundreds and hundreds of people who are guilty. Not just Paula Vennells or this CEO or that CEO...

… we’ve got all the barristers that sat back and watched these people get prosecuted week in, week out…. nobody thought ‘oh this is a bit strange’ All the judges… everyone… all the Post Office… the government… BEIS…"

“If we added up all the people who are guilty and party to this even the victims will be waitin for years and year to get them through the court system to be proven guilty like they are… we will lose even more Subpostmasters. We’ve lost 33 already. If we carry on...

… waiting and waiting… it will take more than my lifetime…. I would love a name and shame. Let’s have a couple of newspapers with all their faces in and all their names so we can see what they’ve done and who they’ve done it to. We’ll have pages and pages of that...

… what worries me more is that poorly victims now who are at very tender stages of their lives waiting and waiting for the year that the person that did it to them might go to trial… that could take 20, 30 years from now. So I think it’s fruitless… i don’t see the point...

… in wasting taxpayers’ money on these people. I wouldn’t give them the time of day. Let’s get their faces in the paper and the names so we all know who did what and when and move on. Give us our money back, our right redress, our compensation so we can build new lives...

… and never have to think about the Post Office again.”

I urge you to watch Nicki’s final speech when the youtube video goes up. It’s very powerful.

Sir Wyn brings proceedings to a close. This is the last human impact oral evidence session in England and Wales. There are...

… three focus groups (not under oath) to come, and there will be sessions in NI and Scotland.

I am done. If you would like to read more about this scandal, please do buy my book which Amazon will deliver to you by 1pm tomorrow if you order before 10pm today. Or get it...

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THANK YOU.