Thread by @nickwallis

Don’t think I need to add much to Chris’s tweet other than govt. is currently not saying anything, even under embargo. I’m told @scullyp is doing the ministerial “morning rounds” tomorrow and MPs with an interest are being told the statement is definitely happening.

https://twitter.com/chrish9070/status/1506028236899291144

@scullyp For context - the 555 refers to the 555 claimants in the Bates v Post Office group litigation which ended in a £57.75m settlement. Of which approx £46m went on funders success fees and legal fees. Last year both signatories to the settlement declared it unfair - Bates AND...

@scullyp … the Post Office. Backbenchers and campaigners then held the government’s feet to the fire until its language changed from insisting it was a “full and final” settlement, to something much vaguer. In recent weeks @scullyp has been hinting that he has unlocked funding...

… to fairly compensate the 555 (see his tweet to @ArchNichola on Thursday). It looks as if tomorrow he might come good.

The question is - what hoops will the 555 have to jump through to get their hands on the compensation. If it is anything like the mess created...

… by the Post Office’s handling of its £300m Historical Shortfall Scheme (which opened and closed during the pandemic in 2020 and in which 33 applicants have already died waiting for compensation) then there could be another two years before anyone sees any of this money...

… if, indeed it is going to be announced tomorrow.

[Unortunately I will not be available for comment on this story tomorrow as I am hosting a conference in Liverpool, my favourite city. Here is a link to my website which has lots of info: postofficescandal.uk/post/good-news…]

Just to add that if this happens it is thoroughly well deserved. The @ccrcupdate said it only referred the criminal convictions of the Subpostmasters whose cases it had been sitting on for five years because of the second trial judgment...

@ccrcupdate … in the High Court litigation. And it was the judge in that litigation who set in motion the current criminal investigation after being so gravely concerned about the evidence that he had seen that he passed a file to the DPP, who passed it to the Met who started Op Olympos...

… AND without the number of convictions being quashed in the manner that they were at the Court of Appeal on 23 April last year, it is unlikely Paula Vennells (former PO CEO) would have effectively retired from public life, nor would the inquiry into the scandal have been...

… put on a statutory footing at the urging of the Inquiry chair Sir Wyn Williams.

So basically without that litigation the government and Post Office would have kept a lid on the scandal, denying justice to hundreds, if not thousands of people who were sacked and...

… ruined over IT errors and the awful, punitive “malicious incompetence” deployed by Post Office staff. So they deserve their compensation.

I wonder if the govt will try to recover the cash from Fujitsu? Maybe that’s a question for another day...

ENDS