- 2) The Post Office sued, bankrupted and ruined an innocent Postmaster at the High Court specifically to deter other Subpostmasters from attempting to take it to court over holes in their Horizon accounts.
... the infamous 2010 Ismay Report, which warned Post Office colleagues that investigating the Horizon system might lead to them realising innocent Postmasters had been sent to prison, is published for the first time (I think) here:
Thanks to @TomWitherow for the heads up. Amandeep Singh giving evidence now:
This from Amandeep Singh's Witness Statement...
@TomWitherow ... (he was a Horizon Helpline worker)
"The floor was quite a toxic place, and this manifested itself with colleagues openly mocking the role and complaining to management that the role was not
what they were initially hired for. Many were desperate to leave and as soon as...
... an option came to support another client, many jumped at the chance. Many of these colleagues were frustrated supporting these Postmasters, the toughest day was on Wednesday when it came to reconcile the weeks accounts....
Hello from the cheap seats at Wembley Arena. Saw Duran Duran here when I was 10. Saw The Cure here when I was 16. Saw Duran Duran here when I was 30. Now about to watch The Cure here at the age of 49. I am only watching two bands at Wembley Arena. #lifeplans
Random thoughts from watching The Cure tonight. 1. Bob was in an amazingly chatty mood to the extent of trying and failing to crack a few jokes. "It's why I sing" he said after his last one fell flat. We forgave him.
2. At Night is now a beast of a song. In fact all the early...
... songs now sound like beasts. Play for Today sounded epic.
3. The new stuff is okay. We got four tonight. Blood Red Moon is my favourite.
Welcome to a special compensation hearing at the #PostOfficeInquiry at the IDRC in central London. There was a small demo outside by former Subpostmasters and many of those holding the banner in the picture are now in the inquiry room.
I will be live tweeting proceedings, but if you'd rather watch it online, the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry official youtube channel is here:
This morning we'll be hearing from the Post Office and the government, who will attempt to sing the praises of their various compensations schemes, followed by representatives of three groups of Subpostmasters who will tell the inquiry chair the PO/govt has failed abysmally.
Holy shit - watching Colin Baker's evidence. The NFSP were hopelessly compromised. To call them complicit in this scandal is an understatement. NFSP refused to publicly criticise Horizon before rollout...
... despite knowing there were serious problems, failing even to inform a parliamentary select committee of the difficulties.
Here are the Prosecution support pars in the agreement between ICL, PO and DSS re Horizon:
'4.1.8 The Contractor shall ensure that all relevant information produced by the POCL Service Infrastructure at the request of POCL shall be evidentially admissible...
..
and capable of certification in accordance with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984, the Police and Criminal Evidence (Northern Ireland)
Order 1989 and equivalent legislation covering Scotland...
... [R829 para 1)
4.1.9 At the direction of POL, audit trail and other information necessary to support
live investigations and prosecutions shall be retained for the duration of the
investigation and prosecution irrespective of the normal retention period of that
information...
Okay at the inquiry, listening to some very involved discussion about Tony Oppenheim's position within the managment structure of Fujitsu/ICL/Pathway (later Horizon)...
Whilst listening to what is quite slow going atmo, one name which came up quite a bit yesterday in Keith Todd's evidence was that of Richard Christou, who Todd described as...
... his 'commercial and legal head and was my, sort of, right-hand on commercial and legal matters.'
Christou, according to Todd, was involved in working with 'Post Office and ICL Pathway, to agree a new contract, which Christou and Tony Oppenheim, asI recall, and John Bennett..