Morning. I am live-tweeting Brian Altman KC's evidence from the #PostOfficeInquiry

Altman is sworn in. We are already underway. Jason Beer KC is asking the questions.

Good morning and welcome to Week 5 of Phase 5&6 (Day 133) of the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry. Today we'll hear from Belinda Cortes-Martin, Programme Director of Project Sparrow, a project so secret, the Post Office tried to claim the word "Sparrow" was privileged... ... during the group litigation, much to the bemusement of Mr Justice Fraser. True story - link here, to find the discussion, search "privilege".

postofficetrial.com/2019/01/common…

Good morning from the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry. Former interim Post Office General Counsel (top lawyer within the country) returns to give evidence. Remotely. 🧵 Flora Page starts asking questions. Says Lord Arbuthnot said that relations with the Post Office became "less open and more combative" after CA became GC.

CA can see how he can see how he came to that conclusion

I'm at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry to hear the second day of former Cartwright King barrister, Harry Bowyer. We're already underway. You can watch it live (or on catch up) here.

Welcome to Aldwych House in London for the oral evidence of Hugh Flemington, former Head of Legal at the Post Office. Much quieter today in the Inquiry room than it was last week. Had a quick chat with Ed Henry KC, one of Gareth Jenkins' barristers, Heather Oliver and David Enright from Howe and Co, who was in parliament yesterday for the latest reading of...

Good morning NOT from the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry, but Wallis Towers where I have been marooned since marching to Walton station only to find someone had kidnapped all the trains. I am still going to live-tweet the inquiry thanks to the magic of the internet. 🧵 Former top Post Office exec Angela van den Bogerd is giving her second day of evidence today and Jason Beer KC has started by asking about her role in the appalling case of Martin Griffiths.

Good morning from Aldwych House, home of the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry. Very busy today, with lots of media outside. Live tweets of Angela van den Bogerd's evidence and other bits and bobs follow. 🧵 I wrote up former Post Office General Counsel Chris Aujard's evidence yesterday



#PostOfficeInquirypostofficescandal.uk/post/the-hatch…

I'm back at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry to cover the evidence of two Post Office General Counsel (most senior internal lawyer in the business). First we have Day 2 of Susan Crichton's evidence. She left in October 2013. V long 🧵... My write up of Crichton's evidence yesterday can be read here.


My wrist (which had a plate put in it 10 days ago) is hurting after yesterday, so I'm not going to do as much. But I'll do me best...postofficescandal.uk/post/the-bleat…

Okay. At the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry for former PO General Counsel Susan Crichton. She hasn't said anything in public since mysteriously disappearing out of the Post Office in Oct 2013. 🧵of docs and stuff arising today... Julian Blake doing the questioning for the Inquiry (v surprised it's not Jason Beer KC). Crichton is sworn in.

At the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry, watching David Smith, former Post Office MD (2010) give evidence. You can watch along live here:

Morning. I am at the #PostOfficeInquiry
to witness the evidence of James Arbuthnot. We are already underway. Due to an unfortunate argument with a mountain last week, I am not going to be doing any written reports from the hearing.

NEW: Full @CommonsBTC report into Post Office debacle just published: committees.parliament.uk/committee/365/… Findings:

PO CEO Nick Read: "has supplied misleading evidence to the Committee on at least two counts, relating to the Post Office’s use of, first, non-disclosure agreements and, secondly, public relations firms."

THREAD: On 29 Jan I got an email from someone I’d never met or spoken to before. We have been corresponding since and today we had our first chat. Anna (not her real name) is a former Subpostmaster. She is still fighting for compensation and has what she perceives as clear...

1/ ... evidence of remote access to her branch accounts AND the Post Office is stalling her compensation claim.

But let’s start at the beginning:

2/

Thank you all so much for the donations to the Horizon Scandal Fund. I rarely ask anyone to retweet, but we are keen to reach as many people who need help as possible. We are there to help ANYONE IN NEED affected by the Post Office scandal.

horizonscandalfund.org/apply.html This could be legal fees, travel to the Inquiry, respite breaks (ie a holiday - some people have not had a holiday in a decade or more), medical equipment, a social. Anything. We are a registered charity (No 1199595 - )…of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search…

The statutory public inquiry into the Post Office Horizon IT scandal is in danger of falling apart. Last month's hearings were postponed as the chair was ill. Today the chair is considering postponing most of this month's hearings until after summer because... ... of the Post Office's failure to properly disclose documents to the inquiry, which might be of relevance to this month's witnesses. We've already seen the THIRD postponement of Gareth Jenkins' evidence (the Fujitsu engineer under criminal investigation). Today the inquiry...

During @KevanJonesMP (Lab) UQ in parliament today @chrisloder MP (Con) called Post Office CEO Nick Read "a liar" and Chris Pritchard, Post Office Head of Public Affairs "a liar" after meeting with them. V unusual. Reflects the strength of feeling in the House. Hard to see how... @KevanJonesMP @chrisloder ... how Nick Read gets out of this hole, entirely of his making.

He accepted a bonus for co-operating with a public inquiry, and then signed off a demonstrably false statement in the PO's annual report.

#PostOfficeScandal

Latest development in the Post Office's bonusgate. The Director General of the Business Department, David Bickerton has written to the Post Office demanding an apology for not informing the minister about the falsehood in its accounts and...

#PostOfficeScandal
#PostOfficeInquiry ... an explanation as to how the falsehood came to be in the annual report. I am reminded that the report is not just filed at Companies House, but (as a govt-owned company) laid before parliament. This means the signatories of the annual report - the Chairman and CEO...

Holy sh*t. The Post Office applied a senior executive bonus metric about its work on the Post Office Inquiry (without informing the inquiry). Then it used false information to say it had achieved the metric and awarded the executive bonuses, whilst implying... ... the Inquiry chair had confirmed the false information!!!

postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/news/chairs-st…

#PostOfficeScandal
#PostOfficeInquiry

Good morning. I am at the #PostOfficeInquiry in London to watch Fujitsu whistleblower Richard Roll give evidence. I first heard Richard's voice on Alan Bates' cassette recorder in the Dobbie's garden centre café just off the A5 near Shrewsbury. I first met Richard Roll in the Leathern Bottle pub just outside Wokingham in April 2015. What he told me was something the Post Office were explicitly denying - that Horizon errors could cause holes in Postmaster accounts, and that Fujitsu staff could go into those accounts...

Asian postmasters who rang helpline about flawed Horizon IT system labelled 'another Patel...'

Top work by @TomWitherow

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1… @TomWitherow Times write up:

Postmasters were victims of racist mockery at Horizon helpline:

thetimes.co.uk/article/postma…

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...