The Post Office scandal - Inquiry
I’ve watched the Inquiry via YouTube for most of 2023 and think it’s brilliant that there was mainstream media coverage of it last week...finally! Some points below which might be helpful.- if you were stunned by the testimony of Stephen Bradshaw last week, then you should see the testimony of Rod Ismay in May, Helen Rose in September, Elaine Cottam in November and Jarnail Singh in November.- if I had £1 for every time a witness said “errrr...I don’t recall” in response to a key question during the testimony, then I’d be typing this from my private island in the Bahamas.- before a key witness was about to give evidence in July, the Post Office dumped circa 4,000 documents to the Inquiry about 10 hours leading to the postponement of the witness testimony .- because of grossly unsatisfactory disclose failings by the Post Office, in July the Chair announced that all future Inquiry requests for evidence to the Post Office will carry a notice under Section 21 of the Inquiries Act 2005, which carries a threat of a criminal sanction (including a sentence of up to 51 weeks’ imprisonment).- in November before a key witness was about to give evidence, the Post Office revealed that it found some documents that it needed to go through. How many documents? Circa 363,000.- the Inquiry gave the Post Office a deadline of 20 December for submit documents in relation to Stephen Bradshaw. The Post Office proudly said on 19 December that the review and submission of documents was complete. Then the Inquiry was told the review wasn’t complete and a few days before Stephen Bradshaw’s testimony the Post Office submitted 942 documents.- the Post Office submitted some documents classified as “new” but in fact the Post Office had already given the Inquiry those documents 10, 20, 30 or sometimes 50 times already in the past.- the Inquiry began in 2021 and the Post Office was required to review all electronic databases and disclose all documents but the Post Office only started to review some databases in June 2023.
Milan Joshi ● 408d1 Comments