To draw your attention to Mr Bates vs The Post Office

Just illustrates how those at the top saw those at the bottom. Not as respectable, hardworking business owners but as grubby little thieves ...

A rather damning email from none other than Alan Cook:

https://twitter.com/JohnHyde1982/status/1778744651089928553

The judge did not say the evidence was insufficient to convict. If he had said that, he would have directed the jury to return a not guilty verdict. He was clearly uneasy that there was no evidence as to where the money had gone and that the only evidence was from Horizon, but left it to the jury to decide if that was sufficient to convince them of her guilt. The jury decided, wrongly, that it was.

The judge passed a custodial sentence because he had no choice. He had to send her to prison. Judges are required by law to follow the sentencing guidelines. For this offence, given the amount of money supposedly involved and the level of culpability, the starting point for sentencing is 2 years in prison with a minimum of 1 year. You may disagree with it, but there was nothing wrong with the sentence.

It's Alan Cook, the former Post Office managing director, today

He says he didn't realise the Post Office itself brought prosecutions against sub-postmasters

So he had no idea how the business he was managing was operating

It would be satisfying if the roles were swapped and those affected could swan around in huge profits whilst those who lied, misdirected and blamed them lost all their wealth, standing in society and were villified by the public. The trouble is most of those resposible are usually made of Teflon and everything just slides right off them. The compensation needs to happen sooner.

The children of the affected postmasters are also bringing claims against the PO for how their lives have been blighted by the gross injustice perpetrated against their parents.

Indeed, but this is how things are done in this country.

They are still lying to our face about how sorry they are and how quickly they are dealing with it, while neither is true.

It's blatant.

I'd like to know if the judge who presided over her case is still around. I don't know if I am confusing her case with a different one, but there was a case where the judge indicated to the jury that the evidence was insufficient to convict but they convicted anyway. So why did the judge then pass a custodial sentence.

I don't agree with sending non-violent criminals to jail anyway, but if it was Seema, and she was 8 months pregnant, the judge also has questions to answer. A suspended sentence would have been adequate. Pregnant women should only be going to jail if they are a danger to society eg they've murdered someone.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68787990

The only 'apology' Seema Misra should accept is those responsible doing time for this.

Is anyone going to go to jail over this ?

Just because the perpitraitors grouped together in an alliance of self preservation doesn't mean they shouldn't be accountable.

Recompence for the victims and jail time for the offenders who knowingly knew these people had been wrongly accused and procecuted.

https://news.sky.com/story/david-smith-apologises-for-celebrating-conviction-of-pregnant-sub-postmaster-13112677

Lord Arbuthnot's evidence was definitely the highlight of the day. The scandal is so huge it's difficult to try to understand it all, which is what makes his evidence so compelling, it enables you to follow one thread of what was going on along one particular timeline. Broadly it seems that they Post Office got themselves into a terrible mess through being incredibly amateurish but what happened next was the worst thing. As their realisation grew of the terrible mess, and what revealing it would cost them, the urge to cover it up grew and grew, and it is this that led them to corrupt themselves and to corrupt the whole organisation, and also to corrupt anyone else on their side. In defending the Post Office brand they transformed what was behind it into a dark and malicious thing.

And as a former barrister he is very precise, very observant, and not easily bullied or distracted off course.

He comes across as being the right man, in the right place, at the right time.

Giving evidence in today's morning session is Lord Arbuthnot. He was James Arbuthnot MP, and his background was as a barrister in Chancery. His part in uncovering the scandal is less well-know, but it was vital

Indeed. There were a disproportionate number of postmasters in his constituency who were affected, and also the Chinook crash which was initially blamed on human error before being ascribed to a computer error in the end made him question the post office narrative as well (his constituency included RAF Odiham where the Chinooks are/were based).

A draft report uncovered by the BBC shows the Post Office spent £100m fighting sub-postmasters in court despite knowing its defence was untrue

I don't think this was actually new - it was clear from Nick Wallis's book that the Post Office lied lied and lied again.

It's all very much "The answer is No; I'll come up with Reasons later."

Yep. Obfuscate, misdirect, evade dealing with the content of allegations by yapping about process.

Giving evidence in today's morning session is Lord Arbuthnot. He was James Arbuthnot MP, and his background was as a barrister in Chancery. His part in uncovering the scandal is less well-know, but it was vital. He basically led the resistance to the Post Office in Parliament and provided considerable support to subpostmasters victimised by the Post Office.

What's striking about this evidence is the number of times that statements made in very significant situations, for example in response to MPs, by people at the top of the Post Office were simply untrue. Paula Vennells in particular seemed to be willing to say just about anything if it served to bat away the question put in front of her.

100% this! There can’t be many people as tenacious as him.

At the end of Bates' evidence, the Chair thanked him and then told those attending that he could see they were about to applaud but he wanted them not to because he didn't want to deal with other forms of reaction from them in relation to other witnesses that they might react very differently to.

In other words, if they can applaud Bates they might want to boo others, and that wouldn't be right.

Dude is amazing. No waffle.

Au contraire, the PO learned years ago that failing to provide information is an extremely effective method of stonewalling and evading consequences. And almost never brings them any penalty.

It works very well for them. Of course they're still doing it.

I bloody love Alan Bates. This morning was going through his experience by using the correspondence he'd had with Post Office and, at the end of the morning, with Ed Davey (being a weasel).

It was amazing to see in letter after letter Bates making prophetic statements of what might happen and how it wasn't just that Post Office was destroying lives but it was travelling down the road to its own destruction.

One interesting fact that I'd been unaware of is that after Bates was sacked in 2003 for raising difficult questions and continuing to pursue them, he has not been employed since. More that 20 years of his life devoted to campaigning, and it's quite possible he's not been earning anything over that time.

It's a personal thing but I find this dry account in terms of what actually happened to be more compelling than a dramatised account where facts are omitted and fictions inserted to produce a narrative that's more appealing to the audience.

And the Post Office are still very slow on providing informantion - they haven't learned yet!

BTW, did anyone else notice near the end of the TV programme, when everyone else had been calling him Alan, Mrs Patmore says (something like), "Goodbye, Mr Bates."

Of course not Mrs Patmore really, just the same actor. But I got the feeling she enjoyed slipping that in.

The voice-recognition captions have certainly been creative throughout. But that's a winner.