I am conscious that the main evidence from the lawyers to the Inquiry has now ended. Of course, Gareth Jenkins and Tim Parker’s recent evidence shows that there will be things coming out about the lawyers, the somewhat frenetic pace of the last few weeks will ease off. And you will notice it has eased off a bit already.
Whilst I have at least one more post in the works, on Andy Parsons evidence, and I may well pick up bits and pieces of the key things that other witnesses like Jenkins and Parker say, I am going to reduce the volume of posting here and concentrate on other matters, not least the Hamlyn lectures (30th October (Exeter), November 6th (Leeds) and November 13th (London)- I’ll be sure to post booking details when they come out).
Our work on the academic elements of the https://postofficeproject.net/ continues apace, but more on that anon.
Thank you very much for all the reads thus far. Please stick around!
To those of you who have paid subscriptions and who have sent me emails over the recent months I am both very grateful and always appreciative and enriched by the thoughts. I have paused paid subscriptions indefinitely given the likely drop off in substantive content.
Given the change in Government, I cannot help but hope this leads to a renewed push on compensation. I’d like to take the opportunity to pay tribute to Kevin Holinrake, the outgoing post office minister. I am sure he would be the first to say not enough has been achieved, but there were very significant strides made forward, and that is in no small part due to his own personal commitment to looking for solutions.
More importantly though, if I had a moment with the Government’s ear, I would be pleading for a genuine thoughtfulness about the broader implications of the PO Scandal.
Much as we all like to think about the possible bad apples of this story, and there are some who must be held to account, the really tricky question is what is wrong with the legal system and the way lawyers and the courts, civil and criminal, are exploited and allow themselves to be exploited? This is a profound cultural and regulatory question which should not be ducked. It takes in problems in the courts, in the professions, and in corporate governance and includes, but goes beyond, questions about computer evidence and
Whether any of these three are fundamentally sound, all are prone to systemic problems. It will soon be time to think about what to do about that.
