#postofficetrial A big thank you to @KateOsborneMP for joining me @10DowningStreet to hand over the petition & thanks to @itvtynetees for covering the story. The fight will continue until @BorisJohnson @Conservatives call an inquiry into this scandal #inquiry #answers #justice

#PostOfficeScandal Another brilliant article as always by @Karlfl at @ComputerWeekly Thank you for helping to highlight the continuing struggles by some to receive redress and the inconsistency applied to victims of the scandal. The @PostOffice doesn’t seem to be able to ever help itself generating bad press rather than doing the right thing. Such a poor unempathetic approach to those who have been wronged. Many had problems decades ago, some have suffered illness and others have died in the years since, but new cases are emerging, and some deserving of redress could miss out unless changes to rules are made. Former subpostmasters were entitled to a £75,000 fixed sum award under the Horizon Shortfall Scheme (HSS) if they had evidence of any unexplained shortfalls. This particular redress scheme has paid out over £1bn to subpostmasters. The statutory public inquiry into the scandal agreed to a date of midnight 27 November 2025, when no claims for financial redress under HSS could be made after. The Post Office accepted this recommendation, but decided on a later date of 31 January 2026. However, Computer Weekly has spoken to elderly former subpostmasters that were not even aware of the redress scheme until it was too late to apply and had applications rejected. Others have only discovered letters from the Post Office when their former subpostmaster parents have died. Last week, the government reconfirmed its commitment to providing compensation to every effected subpostmaster and “strengthening fairness”, but there is a cohort fighting for acceptance on redress schemes. Raft of changes In a recent statement after announcing a raft of changes to redress schemes, Post Office minister Kate Dearden said: “We remain unwavering in our commitment to provide fair, comprehensive and timely redress to all those affected and ensure that a scandal like this never happens again.” Chris Head, a former subpostmaster and victim of the scandal turned campaigner, said: “The Post Office says it wants to make sure that everybody who’s eligible receives their redress, but at the same time, there are people that are, for all sorts of different reasons, not going to receive it because they are refused access to a scheme.” Head said he is currently supporting about half a dozen cases where this is an issue. One case is that of Robert Nichol, a former subpostmaster who ran a Post Office branch in the village of Dalston, Cumbria, from 1982 to 2004. Speaking on his behalf, his wife, Anne Nichol, said they had problems with Horizon, with regular unexplainable shortfalls after being forced to replace paper-based accounting methods with the software in 2000. By 2004, Nichol resigned as a subpostmaster because “he just couldn’t cope with Horizon anymore”, said his wife. Now the couple face being left out of financial redress schemes. Anne Nichol said the couple, who have moved several times since giving up their branch, never received any correspondence from the Post Office regarding the redress they could apply for, and when they finally applied to the Horizon Shortfalls Scheme in March, they were rejected due its closure. The Post Office claims it sent letters to Mr Nichol. The first letter sent by the Nichols claiming redress was on 30 March, just two months after HSS closed for new applications at the end of January this year. “We’ve got eight emails of rejection, all saying the same thing,” Mrs Nichol told Computer Weekly. The latest Post Office rejection letter said: “We have reviewed the points you have raised and the information provided. We acknowledge your comments regarding not receiving correspondence about the HSS, your personal circumstances, and your views on the handling of late applications. However, as previously advised, the HSS is now closed to new applications. It is not possible to accept new applications under the scheme, and there is no appeals process in relation to this decision.” Read the full piece👇 computerweekly.com/news/3666…

#PostOfficeScandal In 2021 I spoke with Nick Read as CEO of @PostOffice and warned that if they did not voluntarily re-open HSS claims they would be forced to do so later down the line. This happened in 2024. Subsequently when the Post Office and government rolled out the Fixed Sum Award of £75,000 I wrote to the Post Office, the Minister and the inquiry to warn again that they would be forced to re-open these accepted awards because many people were legally unrepresented and ordinary people would have no idea how to value their claims with regards to the many heads of claim they might be entitled to. This has now happened as per the announcement last week from @biztradegovuk Latest announcement on more appeals and changes to the redress schemes :- gov.uk/government/news/new-a… It is one of the reasons the Information and Support service was created as I was swamped helping hundreds of victims navigate the labyrinth of redress schemes. I had suggested it needed to be fully paid legal advice like in the GLO and HCRS schemes, but government refused on the basis it would be too slow and costly. I accepted that some service would be better than nothing but I made it very clear that I did not support that over legal advice. Here we are again over a year later and we are now funding legal advice for those who accepted the £75,000 to determine if they should appeal and apply for more. So not only have we paid several million for the information and support service, we are now funding the legal fees for the exact same cohort of claimants. Yet all this talk that we must be cautious because this is taxpayer money. The whole thing is nonsensical. Everything that they have refused to do over the years, they are now as I suggested to them many times over being forced to do exactly those things. Below is just one of many letters that have been sent over the years highlighting all of these problems. Slowly the resolutions are coming, but for many as we saw yesterday it is too late as people are sadly passing away before receiving redress and justice. Then we have some of the most complex claims still fighting tooth and claw to receive redress they are owed because of the continued adversarial nature of the schemes.

RIP Heather 🙏 Sad news yet again that another Postmaster passed away before seeing full and fair redress and justice delivered. This could have all been avoided if the adversarial tactics were not applied at every stage of a claim

This was blindingly obvious to anyone other than the Department that the deadline set couldn’t possibly be met. If you look at the past statistics as I set out in previous letters to the Department, Ministers and Inquiry Chair Sir Wyn Williams it suggested redress claims would run until at least mid 2027 and potentially into 2028. I would suggest it is a near certainty claims will be ongoing into 2028 and if any HCRS claimants start the process now or early 2027 I am saddened to say that could run into 2029.