SO where did all the money go? Not the money the evil Post Office claimed had been stolen from it but the money it now is shown that they stole from the postmasters when they demanded they pay back the fictitious losses.
We are talking tens of thousands of pounds across hundreds of sub postmasters. This week Ed Davey, former Lib-Dem leader and a key protester over this said that only a small fraction had been so far repaid by the Post Office and that was £58million. Even if the average was £30,000 per office we are talking well over £300 million!
Now the money in the branch offices never existed. It was, we now now, an invention of the fatally flawed Fujitsu software called Horizon. But the Post Office, without even checking, demanded and took this money off all their postmasters. So where did it go?
The point is not moot. This money was the product of crime – the false allegation used to extract it from the innocent postmasters. That is obtaining money by deception.
So where is it? Where did it go?
If it was absorbed into profits (which seems the most likely event) then it will have been paid out in dividends. That makes every PO shareholder a receiver of the products of crime.
And where is any kind of justice?
And then comes the fact that the evil PO undertook 93 prosecutions, falsely claiming to the courts that a crime had been committed when it had not. The magistrates and judges thus misled convicted the defendants on the basis of lies. Some of those convictions have been set aside – all of them should be and swiftly now that we have waited so long.
Which then opens the question of compensation. It is usual for anyone falsely convicted to be compensated from the public purse. Why has that not happened?
And why were they not awarded costs?
And finally the matter of the costs of the sub postmasters' fight so well shown in the ITV drama. They won. It is usual for the winning side to apply to the court for an order for costs. Did they? If not why not?
And thus we end asking the final big question. Why were the costs so huge? £46million out of a £56million settlement. The evil PO lost so why were they not ordered to pay the plaintiff's costs?
I await "Mr Bates and Paula Vennells – Part two of the scandal that just will not go away".
