Our last speaker slot saw the return of Tom Hedges, the ex subpostmaster for Hogsthorpe Post Office and victim of the Horizon IT scandal, who came to give us an update on the inquiry.
Tom last visited the Club in January when he had to rush off in preperation for an appearance on BBC Breakfast the following morning. That appearance was unexpectedly followed up by interviews with the local BBC, Radio Humberside, The Telegraph and Radio 5 Live. In addition Tom has been delivering lectures on his experiences to law students at Manchester and Greenwich Universities. All these activities are helping raise the profile of the scandal which Tom is pleased to be doing.
Tom continues to follow, and have faith in, the inquiry which could find against a wide range of individuals, not just those in Post Office managment, but also the lawers that advised them and even senior politicians who pulled strings to force the use of a system that was known not to be ready.
As for the vicitms, all the convictions not already reversed by the courts were overturned by the Conservative Government, and compensation schemes are now being implimented though the process appears slow and bureaucratic.
On asking a current subpostmaster who was attending our meeting as a guest if the system was now fit for purpose, we were shocked to hear it still generates millions of pounds of errors every month – but now they are written off rather than persued.
The Club wishes Tom good luck in his continued efforts to receive fair compensation and in his work to raise awareness of the plight of his fellow subpostmasters.