Jo Hamilton, a former subpostmistress, compared the action to “tipping the board up when you’re losing” in a Monopoly game. She made this observation in response to papers obtained by the BBC.
Minutes from an April 2014 Post Office board subcommittee meeting revealed the decision, known as Project Sparrow, which the broadcaster claimed was made with full knowledge of the government.
Ms. Hamilton, who was falsely found guilty in 2008 of robbing a Hampshire village shop of hundreds of pounds, called it a “massive cover-up” and added, “We knew the Government were in it up to their necks.”
According to the BBC, the subcommittee requested that a paper be created on the independent forensic accountants from Second Sight, a firm, in the meeting minutes dated April 9, 2014.
Additionally, “options to support them or reduce their role” were requested by the subcommittee.
In July 2013, Second Sight filed a study pointing up issues that cast doubt on the accuracy of Horizon data utilised in subpostmaster prosecutions.
The Post Office received legal warnings that it was violating its obligations since prosecuted subpostmasters ought to have been informed about the bugs. However, the board later voiced concerns that the forensic accountants’ examination could expose them to accusations of unjust conviction.
According to the BBC, three weeks after its initial meeting, the subcommittee decided to remove Second Sight from its independent assessment of the cases and place the subpostmasters’ cases “under the control of the Post Office.”
The documents revealed that the Post Office intended to give subpostmasters a total of just £1 million in “token payments,” which Ms. Hamilton described as “so wicked.”
The BBC has now viewed the meeting minutes without any redactions, despite the fact that heavily redacted versions of the materials were made public in 2021.
Ms. Hamilton responded to the newly discovered minutes of the 2014 meeting by telling the PA news agency, “It just confirms everything we know.”
“We were aware that the Government was deeply involved.” You can kind of assume who’s on Project Sparrow, even though we never had the names. We just knew.
“After that, you can ask all of the business ministers, ‘Who didn’t know about this, honestly?’ I think everyone had to know, all the way up to the top.
It simply validates what we’ve already suspected—that these kinds of antics were occurring. and here it is in both black and white.
“You can say, ‘Go on, explain that,'” while it plays on television.
Ms. Hamilton stated, “It doesn’t surprise me,” in reference to the firing of independent forensic accountants. Really, it is repulsive.
The government is obviously thinking “oh my god, quick” since they are in this situation neck and neck. It’s kind of like Monopoly, where you tip the board up when you’re losing.
