The Post Office’s most senior in-house lawyer when it fought the landmark case brought by Alan Bates and other sub-postmasters has been challenged by BBC News in Australia, after she refused to appear before the public inquiry into the Horizon scandal.A BBC team questioned Jane MacLeod, who was the Post Office’s general counsel between 2015 and 2019, while she was walking her dog outside her home in Sydney.She replied with “no comment” when asked why she wasn’t attending.
She had been due to give evidence this week.“It’s unsurprising, but it speaks volumes,” says Jo Hamilton, one of the wrongly convicted former sub-postmasters.
Last month Sir Wyn Williams, chair of the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry, revealed that while Ms MacLeod had submitted a witness statement, she had decided not to give oral evidence, despite being asked to do so.The inquiry heard that the reason, offered by Ms MacLeod’s lawyers, was that given the passage of time, she considered her written statement was the best evidence she could offer.Since then, Ms MacLeod has not responded to BBC requests for comment.Sir Wyn said that even before seeing her written evidence, he’d decided that Ms MacLeod was “an important witness” from whom he wished to hear in person.He added that despite the offer to have her travel and accommodation expenses covered, Ms MacLeod “has made it clear that she will not co-operate with the inquiry by providing oral evidence”, either in person or via video-link.
However, Sir Wyn explained that his options to force her to attend were limited because she lived abroad.Under the Inquiries Act 2005, witnesses can be legally compelled to give evidence – but this only applies to UK nationals.In her written statement to the inquiry, Ms MacLeod says: “I am very aware that the decisions in which I was involved during my time at Post Office Limited regarding the group litigation and the investigation of Horizon’s performance and robustness have had implications for many sub-postmasters and their families.”She adds: “I regret that this has happened and apologise to those so affected for the adverse outcomes they have suffered.”
Jane MacLeod was the general counsel at the Post Office covering the period when it fought sub-postmasters in court in the landmark litigation led by Alan Bates.Giving evidence last month, the former boss of the Post Office, Paula Vennells named Jane MacLeod as one of the senior executives she had trusted to give her information – when asked by Sam Stein KC to list those who had let her down.Ms Vennells also recounted asking Ms MacLeod why they were proceeding with the court case against sub-postmasters, which she said had felt “completely wrong”.
She told the inquiry that, after first suggesting the Post Office would most likely settle the cases, Ms MacLeod’s view had been that the court case was “the only way to solve this”.Earlier this year, a BBC investigation revealed documents showing the Post Office had evidence in 2017 that losses could be due to errors in the Horizon IT system or remote tampering.In March, in response to the story, Jane MacLeod gave a statement to the BBC saying that she supported the ongoing public inquiry into the Post Office scandal and was assisting it.
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I’m assuming now that the Post Office is under criminal investigation for fraud, the mutual assistance act between UK and Australia might be used to compel her instead? Especially considering Vennels pointed the blame at her.
Assuming, of course, that the investigators deem her an important cog in the scandal too.
Gulf stream is ultimately a product of the rotating earth -sun system. It will be there but might shift around. Would suck a fat one for GB and the like.
Three rusty water-trucks stand at the edge of Kibbutz Malkiya, on Israel’s border with Lebanon; little bigger than a family car, they look like something out of an old cartoon.A collection of industrial leaf-blowers is stacked nearby.“This is all we have,” resident Dean Sweetland explains.
“We have just these - and the leaf-blowers - to blow the fire back onto the dead areas.”Dean, a Londoner who moved to the kibbutz eight years ago, is one of a dozen residents left to tackle recent bushfires in the area, sparked by Hezbollah rockets from Lebanon.“We’re on our own,” he says.
From the back terrace of his home - built from shipping containers, a few hundred meters from the Lebanese border - Dean Sweetland points out the plumes of grey smoke rising from the hills nearby, to the sound of distant bombs and fighter jets.Most of the other residents of Kibbutz Malkiya were evacuated in the days following the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October, when its Hezbollah allies in Lebanon began firing on communities here.
Families evacuated eight months ago are still living in temporary accommodation further south.The blazes here are a vivid reminder that the Israeli government’s promise to secure these northern areas and get residents back home is still unfulfilled.“We feel like we’re the forgotten people,” Dean says.
“They don’t care about the north.”The attitude among many in the country, he says, is “let it burn”.“I think we have to take out Hezbollah for 10km, maybe more,” says Yariv Rozenberg, the deputy commander of Kibbutz Malkiya’s civil defence team.“You can’t kill them all, and they won’t leave from here.
Before a meeting of the war cabinet to discuss the situation on Tuesday night, the Israeli military’s chief of staff, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, said the country was “approaching the point where a decision will have to be made”.The armed forces, he said, were “prepared and ready to move to an offensive”.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visiting troops and firefighters in the northern town of Kiryat Shmona on Wednesday, said the government was prepared for “a very strong action in the north.”“One way or another we will restore security to the north,” he said.Many believe a ceasefire in Gaza would help cool the situation further north.“Gaza is the key,” Dean says.
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Let me start by saying, I believe in human caused climate change, I believe it’s the biggest threat to the world at large currently.
I have to ask did any the doom and gloom people in this comment section read the article? Specifically the part where it says that it’s happens there every three to five years? I live in Colorado and have experienced snow in the mountains in summer. In fact Arapahoe Basin is still open to skiing for another two weeks this year. Sometimes it’s going to snow in the mountains in June.
I’m going to finish by stating once again that I believe that climate change is a threat that all of humanity faces on a daily basis, I just don’t know if “semi regular summer snow hits highland Scottish Mountains” is the apocalyptic omen that people here are saying it is. There’s plenty of those if you look around: scientificamerican.com/…/antarcticas-doomsday-gla…
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