The anger is palpable in an update on the Post Office scandal, while the life and death of a famous Soho character fails to strike the right tone
The Great Post Office Trial: The Reckoning (BBC Radio 4) | BBC Sounds
Sound Heap | Various podcast providers
Made of Stronger Stuff (BBC Radio 4) | BBC Sounds
Bernie: Who Killed the Prince of Soho? | Various podcast providers
The reporter Nick Wallis made his first piece about the Post Office scandal 10 years ago. Last week, he was back with The Reckoning, an enraging coda to his 10-part series on what we now know to be one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British legal history. In April, you’ll remember, the convictions for theft, fraud and false accounting of 39 subpostmasters were quashed by the court of appeal. Yet the end of this shameful affair seemingly remains some way off. We still don’t know why the Post Office’s 14-year prosecution spree continued for so long (736 people were criminalised on the basis of information supplied by its faulty Horizon IT system between 2000 and 2014). Nor do we have any sense of when, or even if, anyone will be held to account for it. Standing outside the home of Paula Vennells, the company’s former CEO, in the hope of an interview, Wallis sounded at once determined and weary. Needless to say, her front door remained firmly closed.
