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From: Alice Perkins,
Sent: Tue 23/06/2015
To: Mark R Davies _
Subject: Re: Sparrow
I trust your judgment completely! And am v v grateful you are where you are. Thank you.
A
Sent from my iPhone
Hi Alice
Thank you for your support which means a lot.
I do know Clare. I might drop her a line. I always worry about going too nuclear too early but
this is now getting to that point I think.
Re live interview my plan is to do that in advance and afterwards as required. Then we can't be
portrayed as shifty through editing
Best wishes
Mark
Mark Davies
Communications and Corporate Affairs Director
Post Office Ltd
On 23 Jun 2015, at 17:48, Alice Perkins
wrote:
Thanks for updating me Mark. It sounds difficult but I am confident that nobody
could be handling it better than you. Experience shows that pushing back does pay
dividends in the end even tho! it does not feel like it at the time. So I would take this
as high as you can go. Did you know Clare Sumner from MoJ? She is TH's chief of
staff. A thought.
My only suggestion - and you've probably thought of it - is whether we should offer a
live interview after the programme has gone out? At that point, we would know what
they were saying and they wouldn't be able to cut and paste it as they would if we
gave them an interview for the programme itself. On the other hand of course, it
would give them recognition.
Good luck tomorrow.
Alice
Sent from my iPhone
On 23 Jun 2015, at 18:08, "Mark R Davie:
wrote:
Hi Alice
Hope all well and sorry to be bringing Sparrow to you.
I have drafted note below for colleagues and thought I would let you see
the update now: it is still a live situation as you will see.
I will update the Board fully on Thurs.
Mark
I wanted to let you know that next week we expect further adverse
media coverage (and a debate in Parliament) in relation to the Post
Office and our Horizon computer system.
The BBC plans a Panorama programme on June 29 while Andrew
Bridgen MP has secured a short debate in the House of Commons on the
same day.
We expect both the programme and debate to include damaging and
unsubstantiated allegations about Horizon and the Post Office’s
approach to prosecutions in those rare cases where there is evidence of
branch accounts being deliberately falsified to cover up losses.
We expect allegations to be made which suggest that we pressure people
to plead guilty to criminal charges, have not provided appropriate
information to investigators, have the ability to remotely access and alter
branch accounts and have not investigated whether Horizon could be to
blame for losses in branch accounts.
We are engaging vigorously with Panorama. We provided a two hour
briefing earlier this month. It has become clear, however, that they plan
to continue to make damaging allegations based on individual claims,
and have interviewed Second Sight in doing so.
We met with the Panorama editor on Monday and held a further call
with him today. Subject to his promise to come back to us on some
specific issues we will escalate further within the BBC, including with
lawyers, on Wednesday.
Ihave held briefing session with network colleagues and a further
briefing with service centres and others is to be held tomorrow. We will
be using all our internal channels to reassure colleagues, including with a
film featuring Angela van den Bogerd.
We are not currently planning to appear on the Panorama programme.
This is because it plans to focus on three individual cases and we do not
believe it is right to break the confidentiality we agreed when we set up
the mediation scheme.
It is also the case that those featured in the programme have asked the
Criminal Cases Review Commission, an independent body, to examine
their prosecution case. That is their right and we will co-operate fully
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with any requests made of us: what we won’t do is indulge in a public
debate while that review is being conducted.
We have, however, provided the programme and its journalists with
huge amounts of information which we hope will be reflected fairly and
accurately. I will circulate our statement later this week.
If we are asked to comment on the Panorama allegations on other
channels, we will do so.
I hope this is helpful. If you would like further information, please do not
hesitate to contact me.
Best wishes
Mark Davies
Communications and Corporate Affairs Director
Post Office Ltd
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