{"id":182540,"date":"2024-11-26T04:47:06","date_gmt":"2024-11-26T04:47:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/26\/post-office-scandal-victims-set-compensation-deadline-ahead-of-legal-action\/"},"modified":"2024-11-26T04:47:06","modified_gmt":"2024-11-26T04:47:06","slug":"post-office-scandal-victims-set-compensation-deadline-ahead-of-legal-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/26\/post-office-scandal-victims-set-compensation-deadline-ahead-of-legal-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Post Office scandal victims set compensation deadline ahead of legal action"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"432\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/e3.365dm.com\/24\/07\/768x432\/skynews-wales-post-office-alan-bates_6596151.jpg?20240701164345&amp;fit=768,432&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Post Office scandal victims set compensation deadline ahead of legal action\" title=\"Post Office scandal victims set compensation deadline ahead of legal action\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-component-name=\"ui-article-body\" data-highlight-intro=\"true\">\n<p>Post Office scandal victims will wait until the end of 2024 for compensation scheme improvements or the matter will &#8220;move back to courts&#8221;, Sky News understands.<\/p>\n<p>A newsletter sent by Sir Alan Bates to members of the Group Litigation Order (GLO) scheme states that &#8220;if nothing has greatly improved&#8221; on redress then a &#8220;specialist law firm&#8221; will be called in.<\/p>\n<p>The GLO scheme was set up for former sub-postmasters after they won their High Court battle against the Post Office in 2019.<\/p>\n<div class=\"sdc-article-widget sdc-article-image\">\n<figure class=\"sdc-article-image__figure\">\n<div class=\"sdc-article-image__wrapper\" data-aspect-ratio=\"16\/9\"><\/div><figcaption class=\"ui-media-caption\">\n        <span class=\"u-hide-visually\">Image:<\/span><br \/>\n        <span class=\"ui-media-caption__caption-text\">Sir Alan Bates set out future plans in his newsletter. Pic: PA<br \/>\n        <\/span><br \/>\n      <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/topic\/post-office-scandal-10056\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Post Office scandal &#8211; latest updates<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Hundreds were wrongly accused of stealing from branches between 1999 and 2015 after <a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/topic\/post-office-scandal-10056\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>faulty Horizon software caused erroneous accounting shortfalls<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Sir Alan&#8217;s circular summarised a recent meeting of victims during which it was agreed that without improvements, a &#8220;deadline&#8221;, or a &#8220;date for the end&#8221; of the compensation scheme, then another meeting would take place in mid-January.<\/p>\n<p>He wrote: &#8220;At which time, a specialist law firm will be invited to address the group on how we can swiftly move this whole matter back to the courts to resolve.<\/p>\n<div class=\"sdc-article-widget sdc-article-related-stories sdc-article-related-stories--thumbnails\" data-component-name=\"sdc-article-related-stories\">\n<div class=\"sdc-article-related-stories__content\">\n<h3 class=\"sdc-article-related-stories__title\">More on Post Office Scandal<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;This might also involve the other schemes as well as our own, and it would mean we would have to fundraise once again, but this time nationally and I have no doubt we could raise the money required.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The newsletter also highlighted that the &#8220;merits and drawbacks&#8221; of other &#8220;legal avenues&#8221; were discussed by members of the Justice for Sub-postmasters Alliance (JFSA).<\/p>\n<p>The meeting heard that the &#8220;greater majority&#8221; of more than 150 victims who attended were &#8220;still awaiting or yet to agree their final settlements&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Sir Alan has written to the prime minister twice in the last two months asking him to set a March 2025 deadline for all GLO claims.<\/p>\n<p>In his newsletter, Sir Alan says <a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/post-office-campaigner-sir-alan-bates-says-he-is-yet-to-receive-reply-to-letter-to-pm-13248848\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>the response from Sir Keir Starmer<\/strong><\/a> &#8220;only contained the standard civil service platitudes which mean nothing and basically stated that they would carry on as usual, i.e. same old, same old.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There may have been a change of political party in power, but the civil service never changes, and we all know who is really in charge of government.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read more:<\/strong><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/post-office-scandal-at-least-eight-convictions-linked-to-capture-software-being-investigated-as-possible-miscarriages-of-justice-13258125\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Eight pre-Horizon convictions checked<\/strong><\/a><br \/><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/post-office-scandal-former-postmaster-says-government-compensation-offer-that-covers-15-of-claim-is-insulting-13056352\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Former postmaster calls compensation offer &#8216;insulting&#8217;<\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/post-office-chairman-henry-staunton-ousted-amid-row-with-government-13057745\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Post Office chairman ousted amid row with government<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sir Alan also described &#8220;similarities&#8221; between the findings of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) on the Windrush compensation scheme and the problems experienced by GLO Scheme victims.<\/p>\n<p>The PHSO found that the Home Office Scheme was making wrong decisions and refusing payment to those entitled to it.<\/p>\n<p>Sir Alan stated that following a recent meeting with the PHSO victims, they &#8220;may well have strong grounds to bring a new complaint against the Department for Business and Trade&#8221;.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/post-office-scandal-victims-set-compensation-deadline-ahead-of-legal-action-13260759\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Post Office scandal victims will wait until the end of 2024 for compensation scheme improvements or the matter will &#8220;move back to courts&#8221;, Sky News understands. A newsletter sent by Sir Alan Bates to members of the Group Litigation Order (GLO) scheme states that &#8220;if nothing has greatly improved&#8221; on redress then a &#8220;specialist law [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182541,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/24\/07\/768x432\/skynews-wales-post-office-alan-bates_6596151.jpg?20240701164345","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[603],"tags":[970,203,2894,669,2846,1951,418,5543,320,5544],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182540"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182540"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182542,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182540\/revisions\/182542"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}