I’ve launched a second crowdfunding campaign to cover my work on the Post Office Horizon scandal this Spring.
There is a Court of Appeal hearing at the end of March which is scheduled to run from the 22nd to the 26th, and there are a number of dates during which the government inquiry will be sitting, which I hope to attend.
The work your kind donations support will be available to all on the www.postofficetrial.com website, which has been documenting the Post Office Horizon story since my first crowdfunder back in 2018.
If you are able to, and would like to support some public-interest journalism, I would be most grateful if you would take a look at this post on Post Office Trial, which explains the crowdfunding set-up.
This time, in return for your kind donation, I am able to offer you copies of my forthcoming book, which has a working title of The Great Post Office Scandal. Lesser reward levels include access to the irregular “secret” email, which provides the inside track on this story as it develops and grows.
I also aim to be in court for the forthcoming Depp v NGN hearing on 18 March at the Court of Appeal. More on that nearer the time.
I was asked to go along to the High Court to report on the first day of the Johnny Depp libel trial for Channel 5 News. Mr Depp is suing the owners of The Sun (and one of its journalists) for calling him a wife-beater, something he strenuously denies.
I have spent most of the last two years doing some crowdfunded reporting on the Bates v Post Office group litigation which is of considerable interest to a relatively small number of people. During the two trials of the litigation I live-tweeted everything that was going on. I also got a court order to ensure I was provided with the daily unperfected transcripts on each day of the trial, which I then published.
Although it was not a requirement of my job for 5 News, I thought people might be interested in what was going on during the Johnny Depp trial. So I started live-tweeting Mr Depp’s evidence, and it turns out people all over the world were quite interested.
5 News only booked me for the first day of the trial and I didn’t have any work for the remainder of my week. On my way home I started replying to the very kind messages I had received about my tweets, and half-jokingly suggested I might go back the next day off my own bat.
The response I received to this suggestion was phenomenal. By the time I got home I decided I might as well give it a try. I applied to the High Court for accreditation and then realised a way of covering my losses might be to ask people to use my Post Office crowdfunding tip jar.
I wasn’t sure I was going to get in, so I didn’t ask for any tips until I was in Royal Courts of Justice, primed and ready to go. Within hours I had received enough cash to cover my losses. By the end of the day I had enough to make the next day viable, so I committed to going again. The same for Friday.
The transcripts
But… whilst the drama of live tweets are one thing, they can only really summarise and paraphrase what’s being said. Verbatim quotes are easy enough to take down, but in making sure you get them, you lose a lot of other things that are being said. Even the live transcription service I saw in the Bates v Post Office trials required two highly-trained people, and they don’t have to use a platform which hangs for at least three seconds when you hit publish.
That’s the reason I asked for the daily transcripts in Bates v Post Office and why I asked for them in Depp v NGN. The live tweets only have value within a day (at most) of being posted, but transcripts last forever.
In that regard I am very grateful to the judge and to Mr Depp’s and NGN’s representatives. I am now receiving the transcripts on the day they are produced, and I have posted them on this website. I expect there will be worldwide interest in their content. They certainly make for eye-opening reading. Please note the daily transcripts are “unperfected” which means they may contain slight transcription errors, but in my experience they are more than 99% correct.
These documents would not be available were it not for the enthusiasm of the people who started following my live-tweets and were then so kind as to put a few quid in the tip jar. I am so grateful to everyone who has made a donation.
I’ll be back in court on Monday, and I will approach things day by day as I was last week. I’ll also try to update this blog as and when I think there’s something of interest to note.
As a freelancer, if there are any TV or radio network editors interested in getting live reports after the day’s proceedings have finished, please get in touch.
You can listen to it here. For more information about the Post Office Horizon scandal, please take a look at my other website Post Office Trial – a crowdfunded site initially set up to document the Bates v Post Office group litigation at the High Court.
I have also made a Panorama on the Post Office story, but thanks to COVID-19, it remains, at the time of writing, unbroadcast.
I’m currently on my way to Hawley Crescent to record the penultimate voiceover for this series of Caught on Camera. It launches this Wednesday on Channel 5 at 10pm and then switches to 5Spike the next day at 9pm.
It’s a corking first programme and I’m delighted The Wright Stuff have invited me on to talk about it (and the daily news agenda) tomorrow (Tuesday 24 July) at 9.15am for two long hours.
I’m really pleased with how the new series has turned out, which is, of course down to the superb team I’ve been working with. I also discovered this morning that Caught on Camera is available on Amazon Prime (just in the US?).
With reviews like “Just OK, kinda boring.” It really seems to have captured the public’s imagination. Enjoy!
I don’t often get asked to do voice-only jobs, so it’s nice when they come along. This morning I was in the booth (pictured) at Guilt Free Post on Dean Street, voicing a commercial script.
If you would like me to lend my pipes to your production, please do get in touch with my friends at London Voiceover and they will do the rest.
Just to let you know a new series (the fourth) of Criminals: Caught on Camera has been commissioned by Spike. Criminals… was initially commissioned by Channel 5, from Channel 5 Productions.
When Channel 5 was bought by Viacom, Viacom brought its US Channel Spike over to the UK and operated it under the auspices of Channel 5. Criminals… was repackaged for Spike and quickly became one of its highest-rated programmes.
Earlier this year Spike went back to Channel 5 Productions (now called Elephant House Productions) and commissioned a new series. So this will be an Elephant House production for Spike.
As you can see from the shot above we are filming already. I am delighted to be on board once more.
On The One Show in your Christmas mail tonight… we (well not me – HM Border Force) open peoples’ presents to find two massive big bags of illegal drugs, three massive big bags of baccy, about 10,000 hooky fags, a huge box of illegal skin-lightening cream, a bunch of illegal steroids and other exciting things. 7pm tonight BBC1.
