Comment
JANE MOORE
Davids can take on the Goliaths of Post Office, HMRC and NHS and win… but only if they are rich and famous
Without the exposure of ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office, they might have got away with it
POST Office hero Alan Bates gave evidence to the long- overdue public inquiry in to the Horizon computer scandal yesterday.
Executives knew faulty software was to blame for supposed financial shortfalls but continued to bully innocent sub-postmasters in to paying up for its mistakes — and the humble Bates has doggedly battled the mighty institution for two decades.
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It was a shocking travesty of justice that ruined lives and is linked to at least four suicides, and all those who abused their power should be ashamed of themselves.
But without the exposure of impactful ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office, they might have got away with it.
Because, when ordinary people face a David v Goliath fight with a large institution that has taxpayers’ money to burn on top lawyers, how the hell can they ever hope to win?
It’s the same story with the NHS and, among other major health errors, the contaminated blood scandal where an estimated 30,000 people were mistakenly given transfusions infected with hepatitis C or HIV over a 20-year period from 1970.
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Around 2,500 people have since died as a result, and more than 26,000 became severely ill.
Yet the culture of NHS cover-ups and seemingly limitless taxpayer funds to spend on legal heavyweights meant it wasn’t until 2018 that campaigners finally got the public inquiry they had been fighting for.
It resulted in a recommendation that each victim, and some of their children, should receive compensation.
But, believe it or not, they won’t receive anything until after the inquiry delivers its final report on May 20.
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And what of the loan charge scandal, where HMRC has been accused of bullying nurses, supply teachers and council workers in to paying back thousands of pounds of tax their employers should have paid but didn’t.
I’ll leave you to Google the finer detail, but suffice to say HMRC has been accused of undermining the rule of law by overriding statutory taxpayer rights and its “harsh campaign” has been linked to ten suicides.
Disgraced Post Office boss Paula Vennells refuses to answer questions as she's seen for first time since Horizon drama
HMRC knows there is little prospect of an ordinary individual having the funds to fight their corner in court, so it pushes them to pay up and end the mental torment of seeing interest rack up on a “debt” they might not even owe.
Tory MP David Davis has been vocal about addressing such disparity, but in the meantime, Harry Potter author JK Rowling has done her bit in showing how institutional bravado can crumble when challenged on a level playing field.
If an ordinary person had publicly faced down Scotland’s new Hate Crime and Public Order Act by publicly describing several trans women as men, might they have been threatened with “prosecution” if they didn’t delete the posts and immediately apologise?
And might they have done so not because they accepted they were in the wrong, but because they couldn’t afford the legal fees to test the matter in court?
But because JK Rowling has millions in the bank, she was able to challenge Scottish police to “arrest me”, knowing full well they were unlikely to take her to court because they wouldn’t win.
Consequently, they admitted her comments were not “criminal” and no action would be taken.
Ms Rowling says: “I hope every woman in Scotland who wishes to speak up for the reality and importance of biological sex will be reassured by this announcement, and I trust that all women — irrespective of profile or financial means — will be treated equally under the law.”
Hear hear.
And it’s high time that every David/Davida is treated equally when it comes to legal battles with other institutional Goliaths too.
COMIC Jim Davidson says he could make girlfriend Natasha his sixth wife and be “like Henry VIII”.
Minus the beheadings, one hopes.
Jim, now 70, met Natasha last year and friends say he is “besotted” with the mum in her 40s.
Lucky her. Just in time for the looming “nursing years”.
NY ROW TO HIT HOME
SICK of Texas bearing the brunt of asylum seeker arrivals, its Governor Greg Abbott started bussing them to the Big Apple.
As the numbers rose and cost New York “billions”, its Mayor Eric Adams slapped a limit on bus arrivals.
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So the operators got round it by dropping migrants off at neighbouring New Jersey train stations and erecting large “NYC” signs pointing them in the direction of the correct platform.
I saw the bright yellow signs when I passed through Secaucus station in January.
Now, after years of New York liberals supporting uncontrolled migration when it largely affected only the southern states, the tables have turned and they’re seeing first hand the burden it is placing on the city’s finances, facilities and infrastructure.
Consequently, with public dissatisfaction over immigration and crime set to be the defining factors of the forthcoming US presidential campaign, it’s rumoured that Donald Trump might become the first Republican to win the Democrat-leaning city since Ronald Reagan 40 years ago.
Either way, immigration continues to be a thorny issue worldwide, and whoever wins the next UK election ignores it at their peril.
PETE DOHERTY, former hellraiser and ex-boyfriend of Kate Moss, says he and Libertines bandmate Carl Barat once tried to join the Army.
But they didn’t want to cut their hair and, says Pete: “I’d rather go around the world with a guitar than a gun.”
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But a syringe full of potentially deadly Class A drugs? No problem.
THE Porsche raced by Steve McQueen in the 1971 film Le Mans is expected to make £4.5million at auction.
“It is without question one of the most important Porsches in existence,” says car specialist David Swig.
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Marvellous and all that.
But what do you actually do with it once you’ve forked out a small fortune to become its new owner?
You’d be too scared to drive it anywhere, you can’t put it on your hallway table for guests to admire, and you can’t leave it on the driveway to impress the neighbours in case it rusts or gets nicked.
So it will undoubtedly live in an airtight bubble in some climate-controlled outhouse on your vast estate.
Boys and their toys, eh?
’LENE IN TO IT EVEN MORE, BEY
BEYONCE’S cover version of the Dolly Parton hit Jolene sees her “modernising” the begging tone of lyric “please don’t take my man” to “I’m warnin’ you, don’t come for my man”.
Surely, to be truly modern, it’s the unfaithful man she should be aiming her ire at?
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LADIES COCK A SCOOP
IT appears that success has many mothers, while failure has none.
Consequently, the two women behind the BBC’s interview with Prince Andrew are reportedly on frosty terms after backing separate TV dramatisations of the events leading up to it.
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Emily Maitlis has nailed her colours to the mast of A Very Royal Scandal, by Amazon Prime, which is still in production.
While the effort of her former producer Sam McAlister is already out on Netflix and stealing a march on headlines.
Called Scoop, it’s based on Sam’s book Scoops, about her role in securing the TV scoop for her then employer Newsnight.
Alright, dear. Talk about rubbing it in.
But good luck to her.
If Scoop’s version of events is true, it wouldn’t have happened without Sam’s tenacity in persuading Andrew’s right-hand woman Amanda Thirsk (who later lost her job) that putting him in front of a TV camera was a good idea.
And although it could have gone horribly wrong, Emily’s forensic interviewing skills steered the randy old Duke of York in to the very choppy waters that drowned him.
So well done to both. And may the best woman garner the most viewing figures.
WHERE IS JAIL SPACE?
THE Met police are describing a facial-scanning tool as a “game changer” when it comes to recognising alleged criminals in a crowd.
Since introduced a year ago, it has triggered an arrest every two hours of possible rapists, burglars and thieves.
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Minister for policing Chris Philp says it has “revolutionised” crime detection and £230million will be spent on more technology and detection vans.
All very reassuring, but with our courts and prisons stuffed to the gunnels, what the hell are they going to do with them all?
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