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WILLIE MCRAE LAST WORDS WERE I'M GOING TO GET THEM In April 1985, a Scottish lawyer named Willie McRae left Glasgow on a Friday evening heading to his holiday cottage. He never arrived. He was found unconscious in his crashed car on a remote Highland road with a bullet in his head. Police ruled it suicide. Case was closed. One problem. The gun was found outside the car, several yards away. McRae was still inside, seatbelt on, doors jammed shut. The officer who last spoke to McRae said he was being watched by MI5 and Special Branch. McRae had patted his briefcase and said he had information and was going to get them. When that officer later requested his own witness statement under Freedom of Information, he found it had been replaced with a forgery... Every mention of surveillance, MI5, and the briefcase had been deleted. There had been a fire at McRae's office the day before. A witness saw a man running from the building carrying a briefcase. This was not a random lawyer. McRae had just humiliated the British nuclear industry at a public inquiry, blocking plans to dump nuclear waste across the UK. He was also reportedly investigating a Westminster paedophile ring. 40 years later there has still never been a Fatal Accident Inquiry. The post-mortem report has never been made public. Over 13,000 people signed a petition demanding answers. The official position of the British state is that a man who embarrassed the establishment, knew dangerous secrets, and had just told a police officer he was going to get them, then shot himself ... after which the gun walked out of the locked car on its own. Sources: @pressjournal @scotsman @AlbaParty @BylineTimes @PrivateEyeNews

MUM CONVICTED, DAUGHTERS SENTENCED Somebody shouted thief through Elaine Hood's shop door. @postoffice shouted it first, in court, with a straight face. Elaine ran a post office and newsagent with her family in Allestree, Derby. In 2003 she was convicted of theft over about £19,000 on evidence from a computer system called Horizon, built by @Fujitsu_Global. It showed cash missing from branches where none was missing, which makes it a fascinating choice of star witness. Around 1,000 postmasters were wrongly convicted between 1999 and 2015, and Post Office prosecuted them itself, a bold way to mark your own homework. Elaine pleaded guilty and got 120 hours of community service and £950 in court costs. The Criminal Cases Review Commission @ccrcupdate sent the case back in March 2023, and the conviction was quashed that September after Post Office conceded the appeal. Justice took 20 years, so nobody can say it rushed. Elaine's daughter Kate Burrows was 14 when the panic attacks started. She still has them today. She has been in and out of therapy for most of her adult life, and the bill has so far gone to nobody responsible. Kate's sister Rebecca Richards was a teenager in that courtroom. She says she watched her mum in the dock, handcuffed to a guard, not knowing if she was coming home. She says two investigators sat in front of her dad and her, sniggering and saying they had got this one. Rebecca says her eating disorder escalated because food was the only thing she could control. Kate says she has had very dark thoughts of suicide. Elaine kept serving customers after that shout through the door, in the same village, to the same neighbours. The boardrooms have shown no such nerve. Kate and Rebecca now help run @LostChances2024, a charity for the children of postmasters. In summer 2024 Kate met Fujitsu Europe boss Paul Patterson, who said he would look at ways to help. By December 2024 the group had reportedly received an offer of counselling and nothing else. How thoughtful. Paul Patterson has since moved to chairman of Fujitsu UK to keep managing its response. In July 2025 inquiry chair Sir Wyn Williams found that at least 13 suicides may be linked to the scandal and 59 people contemplated suicide. He also found that people at Post Office and Fujitsu knew the system had faults, so the prosecutions were a real team effort. In March 2026 the Department for Business and Trade @tradegovuk announced a redress scheme for family members. Lost Chances helped design it, and the payment levels were still under review. Fujitsu agreed in January 2024 that it had a moral obligation to contribute. By March 2026 MPs found it had made no interim payment and agreed no figure, and it still holds government contracts. In May 2026 Fujitsu UK was reported to be paying staff bonuses, and Post Office extended its Fujitsu contract by £41M to March 2027. Fujitsu says it is engaged with the government on its contribution. A moral obligation, payable in installments of nothing. Fujitsu is engaged with the government. Kate has been engaged with panic attacks since she was 14.

SHE WAKES UP SCREAMING A grandmother of 8 still wakes up screaming at night. @postoffice prosecuted her in open court, which is a very efficient way to inform a whole village. Allison Henderson ran the small village post office in Worstead, Norfolk. In 2010 a Post Office's computer, said £12K was missing. Computers never get things wrong, so naturally she was the suspect.. Auditors arrived on 10 February 2010 and first said £18K was gone. A couple of hours later the figure fell to £12K, the fastest discount in Norfolk. She was suspended without pay that same day.. She says Post Office investigators then accused her of theft and marched her to the car park to see if her cheap Proton was worth taking. Her lawyers advised her to plead guilty to false accounting, which means signing off figures that were wrong, so the theft charge would be dropped. She says she was terrified of prison and was told not to mention Horizon in court.. A fair trial with the only relevant topic banned. On 15 December 2010 she got 200 hours of unpaid work and £1,400 in costs. Her own lawyers cost another £7K, and her husband took out a loan to repay the £12K. She says she repaid around £15K in total for money she never took, and customer satisfaction was not surveyed.. The court said 200 hours. Post Office added a lifetime at no extra charge.. She says she still wakes up screaming and takes antidepressants. She says old friends crossed the road to avoid her, and that she once considered taking her own life. Her husband quit as chair of the parish council. Her cleaning business folded when a customer asked for a background check, and in 2016 they left the village. Her 8 grandchildren were told nothing for 11 years. On 23 April 2021 the Court of Appeal quashed her conviction along with 38 others, known as the Post Office 39. The court said Post Office knew there were serious issues with Horizon and had a clear duty to investigate. Good to see a court explain that investigating is part of the job. A Post Office case review in 2014 noted she had never admitted false accounting before pleading guilty. In December 2014 her MP Norman Lamb @normanlamb wrote to Post Office boss Paula Vennells @PaulaVennells1 about her case. Her conviction stood for another 6 years. Rob Wilson, the former Post Office head of criminal law, was questioned at the public inquiry about her case. He also accepted it was his stated view that Post Office should grit its teeth and keep prosecuting.

Channel 4 Dispatches went undercover inside the Financial Ombudsman Service @financialombuds. What they filmed should have shut the place down. Their own staff said this on camera: "I'm not proud to admit it but I've done it myself. Just taken a chance and just slung stuff through, with any old decision." "You're more likely to meet your targets if you're not upholding them." 11,000 cases fell into a black hole for two years. Some of those letters said "I am going to lose my house." @UKParliament demanded answers. Baroness Ros Altmann called it shocking. MPs threatened a full inquiry. FOS said the footage was "not representative." Nothing changed. Fast forward to today. My own complaint against @rsagroup / @IntactInsurance is now being formally handled by Gary Smith @G8GWS of @MeridianLegals. Gary is the lawyer leading the FOS Litigation Group, a group built on over 1,000 documented FOS failures. He is preparing a judicial review of the FOS. My case has been submitted by Meridian as my regulated representative because what happened to me fits the same pattern Channel 4 filmed. If you have had a complaint dismissed by the FOS and you believe it was handled without proper scrutiny, contact Gary directly at Meridian Legal Services. 0121 516 0675 @MeridianLegals The full transcript of what @C4Dispatches filmed inside the FOS is in the comments. Read it and tell me this is not exactly what is still happening today.