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Post Office inquiry live: Angela van den Bogerd shown letter blaming PO for postmaster's death - BBC News Post Office inquiry live: Angela van den Bogerd shown letter blaming PO for postmaster's death - BBC News
(32 minutes later)
Following that denial about her behaviour towards O'Dell, Sam Stein reminds Van den Bogerd that a High Court Judge - Mr Justice Fraser - found in 2019 that he "simply couldn't trust" her evidence. Before the inquiry finished, Stein's fiery questions included reminders of some of the sub-postmasters who were affected by the Horizon scandal.
That was during a case before the court, after a group of 555 sub-postmasters took legal action against the Post Office. In 2019, it agreed to pay them £58m in compensation, but much of the money went on legal fees. He mentioned Jacqueline Falcon, who worked at a Post Office branch in Hadston, Northumberland, between 2000 and 2015.
Stein asks if, that same year, she received her bonus. "Er, yes," replies Van den Bogerd. He says she got blamed by her employer for a shortfall.
Stein continues: "So, despite a finding that you essentially lied to the High Court, you got your bonus?" Falcon was arrested and charged with fraud, given a suspended prison sentence, shunned by her local community, barely able to leave her house and was put on antidepressants, Stein says. He added that she was arrested in 2015.
"Yes," she says. “Why didn't the Post Office send out a message to make sure people were not unnecessarily blamed for, what might be, or could be a problem with the system?” he asked Van den Bogerd.
Van den Bogerd said the message given to sub-postmasters was that help was available when she was in support services, but that assistance wasn’t there earlier than that.
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