I WRITE on this auspicious week when the great injustice meted out to 7,000 innocent postmasters/mistresses is finally acknowledged. This recognition has come about through the adverse publicity created by a television drama series highlighting the persecution of this cohort of Post Office employees. To date we are seeing that a CBE honour has been rescinded, the company which created the software that caused these postmasters/mistresses to be accused of theft has been named and some politicians are looking decidedly uncomfortable as they knew of the issue, and looked the other way, as citizens of this country suffered.

I am a WASPI (Women Against State Pension Injustice) woman. Along with 3.8 million other 1950s-born women, my pension age was postponed by two Acts of Parliament, in 2005 and 2011. Along with many of the 3.8 million WASPI women I was never notified of these delays. I came about the information of, in my case, a five-and-a-half-year delay to my state pension, through word of mouth.

The enactment of this cruelty (I do not use the word casually) is shocking. Successive governments of various political persuasions have failed to recognise this injustice. WASPI women have been involved in a legal tussle with the Government for seven years. We have struggled through the courts with the Department of Work and Pensions and now the PHSO Public Health Service Ombudsman. The battle goes on. Seven long years have passed. Many women have died. We still have no formal recognition from government of our plight. What do we do now? The BBC sidesteps us any time we ask for or merit publicity. Would someone please write a drama series about WASPI?

Clearly, our justice system has not worked for postmasters/postmistresses; the victims of contaminated blood products; the Windrush generation, victims of Grenfell or the Gurkhas.

These groups, like WASPI, are citizens of this country for whom justice has not been done. Our Government needs to listen. Our politicians need to listen. Our media needs to listen. These routes to justice should be available to all citizens.

Sandra Gibson, Paisley.

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Vennells should bow to Bates

IT is a pity that Paula Vennells, the disgraced ex-head of the Post Office has chosen to return her CBE medal to the appropriate authorities ("Post Office boss at centre of Horizon scandal gives up CBE", The Herald, January 10). It would have been in her own best interests to have sent it directly to Alan Bates who has done so much over some 20 years to try to get proper restitution and compensation for her lack of leadership in every respect. She should have had it inscribed: "You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din" (with apologies to Rudyard Kipling).

R Johnston, Newton Mearns.

The Herald: Paula VennellsPaula Vennells (Image: PA)

Time to judge the judges

WITH regard to the Post Office scandal, one aspect has not been mentioned. How did the judges find all these people guilty of criminal offences without proper evidence being produced at their trials?

British law requires that no one should be convicted of a criminal offence unless it was proved beyond reasonable doubt. This was clearly not the case here. Therefore all these judges have failed in their legal duty. This is a vitally important cornerstone of the British legal system. Therefore all these judges must be held to account.

James Evans, Dumbarton.

Be wary of TV influence

I HAVE been astonished by the extraordinary effect of the ITV series Mr Bates v the Post Office, which has done more to put right a long-running injustice than the law, the press or politicians. A single well-researched, well-produced commercial television programme has brought shame on the Post Office, on the police, on the courts, on the honours system, on our dilatory national broadcaster, on government departments and on ministers. It alone has forced redress on a Prime Minister driven into a corner by the weight of public opinion which it has evoked.

Excellent, but is this really the way we want scandal to be put right in a democratic society, the failings of whose institutions have been so starkly revealed by the programme? The exercise of influence by television is welcome in this case, but the potential for abuse lurks in the background.

James Scott, Edinburgh.

Pavement ban will not work

I SYMPATHISE with the points made by Keith Swinley (Letters, January 10) regarding cracking down on those who park on pavements.
However, in areas such as part of Knightswood in Glasgow where streets are very narrow, there will be a real issue with this parking ban. If residents have to park fully on the road, quite simply no traffic such as vans, buses or indeed emergency services could even pass. In this case residents are being considerate by parking partly on the pavement. 
One size cannot fit all situations regarding a pavement parking ban.
J Kerr, Glasgow.

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A shot in the dark

YOU carry a report today of the arrest of a woman in connection with the death of a man in Edinburgh on Hogmanay ("Woman arrested after death", The Herald, January 10).

The report goes on to say that the deceased was "allegedly" shot. I would have thought that surely the victim was either shot or not shot and am confused therefore as to how you could be "allegedly" shot?

James Martin, Bearsden.

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Wine waiters and plonkers

SARAH Campbell obliquely refers to the apparently-established practice of deferring to wine waiters ("Sacré Bleu? I will learn to say 'non'", Herald Magazine, January 6). I've never understood why anyone should feel intimidated by someone who is unlikely to know as much as how to pronounce the names of the wines he serves, or of the grape varieties from which they were made.

My pronunciation has more than once been "corrected" by waiters who obviously didn't know the difference between "côtes" and "coté", and who seemed to favour the use of the acute accent, regardless of meaning, as somehow making the word sound more distinctly French: hence they served "Coté du Rhône", the latter word being pronounced as in downpipe.

Robin Dow, Rothesay.