Simon Andriesz @SAndriesz has died. He took his own life this week, while staying at a trauma treatment centre, the same place he had gone to try to survive what years of fighting had done to him. I wrote the piece below about him at the start of August. We last spoke on 13 August. Reading my own words back now feels different. Heavier. I did not know then that this would be the last chapter. Simon gave me his story directly. The embezzlement he uncovered, the fraud he reported, the heart attacks, the police complaints, the years @TheFCA spent doing almost nothing while his life fell apart around him. He handed the CFTC and HMRC enough to secure real fines. He handed the BBC enough for a full documentary. And still the one regulator that was supposed to protect him let him carry all of it alone for 7 years. He was one of the most credible people I have ever spoken to. Everything he told me checked out. And he still ended up broken by the very system meant to catch people like him when they fell. I am angry writing this. Angry that a man this capable, this thorough, this willing to hand over evidence and testimony for years, was left to fight completely alone until he could not fight anymore. Simon Andriesz deserved better. Rest in peace. If you are struggling right now, please do not go through it alone. Samaritans are free, 24 hours, on 116 123. @TransparencyTF @stevemiddi1 @MLorrM @JohnCleese @premnsikka @johnmcdonnellMP @Victoria_Rixon @DennyTWright

FRAUD ON TAP The UK water industry is running the biggest legal scam in the country, and calling it a public service is the real joke. Thames Water, Southern Water, Affinity Water, Yorkshire Water and Anglian Water are all getting ready to ban hosepipes this summer. Most of the country could be under a ban by autumn. These are the same companies that have spent 37 years promising to fix leaking pipes while paying their bosses huge bonuses instead. The former boss of Southern Water, Matthew Wright, has just been charged with cheating the water tests. Prosecutors say his team changed the water flow before official checks so the company would pass tests it should have failed. A judge called it "carefully planned and extensive fraud and dishonesty at a high level." He could go to prison for up to 10 years. So imagine this. You get told off for watering your tomatoes. Meanwhile the man in charge of the water allegedly cheated on the tests that are supposed to keep it safe. There are now 81 criminal investigations open against water companies in England. That is the biggest crackdown this industry has ever seen. And your tap is still at risk of running dry. The fix is simple. Prosecute the bosses. Fine the companies until it hurts. Take our water back. Every other business in this country gets shut down for cheating on this scale. Water companies get a hosepipe ban for you and a bonus for them. SOURCES @Ofwat · @thameswater · @SouthernWater · @YorkshireWater · @BBCNews · @SkyNews · @thetimes · @Euronews

AT 93 BETTY BROWN IS STILL FIGHTING Betty Brown just turned 93 and picked up an OBE from King Charles at Windsor Castle. Lovely photo. Lovely medal on a lovely jacket. What she still does not have, six months after settling her claim, is a single penny of the compensation she was promised. Betty and her late husband Oswall ran the Annfield Plain Post Office in County Durham from 1985 to 2003. The Horizon accounting system built by Fujitsu @fujitsu_uk told them money was missing from their branch. It was not missing. It was never missing. They spent around 100,000 pounds of their own savings covering shortfalls that did not exist, because that is apparently the correct response when a computer accuses you and nobody in charge believes the human standing in front of it. She is thought to be the oldest surviving victim of the Horizon scandal. She was one of the original 555 claimants who backed Alan Bates in the group legal action against the Post Office @PostOffice. She reached a settlement through the government redress scheme at the end of last year. At her OBE investiture in June she said she still had not received a penny. Meanwhile Fujitsu, the company whose faulty software caused this entire catastrophe, has been criticised by a committee of MPs for contributing nothing financially toward the redress bill, which is running toward 2 billion pounds. The company that broke the till keeps its money. The 93 year old it falsely accused of stealing from that till gets a medal instead of a bank transfer. She dedicated her OBE to the sub-postmasters who never lived to see this day. She has said before that at least 13 people are believed to have taken their own lives because of what Horizon did to them. She said she wears the honour for them because she still feels everything they felt. She also had a message for the Prime Minister @Keir_Starmer, asking him directly to sort this out as quickly as he can. That is a simple sentence. It appears to be an extremely difficult instruction to follow. Britain does love turning its victims into heroes once the damage is done and the bill has gone unpaid long enough to be embarrassing. Medals are cheap. Redress schemes, it turns out, are somehow still cheaper for the people who actually owe the money.