Alan Bates: Knighthood was a bit of a shock

It was quite a busy day when I found out. It was actually the first day of Paul Vernell appearing at the inquiry on the Wednesday, which was actually attending and I'd already have an early morning meeting with the Metropolitan Police about looking at future criminality charges or whatever, which have been very successful. Meeting turned up late to the morning session and then after the launch break, I sort of hanging around waiting for the afternoon session, opened up my emails and there it was. A bit of a shock. I wasn't sure if it was a wind up to start with. When I accepted it, it wasn't just for myself. It was very much, you know, on behalf of the whole group. I mean it's recognition of the sheer hell that they've been through for the years financial address. It's really government who are who are supplying it to our group. I know the other groups, some of them are going through the post office, but. It's slow and I think it it's held, oh, it's far too slow. And I think it's it's just jammed up in the bureaucracy of government. And I'm certainly encouraging everybody to stand firm on it. It's, you know, don't sell yourself short on it. If you're owed that money, you stand firm. Because if they don't manage to resolve this, we'll have to look for other options in the autumn of how to resolve it. Well, we have to go back to the courts. So be it. I mean, the government, the courts have been very good to us. They've been understanding the form of this. And if we have to go back there, we will.