A slightly longer wait for call of the executioner?

But just like an inmate in a cell on America's Death Row, sub-postmaster and customers alike wait with bated breath.

Will the promised review by consumer body PostWatch win a reprieve for the sub-post office and a victory for the consumer?

Or is this week's move by Post Office Ltd. just a cynical ploy designed to the lessen the appalling public relations impact of Tuesday's catalogue of closures?

The history of each Death Row operated by those American states which retain the death penalty is littered with ghastly stories of convicts '“ deserving and undeserving alike '“ who have waited years for the judicial appeal process to grind its course.

In many cases their file has closed with the convict sitting in the same electric chair which would have ended their anguish so much quicker.

Collington sub-post office, its sub-postmaster and customers are no more guilty of any crime than are those at London Road sub-post office.

Both have seen spirited campaigns which, had natural justice played any part in this process, would have sufficed to save them.

There are exceptions to Death Row's general rule.

There are those, like the Briton so recently repatriated, who run the gamut of the appeal process and do not end up in the Chair.

Despite all the support it gained, London Road sub-post office's fate is sealed '“ not by this week's decision but by the decision on which its sub-postmaster so courageously blew the whistle before the farcical consultation period.

Collington's fate continues to hang in the balance.

Let us hope that good sense prevails. If it does, then PostWatch will have flexed its consumer muscles.

If it doesn't then PostWatch stands diminished in public perception and the Post Office Ltd. executioner will have triumphed.