The postmasters scandal dubbed by MPs as the “biggest miscarriage of justice” in recent history has been made into a four-part drama, Mr Bates v The Post Office. It was followed by a documentary on those featured in the drama.
Background
More than 700 people were convicted of fraud, theft, and false accounting over 20 years. Most of the public was unaware of the devastation caused to victims with people losing their homes, marriages, and reputations. Postmasters were pursued for shortfalls in their accounts which happened because of a new IT system which was installed by the Post Office in 2005. The software contained bugs, errors, and defects that caused financial discrepancies in postmasters’ accounts.
Following the dramatisation of the scandal, there have been fresh calls for criminal and regulatory action against those who pursued prosecutions against sub-postmasters.
Public inquiry
There has been an ongoing public inquiry into the scandal, which will resume next week. It has almost finished phase four which has focused on the civil and criminal cases pursued against individuals. In the second half of last year, there was evidence from in-house and external Post Office lawyers, with a total of 190 witnesses having appeared at 128 public hearings.
Previously, the inquiry heard from representatives of the Post Office and its advisers Herbert Smith Freehills who have since been replaced by Burges Salmon and KPMG regarding process failings.
The chair of the inquiry, Sir Wyn Williams described this as potentially ‘deeper rooted problems’ relating to disclosure. In his end-of-year message, Williams said he expects:
‘full cooperation’ from participants to ensure oral evidence finishes this year. Any avoidable disruption to my search for answers will not be tolerated’. He further added, ‘people have waited long enough to hear the truth about events that had such adverse consequences on their lives’.
Scrutiny over lawyers
James Hartley, a partner from Freeths who was featured in the dramatisation has stated that the role of lawyers in the scandal has not attracted the same attention as other figures at the Post Office and Horizon. Whilst talking to Times Radio, Mr Hartley said that while lawyers for the Post Office who were involved in the prosecution of the postmasters may not face criminal prosecutions, he said they could be subject to regulatory action.
He said that future investigations should assess the ‘culpability and accountability’ of lawyers under professional conduct rules, stating, ‘Why did it go wrong and who knew that?’ he asked.
‘The inquiry work is being watched closely by the Metropolitan Police. They will do their own investigations and ultimately, I would say there’s probably five potential targets here.’
‘One is the entity Post Office Ltd; one is senior decision-makers within Post Office- obviously [former chief executive] Paula Vennells but there are others as well.
‘Thirdly, Fujitsu the company potentially or that could be more difficult, I think. Fourth, employees within Fujitsu who’ve given evidence in court cases [which] was found to be potentially misleading. And lastly there is the role of the lawyers.’
The Solicitors Regulation Authority is a core participant in the public inquiry but have stated that any disciplinary action must wait until those proceedings have ended.
Comment
The public’s awareness of the scandal has no doubt heightened since the dramatisation and documentary aired. This has caused further questions to arise about the amount of culpability of key members involved in the scandal. The ongoing inquiry will no doubt bring fresh evidence and hopefully lead to the postmasters getting the well-overdue justice they deserve.
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