Justice Is In The Post

Many will no doubt have seen the coverage of the postmasters’ appeals against their criminal convictions in the news recently. In or around 2005 the Post Office installed a new computer system for their post masters. The system was called Horizon. After its installation, 700 postmasters were prosecuted for theft, such convictions being entirely or largely reliant on the data from the Horizon system. Since December last year. over 40 of the convictions have been overturned with the most recent Court hearing allowing 39 appeals against previous convictions. This will no doubt open the flood gates for the remaining convicted postmasters to also appeal.

Many of the reports made in the news of interviews with those convicted talk of this conviction ruining their lives with many of them being sent to prison for several years and taken away from their families, refused future employment on the basis of former convictions and ridiculed and shunned by local society due to press coverage at the time of the conviction.

Now that the convictions have been overturned, what compensation is available to the postmasters affected?

Those sent to prison may be able to claim compensation from the Government for false imprisonment but no doubt they will be more morally inclined to pursue the party likely to be at fault, the Post Office. This article therefore focuses on the compensation claims that could be pursued by the postmasters against the Post Office, rather than any claim for false imprisonment. There is at the time of writing a limited amount of information available on the detail of each of the recent appeals. The comments below are therefore subject to evidence and each of the cases will turn on its own particular facts.

BBC News has reported that:

The Judge’s comments clearly support an argument that the Post Office was negligent or at the very least reckless in terms of the reports that they made and their continued reliance on the Horizon system. One might question given how many people they accused, why it was not the Post Office’s starting position that the system should be investigated fully before pointing the finger. Given the Judge’s comments, it seems that liability on this ground is likely to be fairly solid should a civil claim be pursued.

If the postmasters affected wish to seek compensation from the Post Office, they should proceed as quickly as possible. In civil claims, the Limitation Act 1980 sets time limits in which certain types of claims must be pursued. In negligence, the claim must be pursued within six years or three years of the ‘date of knowledge’, whichever is the latter. The date of knowledge is effectively when you had the requisite knowledge to enable you to pursue the claim. In the current cases, it is reasonable to argue that the date of knowledge is the date that convictions were quashed. The sting in the tail in the Limitation Act, however, is that the three year date of knowledge rule is subject to a 15 year long stop date from the date of the incident complained of. Given that the accusations were made in 2005 and a number of the convictions were complete in 2007, the 15 year deadline is no doubt fast approaching.

As stated above, whether a particular case is the right or wrong side of the line in terms of the time limit will depend on the particular case but given the looming deadline, it is essential that those affected seek advice without delay.