Six Post Office bosses may have committed criminal offences in their handling of the Horizon IT scandal, one of their former legal advisers announced on a BBC Radio 4 documentary on 30 May 2021.
Private Prosecutions | Rosenblatt’s Financial Crime Team
More than 700 branch managers were prosecuted for crimes including fraud and theft when money supposedly went missing from their accounts. The Court of Appeal decision on 23 April 2021 quashed the convictions of 39 sub-postmasters who were wrongfully convicted. It was ruled that key evidence was not disclosed during the trial process. One document from 2013 which was described as a ‘smoking gun’ revealed that an expert witness had misled the criminal court in numerous trials. The Court of Appeal Judgment is discussed in further detail in our earlier article.
The former legal adviser to the Post Office noted on BBC Radio 4’s series ‘The Great Post Office Trial’ that “everyone involved in the prosecution process has a duty to comply with the rules, and a deliberate failure to comply with the rules usually amounts to a perversion of the course of justice. I can probably name half a dozen people, with hindsight, who should be very worried.” These comments have sparked fresh calls from MPs for a criminal investigation into the matter. It is noted that the police are currently investigating two IT boffins which could result in charges for perjury.
The Times newspaper have also reported that the Post Office used gagging clauses as recently as this year to silence sub-postmasters who received compensation after being wrongly accused of the aforementioned crimes. This left many too fearful to speak out against what has been described as one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British history. A former Conservative MP, Lord Arbuthnot has criticised the culture of “secrecy” and stated “when a public organisation has behaved as atrociously as the Post Office has, it is a thoroughly bad thing for that organisation to try to stop the people it has wronged from talking about it.” Andy Furey, of the Communication Workers’ Union, noted that “these people are responsible for spending taxpayers’ money in trying to defend the indefensible.”
On 19 May 2021 the government confirmed that a public inquiry will be launched into the failings of the Post Office with statutory powers to call and cross-examine witnesses. This announcement is discussed in our previous article. The inquiry will likely hear evidence from former bosses, including Paula Vennells, who is blamed by many for the cover-up and Alice Perkins who was the chairman of the Post Office from 2011 through to 2015.
The Post Office have confirmed that they “continue to take determined action to address the past.”
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