- Date
- 27 January 2024
Full Disclosure:
The Post Office Scandal
By Jaysen Sutton |
Hi Reader 👋🏽,
You’re used to doing the accounts using a paper-based system, until one day the Post Office tells you they are switching to a computer-based system. Installed by Fujitsu, it promises to make everything easier, is being installed all across the Post Office branches, and it’s among the biggest IT projects in Europe outside the military.
It doesn’t take long before problems start to show. At the end of the week, the computer tells you that you are short £2,000, but you don’t know why because you haven’t made any errors. It must be a computer error! So you call up the Post Office helpdesk. When you eventually get through, they act like you’re the incompetent one. You must have made a mistake, they say. No one else is facing this problem. You stop calling them.
But the computer errors don’t stop. The system tells you that you now owe £15,000. You’ve checked everything and you can’t work out why.
The Post Office blames you: it’s in your contract to make up for any shortfalls. ‘You have been taking money from the company.’
You know it wasn’t your fault. It was the computer. But they don’t believe you. ‘The Horizon system is perfectly robust.’ You don’t have the money to pay back the Post Office, so you refuse to sign off the accounts. They fire you and pursue a private prosecution to take you to court.
The Post Office is in a unique position here as the party to bring the claim AND the investigator. They have all the information about the Horizon system. They make it clear the Horizon system is faultless, that no one else is facing this problem, and you don’t have access to any evidence to prove otherwise. It’s their word against yours.
What seems strange is how aggressively the Post Office is pursuing this case against you. They’re aggressively arguing that you’re a liar. There is no evidence at all to suggest the Horizon system has any issues. They tell you that they’ll drop their charge of theft if you plead guilty for false accounting, but little do you know, they don’t have any evidence of theft in the first place.
You lose at court. You’re ordered to pay the Post Office’s costs of £300,000. You file for bankruptcy.
Fast forward almost two decades of fighting, and it turns out:
- The Post Office’s Horizon’s system was faulty
- The Post Office and Fujitsu knew about problems facing Horizon from the beginning
- Executives from both parties engaged in a deliberate attempt to deny and conceal this information
- The Post Office aggressively prosecuted over 900 subpostmasters, leading to jail-time, bankruptcies, linked-suicides - and thousands more in financial and emotional distress
It was JFSA who were able to pursue a Group Litigation Order (the equivalent of a class action lawsuit) in the High Court against the Post Office. What is interesting is the way the case was funded to bring the Group Litigation Order; it’s not easy to fight against an institution with pockets as deep as the Post Office, especially when that was keen to rack up as many costs as possible to deter the claimants. The team needed After The Event insurance, providing protection to pay the legal costs if their claim was unsuccessful. Ultimately, they chose Therium, which had been founded by 2009 by two former lawyers.
Impact on law firms: Shoosmiths had originally taken up the legal case, followed by Edwin Coe, but ultimately it was down to Freeths to bring this to court.
Freeths’ legal team was fighting against Womble Bond Dickinson, a firm which now must consider the PR implications of its role defending the Post Office, given how much attention has been brought to the matter. Partners of the legacy firm Bond Pearce had been involved in actions against subpostmasters, despite the faulty system, including one who had to file for bankruptcy. Herbert Smith Freehills later joined the Post Office’s team, assisting the Post Office with an unsuccessful application to recuse the judge for bias after the trial had already begun. Ultimately, the Post Office settled the lawsuit through mediation.
Let’s look at some of the other law firms involved in the public inquiry. The Post Office’s former CEO, Paula Vennells (who recently handed back her CBE) is represented by Mishcon de Reya. According to Private Eye, the firm sent legal notices to newspapers allegedly warning them of libel (publishing false statements that damages someone’s reputation). Fujitsu is being represented by Morrison & Foerster.
Addleshaw Goddard and Dentons are advising on compensation for the sub-postmasters.
Have any thoughts? I'd love to hear your perspective below!
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