Post Office leadership accused of showing contempt for victims at inquiry

The Post Office’s leadership has been accused of showing contempt for victims after its lawyers informed a public inquiry into one of the nation’s worst scandals that it was not reasonable to expect them to “leave no stone unturned” in revealing its wrongdoing. The inquiry into the false convictions of 900 post office operators was further told that it was unrealistic for the lawyers representing the Post Office and responsible for handing over internal documents to “continue to work during the evenings and over weekends”.

The latest revelation from the inquiry, chaired by the retired high court judge Sir Wyn Williams, emerged out of letters from the Post Office’s lead legal representative, Chris Jackson, a partner at law firm Burges Salmon LLP. Jackson said his comments in correspondence sent late last year were part of a request to “please discuss” the future processes for disclosing evidence to the inquiry, which has been repeatedly delayed by the failure of the Post Office to promptly hand over documents.

Asked whether he believed, on reflection, that his position in his letters was flawed, Jackson said: “No.” Lost emails and last ditch finds: how the Post Office inquiry was delayed Read more Former Tory cabinet minister David Davis said the attitude of the Post Office and its legal representatives was a “disgrace” and that the organisation’s employment of expensive lawyers to thwart justice was an affront to the victims.

He said: “They should ensure that every effort is made to disclose all the documents. The alternative to their own lawyers doing it is that we impose lawyers upon them to sift through their documents.” Liam Byrne, the chair of the business select committee, which next week will interview the chief executive of the Post Office, Nick Read, said justice required those representing the organisation to work “round the clock”.

He said: “This is one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British history, so, bluntly, parliament and the public will expect and demand the Post Office leaves no stone unturned in providing the evidence required so the truth can finally be known. “If that requires the Post Office working round the clock to make sure the facts are on the table, then that is what is required.

The truth has already taken too long to emerge. There cannot and must not be any further delays.” Earlier this week, the postal affairs minister, Kevin Hollinrake, announced that the government would legislate to exonerate post office operators convicted of crimes between 1999 and 2015 relating to theft, false accounting and fraud, based on faulty information from the Horizon system, which had erroneously suggested that money had gone missing from post office branch accounts.

The Post Office had ignored the repeated insistence of those targeted that the Horizon system was to blame as they pursued their targets through the courts. They also failed to fully disclose evidence to the criminal courts leading to unfair convictions of which 95 have so far been overturned. In a written statement to the inquiry before Friday’s hearing, Jackson, whose firm was instructed by the Post Office last year, conveyed an apology from the organisation for its failures over the last two years to fully disclose documents relating to its conduct in the scandal, including hundreds of thousands of relevant emails.

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We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion Gareth Jenkins, a key architect of the Horizon IT system, had his appearances at the inquiry delayed twice due to disclosure failings, and the Post Office handed over 3,045 documents on the evening before he was due to give evidence.

Jackson wrote: “The Post Office has asked me to convey its apologies for the current situation and to assure the inquiry and other core participants that it is a post office priority to get to a position where hearings (and planning and preparation for hearings) can take place from a stable basis.” The Post Office was responsible for most of the prosecutions of those falsely convicted but Keir Starmer confirmed on Friday that a “handful” of cases linked to the Horizon scandal may have been handled by the Crown Prosecution Service during his time in charge of the organisation.

The Labour leader, who led the CPS between 2008 and 2013, said that he was not aware of Horizon cases brought against post office operators. Speaking to broadcasters during a visit to Bury in Greater Manchester, Starmer said: “I think it’s very important to be clear that these were – or the vast majority of these were – Post Office prosecutions brought by the Post Office in relation to their cases.

“A small number – at the moment it looks like there may have been three or so, a handful of cases – in the five years that I was director of public prosecutions that were handled by the Crown Prosecution Service.” He added that it was “not even known what the detail of those cases are and it needs to be put in its context: in the five years I was director of public prosecutions I had 7,000 staff and we handled 4m cases.

So this was a handful, within that. More details will emerge no doubt … it’s not clear whether they’re in the cohort of cases of concern or not.”.