I’m 82, I’m not a lawyer, just someone appalled by the state of British justice. Didn’t PO executives instruct lawyers to fight the claim for compensation for SPMs in the courts even though they knew the Horizon software was unreliable? And when the SPMs were awarded a large sum in compensation wasn’t most of that was swallowed up by legal fees? And didn’t PO lawyers fail to disclose evidence in earlier trials of SPMs that could have been used by their defence lawyers to establish their innocence?
Will any PO executives face any prosecutions? What about Tim Parker who before becoming Chairman of the PO was known as the ‘Prince of Darkness’ because of his ‘slash and burn’ tactics of buying companies, slashing the workforce, and selling them on at a profit? Parker resigned as PO Chairman just days before the public enquiry into this scandal began. What does it say about our justice system, that Mr Parker – at the same time as being Chair of the PO - was (and still is) Chair of Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service? Is this the body responsible for the administration of justice in this country?
You can still see the cogs whirring, as they try to work out how to keep the compensation costs down and ensure that justice is delayed and hence denied.
The headline news is that there are still nearly 700 wrongful convictions to be quashed. But there are something like 2,500 other instances where innocent people's lives were ruined when 'repayment' was demanded of vast sums of money that had actually never gone missing. Bankruptcies, forced sales of businesses, people losing their homes or incurring huge debts...
The fact that no one has stepped in to insist that the first principle should be righting the wrongs, whatever the cost, is a damning indictment of the way our system operates.
Compensating Post Office victims
Really, really hard to encapsulate this *scandal* so comprehensibly as it unfolds… you are quite something Joshua 👏🥰
I’m 82, I’m not a lawyer, just someone appalled by the state of British justice. Didn’t PO executives instruct lawyers to fight the claim for compensation for SPMs in the courts even though they knew the Horizon software was unreliable? And when the SPMs were awarded a large sum in compensation wasn’t most of that was swallowed up by legal fees? And didn’t PO lawyers fail to disclose evidence in earlier trials of SPMs that could have been used by their defence lawyers to establish their innocence?
Will any PO executives face any prosecutions? What about Tim Parker who before becoming Chairman of the PO was known as the ‘Prince of Darkness’ because of his ‘slash and burn’ tactics of buying companies, slashing the workforce, and selling them on at a profit? Parker resigned as PO Chairman just days before the public enquiry into this scandal began. What does it say about our justice system, that Mr Parker – at the same time as being Chair of the PO - was (and still is) Chair of Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service? Is this the body responsible for the administration of justice in this country?
Brings to mind the contaminated blood scandal. Failure to compensate in a timely manner, literally allowing potential claimants to die off.
Scandal upon scandal. Conspiracy upon conspiracy.
You can still see the cogs whirring, as they try to work out how to keep the compensation costs down and ensure that justice is delayed and hence denied.
The headline news is that there are still nearly 700 wrongful convictions to be quashed. But there are something like 2,500 other instances where innocent people's lives were ruined when 'repayment' was demanded of vast sums of money that had actually never gone missing. Bankruptcies, forced sales of businesses, people losing their homes or incurring huge debts...
The fact that no one has stepped in to insist that the first principle should be righting the wrongs, whatever the cost, is a damning indictment of the way our system operates.
Thank you for highlighting this. The financing of the claims is also a scandal which is driven by insurers.