Thank you Joshua for giving space to this gross miscarriage of justice.
As a long time lawyer and an alumnus of the IT industry, I find it hard to believe that the Post Office management allowed this story to develop as it did. One can imagine that one or two post masters might be wrongly accused (though not to conviction), but when the number ran into hundred or thousands, the management must surely have realised that something was wrong. This reflects on the Post Office directors individually, the in-house lawyers, the IT staff as well of course on Fujitsu. Did none of them smell a rat? One wonders if any of them lost his job or were denied a bonus.
A less charitable interpretation might be that conclusions were jumped-to, those to be prosecuted were required to prove their innocence, and backs were to be covered at all costs.
I am always ready and eager to sit at my friend James’s feet over legal issues.
Like many a solicitor, I am finding the entire Post Office scandal ever more appalling - and also informative concerning all the risks which arrive in tandem with the outsourcing of key strands of public services delivery.
It needs saying that Private Eye has for years been the blunt instrument exposing and condemning this example of a profit motive into entities central to the workings of any sophisticated and accountable nation. This is in no way to take away from the attritional and honourable endeavours of Mr. Bates and M.P. James Arbuthnot, journalists and of course others who refused to take “No” for an answer.
In general terms I add just these three thoughts:
1. I have been so impressed thus far with the tenacious approach of the inquiry’s Chair Sir Win Williams;
and:
2. I am reminded of the telling phrase of the late and colourful Sir Nicholas Fairbairn,Q.C.: “the case theory”. He used to speak tellingly of investigators’ and prosecutors’ focus on those aspects of intelligence and evidence which went towards SUPPORTING their early instincts which would then harden towards certainty. Then would arrive a failure to heed or value any material adverse to that premature conclusion where it ought constantly to have been revisited and challenged as the process developed.
3. Hence the need for a prosecutors’ code which should always be subject to review in the light of any developments or fresh challenges.
That, frankly, seems to me to be the most charitable interpretation to be placed upon the role of many involved.
The Ikarian Reefer - the absolutely seminal case on experts' duties (in a civil context, and those duties must if anything apply more strongly in crime) - was decided at first instance in February 1993, before work on Horizon even began. It will be interesting in due course to hear how this "expert" complied with the duty "not [to] omit to consider material facts which detract from his concluded opinion".
Thank you Joshua for giving space to this gross miscarriage of justice.
As a long time lawyer and an alumnus of the IT industry, I find it hard to believe that the Post Office management allowed this story to develop as it did. One can imagine that one or two post masters might be wrongly accused (though not to conviction), but when the number ran into hundred or thousands, the management must surely have realised that something was wrong. This reflects on the Post Office directors individually, the in-house lawyers, the IT staff as well of course on Fujitsu. Did none of them smell a rat? One wonders if any of them lost his job or were denied a bonus.
John
A less charitable interpretation might be that conclusions were jumped-to, those to be prosecuted were required to prove their innocence, and backs were to be covered at all costs.
I am always ready and eager to sit at my friend James’s feet over legal issues.
Like many a solicitor, I am finding the entire Post Office scandal ever more appalling - and also informative concerning all the risks which arrive in tandem with the outsourcing of key strands of public services delivery.
It needs saying that Private Eye has for years been the blunt instrument exposing and condemning this example of a profit motive into entities central to the workings of any sophisticated and accountable nation. This is in no way to take away from the attritional and honourable endeavours of Mr. Bates and M.P. James Arbuthnot, journalists and of course others who refused to take “No” for an answer.
In general terms I add just these three thoughts:
1. I have been so impressed thus far with the tenacious approach of the inquiry’s Chair Sir Win Williams;
and:
2. I am reminded of the telling phrase of the late and colourful Sir Nicholas Fairbairn,Q.C.: “the case theory”. He used to speak tellingly of investigators’ and prosecutors’ focus on those aspects of intelligence and evidence which went towards SUPPORTING their early instincts which would then harden towards certainty. Then would arrive a failure to heed or value any material adverse to that premature conclusion where it ought constantly to have been revisited and challenged as the process developed.
3. Hence the need for a prosecutors’ code which should always be subject to review in the light of any developments or fresh challenges.
That, frankly, seems to me to be the most charitable interpretation to be placed upon the role of many involved.
The Ikarian Reefer - the absolutely seminal case on experts' duties (in a civil context, and those duties must if anything apply more strongly in crime) - was decided at first instance in February 1993, before work on Horizon even began. It will be interesting in due course to hear how this "expert" complied with the duty "not [to] omit to consider material facts which detract from his concluded opinion".