What role did lawyers play in the Post Office scandal? That’s one of the questions I’ll be asking in a special edition of Radio 4’s long-running programme Law in Action, which you’ll be able to hear this afternoon.
Those taking part are:
Jo Hamilton, who ran a Post Office in Hampshire and thought she must have done some something wrong with the computer when a “discrepancy” doubled before her eyes.
, a member of the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board that recommended that legislation allowing postmasters to be exonerated “at pace”.HH Isobel Plumstead, a former circuit judge who tells me what she thinks of government plans to pass a quashing of convictions bill.
Christina Blacklaws, the former Law Society president who now chairs LawtechUK and wants to restore safeguards on the use of computer evidence in court.
Andrew Marshall, who runs a law firm specialising in private prosecutions and believes that allowing the Post Office lawyers to prosecute postmasters was not the root cause of wrongful convictions.
You can hear Law in Action on Radio 4 at 4pm. The programme will then be available as a podcast on BBC Sounds.
What an excellent episode of Law in Action that was. From the first contributor to the last it *set out* the scale of the problems for our criminal justice system that the Post Office IT scandal has exposed… from our current reliance on computer evidence to the duties of prosecutors regarding disclosure, & now, the discussion on how to swiftly correct gross large scale injustice - something unlikely to become rarer with our increasing dependence on software. The dedication of an entire episode was (imo) brave & warranted… it did justice to such a big topic… I suspect the Bates ITV drama has served us (the public) well. Well done all involved in Law in Action - still highly relevant & brave broadcasting… as demonstrated so beautifully here👏❤️🥂