Using the law to hide the truth?

As victim speaks out, expert explains how Post Office allowed scandal to happen

A former sub-postmaster whose case was examined at a public inquiry last month has accused the Post Office of using the law to hide the truth and to break him and his family.

Lee Castleton faced one of the first civil claims linked to the discredited Horizon IT system. Having lost the case, he was made bankrupt when he could not pay the Post Office’s legal costs.

Lee Castleton (lef0 outside the High Court

In a statement issued through his solicitors Hodge Jones & Allen, Castleton said:

I’m not out for vengeance and I don’t expect an apology from anyone, but I do want closure and I would like people to tell the truth. We’re owed that, the living and the dead, and this was a deadly fiasco.

I have lost many friends who have gone too soon before their time, either because they could no longer cope or were overcome by heart attacks, strokes or cancer. The memory of my dead companions weighs heavily on me, yet even now the Post Office is quietly fighting every point, stealthily, at public expense. It’s disrespectful to the victims and makes a mockery of the Post Office’s apologies.

But it’s never too late to do the right thing. And so I appeal to them now and ask that the Post Office, Fujitsu and the government should come clean and let us grieve.

Private prosecutions

Also this morning, the inquiry began hearing expert evidence on the proper role of a private prosecutor. One issue for the inquiry is whether multiple miscarriages of justice could have been avoided if sub-postmasters had not been investigated and prosecuted by the Post Office itself.

Duncan Atkinson KC, a leading criminal lawyer, has provided the inquiry with a lengthy written report. Introducing it, he expressed his concerns about whether Post Office policies for the investigation and prosecution of crime were adequate to ensure that decisions were fair, transparent and in the interests of justice.

Asked by counsel to the inquiry about these concerns, Atkinson suggested that staff were not given the guidance they needed on the law.