Monday 23 November 2020

Peer accuses Post Office of lying

Baron Arbuthnot of Edrom

The fallout from Wednesday's Court of Appeal hearing continues. Lord Arbuthnot (pictured above) has written to the business minister in the Lords, the Lord Speaker and the Speaker of the House of Commons alleging the Post Office has "lied" to parliament.

Lord Arbuthnot bases his accusation on what he knows about advice given to the Post Office in 2013, and written evidence given by the Post Office to the Business, Innovation and Skills select committee in 2015. The 2013 advice was written by a barrister called Simon Clarke and was discussed in court last Wednesday.

In 2015, the Post Office told a BIS select committee inquiry:

"Post Office is under an absolute duty to disclose any evidence that might undermine a prosecution case or support the case of a defendant…. To date no such evidence has been provided.”

Lord Arbuthnot thinks the 2013 Clarke advice contradicts the above statement, or as he puts it:

"I suggest that the contemptibly late disclosure of the advice of Mr Clarke – something that should have been in the public domain in 2013 – establishes that the Post Office lied to, and was in contempt of, Parliament. The above quoted paragraph of the Post Office’s written advice was only one of many instances of this.”

This is about as serious as it gets. Parliamentarians, as a rule, simply do not accuse people or organisations of lying. Lord Arbuthnot just has. But is he right? Well that all depends on what is in the Clarke advice.

The Clarke advice surfaces

It appears the first anyone outside the Post Office knew about the Clarke advice was on 12 November this year, when it was disclosed to solicitors working for three convicted Subpostmasters - Seema Misra, Tracy Felstead and Janet Skinner.

A barrister, Flora Page, working pro bono for the Subpostmasters, passed the Clarke advice to her brother Lewis Page, a journalist. Lewis Page told the Post Office via email, the night before Wednesday's hearing, he had seen it. The Post Office sent Mr Page's email to their legal team. 

Wednesday's hearing at the Court of Appeal therefore began with Brian Altman, QC for the Post Office, explaining to the three judges why Ms Page's actions might be in contempt of court. 

The judges ordered a special hearing on Thursday, during which it became apparent Paul Marshall, the senior barrister on the same legal team, had separately passed the Clarke advice to the Metropolitan police. 

I did not attend Thursday's hearing, but I have been sent the order made by the court which notes:

"it is, in our judgment, for the court to determine in due course whether there be here conduct amounting to a contempt of court, and, if so, what if any sanction may be appropriate."

The judges then ask the Post Office to:

"assist the court by drafting a provisional formulation of the charge or charges which the court should call upon Ms Page to consider"

adding:

"it is, in our view, necessary that Mr Marshall must now assist the court in relation to the email received today [from the Met]... Mr Marshall should, as soon as practicable, assist the court with these matters."

Paul Marshall

So that's the latest situation with regards to the lawyers who leaked the Clarke advice. It looks as if the Post Office's QC, Brian Altman, is drawing up a charge of civil contempt, to which Ms Page and possibly Mr Marshall may be invited to plead guilty or not guilty.

I have asked Mr Marshall, Ms Page and Mr Page for comment. I have not heard from Ms Page and both Mr Page and Mr Marshall do not wish to say anything publicly at the moment.

Reporting restrictions on the Clarke advice

Before proceedings finished on Thursday, a further discussion was had about the merits of imposing reporting restrictions on the content of the Clarke advice. It went as follows:

MR ALTMAN [for the Post Office]:  The merits are, my Lord, that there is likely to be said much more about the content of that advice, the reasons why it was passed to Mr Page as it was in the circumstances we are now alive to, and secondly, in relation to Mr Marshall, why on two occasions he passed it to the Metropolitan Police.   

Therefore, one cannot exclude the possibility that part of the argument that the court is likely to hear, if not evidence, is the relevance and importance of the contents of the document.  So if that is to be protected ‑‑ and your Lordship will recall me arguing a little earlier that it is not a given that that document would become public; one would have to look at the Criminal Practice Direction ‑‑ then it needs to be protected due to its obvious sensitivity through privilege.

LORD JUSTICE HOLROYDE:  Thank you. Mr Bentwood, do you make any submissions? 

MR BENTWOOD [for Flora Page]:  My Lord, yes.  My Lord will appreciate that yesterday's hearings were being covered by the press.  

LORD JUSTICE HOLROYDE:  They were.

MR JUSTICE PICKEN:  And indeed by Mr Nick Wallis, who live-tweeted much of that which took place and I have since read.

LORD JUSTICE HOLROYDE:  Yes, he did. 

MR BENTWOOD:  So to the extent that the argument is already in the public domain ‑‑ much of it already is ‑‑ there need be, in my respectful submission, no reporting restrictions in relation to today's hearing.  

In relation to future hearings, in my respectful submission that would be a decision properly to be made after your Lordships have heard from the various members of the press who, although not present here today, I know have expressed considerable interest in transparency about that which takes place here.

MR JUSTICE PICKEN:  Your submission is that if Mr Altman is right, and the content of the document needs to be looked at, then that is the stage at which to think about press restrictions rather than now? 

MR BENTWOOD:  Yes, indeed: not to prejudge the issue of restrictions until the courts have properly been addressed as to it.  No doubt when that time comes the court can make an interim restriction, which can be revisited depending upon how the argument develops.

MRS JUSTICE FARBEY:  So you are saying this hearing today is no different in kind to yesterday's? 

MR BENTWOOD:  It is not.  Indeed, the substance of the document has not been ventilated today in any way near the level of detail at all; indeed, I have not read the document itself as yet.

After a little more discussion, the judges rose to consider reporting restrictions, and returned to make the following ruling: 

LORD JUSTICE HOLROYDE:  We do not think any more has been said about the content of the document today than was previously in the public domain, little though that is.  We accept Mr Bentwood's submission that the time to think about reporting restrictions will be if and when a stage is reached where the meat of the content of the Clarke advice is more in focus in the court's consideration.  We therefore do not impose any reporting restrictions in relation to today's hearing.
On Friday, after my second request for the Clarke advice, I received the following from the Post Office:
"At the Court of Appeal hearing yesterday morning, 19 November, the Court noted (without criticism) that some of the content of the document was already in the public domain and there was no current need for reporting restrictions. However, the Court also said that it would keep the need for reporting restrictions under review if and when more of the content of the document was referred to in Court. Therefore, we will not be sharing the document with the media at this time. As the Court indicated on 18 November, you may make an application to the Court for access to the document."
I asked the Post Office for a comment on Lord Arbuthnot's allegation that it lied to parliament. The Post Office says: "It is not for the Post Office to comment on direct correspondence between Parliamentarians."

Abuse of process

The reason we are at the Court of Appeal is because the Post Office engaged in abuse of process (and then spent tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers money at the High Court claiming the campaigning Subpostmasters case "lacks merit"). 

The Post Office says it is now a reformed operation, yet you could argue it appears to be doing two of the things which got it into this mess in the first place:

a) trying to keep important information from the public gaze (see Fraser J's second judgment in Bates v Post Office),
b) using its vast resources and legal firepower to set in motion events which may end up crushing peoples' livelihoods.

That said, the circumstances which arose last week are very different, and on Wednesday, Brian Altman made it clear the Post Office was only bringing the leaking of the Clarke advice to the attention of the court because it believed it had a duty to do so. 

I am very much hoping that if the Clarke advice does prove Lord Arbuthnot's contention that the Post Office lied to parliament, there becomes an over-riding public interest in knowing what it says.

*****************

This website is entirely funded by donation. You can contribute any amount through the tip jar via a secure payment portal I have set up for the purpose (click here for more info or to donate).

If you are able to give £20 or more you will be added to the secret email list. This alerts you to upcoming developments on this scandal before they are made public, as well as links to articles and stories posted here on this blog or elsewhere.

Wednesday 18 November 2020

Fujitsu staff under criminal investigation named

This is part two of a contemporaneous write-up of the first Court of Appeal hearing involving the 47 Subpostmasters referred by the Criminal Cases Review Commission earlier this year. Part 1 is called "What's in the 2013 Simon Clark document?"

After alerting the court to the leaking of a document to a journalist, in possible contempt of court (see above), the Post Office QC, Mr Brian Altman, moved on to the need for a discussion about imposing possible reporting restriction on proceedings.

This, said Mr Altman, was because of the criminal investigations into two Fujitsu Horizon specialists, Gareth Jenkins and Anne Chambers. 

Mr Jenkins (as readers of this website will know) and Ms Chambers have both given evidence about the efficacy of the Post Office's Horizon computer system to various courts. In December last year as he handed down the Horizon Issues judgment, Mr Justice Fraser said:

"I have very grave concerns regarding the veracity of evidence given by Fujitsu employees to other courts in previous proceedings about the known existence of bugs, errors and defects in the Horizon system. These previous proceedings include the High Court in at least one civil case brought by the Post Office against a sub-postmaster and the Crown Court in a greater number of criminal cases, also brought by the Post Office against sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses.

After very careful consideration, I have therefore decided, in the interests of justice, to send the papers in the case to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Mr Max Hill QC, so he may consider whether the matter to which I have referred should be the subject of any prosecution."

Although Mr Justice Fraser didn't name Anne Chambers or Gareth Jenkins at the time, he did in his confidential letter to the Director of Public Prosecutions, dated 14 January 2020. We know this because it is in the appendix of the CCRC's Statement of Reasons, circulated to journalists today. In his letter, Mr Justice Fraser sets out what Mr Jenkins and Ms Chambers knew and concludes:

"in order to give fully truthful evidence to the court... namely the prosecution of Mrs Misra and the civil claim against Mr [Lee] Castleton, both Mr Jenkins and Mrs Chambers respectively should have told the court of the widespread impact of (at the very least) the bugs, errors and defects in Horizon that they knew about at the time that they gave their evidence."

This letter was sent by the DPP to the Metropolitan Police, who immediately started investigating. Last week, Computer Weekly was told the Met had turned their ten month investigation into a criminal investigation. Today we have discovered the names of at least two of the individuals involved.

After some discussion, Lord Justice Holroyde decided there was no need for any need for any reporting restrictions to be imposed on the Court of Appeal proceedings in the light of the Met's criminal investigation, but reminded the media of the "general need on their part to avoid reporting anything which may prejudice the ongoing investigation or any charges which may flow from it."

***********

A further Court of Appeal hearing to discuss the CCRC's statement that the prosecution of the appellant Subpostmasters were an "affront to the public conscience" will take place on 17 Dec. The full hearing to quash or uphold the appellants' convictions has been scheduled for the week beginning 22 March 2021 and will last four or five days.

Read part 1: "What's in the 2013 Simon Clark document?"

Read today's tweets from Court 4 of the Royal Courts of Justice in a beautifully curated single web page, here.

*****************

This website is entirely funded by donation. You can contribute any amount through the tip jar via a secure payment portal I have set up for the purpose (click here for more info or to donate).

If you are able to give £20 or more you will be added to the secret email list. This alerts you to upcoming developments on this scandal before they are made public, as well as links to articles and stories posted here on this blog or elsewhere.

What's in the 2013 Simon Clarke document?

Say hey hey to the RCJ

This is part one of a contemporaneous write-up of the first Court of Appeal hearing involving the 47 Subpostmasters referred by the Criminal Cases Review Commission earlier this year. Part 2 is called "Fujitsu staff under criminal investigation named"

Before proceedings got properly underway this morning, Brian Altman, QC for the Post Office, got to his feet and told the three presiding judges that a journalist called Lewis Page, a freelance reporter working for the Daily Telegraph, had been in contact with the Post Office press office. Mr Page has written about the Post Office Horizon scandal before.

Mr Page had apparently indicated to the Post Office that he had sight of a document written in 2013 by a barrister called Simon Clarke. The document (according to my understanding of what Mr Altman told the court today) was about Gareth Jenkins, former Fujitsu Horizon Architect and purveyor of expert evidence at Seema Misra's trial, among others.

According to Mr Altman, Mr Clarke's advice was that Gareth Jenkins had given incorrect evidence to the courts in criminal trials involving Subpostmasters.

Mr Altman said the leaking of this document to a journalist before it had been discussed in open court was serious - a potential breach of the disclosure act and contempt of court. He read out a chronology of events - how and when the document was disclosed by the Post Office and to whom. He pointed out the familial link between Lewis Page and Flora Page, a barrister involved in the proceedings, acting for three of the appellant Subpostmasters. 

Dim view

Flora Page

Ms Page stood up and admitted to the court she had given her brother the Simon Clarke document. This, she explained, was for practical reasons: Mr Page was unable to attend court because he had been informed it was full, so Ms Page had supplied the document to him in advance of it being raised in court. Ms Page told the justices that her brother had no intention of using the document were it not raised in court, but she apologised unreservedly and recognised she should have waited before giving it to him.

The justices took a very dim view of this activity. The senior judge, Lord Justice Holroyde, suggested there would likely be consequences for Ms Page, potentially both legally and professionally. She was told to present herself to the court at 10.15am tomorrow.

Lord Justice Holroyde also asked Ms Page to tell her brother to return/destroy and certainly undertake never to publish any of the document’s contents. This assurance was given.

Big deal

Later on, Paul Marshall, Ms Page’s senior, raised the Simon Clarke document again. He said it was wholly unclear whether or not it had been disclosed to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, as if it had, it would have been extraordinary that it would not be mentioned by the CCRC in its Statement of Reasons - the key document referring the 47 Postmaster cases to the Court of Appeal. Mr Marshall said the Simon Clarke document had only been disclosed to his instructing solicitors, Aria Grace Law, after they had raised a query about a different document disclosed to them in October this year.

There is clearly something hugely important in the Simon Clarke document. If, as I think I inferred from what Mr Altman said this morning, it contains information, written in 2013, that evidence given by Gareth Jenkins in the course of prosecuting Subpostmasters was wrong, it could have massive implications for the safety of those prosecutions.

And of equal importance - if that is what the document contains - why wasn’t Simon Clarke’s advice disclosed to the courts and the prosecuted Subpostmasters’ legal teams years ago? Why did the Post Office sit on it until last week?

I have asked the Post Office to supply me with the Simon Clarke 2013 document under Criminal Procedure Rules (5.8), now it has been raised in open court.

[UPDATE: My application failed - read why here.]

***********

A further Court of Appeal hearing to discuss the CCRC's statement that the prosecution of the appellant Subpostmasters were an "affront to the public conscience" will take place on 17 Dec. The full hearing to quash or uphold the appellants' convictions has been scheduled for the week beginning 22 March 2021 and will last four or five days.

Read part 2: "Fujitsu staff under criminal investigation named"

Read today's tweets from Court 4 of the Royal Courts of Justice in a beautifully-curated single web page, here.

*****************

This website is entirely funded by donation. You can contribute any amount through the tip jar via a secure payment portal I have set up for the purpose (click here for more info or to donate).

If you are able to give £20 or more you will be added to the secret email list. This alerts you to upcoming developments on this scandal before they are made public, as well as links to articles and stories posted here on this blog or elsewhere.