Claimant Subpostmasters consider mediation talks with Post Office

Claimant Subpostmasters suing the Post Office for hundreds of millions of pounds are now looking at mediation as a means to resolve this long-running and eye-wateringly expensive* litigation.

More than a year ago, the managing judge, Sir Peter Fraser, ordered that the parties should “consider" mediation. It has been bumbling around in the background as a possibility ever since.

This week, Freeths, the Subpostmasters' solicitors, issued claimants a circular stating:

"an independent and neutral expert is being appointed who has experience in helping to resolve very significant disputes. There will be a mediation meeting with the Mediator in November and we are obviously working very closely with your Steering Committee to plan for that and to decide whether it could offer you, the Claimants, a final resolution that would be in your best interests."

Many claimants will be wary of mediation. The Post Office set up a complaint and mediation scheme in 2013, but within eighteen month it collapsed in acrimony. James (now Lord) Arbuthnot described the scheme in parliament as a "sham", a sentiment echoed by the Justice for Subpostmasters' Alliance (JFSA).

As recently as August this year, Alan Bates, who is founder of the JFSA, member of Freeths' litigation steering committee and lead claimant, wrote to his members revealing the Post Office was pushing for mediation. At the time he wasn't convinced, stating:

"There could well be an optimum time when attending mediation might be in the Group’s best interests. But it certainly isn’t before the Horizon judgment is released... To start with, POL [Post Office Ltd] still refuses to accept it has done anything wrong, otherwise it wouldn’t have applied to the Court of Appeal to overturn the findings by the Court of the Common Issues judgment. To go to mediation immediately would mean we could find ourselves in the same position we were in at the end of the Initial Complaint Review and Mediation Scheme where, as a number of you will recall, POL turned up at mediation meetings, stated it had done nothing wrong and stated it was ‘all your fault’."

Mr Bates also noted:

"There would be substantial costs involved with attending mediation, so POL would need to demonstrate that it is serious about going into it in good faith and that it is not just a ploy to waste time and deplete our funding.  They would need to show they have the funding available to deliver financial redress to the Group and is prepared to redress the wrongs it has done to so many. And this case is not just a matter of money, many Claimants still want an apology for the grief that POL has visited upon them and their families."

Despite these misgivings, he recognised mediation might work:

"I am told that mediation (when done properly, unlike the ‘Mediation Scheme’) is a tried and tested method of resolving major disputes and it does have a good success rate in other cases. One advantage that mediation does have over the Court process, is that formal apologies, along with other requests, cannot be ordered by the Court, but they can be required by us as part of the mediation process.  Nevertheless, the current actions of POL in the court do not show it has any regrets yet over anything it has done, because it still refuses to see the error of its way despite the court clearly recognising the numerous failings by POL."

It seems that since then, Mr Bates may have been persuaded to think about giving it a go. By the time Freeths meet with their "Mediator" in November, the Horizon trial judgment should have been handed down, and there should be a decision from Lord Justice Coulson as to what (if anything) he will allow of the first trial judgment to be appealed. I suspect both these decisions will weigh heavily on how or if mediation might proceed.

In terms of where we stand right now, Freeths have pretty much the same red lines as Alan Bates, telling claimants:

"Progress will be made only if the Post Office demonstrate a significant change in mind set and approach. If mediation gives the Claimants an opportunity to achieve final closure on acceptable financial terms, then that is to be welcomed – if that does not happen, then the litigation obviously continues. Either way, we will not allow the litigation to be held up while mediation happens."

I'm not a massive fan of mediation, but that's because I'm a nosy journalist, not a claimant, and mediation is held in private. Also, big corporations often attempt to make any settlement conditional on all parties signing Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs), which means key parts of a story get smothered and no one is really held to account, a massive problem in this case already.

There is also one major fly in the ointment as Alan Bates himself noted back in August. What would mediation mean for those claimants whose situations are being considered by the Criminal Cases Review Commission?

During the last mediation process the Post Office did an extraordinary volte face. They first accepted people with criminal convictions onto the complaint scheme then refused to meet any who were recommended for mediation, without explanation or apology. You can imagine how crushing that must have been.

Presumably the issue of claimants with criminal convictions will be discussed and negotiated as part of the preliminaries to any formal mediation. They have to be better treated than last time.

Two months ago, Alan Bates wrote:

"Realistically, how can POL entertain any mediation whilst it still has an application in at the Court of Appeal denying there is any case for it to answer? Even it must see the nonsense of such a situation, why is it raising mediation now, is it just to pay out even more of the public purse to keep lawyers employed?  Hopefully POL is not misleading others with assurances that mediation might work, without having genuinely accepted that it has seriously wronged the Claimants and that the Court proceedings must come to an end."

I suspect his position hasn't changed much. The Post Office tell me mediation is an expected part of the litigation process and won't be commenting further.

* Close to £44m by my guess. The Post Office has admitted spending £23m on legal fees to end March 2019 (including paying out £6m worth of costs to the claimants). Assuming costs on both sides are roughly the same and guesstimating that both parties have spent another £5m each already this financial year (reasonable), that's c. £22m spent by the Post Office and c. £22m spent by the claimants, rebalanced because of the costs award to c. £28m spent by the Post Office and c. £16m spent by the claimants  = c. £44m.

*************************
If you can, please help keep this crowdfunded public-interest journalism project going by chucking a few quid in the tip jar below. Contributors who give £20 or more will start receiving regular "secret" emails which have all the info and gossip about this litigation as it makes its way through the courts. Click here to see how and where your money is being spent.

Choose an amount

- £2.50 GBP -- £5.00 GBP --- £20.00 GBP ---- £30.00 GBP ------ £40.00 GBP ------- £50.00 GBP -------- £75.00 GBP --------- £100.00 GBP ---------- £250.00 GBP ----------- £1,000.00 GBP

October 2019 Bates v Post Office group litigation update

The Royal Courts of Justice, London

We are currently awaiting two outcomes affecting this litigation. The judgment into the second (Horizon) trial and the Court of Appeal ruling on the Post Office's application to appeal the first (Common Issues) trial.

Both are important. If the Horizon trial judgment finds in the Post Office's favour, all bets are off as to the future outcome of this litigation. If the Post Office's appeal is allowed and they subsequently manage to persuade the Court of Appeal to reverse the first trial judgment, the litigants are back where they started, and their funders might decide to pull the plug. Tense, I expect, for those with a vested interest in their Lordships' decisions.

After making a few enquiries, this much I know:

Appeal application

There will be a five hour hearing on 12 November at the Court of Appeal, during which both sides will put their case verbally (you can read the Post Office's written grounds here and the claimant Subpostmasters' written objection here).

It would be unlikely (I am told) for the Appeal Court judge to make a decision that day on whether to allow the appeal. It is therefore most likely to be a written decision handed down at some stage after 12 November.

Horizon trial judgment

This is not going to appear before the 21 October, and it is unlikely to be circulated to the parties even in draft form before the end of the month. The parties will receive an update as to when they might expect the draft judgment in the week commencing 21 October.

And that, I am afraid, is the best I can do.

As they say in the army: "Wait out."

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

Thanks for reading. 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. 

"I hate everything about it. I will not go into a post office."

Nicki Arch

A few months back, during UK mental health week, the Post Office announced it had signed up to the Time to Change* campaign.

I asked those who felt the Post Office's actions had affected their mental health to get in touch. A woman called Nicki Arch sent me an email. It was an eye-opener.

Nicki was a branch manager at Chalford Hill post office in Stroud, Gloucestershire. In November 2000 she was suspended by the Post Office for an alleged £24,000 discrepancy. She says the Post Office tried to pin fraud, theft and false accounting charges on her. Nicki lost everything.

This is first time in 16 years she has told her story publicly:

"I originally come from Wotton-under-Edge in Gloucestershire. I left school with 5 O levels and 3 CSEs. I did my A-levels and then a business degree at Bristol University. I moved to Stroud in 1992 and got a job at Brimscombe post office working behind the counter. I stayed at Brimscombe for 5 years.

In 1997 The Subpostmaster sold up to live on a canal boat so I decided to do Post Office relief work as all the Subpostmasters in the area were complaining that they couldn’t go on holiday as they couldn't get the relief.

I was extremely busy. I was asked to do relief at the Chalford Hill branch in Stroud because the Subpostmaster was getting older and didn’t feel she could cope on her own. We got on extremely well and in 1998 she offered me a full time job with holiday pay, so I took it.

The Subpostmaster's health started to deteriorate (she was diagnosed with cancer) so she asked if I would like to take over the stationery shop too. We set up an arrangement that she would pay me a small salary and I would run the shop how I saw fit. I invested my savings in stock and did a lot of sale or return deals with greeting cards and all was well. I used an accounts company in Stroud to do all my account work. It was going really steady and all the villagers were over the moon. I had met my boyfriend by then (I was 26 when we got together). He lived with his family in Stroud and was a tree surgeon. He never got involved in the business.

Unfortunately the lady I worked for died, and in 1999 the Post Office made her husband Subpostmaster. He had never worked in a post office in his life, so he asked if I would keep it going. He took the Subpostmaster salary and paid me a small wage out of it. The shop profits were mine.

Eventually I was able to employ a part-time assistant to cover me if I wanted time off. This worked very well for several years and 3 years later, my boyfriend and I decided we would get our own home and marry.

There were some new small 2 bed houses being built very close to the post office on a shared ownership basis so we went for it.

A year later Horizon was installed. The trainer sat with me for one day and that was it. I then had to show the part-timer what to do.

When I was using Horizon I kept getting pension payments duplicating, yet cash was balancing. One day in November in 2000, the auditors turned up and said I owed the Post Office £24,000. I was mortified. My fiancé and I had not long got out first home on the government shared ownership scheme as we didn’t earn enough to get a mortgage for a starter home by ourselves.

I was told on the day that I had to be driven to a crown [post] office to be questioned and my post office was to shut down until investigations were completed. I did as I was told and locked up and was driven by two Post Office investigators to Stroud Crown office to be interviewed in a locked room. It was a recorded interview and I was denied anyone to be with me or any phone calls. I was distraught! Then they said I was responsible for £24,000 being missing and if I would just admit that I stole it I would be treated more leniently.

I was in a state of shock. I vehemently denied any involvement in theft or wrongdoing but was ignored. The interviewers were terrifying, threatening me with prison.

Eventually they let me go at 4pm so they could inform the official Subpostmaster of what was happening. I got driven back to my car and went straight home sobbing. I rang my fiancé and family as soon as I got home to tell them what had happened.

Later that evening I got a phone call from the official Subpostmaster to say that the Post Office had told him he must suspend me until further notice and I was not allowed on the premises at all. 

I asked about my shop and how I was meant to earn a living but he said that the Post Office said he had to do this and he had no choice. 

Within 24 hours everything had become ashes. I sought a solicitor, and then the long haul started.

I was questioned over and over again by the Post Office at Stroud police station with my solicitor to the point where 10 months later I was charged with theft, fraud and false accounting.

The case was referred to crown court. I was also told that I had to empty my shop and I was sacked.

It was all in the local papers and everywhere I went my customers were blanking me and saying that I’d robbed the post office. I couldn’t cope and my fiancé was told to prepare for my imprisonment.

The wedding we had planned, funded by our parents was cancelled as neither one of us felt like we wanted to celebrate. We had no idea whether we even had a future. We were heartbroken and on our knees.

I went for a routine GP appointment and my doctor was shocked when she saw me. I was a wreck and could hardly speak. She prescribed me Prozac as I was so scared and just wanted to end my life.

My fiancé and I used to sit up at night and discuss ways which we could be happy together for ever and the only idea we had was to die together.

In the summer of 2001 went to the local registry office and got married with no one there other than two witnesses.

We had no professional photos, no wedding dress and no honeymoon or party. We just went home. We were both highly medicated to keep calm, thank God.

My husband is dyslexic and was not domesticated in the slightest so my family promised to help him get through if I went to prison. He promised to wait for me and we shared each night on our own just sobbing and hoping for a miracle.

The Post Office were so threatening and we were convinced that no matter what I said it was a done deal.

In April 2002 we had a 3 day trial with which I was found not guilty and it was all over.

I walked out of court and collapsed to the floor sobbing with relief. We got home and I didn’t have a clue what to do. We had to set up an IVA as our debts had mounted because I couldn’t work.

I’d lost my business and my husband just worked as a local driver. We sold our home to pay the housing association back and stayed with my parents for a while to save up a deposit to rent a home.

We never heard from the Post Office again. We have lived with this for 19 years and have no wedding pics and started our marriage in the worst possible way.

We will never get that time back. I have suffered with depression and panic attacks ever since and take anti-depressants daily to enable me to get on with life. The only thing I’m guilty of is a rubbish wedding day for my husband."

I found Nicki's story very affecting, and I wanted to know a bit more about what happened, so I gave her a call.

We ended up chatting for over an hour. We covered Nicki's mental health battles, the way Post Office prosecutors and investigators behaved and what her hopes are for the group litigation.

Nicki in happier times

To the best of my knowledge, the email above and the interview below represents Nicki's honest recollection of events and honestly-held opinions.

I started by asking Nicki to tell me what life was like before her Post Office "audit" in November 2000.

"We were engaged to be married, we'd just bought our new home. We did everything by the book. And I had a little business, and...it wasn't much, there's no way we could have lived just on my money. But it was steady. So in theory, it was a perfect world, and then suddenly, everything changed. Literally everything."

Nicki's branch audit was attended by three Post Office staff members, two of whom turned out to be rather threatening "investigators". They appeared to be expecting a large discrepancy, and when they found one, Nicki was driven straight from her branch to Stroud Crown Post Office for an interrogation.

"I just look back on it and think how ridiculous, why did I let them do it? Why go with them, even? I had to leave my car behind. They said: "You must come to the Crown Post Office." I said, "Can I ring my fiancé?" and they said: "No, you're not ringing anybody.""

The nightmare had begun.

"They stripped my life apart. I presented every single bit of financial history from the minute I left university to them. They came to my house to see what was in it. They didn't even have a search warrant. My parents were like: "These are the Post Office, so you work with them and let them do what they want to do.""

Nicki was unable to explain the cause of the discrepancy, because, as far as she was concerned, she hadn't done anything wrong. It didn't stop the investigators suggesting that if she'd just confess to theft, things would go much easier for her:

"They kept saying; "You know, it's in your own interest to just stop this messing around, and stop wasting all our times. We are the Crown. You do realise who we are?" And I'm like, hang on, you're not even police officers."

Nicki was not impressed by what they were trying to accuse her of, either. "They had no idea what the hell they were talking about. I was like: "No, that isn't what I did." and they said "Well, that's what the [Horizon] paper says." and I would say "No, the paper doesn't say that, does it?" and they would say "Oh, you're just going round in circles now, you're just wasting our time.""

Predictably, Nicki was told she was the only person having problems with Horizon. "They said "We've never, ever had a problem with this system." And I'm like, "Well, I'm the first, then, aren't I?" They said: "Don't you think we've trialled it so many times? These are professionals. Not like you, these are professional people, who have worked the system time and time again. We've never had a problem with it."

Site of the former Chalford Hill Post Office today.

Nicki remembers Horizon's supposed perfection as a recurring theme: "This Horizon system was unbelievable. It was state of the art, it was the best the Post Office has made, it been trialled and tested so many times, and I was just totally incompetent. And a thief, nearer the point."

Nicki's boss and her part-time assistant, Marlene, stopped all communication. The Post Office had told them they were needed as prosecution witnesses and they couldn't speak to her.

The local paper ran a story on Nicki being suspected of theft. No one would employ her. With only a single income, Nicki and Steve fell behind on their mortgage payments.

"I just stayed in. I did attempt, several times, to go to the supermarket, and I just felt everybody was whispering, "Oh, that's the woman who steals from pensioners," and I thought I can't, I can't do this."

Things got desperate: "Steve wouldn't tell me truly how he felt, because he didn't want to make me feel worse. We weren't married then, so he could walk away. And I kept saying to him, "Why don't you just walk away? Why don't you just go. If you go now, you won't have to be involved in any of it."

Nicki's biggest concern was what would happen to Steve if she were sent to prison.

"I thought he would never cope. He's completely dyslexic, he can't even cook, and I thought... he wouldn't even know how to pay a bill. And I'm like, "Steve, just walk away. For God's sake, just walk away from this," But luckily, he didn't."

The interrogations continued:

"I thought they were going to drop it. I thought they're never going to take this to court, surely. And I was saying to my sister they're just going to keep on and on and pressure me, hoping that I'm going to crumble. And I'm not. And that "we want to question you again, we want to question again" kept coming. And we'd set up at Stroud police station, in a little room where they'd come, and it was ridiculous. We were just going round and round in circles, and I'm like, are they ever going to charge me with anything, or is this ever going to end?"

Steve began to feel very stressed by the situation, struggling with his concentration and making mistakes at work.

"He came home one day and said, "I don't feel right. I'm going to go to the doctors." And I said, "Well, do you want me to write down how you feel, and then you can take it with you? Because you're not very good at expressing yourself."

Steve agreed. As soon as the doctor saw the note she asked Nicki to make an appointment with her.

"She said, "What on earth is going on?" I said, "Nothing." And she said, "Nicki, I've read that letter. There is something seriously wrong with anybody who writes letters like that."... and I just broke. I just crumbled. She was the first one who delved deep enough to say you can break if you want to. Because I didn't show it to anybody. I thought I can't let Steve know how I feel. You know, because I just thought, God, this is life over."

The stress started to push Steve and Nicki towards a very dark place.

"It got to the point when Steve said, oh, we'll just take a load of pills, and we'll go together. Let's not give them the satisfaction of taking our life away. At least we would have control, you know? And because we both started on antidepressants at the same time we had access to the pills."

Thankfully they didn't attempt suicide, but their lives collapsed. They had been planning a big wedding, but neither Nicki or Steve felt capable of facing family or friends.

"We were going to have a church wedding, but I said I can't... I can't smile anymore. I don't want to have to pretend in front of people.... Until we see the end of it, I cannot live, do you know what I mean? So we went straight to Stroud's registry office, got married, and within half hour we were back home."

Steve and Nicki's wedding day, 28 August 2001

Throughout this period there were pre-trial court dates to deal with. Nicki kept Steve away from it. 

"I thought he just generally couldn't cope. It would send him doolally. He did go to the trial. But up until then, I just went with a friend. I wouldn't let my parents come, either. I was so ashamed."

I asked Nicki if the Post Office ever tried to claim she was the only one with access to her Horizon terminal, something which has been comprehensively debunked across the course of the current litigation.

"That was what they thrived on, for weeks: "there's no way anybody could put anything into that computer, other than you. Those figures on that computer were you. It could never have been anyone else. Nobody could even get access to it. We couldn't see it until you printed off that weekly report and showed it to us." And it was all bullshit. Absolute lies. They could go into the computer any time."

Nicki says throughout this process, her solicitor seemed out of his depth.

"He sort of was terrified of it. He was like, "Oh my God, I don't know what the hell we're going to do. The Post Office are just going on and on and on, saying the same old thing," he said, "and I can't advise you to say any different to what you're saying, but I don't know how this is going to end," he said."But you need to be prepared for the worst.""

Steve did come along to one of the last legal conferences before the trial. Nicki's solicitor told them the Post Office had offered her a deal. The fraud and theft charges would be dropped if she pleaded guilty to false accounting. Her solicitor told her she might want to consider it.

Nicki refused. "We was walking home, and Steve said "Are you sure you don't want to just say you've done it, just so that we can actually start a life after?" I said no, I'll take whatever they give me. I'd rather do that and be able to live with myself than to do any sort of bargain that I know is a complete load of crap. And he said, "Fine. I'll stand by you, then."

Nicki's solicitor got a barrister involved for the trial. "He was a bit more, "I'm not having any of this..." you know what I mean? He was a bit, "No, they're going to have to come up with summat a bit better than that." And he wasn't scared of them at all."

He offered Nicki a piece of advice: ""Just be yourself," he said, "Don't try and solve their problems for them." and I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "You keep looking to find solutions to this," he said, "Stop it. That's not your job. That's not what you're here for.""

In April 2002, Nicki was put on trial. The Post Office's case was that Nicki was running a scam, producing duplicate records of pension payouts on Horizon, handing one out to each genuine recipient and trousering the rest.

"You stand in the dock, you've got two prison blokes with you... I was in my early 30s, you know? I'd never, ever been in a courtroom in my life. I'd never been arrested, I'd never done anything. I was from a very strict family, and... and I'd done quite well for myself, considering we were from a family of six. All of a sudden, I'm in Bristol Crown Court with two prison officers behind me. My mum was like, "Oh, my God, this is the Queen's business. They're going to send you to prison." They were absolutely devastated. My dad was going through kidney failure, he was in hospital the day the trial started. It was just horrendous"

Nicki's former boss and her part-time assistant, Marlene, gave evidence as prosecution witnesses, but it didn't really work out for the Post Office.

"They went to court because the Post Office told them to, and they were questioned on oath, and my ex-boss was like, "Well, I've just helped her get her mortgage. I just happened to give her a reference, you see. So no, she hasn't got any money." And he made [their barrister] look a twat, to be honest. And Marlene went up, and she said, "Well, no, Nicki hasn't got any money." So although they were Post Office witnesses, they might as well have been mine."

I asked if the Post Office ever explained to the court how she was supposed to be doing this fraud, the actual mechanics of it.

"No." she says "They didn't have a clue. Nor did I."

Nicki remembers the Post Office barrister getting quite het up.

"He chucked a bundle of dockets at me and said "You explain this lot." and I said "I don't know what you want me to say about it." And he was shouting, and getting louder and louder, saying, "You explain how it all works," and I said, "I don't... I have nothing else to say about them. They are what they are," you know? And he was getting really angry."

The Post Office barrister then tried to get the prosecution witnesses to explain the fraud. "They tried. But we were all stood, including myself, in bewilderment to say, hang on a minute, on paper, in theory, your cash is right, your pension dockets is right, it's just your weekly report that's wrong. So how do you know you're owed any money at all? And the Post Office were like, well, Horizon's weekly report tells us we do. And the judge then stepped in and said well, no, your cash is right, your dockets are right, your customers are happy... but the weekly report Horizon report is saying different. That's where we're at."

The whole thing sounds pitiful.

"One of the prison officers was drawing funny little pictures, and passing them to me to try and cheer me up. I do remember that. I've kept one because I felt, oh, bless... I just looked at him, and I was just... I don't know what I'm doing here. And he must have felt sorry for me or something, you know, and he was trying to cheer me up. And he was there all the way through for three days, and I thought, oh God, he'll keep me upright, if I collapse."

I asked Nicki if she felt the judge smelt a rat, or whether he was straight down the line in his summing up.

"Before the jurors went out to make a decision, I do remember him saying something like make sure you consider whether we've actually got a completely innocent person stood here. It was words to that effect, And I thought: he believes me. My barrister was the same, in all fairness. I have 100% faith that he genuinely knew I was innocent."

The jury were of a similar mind. They took two hours to find Nicki not guilty.

After the trial Nicki never heard from the Post Office again, but the reverberating effect of her trauma continued. Penniless, in 2004, Steve and Nicki sold their home before it was repossessed. They entered into an IVA to stave off bankruptcy and moved in with Nicki's parents.

Nicki in hospital in 2005

In 2005 Nicki had a complete mental health collapse and was admitted to hospital with a number of physical symptoms. Steve could not cope at work - he was making mistakes and becoming a potential liability to himself and others. He started delivery driving, which he does to this day. Nicki was eventually able to get a job with social services. They have slowly rebuilt their lives.

Nicki does not hold back on what she thinks of Britain's "most trusted brand":

"I hate everything about it. Even now, I will not go into a post office, I will not use anything to do with the Post Office. I will drive to somewhere to deliver a letter before I'll post it. I can't bear it. I'm still that bitter, now. It's shocking, really. I just think, oh, get over yourself, but I can't. I'm never going to have a wedding day. I'm never going to have a father walk me up the aisle now because he's dead. It's gone, you know?"

She is particularly scathing about the Post Office's recent mental health wokeness.

"I couldn't find the words. How bloody dare they? I just do not know how they've got away with it, and I just wonder what on earth is going on in government that nobody has put a stop to it. Because they're vile. I fear for anybody who even considers working for them, let alone all the Subpostmasters now. It's not even humane. I just don't get why they're getting away with it. I just don't understand it. And I think they'll still get away with it. The people who did this to us. They've moved on. They all live with themselves. They didn't give a shit. They don't even work for the Post Office anymore, half of them. Nobody's going to be accountable. The vile people that pushed me into the back of their car... they traipsed me in public through the Crown Post Office in Stroud... All the staff there must have known what was going on, I was going to be... you know, I was some sort of villain. I had to go through the public entrance being escorted by those two, recorded interviews and all the rest of it. And those two people, who just sleep at night like babies, will carry on. And nothing anybody does, including Judge Fraser is going to change that. In fact, they've probably retired now, living it up in Costa del Sol, or something. I don't know. You know what I mean? God, I'm that bitter..."

Nicki doesn't have much hope for the group litigation.

"I don't think we'll get any money, to be honest. By the time everybody's made their profits from it... Freeths are amazing, don't get me wrong, they are brilliant. But at the end of the day, it's a business transaction to them. You know, we are a business transaction, that's all we are. We can get emotionally attached as much as we like. I don't do that anymore. Whatever happens, there is going to be not one person who will say, God, I'm really sorry. And that is never going to happen. No. They will never, ever be accountable for what they've done. They won't. And we'll all be left the same as we thought we were, without an acknowledgment, without apology... we might get 50 quid if we're lucky, what, split between 500-odd people? I don't know. It won't be nothing significant. It won't be life changing for any of us."

Despite this, Nicki is following the trial closely, and was delighted with the judgment which was handed down on 15 March: "I'm slowly falling in love with Judge Fraser," she says. "When I read his verdict, I thought, yeah, you've got it. You've got it. You know exactly where we're coming from."

Nicki was on Prozac for more than a decade. Her longest period without drugs was three years, but since she joined the litigation the anxiety has come back. Nicki has taken early retirement from her job in social services and is back on the antidepressants. On Steve, she says:

"20 years on, we're solid. Absolutely solid. It's probably one of the strongest marriages you would ever get. And we've got two kids now. Steve is just amazing, though. I don't know how he done it. I think he's more... mind over matter. It was a hideous time, don't get me wrong. At times, we were both on our knees, screaming. And I still can't answer now what on earth made him stay. Because nobody in their right mind would. I can't think of anybody who would want to have lived through what he did. I've always said, if I get any money whatsoever, he will have every penny. Because there's nothing, no amount of money, nothing I could ever give that man that he deserves for standing by me and taking this on as his life. Because I'm just... I'm just one screwed up human being, you know? I'm not the same person as I was when he met me. I may look similar, but I'm not the same. I'm bitter, I'm nasty, I can...you know, my moods are shocking. And I'm still like that to this day. Because I'm used to being at rock bottom. I'm confident there. I'm on two Prozac every single day, just to function, just to keep well and contented. It is horrible. It is horrible."

Nicki has never spoken to anyone about what happened to her in this much depth before. She's never met another litigant or even spoken to Alan Bates, founder of the Justice for Subpostmasters' Alliance.

"I know the sort of person I am. I know if I get friends with these people, if I go up and meet people who've gone through the same as me, I'm going to have a bond with them like no other. And I'm going to jump into this all guns blazing, and it's going to overtake my life. And for what? I've spoke to them on Twitter, and.. I would love to meet somebody who knows exactly how I feel. Because I've never done it yet. Never. So for somebody to say, actually, Nicki, I've done exactly the same, and they took me away as well... you think you'd make friendships like no other. Because nobody else in the world could have that same bond and same memory, and know exactly what you live with than those other people. But it's all time and emotional consuming, and I just think would my family get affected by it, would I come home, you know, when all this is over, and we still land up with nothing."

My thanks to Nicki for speaking to me. Given her description of her trial, I am particularly keen to get hold of the court transcripts. Nicki tells me when she was trying to obtain documentation as a claimant for the litigation, she was told all the recordings of her interviews by Post Office investigators had disappeared. I would very much like to hear the Post Office's side of this, but they say they will not comment on individual cases.

You can read more individual stories from some of the claimants (and non-claimants) currently in dispute with the Post Office over what was meted out to them whilst they were Subpostmasters, branch managers and assistants or counter staff.

* I asked Time to Change how they felt about lending their credibility to the Post Office in the light of the Post Office's alleged activities with regards to its Subpostmasters' over a period of twenty years. Time to Change listened politely and told me they weren't going to comment. I wrote a piece about their silence.

*************************
If you can, please help keep this crowdfunded public-interest journalism project going by chucking a few quid in the tip jar below. Contributors who give £20 or more will start receiving regular "secret" emails which have all the info and gossip about this litigation as it makes its way through the courts. Click here to see how and where your money is being spent.

Choose an amount

- £2.50 GBP -- £5.00 GBP --- £20.00 GBP ---- £30.00 GBP ------ £40.00 GBP ------- £50.00 GBP -------- £75.00 GBP --------- £100.00 GBP ---------- £250.00 GBP ----------- £1,000.00 GBP

Post Office vs Mental Health: "It's been a living hell."

Deirdre Connolly used to be a credit controller working in Strabane, County Tyrone, for a company called Frylite, which delivers and recycles cooking oil. Deirdre's husband Darius was employed by Guinness as a forklift operator.

In 2006, as Deirdre was approaching her forties, she and Darius decided they wanted a change, mainly to spend more time with each other and their young family. A lease came up on a shop with a post office at Killeter, which wasn't that far from where they lived. The Connollys gave up their jobs, borrowed to buy the lease and got started. They thought they would be set for the rest of their working lives, or to use Deirdre's turn of phrase, "we would be carried out of there in coffins."

As part of a gradual transition process, Deirdre first took over the shop, and was given a basic idea of how to use the Post Office's Horizon system by the previous incumbents. For the first six weeks of being a Subpostmaster, no one from the Post Office came down to show Deirdre what to do.

"I had to go into the post office without training... and try to get used to the whole new system which I knew nothing about... I was reading manuals to work out how to do things."

Deirdre, did, of course, have access to the infamous Horizon helpline: "They were useless. They couldn't understand my accent to start off with [Deirdre has a rural Tyrone accent, and she does speak quickly, but it doesn't take long to get used to]. They could never actually explain anything, how to do anything... I didn't know what I was doing."

Deirdre was operating a system she didn't know how to use, under a contract she hadn't been given*, which would see her held liable for any financial discrepancies at her branch.

With Horizon it is possible for any operator to make a number of mistakes in seconds which could potentially create a balance discrepancy of tens of thousands of pounds. As I have found from speaking to other former Subpomasters, Deirdre's situation was not unique.

The Connollys' Post Office in Killeter, County Tyrone

After six weeks, a trainer came down for a day and a half. The Post Office would later claim Deirdre also went for a week's training in Belfast. "I didn't." she says, "It never happened."

Sitting duck

Somehow, Deirdre, with the help of Darius, got up to what they thought was a reasonable speed. The retail area became a success and with a lot of hard work, Killeter post office and store became a viable business at the centre of the community.

Things were going so well in 2008 the Post Office suggested the Connollys might like to take on a couple of outreach post offices in Ardstraw and Aughabrack. An outreach branch is where a Subpostmaster takes a Horizon laptop, cash and a pinpad into a community without a post office, and operates a basic service from a library or village hall via the data signal on a mobile phone.

This is potentially a risky business at the best of times, but the Connollys' main branch was closer to the Irish town of Donegal than any town in the North. Paramilitary organisations still operate in the area, and when Deirdre was the Killeter Postmaster there had been a number of "tiger" kidnappings. Deirdre was often travelling on her own to and from remote outreach locations at advertised times carrying thousands of pounds in cash in her car. Mobile phone reception in this part of the world is intermittent and without it, Deirdre's panic button wouldn't work. Deirdre regularly changed her route to and from her outreach offices, but she was essentially a sitting duck.

"I was scared. I was waiting on someone to jump out in front of me on the wee roads. I had to contact a local sergeant at one stage because I thought I was being followed."

Despite this hairy situation, Deirdre diligently incorporated her outreach activities into the working week and the Post Office seemed perfectly content to have her travel round County Tyrone carrying large amounts of cash without any proper protection.

"Step out. You're finished."

On 2 June 2010, the Connollys' happy family life and successful business was ripped away from them in a matter of hours.

A Post Office auditor arrived and started going through the Horizon accounting logs with Deirdre. He found a £16,592 discrepancy with exactly £11,500 out of whack on the outreach terminal. The auditor suspended Deirdre on the spot.

Darius was there. "He said: "Hand me your keys. Step out. You're finished.""

The auditor changed the time locks, the combination on the safe and took the single key to the post office "fortress" area away with him. The Connollys were left reeling.

The branch remained closed for a week, causing all sorts of problems. The retail side took an immediate hit as customers were diverted to other branches and the Connollys tried to come to terms with what had happened.

Deirdre with Darius

The same auditor returned a week later, let himself into the fortress and did another audit, during which he found £1000 in cash in the safe which he had missed the previous week. The discrepancy was now £15,592.

One moment the Connollys were a hard-working, successful, respectable couple, known to everyone in their village and the surrounding area. Within days they'd lost their livelihoods and Deirdre was under suspicion of theft.

A week later Deirdre was summoned to Belfast to meet with Post Office investigators. Darius accompanied her, but on arrival he was ordered to wait outside.

Deirdre was allowed to have a member of the National Federation of Subpostmasters present. "He was a 'yes' man", she says, and remembers him sitting there saying "you've done this... ", agreeing the Post Office approach to her suspension was correct. The Post Office investigator told Deirdre she was the only person having problems with Horizon, and no one could explain to her what she had done wrong or how the discrepancy had supposedly arisen.

Eight days later Deirdre was summoned to another interview in Belfast. Again Darius was not allowed to attend, but on this occasion Deirdre had her solicitor present. Nonetheless, she remembers this being closer to an interrogation, with the investigators asking why she had stolen the money and what she had done with it. Deirdre says afterwards her solicitor advised her to make good the discrepancy.

Worried for their future and unaware there were dozens of Postmasters throughout the UK having similar problems, the Connollys borrowed money from their families and handed a cheque to the Post Office for £15,592.

The Post Office responded by terminating Deirdre's contract.

The aftermath

The shock of what happened to the Connollys, particularly Deirdre, is something the family are still living with today.

On 4 August 2010 Deirdre received a letter from the Post Office informing her that she was not going to be prosecuted. The realisation that this could have happened to her was a hammer blow. "I didn't even think of it. Maybe I was naïve, but I'd done nothing wrong, so why would I even think of it?" Deirdre considered ending it all. "Darius would've been coaching soccer... I was here on my own. And I got myself in a real, real tizzy. I could've topped myself that evening if a friend of mine hadn't come round. That was a close call, but I came out on the other side. I'm here to tell the story."

As Subpostmaster, Deirdre had been earning around £1800 a month from the Post Office. This now went to a temporary Subpostmaster who the Post Office installed in the Killeter branch. The Connollys received a small amount of rent under this arrangement, but the hit to their finances and the disruption to their business was significant. The shop was no longer the happy place it used to be. Retail earnings suffered. "People stopped coming in because they thought I stole the money." Deirdre told me. "No smoke without fire, you know...?"

The Connollys struggled on, but it wasn't working out. They had a mortgage on the shop lease, a mortgage on their home and owed money to their family and suppliers. In 2013 they were declared bankrupt. Shortly afterwards, Deirdre developed epilepsy, which she says her consultant believes was directly due to the stress she was under.

"It's been hell," she says "a living hell... We were doing so well. We were having a good craic in the shop and everybody used to come in in the morning and be standing chatting in the shop and there was banter... but no... it all changed."

Deirdre was diagnosed with anxiety and depression. Sean, Deirdre's teenage son, was a promising footballer. He had had trials in England, and was keen to see what level he could reach. As he watched what his mum was going through, he became withdrawn and developed anxiety and suicidal thoughts. He stopped going to training and once found himself walking into a river, ready to dip his head under and give it all up. Sean has recovered to a degree, but his parents say he is a changed man.

Mediation scheme and court

Although Darius and Deirdre's marriage was put under severe strain, they came through stronger. "I have to say our families were so supportive." says Deirdre. "I was ashamed it happened because I felt as if I'd let them down. I don't know why but I did. I didn't know where the money went, but it was costing family, costing us."

The Killeter Post Office in later years

I asked Deirdre if she dwelt on how the discrepancy could have arisen. "Every day! Every day until we got out of that shop, I was trying to work out ways that would let me look for it, where it could've gone wrong."

Deirdre and Darius had no idea their situation was not unique until August 2013, when Darius's sister saw an article in the Daily Mirror about a Subpostmaster wrongly accused of stealing £85,000. The piece quoted the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance. They contacted Alan Bates, the founder of the JFSA, just in time to get on the mediation scheme.

Unfortunately, the mediation scheme collapsed in acrimony before Deirdre got a chance to sit in a room with the Post Office, however her case report, compiled by Second Sight, an independent forensic accountancy firm, makes for interesting reading.

Second Sight's job was to investigate each applicant and decide whether or not they were suitable cases for mediation. Here is what they have to say about the Post Office's efforts to uncover the cause of the discrepancies at Deirdre's branch:

"We have drawn the conclusion that no contemporaneous investigations were carried out into the cause of the shortfalls identified by the Audit. Post Office rejects this by stating: "Investigations were carried out by Post Office. The lack of contemporaneous notes does not logically lead to the conclusion that there was no investigation, particularly in light of all the other information presented in [our submissions to Second Sight]"... we are unable to verify the validity of Post Office's statement on this subject and, in any event, we note Post Office's acknowledgement that an undocumented investigation may have been carried out, which would clearly not be sound investigative practice."

So, according to Second Sight, either the Post Office team:

- didn't bother investigating the causes of Deirdre's £15K discrepancy,
- did a thorough investigation and weren't handing the results of that investigation over,
- did a slipshod, half-arsed job.

Hmm.

Second Sight's report concludes:

"We... find the Applicant's remarks regarding her training to be rather compelling and, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, we are inclined to believe that she really was inadequately trained and supported. We have concluded, therefore, that Post Office bears some responsibility for this branch's losses."

By this stage the Post Office Horizon story was generating a reasonable amount of media interest. In May 2015 Deirdre felt well enough to go on Stephen Nolan's BBC Northern Ireland radio show to talk about what had happened to her. The Connollys were still trying to piece together their lives, and Deirdre, as an innocent woman, wanted the cloud of suspicion around her lifted. She describes going public as "a weight off my shoulders".

When the Bates and others v Post Office group litigation began, Deirdre became a claimant.

To mark the first trial, in December 2018, Kevin Magee, a BBC Northern Ireland television journalist, made a piece about Deirdre. Her former employer, Eamon McCay at Frylite, saw it.

Eamon had no idea what Deirdre had been going through. He made contact, and within weeks Deirdre was back, doing her old job at her old company, working for the first time in nine years. She's thrilled.

"It's great. I'm enjoying it. Walking in the first day, it was really scary, but for Eamon to have the confidence in me, to take me back... it means I'm not worthless. For a long time, I thought I was worthless."

Uncertain futures

Tight knit: Deirdre, Sean, Gemma and Darius Connolly

This, though, is not a happy ending. It has taken the Connollys years to get anywhere close to being over their experience. "We've been married 28 years now," says Darius, "You've never seen anybody go from being so outgoing... when we were married the parish priest said DD [Deirdre] was "vivacious" - full of life and full of joy - and that's how she always was. But after what happened she became very introverted."

For a long time Deirdre was clinically depressed, taking medication and living on benefits. She's going to be on epilepsy pills for the rest of her life. Deirdre used to be a confident person. "Now I second guess everything I do." she says.

Financially, the Connollys have lost what should have been the most productive years of their lives. When they should have been building their nest egg, they were paying off debts. Deirdre was unable to work. Today, they have their heads above water, but they have no pension, no investments and still have a long way to go before they pay off the mortgage on their house.

The Connollys have been following Bates and others v Post Office, and have scraped the money together to travel over to London to sit in court and bear witness for at least one day of both trials. "It makes me feel sick," says Deirdre, "when I was told I was the only one, to hear they knew about all these problems."

Deirdre is unequivocal about what she wants from this court case. "An apology. I want my name cleared."

"They lie to you," says Darius, "they tell you nobody else is having any bother and then... you look at what they're doing and you look at how they're conducting themselves and the more you learn about them the more sickened you are really. The people in government have to know how crazy this whole thing is."

I asked the Post Office for their thoughts on Deirdre's situation. They replied "it would not be appropriate to comment on an individual case. The litigation is continuing."

My thanks to the Connollys for their patience as I put this piece together and the numerous interviews which took place over the phone. If you want to read more stories of the people caught up in this scandal, click on Victim testimony at the top of this page.

* Deirdre had signed an "Acknowledgement of Appointment letter", about which forensic investigators Second Sight later said:

"We are surprised to see that Post Office is still referring to such Acknowledgement of Appointment letters as "the contract", when they most obviously are not the contract itself... In stating that there exists no evidence to show that the full 114-page contract was not supplied, Post Office has omitted to say that it has been unable to present any evidence to show that it was supplied."

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

Addendum: One of the recurring themes in the nine years I've been following this story is the number of Subpostmasters who claim they were told by Post Office contract managers and investigators that they were the only ones who were having problems with Horizon. Time and again Subpostmasters bring it up as a prominent and memorable feature of their trauma. The effect of being told this lie was obvious - isolation, self-doubt and a sense of helplessness.

It seems to have been a Post Office investigation strategy, yet over the course of two trials it has not been addressed in the High Court. Jo Hamilton, a Subpostmaster who was convicted of false accounting, alleges a Post Office contracts advisor called Elaine Ridge told her she was the only person having problems with Horizon. Elaine Ridge gave evidence in the first trial in this litigation. It would have been simple to ask her on oath if she had ever said this to anyone. Yet it was not a feature of any line of inquiry with any Post Office or claimant witness, despite the fact Second Sight picked up on this during their investigations for the mediation scheme.

Maybe it could be argued it's a legitimate investigation strategy for people suspected of serious offences (it doesn't feel like one), maybe proving it would be tricky, but it is concerning there was a golden opportunity to expose what seems like some serious mendacity, yet it was passed up. Perhaps this is for another blog post.

*************************
If you can, please help keep this crowdfunded public-interest journalism project going by chucking a few quid in the tip jar below. Contributors who give £20 or more will start receiving regular "secret" emails which have all the info and gossip about this litigation as it makes its way through the courts. Click here to see how and where your money is being spent. Click here to find out more about the story.

Choose an amount

- £2.50 GBP -- £5.00 GBP --- £20.00 GBP ---- £30.00 GBP ------ £40.00 GBP ------- £50.00 GBP -------- £75.00 GBP --------- £100.00 GBP ---------- £250.00 GBP ----------- £1,000.00 GBP

All the Judgments

A page dedicated to bringing you all the judgments made by Mr Justice Fraser in the Bates and others v Post Office group litigation and those from the Court of Appeal made by Lord Justice Coulson in chronological order.

Judgment No 1: Laying down the Law

A pretty thorough bollocking issued to both parties.

Write up (with link to judgment)

Actual judgment.

Judgment No 2: "It appears to me that extremely aggressive litigation tactics are being used in these proceedings."

The Post Office attempts to selectively tailor the evidence the court is to consider by asking the judge to strike out witness statements it doesn't like. Judge refuses.

Write up (with link to judgment)

Actual judgment.

Judgment No 3: the Big Kahuna

180,000 word judgment handed down on 15 March 2019 in the light of the first (Common Issues) trial. Massive win for claimants. Post Office spanked.

Write up: "He did it" (with link to judgment)

Actual judgment.
Judgment cheat sheet. (with link to judgment)

Judgment No 4: Why I Will Not Be Recused

Oh the drama. Judge gives reasons as to why he is rejecting the Post Office's recusal application.

Write up (with link to judgment)

Actual judgment.

Permission refused: Recusal judgment appeal application fails

In which the Court of Appeal refuses the application to appeal the recusal judgment. 

Write-up: "Fraser J is going nowhere"
Actual order

Reasons for refusing the Post Office's attempt to appeal Judgment No 3

Sir Peter Fraser patiently explains why he will not be allowing the above.

Write up (with link to reasons): "There will be at least three more trials"
Actual reasons.

Court of Appeal: Common Issues appeal application pt 1 (fail)

The Court of Appeal rejects the initial application to appeal the Common Issues judgment. 

Write-up - "Court of Appeal invites Post Office lawyers to have another go"

Judgment No 5: Common Issues trial costs awarded

In which the judge reveals both parties have managed to spend more than £25m between them on this litigation so far.

No write up.

Actual judgment.

Court of Appeal: Common Issues appeal application pt 2 (fail)

The Post Office's second application to appeal the Common Issues judgment at the Court of Appeal fails as Lord Justice Coulson notes the Post Office seems to want to treat its Subpostmasters like a "mid-Victorian factory owner."

Write-up (with link to judgment): "Subpostmasters' stunning victory confirmed by Court of Appeal"
Actual judgement.

The settlement agreement

Five days before the Horizon judgment was handed down, the parties settled. The Post Office apologised and handed over £57.75m to the claimants.

Write up: "It's all over"
Settlement agreement joint statement

Judgment No 6: Horizon Issues

The second trial judgment. Another monster. This time weighing in at 178,000 words. The main body is therefore slightly smaller than judgment number three, but it came with a 60,000 word technical appendix making it by some distance, the biggest judgment in this litigation. As above, massive win for the claimants, Post Office spanked.

Write up: "They did it."
Actual judgment.

And that's your lot.

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

The collecting, collating and posting of the above documents has only been possible by the crowdfunders who have kindly supported this blog.

If you would like to put a small amount of money in the crowdfunding tip jar, please click here. You will be taken to another page on this blog which has more information and a payment portal (operated by PayPal) which will ask for your card details.

Contributors who donate £20 or more will be added to the secret email list, which continues to update subscribers with all the developments of this extraordinary story as it continues.

Judgment No 1: Laying down the Law

I hadn't read the first judgment in Bates and others v Post Office' judgment until recently. I thought it was about disclosure. It's not. It's a boll*cking.

By the time it appeared on 10 November 2017 both parties had managed to annoy the litigation's managing judge Sir Peter Fraser to a considerable degree. In the judgment he lists exactly how:

- "failing to respond to proposed directions for two months";
- "failing even to consider e-disclosure questionnaires";
- "failing to lodge required documents with the court";
- "failing to lodge documents in good time";
- "refusing to disclose obviously relevant documents";
- "resisting any extension to the "cut-off" date for entries of new claimants on the Group Register";
- "threatening pointless interlocutory skirmishes".

The formal order which created the Bates and others v Post Office group litigation (GLO) was made on 22 March 2017.  The rules of the GLO stated that the first case management conference (CMC)  had to be held on the first available date after 18 October 2017. Sir Peter Fraser was appointed managing judge and on 25 April ordered that the first CMC would take place on 19 October.

Unfortunately, that date didn't work for the claimants' lawyers. Inadvisedly, they told the judge they'd get back to him when they'd agreed a date which suited both parties. Bad move. As Sir Peter says:

"This... appeared to be a clear case of the tail wagging the dog. It is notable that judicial availability, and the dates ordered both in the GLO and in Directions Order No.1, were considered such a secondary consideration to counsels' diaries."

The judge told the parties a witness statement would be required before he would consider shifting the date of the first CMC. Astoundingly: "this particular direction was then wholly ignored."

Another bad move. Sir Peter ordered the first CMC would take place on 19 October 2017.

Somehow the Post Office failed to take note of how thin Fraser J's patience was wearing. Shortly before 19 October came round the Post Office's lawyers suggested there didn't need to be any trial in the litigation until 2019 at the earliest. His Lordship was not amused:

"To describe this approach as leisurely, dilatory and unacceptable in the modern judicial system would be a considerable understatement."

The Post Office came into line and the first trial was fixed for November 2018. The day after this was agreed, the Post Office's leading counsel (Anthony de Garr Robinson QC) told the court he was not available, and could the first trial be punted into 2019 anyway?

Interestingly, this was not opposed by the claimants. However, Sir Peter "declined" this application for a further delay, and said he would hand down his written reasons. Hence judgment no 1 in this litigation - both a boll*cking and a reminder to our well-remunerated learned friends that time, for the claimants and the defendant, is very much an issue.

"Fixing hearings in this group litigation around the diaries of busy counsel, rather than their fixing their diaries around this case, is in my judgment fundamentally the wrong approach... On the face of it, a delay in the first round of substantive hearings from November 2018 into early 2019 could be viewed as modest. However, in this case it would mean that the first substantive hearing would commence almost two years after the making of the GLO. That is simply far too long in my judgment. The delay until November 2018 is more than enough as it is... All of the many claimants, and the defendant, need resolution of the matters in issue."

The judge concludes by stating:

"A fundamental change of attitude by the legal advisers involved in this group litigation is required. A failure to heed this warning will result in draconian costs orders."

The parties were on notice.

Click here for the full judgment - it's only 21 paragraphs long and definitely worth a look.

*************************
If you can, please help keep this crowdfunded public-interest journalism project going by chucking a few quid in the tip jar below. Contributors who give £20 or more will start receiving regular "secret" emails which have all the info and gossip about this litigation as it makes its way through the courts. Click here to see how and where your money is being spent. Click here to find out more about the story.

Choose an amount

- £2.50 GBP -- £5.00 GBP --- £20.00 GBP ---- £30.00 GBP ------ £40.00 GBP ------- £50.00 GBP -------- £75.00 GBP --------- £100.00 GBP ---------- £250.00 GBP ----------- £1,000.00 GBP

What's this all about?

Your 400 word answer follows:

Over many years Subpostmasters (the people who run local post office branches) have been held legally responsible for their branch accounts. These are held on a networked point-of-sale and accounting IT system called Horizon.

However, Subpostmasters are not in control of that system. It is operated Fujitsu on behalf of the Post Office.

Subpostmasters are unable to dispute the accounts presented to them and are held contractually liable by the Post Office for any discrepancies. Until a High Court judgment in March 2019, if Horizon says you should have £80,000 worth of cash and stock in your branch and you only have £50,000, the Post Office would go after you for the £30,000 difference.

The Post Office is not contractually obliged to investigate the cause of a Horizon discrepancy. Many Subpostmasters were certain computer glitches or other uninvestigated causes outside their control were behind discrepancies appearing in their accounts.

In the past, Subpostmasters who refused to make good discrepancies were sacked, losing everything they'd invested in their branches.

Potential miscarriages of justice

Some Subpostmasters, mystified by continual or large scale losses and scared of being sacked and losing their businesses, signed off accounts they knew were not an accurate reflection of their stock and cash. They say they did this to avoid being held liable for discrepancies which were out of their control, which they could not afford to make good, and to keep trading. The Post Office called this false accounting.

Subpostmasters unwilling or unable to make good large discrepancies were sometimes prosecuted (by the Post Office's in-house prosecution team) for theft, false accounting and/or fraud. This was done on IT evidence alone, without proof of criminal intent. Despite this, some Subpostmasters were successfully persuaded by their own solicitors to plead guilty to false accounting, on being told the Post Office would drop theft charges.

Once the Post Office had a criminal conviction, it would occasionally attempt to secure a Proceeds of Crime Act Order against convicted Subpostmasters, allowing it to seize their assets and bankrupt them.

This abuse of process and has been confirmed by the court of appeal as one of the most widespread miscarriages of justice in British history. The Post Office has apologised and is functionally bankrupt.

If you would like to read in forensic detail the level of legal and governmental culpability in this, do read the barrister Paul Marshall's speech to the University of Law on Thursday 3 June 2021. It spells the scandal out in forensic detail.

For more info, please have a look at the "Start here" page, which divides the story up into categories and includes links to pieces I have written on aspects of each category.

 **********************

This website is crowdfunded. I am also currently writing a book called The Great Post Office Scandal which will be published by Bath Publishing this autumn. If you would like to buy a pre-sale copy, I would be very grateful. For more information, please click here.

Court of Appeal Menu

If either party in Bates and others v Post Office takes issue with aspects of any judgment made during this litigation, they have the option of approaching the Court of Appeal.

So far only the Post Office has attempted to appeal any judgments. The first application to appeal came after the judge, Sir Peter Fraser, refused to recuse himself as managing judge of the litigation. The Court of Appeal refused the application to appeal that judgment.

The second attempt came after Sir Peter refused the Post Office permission to appeal the Common Issues trial judgment.

The application to appeal was filed and immediately rejected by the Court of Appeal on grounds of length. A shortened application was submitted in June 2019. The Court of Appeal is considering that application and is expected to make a decision in autumn 2019.

I have laid out the pieces and relevant documents below.

The Court of Appeal

Recusal judgment appeal application

The Court of Appeal refuses the application to appeal the recusal judgment. Write-up: "Fraser J is going nowhere"
Court of Appeal refusal decision document

Common Issues appeal application

The Court of Appeal rejects the initial application to appeal the Common Issues judgment. Write-up - "Court of Appeal invites Post Office lawyers to have another go"

The Post Office's second application to appeal the Common Issues judgment at the Court of Appeal. Write-up: "Post Office's application to appeal common issues judgment"
Second application grounds of appeal and skeleton argument.
Respondents' Statement of Objection.

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

Choose an amount

- £2.50 GBP -- £5.00 GBP --- £20.00 GBP ---- £30.00 GBP ------ £40.00 GBP ------- £50.00 GBP -------- £75.00 GBP --------- £100.00 GBP ---------- £250.00 GBP ----------- £1,000.00 GBP