The Post Office Scandal
The Post Office Scandal is one of the largest miscarriages of justice in modern British history. Current estimates suggest as many as 1,000 victims were wrongly prosecuted, many more lost their livelihoods, and thousands had money taken from them. A team led by Professor Richard Moorhead from the University of Exeter and funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) has been working on evidence of lawyer misconduct and with those involved and their loved ones to track and record the impact on their lives and health.
This work has ensured professional misconduct by lawyers is a primary focus of the public inquiry, demonstrated the devastating consequences of unfair accusations, and aided those campaigning for compensation and justice. It has shifted the narrative of the scandal away from being solely about a faulty computer system.
The Post Office research project team’s research into why innocent people plead guilty to crimes they did not commit helped lay the groundwork for the blanket exoneration for all convicted sub-postmasters rather than forcing each to battle a complex appeal process to prove their innocence.
The project has shown the severe impact on the mental health of the victims and their loved ones caused by false accusations and convictions. These findings have been at the forefront of the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board’s deliberations and recommendations.
Research published so far demonstrates lawyer misconduct and incompetence as a central cause of the scandal. It focused attention on the systemic and widespread professional failings and misconduct of lawyers and Post Office executives, ensuring professional misconduct by lawyers is a primary focus of the ongoing public inquiry.
The work has promoted the Legal Services Board to develop a new strategy on professional ethics, and was influential in the Post Office Inquiry lifting legal professional privilege so the role of lawyers could be properly scrutinized.
Researchers have shown the rules around legal professional privilege need urgent reform. Ethical standards and rules about corporate governance should be strengthened to prevent abuse of privilege.
The Post Office Scandal Project team are Professor Richard Moorhead, Professor Rebecca Helm and Dr Sally Day from the University of Exeter, Dr Karen Nokes, from University College London, and Paul Gilbert, from LBC Wise Counsel. They are supported by an esteemed advisory board. Professor Moorhead was invited to join the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board as a result of the first wave of the project’s work.
Working with the subpostmasters has been sobering and the privilege of a lifetime for researchers. They believe their resilience and decency in the face of disgraceful individual, institutional and legal failings will be teaching governments, corporates, lawyers, and courts, lessons for many years to come.