Justice secretary Alex Chalk has urged regulators to take ‘robust and prompt’ action against any lawyer implicated in the Post Office scandal.
Former justice minister Shailesh Vara asked Chalk during justice questions on Tuesday what his department was doing to hold lawyers who oversaw prosecutions of sub-postmasters to account.
Chalk did not answer the question directly, but instead made clear to regulators such as the Solicitors Regulation Authority that the government expects a decisive response.
‘Anybody who appears in court, but particularly prosecutors, must be mindful of their solemn and sacred duty to disclose material to the defence that might reasonably be considered capable of undermining the case for the prosecution – that is literally the most important rule,’ said Chalk. ‘If they failed in this case, I would expect the appropriate authorities to take robust and prompt action.’
More than 700 people were wrongly convicted of fraud, theft or false accounting over a 20-year period based on evidence from the Horizon IT system that proved to be flawed.
The public inquiry has heard evidence that solicitors involved in decisions around prosecutions were made aware of defects with Horizon but did not disclose this to defence solicitors before sub-postmasters were put on trial.
The SRA’s position continues to be that it will wait until the end of the inquiry before taking any action.
It has confirmed that investigations are ongoing into ‘a number of solicitors working on behalf of the Post Office’. These investigations cover ‘multiple, multi-faceted issues’.
The SRA has said: ‘We expect to be in the best position to take any meaningful action after the full facts and all relevant issues have been aired through the inquiry. But we keep our position under constant review and will continue to engage with the inquiry in case there are any issues that might require more immediate action.
‘We will take action where we find evidence that solicitors have fallen short of the standards the public expects.’
Following their exchange in the House of Commons, Vara urged the authorities to hold lawyers who were involved in the scandal to account.
‘There have clearly been failures in the legal process, as well as by some of the lawyers acting for the Post Office,’ he added. ‘Those failings need to be thoroughly investigated, and action taken where necessary.’
