Post Office Inquiry: lawyers face questions over prosecutions

Lawyers will come before the Post Office Inquiry over the next week to explain for the first time what role they played in prosecutions of sub-postmasters.

The inquiry resumes today with phase four, looking at the actions against sub-postmasters in civil and criminal proceedings and the knowledge and responsibility for failures in investigation and disclosure.

Stephen Dilley, a partner with Womble Bond Dickinson, will appear on Thursday to be questioned about the conduct of civil proceedings against Lee Castleton.

Dilley was named in Castleton’s witness statement to the inquiry, published last year, in which the former Bridlington sub-postmaster claimed that he was contacted by Dilley, representing the Post Office, who urged him not to go ahead with a hearing and to drop his defence.

Castleton was eventually made bankrupt after a week-long trial in which he was unrepresented. Having been forced to close his shop and sell his home, Castleton and his wife moved to rented accommodation in a different town. His children were bullied and had to move schools and his wife suffered seizures brought on by the stress.

Richard Morgan KC, counsel for the Post Office in the civil proceedings against Castleton, will give evidence at the inquiry on Friday.

Mandy Talbot, a solicitor and former Post Office legal case manager, will appear before the inquiry next Tuesday.

Talbot was named during submissions in July as having tried to keep an expert’s report into the reliability of the Horizon IT system out of the public domain.

This is the first sitting of the inquiry since a one-day hearing at the start of September into failures of disclosure which caused proceedings to be postponed in the summer.

Following evidence from lawyers involved in disclosure to the inquiry, chair Sir Wyn Williams said in a statement last week that process failures were those of Post Office advisers KPMG and Herbert Smith Freehills, though the Post Office itself must take ultimate responsibility.

Williams noted that each of the witnesses denied that there had been a deliberate decision to withhold relevant documents from the inquiry.

‘I am prepared to accept that each of the witnesses genuinely believes this to be the case, said Williams. ‘However, I am also of the view that it is far too soon to reach a concluded view about whether that belief is well founded as well as held genuinely.

‘Given the history of disclosure failures in the criminal prosecutions which is beyond dispute and the findings about disclosure failures in the group litigation which I have no reason to doubt I need to proceed with considerable caution before reaching any definitive conclusions about the reasons for failures by the Post Office to disclose documents to the inquiry.’

Meanwhile, the government yesterday announced a take-it-or-leave-it offer of £600,000 for every postmaster who was wrongfully convicted based on Horizon evidence and has had their conviction overturned. So far, 86 convictions have been overturned.

In a statement, business minister Kevin Hollinrake said ‘all reasonable legal fees’ will continue to be covered and anyone who does not want to accept the offer can continue with the existing redress process.