Victims call on lawyers to explain Post Office disclosure failings

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The statutory inquiry into the Post Office scandal has been postponed for another two weeks amid continued disclosure failings.

Inquiry chair Sir Wyn Williams agreed with the submissions of lawyers representing victims that the next fortnight of witness evidence could not go ahead while the Post Office has yet to disclose so many documents. He will give written reasons in the coming days for halting the inquiry, which was due to hear from Post Office workers central to the scandal.

But there was anger expressed on behalf of sub-postmasters waiting for someone to be held accountable for the wrongful prosecutions of more than 700 people based on the faulty IT system Horizon.

Sam Stein KC, instructed by Howe & Co representing 157 former postmasters, said clients now felt the Post Office was ‘making a mockery’ of the inquiry process.

He told the hearing that those who had suffered so much were being re-traumatised by the issues of disclosure and the Post Office’s conduct. He asked Williams to order that Post Office chief executive Nick Read, group general counsel Ben Foat and a partner from Herbert Smith Freehills, the firm working with the Post Office on disclosure, appear before the inquiry to explain what has gone wrong.

Stein said around two-thirds of the group of clients favoured postponing the current proceedings, while there was also a ‘strong third who say that this inquiry is being dangled like a puppet by the Post Office and should not be allowed to call the tune’.

Last week, the inquiry was postponed for two days after it emerged the night before a key witness was due to give evidence that thousands of potentially relevant documents had not been disclosed.

In further correspondence yesterday, the Post Office informed the inquiry that it would not be able even to identify, prior to at least close of business on 12 July, the number of documents that it would need to review prior to witnesses giving evidence in hearings due to take place this week.

Williams described the situation as ‘grossly unsatisfactory’ and invited core participants to make submissions on a possible further postponement until after the summer break.

In today’s hearing, inquiry counsel Jason Beer KC said this was a ‘maddening state of affairs’.

He added: ‘You may consider it insincere of the Post Office repeatedly to send the inquiry letters about how they have failed to meet the deadlines for provision to the inquiry of potentially relevant documents.’

Beer raised the issue of whether anyone frustrating the process could be subject to criminal proceedings. Section 21 of the Public Inquiries Act allows for a chair to require a person to give evidence or produce documents, and a person is guilty of an offence if they intentionally suppress or conceal a relevant document. Sanctions can include imprisonment, a fine or both.

Beer said this course of action was not appropriate at this stage but Stein said it should be looked at again if disclosure continues to be a problem in September.

He added: ‘The response of the inquiry should be proportionate to the seriousness of the disruption which has been caused.’