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From: Rod Ismay[/O=MMS/OU=EXCHANGE ADMINISTRATIVE GROUP
(FYDIBOHF23SPDLT)/CN=RECIPIENTS/CN=ROD.ISMAYB8406224-7AE7-4FF 1-B8E6-
F1A8E506F2E5]
Sent: Mon 24/10/2011 3:22:37 PM (UTC)
To:
Subject: FW: JFSA claims - disclosure and evidence gathering
Attachment: Horizon - Sources of documents.doc
Attachment: Walters Evidence Table_ 17 October 2011.DOC
Attachment: Wilson Evidence Table_ 17 October 2011.DOC.
Attachment: Darlington Evidence Table_ 10 October 2011.DOC
Attachment: General Documents and Allegations_ 10 October 2011 (2).DOC
From: Emily B Springford
Sent: 20 October 2011 15:51
To: Angela Van-Den-Bogerd; Lesley J Sewell; Mike Granville; Dave Pardoe; Rebekah Mantle; Hugh Flemington; David
Simpson; Mike Young; Kevin Gilliland; Susan Crichton; Chris M Day; Sue Huggins; John M Scott
Subject: JFSA claims - disclosure and evidence gathering
Privileged and confidential
Dear all,
As you are aware, POL has received 4 letters of claim from former subpostmasters, making a number of allegations
about the training they received, the support available to them in using the Horizon system, and the Horizon system
itself. There is a possibility that these letters of claim will be followed up with Court proceedings, in which case POL
will have a duty to disclose to the claimants all documents relevant to the claims, even if they might adversely affect
POL's defence. This obligation extends to soft copy documents (emails, and all documents stored on the IT network,
hard drives, handheld devices and so on) as well as hard copy documents and manuscript notes.
Please ensure that this communication reaches everyone in your department who has access to, or who is in a
position to create, documents relating to the issues arising in the claims (as set out more fully below). I have started a
list of teams which we believe may hold relevant documents. The list is attached: I should be grateful if you would let
me know of any other teams which might hold documents relevant to the claims.
Document preservation
POL must take immediate steps to preserve all documents which might potentially be relevant to these claims.
“Relevant” documents are those which contain information about the issues below:
* the subpostmasters or branches in question (i.e. Scott Darlington of Alderley Edge branch, Julian Wilson of Astwood
Bank branch, Terrence Walters of Hockley branch or Thakshila Somaskandarajah of Splott Road branch). This list will
increase if further letters of claim are received, and we will of course let you know if and when further claims are
received
“the recruitment of subpostmasters
* the training given to subpostmasters
* the support given to subpostmasters in using the Horizon system, including, but not limited to, the Helplines
* the integrity of the Horizon system
* POL’s branch accounting procedures
Please note that no historic time limit applies, so that all documentation within these categories should be preserved,
regardless of when it was created.
Could each of you please inform the members of your teams who hold or create documents in these categories that
they should not delete or destroy any documents in these categories until further notice.
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Lesley, in relation to documents stored electronically, could you please ensure that all routine document destruction
policies relating to the teams who create potentially relevant documents are suspended. If this will involve significant
expense or inconvenience, please let me know and we can consider further how best to comply with our obligations in
this regard.
We will also liaise with Iron Mountain in relation to their routine document destruction policies. Again if suspending
those for relevant files will involve disproportionate expense we will consider this further with our lawyers.
It is important that you keep a note of any routine document destruction policies that you suspend within your
department, and the dates on which they are suspended, together with a note of any other steps you take to ensure
that your department complies with the above requirements.
Document creation
It is very important that we control the creation of documents which relate to any of the above issues and which might
be potentially damaging to POL's defence to the claims, as these may have to be disclosed if these claims proceed to
litigation. Your staff should therefore think very carefully before committing to writing anything relating to the above
issues which is critical of our own processes or systems, including emails, reports or briefing notes. We appreciate that
this will not always be practicable, however.
Where it is necessary to create a document containing critical comment on these issues, it will in certain
circumstances be possible to claim privilege over the document, so that POL will not have to disclose it in any
proceedings. As litigation is now a distinct possibility, the document will be privileged if its dominant purpose is to
give/receive legal advice about the litigation or to gather evidence for use in the litigation. This also applies to
communications with third parties - i.e. with other organisations - provided they are confidential and their dominant
purpose is as set out above. All of the following steps should be taken in order to maximise the chances of privilege
attaching to the document:
* If the dominant purpose of the communication is not to obtain legal advice, try to structure the document in
such a way that its dominant purpose can be said to be evidence gathering for use in the litigation;
* Mark every such communication "legally privileged and confidential";
* If you are sending the document to someone, state in the covering email/memo/letter that you are not
waiving privilege by doing so;
* Request that the recipient of a communication confirm that the document will be kept confidential and that
he/she will not forward it to anyone else;
* Think very carefully before "replying to all" on an email - do all the recipients need to see the
communication?
* Where possible and appropriate, copy a member of Legal Services into the communication, and make clear
that you are doing so to enable them to advise on the content. Please note that copying a member of Legal
Services into the communication alone will not necessarily suffice.
If in doubt, call Legal Services before committing anything to writing which relates to these issues and contains critical
wording.
Information required to respond to letters before action
The letters before action make a number of allegations and we intend to provide a robust response to each of them.
We are working with our external lawyers to gather all the evidence we need to do so. Please note that we need this
information to present our own case — the documents which have been requested by the subpostmasters to help them
formulate their own case will not be gathered until they have demonstrated that the documents are relevant and
undertaken to pay our costs of collating them.
The attached schedules show the information required to draft a robust response to their allegations. There are four
schedules in total at this stage: one which deals with the allegations made in all four letters before action and three
relating to the individual claimants. We are still working on a schedule for the fourth claimant, whose letter before
action was received most recently.
The volume of information required is significant, so in order to make this fact-finding exercise as manageable as
possible, our external lawyers have highlighted in yellow the information which it is absolutely necessary to gather in
the next week or so. The information which is not highlighted is less urgent. Jon Longman in POL Security has been
tasked with gathering this information but he is encountering some difficulties from various business areas in getting
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responses back quickly. Please would you support Jon as much as possible in this process by stressing the
importance of this exercise to your staff. It is vital that we obtain this highlighted information as soon as possible.
Please telephone me if you would like to discuss any of this.
Kind regards
Emily Springford
Dispute Resolution
First Floor, 35-50 Rathbone Place
London W1T 1HQ