POL00038852
POL00038852
Message
From: Prime, Amy
Sent: 10/5/2016 11:
To: Rodric Williams [
cc: Parsons, Andrew } Lukas, Elisa [}
Subject: Disclosure of Security Investigations Guidelines [BD-4A.FID26896945] [UNSCANNED]
Attachments: AA Conduct of Criminal Investigation Policy v2 300813 (3).docx
Rodric
The below is not urgent but for you to consider as and when you get a chance.
Freeths have requested that we provide them with Post Office's Investigations Guidelines since 1998 (including any
revisions to date). In the earlier round of disclosure we did not provide the guidelines since we wished to confirm whether
the documents were covered by privilege. Brian Altman has confirmed that they will not be covered by privilege and as
such the guidelines will, at some point, have to be disclosed.
We have reviewed both the most recent version of the guidelines (which were adopted in January 2016) and the prior
version (which were adopted in August 2013). Of note, the 2013 version (attached, password: Greeensky1) provides
"Should the recent Second Sight review be brought up by a subject or his representative during a PACE interview the
Security Manager should state: 1 will listen to any personal concerns or issues that you may have had with the Horizon
system during the course of this interview".
Freeths will more than likely use this statement as an opportunity to confirm that Post Office responded to postmasters
using stock answers (an point which has already been raised in relation to the helpline) and further could be spun to show
that Post Office was not taking issues with Horizon seriously and were trying to ignore any issues which were raised.
Although we may face some criticism later on, we are proposing to try and supress the guidelines for as long as possible
on the grounds that the most recent version is not relevant since it post-dates the investigations complained of and it
would require a full disclosure exercise to piece together all historic revisions of the guidelines. We thought it would be
best to bring this to your attention early.
For now, we'll do what we can to avoid disclosure of these guidelines and try to do so in a way that looks
legitimate. However, we are ultimately withholding a key document and this may attract some criticism from Freeths. If
you disagree with this approach do let me know. Otherwise, we'll adopt this approach until such time as we sense the
criticism is becoming serious.
If you would like to discuss the above please do not hesitate to call.
Kind regards
Amy
Amy Prime
Solicitor
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