POL00040047
POL00040047
[TO GO ON POST OFFICE HEADED PAPER]
Mrs Berlin
[ADDRESS]
[date]
Dear Mrs Berlin
SUBJECT
I write in relation to the above matter and further to our exchange of correspondence back in July,
culminating in your letter to me dated 30 July 2013.
lam now ina position to confirm that Brian Altman QC has completed his review of POL's strategy and
process for reviewing past/current prosecutions given the findings of the Second Sight interim report to
which I referred in my letter to you dated 26 July 2013 and am now in a position to give you an update.
As you would expect, Mr Altman's review has been thorough, leading to a detailed report, and I am
pleased to confirm that overall, his view is that the review (being carried out on behalf of POL by an
external firm of criminal specialist solicitors) is fundamentally sound, and he has not detected any
systemic or fundamental flaws in the review process, or in the evidence arising from it. He has however
highlighted that because the review is a continuing process, and POL has a continuing duty of
disclosure, both POL and the external firm of solicitors must be prepared to keep under review, and
reconsider, past case reviews and disclosure decisions.
To give you some detail, the process involves reviewing all cases (both Crown Court and Magistrates’
Court) going back to 1 January 2010 (this being the earliest date on which Horizon Online was migrated
into all post office branches and is a start date which Mr Altman QC considers to be logical, proportionate
and practicable in light of the known circumstances). Essentially the scheme involves POL's solicitors
identifying every case within the above mentioned review period in which the primary or main evidence
against the defendant was based on Horizon data. This is done by a sift review process. Once such a
case is identified, senior in-house prosecutors at the external firm of solicitors carry out a full case review
to determine the question "Had POL been possessed of the material contained within the Second Sight
interim report during the currency of any particular prosecution should/would POL have been required to
disclose some or all of that material to the defence?"
To date POL's external solicitors have carried out a sift of [X] case files, second sifted [Y] cases, fully
reviewed [Z] cases (in which disclosure was advised in [AA] cases), and has discontinued [BB] cases.
The process is not yet complete and I understand that there are [CC] cases yet to fully review.
I appreciate that the above is a short precis of a very extensive procedure and should you have any
further questions/require any further clarification, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Yours Sincerely
Susan Crichton
For and on behalf of
the Post Office Limited
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