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® Post Office Limited
Finsbury Dials
20 Finsbury Street
tondon
EC2Y 9AQ
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State
Department for Business, Innovatian & Skills
1 Victoria Street
London
SW1H OET
7" September 2015
Dear Minister,
Post Office Complaint and Mediation Scheme
At our meeting on 6 August 2015 we briefed you on the matters which we expected to be raised
in the BBC Panorama programme and also discussed with you the various arguments being put
forward for a government sponsored inquiry. Following the broadcast of the Panorama
programme on 17 August, I wanted to respond to the allegations raised in that programme, and
the subsequent calls that have been made for Government to act.
This letter and the “Panorama Rebuttal”, sent to you via Richard Callard and Laura Thomson at
the Shareholder Executive within Department of Business Innovation and Skills on 4 September
2015, refer to matters and material which is subject to legal professional privilege which belongs
to Post Office Limited. We have provided these to you and the Shareholder Executive as our
Minister and shareholder respectively given our common interest in understanding, responding
and (where appropriate) rebutting allegations made about the integrity of the Horizon branch
accounting system and Post Office prosecution practices. It is also in our common interest to
maintain the confidentiality of this privileged material, and for that reason this letter and
associated material must be treated as strictly confidential and subject to common interest
privilege.
Panorama
The programme included a number of inaccurate statements, drawn selectively from limited
information, to create a misleading and damaging impression of how and why Post Office
undertook prosecutions. The programme presented these so as to invite the audience to be
extremely concerned as to our handling of the three individual cases and inferred that these were
representative of wider miscarriages of justice.
We had lengthy exchanges with the BBC over the three months leading up to broadcast. In the
days immediately prior to its airing, we offered to share with the editorial team a number of
documents which would have conclusively disproved the claims being made. This would have
permitted the production of a more balanced piece of journalism. Regrettably, this offer was not
accepted due to the Post Office imposed conditions affecting the use of the information we
proposed to share (which included non-public as well as legally privileged information). As we
discussed with you previously, Post Office believes that the public disclosure by it of sensitive
Post Office Limited is registered in England and Wales. Registered No, 2154540. ,
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information relating to the individual cases would ultimately be counter-productive to the
individuals concerned and hence why any such disclosure was subject to confidentiality
restrictions,
We met the 8BC’s most senior news executive, James Harding, on Friday 4 September. At that
meeting we acknowledged the legitimate public interest in scrutiny of the Post Office, including
by the BBC. Nevertheless we made the point that the Panorama programme was unbalanced and
misleading in its presentation of the facts, and that the BBC failed to take up the many
opportunities we offered which would have facilitated a fairer programme. We have also
teserved our right to make a formal complaint to the BBC Trust.
Criminal Cases
As we flagged to you at our meeting, no criminal conviction arising from a prosecution brought by
Post Office has been appealed, Nevertheless, there are now 20 cases (16 of whom are applicants
to the Scheme) under consideration by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (‘CCRC’) whose
role is to consider whether any of these cases could have been the subject of a miscarriage of
justice.
We are co-operating fully with the CCRC which has the ability to require production of ail
materials relating to these cases, including information that is subject to legal and professional
privilege. We welcome the involvement of the CCRC and will abide fully by its conclusions.
Nevertheless, having thoroughly reviewed these cases ourselves, together with a significant
number of other criminal prosecutions brought by Post Office, we believe that these prosecutions
were handled properly and in accordance with the Code for Crown Prosecutors.
In light of the CCRC's ongoing review, we believe that it would not be appropriate for the
Government to sponsor a review or inquiry into Post Office's handling of these criminal
prosecutions, until such time as the CCRC's review has been completed and its findings become
public.
Other Cases
As you know, the Past Office is offering mediation in all cases other than those in which there has
been a court ruling. Mediation cannot overturn a court ruling and therefore we.do not believe
that mediation will result in a mutually acceptable outcome in those cases. As at the date of
writing, only 8 of those cases which are eligible for mediation, have not set a date for mediation
with the independent mediator - the Centre for Effective Resolution (CEDR).
We continue to explore options to provide further mediation dates for those (few) cases who
have not contacted CEDR,
These mediations are entirely voluntary and Post Office bears the full cost. In addition, Post
Office has advised that it will not use as a defence in any subsequent court proceedings, the fact
that the 6 year time limit available in all contractual disputes has expired, where that time limit
has expired while a case has been in the Scheme.
Reports from CEDR (which have previously been provided to you) confirm that Post Office does
approach these mediations constructively with a genuine desire to seek an agreed
outcome. Unfortunately however, it is apparent that many believe that the only appropriate
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outcome of mediation is compensation payable to them by Post Office, and this means that not
all mediations will achieve agreement.
Applicants to the Scheme are also entitled to seek legal redress through the Civil Courts should
they have a legal basis to do so. To date, no such action has been brought by any applicant or
group of applicants.
Individual Members of Parliament
We continue to offer meetings to those Members of Parliament who have one or more
constituents with cases in the Scheme. During these meetings and subject to the relevant
applicant’s consent, both sides are able to discuss their case. We believe that the meetings held
to date have been constructive, with MPs having the opportunity to understand greater detail
around the cases, together with the rationale for Post Office's position.
It is therefore regrettable that, despite your direct appeal to them in the meeting on 6 August
2015, neither Kevan Jones nor Andrew Bridgen has agreed to meet with us to discuss their
respective constituents’ cases.
Business innovation and Skills Select Committee
Post Office representatives will be meeting with lain Wright MP, the new chair of the BIS Select
Committee, on Tuesday 8 September.
Mr Wright has indicated on social media that the Post Office Scheme is a matter which the newly
convened Committee may wish to examine, following on from its inguity of 3 February earlier this
year.
We hope that the meeting on 8 September will give us the opportunity to request a further
briefing to ensure that he, as Chairman, (and through him, his colleagues) has the benefit of all
relevant information necessary to enable an informed decision to be taken as to the utility,
structure and parameters of any further Select Committee inquiry.
Public inquiry
As discussed, a number of calls have been made for some form of ‘public inquiry’ to be convened
into the Post Office’s handling of this issue. These calls have been repeated following the
broadcast of the Panorama programme. No detail has been given as to the nature of such
inquiry, who should sponsor it, who should be appointed to conduct it, or who should pay for it.
As stated above, the CCRC is already reviewing 20 criminal cases and in our view it would be
premature to establish any other inquiry whose mandate includes a review of the criminal cases
until such time as the CCRC has completed its work. Further, any other inquiry is unlikely to have
as wide powers as CCRC to require production of all relevant materials,
As to the remainder of the cases in the Scheme specifically, and the Post Office’s handling of
similar cases more generally, it should be noted that these are essentially contractual disputes
between the Post Office and former postmasters. As explained at our meeting in August,
postmasters are agents of the Post Office who handle Past Office funds and therefore have a
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fiduciary and contractual obligation to account to Post Office for the amount of those funds. All
these cases have at their heart a failure by the agent to fully account for Post Office monies.
Accordingly, any Government sponsored inquiry will need to be funded. Given the substantial
costs incurred by Post Office to date to investigate these claims (now in excess of £8m), that fact
that the CCRC is already being funded by government to review the criminal cases, and that none
of the existing legal remedies available through the publicly funded court system have been
explored by applicants, we question the basis on which it would be appropriate to commit further
funding resources to this matter at this stage. Moreover, given the private law nature of these
contractual disputes, it is not immediately clear what the locus for any such inquiry might be.
Way Forward
At our meeting on 6 August 2015 you advised that you would ask the new Chairman, Tim Parker,
to review the Post Office's position. Accordingly pending both his findings and those of the CCRC,
the Post Office would welcome your Department's support in resisting the current calls for a
“public inquiry’ which come from a small, if extremely vocal, number of stakeholders.
1am, of course, ready te discuss these matters you with you and your officials at any time.
General Counsel
Post Office Limited