POL00070137 - Personal attendance note of Stephen Dilley re Royal Mail Group PLC Sub Postmaster Litigation

Evidence on official site

POL00070137
POL00070137

Personal attendance

Client: Royal Mail Group PLC Sub Postmaster Litigation

Matter: Mr Lee Castleton Matter no: 348035.134

Attending: Counsel's Chambers

Name: Stephen Dilley Location: N/A Date: 6 December 2006

Start time: 9.15 am Units:

Attending Counsel’s Chambers at 9.15 am for a pre-meeting before the Trial got underway
today. Receiving four e-mails in from Mandy Talbot, three of which related to Mr Alan
Brown’s Post Office in Falkirk, Scotland. Mr Alan Brown was a witness who had been
summonsed by Mr Castleton. Apart from an e-mail produced by Mr Castleton that was from
Mr Brown, we did not know what Mr Brown was going to say. Therefore we had asked
Mandy Talbot to investigate and come back to us. Her three e-mails suggested that there
had been a problem at the Falkirk branch with the Post Office system. Therefore I had a
telephone conversation with Brian Pindar (Fujitsu) then, at his request, Peter Sewell (Fujitsu)
to ask them to investigate this urgently this morning and report back. Forwarding Mandy
Talbot’s e-mails to Brian, Peter and Richard Morgan.

Also I had a telephone conversation with Adrian Bratt and asked him to summarise the
information that Mandy Talbot had sent to me given that I could not open the attachments
as I only had a Blackberry with me.

Attending the Trial which commenced at 10.30 am and lasted until 4.30 pm (time not
recorded being 1 hour for lunch during which time I worked constantly on the case though).
After the Trial we went back to Counsel’s Chambers until approximately 5.15 pm. See my
hand written note of the Trial together with Thomas Born’s typed note. Basically today was
Counsel’s opening plus some case management directions which included the following:-

1. The Judge agreed that the burden of proof was on Mr Castleton to show that his accounts
were wrong or what was wrong with the IT system;

2. Mr Bajaj need not attend to give evidence given that Mr Castleton confirmed all Mr Bajaj’s
is saying is that he did not get sufficient help when he had IT problems;

3. The sub-postmaster from West End Lane is not entitled to come to Court to give evidence
because Mr Castleton failed to serve a witness summary of what he was going to say, in
time, in accordance with the order of Mr Justice Seymour dated 27 November 2006.

4. Mr Alan Brown need not attend to give evidence - his e-mail will stand as his evidence in
chief. Richard persuading the Court that it would be disproportionate to allow him to give
evidence beyond that because for us to meet Mr Castleton’s case we had, just for the Marine
Drive Branch, produced numerous lever arch files of transaction logs, events logs, call logs
and various receipts. To now repeat the whole exercise again for Mr Brown would effectively
amount to two trials and would be disproportionate. The case law said therefore the Court
can exercise its discretion to exclude such evidence. In any event Richard explaining that
the Post Office distinguished its case from Mr Brown's because the computer set up was
different (this is true as it is what Mandy Talbot had told us at lunchtime).

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POL00070137

After the hearing, updating Mandy on the outcome of the day and also telephoning each of
our nine witnesses to confirm when they needed to attend Court on Monday and that several
of them should bring overnight bags.

Leaving Chambers at approximately 5.15 pm and afterwards updating Tom Beezer on the
day’s events.

Time engaged throughout the day - 7 hours (time not recorded for lunch, but working during
this time) preparing attendance note - 12 minutes

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