POL00103356 - Email from Jane MacLeod to Ken McCall, Carla Stent, Tim Franklin and others re: Postmaster Litigation

Evidence on official site

POL00103356
POL00103356

Message

From: Jane MacLeod
on behalf of — Jane MacLeod
Sent:
To:

‘}) Shirine Khoury-Haq
Cooper, Ti

lisdair Cameron

ce: A aula Vennells

Veronica Branton

Subject: Postmaster Litigation

All

As you may recall we had a Case Management Conference last week (Wednesday 10 October) to hear our application to
strike out certain parts of the evidence presented in the witness statements of the Lead Claimants. We received the
decision on Monday evening and the decision rejects our application.

The application was decided on case management grounds for which the Managing Judge has considerable

discretion; applying that discretion, the Managing Judge set a very high threshold for strike out, and concluded that we
had not established to the necessary standard that the Claimants’ evidence could never be relevant to the case, given
the number of Common Issues; the “considerable legal analysis” each will require; and what our case on those issues is.
However he confirmed that he will apply properly the law on admissibility when it comes to trial, and that the November
2018 Common Issues Trial will not rule on matters which concern Horizon or whether Post Office actually “breached” its
obligations to the Claimants (matters to which most of the disputed evidence goes and which will be dealt with in later
trials).

As previously advised, this is consistent with the Managing Judge’s approach of enabling the Claimants to have their
“day in court” while applying the orthodox legal position. That said, we lost the application and can expect the
Claimants to be awarded their costs when that question is dealt with on the first day of trial.

However in deciding the application, the Managing Judge was very critical of our conduct of the case, intimating that we
were not acting cooperatively and constructively in trying to resolve this litigation (which criticism was levelled equally
between the parties); and that we had impugned the court and its processes by making the application for improper
purposes. This response is extremely disappointing as this has not been our intention, and his challenge as to the
purpose for which we had applied for strike out is at odds with comments he had made during various procedural
hearings over the past year.

The judgement has been reported today in the Law Gazette (https://www lawgazette.co.uk/law/judge-berates-
aggressive-litigation-tactics-from-an-earlier-era/5067986. article). This is the same journal that picked up the Judge’s
criticism of Post Office tactics around the same time last year.

We are working with Portland and the Comms team to refine our preparation for trial — including our reactive
communications plan — in the context of the Judge’s remarks.

Please let me know if you would like to discuss this further.
Kind regards,

Jane

Jane MacLeod

Group Director of Legal, Risk & Governance
Ground Floor

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