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VERBAL SCRIPT FOR L300 CALL [MARK DAVIES]
As you are all aware, there is continuing Group Litigation involving Post Office and a small
minority of mainly former postmasters
This is complex litigation and is being heard by the Court through a series of trials. As you
know, the first trial - called the Common Issues trial and concerning contractual matters
between Post Office and postmasters - was held late last year, ending in early December.
The Judgment from that trial has not yet been handed down (made public) but we will of
course provide you with information about it when that happens.
The second trial in the case is scheduled to start next Monday (11 March) and concerns
technical matters about Horizon. The trial will continue until 11 April, although the Court will
not be sitting every day.
Neither the Common Issues trial nor the Horizon trial should decide liability in individual
cases. Further trials are being scheduled for November this year and March 2020 and we
will keep you updated about these.
We can of course expect some media coverage about the upcoming Horizon trial. Our media
statement will support our overall position — that we are vigorously defending the
allegations being made - but again we will not be providing a running commentary because it
is for the Court to examine the claims. Despite difficult and often misleading media coverage
we have never discussed individual cases publicly and we will not be doing so outside of
public Court hearings. We strongly believe that this is a fair and appropriate approach to all
parties.
We’ve taken these complaints extremely seriously and conducted investigations, sought to
resolve some of the claims through mediation and have met with the parties concerned on
numerous occasions. We have done this with empathy for the people involved.
Extensive scrutiny of Horizon has provided no suggestion of systemic flaws. No IT system is
perfect but all the indications are that Horizon is relatively robust and has become more so
over time.
With our branches processing 47 million transactions a week we are very alive to potential
technical issues, with countermeasures in place to prevent or detect and resolve them.
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The claims in the litigation span a period of nearly two decades during which time many tens
of thousands of postmasters and their staff have successfully operated Post Office branches
using Horizon to process billions of transactions.
We are of course concerned to reassure everyone in the business, especially our
postmasters and those working in our network.
We will be communicating, via One, across the business ahead of next week and, as we have
done previously, we will make some background facts and questions and answers available
along with contact numbers for any questions or concerns.