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Second Sight’s Draft Part Two Mediation Briefing Report — (“the Report”)
Record of teleconference on 11 August 2014
Participants
Ron Warmington (Second Sight - SS)
lan Henderson (Second Sight - SS)
Belinda Crowe ( Post Office - POL)
David Oliver (Post Office - POL)
Andy Parsons (Bond Dickinson - BD)
Actions
1. POL to set out comments on the Draft Report in writing
2. POL to respond in writing regarding access to email archives
Introduction
3. Belinda introduced participants (Belinda, Andy and David) and explained that she was
speaking in a POL capacity as Chris Aujard was on leave until 26 August and therefore
not able to deal with this matter.
Purpose of the call
4. POL explained that the reason for the call was because the Working Group has asked SS
to engage with POL to ensure that the Report was correct and outstanding questions
answered before the report was completed. However, when SS had finally come in a
couple of weeks ago they had not provided a copy of the report in advance and had now
produced a further draft which did not take account of information POL had provided and
POL wanted to now go through the report as the Working Group had asked.
5. POL stressed that it in no way aimed to fetter SS's independence and accepted that SS
may, as independent experts, identify evidence which causes SS to reach conclusions
with which POL disagrees or which are uncomfortable for POL. However POL has a right
to expect that conclusions are based on evidence and analysis as opposed to
unsubstantiated assertions.
6. POL made the following points about the report as drafted:
i) SS has been engaged since May 2012 and been paid a considerable amount of
money and yet there are matters in the report which SS still have not resolved and
are not evidenced.
ii) the report is of poor quality and not of the standard it would expect of a
professional firm of forensic accountants
iii) it does not describe the methodology or any context about the number of
applicants in the Scheme compared with the number of spmrs in total or the
number of cases where the 'so called’ thematic issue has been raised
iv) provides little or no analysis of the issues or the basis on which SS have drawn
conclusions and therefore it is not clear how those conclusions have been reached
v) it seems to be little more than a compendium of untested and uninvestigated
allegations presented as fact
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vi) it contains a number of factual inaccuracies
vii) it appears to totally disregard a good deal of information POL has provided to SS
viii) it covers matters which are out of scope of the Scheme and SS's expertise
specifically in relation to contracts and other legal matters such as criminal
investigations
ix) __ itreferred to a number of matters on the basis that SS were continuing their
enquiries and POL could not see how that assisted applicants where SS's draft
CRR referred to the report but the report contained no further useful information so
an applicant may simply decline mediation on the basis that they would want to
wait until SS had completed its enquiries.
x) E.g, in relation to Pensions and Allowances, SS only raised their queries with POL
on this a few weeks ago but appear to have identified this as a thematic issue the
end of last year. POL has provided a detailed response which took time and
resource to compile and yet the report as drafted simply says that investigations
are continuing
7. SS expressed the view that POL had only been invited to make minor comments on
factual inaccuracies on the Report and that there would be a further opportunity to make
more substantive comments.
8. SS felt the meeting on 31 July with POL (Andy and Angela) had already given POL an
opportunity to comment. POL had understood that the purpose of that meeting was, to
discuss the Report and resolve any outstanding issues but as the Draft Report had not
been provided in advance that had not been possible and the discussion had been
restricted to a small number of SS’s outstanding questions. SS had agreed to senda
draft to POL the following day but had not done so. Instead SS handed over a Draft just
before the meeting on 31 July and asked for comments within 24 hours.
9. SS queried whether POL would respond and whether substantive comments were
consistent with what WG had asked (i.e. quick exposure or full response?). POL stated
that it was more important that the report was right.
10. SS asked whether Alan should participate in a discussion of the Draft Report. POL said
that the Chair had suggested that SS invite Alan to attend any meeting and POL would
welcome that.
11. POL explained that that the call was to set out POL concerns and come to agree a way to
resolve these.
12. SS confirmed that they had taken into account previous information/comments provided
by POL on their earlier draft and to previous questions “ to the extent we thought they
were worth including”.
13. As for the incompleteness of the report SS felt this should not be a surprise, as they had
said it would be a living document. POL accepted that the report could change over time
but considering the amount of time SS had been investigating this issue its unacceptable
that there were so many unresolved issues.
Access to email archives
14. SS maintained that requests to see email archives relating to an alleged secret unit in the
basement of Bracknell had gone unanswered. “you provide the emails, we trawl”
15. POL agreed to respond in writing.
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Scope
16. POL made the point that SS are not lawyers and legal matters are out of scope of the
Scheme and SS's professional expertise
17. Contracts - the only issue relevant to the Scheme is the fact that the contract forms the
baseline against which POL acts. The terms of the contract are matters of law and SS are
not qualified to comment. Chris Aujard has previously made the point that SS does not
appear to understand the nature of the relationship between subpostmasters as agents
and Post Office as principals. Also it is incorrect to retrospectively impose duties on Post
Office in SS' reports when those duties did not exist at the time.
18. SS maintained that 'contracts' had always been on their thematic issues list and that POL
had not queried this before. Post Office's response was that it had not before been aware
of SS' views on the issues and was only now able to determine that this topic is outside
the scope of the Scheme.
19. Likewise, criminal investigations and prosecutions are also beyond SS's expertise as they
are not prosecutors. Reviewing these practices are also outside the scope of the Scheme
20. POL generally expressed concern that applicants may rely on the comments SS make in
their reports on the assumption that SS is qualified to make such comments when they
are not.
21.SS reminded POL that MP's had wanted SS to look at everything and were particularly
keen for SS to see whether there had been any unsafe convictions.
22. POL reminded SS they had not been engaged by MPs. If SS is doing any additional work
for which it is charging POL then POL needs visibility of that work and to authorise it in
advance. SS' engagement relates solely to work as part of the Scheme that does not
include reviewing historic prosecutions. SS believed that this wider review was their "other
hat” is in the cupboard. POL repeated that as far as it was concerned no-one had
commissioned this wider piece of work and that, in any event, it would be outside of
Second Sight's expertise.
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