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Bond Dickingew
Personal attendance
Client: Post Office Limited
Matter: Horizon Challenges General Matter no: 364065.531
Attending: Susan Crichton and Hugh Flemington
Name: Simon Richardson Location: Date: 10 July 2013
Start time: Units:
I had some time with HF before SC joined us. He told me that the Cartwright King connection came via
Rob Wilson of RMG Criminal Law Team. In fact it appears that Cartwright King conducts the
prosecutions for POL and that has been outsourced to them rather than through the CPS.
One of the challenges for them is that next week RW is away as is their criminal lawyer and of course
Hugh. SC is looking for support which is why we had a discussion around AP's availability and that is
now being separately resolved. They see Ben Thorp as covering for RW in all other matters and indeed
he may go back with a bag of work.
There was then something of a general discussion around how they were going to manage the additional
complaints and resourcing. Essentially where we got to on what was quite a lengthy brain storming
session was that:
1. If new cases came in they may well be investigated but they would have to take their turn.
2. We would look at other pools of resource for them. We talked about Control Risks and Kroll as
well as the accountants; that presented the problem that they would be more expensive than
Second Sight.
3. The board want to sack SS and of course are now not coping well with the fact that they are
independent. SC is going to arrange to meet SS and she asked if she could use our offices next
Tuesday. I said I could sort out a room for her.
4. She thought it would also be essential to have a session looking at the strategic options and
perhaps involving a QC but she did not want to go back to the one they had used before. She
had found him patronising and irritating.
5. There might significant discovery issues that we all need to address and again that might require
some paralegal resource.
6. The real worry was around the Fujitsu expert who appeared to have known of some of the
problems but not referred to them in his report or statement even though they could be
dismissed. There are non-disclosure issues here. They are looking at replacing that expert with
somebody else.
7. There was generally an overall defensive air and the board are also feeling bruised. There are
tensions between people and that includes Alice Perkins (the Chair), Paula Vennells (CEO) and
SC. I said I thought the Minister had dealt with the questions extremely well and looked in
control of the brief. Evidently she had POL in to tear them off a strip for not putting someone up
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earlier in the day for interviews on Radio and TV. I said my view was it was a good thing no one
was there. It was a no win given the nature of the complaints and some are sub-postmasters
who were generally reporting rather wild stories of what had gone on. However, I understood
the political imperative of somebody being put up. SC said she would pass on my comments to
the Comms Director.
However, I told them that my view was that they need to be much more on the offensive about
this, this was a new management team who had put in a place a new independent report and
were dealing with the problems. The Chair seems to have been taken by surprise by the
reaction and the noise generated. PV may be sensitive around some of these issues happening
on her watch as the Network Director. I said that I still thought there were positive message to
deliver and people just need to get into a different mind-set. She said that PV had asked about
what I knew and she might pass on my comments to her. I said I was happy to talk to PV since
we knew each other from another difficult project in the days when they were a subsidiary of
RMG. In the meantime I would go back and update both GRM and AP so they were ready for
the meeting the following day.
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