POL00460624
POL00460624
Burges) _fieldfisher
Salmon
Solicitor to the Inquiry One Glass Wharf
Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry
5th Floor
Alwych House
71-91 Alwych
London DX 7829 Bristol
WC2B 4HN
Our ref: AW15/CJ01/65113.3 2 October 2024
Dear Solicitor to the Inquiry
POST OFFICE HORIZON INQUIRY: RULE 9 REQUEST 57 QUESTION 4
1 SCOPE AND SUBJECT MATTER OF THIS LETTER
11 We refer to Question 4 of Rule 9 Request 57 dated 12 June 2024, which sought:
“The number of civil claims pursued by POL based on Horizon data since the Rule 9 start date, the
quantum and the outcome of those claims including payments of legal costs by parties.”
1.2 We also refer to the first witness statement of Melanie Park dated 22 August 2024 (statement number
WITN11600100), which responded to Question 4 in paragraphs 24-28. In that response Ms Park
explained, inter alia, that Post Office Limited (“Post Office”) had incomplete records and institutional
knowledge relating to historic civil claims and, accordingly, had reached out to those of Post Office's
former external advisers understood to have acted for Post Office in civil claims potentially within the
scope of Question 4.
1.3 We write on behalf of Post Office to provide further information relevant to Question 4 that Post Office
has received from its former external advisers. We hope that this information will assist the Inquiry.
2 FURTHER INFORMATION IN RESPONSE TO QUESTION 4
21 Post Office has made enquiries seeking further information potentially relevant to responding to
Question 4 with Womble Bond Dickinson (UK) LLP, DAC Beachcroft LLP, Pinsent Masons LLP, Hugh
James LLP and AWH Acquisition Corp Ltd (t/a Cartwright King).
2.2 In making those enquiries, Post Office took a broad view of what was meant by “civil claims pursued”
and asked its former external advisers to adopt the same approach. Effectively, any matters where a
formal letter before action was issued and/or any subsequent or other formal procedural steps were
taken was to be treated as a “civil claim pursued”. This would not include matters where only a request
for payment that was not a formal letter before action was issued, but inclusion was not limited, for
example, only to those matters where civil proceedings were issued. This would, therefore, include
WORK\54119688\v.1 Classification: Confidential
BN e, London EC4A 3BF Atria.Qne..144. Morison Street, Edinburgh EH3 8EX
i ral
Flelfisher is the trading name of Fiekifisher LLP, a limited liability partnership registered in England and Weles (registered number 06318472) and is authorised and regulated by the
Solicitors Regulation Authoniy. A list of ts members and their professional qualfications i avalable at fs registered office, Riverbank House, 2 Swan Lane, London ECAR STT. We use the
term partner to refer to a member of the Fleisher LLP, or an employee or consutant with equivalent standing and qualifications,
‘Burges Salmon LLP is. limited lability partnership registered in England and Wales (LLP number ©C307212, SRA ID 401114), and is authorised and regulated by the Salictors Regulation
‘Authority. It's also regulated by the Law Society of Scotland. Its registered offoe is at One Glass Whar, Bristol, BS2 OZX. Alist ofthe members may be inspected at its registered office
Further information about urges Salmon entities, including detals oftheir regulators, is set out on the Burges Salmon website at www burges-salmon. com
Page 2
POL00460624
POL00460624
30 September 2024 Burges) fieldfisher
Salmon
23
24
25
26
matters that were not pursued beyond initial stages, that were settled before or after a substantive
hearing and that proceeded to trial and enforcement.
Post Office also took a broad view temporally, including any matters that continued to be pursued after
the “Rule 9 start date” (i.e., 8 July 2013 — see paragraph 12(h) of the first witness statement of Melanie
Park and paragraphs 83-85 of the second witness statement of John Barlett (statement number
WITN11190200)), even if most of the work was done before that date.
Hugh James
Hugh James confirmed that it had not identified indications that it acted for Post Office in relation to
any relevant matters on or after 8 July 2013:
"I [Richard Locke, Partner] understand that we do not hold any physical files anymore, as the
destruction date has long since passed. We do have some limited electronic data but the files
are, I am told, quite sparse.
We did advise the Post Office on postmaster civil debt recovery. Those files were all opened
between 2004 and 2008. Only one file was opened after 2008. That one file was opened in
2013 and does not appear to be a postmaster debt recovery file. The civil debt recovery matters
were undertaken under two file prefixes - ROY24 and ROY28. These matters were completed
by 2009.
It doesn’t appear that we did “pursue” sub postmasters post 2013. If you have our file reference
which should be prefixed as ROY24 or ROY28 we can do a specific search for you to see if
that throws anything up."
Cartwright King
Cartwright King also confirmed that it had not identified indications it acted for Post Office in relation to
any relevant matters on or after 8 July 2013:
“From the searches that I [Matthew Shiels, Director] have been able to conduct in a relatively
short time frame, I have been unable to identify any further examples’ of CKL involvement in
civil claims on behalf of POL.
This cannot however be taken to be a definitive position. I could not say categorically whether
CKL were involved in any other civil cases or not, without first conducting a manual search of
every POL prosecution case file on CKLs legacy case management system. As you are no
doubt aware, copies of these case files have already been provided to POL. In the
circumstances I suspect that you will have the resources available to review the material in
question far more expeditiously and effectively than I could."
DAC Beachcroft
DAC Beachcroft was instructed by Post Office to act on a large portfolio of civil recoveries. However,
DAC Beachcroft confirmed that it does not consider any of those claims to be within the scope of
Question 4. DAC Beachcroft's position is:
“the debt recovery instructions that were received followed audits by POL and an audit pack
was received. No advice was sought on the merits of recovery and no substantive review of
the pack was carried out. The debt figure and the debtor's details were simply extracted. If
* For the purpose of assisting Cartwright King to search for legacy instructions by Post Office which involved incidental civil recovery
work, Post Office shared with Cartwright King the example of a prosecution on which Cartwright King acted, where Cartwright King had
also negotiated the terms of a consent order before a Crown Court under which the postmaster consented to Post Office registering a
charge over their property. However, Post Office does not understand this particular matter to fall within the scope of Question 4.
WORK\54119688\v.1 Classification: Confidential
POL00460624
POL00460624
Page 3 =
30 September 2024 Burges 4 fieldfisher
Salmon
there was, and we cannot confirm after this time if there in fact was, any ‘Horizon’ data within
the pack, it was not used in evidence or even considered by those conducting the recoveries.
If the debtor referenced Horizon when responding to correspondence, the matter would be
retuned.
The recoveries were very simple and were an administrative process performed for POL, as
evidenced by the low level of fixed fees charged.
In light of the above we do remain firmly of the view that DACB did not assist POL with claims
falling within the question. We cannot confirm that no Horizon data was relied upon in any
underlying claim preceding DACB's debt recovery support, because that did not form any part
of DACB's instructions.”
27 From management information shared with Post Office by DAC Beachcroft pertaining to the 378
matters where DAC Beachcroft carried out at least some work on or after 8 July 2013, Post Office
understands that only 77 incurred total fees and disbursements greater than £1,000 (exc. VAT) and
263 incurred total fees and disbursements less than £250. That appears to correlate with the case load
comprising relatively few civil claims that were pursued materially through procedural stages (without
prejudice to DAC Beachcroft's position, as set out above, that these were not claims within the scope
of Question 4).
Womble Bond Dickinson
28 From the information Post Office has received, it appears that most instructions Post Office sent
externally relating to matters within the scope of Question 4 were provided to Womble Bond Dickinson.
Based on the information provided to Post Office, we understand:
(a) Womble Bond Dickinson acted on 48 “civil claims pursued” based on Horizon data since 8 July
2013 or continuing past 8 July 2013.
(b) The claimed quantum of those claims ranged from £3,480.62 to £205,427.45. The mean
claimed quantum of those claims was £43,239.71.
(c) 45 of those claims (94%) resulted in Post Office obtaining a substantive remedy, either through
a judgment, peremptory order or settlement. Remedies obtained included 25 judgments in
favour of the Post Office (52%); 5 bankruptcy orders against postmasters (10%) (3 bankruptcy
orders were obtained following judgment and 2 relate to matters for which we do not have a
record of Post Office having obtained judgment); 20 matters (41%) resulted in Post Office
obtaining a charge against the postmasters' property; 23 matters (48%) resulted in a
negotiated settlement, including 2 participants (4%) in the Mediation Scheme, 13 participants
(27%) in the GLO, and 8 other forms of settlement (17%).
(d) One of those claims (2%) resulted in an order that Post Office could recover its legal costs
from the postmaster, with a further 16 claims (i.e., a total of 17 claims (35%)) resulting in Post
Office obtaining default judgment against the postmaster and, it may reasonably be inferred,
an order for costs. In respect of the remainder, we are unclear as to whether there was any
order for recovery of legal costs. Post Office is not aware of any claims having resulted in an
order that the postmasters could recover legal costs from Post Office.
Pinsent Masons
29 Pinsent Masons has a longstanding relationship with Post Office, which includes but is not limited to
debt recovery work. As at the date of this letter, in the time Pinsent Masons have had available to
consider Post Office's request for assistance, they have been unable to confirm whether some of their
historic instructions (and, if so, how many) fall within the scope of Question 4. Post Office is informed
that the limited management information available to Pinsent Masons from its document management
WORK\54119688\v.1 Classification: Confidential
POL00460624
POL00460624
Page 4 =
30 September 2024 Burges 4 fieldfisher
Salmon
system indicates that it may have been instructed on a handful of potentially relevant civil recovery
cases in Scotland (which were identified by the Post Office Remediation Unit's incomplete legacy data).
However, Pinsent Masons' corresponding client files are hard copies stored in archives in Scotland,
and so the retrieval, transport and review of them would be required in order to clarify the position and
extract any relevant data. In this regard, we note our understanding that Pinsent Masons’ Scottish
office's relationship was primarily through the firm McGrigors, which merged with Pinsent Masons
before the Rule 9 start date in early 2012. More broadly, Post Office is informed that it would be a
substantial exercise for Pinsent Masons to conduct a manual review of the client files pertaining to its
voluminous, past Post Office instructions to ascertain if any other past debt recovery work was also
potentially relevant to Question 4 (again noting that some such files may only be available as hard
copies in archives).
Conclusion
2.10 In providing the further information relevant to Question 4 set out above, Post Office necessarily relies
on the accuracy of the data and information its former external advisers have provided (subject to
validation work that was possible and proportionate for Post Office to do based on its own records). In
this regard, we are conscious that, given the passage of time and other matters (for example, AWH
Acquisition Corp Ltd purchased the assets of the former law firm Cartwright King from administration)
there will be fewer records readily available to firms than might otherwise be the case. As set out in the
first witness statement of Melanie Park (summarised above), that is also the case for Post Office.
2.11. Accordingly, while we trust that the information set out above is as accurate and complete as it
proportionately can be, we cannot affirm that it comprises a wholly accurate and comprehensive
response to Question 4. In broad terms, however, the position set out above is broadly consistent with
Ms Park's response to Question 4 in her first witness statement (see paragraphs 25-26 in particular).
2.12 In view of the length of time it has taken for Post Office to obtain the above-described information, the
considerable length of time and estimated costs that would be involved in requesting additional work
from Cartwright King and Pinsent Masons (as well as the indications received thus far regarding the
scope and quality of data retained and its likely evidential value), and the proximity to the end of Phase
7 hearings for the Post Office witnesses, Post Office does not consider it proportionate to undertake
further work in respect of Question 4. However, should the Inquiry wish to discuss the response to
Question 4 further, please let the Post Office know.
Yours faithfully
Burges Salmow LLP Fieldfisher LLP
BURGES SALMON LLP and FIELDFISHER LLP
WORK\54119688\v.1 Classification: Confidential