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® Information Rights Team
Post Office Li
W
o
Our reference: FOI2020/00186
Mr Nick Wallis ce
request-658605-f2d3d9bc
22 May 2020 -
Dear Mr Wallis,
Freedom of Information Request — FOI2020/00186
Iam writing in response to your letter received by Post Office Limited (“Post Office”)
on 9 April 2020, which I am dealing with under the terms of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 (“FOIA”).
Your request was as follows:
“Please supply, by year, the number of prosecutions of:
a) Subpostmasters,
b) their assistants or
c) Post Office workers (eg those in Crown Post Offices)
brought by the Post Office/Royal Mail since 1990.
Please ALSO supply, by year, the number of criminal convictions which
resulted from these prosecutions”.
We do not hold all of the information which pertains to your request. The information
we do hold is set out in the table below. However, this data is likely to be incomplete
and therefore should be treated with caution, for the following reasons:
1. The table below is based solely on information held by Post Office Limited, and
does not therefore reflect information (if any) that may be held by Royal Mail, to
which your request also refers.
2. The request covers a very lengthy period of time extending back 30 years.
3. Data relating to convictions between 1991-2006 in particular has been compiled
from extremely limited available material.
4. The table excludes cases where the data held by Post Office is inconclusive as to
whether the prosecution was brought by any other organisation, or whether it
resulted in a conviction.
In addition, although you have asked for information on both prosecutions and
convictions, the table contains information on convictions only. This is because Post
Office does not hold a sufficiently complete set of data for prosecutions which did not
result in a conviction, again reflecting the length and aged period of the request.
Post Office Limited is registered in England and Wales. Registered No. 2154540, .
Registered Office Finsbury Dials, 20 Finsbury Street, London. EC2Y 9AQ PostOffice.co.uk
Post Office and the Post Office logo are registered trade marks of Post Office Limited
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The below table sets out the number of prosecutions brought for which we hold records
and have been able to determine that there was a conviction. To date, we have been
unable to locate any records before 1991. There are 104 cases where Post Office holds
information recording that the defendant was convicted, but not the date of that
conviction, for which the year has been listed as “Unknown”.
Year Postmaster I Assistant I Employee I Unknown Total
Unknown 36 29 20 19 104
1991 2 2
1992
1993 2 2 4
1994 2 2 1 5
1995 1 1
1996 3 1 2 6
1997 3 2 10
1998 8 7 4 1 20
1999 25 20 4 1 50
2000 25 20 12 57
2001 36 29 13 78
2002 27 20 9 56
2003 25 8 18 Si
2004 18 11 7 2 38
2005 22 11 13 46
2006 35 11 S Si
2007 20 14 6 40
2008 22 15 8 45
2009 45 20 7 2 74
2010 38 11 5 54
2011 38 1 6 3 48
2012 36 S 1 47
2013 22 2 3 27
2014
2015 2 1 1 4
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
Total 494 242 152 30 918
In accordance with its duties as former prosecutor, Post Office is conducting a post-
conviction disclosure exercise to identify and disclose material in all historical cases
relating to Horizon data, not just those reviewed by the CCRC, that might cast doubt on
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the safety of convictions. Some of the convictions referred to in the table above from
1999 onwards will be within the scope of this exercise.
We continue to make full disclosure of documents to the CCRC and will be, similarly,
assisting the appeal courts regarding the cases that have now been referred to them.
I hope the information I have been able to provide on this occasion is useful, however
if you are dissatisfied with the handling of this response, you do have a right to
request an internal review. You can do this by writing to the address below stating
your reasons for your internal review request.
Information Rights Manager
Post Office Limited
Information Rights Team
If, having requested an internal review by Post Office, you are still not satisfied with
our response you also have a right of appeal to the Information Commissioner at:
Information Commissioner's Office
Telephone im
www. informationcommissioner.gov.uk
Yours sincerely
Kerry Moodie
Information Rights Team