c. The Overturned Conviction Scheme - OCS

4.148. There are currently 111 persons whose convictions have been quashed by the courts who have made claims for financial redress under OCS. There are three persons who were prosecuted by the Post Office but not convicted of any crime who have made claims/indicated that they propose to make claims.[139] In the very unlikely event that any other persons seek to obtain redress under this scheme the claim will be dealt with under the merged OCS/HCRS schemes.[140]

22 July 2021 to 17 July 2023

4.149. On 22 July 2021, the Minister announced that interim payments of £100,000 would be paid to persons whose Horizon-related convictions were quashed by the courts. That was approximately seven months after the convictions of six persons had been quashed at the Southwark Crown Court, following prosecution and conviction in Magistrates Courts in England, and three months after the convictions of 39 persons prosecuted in Crown Courts in England and Wales were quashed in the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division).[141] On the same day that the Minister made his announcement, a funding agreement was concluded between the Department and the Post Office (the “July funding agreement”) to the effect that funds would be made available to the Post Office to make interim payments to those whose convictions had been or would be quashed.[142]

4.150. In August 2021, the Department set up the Post Office Overturned Convictions Board (the “Overturned Convictions Board”) with a view, no doubt, to that Board overseeing the making of interim payments by the Post Office amongst its other functions.

4.151. Between August 2021 and the publication of the Progress Update (15 August 2022), interim payments were made promptly to all the persons whose convictions had been quashed with three exceptions to which I return to at paragraphs 4.165 to 4.168 below.

4.152. The Board constituted by the Department in August 2021 was chaired by Mr Creswell. Its other members were a deputy chair, officials who were members of the Department’s financial and legal teams, a non-executive director of the Department and the member of the Post Office Board who was also an official within UKGI.[143] It has remained in existence ever since although its name and membership has changed. Currently, it is known as the Horizon Redress Convictions Board, and it is still chaired by Mr Creswell.

4.153. In December 2021 the Minister announced that the Department would fund full and final settlements for those whose convictions had been quashed by the courts. A further agreement (the “December funding agreement”) was concluded between the Department and the Post Office which underpinned the Minister’s announcement.[144] At this early stage however, there was no voluntary remediation scheme in being such as HSS. Rather, it was anticipated that as each claim for a final settlement was submitted to the Post Office, a negotiation would take place between the claimant and the Post Office which would result either in a binding settlement or, if no settlement was achieved, formal dispute resolution or litigation.

4.154. In December 2021, when the Minister made his announcement relating to funding of full and final settlements, no indication was given about whether the Department or the Post Office would re-imburse claimants the legal fees, if any, incurred in making their claims. However, on 31 May 2022, in written submissions made to the Inquiry in advance of the hearings which took place in July 2022, the Department confirmed that claimants who engaged lawyers to act for them in making claims would be able to recover reasonable legal fees.[145]

4.155. The December funding agreement was not confined exclusively to claimants who had been convicted and whose convictions had been or would be quashed. It also made provision for the funding of offers in settlement to claimants who had been prosecuted for Horizon-related offences, but who had not been convicted. Such persons were eligible to make a claim under OCS provided that they could demonstrate that had they been convicted, their convictions would have been quashed under the principles which were formulated in the judgment in Hamilton and others in the Court of Appeal. As of December 2021, however, there was a lacuna. Financial redress under OCS was available to claimants in the Group Litigation who had been convicted of criminal offences because their right to bring proceedings for malicious prosecution had been reserved, specifically, under the Group Litigation Settlement Deed. However, no right to bring proceedings for malicious prosecution had been reserved in the Deed for those claimants in the Group Litigation who had been prosecuted but not convicted, in the Crown Court or in the Magistrates’ Court. Accordingly, a claimant in the Group Litigation who had been prosecuted for, but not convicted of criminal offences, did not fall within HSS or OCS.[146]

4.156. Notwithstanding the Minister’s announcement of the possibility of full and final settlements in December 2021, no such settlements occurred during the six months that followed. Indeed, in the whole of the period of July 2021 to July 2022 very few claims seeking full and final settlements were submitted by claimants to the Post Office.[147]

4.157. In an effort to encourage fruitful negotiations to occur, the Post Office and the Department agreed that claimants could present claims for non-pecuniary and pecuniary losses separately, i.e. that such losses could be assessed in entirely separate processes.

4.158. The process of assessing non-pecuniary losses was the first to take off. One of the sticking points to achieving settlements in the early rounds of negotiations between claimants and the Post Office, was that the claimants and their lawyers on the one hand, and the Post Office and Herbert Smith Freehills on the other viewed appropriate sums for non- pecuniary losses very differently. Accordingly, in June/July 2022, Hudgell Solicitors, who were then acting on behalf of the majority of claimants who qualified for redress under OCS, and the Post Office, agreed that Lord Dyson, a former Justice of the Supreme Court, would undertake what they termed “a neutral evaluation” of the likely awards which a court would make for non-pecuniary losses, assuming that the court was considering claims for malicious prosecution in civil litigation.[148] From the cohort of persons whose convictions had been quashed by July 2022, 10 case studies were provided to Lord Dyson so that he could offer an opinion of the likely awards for non-pecuniary losses over a range of different factual circumstances. Lord Dyson produced his evaluation on 29 July 2022.

4.159. Although Lord Dyson’s evaluation did not bind either the claimants or the Post Office, it is hardly a surprise that it was treated with the considerable respect which it deserved. A process began whereby the Post Office and the claimants sought to agree awards for non-pecuniary loss, and, in a number of instances, agreements were reached.

4.160. In the months immediately following Lord Dyson’s evaluation, no offer in respect of non- pecuniary losses could be made to a claimant unless it was approved by the Overturned Convictions Board. In the first instance, the Post Office (no doubt in reliance upon advice from Herbert Smith Freehills) would determine the offer to make in an individual case but then seek approval from the Board to make that offer.

4.161. It is worth pausing at this stage of the narrative to note that one of the incidental consequences of Lord Dyson’s neutral evaluation was an agreement between the Department and the Post Office that interim payments would be increased from £100,000 to £163,000.[149] Those claimants who had already received an interim payment of £100,000 received a top-up payment of £63,000, so that they would be aligned with those receiving interim payments from November 2022 onwards.

4.162. As the number of claims for financial redress in respect of non-pecuniary losses grew, so it became apparent that some of the claims had features which the Department, and/or the Post Office regarded as exceptional. In October 2021 the Post Office and the Department reached an agreement known as the Overturned Convictions Operations Agreement (the “Convictions Operations Agreement”).[150] This Agreement, thereafter, was refreshed on a number of occasions. The version which was extant from October 2022 included provisions having the effect that some claims would be treated as exceptional either in whole or in part. In relation to such exceptional claims, no offer could be made to a claimant unless the offer was approved by the Overturned Convictions Board. However, as from the conclusion of the agreement, offers in non-exceptional cases could be made by the Post Office without approval from that Board.

4.163. Between July 2022 and April 2023 some progress had been made in reaching binding agreements between claimants and the Post Office in respect of non-pecuniary losses. At the hearing which I convened on 27 April 2023, I was told that the Post Office had received 69 claims relating to non-pecuniary losses and that binding settlements had been achieved in 55 of those claims. Unfortunately, however, very little progress had been made in reaching settlements in respect of claims for pecuniary losses by that date. I was told that there had been 11 fully particularised claims of which four had been settled.

4.164. The lack of meaningful progress towards settlements involving pecuniary losses, two years on from the quashing of the convictions of 39 appellants in the Court of Appeal, and 30 months after the quashing of the convictions of six appellants at the Southwark Crown Court, was a source of some anxiety on my part. In the Progress Update, I had urged all involved in OCS to engage in contingency planning as to how disputes in relation to financial redress would be resolved if negotiations between claimants and the Post Office failed to produce settlements.[151] I had repeated the view that contingency planning was necessary in the Chair’s Statement and drew attention to the view I had expressed in the Progress Update in the Interim Report.[152] Yet it was only in early 2023 that work began on formulating principles which would govern the determination of claims for pecuniary losses and, essentially, the whole of that year would go by before such principles were finalised.

Refusal of Interim Payments

4.165. On 11 December 2020 the conviction(s) of Mr Vipinchandra Patel were quashed at the Southwark Crown Court. At the same Crown Court on 14 May 2021 the conviction(s) of Mr Parmod Kalia and Mrs Oyeteju Adedayo were also quashed. Yet when they submitted claims to the Post Office for interim payments of £100,000 their claims were rejected. That was said to be justified “on public interest grounds”.

4.166. At the hearings at the Crown Court, the Post Office had conceded that the convictions of these claimants should be quashed. The Post Office maintained however that their concession to that effect in each case was not founded upon an acceptance that the grounds of appeal were likely to succeed. Rather, the Post Office justified its position by the following reasoning. An appeal to the Crown Court by a person convicted by a Magistrates Court is by way of re-hearing. Necessarily therefore, a contested appeal hearing involves the calling of all the evidence said to prove the convicted person’s guilt. In the cases of Messrs Patel and Kalia and Mrs Adedayo, many years had gone by since the conviction of the three appellants and they had long since served their sentences. Accordingly, so it was said, it was not in the public interest for a re-hearing to take place with all the time, trouble and expense that would result.[153]

4.167. As is clear from the Progress Update, I had considerable reservations about the fairness of the approach which the Post Office adopted in respect of these three claimants’ applications for interim payments. My reservations were not removed when I discovered that the Post Office’s refusal to make interim payments to the three individuals had been sanctioned by the Post Office Board and, had in effect, been endorsed by the Department by virtue of the salient terms of the July funding agreement.[154]

4.168. To this day, I have never been convinced that the refusal of interim payments to these three individuals was justified. My sense of unease was heightened when I discovered that the Post Office was prepared to participate in a mediation of the claims made by the three with a view to reaching a full and final settlement. That mediation occurred in December 2022, and in two cases a settlement was reached.[155] However, as will become apparent this was not the end of the story. (See paragraph 4.180 below).

17 July 2023 to the present time

4.169. As I have already alluded to, much of 2023 seems to have been taken up with negotiations between those acting for claimants, the Post Office and the Department with a view to concluding principles which would be used to guide the assessment of pecuniary losses. A document known as the Pecuniary Principles was largely completed by October 2023. It was finalised on 22 January 2024 and communicated to all the legal representatives of the Claimants on 5 February 2024.[156] In Mr Recaldin’s words, the finalisation of the principles occurred “following an extensive feedback process and multiple iterations of the principles which was a necessarily time-consuming process”.[157] Since 5 February 2024, the process for assessing pecuniary losses has become much more akin to a formal remediation scheme. It should be noted however, that neither Lord Dyson’s neutral evaluation nor the Pecuniary Principles were made public at the time they first came into existence.[158] As I understand it, that was a choice made jointly by the claimants and the Post Office.

Fixed Sum Offers

4.170. It was during the apparently tortuous negotiations which were occurring over the principles relating to pecuniary loss in 2023 that consideration was first given to the possibility of making fixed sum offers in full and final settlement of claims under OCS. By this time, everyone involved in the process of negotiating settlements, as well as those overseeing it, was becoming increasingly frustrated with the slow progress being made. Accordingly, on 18 September 2023 the Minister announced that claimants whose convictions had been quashed by the courts would be able to accept the sum of £600,000 in full and final settlement of all their claims.[159]

4.171. If claimants wish to accept the Fixed Sum Offer, the process is (and always has been) straightforward. They indicate a willingness to accept the fixed sum; thereafter, they conclude a settlement deed with the Post Office and payment of £600,000 is made to the claimant (usually within seven to 10 days of the settlement deed being concluded) less any partial settlement sum or interim payment already received.

4.172. If claimants consider that the fixed sum option is unacceptable, they opt to have their claim assessed. However, once that option is chosen the claimant loses the right to accept the Fixed Sum Offer.[160]

Assessed Claims

4.173. A claimant who opts for assessment must submit a particularised claim for non-pecuniary losses or pecuniary losses, or both. The claim submitted will then be assessed by the Post Office and their legal advisors and, if it is categorised as exceptional, by the Horizon Redress Overturned Convictions Board (the “HR Board”). Once the process of assessment is complete, Herbert Smith Freehills will make an offer to the Claimant on behalf of the Post Office. Further negotiations may then ensue. It is open to claimants to accept the Post Office assessments in respect of certain heads of loss but reject assessments for other losses. If that happens partial settlements may be achieved. The aim is to settle all heads of claim by negotiation. Inevitably however, given the complexities involved in many of these claims, there is, and always has been, a need for a process beyond negotiation to cater for those claims which cannot be resolved simply by a negotiation carried out between the claimants and their legal advisors, and the Post Office and HSF.[161]

4.174. From its inception in 2021 to late 2023, no such process existed. By that I mean that there was no process internal to OCS which could be used by a claimant or the Post Office to resolve disputes.[162] However, as the process of agreeing principles for assessment of pecuniary loss was reaching its conclusion, so the Minister and the Department were actively considering whether an independent advisory panel should be constituted, which would have a clearly defined role in determining payments for pecuniary loss. In October 2023, Sir Gary Hickinbottom was nominated to chair such a panel and in February 2024, he was formally appointed as the chair of the Post Office Overturned Convictions Independent Pecuniary Loss Assessment Panel (the “Pecuniary Loss Panel” or just “IAP”). Sir Gary is a former judge of the Court of Appeal. He has extensive experience of assessing compensation in all kinds of disputes, both as a practitioner and as a judge. On any view, he is eminently suited to the task of chairing the IAP. The Panel has two other members; they are Mr Michael Harper, an expert in accountancy, and Mr Stephen Bassett, a retail expert.

4.175. Decisions made by the Pecuniary Loss Panel do not bind the claimants and the Post Office. In the event that a panel decision is not accepted, (either by a claimant or the Post Office or both) the only way forward for the parties is formal dispute resolution, i.e. mediation or, as a last resort, arbitration or litigation.

4.176. As I have indicated, the costs incurred by a claimant in pursuing a claim under OCS are paid by the Post Office (albeit funded by the Department). Given that the sums at stake for pecuniary loss can be very substantial, and the work necessary to formulate and promote claims can be significant, there is a clear possibility of disputes arising as to the fees charged by claimants’ lawyers. In consequence, Mr Peter Hurst, formerly Senior Costs Judge at the Royal Courts of Justice, was appointed as a Costs Adjudicator in respect of disputes arising in relation claimants’ lawyers’ fees. His appointment continues. His responsibility is to resolve the issue of the costs to be paid to the legal representatives of Claimants should a dispute arise. My understanding is that any costs decisions made by Mr Hurst (or, for that matter, by Sir Gary and/or the panel which he chairs) are binding upon the claimants and the Post Office.

4.177. There is currently one disputed claim for pecuniary loss which has been referred to the Panel. By 31 March 2025 this dispute had not been determined.[163] However, I now understand that the Panel made an assessment in respect of the issue brought before them (the evaluation of loss of opportunity) on 17 April 2025. As of 13 May 2025 (when Sir Gary provided a report to the Department in relation to the work of the Panel) the claimants and the Post Office were using the assessment to negotiate a settlement.[164] Further, it was hoped that the assessment, or a suitably redacted summary, would be made public at some point so that it could be used to assist settlements in other cases in OCS and the other schemes. At paragraph 6 of his report, Sir Gary described how the panel had received written representations from a variety of parties and that oral submissions had also been permitted at the hearing.

4.178. Although progress in bringing claims before the IAP may have been slow, Sir Gary has been active in managing cases. He has very considerable experience in the case management of civil cases, and all the oral and written evidence received by the Inquiry confirms that Sir Gary’s case management expertise has done much to encourage, and even drive, Claimants and the Post Office towards satisfactory settlements or partial settlements in a number of instances.

4.179. Just as with non-pecuniary losses, the Post Office and the Department distinguish between exceptional and non-exceptional claims when assessing redress for pecuniary losses. The HR Board remains the ultimate decision maker in respect of offers to be made in claims for pecuniary loss which are classed as exceptional. As from May 2024, the Department has delegated decision making to the Post Office in relation to the offers to be made in non-exceptional cases.

Interim Payments

4.180. In September 2023, two additional persons whose convictions had been quashed at the Southwark Crown Court, namely Ms Elaine Hood and Mr Amer Hussain, were refused interim payments on so-called “public interest” grounds. However, no doubt as part of the response to the furore generated by the drama Mr Bates v The Post Office, the impending legislation to quash convictions, and the likely terms of the redress scheme for those whose convictions would be quashed by legislation, the Post Office and the Department had a change of heart.[165] By letters dated 24 January 2024 the five persons who had been refused interim payments were informed that their claims would henceforth be treated in exactly the same way as all other persons whose convictions had been quashed by the courts or by the legislation that was about to be enacted. In practice, that meant that they would be eligible for all interim payments available to all persons whose convictions had been quashed, and they could choose between the Fixed Sum Offer and having their claims assessed.

4.181. On or about 31 July 2024, the interim payment available to claimants was increased to £200,000.[166] This increase was approved so as to achieve consistency with the interim payment which would be available in HCRS, as to which see paragraph 4.238 below. I also understand from Mr Creswell’s written evidence that interim payments are increased to £450,000 upon receipt of fully particularised pecuniary loss claims.[167]

Governance Changes Concerning OCS

4.182. On 3 March 2025, the Minister announced that all postmasters whose convictions had been quashed (whether by a court or the 2024 Acts) would have their claims administered by the Department. The Post Office would have no decision-making role in the scheme and it would cease to administer or deliver financial redress. The press release issued by the Department explained that, following a three-month transitional period, the HCRS would broaden its scope to take on responsibility for the administration and delivery of redress to those claimants whose convictions had been quashed by the Courts.[168] In consequence, as I understand it, as from 3 June 2025 there will be one scheme, to which I refer sometimes as “the merged scheme”, which will administer and deliver financial redress to all persons whose conviction have been quashed. I consider the significance of this change at paragraphs 6.191 - 6.194 below.

The Number and Progress of Claims and the Sums Paid

4.183. As of the date of the Progress Update, the convictions of 81 persons had been quashed. That number had risen to 83 by 8 December 2022 and to 86 by 27 April 2023. As I have already said, the number of persons whose convictions have been quashed by the Courts now stands at 111 and that number will, in all probability, remain unaltered given the passing of the 2024 Acts. There are currently three eligible claims by persons who were prosecuted but not convicted so that the total number of eligible claimants stands at 114.

4.184. What progress has been made in resolving the claims of these 114 claimants? Before I attempt an answer to that question, some introductory remarks are necessary.

4.185. A close examination of the statistics presented by Mr Recaldin in his witness statements and oral evidence shows that they do not always match the statistics published by the Department on the GOV.UK website. That being so, I have proceeded on the basis that the statistics provided by Mr Recaldin are correct. Accordingly, when I set out statistics in the paragraphs which follow, I am referring to those provided to me in evidence by Mr Recaldin, as opposed to those which have been published by the Department on the GOV.UK website. There is however, an exception to that general rule. If the only source of statistical information is that which appears on GOV.UK, I have accepted that as accurate. By way of example, statistics about OCS were recently published on GOV.UK as of 30 April 2025. I have assumed those statistics to be accurate. If I rely upon statistics published on GOV.UK in the paragraphs which follow I will say so.

4.186. With those introductory remarks, let me address the question which I posed in paragraph 4.184 above.

4.187. Between August 2022 and 30 April 2023, i.e. in the period immediately following Lord Dyson’s Neutral Evaluation, 53 claims for non-pecuniary losses were settled. By 28 August 2024, 77 claims for non-pecuniary losses had been settled (although that figure includes those claimants who had by then, opted to accept the Fixed Sum Offer of £600,000).

4.188. It follows from the above that 34 persons whose convictions had been quashed had made no claim for non-pecuniary losses by 28 August 2024. By that, I mean that although these persons had been accepted as eligible to make a claim in OCS, they had for whatever reason, decided against submitting a claim in respect of any of their non- pecuniary losses. That said, all of them would have received, or would have been entitled to receive interim payments totalling £200,000.

4.189. Claims in respect of pecuniary losses have been very slow to materialise. The first particularised claim for pecuniary losses was received by the Post Office in or around November 2021. By February 2023, the number of pecuniary loss claims received had risen to eight. A handful of additional claims for pecuniary losses were submitted during 2023 and 2024.

4.190. During the course of his oral evidence on 4 November 2024, Mr Recaldin told me that full and final settlements had been achieved in 61 claims. Accordingly, at that time there were 52 cases which were still unresolved. Of that number, 20 persons had settled their claims for non-pecuniary losses but not their pecuniary losses. There may have been a small number of persons who had settled their pecuniary losses but not their claims for non-pecuniary loss.

4.191. If my arithmetic is correct, that means that as of 4 November 2024, there were a maximum of 32 claims in which neither full and final, nor partial settlements had been achieved. However, as I understand it, each of those claimants had received interim payments of at least £200,000.

4.192. By 29 November 2024, there had been 77 claims made for full and final settlements. Offers in settlement had been made in 68 of those claims and accepted in 63.[169] I infer from the evidence set out in the paragraph immediately following that a very significant percentage of the acceptances were on account of a choice to accept the Fixed Sum Offer.

4.193. By 30 January 2025, 58 claimants had accepted the Fixed Sum Offer of £600,000. It must follow that there were then 53 claimants whose convictions had been quashed who were not prepared to accept £600,000.[170]

4.194. Of those 53 claimants, 16 had submitted full claims, i.e. substantiated claims for pecuniary and non-pecuniary losses. By my reckoning 22 claimants whose convictions have been quashed had submitted no claims at all.

4.195. In his eleventh witness statement dated 30 April 2025, which provides data up to 31 March 2025, Mr Recaldin described the following state of affairs. Of the 111 claimants whose convictions had been quashed by the courts, 62 claimants had accepted the Fixed Sum Offer of £600,000 and eight claimants had accepted a full and final settlement of their assessed claims i.e. 70 claimants had reached final settlements in OCS. I understand that one more claim has settled in full since 31st March 2025, bringing the numbers to nine assessed claims and 71 claimants in total. Of the remaining 41 claimants, 14 had submitted fully particularised claims for pecuniary and non-pecuniary losses. Seven of those claimants had reached settlements in respect of non-pecuniary losses and there were seven claims in which there were ongoing disputes on all aspects of the claim. There were 14 claims (13 non-pecuniary and one pecuniary) in which claimants had made partial claims. Of those, nine of the non-pecuniary claims had been settled but the one pecuniary claim was unresolved. 13 claimants had yet to make any claim (save in respect of interim payments). As I have said, one claim has been assessed by the IAP (See paragraph 4.177 above). I do not know whether this is a claim in which the non- pecuniary loss element had been agreed previously.

4.196. The statistics published on GOV.UK show a very similar picture as of 30 April 2025, though they are presented somewhat differently. By that date, 86 claimants whose convictions had been quashed had submitted fully particularised claims for pecuniary and non-pecuniary losses. 80 offers in settlement had been made and 71 offers had been accepted.

4.197. Of the three current claimants who were prosecuted but not convicted, one has reached a settlement in respect of both pecuniary and non-pecuniary losses i.e. a full and final settlement has been achieved; one has submitted a non-pecuniary claim and one has yet to submit particularised claims.[171]

4.198. By 30 April 2025, £68m (made up of full and final awards and interim payments) had been paid out to claimants according to the statistic published on GOV.UK. £15m had been paid to Herbert Smith Freehills by 2 December 2024 – the last date for which I have information.

[139]

The evidence available to me about this comes from three sources. In his 7th Witness Statement [WITN09890700] at [12/34] Mr Recaldin raised the possibility that there may have been 8 such persons. In his 10th Witness Statement [WITN09891000] at [7/10], Mr Recaldin specified that there are two eligible claimants in that category. In his 11th Witness Statement [WITN09891100] at [2/8] he specified that there are three eligible claimants. I have taken the last of his statements to be accurate.

[140]

The quashing of convictions by the courts is now extremely unlikely given the coming into force of the Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Act 2024 and the equivalent legislation in Scotland. However, there remains a possibility that there are still persons who were acquitted of criminal offences in the courts who are eligible to claim under OCS who have not yet done so.

[141]

See the judgment of the court in Josephine Hamilton and others v Post Office Limited [2021] EWCA Crim 577.

[142]

[POL00448914].

[143]

[UKGI00049063].

[144]

[POL00448915].

[145]

[BEIS0000899] at [7/22] to [7/24].

[146]

Fortunately, this lacuna was short-lived because an announcement heralding the development of GLOS was made in March 2022. See, too, paragraph 3.194 above in respect of Ms Hazzleton.

[147]

Compensation Progress Update 15/08/2024 [INQ00002032] at [26/96] – 11 claims in total in various stages of quantification.

[148]

[SUBS0000039] at [3/12].

[149]

The agreement was approved and implemented in November 2022. See [SUBS0000009] at [11/28].

[150]

[BEIS0000902].

[151]

Compensation Progress Update 15/08/2024 [INQ00002032] at [7/8.5].

[152]

Chair’s Statement on issues relating to Compensation 09/01/2023 [INQ00002033] at [11/35]; First Interim Report: Compensation 17/07/2023 [INQ00002027] at [29/120].

[153]

For a fuller explanation of the rationale see Simon Recaldin 7th Witness Statement [WITN09890700] at [12/35] and [POL00333298] at [3/8] to [4/11].

[154]

[POL00448914] at [2].

[155]

These two settlements are two of the four settlements in which pecuniary losses were finalised prior 27 April 2023.

[156]

Simon Recaldin 7th [WITN09890700] at [28/78].

[157]

Ibid.

[158]

The substance of the neutral evaluation and the pecuniary principles were revealed once HCRS came into being.

[159]

The fixed sum offer of £600,000 was and is not open for acceptance by claimants who were prose- cuted but not convicted – see Simon Recaldin’s 11th Witness Statement [WITN09891100] at [2/FN3].

[160]

Claimants receive a letter setting out the options and the process. [POL00448913] at [4/6.2].

[161]

There is a separate document setting out, in detail, the process for pecuniary claims, [POL00448916].

[162]

It remains the case that there is no internal process for resolving disputes about non-pecuniary loss.

[163]

Simon Recaldin 10th [WITN09891000] at [6/9] Table at paragraph 9; Simon Recaldin 11th [WITN09891100] at [4/12] and [4/FN5].

[164]

[POL00462749].

[165]

Simon Recaldin 7th [WITN09890700] at [13/37].

[166]

Carl Creswell 1st [WITN11730100] at [27/64].

[167]

Ibid at [12/27.6].

[168]

[RLIT0000595].

[169]

[SUBS0000075] at [82/217].

[170]

The evidence set out in this, and the following paragraphs, is to be found in Simon Recaldin’s 10th Witness Statement [WITN09891000] at [6/10].

[171]

I have been made aware of the submission of the pecuniary claim since the provision of Mr Recaldin’s 11th Witness Statement. I do not consider it necessary to seek a further witness on this point.