Re: Post Office scandal. Royal Pardon ?

[Jon Ribbens]

On 2024-01-10, Jethro_uk <jeth...@hotmailbin.com> wrote:
> Why the handwringing over parliament/the government working to exonerate
> the wrongfully convicted postmasters ?
>
> Surely *even* James Cleverly could get a cab to Buck House and ask for a
> signature ?

A pardon means that the people in question are guilty of crimes, but the
state in its infinite munificence has magnanimously forgiven them. These
people are not guilty of crimes. The only existing way to fix that is to
appeal the cases and have a court overturn the conviction - but there are
too many people involved here for that to be feasible in a reasonable
timescale.

[nick]

Only recently courts were approving forced prepayment meters at the rate of dozens per hour - couldn't a similar approach be taken with these exonerations?

Nick

[Theo]

Jethro_uk <jeth...@hotmailbin.com> wrote:
> Why the handwringing over parliament/the government working to exonerate
> the wrongfully convicted postmasters ?
>
> Surely *even* James Cleverly could get a cab to Buck House and ask for a
> signature ?

Does that actually fix the problem, though? Pardoning someone might get
them off jail time, but it doesn't overturn their conviction or expunge
their criminal record.

Quashing their convictions does that, but it's something that's normally the
realm of the court of appeal. Hence the uneasiness over government
overriding that perrogative.

Theo

[Jon Ribbens]

Not using any existing standard procedures, I think. Prepayment meters
don't involve anyone receiving criminal sanctions, and as you say they
already happen en mass, so there were already procedures for doing
those in bulk.

[Jeff Gaines]

On 11/01/2024 in message <uno6d2$g4q$5...@dont-email.me> Jethro_uk wrote:

>On Wed, 10 Jan 2024 23:48:00 +0000, Jon Ribbens wrote:
>
>>On 2024-01-10, Jethro_uk <jeth...@hotmailbin.com> wrote:

>>>[quoted text muted]

>>
>>A pardon means that the people in question are guilty of crimes, but the
>>state in its infinite munificence has magnanimously forgiven them.
>

>How did that work for Timothy Evans ?

That's a very good point of course. With so many miscarriages of justice
coming to light many years too late I really can't understand why we have
people clamouring for the return of the death penalty.

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
You know it's cold outside when you go outside and it's cold.

[Pancho]

On 10/01/2024 23:48, Jon Ribbens wrote:

>
> A pardon means that the people in question are guilty of crimes, but the
> state in its infinite munificence has magnanimously forgiven them. These
> people are not guilty of crimes.

I rather suspect a great many of them are guilty of crimes, but an
unreasonable system caused the crimes.

[Adam Funk]

On 2024-01-11, Jeff Gaines wrote:

> On 11/01/2024 in message <uno6d2$g4q$5...@dont-email.me> Jethro_uk wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 10 Jan 2024 23:48:00 +0000, Jon Ribbens wrote:
>>
>>>On 2024-01-10, Jethro_uk <jeth...@hotmailbin.com> wrote:
>>>>[quoted text muted]
>>>
>>>A pardon means that the people in question are guilty of crimes, but the
>>>state in its infinite munificence has magnanimously forgiven them.
>>
>>How did that work for Timothy Evans ?
>
> That's a very good point of course. With so many miscarriages of justice
> coming to light many years too late I really can't understand why we have
> people clamouring for the return of the death penalty.

"It won't happen to me" and "where there's smoke there's fire".

[Jon Ribbens]

On 2024-01-11, Jethro_uk <jeth...@hotmailbin.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 10 Jan 2024 23:48:00 +0000, Jon Ribbens wrote:

>> On 2024-01-10, Jethro_uk <jeth...@hotmailbin.com> wrote:

>>> [quoted text muted]

>>
>> A pardon means that the people in question are guilty of crimes, but the
>> state in its infinite munificence has magnanimously forgiven them.
>

> How did that work for Timothy Evans ?

Not very well? That's the point? He was also not guilty and shouldn't
have received a pardon but an acquittal instead, but the court system
decided it couldn't be bothered to do that becuase it's a lot of effort.
Which is exactly the same problem with the postmasters, except saying
"can't be bothered" is not good enough because most of them aren't dead.

[Jon Ribbens]

Eh? What crimes do you think they're guilty of? I mean, some of them are
almost certainly guilty of crimes because if you take *any* group of 700
people then some of them will be guilty of something, but "a great many"?

[notya...@gmail.com]

On Thursday 11 January 2024 at 11:58:10 UTC, Jon Ribbens wrote:
> On 2024-01-11, Jethro_uk <jeth...@hotmailbin.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, 10 Jan 2024 23:48:00 +0000, Jon Ribbens wrote:
> >> On 2024-01-10, Jethro_uk <jeth...@hotmailbin.com> wrote:
> >>> [quoted text muted]
> >>
> >> A pardon means that the people in question are guilty of crimes, but the
> >> state in its infinite munificence has magnanimously forgiven them.
> >
> > How did that work for Timothy Evans ?
> Not very well? That's the point? He was also not guilty

twelve members of the jury thought he was. He was certainly involved in an armed robbery / burglary and whilst opinions differ about common purpose he partly convicted due t that.

These days he could probably have copped a plea of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, but not 70 years ago.

> and shouldn't
> have received a pardon but an acquittal instead, but the court system
> decided it couldn't be bothered to do that becuase it's a lot of effort.

and er he was dead...

[JNugent]

I am sure that the PP was referring to the offence of "false
accounting", done in order to get the books to temporarily balance so
that the sub-PO could open for business the next morning. Just such a
case was presented in some detail in the recent ITV drama.

The offence exists and is real. The sup-postmasters/mistresses ought to
have declined to open the next day and taken the matter to the Post
Office for investigation, but some of them did the "work around" which
involved false accounting. Not that it caused any losses to anyone at
all, of course.

[Jon Ribbens]

On 2024-01-11, notya...@gmail.com <notya...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thursday 11 January 2024 at 11:58:10 UTC, Jon Ribbens wrote:
>> On 2024-01-11, Jethro_uk <jeth...@hotmailbin.com> wrote:
>> > On Wed, 10 Jan 2024 23:48:00 +0000, Jon Ribbens wrote:
>> >> On 2024-01-10, Jethro_uk <jeth...@hotmailbin.com> wrote:
>> >>> [quoted text muted]
>> >>
>> >> A pardon means that the people in question are guilty of crimes,
>> >> but the state in its infinite munificence has magnanimously
>> >> forgiven them.
>> >
>> > How did that work for Timothy Evans ?
>> Not very well? That's the point? He was also not guilty
>
> twelve members of the jury thought he was.

So? That means very little given what came out later.

The subpostmasters were also all properly convicted and yet there seems
very little doubt now that almost all of them are certainly innocent.

> He was certainly involved in an armed robbery / burglary and whilst
> opinions differ about common purpose he partly convicted due t that.

Armed robbery? Are you thinking of someone else entirely?

> These days he could probably have copped a plea of manslaughter on the
> grounds of diminished responsibility, but not 70 years ago.
>
>> and shouldn't
>> have received a pardon but an acquittal instead, but the court system
>> decided it couldn't be bothered to do that becuase it's a lot of effort.
>
> and er he was dead...

Yes. Perhaps you should have read to the end of the post before replying.

[Pamela]

It would be interesting to know the average number of subpostmasters
prosecuted each year prior to the Horizon scandal.

Unfortunately I can't see any stats.

It's the sort of thing a Parliamentary overview or scrutinee committee
may have discussed in past years.

[Roger Hayter]

On 11 Jan 2024 at 13:26:16 GMT, "notya...@gmail.com"

<notya...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thursday 11 January 2024 at 11:58:10 UTC, Jon Ribbens wrote:
>> On 2024-01-11, Jethro_uk <jeth...@hotmailbin.com> wrote:
>>> On Wed, 10 Jan 2024 23:48:00 +0000, Jon Ribbens wrote:
>>>> On 2024-01-10, Jethro_uk <jeth...@hotmailbin.com> wrote:
>>>>> [quoted text muted]
>>>>
>>>> A pardon means that the people in question are guilty of crimes, but the
>>>> state in its infinite munificence has magnanimously forgiven them.
>>>
>>> How did that work for Timothy Evans ?
>> Not very well? That's the point? He was also not guilty
>
> twelve members of the jury thought he was. He was certainly involved in an
> armed robbery / burglary and whilst opinions differ about common purpose he
> partly convicted due t that.

I think you're thinking of Derek Bentley. Timothy Evans was hanged for a
murder that a serial killer who gave evidence against him was later hanged
for, among others.

snip

>
--
Roger Hayter

[billy bookcase]

"notya...@gmail.com" <notya...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:859a5449-8927-404b...@googlegroups.com...

>
> twelve members of the jury thought he was. He was certainly involved in an armed
> robbery / burglary and whilst opinions differ about common purpose he partly
> convicted due t that.

ITYM Derek Bentley


bb

[GB]

On 11/01/2024 12:48, Pamela wrote:

> It would be interesting to know the average number of subpostmasters
> prosecuted each year prior to the Horizon scandal.
>
> Unfortunately I can't see any stats.

There were 700 Horizon-based prosecutions amongst around 7000
sub-postmasters. I find it astonishing that nobody stopped to think that
it was odd that 10% of their no doubt carefully vetted people were thieves.

And, what's more, those people were thieving in a way that was bound to
be found out pretty quickly. So obvious that even a woefully dozy
investigator like Stephen Bradshaw could make these charges stick.

Clearly, there was something terribly wrong - either with their
recruitment practices or with the prosecutions - but, nobody in charge
at the PO saw this. And, yet, the only repercussion for this massive
failure is handing back a minor gong.

[Fredxx]

On 11/01/2024 12:48, Pamela wrote:

I thought the representative said a few a year? This article says 5.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jan/10/rishi-sunak-post-office-scandal-pmqs-keir-starmer-uk-politics-live

However the article has since changed. It said, according to google,
"Hollinrake says Baker is probably the only former postmaster in the
Commons. He does not have a number, but he will try to get one, he says.
He says, before Horizon was introduced, there were around five
convictions of sub-post office operators a year. That went up to 60 a
year after Horizon was introduced, he says".

Confirmed by:

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/minister-says-government-considering-plan-to-quash-all-unsafe-post-office-convictions-uk-politics-live/ar-AA1mK9bg

I assume since these are live transcripts things may fall of the 'end'!

[Theo]

Another problem is that the Court of Appeal doesn't always overturn the
convictions if they aren't strictly about Horizon:
https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Hamilton-Others-v-Post-Office-judgment-230421.pdf

"415. We conclude, in the circumstances, that this is not a case in which
Horizon can properly be regarded as having been essential to the case which
POL brought against Mr Fell. It follows that his is not one of those
exceptional and rare cases in which it would be appropriate to conclude that
his conviction is unsafe on either of the abuse of process grounds which are
advanced. We should add in this context that we reject Mr Stein’s
submission that, were we to decide that this is not a category 1 abuse case,
we could nonetheless decide that it is a category 2 abuse case. We see no
basis on which it would be appropriate so to decide, as Mr Moloney correctly
concedes in Mrs Cousins’ case. Mr Fell’s appeal must, therefore, also be
dismissed."

and two others in that hearing.

Theo

[Pancho]

I think they are probably guilty of fraudulent reporting, fudging the
books. Some bureaucratic systems are impossible to work with honestly,
the only way to survive is to misrepresent things.

We see this in the practice of having to sign off the previous day's
accounts before they could start trading the next day. What do you do if
Horizon keeps giving you wrong figures? You can only sign off, or go out
of business. If management catch that you have misreported, it is a
crime, even if it is understandable why these people did it.

We are still seeing this unreasonable attitude now. I think I read that
sub-postmasters are supposed to sign saying they have done nothing
illegal before they can claim compensation.

Please don't assume I know the details of this case. I'm speaking in
generalities, but I do know the pressures of financial reporting,
unreasonable bureaucracy, and human nature.

I'm sure this type of effect has been extensively studied in things like
the collapse of communist 5 year plans, or army generals misreporting
military failure to tyrants.

Similarly, in software development, we recognised it was important to
avoid a blame culture. So that we could understand how problems
occurred. If management sought to excessively blame individuals for a
failure, people would distort the truth in order to protect their own
interests. This made it impossible to understand what had actually
happened. Impossible to avoid it happening again.

[Jon Ribbens]

That may not be wrong, of course. *Some* of the convicted subpostmasters
are probably guilty. But going through the whole laborious appeal process
for every single one in order to weed them out would simply take too long
and cost too much money. So a few guilty people will receive compensation
and apologies they're not entitled to. But that's far better than leaving
hundreds of people with wrongful convictions, and if the Post Office is
unhappy about it then it shouldn't have abused the legal system in the
first place.

[Jon Ribbens]

On 2024-01-11, Pancho <Pancho...@proton.me> wrote:
> On 11/01/2024 11:59, Jon Ribbens wrote:
>> On 2024-01-11, Pancho <Pancho...@proton.me> wrote:
>>> On 10/01/2024 23:48, Jon Ribbens wrote:
>>>> A pardon means that the people in question are guilty of crimes, but the
>>>> state in its infinite munificence has magnanimously forgiven them. These
>>>> people are not guilty of crimes.
>>>
>>> I rather suspect a great many of them are guilty of crimes, but an
>>> unreasonable system caused the crimes.
>>
>> Eh? What crimes do you think they're guilty of? I mean, some of them are
>> almost certainly guilty of crimes because if you take *any* group of 700
>> people then some of them will be guilty of something, but "a great many"?
>
> I think they are probably guilty of fraudulent reporting, fudging the
> books. Some bureaucratic systems are impossible to work with honestly,
> the only way to survive is to misrepresent things.
>
> We see this in the practice of having to sign off the previous day's
> accounts before they could start trading the next day. What do you do if
> Horizon keeps giving you wrong figures? You can only sign off, or go out
> of business. If management catch that you have misreported, it is a
> crime, even if it is understandable why these people did it.

Hmm. I'm pretty sure that isn't or shouldn't be a crime, especially
if they've been instructed to do it by the company they're reporting to.

[billy bookcase]

"Jon Ribbens" <jon+u...@unequivocal.eu> wrote in message
news:slrnuq0fo5.2...@raven.unequivocal.eu...

Indeed

"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer"

William Blackstone

"Commentaries on the Laws of England" 1765-9

[Pancho]

On 11/01/2024 19:24, Jon Ribbens wrote:

>>
>> I think they are probably guilty of fraudulent reporting, fudging the
>> books. Some bureaucratic systems are impossible to work with honestly,
>> the only way to survive is to misrepresent things.
>>
>> We see this in the practice of having to sign off the previous day's
>> accounts before they could start trading the next day. What do you do if
>> Horizon keeps giving you wrong figures? You can only sign off, or go out
>> of business. If management catch that you have misreported, it is a
>> crime, even if it is understandable why these people did it.
>
> Hmm. I'm pretty sure that isn't or shouldn't be a crime, especially
> if they've been instructed to do it by the company they're reporting to.
>

My assumption is that in order to sign off, you have to state your
accounting matches Horizon. e.g. The cash you have in the cash draw
matches Horizon's expectation. The crime would be to misreport your
accounts to match Horizon.

The correct thing would be to report the discrepancy, at which point you
would be blocked from trading the next day.

[JNugent]

On 11/01/2024 06:54 pm, Jethro_uk wrote:

> On Thu, 11 Jan 2024 05:26:16 -0800, notya...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Thursday 11 January 2024 at 11:58:10 UTC, Jon Ribbens wrote:

>>> [quoted text muted]

>
>> twelve members of the jury thought he was. He was certainly involved in
>> an armed robbery / burglary and whilst opinions differ about common
>> purpose he partly convicted due t that.
>

> I was very very careful to chose a case that wasn't ambiguous.
>
> Bentley probably shouldn't have hanged.

According to the law as it stood, it was mandatory (subject to medical
examination and Home Secretary discretion).

> And Ruth Ellis was pretty much the poster child for the death penalty.
> Calculated murder with no care for innocent civilians.

She has got away without too much public distaste for her actions,
hasn't she?

[Jeff]

> I am sure that the PP was referring to the offence of "false
> accounting", done in order to get the books to temporarily balance so
> that the sub-PO could open for business the next morning. Just such a
> case was presented in some detail in the recent ITV drama.
>
> The offence exists and is real. The sup-postmasters/mistresses ought to
> have declined to open the next day and taken the matter to the Post
> Office for investigation, but some of them did the "work around" which
> involved false accounting. Not that it caused any losses to anyone at
> all, of course.
>

The theft Act states:

17False accounting.
(1)Where a person dishonestly, with a view to gain for himself or
another or with intent to cause loss to another,—
(a)destroys, defaces, conceals or falsifies any account or any record or
document made or required for any accounting purpose; or
(b)in furnishing information for any purpose produces or makes use of
any account, or any such record or document as aforesaid, which to his
knowledge is or may be misleading, false or deceptive in a material
particular;he shall, on conviction on indictment, be liable to
imprisonment for a term not exceeding seven years.

So unless there was intent they are still not guilty of the offence.

Jeff

[Jeff]

> My assumption is that in order to sign off, you have to state your
> accounting matches Horizon. e.g. The cash you have in the cash draw
> matches Horizon's expectation. The crime would be to misreport your
> accounts to match Horizon.
>

No crime unless they acted: "dishonestly, with a view to gain for

himself or another or with intent to cause loss"

Jeff

[Jon Ribbens]

Exactly, hence why I'm saying I don't think it's a crime, since that
isn't an option. Plus I bet you if they called the head office helpline
they would have been explicitly instructed to do that, in which case
it's definitely no crime.

[The Todal]

I wonder whether the public inquiry ought to take evidence from some of
the lawyers who were briefed to defend the sub-postmasters in prosecutions.

Did they accept unquestioningly the evidence from the prosecution that
the Horizon system was working properly or did they doubt it? If they
doubted it, did they consider obtaining expert accounting or computing
evidence and if not, why not? If there was no money available to pay an
expert did they complain about this?

Did those lawyers actually believe that there was no defence and that
any protestations of innocence were probably lies, and that the task was
to plea-bargain and get the lowest penalty available?

[Martin Brown]

Very probably. I doubt if any of their clients could afford a forensic
accounting expert witness of the calibre needed to dissect these data.

Right until the very last possible moment the Post Office was
threatening to sue anyone who told the truth about Horizon. They
insisted every time that the computer never lies and that the only
possible explanation for the shortfalls was theft or fraud.

eg

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67884743

They have also been playing multiple delaying tactics ever since the
story first broke in the trade press in 2009. They still are.

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240089230/Bankruptcy-prosecution-and-disrupted-livelihoods-Postmasters-tell-their-story

Their whole MO was to insist that their Horizon system was infallible
and tell each unfortunate post master that they were the only ones to
encounter a problem with it. They also had their heavyweight lawyers
threaten anyone who was prepared to spill the beans. The description of
them behaving like the mafia fits rather well.

It was interesting that in the plea bargaining contract the post masters
were obliged to sign a disclaimer that Horizon had worked correctly
which to me is a smoking gun that the PO knew damn well that it didn't.

After seeing the evidence given by their senior prosecution expert
yesterday I conclude that he is either incredibly clever and playing
dumb or nowhere near the standard I would expect to see in a forensic
accounting prosecutor.

Unless and until some big wigs get prosecuted and jailed as the guiding
minds behind perpetrating this massive injustice ruining innocent
peoples lives nothing will change. The enquiry is a complete waste of
time. Prosecutions of senior individuals might just make a difference.

--
Martin Brown

[Spike]

Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

> https://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240089230/Bankruptcy-prosecution-and-disrupted-livelihoods-Postmasters-tell-their-story

> It was interesting that in the plea bargaining contract the post masters
> were obliged to sign a disclaimer that Horizon had worked correctly
> which to me is a smoking gun that the PO knew damn well that it didn't.

But isn’t that disclaimer essentially worthless?

The SPMs were doubtless trained in how to send the data, and surely that
would be all?

It’s rather like a stoker on the Titanic signing a declaration that the
ship was unsinkable; such things are far beyond his knowledge.

“We loaded the data, pressed the Send button, it stopped half way through,
so we sent it again” is about all they could say of the system.

The disclaimer ploy smacks more of a very heavy-handed PO trying to keep a
lid on things.

> Prosecutions of senior individuals might just make a difference.

What’s the betting it will never happen.

--
Spike

[Martin Brown]

On 12/01/2024 16:59, Spike wrote:
> Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> https://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240089230/Bankruptcy-prosecution-and-disrupted-livelihoods-Postmasters-tell-their-story
>
>> It was interesting that in the plea bargaining contract the post masters
>> were obliged to sign a disclaimer that Horizon had worked correctly
>> which to me is a smoking gun that the PO knew damn well that it didn't.
>
> But isn’t that disclaimer essentially worthless?

It makes them keep their mouths shut for fear of even worse things
happening to them - all very mafiosa style. The PO's MO.

> The SPMs were doubtless trained in how to send the data, and surely that
> would be all?
>
> It’s rather like a stoker on the Titanic signing a declaration that the
> ship was unsinkable; such things are far beyond his knowledge.
>
> “We loaded the data, pressed the Send button, it stopped half way through,
> so we sent it again” is about all they could say of the system.
>
> The disclaimer ploy smacks more of a very heavy-handed PO trying to keep a
> lid on things.

Almost certainly but it strongly suggests that they knew the system was
very badly flawed. I reckon that the public enquiry is a time wasting
exercise to take any civil claims beyond some statute of limitations.

This has been an open secret since 2009 but more than a decade on SFA
has been done to compensate the poor sods who lost their livelihoods and
new prosecutions continued for an unreasonably long time.

>> Prosecutions of senior individuals might just make a difference.
>
> What’s the betting it will never happen.

TBH I think hell will freeze over first.

I doubt if Fujitsu will ever pay a fine or if anyone other than UK
taxpayers will pay compensation to those so badly affected.

--
Martin Brown

[Roger Hayter]

On 12 Jan 2024 at 16:59:36 GMT, "Spike" <aero....@mail.com> wrote:

> Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> https://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240089230/Bankruptcy-prosecution-and-disrupted-livelihoods-Postmasters-tell-their-story
>
>> It was interesting that in the plea bargaining contract the post masters
>> were obliged to sign a disclaimer that Horizon had worked correctly
>> which to me is a smoking gun that the PO knew damn well that it didn't.
>
> But isn’t that disclaimer essentially worthless?
>
> The SPMs were doubtless trained in how to send the data, and surely that
> would be all?
>
> It’s rather like a stoker on the Titanic signing a declaration that the
> ship was unsinkable; such things are far beyond his knowledge.
>
> “We loaded the data, pressed the Send button, it stopped half way through,
> so we sent it again” is about all they could say of the system.
>
> The disclaimer ploy smacks more of a very heavy-handed PO trying to keep a
> lid on things.

I think it is much worse than that. As you say, they know nothing of Horizon's
working so the only way they can *know* that Horizon is correct is by
*knowing* that they deliberately or inadvertently made an incorrect entry. So
the prosecution only has to prove it was deliberate; and usually a significant
number of discrepancies can only be explained by deliberate action. So the
"disclaimer" amounted to a confession.

>
>> Prosecutions of senior individuals might just make a difference.
>
> What’s the betting it will never happen.


--

Roger Hayter

[Roland Perry]

In message <unrj30$3g95f$1...@dont-email.me>, at 14:41:26 on Fri, 12 Jan
2024, Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> remarked:

>Right until the very last possible moment the Post Office was
>threatening to sue anyone who told the truth about Horizon.

It's worse than that, the threat was to fire them, and leave the
community who relied upon them daily without a sub-postoffice.
--
Roland Perry

[SH]

On 12/01/2024 13:59, The Todal wrote:

Maybe I am legally naive but I thought that in criminal investgations:

You had to look for a motive? e.g. gambling addiction, debts, etc and
prove it?

I also thought you also have to look for corroborating evidence to prove
the "loss"...

It appears the prosecution was relying on just one piece of evidence,
that being the Horizon report that states XXX pounds and YY pence is
missing.

Was there unexpained amounts of cash found during a search, was there
unexplained deposits put into a personal bank account? Was there betting
slips showing evidence of spending beyond one's means?

Was the CCTV checked to see who was comitting the fraud/theft?

If the sub post master/mistress employed staff did anyone investigate to
corroborate that it was the sub post master/mistress rather than an
employee with their hand in the till or mis typing figures wrongly into
the till terminal?

Relying on just one piece of evidence to prove beyond all reasonable
doubt to secoure a conviction seems to be rather dodogy ground to be on?

Also one does hear of cyber hacks, cyber thefts etc, malware etc as I
assume these horizon terminals were connected over the internet back to
POL so a possible defence could be malware, cyber theft, hackers etc....
so was anything done to posively confirm that these could be ruled out?

Were any independent expert witnesses used to validate or verify that
Horizon was working as described?

Being the technical expert that I am, it very much comes across as
software ebing written in a hurry to meet a monetary budget, a date and
time deadline and to "meet" the design requirements. Was the software
tested, verified and validated against a test plan before being rolled
out as "production ready"?

S.

[billy bookcase]

"SH" <i.l...@spam.com> wrote in message news:untn4t$3stcm$1...@dont-email.me...

>
> Maybe I am legally naive but I thought that in criminal investgations:
> You had to look for a motive? e.g. gambling addiction, debts, etc
> and prove it?

No.

Just consider the case of Lucy Letby the baby murdering nurse

People are still pondering as to what her true motive may have
been.

And in the case of psychpaths, or even just kleptomaniacs, there
may have been no motive at all. other than sheer compulsion

While "motive, means, and opportunity" are often quoted in police
TV dramas that's often simply a device to keep the story moving
along and provide a good source of misdirection

Similarly in a Court of Law as in Letby above, its not necessary to
establish a motive of any kind, before finding a defendant guilty.

>
> I also thought you also have to look for corroborating evidence
> to prove the "loss"...
>
> It appears the prosecution was relying on just one piece of evidence,
> that being the Horizon report that states XXX pounds and YY pence
> is missing.

Indeed. As Private Eye described in the Judge's summing up in the
case of Seema Misra

quote:

On 11 November 2010, a pregnant sub-postmaster from
Surrey was driven out of Guildford crown court in a
prison van to begin a 15-month sentence for theft.
Seema Misra had been convicted of stealing £74,000
in cash from the Post Office branch she ran in West
Byfleet even though, in the trial judge's summing-up: "

" There is no direct evidence of her taking any money...
She adamantly denies stealing. There is no CCTV evidence.
There are no fingerprints or marked bank notes or anything
of that kind. There is no evidence of her accumulating cash
anywhere else or spending large sums of money or paying off
debts, no evidence about her bank accounts at all.
Nothing incriminating was found when her home was searched."

The only evidence was a shortfall of cash compared to what the
Post Office's Horizon computer system said should have been in
the branch.

"Do you accept the prosecution case that there is ample evidence
before you to establish that Horizon is a tried and tested system
in use at thousands of post offices for several years, fundamentally
robust and reliable?" the judge asked the jury.

It did, and pronounced Seema Misra guilty.

:unquote

https://www.private-eye.co.uk/pictures/special_reports/justice-lost-in-the-post.pdf

snip



bb

[Simon Parker]

On 12/01/2024 13:59, The Todal wrote:

I cannot commend to you in strong enough terms the following article
from The Lawyer which gives an overview of the saga from a legal
perspective.

https://www.thelawyer.com/how-justice-done-in-post-office-scandal/

I find the depths to which the Post Office's legal teams sank at times
to be breathtaking.

Regards

S.P.

[Simon Parker]

In the case of Alan Bates, his Horizon terminal presented him with a
shortfall of £6,000.

He printed off a receipt of the entire day's transactions and worked
through it.

In so doing, he managed to find that £5,000 of the "missing" £6,000 was
due to a series (but not all) of Giro payments having gone through the
system twice.

However, despite his best efforts, an explanation for the remaining
£1,000 was never discovered.

And, in the name of completeness, the contract between the Post Office
and the sub postmasters stated that the sub postmaster was responsible
for any losses caused through their own "negligence, carelessness or
error". Additionally, any shortfalls had to be "made good without delay".

Regards

S.P.

[billy bookcase]

"Simon Parker" <simonpa...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:l0m15e...@mid.individual.net...

.
snip

>
> In the case of Alan Bates, his Horizon terminal presented him
with a shortfall of £6,000.
>
> He printed off a receipt of the entire day's transactions and worked
> through it.
> In so doing, he managed to find that £5,000 of the "missing" £6,000
> was due to a series (but not all) of Giro payments having gone through
> the system twice.

But surely if the transactions had gone through twice - the till showed
a total of £10,000 having been paid instead of £5000 then that would
have given him a surplus of £5000

The point was made earlier, by GG, that most sub PO business was paying
out. In which case if there was a tendency for Horizon to "ignore"
such payments, after a break in transmission, rather than double count
them, then this alone might account for the preponderance of losses
over surpluses.

snip


bb

[Pancho]

On 16/01/2024 00:32, Simon Parker wrote:

>
> In the case of Alan Bates, his Horizon terminal presented him with a
> shortfall of £6,000.
>
> He printed off a receipt of the entire day's transactions and worked
> through it.
>
> In so doing, he managed to find that £5,000 of the "missing" £6,000 was
> due to a series (but not all) of Giro payments having gone through the
> system twice.
>
> However, despite his best efforts, an explanation for the remaining
> £1,000 was never discovered.
>
> And, in the name of completeness, the contract between the Post Office
> and the sub postmasters stated that the sub postmaster was responsible
> for any losses caused through their own "negligence, carelessness or
> error".  Additionally, any shortfalls had to be "made good without delay".
>

This contract term seems quite normal, the interesting point would be
how to resolve disputes. The normal way would be to reduce the account
to a sequence of events. Then the process is either an event was
incorrect, or the way the events were aggregated was wrong. An event
might be something like an operation on the till.

I would expect the Sub-post office to have some local way of recording
events that they could reconcile with reality, e.g. the till. Which
appears to be what Bates did, and the Post Office refused to engage with
him. Refused to accept his figures or provide an explanation of their own.

I would guess the problem was that the Horizon system did not provide a
mechanism to break end of day totals down to events. In software terms,
the inability to explain itself, is a more serious failing than
occasionally making mistakes.

The point was they didn't take him to court when he refused to accept
their figures, because, I suspect, they knew they would have to provide
evidence, justify their figures.

So my assumption was that they people who were taken to court hadn't
disputed Horizon's figures, in a timely way, which is false accounting.
In effect, they were bullied into making a false confession, in a system
where making a false confession is a crime, can't be retracted.

FWIW, I had an argument with an accountant, about my business accounts,
circa 2000. It was like getting blood from a stone to get them to give
me a breakdown, they did in the end, but in a most unhelpful way, an
unformatted printout. Hopefully software has improved since then.

[Pancho]

On 16/01/2024 10:24, billy bookcase wrote:
> "Simon Parker" <simonpa...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:l0m15e...@mid.individual.net...
>
> .
> snip
>
>>
>> In the case of Alan Bates, his Horizon terminal presented him

> with a shortfall of Ł6,000.

>>
>> He printed off a receipt of the entire day's transactions and worked
>> through it.

>> In so doing, he managed to find that Ł5,000 of the "missing" Ł6,000

>> was due to a series (but not all) of Giro payments having gone through
>> the system twice.
>
> But surely if the transactions had gone through twice - the till showed

> a total of Ł10,000 having been paid instead of Ł5000 then that would
> have given him a surplus of Ł5000

>
> The point was made earlier, by GG, that most sub PO business was paying
> out. In which case if there was a tendency for Horizon to "ignore"
> such payments, after a break in transmission, rather than double count
> them, then this alone might account for the preponderance of losses
> over surpluses.
>

Money in and out will balance, approximately, as much in as out. I think
the duplication was in Horizon, not the till. Or maybe the till was part
of Horizon, and he could see a sequence of double payments at the same
time, same amount, which would be impossible/unlikely. Something he
would have remembered if it had happened.

A communication fail can lead to double processing, for instance an
acknowledgment may get lost, causing the local system to resend data.
Really speaking, they should make transactions idempotent. Meaning,
applying the same transaction multiple times is the same as applying it
once. The fact that software developers have a term for this,
idempotent, shows it is a common problem.


>
>
>

[Roland Perry]

In message <uo5qo4$1cqtk$1...@dont-email.me>, at 11:53:39 on Tue, 16 Jan
2024, Pancho <Pancho...@proton.me> remarked:

>FWIW, I had an argument with an accountant, about my business accounts,
>circa 2000. It was like getting blood from a stone to get them to give
>me a breakdown, they did in the end, but in a most unhelpful way, an
>unformatted printout. Hopefully software has improved since then.

I'm still trying to finalise my late mother's estate about four years
after she died.

The first set of solicitors dragged their knuckles for about three
years, at which point I said "send me all the money you've collected,
and I'll DIY collecting the remaining sums you are either unable or
unwilling to, for reasons you are either unable or unwilling to explain
to me".

They sent me the money (to a first approximation, their spreadsheet
literally didn't add up) but had nothing to say about the taxes
potentially due on appreciating assets suspended during the probate
process, which would be essential for me to know because the will
allocates various percentages of the final total, rather than fixed
sums of money.

So I commissioned a second set of solicitors to finish the job
(including getting that spreadsheet to add-up), which four months
later they aren't succeeding in doing because they claim the first set
of solicitors have claimed to have "lost the file" which #2 say is an
essential input.

This has so many overlaps with the Horizon process, I'm very grateful to
ITV for re-invigorating me to get to the bottom of it.
--
Roland Perry

[Jeff Layman]

Fascinating - and depressing - reading. Something is indeed rotten in
the state of Denmark.

I assume Gwyneth Hughes (the writer of "Mr Bates vs The Post Office")
used it as the basis for the series.

Have you seen this?
<https://www.civillitigationbrief.com/2024/01/15/mr-bates-and-the-post-office-5-attempts-to-put-the-court-in-terrorem-were-not-welcome/>

It does answer one of the points raised earlier about any possible
financial gains by the SPM caused by Horizon rather than only losses.
See para 10: "Some Claimants were lucky enough to find accounting
irregularities in their favour. Others were convicted in the criminal
courts of false accounting, fraud, theft or other offences, and some
were imprisoned."

Perhaps your link, the link above, and
<https://www.civillitigationbrief.com/2024/01/11/mr-bates-and-the-post-office-3-the-post-offices-application-that-the-judge-recuse-themselves-because-he-was-biased-against-them/>
could be added as "bonus material" to any DVD of "Mr Bates vs The Post
Office" issued.

--

Jeff

[Mike Scott]

On 16/01/2024 12:07, Pancho wrote:
.....

>
> A communication fail can lead to double processing, for instance an
> acknowledgment may get lost, causing the local system to resend data.
> Really speaking, they should make transactions idempotent. Meaning,
> applying the same transaction multiple times is the same as applying it
> once. The fact that software developers have a term for this,
> idempotent, shows it is a common problem.
>

Hardly a new problem. Even back then, methinks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transaction_processing



--
Mike Scott
Harlow, England

[Simon Parker]

On 16/01/2024 11:53, Pancho wrote:
> On 16/01/2024 00:32, Simon Parker wrote:
>
>> In the case of Alan Bates, his Horizon terminal presented him with a
>> shortfall of £6,000.
>>
>> He printed off a receipt of the entire day's transactions and worked
>> through it.
>>
>> In so doing, he managed to find that £5,000 of the "missing" £6,000
>> was due to a series (but not all) of Giro payments having gone through
>> the system twice.
>>
>> However, despite his best efforts, an explanation for the remaining
>> £1,000 was never discovered.
>>
>> And, in the name of completeness, the contract between the Post Office
>> and the sub postmasters stated that the sub postmaster was responsible
>> for any losses caused through their own "negligence, carelessness or
>> error".  Additionally, any shortfalls had to be "made good without
>> delay".
>>
>
> This contract term seems quite normal, the interesting point would be
> how to resolve disputes. The normal way would be to reduce the account
> to a sequence of events. Then the process is either an event was
> incorrect, or the way the events were aggregated was wrong. An event
> might be something like an operation on the till.

One known issue is the so-called "Dalmellington Bug" [1]. This bug
involved the Horizon terminal intermittently freezing when the SPM was
attempting to confirm the receipt of cash. The process was something
like: SPM starts transaction for receipt of cash, keys in the amount
received and presses <Enter> to complete the transaction. Terminal
freezes. SPM hits <Enter> again. Still frozen. Another press of the
<Enter> key. At some point, the terminal unfreezes and proceeds to
record receipt of the money three times because the <Enter> key was
pressed three times. Till is now down two times the amount of cash
received as it has three receipts for cash recorded but only one lot of
cash deposited in the till.

In Dalmellington, a transaction for a deposit of £8,000 cash was
identified where the SPM pressed enter four times thereby creating a
"shortfall" of £24K.

Google "Dalmellington Bug" if you want to read the tale of woe of the
SPM involved and how a known bug was dealt with by Post Office and
Fujitsu tech support. (Spoiler alert: It was an intermittent bug so
they initially denied there was a problem, despite there being clear
evidence of it having happened in Dalmellington and elsewhere. When
they eventually acknowledged that there was a bug, they resolved to
issue a fix to the affected software in five month's time!)

Additionally, if no bug was acknowledged, and a SPM reported a
discrepancy, the Post Office "investigators" were grossly miss-named.
They were not there to "investigate" the discrepancy. The default
position was that Horizon was correct and the SPM had stolen the money.
As I've said previously, they were paid bonuses dependent upon how much
money they "recovered" rather than on how many queries they resolved.

A case where Horizon was at fault meant no money to repay and therefore
no bonus.

The "investigators" were not there to investigate. Their role was to
get the SPM to return the money, not first ensuring that the money had
actually been taken.

> I would expect the Sub-post office to have some local way of recording
> events that they could reconcile with reality, e.g. the till. Which
> appears to be what Bates did, and the Post Office refused to engage with
> him. Refused to accept his figures or provide an explanation of their own.

The "till" is more accurately an EPOS terminal connected to the Horizon
system. More on what Bates did below...

> I would guess the problem was that the Horizon system did not provide a
> mechanism to break end of day totals down to events. In software terms,
> the inability to explain itself, is a more serious failing than
> occasionally making mistakes.

It was possible to print out a listing of the day's events at the end of
the day. But it was on small "till roll" type paper and so was far from
ideal. This is what Bates did and this allowed him to find some of the
missing money. From memory, I think this may have been the "Callendar
Square / Falkirk Bug" [1] where the Horizon system intermittently
duplicated transactions from earlier in the day / from the previous day.

There was another bug, a variation of the Dalmellington Bug where a
terminal would freeze mid-transaction so the SPM would go to a different
terminal and complete the transaction there. When the first terminal
unfroze it logged the transaction too meaning the transaction has been
logged twice on two different terminals but only physically carried
completed on one of them leading to a discrepancy.

> The point was they didn't take him to court when he refused to accept
> their figures, because, I suspect, they knew they would have to provide
> evidence, justify their figures.
>
> So my assumption was that they people who were taken to court hadn't
> disputed Horizon's figures, in a timely way, which is false accounting.
> In effect, they were bullied into making a false confession, in a system
> where making a false confession is a crime, can't be retracted.

Horizon required the SPM to confirm at the end of each day that the
stock and cash on hand matched that stated by Horizon. If it didn't and
they reported this fact, it would likely trigger an "investigation" (see
above for why SPMs did not consider this a "good thing" (TM).
Additionally, whilst under investigation, the Post Office could not operate.

Therefore, when there was a small discrepancy between reality and the
Horizon total, some SPMs made up the "shortfall" from their own funds.
As you say, this is false accounting and many of the SPMs were
technically guilty of this.

However, it should be borne in mind that because these were private
prosecutions, SPMs did not automatically have access to legal advice
when being interviewed by the Post Office "investigators", beyond that
proffered by said "investigators", and so may have "confessed" to things
without being fully aware of their legal rights.

> FWIW, I had an argument with an accountant, about my business accounts,
> circa 2000. It was like getting blood from a stone to get them to give
> me a breakdown, they did in the end, but in a most unhelpful way, an
> unformatted printout. Hopefully software has improved since then.

Software has definitely moved on since 2000. However, these changes may
not have yet reached your accountant's systems. :-)

Regards

S.P.

[1] Many of the now known bugs in Horizon are named after the village in
which the post office branch first identified to be affected by the bug
is located.

[Simon Parker]

On 16/01/2024 13:26, Jeff Layman wrote:
> On 16/01/2024 00:31, Simon Parker wrote:
>> On 12/01/2024 13:59, The Todal wrote:

>>> I wonder whether the public inquiry ought to take evidence from some of
>>> the lawyers who were briefed to defend the sub-postmasters in
>>> prosecutions.
>>>
>>> Did they accept unquestioningly the evidence from the prosecution that
>>> the Horizon system was working properly or did they doubt it? If they
>>> doubted it, did they consider obtaining expert accounting or computing
>>> evidence and if not, why not? If there was no money available to pay an
>>> expert did they complain about this?
>>>
>>> Did those lawyers actually believe that there was no defence and that
>>> any protestations of innocence were probably lies, and that the task was
>>> to plea-bargain and get the lowest penalty available?
>>
>> I cannot commend to you in strong enough terms the following article
>> from The Lawyer which gives an overview of the saga from a legal
>> perspective.
>>
>> https://www.thelawyer.com/how-justice-done-in-post-office-scandal/
>>
>> I find the depths to which the Post Office's legal teams sank at times
>> to be breathtaking.
>
> Fascinating - and depressing - reading. Something is indeed rotten in
> the state of Denmark.

Indeed.

> I assume Gwyneth Hughes (the writer of "Mr Bates vs The Post Office")
> used it as the basis for the series.

I confess that I haven't actually watched it yet, but it is on my "to
watch" list.

> Have you seen this?
> <https://www.civillitigationbrief.com/2024/01/15/mr-bates-and-the-post-office-5-attempts-to-put-the-court-in-terrorem-were-not-welcome/>

I have yes. And I've read the majority, if not all, of the judgments
which do not make pleasant reading in large portions.

> It does answer one of the points raised earlier about any possible
> financial gains by the SPM caused by Horizon rather than only losses.
> See para 10: "Some Claimants were lucky enough to find accounting
> irregularities in their favour. Others were convicted in the criminal
> courts of false accounting, fraud, theft or other offences, and some
> were imprisoned."
>
> Perhaps your link, the link above, and
> <https://www.civillitigationbrief.com/2024/01/11/mr-bates-and-the-post-office-3-the-post-offices-application-that-the-judge-recuse-themselves-because-he-was-biased-against-them/> could be added as "bonus material" to any DVD of "Mr Bates vs The Post Office" issued.

It will be interesting to see how things develop from this point on,
both to resolve this issue and, hopefully, to prevent something similar
ever happening again. (The Post Office having voluntarily stated they
will no longer bring private prosecutions may in itself be sufficient,
but they, like the RSPCA who've done similar, are not prevented from
doing so meaning I'd like to see some legislative safeguards.)

Regards

S.P.

[Pamela]

On 09:11 17 Jan 2024, Simon Parker said:
>
> [SNIP]

>
> Google "Dalmellington Bug" if you want to read the tale of woe of the
> SPM involved and how a known bug was dealt with by Post Office and
> Fujitsu tech support. (Spoiler alert: It was an intermittent bug so
> they initially denied there was a problem, despite there being clear
> evidence of it having happened in Dalmellington and elsewhere. When
> they eventually acknowledged that there was a bug, they resolved to
> issue a fix to the affected software in five month's time!)
>
> Additionally, if no bug was acknowledged, and a SPM reported a
> discrepancy, the Post Office "investigators" were grossly miss-named.
> They were not there to "investigate" the discrepancy. The default
> position was that Horizon was correct and the SPM had stolen the
> money. As I've said previously, they were paid bonuses dependent upon
> how much money they "recovered" rather than on how many queries they
> resolved.
>
> A case where Horizon was at fault meant no money to repay and
> therefore no bonus.
>
> The "investigators" were not there to investigate. Their role was to
> get the SPM to return the money, not first ensuring that the money had
> actually been taken.

You appear to still have stamina to still look into these cases but I'm
reaching a stage where I'm numbed by the scale of the Horizon scandal
with a near-endless succession of outrages each enabled by utterley
appalling behaviour of those in authority as they deliberately subverted
justice by pinning blame on innocents.

Yet news of more Horizon injustices keep coming like some sort of
production line.

What did the Post Office think it as doing as it hid excess money
received from false "reimibursements" and unjustified fines? Their
internal accounts could not have balanced and the accountants must have
magicked away the surpluses.

Excuse me while I sit down at the scale of this scandal.

[Simon Parker]

I am keenly interested in what is often termed the greatest miscarriage
of justice in British history and have been watching it since the early
reports in Computer Weekly and The Register.

I am disappointed it has taken this long to finally gain widespread
notice and wait to see how things transpire from this point forward.

> What did the Post Office think it as doing as it hid excess money
> received from false "reimibursements" and unjustified fines? Their
> internal accounts could not have balanced and the accountants must have
> magicked away the surpluses.

Not necessarily. Take the Dalmellington Bug as an example mentioned
previously. Customer deposits £250 cash but the Horizon system records
this multiple times, (lets say three to keep the next bit easy).

According to the Horizon system, the post office counter in question has
received £750 in cash as three separate transactions of £250 each.
However, there's only an additional £250 in the cash drawer.

If the SPM puts £500 of their own money in so that the money in the cash
drawer balances with what Horizon claims should be there, (either when
Horizon advises them is necessary at the end of the day, or when
"investigators" advise them that they are being investigated for the
missing £500), there is no "surplus". The cash in the drawer now
balances with what Horizon claims should be there.

It was easy to spot in the original Dalmellington case because it was an
£8,000 deposit and was recorded 4 times giving rise to Horizon claiming
a shortfall of £24,000 so the SPM was aware of the issue immediately and
could inform the Horizon Help Desk, (and post about it on the various
discussion groups frequented by SPMs), and got the Union involved, who
generated a front-page headline in Computer Weekly.

Personally, I'd expect a shortfall of that nature to have been passed
off to someone more senior that a front-line tech support call handler
but that isn't what happened.

> Excuse me while I sit down at the scale of this scandal.

I am interested in not only the behaviour of the Post Office and Horizon
but also of the underlying legislation, principally the Criminal
Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 [1], but also the seeming
inability of the judiciary to do anything about the matter despite
holding grave reservations concerning disclosure.

Rather than make a lengthy post on the subject, this article by Neil
Hawes KC at Crucible chambers covers all the salient points:

https://crucible.law/insights/fault-lines-exposed-in-the-criminal-justice-system-the-post-office-horizon-scandal

The judgment discussed in the article, is simply referred to as
"Hamilton" but the full title and neutral citation is Hamilton & Ors v
Post Office Ltd [2021] EWCA Crim 577 [1]

Consider, for example, the advice of Simon Clarke, a barrister employed
by a firm of solicitors which was instructed by POL in relation to
prosecutions, given in paragraphs [88-89] of the judgment.

<Begin quote>
88. Mr Clarke wrote a further advice on 2 August 2013. From this it is
apparent that, before sending his earlier advice, he had advised POL in
conference on 3 July 2013. At that conference he had advised the
creation of a single hub to collate all Horizon-related defects, bugs,
complaints, queries and Fujitsu remedies, so there would be a single
source of information for disclosure purposes in future prosecutions.
POL had accepted his advice and had set up a weekly conference call,
three of which had taken place by the time Mr Clarke wrote his later
advice. After the third, he said, the following
information had been relayed to him:

"(i) The minutes of a previous call had been typed and emailed to a
number of persons. An instruction was then given that those emails and
minutes should be, and have been, destroyed: the word 'shredded' was
conveyed to me.

"(ii) Handwritten minutes were not to be typed and should be forwarded
to POL Head of Security.

"(iii) Advice had been given to POL which I report as relayed to me
verbatim: 'If it's not minuted it's not in the public domain and
therefore not disclosable.' 'If it's produced it's available for
disclosure - if not minuted then technically it's not.'

"(iv) Some at POL do not wish to minute the weekly conference calls."

89. Mr Clarke then set out the relevant provisions governing disclosure.
He emphasised the seriousness of any attempt to abrogate the duty to
record and retain material, observing that a decision to do so may well
amount to a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. He ended with
the following:

"Regardless of the position in civil law, any advice to the effect that,
if material is not minuted or otherwise written down, it does not fall
to be disclosed is, in the field of criminal law, wrong. It is wrong in
law and principle and such a view represents a failing to fully
appreciate the duties of fairness and integrity placed upon a
prosecutor’s shoulders."
<End Quote>

Reading the text of Mr Clarke's advice in full [2], it is clear that the
Post Office were not complying with the rules for disclosure.

Similarly, in an earlier advice [3], Mr Clarke gave strongly worded
advice to the Post Office about their apparent lack of understanding and
compliance with the rules for disclosure.

The SRA is a core participant in the Horizon Inquiry and so cannot being
regulatory action against its members until the inquiry is complete.

Chair of the Bar Council Nick Vineall KC has said similar.

"The Post Office scandal was a catastrophic miscarriage of justice, and
it is important that we understand how and why the justice system wasn't
working, and the role played by lawyers throughout the process. There
are bound to be important lessons for us to learn.

"We anticipate that some lawyers will come out of it well and some
lawyers will face heavy criticism. Ultimately, the assessment of
whether individuals' actions fell short of their professional
obligations will be matters for the BSB or the SRA or other front-line
regulators, who will need to understand exactly what the lawyers were
instructed to do and what information was available to them.

"There will rightly be continued intense interest in the hearings, but
it would no t be appropriate for the Bar Council to give a running
commentary. However, we will be following the proceedings carefully and
will give anxious scrutiny to the conclusions which the inquiry
eventually reaches on the role of lawyers."

See also the column by Nick Vineall KCs in the July 2023 issue of
Counsel in which he comments on the appropriateness of private
prosecutions being brought by corporate bodies. [4]

"The ongoing enquiries into the Post Office Horizon scandal have
highlighted the critical importance of the independence of lawyers. It
is often easier for external lawyers to be independent of their client
than internal lawyers, but it is just as important that in-house lawyers
are independent. This is most acutely the case when the lawyer's
employer can bring prosecutions. The scandal will surely bring into
question the appropriateness of private prosecutions brought by
corporate bodies."

In short, I don't see this just being about the Post Office and Horizon.

Regards

S.P.

[1] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1996/25/contents
[2]
https://www.postofficescandal.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/20130802-Clarke-advice-re-shredding-1.pdf
[3]
https://www.postofficescandal.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Clarke-advice-re-Jenkins.pdf
[4]
https://www.counselmagazine.co.uk/articles/engaging-with-lawyers-legislation-reform

[Martin Brown]

On 18/01/2024 16:39, Simon Parker wrote:
> On 17/01/2024 12:17, Pamela wrote:
>> On 09:11  17 Jan 2024, Simon Parker said:
>>>
>>> [SNIP]

>>> The "investigators" were not there to investigate.  Their role was to
>>> get the SPM to return the money, not first ensuring that the money had
>>> actually been taken.

They were basically mafia thugs on a bonus for getting the poor
unfortunate and innocent postmasters to confess to their "crimes".

>> You appear to still have stamina to still look into these cases but I'm
>> reaching a stage where I'm numbed by the scale of the Horizon scandal
>> with a near-endless succession of outrages each enabled by utterley
>> appalling behaviour of those in authority as they deliberately subverted
>> justice by pinning blame on innocents.
>>
>> Yet news of more Horizon injustices keep coming like some sort of
>> production line.
>
> I am keenly interested in what is often termed the greatest miscarriage
> of justice in British history and have been watching it since the early
> reports in Computer Weekly and The Register.
>
> I am disappointed it has taken this long to finally gain widespread
> notice and wait to see how things transpire from this point forward.

But not surprised. A mere 2 decades - plenty of time for the most guilty
individuals in the relevant organisations to have moved on.

>> What did the Post Office think it as doing as it hid excess money
>> received from false "reimibursements" and unjustified fines? Their
>> internal accounts could not have balanced and the accountants must have
>> magicked away the surpluses.
>
> Not necessarily.  Take the Dalmellington Bug as an example mentioned
> previously.  Customer deposits £250 cash but the Horizon system records
> this multiple times, (lets say three to keep the next bit easy).
>
> According to the Horizon system, the post office counter in question has
> received £750 in cash as three separate transactions of £250 each.
> However, there's only an additional £250 in the cash drawer.

They would (or rather should) be logged as three transactions of £250
with impossibly short timestamps between them. I was once a victim of a
similar fraud in a transit restaraunt at Chicago airport where they
somehow charged me twice for the same meal. Barclaycard fraud accepted
that it was highly unlikely as a lone traveller that I would eat exactly
the same stuff twice at one sitting and so a chargeback was made.

> If the SPM puts £500 of their own money in so that the money in the cash
> drawer balances with what Horizon claims should be there, (either when
> Horizon advises them is necessary at the end of the day, or when
> "investigators" advise them that they are being investigated for the
> missing £500), there is no "surplus".  The cash in the drawer now
> balances with what Horizon claims should be there.

I suspect a lot of honest subpostmasters did exactly that for modest
amounts where the system was out of balance. My friends in local village
post offices had no end of difficulty with it locking up and then
showing money missing (or very rarely surplus).

> It was easy to spot in the original Dalmellington case because it was an
> £8,000 deposit and was recorded 4 times giving rise to Horizon claiming
> a shortfall of £24,000 so the SPM was aware of the issue immediately and
> could inform the Horizon Help Desk, (and post about it on the various
> discussion groups frequented by SPMs), and got the Union involved, who
> generated a front-page headline in Computer Weekly.
>
> Personally, I'd expect a shortfall of that nature to have been passed
> off to someone more senior that a front-line tech support call handler
> but that isn't what happened.

What is damning is that the so called "investigators" were able to keep
themselves blissfully unaware of these major failings.

That all smacks of criminal conspiracy to me.
Why are we wasting time on a public enquiry?

> 89. Mr Clarke then set out the relevant provisions governing disclosure.
> He emphasised the seriousness of any attempt to abrogate the duty to
> record and retain material, observing that a decision to do so may well
> amount to a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. He ended with
> the following:
>
> "Regardless of the position in civil law, any advice to the effect that,
> if material is not minuted or otherwise written down, it does not fall
> to be disclosed is, in the field of criminal law, wrong. It is wrong in
> law and principle and such a view represents a failing to fully
> appreciate the duties of fairness and integrity placed upon a
> prosecutor’s shoulders."
> <End Quote>
>
> Reading the text of Mr Clarke's advice in full [2], it is clear that the
> Post Office were not complying with the rules for disclosure.

And the key players and guiding minds should be prosecuted for their
actions to the maximum extent possible under the law. Jail terms are
essential to encourage others not to follow this path in future.

> Similarly, in an earlier advice [3], Mr Clarke gave strongly worded
> advice to the Post Office about their apparent lack of understanding and
> compliance with the rules for disclosure.
>
> The SRA is a core participant in the Horizon Inquiry and so cannot being
> regulatory action against its members until the inquiry is complete.
>
> Chair of the Bar Council Nick Vineall KC has said similar.
>
> "The Post Office scandal was a catastrophic miscarriage of justice, and
> it is important that we understand how and why the justice system wasn't
> working, and the role played by lawyers throughout the process. There
> are bound to be important lessons for us to learn.

Aren't POL and the lawyers acting for them in pursuing prosecutions
guilty of deliberately with holding relevant evidence from the defence?
Put more bluntly conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

Why can't they be criminally prosecuted for this?

>
> "We anticipate that some lawyers will come out of it well and some
> lawyers will face heavy criticism.  Ultimately, the assessment of
> whether individuals' actions fell short of their professional
> obligations will be matters for the BSB or the SRA or other front-line
> regulators, who will need to understand exactly what the lawyers were
> instructed to do and what information was available to them.

"I am not a technical person" seems to be the legalese "get out of jail
free" card defence that their legal advisers have come up with.

Colour me cynical if you like but I don't see how anyone who was up to
the job of making forensic accounting prosecutions could not have seen
an obvious pattern in the systematic faults (which were reported in the
technical press at the time). There must be some cutoff date where every
new prosecution could be consider malicious and unsafe.

> "There will rightly be continued intense interest in the hearings, but
> it would no t be appropriate for the Bar Council to give a running
> commentary. However, we will be following the proceedings carefully and
> will give anxious scrutiny to the conclusions which the inquiry
> eventually reaches on the role of lawyers."
>
> See also the column by Nick Vineall KCs in the July 2023 issue of
> Counsel in which he comments on the appropriateness of private
> prosecutions being brought by corporate bodies. [4]
>
> "The ongoing enquiries into the Post Office Horizon scandal have
> highlighted the critical importance of the independence of lawyers.  It
> is often easier for external lawyers to be independent of their client
> than internal lawyers, but it is just as important that in-house lawyers
> are independent.  This is most acutely the case when the lawyer's
> employer can bring prosecutions. The scandal will surely bring into
> question the appropriateness of private prosecutions brought by
> corporate bodies."
>
> In short, I don't see this just being about the Post Office and Horizon.

Perhaps not but the only thing I expect to come out of this enquiry is
some Pontius Pilate style hand wringing and a lame promise that it could
never happen again and "lessons will be learned" (until the next time).

--
Martin Brown

[Pamela]

>> utterly appalling behaviour of those in authority as they

>> deliberately subverted justice by pinning blame on innocents.
>>
>> Yet news of more Horizon injustices keep coming like some sort of
>> production line.
>
> I am keenly interested in what is often termed the greatest
> miscarriage of justice in British history and have been watching it
> since the early reports in Computer Weekly and The Register.
>
> I am disappointed it has taken this long to finally gain widespread
> notice and wait to see how things transpire from this point forward.
>
>
>> What did the Post Office think it as doing as it hid excess money

>> received from false "reimbursements" and unjustified fines? Their

>> internal accounts could not have balanced and the accountants must
>> have magicked away the surpluses.
>
> Not necessarily. Take the Dalmellington Bug as an example mentioned
> previously. Customer deposits £250 cash but the Horizon system
> records this multiple times, (lets say three to keep the next bit
> easy).
>
> According to the Horizon system, the post office counter in question
> has received £750 in cash as three separate transactions of £250 each.
> However, there's only an additional £250 in the cash drawer.
>

> If the SPM puts £500 of their own money in so that the money in the

Thanks for those links and quotations. Simon Clarke's advice to the Post
Office to shred or generally not retain minutes is shocking. The SRA's
reluctance to act quickly in all this but instead wait until the end of
the inquiry, shows a startling lack of responsiveness. The most
interesting of your links is the article by Neil Hawkes at Crucible Law,
where he reflects on systemic problems in the legal system. It's one to
keep.

The actions of those in authority have been corrupt and cruel. That may
be a frequent criticism by those who lose in the courts but in this case
such an assessment seems more than justified. I'm told Britain has an
enviable reputation for justice, which results in many international
cases being heard here but the Horizon scandal is giving this reputation
a good hard knock at a time we're trying get over the unedifying
Parliamentary shenanigans over Brexit which so many foreigners laughed
at.

[Simon Parker]

On 23/01/2024 12:46, Pamela wrote:
> On 16:39 18 Jan 2024, Simon Parker said:

[big snip]

> Thanks for those links and quotations.

You're welcome.

> Simon Clarke's advice to the Post
> Office to shred or generally not retain minutes is shocking.

I fear you have misunderstood Mr Clarke's advice, which was at all
times, to the best of my knowledge, fully compliant with the rules of
disclosure, something he went to great lengths on a number of occasions
to point out to the Post Office that their current policies and
procedures were not compliant.

Summarising as best as I can, Mr Clarke advised the Post Office to
create a central hub to collate and disseminate information (including
'bug reports') relevant to the Horizon prosecutions. As part of this
process, weekly meetings were held. It had come to Mr Clarke's
attention that some within the Post Office did not want the minutes of
these meetings recording so that there was no evidence that the meetings
had taken place and therefore no duty to disclose the contents thereof.

He made it clear that the Post Office's understanding did not accord
with the rules of disclosure and that it is the fact that the
information is 'known', regardless of whether or not it is recorded,
that necessitates disclosure.

You may be well served to re-read the advice from that perspective. (Mr
Clarke quotes throughout what has been said by the Post Office or
matters that have "come to his attention". They are not part of his
advice but form the basis for why he felt it necessary to give the
advice he did.)

> The SRA's
> reluctance to act quickly in all this but instead wait until the end of
> the inquiry, shows a startling lack of responsiveness.

Again, I fear you misunderstand the situation. The SRA was
investigating potential misconduct by some of its members prior to the
inquiry starting and also whilst it was progressing. (For example, the
SRA had agreed a disclosure order from the Post Office for certain
documents relating to the Horizon prosecutions.) As the inquiry
progressed, the inquiry recommended that the SRA become a 'core
participant' so it had unfettered access to all documents available to
the inquiry. The SRA subsequently applied for and was granted 'core
participant' status. This would make the SRA's investigations much
easier as the documents available to core participants in the inquiry
was far more wide ranging than the previously agreed disclosure order.

The SRA's status as a core participant also allows them to feed into the
inquiry so that the inquiry can follow certain lines of investigation
proposed by the SRA as it progresses.

It should be borne in mind that the inquiry has statutory powers to
compel participants both to appear and to answer questions so this will
inevitably grant the SRA access to more information than they would
otherwise have been able to gather without being a core participant.

However, the quid pro quo for being a core participant is that the SRA
cannot bring forth any prosecutions until after the inquiry has
concluded, likely to be during the summer of this year.

The SRA isn't displaying "reluctance to act quickly" nor is it showing
"a startling lack of responsiveness".

Rather it has taken a pragmatic and practical decision, and what I
consider to be an eminently sensible decision, to become a core
participant, at the inquiry's suggestion, so that it may assist in
steering certain elements of the inquiry and gain unfettered access to
the documents available to the inquiry.

> The most
> interesting of your links is the article by Neil Hawkes at Crucible Law,
> where he reflects on systemic problems in the legal system. It's one to
> keep.

Simon Clarke advised the Post Office again, and again, and again that
they were failing to comply with their obligations regarding disclosure,
even going so far as to state that Gareth Jenkins could not and should
not be used as an expert witness in any new cases, nor should be be
called to give evidence in existing cases and the defendants in historic
cases should be advised that his testimony was flawed.

Further amendments to the CPIA is not, IMO, going to fix that.
Prosecuting those responsible to the greatest extent possible will. As
will ensuring that the Post Office foots the bill for unravelling the
mess it created. It may be a few more months yet before the SRA can
act, but when they do, my hope is that they act decisively and
comprehensively.

> The actions of those in authority have been corrupt and cruel. That may
> be a frequent criticism by those who lose in the courts but in this case
> such an assessment seems more than justified. I'm told Britain has an
> enviable reputation for justice, which results in many international
> cases being heard here but the Horizon scandal is giving this reputation
> a good hard knock at a time we're trying get over the unedifying
> Parliamentary shenanigans over Brexit which so many foreigners laughed
> at.

When one party repeatedly refuses to play by the rules, the outcomes
will inevitably be skewed in their favour. However, the Post Office's
"cheating" has been found out and it will be important to see what
further revelations are yet to transpire during the inquiry and what the
SRA does once it is able to act.

Regards

S.P.

[billy bookcase]

"Pamela" <uk...@permabulator.33mail.com> wrote in message
news:XnsB10281FE...@135.181.20.170...

> The SRA's reluctance to act quickly in all this but instead
> wait until the end of the inquiry, shows a startling lack
> of responsiveness.

The SRA's primary responsibility is to the "clients of
solicitors" who may have been guilty of malpractice. As
the primary duty of a solicitor is to protect the
interests of their own client. Not worry overmuch about the
interests of the clients of other solicitors.

The point being that under normal circumstances a solicitor
can be reasonably expected to accept the word of their client
and any assurances given. Basically if "the most trusted
brand in the UK" tells them that they have assurances
from experts that their compouter is reliable then the
solicitors have no real reason to doubt them - or to
do their own homework on the subject.

Although quite obviously once a solicitor strongly suspects
that a client is lying - although quite how they might come
to this conclusion is another matter - then it would indeed
be their duty towards their client to advise them to stop
lying in their own best interests - as if the solicitor
is suspicious then so presumably will other people.
Before dropping them altogher

> I'm told Britain has an
> enviable reputation for justice,

Only among the well heeled who can afford the best QC's

But certainly not by anyone intimately connected with the
lower reaches of the Criminal Justice System in this country
which which like the prison system is being systematically
run down so as allow politicians to bribe an electorate
very few of whom will come into contact with either.

This far "The Secret Barrister" has written two books on the
subject and there's always the odd article

And its not just a case of leaking roofs in ramshackle annexes

selected quotes:

In the 18 months since we first spoke, the problems he
identified in the criminal justice system have become more
acute. The court backlog now stretches to 9,792 sexual
offence cases, a 23% increase on last year, while a dearth
of lawyers and judges makes every trial date hostage to
competing diaries. The prison population is the
highest it has ever been.

[...]

On an average annual income of £18,000 in their first three years,
many junior barristers decide they cannot afford a career in the
criminal bar.

:unquote

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/17/the-inside-story-of-two-trials-its-as-bad-as-ive-ever-known-it

> which results in many international cases being heard here

See above. Although for fairly obvious reasons civil cases
brought by Russian Oligarchs aren't quite so numerous as before

> but the Horizon scandal is giving this reputation
> a good hard knock at a time we're trying get over the unedifying
> Parliamentary shenanigans over Brexit which so many foreigners
> laughed at.

Not really. Its all just about effectivge brand management and selecting
as your CEO a friendly looking person with a winning smile.

As if the example of Tony Blair, hadn't been lesson enough.



bb

[Pamela]

I was unclear whether Simon Clarke was giving the advice or quoting it.
As I said earlier, I am too numbed by so many revelations to take in
much more of the scandal. Thanks for clearing up his position, as I
don't want a misunderstanding to colour the rest of what I hear.

> [SNIP]

Surely many of the bad actors can be identified now. What is to stop
them acting equally immorally in another case? They have shown a lack
of probity, and the main question remaining is its extent.

The SRA may wish to do a thorough job by waitng until all the evidence
is in but I would have preferred it to be more interventionist and do so
in a timely way. Yet a few days ago the SRA stated:

"At the moment, we do not have evidence to show that any solicitor
presents an ongoing risk to the public that needs to be addressed
through urgent action."

https://www.sra.org.uk/sra/news/press/post-office-update-2024/

Two weeks ago, this was underlined when the Law Gazette published an
article called "Horizon scandal: The SRA's 'wait and see' approach is
growing untenable". Although it can sometimes be useful to allow time to
pass before fully assessing a situation, that has to be balanced with
taking action.

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/commentary-and-opinion/horizon-
scandal-the-sras-wait-and-see-approach-is-growing-untenable/
5118369.article

Forgive my scepticism but whan the SRA states "We are here to protect
the public" I mentally re-adjust that to mean the SRA (and many
regulatory bodies) is here to protect itself.

[Simon Parker]

On 23/01/2024 16:20, billy bookcase wrote:
> "Pamela" <uk...@permabulator.33mail.com> wrote in message
> news:XnsB10281FE...@135.181.20.170...
>
>> The SRA's reluctance to act quickly in all this but instead
>> wait until the end of the inquiry, shows a startling lack
>> of responsiveness.
>
> The SRA's primary responsibility is to the "clients of
> solicitors" who may have been guilty of malpractice. As
> the primary duty of a solicitor is to protect the
> interests of their own client. Not worry overmuch about the
> interests of the clients of other solicitors.

<SFX: Buzzer>

The primary duty of a solicitor is NOT to protect the interests of their
own client.

Solicitors are officers of the court and their overriding duty is to the
rule of law and the administration of justice.

As officers of the court, solicitors should never put other interests -
including but not limited to the interests of their client - above the
law and the proper administration of justice.

[...]

>> I'm told Britain has an
>> enviable reputation for justice,
>
> Only among the well heeled who can afford the best QC's

<cough>ITYM KCs<cough> :-)

Regards

S.P.

[Simon Parker]

Simon Clarke has given the Post Office what could best be described as
"robust advice". Sadly, it was also advice which it shouldn't have been
necessary to give to legal professionals.

His advice was clear and unequivocal and from the moment they received
it, the Post Office lost any claim they may have had of ignorance and of
plausible deniability. (Not that either of them should do them any
good, but I imagine it wouldn't have stopped them trying.)

It isn't about "waiting until all the evidence is in". A key
requirement of becoming a core participant was that the SRA cannot take
action against anybody involved in the inquiry until the inquiry is
concluded.

If you read the SRA's statement from October 2022, (linked from the page
you've quoted and linked above [1]), which I've previously summarised
but am happy to quote the SRA verbatim:

"However, the Inquiry will not provide us with any of the evidence it
holds, unless we provide an undertaking which restricts our ability to
use the information in our processes. So we anticipate that we will need
to wait to the end of the Inquiry process before we can take any further
formal steps."

Prior to becoming a core participant in the Inquiry, the SRA was already
in possession of tens of thousands of pages of evidence which it was
analysing to see what charges, if any, could be brought against their
members.

Since becoming a core participant, they have even more (the Met used the
phrase "many tens of millions of documents"). The SRA made the above
statement ("we do not have any evidence to show that any solicitor

presents an ongoing risk to the public that needs to be addressed

through urgent action") having analysed the evidence they currently have
in their possession because the majority, if not all, of those against
whom the SRA may take action have either retired or are still employed
by the Post Office. Since the Post Office has given an undertaking that
it will not prosecute anybody, (and there would likely be a public
outcry should they attempt to do so), I believe the SRA are correct in
stating that there is no "ongoing risk to the public that needs to be

addressed through urgent action".

Are you aware of a specific ongoing risk to the public that requires
urgent action from the SRA?

If so, I urge you to contact the SRA directly and make it known to them.
If you would prefer not to do that, please either post the specifics
here, or e-mail them to me privately (my e-mail address is valid), and I
will happily forward your details of a specific ongoing risk to the
public requiring urgent action to the SRA and report back with their
response.

> Two weeks ago, this was underlined when the Law Gazette published an
> article called "Horizon scandal: The SRA's 'wait and see' approach is
> growing untenable". Although it can sometimes be useful to allow time to
> pass before fully assessing a situation, that has to be balanced with
> taking action.
>
> https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/commentary-and-opinion/horizon-
> scandal-the-sras-wait-and-see-approach-is-growing-untenable/
> 5118369.article
>
> Forgive my scepticism but whan the SRA states "We are here to protect
> the public" I mentally re-adjust that to mean the SRA (and many
> regulatory bodies) is here to protect itself.

The Law Gazette is mistaken. The SRA is not taking a "wait and see"
approach and their stance is far from "untenable". The SRA had a
choice: go it alone, gather its own evidence and proceed as it saw fit,
or become a core participant, help steer the inquiry and have access to
all evidence the inquiry produces at the cost of having to wait until
the inquiry concludes before launching action.

It chose the second option. Do you think it was wrong to do so? Before
you answer, consider this: the SRA cannot compel people to appear before
it, nor are those appearing before it compelled to answer its questions.
The Inquiry, on the other hand, is a Statutory Inquiry and has both of
those powers. When the Inquiry exercises those powers, the SRA, as a
core participant, gets a copy of the evidence acquired by the process.

If you do not consider that significantly more beneficial than
proceeding on their own, then we must agree to differ.

In a spirit of full disclosure, the SRA has limited powers which include
being able to fine solicitors and firms up to £25,000 and / or putting
controls on how they practise. Cases of serious misconduct, (which can
result in an unlimited fine and either suspension or striking off) will
require the cases being taken to the independent Solicitors Disciplinary
Tribunal. I would suggest that cases arising as a result of the inquiry
may well fall into the latter camp.

Tangentially, the SRA can only deal with their members and their
ultimate sanction is striking off. Many of those involved in this
scandal, against whom people would like to see action taken, are not
solicitors and so are beyond the reach of the SRA.

The investigation and subsequent prosecution of Such ones is the
responsibility of the Met. Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley recently
stated in an interview with LBC:

"We're now working with police forces across the country to pull
together what will have to be a national investigation, which we'll pull
together because there's hundreds of postmasters and mistresses from
across the country.

"Fujitsu are based in one part of the country and the Post Office is in
another part of the country; [it's a] massive piece of work to do.

"There are tens of millions of documents to be worked through in a
criminal investigation. And of course, we've got to do that following on
behind the public inquiry, which I think finishes at the end of this
year but won’t publish until late next year."

"At the core of the issue you've potentially got fraud in terms of false
documents if it's for financial purposes, and you've potentially got
perverting the course of justice if people have deliberately set in
train evidence into a legal process which they know is false. That would
be perverting the course of justice.

"To prove this to a criminal standard is different to what's in a
documentary. Clearly, we have to prove beyond all reasonable doubt,
really 99.99 per cent, that individuals knowingly corrupted something.
So that's going way beyond incompetence, you have to prove deliberate
malice, and that has to be done very thoroughly with an exhaustive
investigation. So it won't be quick.

"But the police service across the country is alive to this, and we will
do everything we can to bring people to justice if criminal offences can
be proven."

If you are concerned about justice being dispensed swiftly, I would
recommend your ire would better channelled at the Met in the first
instance, rather than the SRA.

Regards

S.P.

[1] https://www.sra.org.uk/sra/news/statement-post-office-horizon-scandal/

[billy bookcase]

"Simon Parker" <simonpa...@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:l1b28q...@mid.individual.net...

> On 23/01/2024 16:20, billy bookcase wrote:
>> "Pamela" <uk...@permabulator.33mail.com> wrote in message
>> news:XnsB10281FE...@135.181.20.170...
>>
>>> The SRA's reluctance to act quickly in all this but instead
>>> wait until the end of the inquiry, shows a startling lack
>>> of responsiveness.
>>
>> The SRA's primary responsibility is to the "clients of
>> solicitors" who may have been guilty of malpractice. As
>> the primary duty of a solicitor is to protect the
>> interests of their own client. Not worry overmuch about the
>> interests of the clients of other solicitors.
>
> <SFX: Buzzer>
>
> The primary duty of a solicitor is NOT to protect the interests
> of their own client.

> Solicitors are officers of the court and their overriding duty
> is to the rule of law and the administration of justice.

While others might wish to argue, that its the overriding duty
of *everybody* in a civilised and thus largely law-abiding society
and thus not just "officers of the court", at least everyone who
doesn't want to end up in prison, to respect the rule of law and
not to impede the administration of justice.

The fact that apparently,nowadays there are so many bent solicitors
coming to light that its necessary to remind solicitors not to
themselves break the law, is simply a sad reflection of the times
we live in. Compliance with the law is a universal obligation, and
not a professional "duty" incumbent on any particular group.

Similarly some might wish to argue that any aspiring solicitor
who needed to be reminded that it would actually be illegal,
never mind contrary to all ethical standards, for a solicitor
to knowingly assist their clients in misleading the court
shouldn't be allowed to even serve in a MacDonalds; but
should be confined to sweeping up.

So that any solicitor in possession of evidence that a
client intended to lie to the court, possibly by way of an
admission, would have no alternative but to advise them
to plead guilty or to cease to represent them.

However in the absence of such evidence, and for justice
to be served and for even the most devious looking individuals
to be able to present the most implausible evidence before the
court, and in the absence of any admission to the contrary,
its necessary for their solicitor and barrister to accept
their account as being true; and to present it in the best
possible light before a jury, who are the ultimate arbiters
in such matters.

Thus the primary duty of solicitors along with barristers,
*and of solicitors and barristers alone* is to offer competent
and accurate legal advice to their clients, along with legal
representation where necessary; in accordance with current
practice and legislation, and to the best of their ability

>
> [...]
>
>>> I'm told Britain has an
>>> enviable reputation for justice,
>>
>> Only among the well heeled who can afford the best QC's
>
> <cough>ITYM KCs<cough> :-)

bb

[Martin Brown]

On 24/01/2024 00:00, Simon Parker wrote:
> On 23/01/2024 16:20, billy bookcase wrote:
>> "Pamela" <uk...@permabulator.33mail.com> wrote in message
>> news:XnsB10281FE...@135.181.20.170...
>>
>>> The SRA's reluctance to act quickly in all this but instead
>>> wait until the end of the inquiry, shows a startling lack
>>> of responsiveness.
>>
>> The SRA's primary responsibility is to the "clients of
>> solicitors" who may have been guilty of malpractice. As
>> the primary duty of a solicitor is to protect the
>> interests of their own client. Not worry overmuch about the
>> interests of the clients of other solicitors.
>
> <SFX: Buzzer>
>
> The primary duty of a solicitor is NOT to protect the interests of their
> own client.
>
> Solicitors are officers of the court and their overriding duty is to the
> rule of law and the administration of justice.
>
> As officers of the court, solicitors should never put other interests -
> including but not limited to the interests of their client - above the
> law and the proper administration of justice.
>
> [...]

In theory yes but in practice if they want to get paid and retain their
business relationship they had better deliver what their client wants!
Much like with the big auditors and their very large corporate clients
that suddenly go pop so "unexpectedly"!

The golden rule is that those with the gold make the rules (one way or
another). Colour me cynical but I reckon the PO went out of its way to
tip the playing field so that the postmasters had no hope of a fair
trial and were bullied into admitting "False accounting" under threat of
jail by a bunch of thugs who were paid on commission by "results".

There has to be some serious prosecutions of the guiding minds behind
this Horizon scandal or it *will* happen again. It is also a scandal
that it has taken nearly two decades to get to this point (and that it
took an ITV drama to finally get some serious public attention).

Peeing on the peons is just far too easy when there is such a huge
asymmetry in the quality of the legal advice available to the parties.
Expert witnesses that lied to the court should also be jailed.

--
Martin Brown

[Simon Parker]

On 25/01/2024 10:54, Martin Brown wrote:
> On 24/01/2024 00:00, Simon Parker wrote:
>> On 23/01/2024 16:20, billy bookcase wrote:

>>> The SRA's primary responsibility is to the "clients of
>>> solicitors" who may have been guilty of malpractice. As
>>> the primary duty of a solicitor is to protect the
>>> interests of their own client. Not worry overmuch about the
>>> interests of the clients of other solicitors.
>>
>> <SFX: Buzzer>
>>
>> The primary duty of a solicitor is NOT to protect the interests of
>> their own client.
>>
>> Solicitors are officers of the court and their overriding duty is to
>> the rule of law and the administration of justice.
>>
>> As officers of the court, solicitors should never put other interests
>> - including but not limited to the interests of their client - above
>> the law and the proper administration of justice.
>>
>> [...]
>
> In theory yes but in practice if they want to get paid and retain their
> business relationship they had better deliver what their client wants!
> Much like with the big auditors and their very large corporate clients
> that suddenly go pop so "unexpectedly"!

I am aware of an independent review by counsel into the conduct of the
lawyers within the Post Office throughout the Horizon scandal. The
recommendations of that review is that 3 solicitors should be referred
to the SRA. This is one of the reasons why I think mention of the SRA
is a red-herring, but more on that later.

As has been clear to anyone watching the Inquiry, the Post Office played
fast and loose throughout and often acted without having exercised
relevant due diligence.

For example, the Post Office did not employ any solicitors that were
qualified in Scottish law who would be able to guide prosecutions north
of the border.

> The golden rule is that those with the gold make the rules (one way or
> another). Colour me cynical but I reckon the PO went out of its way to
> tip the playing field so that the postmasters had no hope of a fair
> trial and were bullied into admitting "False accounting" under threat of
> jail by a bunch of thugs who were paid on commission by "results".

In some cases, the Post Office offered compromise agreements where if
the SPM repaid the money and entered a plea of guilty to a charge of
False Accounting they would not be charged with Theft.

If such agreements were entered into by the Post Office whilst it knew
there were issues with Horizon that could have caused the shortfall then
it would appear to be a case of fraud, and I believe this is how such
cases are being investigated by the Met. However, the Met have said
their investigation is going to take years, so don't expect anything
from them anytime soon.

> There has to be some serious prosecutions of the guiding minds behind
> this Horizon scandal or it *will* happen again. It is also a scandal
> that it has taken nearly two decades to get to this point (and that it
> took an ITV drama to finally get some serious public attention).
>
> Peeing on the peons is just far too easy when there is such a huge
> asymmetry in the quality of the legal advice available to the parties.
> Expert witnesses that lied to the court should also be jailed.

I concur. In my mind, I break down the culpability into three
categories. There are, firstly those that continued with existing
prosecutions and, secondly, started new prosecutions following the
various "Clarke Advice" notes and I believe that they should be
prosecuted to the fullest extent possible. The third and final category
is those responsible for not disclosing relevant evidence to those
already convicted, as soon as practicable after the evidence came to
light, and I believe they too should also be prime targets for prosecution.

The inspectors, whilst playing a key role in the prosecutions, may well
not have been aware of the issues with Horizon but others clearly were
and continued regardless.

Regards

S.P.

[Andy Burns]

Jethro_uk wrote:

> Why the handwringing over parliament/the government working to exonerate
> the wrongfully convicted postmasters ?

This act is not about pardons, it's about compensation

<https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2024/1/enacted>

[billy bookcase]

"Simon Parker" <simonpa...@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:l0t2ir...@mid.individual.net...
> [3]
> https://www.postofficescandal.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Clarke-advice-re-Jenkins.pdf

In respect of the above advice, which I must admit I've only
just read, and which offers a forensic examination of the
inconsistencies in the evidence provided by one expert witness
as it evolved over time, (and assuming the document is genuine)
does it not disturb you nevertheless, that while the advice
supposedly concerns expert evidence provided by Dr Gareth *Jenkins*
there are numerous references to a Dr *Jennings* in the latter
part of the document ?


bb

[Martin Brown]

Transcripts made from dictaphone or meeting tapes often have phoneme
equivalence mistakes in the draft documents. It isn't at all uncommon.

Ones that amused me enormously and done in pre-WP era include:

References to "eye-bolts" (technical term) replaced with "high bolts"

References to "fee earners" replaced with "Fionas"

It made more sense to the typist at the time...

--
Martin Brown

[billy bookcase]

"Martin Brown" <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote in message
news:up0lpl$2u33v$3...@dont-email.me...

> On 26/01/2024 10:19, billy bookcase wrote:
>> "Simon Parker" <simonpa...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:l0t2ir...@mid.individual.net...
>>> [3]
>>> https://www.postofficescandal.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Clarke-advice-re-Jenkins.pdf
>>
>> In respect of the above advice, which I must admit I've only
>> just read, and which offers a forensic examination of the
>> inconsistencies in the evidence provided by one expert witness
>> as it evolved over time, (and assuming the document is genuine)
>> does it not disturb you nevertheless, that while the advice
>> supposedly concerns expert evidence provided by Dr Gareth *Jenkins*
>> there are numerous references to a Dr *Jennings* in the latter
>> part of the document ?
>
> Transcripts made from dictaphone or meeting tapes often have phoneme equivalence
> mistakes in the draft documents. It isn't at all uncommon.

Except that this a not transcript from a meeting tape nor a draft document
but (supposedly)* an opinion sought of a barrister to which his name is
appended at the bottom

selected quotes

quote:

Expert evidence relied upon by POL in prosecuting offences. 14. For many
years both RMG and latterly POL has relied upon Dr. Gareth *Jenkins* for the
provision of expert evidence as to the operation and integrity of Horizon.

15. Dr. *Jenkins* has provided many expert statements in support of POL (& RMG)
prosecutions; he has negotiated with and arrived at joint conclusions and
joint-reports with defence experts' and has attended court so as to evidence
on oath in criminal trials.

unquote:

In all Dr *Jenkins* is mentioned 26 times

While as to Dr Jennings

quote:

26. This report is based upon a series of email passing between Helen
Rose, a POL Security Fraud Analyst. The emails appear to have been
sent/received over the period 30th January 2013 to 13th February 2013.
The essence of the contact is a 'question-and-answer'
process between Helen Rose and Dr. *Jennings* in circumstances where
Helen Rose is enquiring into a reversals issue at the Lepton SPSO.
I again extract a number of paragraphs:
On 30/1/2013 Dr. *Jennings* tells Helen Rose that: "It isn't clear what
failed..." "...the counter may have rebooted and so perhaps may have
crashed. in which case the clerk may not have been told exactly what
to do the system is behaving as it should" "It is quite easy
for the clerk to have made a mistake....",

unquote:

While here there are references to both Dr Jenkins and Dr Jennings
in the same paragraph

quote:

The 9 report however does allude to Horizon issues: the 30th January
email is suggestive of the proposition that Dr. *Jennings* does not
know what went wrong; and the 13th Februarycomment is suggestive of
the fact that Dr. *Jenkins* knows of other Horizon issues.

:unquote

selected quotes

quote:

Dr. *Jennings* told us that the extant bug affects Horizon to a limited
degree and at specific post office locations only.

c. Whilst is certain that Dr. *Jennings* was aware of B14 in January 2013,


Helen Rose's comment to Dr. *Jennings* of the 13th February 2013 reinforces
the point: "I know you are aware of all the Horizon integrity :issues...."

:unquote

Etc etc. In all Dr Jennings is referred to 11 times in the document

Which as stated above, is appended

Simon Clarke Barrister,
Senior Counsel
Cartwright King Solicitors

I say "supposedly" above, because possibly this would be a way of bringing
all the salient points to public attention of the public which strictly
speaking would be unethical while giving the appearance of it being a
crude forgery which clearly no Senior Counsel would ever permit to be
issued in his name.

Dunno



bb

[Roger Hayter]

Standards of typing and proof-reading may not be so high as you apparently
suppose. Your average millennial will probably tell you there is not much
difference between Jennings and Jenkins, and you know what they meant.

--
Roger Hayter

[Simon Parker]

On 26/01/2024 10:19, billy bookcase wrote:

Let's deal with your parenthetic statement first...

The advice is genuine, as are the other "Clarke Advice" notes that have
been produced. We know this to be true because of the circumstances in
which they entered the public domain and the consequences thereof.

The documents came to light during Seema Misra's case before the Court
of Appeal. During discovery for the trial, several tranches of
documents were requested from the Post Office by Seems Misra's legal
team, which included barrister Paul Marshall and his junior, Flora Page.
The Clarke Advice was included in those documents, the significance of
the document was immediately recognised with Lord Falconer himself
describing it as a "smoking gun".

On the 18th November 2020 the Post Office raised in court an allegation
of contempt in that the Clarke advice had been disclosed to parties
other than the judges, appellants and their legal representatives.

Mr Marshall's junior, Flora Page, had already exited the trial as she
admitted passing them to her brother who works as a journalist.

On 19th November, the Met alerted the court that Mr Marshall had sent
the Clarke advice to them and a hearing on 3rd December led the Court of
Appeal to order a different "constitution" of judges to consider whether
a contempt had taken place.

Mr Marshall subsequently sent a letter to the Court of Appeal which
said, in part:

"Having carefully and anxiously reviewed the proceedings on the 18
November, 19 November and 3 December 2020, and the terms of the order
made on 3 December 2020, I consider that I am inhibited from continuing
fearlessly to represent my clients before this court. I am consequently
disabled from discharging my professional duty to my clients.
Accordingly, it is in my clients’ best interests to be represented in
these appeals before this court by other counsel…. It is most
unfortunate for my clients that they are deprived of representation by
both counsel of their choice as a consequence of events of 18 - 19
November and 3 December 2020.""

Applications were later made to have the Clarke advice made public and
it has featured in the Inquiry too and is now in the public domain.

Timeline wise, (for those keeping track), it was shortly after the
Clarke advice was made public that Paula Vennells resigned. It is also
noteworthy that at the time the Post Office would have received the
advice, there was a noticeable drop in the number of cases they prosecuted.

Now to your question as to whether I am disturbed by the advice
referring to Dr Gareth *Jenkins* and also making numerous references to
a Dr *Jennings* (highlighting yours).

The short and simple answer is no, I am not in the slightest bit
disturbed by this. It is clearly an error made at the time the advice
was created that was not picked up prior to it being sent to the Post
Office.

The point was actually dealt with during the Inquiry on the 12th October
2022 and can be found on page 114 of that day's transcript. [1]

What I am 'disturbed' by is *Mr* Jenkins titling himself *Dr* Jenkins in
the Witness Statements submitted on behalf of the Post Office when there
is no evidence of him holding a relevant qualification which would
entitle him to refer to himself as Doctor. [2] (emphasis mine)

In fact, in witness statements and other submissions made to the
Inquiry, he is plain old *Mr* Jenkins which leads me to ask: Did he
style himself "Doctor Jenkins" in the earlier Witness Statements to add
weight and credibility to what he was saying and so that every time he
was addressed or referred to in court, everybody would be reminded what
a clever fellow he was? If so, I find that far more disturbing than a
barrister's secretary miss-typing a surname on an advice note.

Regards

S.P.

[1]
https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/file/652/download?token=JRSwiSNU
[2] He was a Chartered Engineer (CEng) and Chartered IT Professional
(CITP) registered via the British Computer Society, and he was a member
of the British Computer Society (MBCS).

[Simon Parker]

On 26/01/2024 20:52, billy bookcase wrote:
> "Martin Brown" <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:up0lpl$2u33v$3...@dont-email.me...
>> On 26/01/2024 10:19, billy bookcase wrote:
>>> "Simon Parker" <simonpa...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>> news:l0t2ir...@mid.individual.net...
>>>> [3]
>>>> https://www.postofficescandal.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Clarke-advice-re-Jenkins.pdf
>>>
>>> In respect of the above advice, which I must admit I've only
>>> just read, and which offers a forensic examination of the
>>> inconsistencies in the evidence provided by one expert witness
>>> as it evolved over time, (and assuming the document is genuine)
>>> does it not disturb you nevertheless, that while the advice
>>> supposedly concerns expert evidence provided by Dr Gareth *Jenkins*
>>> there are numerous references to a Dr *Jennings* in the latter
>>> part of the document ?
>>
>> Transcripts made from dictaphone or meeting tapes often have phoneme equivalence
>> mistakes in the draft documents. It isn't at all uncommon.
>
> Except that this a not transcript from a meeting tape nor a draft document
> but (supposedly)* an opinion sought of a barrister to which his name is
> appended at the bottom

IME, barristers frequently dictate advice notes to be typed by the clerk
/ secretary rather than typing them themselves. Some use old-fashioned
dictating machines with mini cassettes although the majority use
electronic ones which create a computer file which can be emailed and is
therefore much more convenient.

If you are alleging the Clarke advice notes (Mr Clarke issued multiple
advice notes to the Post Office so they're often referred to by the
advice given in them to differentiate between them. e.g. The Clarke
Advice re: shredding, or by the order in which they were issued, e.g.
The first Clarke Advice) are anything but authentic then your I am sorry
to inform you that you are wrong.

I've outlined in a previous post in this sub-thread how the advice came
to light and the consequences that arose therefrom.

But they've also been used within the Inquiry and have been referenced
there too. If they were not genuine, the Post Office have had ample
opportunity to challenge them and would surely have done so, including
in the various appeals in which they've featured at the Court of Appeal.

Regards

S.P.

[billy bookcase]

"Roger Hayter" <ro...@hayter.org> wrote in message
news:l1ilsq...@mid.individual.net...

Proof-readers don't claim any responsibility for the content of material
they proof-read, more especially as they don't sign their name at the bottom;
and even more especially when enclosing a bill for £10,000 for what is
essentially a three page letter.


bb

[billy bookcase]

"Simon Parker" <simonpa...@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:l1jv1k...@mid.individual.net...

> On 26/01/2024 10:19, billy bookcase wrote:
>> "Simon Parker" <simonpa...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:l0t2ir...@mid.individual.net...
>>> [3]
>>> https://www.postofficescandal.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Clarke-advice-re-Jenkins.pdf
>>
>> In respect of the above advice, which I must admit I've only
>> just read, and which offers a forensic examination of the
>> inconsistencies in the evidence provided by one expert witness
>> as it evolved over time, (and assuming the document is genuine)
>> does it not disturb you nevertheless, that while the advice
>> supposedly concerns expert evidence provided by Dr Gareth *Jenkins*
>> there are numerous references to a Dr *Jennings* in the latter
>> part of the document ?
>
> Let's deal with your parenthetic statement first...
>
> The advice is genuine,

I'm wasn't claiming that the content wasn't genuine. Only the specific
form in which it subsequently came to appear on a website. That it may
have been transcribed so as to protect the original source.
However as it turns out, that was simply wrong.

> as are the other "Clarke Advice" notes that have been produced. We know this to be
> true because of the circumstances in which they entered the public domain and the
> consequences thereof.
>
> The documents came to light during Seema Misra's case before the Court of Appeal.
> During discovery for the trial, several tranches of documents were requested from the
> Post Office by Seems Misra's legal team, which included barrister Paul Marshall and his
> junior, Flora Page. The Clarke Advice was included in those documents, the significance
> of the document was immediately recognised with Lord Falconer himself describing it as
> a "smoking gun".
>
> On the 18th November 2020 the Post Office raised in court an allegation of contempt in
> that the Clarke advice had been disclosed to parties other than the judges, appellants
> and their legal representatives.
>
> Mr Marshall's junior, Flora Page, had already exited the trial as she admitted passing
> them to her brother who works as a journalist.
>
> On 19th November, the Met alerted the court that Mr Marshall had sent the Clarke advice
> to them and a hearing on 3rd December led the Court of Appeal to order a different
> "constitution" of judges to consider whether a contempt had taken place.
>
> Mr Marshall subsequently sent a letter to the Court of Appeal which said, in part:
>
> "Having carefully and anxiously reviewed the proceedings on the 18 November, 19
> November and 3 December 2020, and the terms of the order made on 3 December 2020, I
> consider that I am inhibited from continuing fearlessly to represent my clients before
> this court. I am consequently disabled from discharging my professional duty to my
> clients. Accordingly, it is in my clients' best interests to be represented in these

> appeals before this court by other counsel.. It is most unfortunate for my clients that

> they are deprived of representation by both counsel of their choice as a consequence of
> events of 18 - 19 November and 3 December 2020.""
>
> Applications were later made to have the Clarke advice made public and it has featured
> in the Inquiry too and is now in the public domain.
>
> Timeline wise, (for those keeping track), it was shortly after the Clarke advice was
> made public that Paula Vennells resigned. It is also noteworthy that at the time the
> Post Office would have received the advice, there was a noticeable drop in the number
> of cases they prosecuted.
>
> Now to your question as to whether I am disturbed by the advice referring to Dr Gareth
> *Jenkins* and also making numerous references to a Dr *Jennings* (highlighting yours).
>
> The short and simple answer is no, I am not in the slightest bit disturbed by this. It
> is clearly an error made at the time the advice was created that was not picked up
> prior to it being sent to the Post Office.

As a matter of interest what would have been the likely fee for producing
this advice ?

>
> The point was actually dealt with during the Inquiry on the 12th October 2022 and can
> be found on page 114 of that day's transcript. [1]

Thank you.

That link only runs to 83 pages but there are plenty of other references

quote:

Mr Clarke explained in the advice that the Royal

Mail Group and Post Office had relied on Mr Jenkins or

"Dr Jenkins" or "Dr Jennings", as he is referred to by

Mr Clarke,

[...]

"In short, it means that Dr Jennings [that's

Mr Jenkins] had not complied with his duties to the

court, the prosecution or the defence.

:unquote

>
> What I am 'disturbed' by is *Mr* Jenkins titling himself *Dr* Jenkins in the Witness
> Statements submitted on behalf of the Post Office when there is no evidence of him
> holding a relevant qualification which would entitle him to refer to himself as Doctor.
> [2] (emphasis mine)
>
> In fact, in witness statements and other submissions made to the Inquiry, he is plain
> old *Mr* Jenkins which leads me to ask: Did he style himself "Doctor Jenkins" in the
> earlier Witness Statements to add weight and credibility to what he was saying and so
> that every time he was addressed or referred to in court, everybody would be reminded
> what a clever fellow he was? If so, I find that far more disturbing than a barrister's
> secretary miss-typing a surname on an advice note.

And then the barrister reading it, not noticing the error, and signing it on the
bottom; along presumably with the bill.

And what is it they always "used" to say ?

Always read any document thoroughly before signing your name of the bottom.

But then by the looks of things Clarke wasn't even a QC.


bb

[Roger Hayter]

On 27 Jan 2024 at 09:02:59 GMT, "Simon Parker" <simonpa...@gmail.com>
wrote:

I think he is suggesting that they are typo-ridden including getting names
wrong (but not very ambiguously) and therefore cannot be a serious and
thoughtful contribution to the PO's advice. Time was when I would have tended
to agree, but it these times of post-imperial decadence I realise that no-one
tries to write properly anymore.

--
Roger Hayter

[billy bookcase]

"Roger Hayter" <ro...@hayter.org> wrote in message

news:l1kfss...@mid.individual.net...

>
> I think he is suggesting that they are typo-ridden including getting names
> wrong (but not very ambiguously) and therefore cannot be a serious and
> thoughtful contribution to the PO's advice. Time was when I would have tended
> to agree, but it these times of post-imperial decadence I realise that no-one
> tries to write properly anymore.

Indeed. But just as its possible for people to mix-up "Jennings" and "Jenkins"
so its equally possible, if rather more unlikely for there may have been two
completely different expert witnesses, "Jennings" and"Jenkins" who were advising
the PO at that time. And whose separate existence escaped notice given the
fragmentary nature of the various investigations being conducted by the PO

Basically if I were paying someone large sums of money for legal advice, I
believe I could reasonably expect them to get such things right.

Whether in 2024 or 1954.



bb

[Simon Parker]

On 27/01/2024 10:55, billy bookcase wrote:
> "Simon Parker" <simonpa...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:l1jv1k...@mid.individual.net...
>> On 26/01/2024 10:19, billy bookcase wrote:

>>> In respect of the above advice, which I must admit I've only
>>> just read, and which offers a forensic examination of the
>>> inconsistencies in the evidence provided by one expert witness
>>> as it evolved over time, (and assuming the document is genuine)
>>> does it not disturb you nevertheless, that while the advice
>>> supposedly concerns expert evidence provided by Dr Gareth *Jenkins*
>>> there are numerous references to a Dr *Jennings* in the latter
>>> part of the document ?
>>
>> Let's deal with your parenthetic statement first...
>>
>> The advice is genuine,
>
> I'm wasn't claiming that the content wasn't genuine. Only the specific
> form in which it subsequently came to appear on a website. That it may
> have been transcribed so as to protect the original source.
> However as it turns out, that was simply wrong.

Indeed. Cock-up usually beats conspiracy. :-)

I can state with absolute certainty that it will have been two times one
half of the fee charged.

I have no idea of Mr Clarke's hourly / daily rate, nor of the
arrangements that existed between him and the Post Office and whether he
was working on a retainer / fixed fee basis. Similarly, I have no idea
how much time Mr Clarke spent familiarising himself with matters prior
to producing the advice.

Where you see a short document of but a few pages, I see the research
that was necessary to produce the advice.

>> The point was actually dealt with during the Inquiry on the 12th October 2022 and can
>> be found on page 114 of that day's transcript. [1]
>
> Thank you.
>
> That link only runs to 83 pages but there are plenty of other references

I recommend looking more closely. :-)

Each page on the PDF I linked PDF four pages from the Inquiry to save
paper when printed. So page 1 of the PDF is pages 1-4 of the
transcript. Page 2 is pages 5-8, etc.

Pages 113-116 of the Inquiry transcript is on page 29 of the PDF.

> quote:
>
> Mr Clarke explained in the advice that the Royal
>
> Mail Group and Post Office had relied on Mr Jenkins or
>
> "Dr Jenkins" or "Dr Jennings", as he is referred to by
>
> Mr Clarke,
>
> [...]
>
> "In short, it means that Dr Jennings [that's
>
> Mr Jenkins] had not complied with his duties to the
>
> court, the prosecution or the defence.
>
> :unquote

That's the one.

>> What I am 'disturbed' by is *Mr* Jenkins titling himself *Dr* Jenkins in the Witness
>> Statements submitted on behalf of the Post Office when there is no evidence of him
>> holding a relevant qualification which would entitle him to refer to himself as Doctor.
>> [2] (emphasis mine)
>>
>> In fact, in witness statements and other submissions made to the Inquiry, he is plain
>> old *Mr* Jenkins which leads me to ask: Did he style himself "Doctor Jenkins" in the
>> earlier Witness Statements to add weight and credibility to what he was saying and so
>> that every time he was addressed or referred to in court, everybody would be reminded
>> what a clever fellow he was? If so, I find that far more disturbing than a barrister's
>> secretary miss-typing a surname on an advice note.
>
> And then the barrister reading it, not noticing the error, and signing it on the
> bottom; along presumably with the bill.
>
> And what is it they always "used" to say ?
>
> Always read any document thoroughly before signing your name of the bottom.
>
> But then by the looks of things Clarke wasn't even a QC.

He started out as an HGV driver. He's now co-founder of and senior
partner at Smith Bowyer Clarke, was elected a Master of the Bench at
Lincoln’s Inn in July 2018, and at Furnival Chambers recently secured
the acquittal of a defendant found to be carrying 140kgs of cocaine and
heroin in his vehicle with the jury taking less than an hour to acquit.

Do you want to compare that with your track record?

Regards

S.P.

[billy bookcase]

"Simon Parker" <simonpa...@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:l1mf5bF...@mid.individual.net...

> He started out as an HGV driver. He's now co-founder of and senior partner at Smith
> Bowyer Clarke, was elected a Master of the Bench at Lincoln's Inn in July 2018, and at
> Furnival Chambers recently secured the acquittal of a defendant found to be carrying
> 140kgs of cocaine and heroin in his vehicle with the jury taking less than an hour to
> acquit.
>
> Do you want to compare that with your track record?

Not just me

If any self respecting 5th former submitted the following rubbish in the course
of their homework, they could not only expect to be heavily marked down
but to be made an object of (temporary) ridicule

quote:

The 9 report however does allude to Horizon issues: the 30th January

email is suggestive of the proposition that Dr. Jennings does not

know what went wrong; and the 13th Februarycomment is suggestive of

the fact that Dr. Jenkins knows of other Horizon issues.

unquote:

The fact that you should seek to defend such gross unprofessionalism
is of course your choice to make.



bb

[Simon Parker]

Assuming this were part of a claim, rather than an advice note, the
mistake could simply be rectified without incident whilst still within
the relevant limitation period. Had the limitation period expired, CPR
17.4(3) would apply and, were the mistake spotted prior to the
litigation starting, (and it is likely that the defendant would bring
it to the claimant's attention upon receipt of the claim so there is
little doubt that it would be spotted), an application to amend would
almost certainly be granted.

Similarly, under CPR 19.5(2) and (3) the court itself could perform the
substitution at any stage, including during the course of the
litigation, without the need for an application by the claimant.

Mistakes happen. I do not consider it "gross unprofessionalism" and,
thankfully, neither do the courts.

YMMV, as indeed it seems it does.

Regards

S.P.