According to a lawyer, Post Office bosses 'could face charges for possible criminal offences' in handling an IT scandal that saw postmasters hounded, bullied and wrongly prosecuted for fraud.
It is public knowledge that more than 700 branch managers were prosecuted of crimes including fraud and the Post Office had wronged hundreds of innocent people while bullying them into pleading guilty. Only about 39 postmasters had convictions quashed following a decade-long fight in what is touted as the “biggest miscarriage of justice” in the history of Britain.
In the latest news, it has been reported by The Times that “the Post Office used gagging clauses as recently as this year to silence sub-postmasters who were given com - pensation after being wrongly accused over supposedly missing money.”
Speaking to Asian Voice, Sandip Patel QC, Managing Partner Aliant Law said, “A former Post Officer lawyer has hinted anonymously in the media that former senior executives should be very worried about facing possible prosecution for criminal wrongdoing. Whether that is an accurate statement remains to be seen but there should be no doubt that the Crown Prosecution Service who, on behalf of society and in the public interest, ensure the application of the law and hold to account anyone who breaks the law, and that therefore a forensic microscope should be placed over everyone who had an indispensable role in the prosecution of innocent people including Post Office lawyers and investigators.”
Lord Arbuthnot, a former Conservative MP who is also an avid campaigner for sub-postmasters, has criticised the culture of “secrecy” and “mendacity”. In a report published in The Times, he was quoted: “When a public organisation has behaved as atrociously as the Post Office has, it is a thoroughly bad thing for that organisation to try to stop the people it has wronged from talking about it.”
Kevan Jones, a Labour MP, said: “This is more damning evidence of the Post Office's deliberate attempt to cover up what was going on. They should now publish all these settlements in full.” In some cases, postmasters were made to sign the Official Secrets Act.
However, the Post Office said: “It is very important that a comprehensive picture of what went wrong at the Post Office is established and that postmasters give their stories. Whereas sure postmasters we are not a barrier to them speaking out about their experiences and will not use past confidentiality agreements to stand in the way of them doing so.”
