Malicious corporate denial and conniving civil servants ruined hundreds of lives
A chilling tale of the helpless and isolated individuals victimised by a well-funded organisation, and of the lengths to which those running such organisations are prepared to go to cover up their mistakes. Nick Wallis’s revealing tale of the suffering inflicted on blameless individuals seeking to make an honest living in their small shops as sub-postmasters.
Alerted by a whistleblower, a group of dismissed sub-postmasters after discovering that defects in the computer system within Fujitsu and the executives in the Post Office were not unaware of this, mounted legal action against the post office. Financed by a legal expenses funder, the sub-postmasters won a bruising battle in the High Court, as the trial judge accused Post Office executives and computer operatives of covering up the truth and even lying.
The factual thriller details a scandal which has been described as one of the most widespread and significant miscarriages of justice in legal history. On 23rd April 2021, the Court of Appeal quashed the convictions of 39 former Sub-postmasters and ruled their prosecutions were an affront to the public conscience. The Sub-postmasters had been prosecuted by the Post Office using IT evidence from an unreliable computer system called Horizon. When the Post Office became aware that Horizon didn’t work properly, it covered up. A statutory inquiry is being launched with a view to providing full recompense to all the surviving victims although Wallis misses 20 convictions in Northern Ireland.
The Criminal Justice Act, 1992, which made business and administrative records generally admissible in criminal proceedings, has no provision requiring proof of their reliability. This Act did not give effect to the recommendation in a Law Reform Commission report that evidence establishing the reliability of such records should be required and should be furnished for examination to an accused in advance of trial.
We have not any provision for class actions or third-party funding of litigation, without which the sub-masters would not have been able to pursue the legal challenge that has brought them vindication.
Nick Wallis charts disastrous failures of leadership, malicious denial and conniving civil servants united to ruin hundreds of lives over a 20-year period.
The Great Post Office Scandal by Nick Wallis, Bath Publishing, £25