'Five potential targets' in Post Office investigation

I would say there are probably

five

potential

targets

here, one is the Post Office Limited entity, another is the senior decision makers within the Post Office, obviously Paul Lenos, but there are also others, third place, Fujitsu, the company

potential

ly, although that will be more difficult, I think the fourth employees. within Fujitsu that gave evidence in court cases that have found that the evidence is potentially misleading and finally, and this is one that hasn't gained as much attention, is the role of lawyers um Al lawyers over the years that were involved in prosecution lawyers who have been involved in acting for the Post Office and I suggest that that is not so much about criminal prosecutions but rather about culpability and liability under the rules of professional conduct, which is still very, very serious for professionals.

It has been reported that 50 new potential victims have come forward so the numbers we are dealing with could be just the tip of the iceberg, there may be other people coming forward, well joining me now is James Harley, Partner at Free's LLP and who are working on behalf of many of the

post

masters and

post

mistresses, uh James, welcome to the programme, hello, hello, what is your reaction to the fact that the Metropolitan Police are now investigating possible fraud offences? ? I'm not surprised, actually, we are free, we have been living and breathing this case since 2015, actually, since then, when.

We, when I first contacted Allan based on episode three of the drama, actually, we were so into it that we obviously saw hundreds of thousands of documents, we saw reports to the postal boards, um. and we have seen the extent to which things continued in terms of prosecutions over the years even though all the information was in front of the post

office

, so as we know so well, it is no surprise that the Metropolitan Police are very carefully analyzing the prosecutions and continues to the end of the high court case where, the honorable judge Fraser, the judge who ruled in favor of the 555 at the end of that second trial, referred an individual to the director of public prosecutions public so the high court judge was also able to see what had happened so no surprise is a short answer and do you think any of these prosecutions will be successful?

I mean, I know it's hard to research the future, but you're incredibly into this. I think a lot of people who just watch that drama and find out about the scandal is absolutely a Gog that it seems like people will get away with it. It's a big question as to whether there will be prosecutions and whether there will be convictions, but that is something the ongoing public inquiry will help answer. There are more than 218 issues and questions that The Inquirer seeks to get to the bottom of all of them. To say something that Toby Jones in that article was alluding to the question of why, why, what went wrong, why it went wrong and who knew what, then the public inquiry is being watched very closely by the Metropolitan Police .

They do their own

investigation

s and ultimately I would say there are probably

five

potential

targets

here, one is the Post Office Limited entity, the other is the high level decision makers within the Post Office obviously, Paul Lenel, but there are also others, thirdly, Fujitsu, the company potentially, although that would be more. It's difficult, I think the fourth employee employed within Fujitsu who gave evidence in court cases, which evidence is considered to be potentially misleading, and lastly, and this is one that hasn't gained as much attention, is the role of lawyers, um or the lawyers. the years they have been involved in prosecutions, solicitors who have been involved in acting for the Post Office and that is less about criminal prosecutions, I suggest, but rather about culpability and liability under the rules of professional conduct, which is still very , very serious for the professionals involved and me.

We know that regulators are closely watching the lawyers involved, so there are a number of different entities and people involved. Ultimately, the decision about whether or not there should be a prosecution will be whether there is a realistic chance of success. an accusation that will be the test to decide whether or not to press the button, my goodness, I mean, it's really interesting to analyze all that and, as you say, there are the people involved, but you also have to make sure that we learn the lessons in terms of the systemic failures in all these different organizations they are just realizing Fujitsu.

I mean, do you think that, for example, the current government or a future government, if there is a change of government, should say that we are going to review all government contracts? contracts with Fujitsu, do you think more should be done in terms of that? I think before that happens, there would need to be some sort of adverse finding against Fujitsu, whether through the public inquiry or otherwise, because until then, I anticipate Fujitsu would do so. tell any government, well, you can't brand us, you can't rate us like Fujitsu in a procurement exercise, for example, because there's been no formal funding against us, do you know what we've done wrong?

You know, so I suspect Fujitsu would do it. I say that, which sounds strange given that this entire case is about the Horizon system that was designed, installed and run by Fujitsu, but for every accusation against Fujitsu, Fujitsu regarding errors in the system, Fujitsu will argue that well, the real problem was what was the behavior of the post

office

decisions made by the post office to prosecute those that were not us, Fujitsu, we get into a very complex, um, complex, debate about where the fault is, yes, and many, uh, one part, like pointing the finger, um, at the others and what about the politicians involved Ed Davey has been under some pressure Margo James has also apologized do you think this kind of um highlights a real weakness in terms of political supervision of these issues?

Yes, definitely, I think. particularly in relation to government oversight of organizations or entities it owns, because one of the many problems over the years, in this case, has been the fact that the government has consistently said that the Post Office Limited has its own board of directors. directors um it's run independently uh we don't interfere, which on one level is justifiable, but on another level um and whether it's hindsight or not, the fact is you know the government owns this company. the post office is limited and it went horribly wrong and the government should have intervened sooner.

The government is now stepping in regarding compensation and doing the right thing. And it's making the money available to taxpayers. Money available for the three compensation schemes that are ongoing. Obviously, it is very important and the postmasters involved will get compensation. There are around 3,000 postmasters going through compensation schemes at the moment, so the government has finally done or is doing the right thing, but yes, it should have intervened much sooner.