As a specialist in attracting bad publicity, the Post Office kept up its record when the assiduous Eleanor Shaikh recently prised out of it - via a Freedom of Information Request - a document starkly revealing how the institution racially profiled the individuals whose lives it ruined in the now well reported Horizon IT Scandal.
The Post Office Horizon Public Inquiry has re-started. Institutions under the spotlight are giving evidence.
So this seems a good time to pull ourselves back to what the Horizon scandal concerns: people.
One of those people, one of the hundreds of individuals running sub-Post Offices whose lives were ruined through no fault of their own, is Lee Castleton. The account that follows reflects his submissions to the Inquiry under an Impact Witness Statement from May 2022, and has been prepared with his approval.
This is a general piece mostly about the role of lawyers in the Post Office Horizon IT Scandal, focussing on solicitors' conduct duties. It might help those who wonder what those duties are. For erudite in depth legal analyses of the saga consult LinkedIn and writings from Paul Marshall of Cornerstone Chambers and Prof. Richard Moorhead of Exeter University. For a sense of the passion held by a lawyer representing three of the victims consult LinkedIn material from Nick Gould of Aria Grace Solicitors.
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We are back to 1999. Suppose that you are running a small Post Office branch. You enjoy the business: it provides a stable income, you like the people contact, and your customers value the service you give to the community.
However, all is not well. The Post Office have recently introduced a new computer system called 'Horizon'. The system is designed by Fujitsu. It is supposed to simplify your accounting for daily takings. Yet it is doing the opposite. You are starting to see accounting shortfalls.