Compensation Questions: Fraud?

Quick thoughts on the publication of the documents

There are various documents published on the Post Office Inquiry site this week which suggest temperatures are rising in and around Sir Wyn’s work. Compensation was brought forward as an issue needing resolution and it has prompted some very interesting submissions. One submission of particular note comes from Paul Marshall, who has indicated that the SPMs should be compensated on the basis that they are victims of fraud not simply on an ordinary basis (essentially opening the victims’ cases to a wider and easier to prove damages payment).

His reasons for so claiming are what make it really interesting to PO Scandal watchers. He argues:

(11) Between 2010 and 2020, the Post Office engaged in an elaborate strategy of suppression and withholding – concealment – of its knowledge of serious problems with Horizon, the acknowledgement of which carried prospectively commercially disastrous consequences, consequences that have now in fact eventuated. “Deception” is the appropriate word. (12) The Post Office’s strategy of concealment and deception has caused resultant harm, including inordinate delay in justice that is irretrievable and incapable of being adequately compensated. An approach to fair compensation by analogy with fraud is appropriate.

Lawyers having identified an expert witness, Mr Gareth Jenkins, as unreliable, then failed to disclose that fact to defendants who had been convicted partly on the basis of his evidence. Marshall suggests this may in part have been due to the way the review was set up: “The review was seriously skewed and constricted and resulted, perhaps as intended, in not a single successful appeal.” Part of the blame seems to lie with the terms of reference for, and test applied, during the review which, to paraphrase, Marshall argues are both too narrow and wrong. This, he says was consistent with a history of Post Office concealment since 2010. Read his submissions to understand more.

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