Professional Pathologies, Causal Pathways and the Post Office Miscarriages of Justice

I am delighted to be able to report that Karen Nokes (UCL), Rebecca Helm (Exeter), and I have secured funding to continue and deepen our research on the Post Office Scandal from the Economic And Social Research Council. We expect to begin work in earnest in May. The project should last three years.

Our primary research questions are:

1. What can the Post Office Scandal tell us about the causal pathways that lead to professional ethical problems for lawyers and miscarriages of justice?

2. How did the victims of the Post Office Scandal experience ethical problems within their handling by the wider criminal justice system, and what can this tell us about failures to provide access to justice and mitigation of vulnerability?

3. What explicit and implicit decision-making models shape causal pathways between ethical failures and miscarriages of justice?

4. What ethical models have practical resonance with legal professionals? And how can they be strengthened?

The research will enable us to deepen our engagement with the victims of the Post Office Scandal affected by the scandal (as long as they remain happy to engage with us!); ensure that the right lessons are learned about what the lawyers did wrong and why; and work on practical strategies to reduce the chances of such terrible events happening again.

We would like to take the opportunity of thanking all those who have supported us in our work so far. We have a terrific advisory board and are supported by the interest of many legal professionals. We will be building on that latter interest by working with LBC Wise Counsel (led by Paul Gilbert) to work with in-house lawyers and others to ensure that ethical decision-making is front and centre in lawyers’ thinking. Watch this space.