Post Office Court of Appeal Judgment

Alan Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 27th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

I thank my hon. Friend for his work in this area. There are clearly wider lessons to be learned from this, as well as the direct lessons about who knew what in the Post Office. It is about justice and how private prosecutions work, although there has not been a private prosecution in this area for a few years now. We also heard stories about people pleading guilty to lesser charges to try to avoid prison. That is not justice as we see it. There are clearly wider lessons to be learned that I am sure the Government will look at.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

Following on from that point, the reality is that the Post Office remains the only body in the UK to run its own prosecutions and it starts from an assumption of guilt when it comes to disputes. Here, for Horizon, it acted as judge, jury and executioner, operated at standards way below the CPS and blocked the forensic account in Second Sight’s Horizon review. When is the Post Office going to be stripped of these prosecution powers? When will a fair dispute resolution process be put in place?

[Paul Scully]

As I said earlier, there have been no private prosecutions in this area for a number of years, but clearly there are lessons that need to be learned. That will be addressed in the inquiry.