Post Office Court of Appeal Judgment

Lord Mackay of Clashfern Excerpts

Wednesday 28th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con) [V]]

My Lords, this is a situation in which the Post Office used our system of justice to produce a massive injustice. I would like to know who represented the Post Office in these proceedings, whether they had any reason to doubt the validity of the evidence that the Post Office produced and, if so, whether that was passed to the defence.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My noble and learned friend makes some very good points. Given that some of these initial prosecutions happened, in some instances, 20 years ago, the fact is that the Post Office representation changed a number of times. It is difficult to provide a complete answer to my noble and learned friend’s questions. Postmasters were prosecuted by the in-house legal teams of the Post Office and, before that, by the Royal Mail, and they were supported by external counsel as needed. It is important to emphasise that none of these prosecutions involved any current Post Office lawyers, nor that of Peters & Peters, which is the criminal lawyers firm now supporting the Post Office to address these issues. I am unable to say what prosecutors thought at the time. However, as my noble and learned friend is of course well aware, prosecutors have a duty to disclose to the accused material that could reasonably be considered capable of undermining the prosecution case or assisting the defence case.