Post Office victims' compensation battle 'worse than original injustice'

Post Office lawyers are continuing to dig their heels in and stop victims of the Horizon scandal getting the timely redress they need.

That was the claim from victims’ lawyer Simon Goldberg, who said the Post Office’s intractable and stubborn approach is running contrary to public statements from the organisation and from the government.

His comments came after it emerged that victims’ commissioner Baroness Newlove had written to the government saying that the situation with compensation was ‘worse than the original injustice’. Newlove’s letter, which has not been published but the contents of which have been verified, states: ‘Far from offering catharsis, the compensation process was seen to be as bad as or even worse an experience than the initial investigation, prosecution and injustice itself.’

The commissioner said the claim for compensation was more akin to fighting an insurance company than an arm of the state and that she had been shocked by a multitude of victims of the Horizon scandal saying how difficult the process had been.

Goldberg, whose firm Simons Muirhead Burton represents 15 individuals involved in the most complex cases, said lawyers representing the Post Office seem ‘oblivious’ to calls from the public and from the Horizon inquiry chair Sir Wyn Williams to drop adversarial tactics. He added: ‘The spin from government is all about speeding up redress and giving the sub-postmasters the benefit of the doubt. At the coal face and on the ground the exact opposite is happening: adversarial and technical arguments intended deliberately to grind the claimants down.’

Newlove’s letter was sent earlier this month, before the government officially responded to part one of the inquiry report. In that response, decision-makers representing the Post Office were told to apply a ‘generous approach’ to compensation and give victims the benefit of the doubt where documents or evidence of loss had gone missing in the intervening years.

The new guidance, jointly agreed by the government and Post Office, added: ‘If fairness demands it in a particular case, it is permissible to depart from the established legal principles which would normally govern the assessment of damages in civil litigation.’

Sir Wyn had been particularly critical of Post Office lawyers in his first report, published in the summer following the three-year inquiry. He said that victims had come up against ‘formidable difficulties’ and that Post Office and its advisers had adopted an ‘unnecessarily adversarial attitude’ towards making initial offers.

Post Office minister Blair McDougall said in response to the letter that since it was sent the government has acted to further speed up claims and improve redress schemes.

'I look forward to working with postmasters in making further improvements to the redress schemes so that they get the compensation they deserve.'

A Post Office spokesperson said the organisation would welcome contact with the victims commissioner directly to understand more about what she has been told and to work together so that current and former postmasters get their claims in as soon as possible.