Post Office victims offered legal advice to decide on appeals

The government will pay for victims of the Post Office scandal to take legal advice before finally agreeing a compensation offer.

The pledge to fund legal advice for appeals, including for those who have already settled for fixed sums, was announced on Thursday as part of the wider response to the first report of the Post Office Inquiry.

In July, inquiry chair Sir Wyn Williams said it was ‘indefensible’ that people wrongly convicted or accused due to the faulty Horizon system were having to fund their own legal costs.

The new appeals process will be overseen by senior judge Sir Gary Hickinbottom, who has been appointed to oversee the Horizon Shortfall Scheme.

Subject to further review, the government will also look at establishing an independent body which could oversee and manage redress for any future scandals.

Business secretary Peter Kyle said: ‘We must never lose sight of the wronged postmasters affected by the Horizon Scandal, which the Inquiry has highlighted so well.

‘There is clearly more to do to bring justice to those affected. The recommendations we are accepting today will be a crucial step towards this.’

Ministers have also published a clear definition of what constitutes ‘full and fair redress’ after Sir Wyn found that the Post Office had a ‘markedly different’ view of what this meant compared to victims.

The guidance, jointly agreed by the government and the Post Office, states that redress should match the amount that a postmaster would receive if they were awarded damages by a court. For financial losses, that means restoring each claimant to the position they would have been if they had never been affected by the scandal.

Decision-makers should apply a ‘generous approach’ to compensation and victims should receive the benefit of the doubt where documents or evidence of loss cannot be produced after so long.

Sir Wyn’s report was particularly critical of how Post Office lawyers had approached settlement negotiations, and the new guidance seeks to end the culture of arguing over every point.

It adds: ‘Although the schemes are underpinned by legal principles and procedures, postmasters should be compensated for the impact of the scandal on them, without having to prove losses under strict legal principles or by way of an adversarial and legalistic process.

‘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.’