Moorhead: Working with Post Office victims has enriched my life
Professor Richard Moorhead, whose work has helped to support victims of the Post Office scandal, has been awarded an OBE for services to legal ethics in the King’s Birthday Honours.
He was one of several legal figures recognised in the annual list.
A solicitor by qualification, he is professor of law and professional ethics at Exeter University and professor of law at Monash University in Australia.
Professor Moorhead was appointed to the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board in 2023 and has been leading the Post Office Project [1], looking at the lessons for lawyers’ ethics and corporate governance, and for the criminal justice system.
The academic has been arguably the main figure in the conversation on legal ethics in recent years.
Delivering the Hamlyn Lectures in 2024 [2], he called for the creation of an independent commission charged with improving “honesty, integrity and effectiveness in the use of law”
He said: “We have to change the way lawyers think and behave. We have to put complete integrity and particular care not to mislead at the front of our thinking. We should turn away from lauding amorality and guard against harm.”
Speaking this weekend, Professor Moorhead said: “Whilst delighted and not a little proud, it is important to say that a good dollop of luck and the support of those around me is what makes for moments like these.
“It is particularly sobering that my most important contributions have been built on the Post Office scandal. It has been a galvanising story of human misery and I owe a profound debt to the decency of the victims who are role-models for us all.
“Working on their experiences has enriched my life immeasurably. Their treatment holds up a mirror to an all-too-common corporate, professional, and legal culture that can ruin lives.”
His submissions to the Post Office Horizon inquiry persuaded the chair, Sir Wyn Williams, to lift legal professional privilege, meaning the role of lawyers could be properly considered.
Professor Moorhead continued: “Lifting privilege has exposed behaviour that has been jaw-dropping. Dozens of lawyers, senior and junior, barrister, solicitors, and in-house lawyers are in the spotlight.
“The inquiry exposed incompetence, cynicism, and impropriety spanning 20 years. Lawyer regulators and the police are poised to act.”
Also in the King’s Birthday Honours, Susanna McGibbon KC, who stepped down earlier this year as Treasury Solicitor and head of the Government Legal Department, became a Dame Commander of the Order of the Bath, while Professor Richard Macrory CBE KC, until recently a board member at the Office for Environmental Protection, was knighted for services to environmental law.
An in-house lawyer at Friends of the Earth back in the 1970s, he is emeritus professor of environmental law at University College London
There were CBEs for Jane Hill, legal director at the Department for Business and Trade; Harry Matovu KC of Brick Court Chambers and chair of the Black Talent Charter, for services to business and to the legal profession; Fleur Ruda, deputy director, employment rights, at the Department of Business and Trade; and Henry Grunwald KC of Crucible Chambers, former chair of the National Holocaust Centre and Museum in Newark, for services to Holocaust remembrance and education.
Solicitor Sarah Castle, the Official Solicitor and Public Trustee, received an OBE for services to the Court of Protection, to the Chequers Trust and to the public.
Other OBEs included:
- Solicitor Kwadwo Adjepong, an arbitrator and mediator, for services to sport and sports law;
- Stephen Akinsanya of 15NBS Chambers, for services to the prevention of knife crime and youth violence;
- Kate Aubrey-Johnson, a barrister at Garden Court Chambers and chair of the Ministry of Justice’s working group on youth advocacy, for services to children and the youth justice system;
- Adrian Budgen, national head of asbestos and occupational disease at national firm Irwin Mitchell, for services to the victims of asbestos related diseases and their families;
- Elizabeth Clark, specialist prosecutor, Crown Prosecution Service;
- Estelle Dehon KC of Cornerstone Barristers, for services to environmental law;
- His Honour Judge Jonathan Rose, resident judge at Bradford Crown Court and Honorary Recorder of Bradford, for services to the administration of justice and to the young people of Bradford;
- Hilary Ryan, specialist prosecutor, Crown Prosecution Service; and
- Ian Salter, a partner at Burges Salmon, for services to the nuclear industry;
There were also MBEs for Fay Cornwell, senior lawyer at HM Revenue & Customs, for services to benefits recipients, and Faria Ali, senior associate solicitor at City firm Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, for charitable and voluntary service.
Finally, Julius O’Riordan – who is both a DJ and broadcaster known as Judge Jules, and a partner at specialist London law firm Sound Advice – received an MBE for services to music, to entertainment law and to young people.