Post Office: Culture of defeat among subpostmasters
Many subpostmaster (SPM) victims of the Post Office scandal felt “disbelieved, not listened to, passively processed, pressured, even bullied by the inevitability of pleading guilty as their lawyers advised”, a report has found.
“The golden thread of British justice: innocent until proven guilty was defeated, in part – and without in any way minimising the role of POL’s [Post Office Ltd] belligerence and impropriety – by a culture of defeat,” it said.
Some SPMs had “positive interactions with supportive lawyers”, who they felt believed them and “mounted a zealous defence” when representing them.
“Typically, these were lawyers who were already known to SPMs and who had a prior good relationship or were more junior lawyers, perhaps less jaded by the system.”
However, many felt their defence lawyers were “out of their depth coming up against such a powerful organisation” as the Post Office, and this influenced the advice they gave and how they managed cases.
“Our interviews did not suggest that plea decisions generally involved the exercise of meaningful choice in which SPMs were supported by their legal advisers.
“They often experienced the opposite of meaningful support, and were encouraged to plead guilty (rather than cautioned against pleading guilty) when they maintained innocence.”
The report Accessing Injustice? Experiences of representation and the criminal justice system during the Post Office Scandal [1] is the latest produced by the Post Office Project, overseen by Professor Richard Moorhead from Exeter University, with colleagues Dr Sally Day and Professor Rebecca Helm, and Dr Karen Nokes from UCL.
The report was based on interviews with 26 former SPMs, six partners, two adult children and one sibling.
Choice of representation for the SPMs was “constrained and haphazard”, with funding complicating an already difficult process.
Perceptions of criminal defence lawyers were “underpinned by a sense that the egregious conduct of POL, and the operation of the criminal justice system and of legal aid, meant they were at a significant disadvantage”.
Academics said it was “overwhelmingly communicated to us” that the audit and ‘investigation’ stages of the scandal were “incredibly traumatic and harmful” and the manner in which Post Office investigators conducted the interviews “brutal and distressing”.
Typically, legal representation to mount a defence “was ‘chosen’ under great time-pressure when SPMs felt desperate”. Most of them qualified for legal aid for their criminal cases, but not for debts or contract terminations.
“Participants began their engagement with lawyers in situations of high stress and with little knowledge of what to expect from their lawyers or the legal processes they were subjected to.
“To advise properly lawyers need to understand the facts of the situation before them but it was not uncommon for participants to feel their lawyers were uninterested in their story or seemed not to believe their account.”
Where interviewees indicated a desire to plead not guilty their lawyers “mostly strongly” cautioned their clients against it.
“There was a heavy emphasis on sentence discounting for a guilty plea and, in particular, a guilty plea being entered to avoid a custodial sentence.”
One SPM, advised by their solicitor, their barrister and another independent barrister, said: “All the opinions said the same thing, plead guilty, so that’s what we did.”
The report said: “It was not that the SPMs did not agree to plead guilty, but that they did so on a basis that was not fully informed.”
They recommended that the Sentencing Council review its guidance on credit for guilty pleas and the Law Society and Bar Council reconsider competence standards and guidance to “establish a clearer baseline level of investigation” that should be done by lawyers prior to the plea decision, “especially where a client maintains innocence”.
Professor Moorhead, who led the research team, commented: “Lawyers treated plea decisions as routine, when for the subpostmasters they were life changing. Protestations of innocence were not taken seriously.
“Their opponent behaved appallingly, but client stories were also not fully understood or investigated by those they had to put faith in.
“Whilst advice to plead was well received by some, who were thankful that plea agreements kept them out of jail, others still bear the scars of sometimes profound carelessness in their treatment by their lawyers and the courts.”