Alan Bates and Others v Post Office Ltd
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Fraser |
| Judgment Date | 10 November 2017 |
| Neutral Citation | [2017] EWHC 2844 (QB) |
| Docket Number | Case No: HQ16X01238 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
| Date | 10 November 2017 |
[2017] EWHC 2844 (QB)
THE HONOURABLE Mr Justice Fraser
Case No: HQ16X01238
THE POST OFFICE GROUP LITIGATION
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEENS BENCH DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Patrick Green QC, Kathleen DonnellyandOgnjen Miletic (instructed by Freeths LLP) for the Claimant
Anthony De Garr Robinson QC and Owain Draper (instructed by Bond Dickinson Solicitors) for the Defendant
Hearing dates: 19 and 25 October 2017
Draft sent out to parties on 8 November 2017
These proceedings are subject to a Group Litigation Order ("GLO") made on 22 March 2017 by Senior Master Fontaine. Such an order requires the approval of the President of the Queen's Bench Division, who also nominated me on 31 March 2017 to be the Managing Judge for the group litigation. Under paragraph 10 of the GLO the Managing Judge is to hear, if possible, all pre-trial applications in the litigation and to conduct the trial or trials. This written ruling is made in respect of a subject which has already arisen once before in these proceedings, and is in my judgment highly likely to continue to arise again in this litigation as it progresses, given the current approach of the parties. It is the question of fixing hearings to take account of the availability of counsel. It may also arise from time to time in other proceedings (not simply those subject to a GLO). It is unusual in matters of case management to produce written reasons, but the intention is that these will assist the parties in this group litigation. This judgment has been shown in draft to the Judge in Charge of the QB Lists.
The subject matter of the proceedings subject to the GLO are as follows. The claimants are for the most part all sub-post masters, although a small number are Crown Office employees and managers/assistants, whose contracts of employment are different to the contracts of the sub-post masters. The defendant is the entity that operates the network of over 11,000 Post Office branches throughout the UK. All of the claimants (of whom there are now over 500 in number, and regardless of whether they were sub-post masters or Crown Office employees) were at the material times engaged in running Post Offices. The term sub-post master is used to describe the person appointed by the defendant to run a particular branch. The Crown Office employees perform similar functions, but do so at a small number of branches which are directly managed by the defendant as Crown Office branches. For the purposes of this ruling, the distinction is not material (although it may prove material in the substantive proceedings).
I wish to emphasise that at this early stage in these proceedings, the outline summary which I now provide is on hotly contested facts. No substantive hearings have yet been held, and no findings have been made. In about 1999/2000 the defendant introduced a system called Horizon, an electronic point of sale and accounting system for all of its branches. It was a computerised system with both hardware and software, as well as communications equipment in the branches and central data centres. In essence it fulfilled a computerised accounting function for Post Office branches. The system was amended from time to time, and in 2010 it became something called Horizon Online, which as the name suggests was an internet based system. All of the claimants were users of the Horizon system, and indeed they were required to use the Horizon system.
It is alleged by the claimants that the Horizon system changed the way that the claimants could both account for, and interrogate and investigate, the numerous financial transactions that were made in the relevant branches every working day. A central part of the claimants' case is that the Horizon system had a large number of software coding errors, bugs and defects. The agreed case summary for the first Case Management Conference states that alleged shortfalls in the claimants' financial accounting with the defendant were caused both by the way the Horizon system operated, together with other deficiencies. At the time, these shortfalls that came to the notice of the defendant were pursued as exactly that – shortfalls — with the relevant claimants. The defendant's stance was that the claimants were responsible for these shortfalls, and that the shortfalls represented actual amounts of money missing from the claimants' accounting. Some claimants paid these amounts to the defendant out of their own resources, even though they did not believe or accept that there was anything deficient in their accounting. Some of the shortfalls were for modest sums. Some claimants were lucky enough to find accounting irregularities in their favour. Others were convicted in the criminal courts of false accounting, fraud, theft or other offences. These claimants claim malicious prosecution against the defendant, and also claim that there was a "cover up" at the defendant over the shortcomings in Horizon. Some claimants were made bankrupt. There are claims for damages for financial loss, personal injury, deceit, duress, unconscionable dealing, harassment and unjust enrichment brought against the defendant. There is currently a Criminal Cases Review Commission ("CCRC") review underway in respect of the convictions of a significant number of the claimants. These are being dealt with together by the CCRC.
The defendant disputes the whole basis of the claimants' case, avers that there were large numbers of sub-post masters who knowingly submitted false accounts under the previous system, maintains that Horizon worked perfectly adequately, that the claims against it are time-barred, and also relies upon a range of other legal defences based on different matters. These include the terms of settlements reached with individual claimants when many branches were closed as the defendant rationalised its branch network. The making of a GLO had been opposed by the defendant.
Over recent years, this situation regarding Horizon, its efficacy or accuracy and the lengthy saga with aggrieved sub-post masters has resulted in an action group being formed, called Justice For Sub Postmasters Alliance ("JFSA"). At the instigation of a number of Members of Parliament, an independent inquiry was set up by the defendant using a company called Second Sight Services Ltd ("Second Sight") that ran from 2012 until 2015. There was a public debate in Westminster Hall in December 2014, a response to this was published by the defendant in January 2015, and oral evidence was given to a Parliamentary Select Committee by the Chief Executive of the defendant in February 2015. This was in relation to a Mediation Scheme that had run for a while jointly under the auspices of the defendant, Second Sight and JFSA. There have been various reports and documentaries in the media, including a BBC Panorama documentary entitled "Trouble at the Post Office" in August 2015.
It is against that background that a number of claims were issued and the GLO came to be made. The first claim form had been issued in April 2016. Numerous other claims followed. The essence of a GLO is that all related claims are managed and tried together, with the use of Lead Cases as suitable, considering common issues that arise. A period of advertisement is permitted indeed required, as other potential claimants who wish to issue similar proceedings are required to join the group litigation and are included on a Group Register. This process was...
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