The UK Post Office Scandal – Megaprojects, IT Systems and the Law

This story is about the most widespread miscarriage of justice in English history. The scale of this story exceeds the witch trials of the 16th and 17th century.

This story is relevant to every construction lawyer in Australia because it is a story rooted in how we deliver major projects, how we think about technology and its reliability and how we compromise our fundamental obligation as lawyers to act in the best interests of the law.

This story will make you shake your head in disbelief. But as you listen to it, you need to keep in mind, all the way through, that there were lawyers, just like you and me, doing what they thought was their job.

And this story is about regular people who worked for and ran Post Offices all across the UK who were prosecuted for theft by the Post Office after the launch of the Post Offices’ first digital system, called Horizon. Almost 700 people were successfully prosecuted for theft by the Post Office. But they hadn’t don’t it and it took 20 years to prove their innocence.

Source Material
Nick Wallis, ‘The Great Post Office Scandal’, 2021, Bath Publishing.

Paul Marshall, ‘Failed Justice - how commercial interest displaced the interests of justice in the Post Office case’, 30 March 2022, Queen’s University Belfast, Institute of Legal Studies

Disclaimer
This podcast is for reference purposes only.  It does not constitute legal advice and should not be relied upon as such.  You should always obtain legal advice about your specific circumstances.  The views expressed in these podcasts are the speakers' own.  They should not be taken as recommendations of the Society of Construction Law Australia.