The legal system cannot escape scrutiny over its role in the Post Office scandal - Yorkshire Post Letters

Two institutions, the Post Office and Fujitsu, have rightly been heavily criticised for their part in the disgraceful Horizon scandal. But it occurs to me that there is another institution, so far keeping a very low profile, that needs close scrutiny.

I refer to the legal system in this country. Before taking poor Mr Lee Castleton, the Bridlington sub postmaster, to court, the Post Office spent an unbelievable £321,000 on lawyers' fees accumulating what is now seen to be false evidence against him.

How on earth can this figure be justified and how can it be that the lawyers did not realise that the case they were preparing was a false one?

By the time they got to prosecuting Mr Castleton, the Post Office had obtained judgements against 363 other sub postmasters and mistresses. Hundreds more followed, not to mention others who were sacked or settled to get the Post Office off their backs.

Why did no-one in the judiciary say, ‘hang on, people running sub post offices are selected for having a blameless record of honesty. How can hundreds be fiddling the books?’. Or was the legal establishment too keen on preserving the reputation of the law?

Why was, apparently, no effort made to find out where this non existent money had gone? Why would sub postmasters and mistresses take money if they knew it was going to show up in their accounts?

Having failed to turn up in a local court, the Post Office and their lawyers then took Mr. Castleton to the High Court where he was ordered to pay £22,963 for the ‘missing’ money and an outrageous £321,000 costs.

Alarm bells should have been ringing in the judiciary as this appalling situation developed. The court system clearly failed to find the truth not once but hundreds of times. That is something that should really worry the judiciary but I hear not a whisper from that institution.