Professional Pathologies, Causal Pathways and the Post Office Miscarriages of Justice

In 2000, as part of a drive to become more commercial, the Post Office introduced a flawed electronic accounting system into all their branches. That system generated erroneous records of debts which the Post Office (PO) said its staff were responsible for. On the basis of those erroneous records, PO staff were asked to repay money they did not owe; lost their employment or businesses as sub-postmasters when accused of mismanagement or dishonesty; and, many (estimated at over 700) were prosecuted, convicted, and many were imprisoned for thefts and false accounting they did not commit. Livelihoods, reputations, and freedom were lost.

The first quashings of these convictions began in 2021 after the Court of Appeal found that the Post Office had acted so badly that their convictions were an "affront to public justice". A litany of poor behaviour, often driven or overseen by lawyers working for the PO, over many years was exposed. The Court of Appeal's judgment built on findings in a High Court case in 2019 which found that PO had been running an accounting system that was not fit for purpose. The case was defended by lawyers in ways which were oppressive and misleading. Those cases revealed a number of episodes, especially in 2010, 2013, and beyond, where evidence of problems within PO was ignored or suppressed with catastrophic impacts on the victims of PO's behaviour.

The litigation, and the ongoing judicial inquiry, being conducted by Sir Wyn Williams has, and will, produce a wealth of detailed information on the behaviors and decisions lying at the heart of Post Office's mistakes and misconduct. This provides a crucial opportunity to put the conduct and thought processes of lawyers under the microscope. At a time when concern about lawyers' ethics is growing, we can develop new thinking which will aim to make this kind of behaviour less likely. We can move beyond traditional approaches to lawyers' ethics which are abstract, complex, and unlikely to affect behaviour and develop approaches that can encourage lawyers to take their own ethical rules more seriously. We can also do work that will help regulators improve their own rule-book and other processes to hold lawyers accountable.

To do this we will deploy the latest thinking on ethics, and work with practitioners to explore how they would or should take decisions in the real world. We will also draw on the accounts of victims of the scandals to ensure that our knowledge and approach are informed by how victims experience the sometimes bewildering world of law.

Although the outcome of the post office scandal is horrifying; the problems that led to it are quite common for lawyers working within commercial (and other) organisations. Our methods and thinking will ensure that the lessons we learn from the Post Office scandal will be applicable well beyond the confines of this terrible case.