Lawyer suggested Put up Workplace to undertake ‘chilly’ method and never apologise, inquiry hears

An exterior lawyer suggested the Post Office to take away apologies from letters despatched to put up workplace operators and “keep a extra chilly, procedural method”, a public inquiry has heard.

The inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal was advised that Andrew Parsons, a accomplice at regulation agency Womble Bond Dickinson (WBD) who suggested the Put up Workplace for greater than seven years, wrote that apologising to the operators can be “admitting some extent of culpability”.

The inquiry is analyzing how a whole bunch of people have been pursued and prosecuted for greater than a decade by the Put up Workplace over alleged monetary shortfalls of their department accounts. It has since emerged the problems have been brought on by bugs within the state-owned physique’s Horizon IT system.

The inquiry heard that, in 2013, Parsons had reviewed drafts of letters resulting from be despatched out by the Put up Workplace to various department operators. The people had recognized monetary discrepancies of their department accounts proven on the Horizon IT system which the Put up Workplace had agreed to appropriate.

In an e mail to Put up Workplace executives despatched in June 2013, Parsons wrote: “I don’t assume we must always apologise within the letters. I do know this sounds arduous however in apologising we’re admitting some extent of culpability. I feel we must always keep a extra chilly, procedural method to correcting what’s successfully an accounting irregularity.”

On Thursday, Parsons was requested by Julian Blake, counsel to the inquiry, what the issue was legally in making an apology.

“Typically apologies might be interpreted as admissions,” Parsons advised the inquiry. “I feel it’s fairly frequent for legal professionals in letters to think about whether or not an apology is acceptable or not. In my opinion, it leads individuals to think about there was an admission of authorized fault when actually the Put up Workplace’s view was, sure, there had been an issue, nevertheless it had been corrected.”

Parsons was additionally questioned by the inquiry about one other e mail, despatched in 2016, by which his regulation agency had urged the Put up Workplace to “attempt to suppress” disclosure of a key doc for “so long as potential”.

At the moment, legal professionals appearing for the department operators led by Alan Bates, whose marketing campaign for justice was dramatised by ITV this year, have been asking the Put up Workplace for disclosure of its investigation tips within the early phases of their excessive courtroom authorized battle.

The e-mail was despatched in October 2016 by a junior lawyer at WBD. Parsons agreed that he had checked her draft e mail and inserted a paragraph by which he spoke about “finally withholding a key doc”.

His addition learn: “For now we’ll do what we will to keep away from disclosure of those tips and check out to take action in a approach that appears professional. Nevertheless, we’re finally withholding a key doc and this will appeal to some criticism … we’ll undertake this method till such time as we sense the criticism is turning into severe.”

Parsons advised the inquiry it was a “very poorly worded e mail and I remorse sending it”.

He stated the junior solicitor “had despatched a draft for my approval earlier that day which didn’t include this last paragraph. I responded to her including it into her draft, although my goal in doing so seems to have merely been to clarify what motion we required from POL [Post Office Ltd] on this level.”

He added there have been “substantive professional causes for resisting disclosure of the investigation tips at this early stage”.

Parsons was additionally questioned about exchanges between himself and Rodric Williams, an inside Put up Workplace lawyer, about potential responses to an version of the BBC’s Panorama programme in 2015 which had raised questions in regards to the Horizon IT system. The documentary had featured the circumstances of convicted put up workplace operators Noel Thomas, Seema Misra and Jo Hamilton, who have been all exonerated in 2021.

On the time, Parsons wrote that his most well-liked choice had been for the Put up Workplace to do nothing and await the choice of the Felony Circumstances Assessment Fee about potential miscarriages of justice – or alternatively it might go on “full assault.”

He stated within the e mail, which was learn out to the inquiry, that the Put up Workplace might “begin attacking the postmasters’ credibility by calling out Thomas, Misra and Hamilton because the liars and criminals that they’re”. Parsons advised the inquiry: “On reflection that language is simply too robust.”

Individually, on Thursday, a Scottish regulation which can routinely exonerate Scots wrongly convicted as a part of the Post Office Horizon scandal obtained royal assent and can come into drive on Friday.