How subpostmasters made legal history with biggest referral of potential miscarriages of justice

Application increase

The CCRC began reviewing 27 applications in 2015, but the number has increased over the five years since. A total of 61 cases were reviewed by the CCRC.  

The number recently increased following the conclusion of the High Court group litigation that proved the subpostmasters who blamed the Post Office’s Horizon computer system for accounting shortfalls were right, and that the Post Office was wrong to blame them. 

“Things changed significantly with the judgements,” said Pitcher. “We put it on hold once we knew other judgments were coming. We had done a lot of work at that point but thought there was no point in us doing any more until these judgements were out. 

“We had a team set up and ready to go as soon as we knew what was happening,” she said.

The CCRC decided it needed to look at all the cases individually because the facts were different in all of them. Pitcher said the 22 applications in the group that were not referred to the Court of Appeal had been due to the timing of when the CCRC received them, with lots of preparatory work to be done.

Pitcher brings to her role at the CCRC an academic and professional background that mixes legal, commercial, charity and education. She  previously chaired the Queen’s Council selection panel as well as corporate boards. Pitcher has a firm grasp of law and corporate responsibility, and said that because of her professional interest in miscarriages of justice, the CCRC role is her dream job.

Abuse of process

On the referrals of the subpostmaster prosecution, she said: “Our argument is that this is an abuse of process, and if you are getting so many cases which all relate to an IT system that has been put in, somebody somewhere should have been asking if this is the fault of the individual or the system, and if it is the system, what does that mean?

“Whether that happened or not I don’t know, but as a member of various boards over the years, I would say if I was on the Post Office board I would have been saying to my head of legal, ‘I need you to come to the board and give us an account of how there could be so many cases coming under the same category’.”

She said that presupposes it went to the board and was highlighted to them. Senior executives at the Post Office were aware of it. “The former CEO Paula Vennells spoke quite openly about these cases in the press,” said Pitcher. 

If the right questions had been asked at the right time, the suffering of hundreds of subpostmasters could have been prevented. “Whenever you are in a business with money moving over the counter, you will always get some element of theft,” she said. “Whether that leads to people being cynical and believing that all shortfalls are theft I don’t know. But the board should have been asking some penetrating questions.” 

On the right of the Post Office to prosecutions without police involvement, Pitcher said the management would probably be advised to investigate shortfalls and use internal disciplinary measures, but pass them on to police if they think there has been a crime. “Otherwise, you are judge and jury,” she said.