The Post Office does not seem to want to pay out much cash in the Fujitsu scandal which saw it fire, bankrupt and give criminal records to its subpostmasters.
For those who came in late, the Post Office went on a witch hunt of its subpostmasters after its Fujitsu computer incorrectly saw accounting errors where there were none. More than 700 former subpostmasters were convicted of crimes after being blamed for unexplained accounting shortfalls based on evidence from the Post Office’s Horizon retail and accounting system used in branches, which was later proved to be borked.
The Post Office after initially failing to acknowledge that its computer was faulty, now seems to be a little reluctant to pay up, meaning that judicial intervention is “inevitable” as compensation talks are breaking down.
In a letter to the law firm representing the Post Office, Herbert Smith Freehills, the lawyer negotiating on behalf of 61 former subpostmasters that were wrongly criminally convicted, wrote that while progress has been made on the value of pecuniary losses, the two sides are “some way apart” on the valuation of non-pecuniary losses.
Neil Hudgell of Hudgell Solicitors wrote that the Post Office values non-pecuniary losses, which include “loss of liberty, damage to reputation, psychiatric injury and other aggravated and exemplary damages”, in five figures, while the claimant lawyers put it in six figures
“In other words, for a conviction dating back to the early 2000s you [Post Office] place a value at most at £5000 per annum, or £100 a week. On those numbers, as you would expect we are poles apart”, wrote Hudgell.
He said progress is being made for the valuation of pecuniary loss, which can be mathematically calculated, but the valuation gap on non-pecuniary losses makes some form of judicial intervention an “inevitable consequence” as “the only workable solution to move this forward”.
It is the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history with convictions overturned for a total of 73 of those convicted so far, 61 of which are represented by Hudgell.
