Post Office pursued victim to High Court to ‘defend Horizon’, internal emails reveal
A sub-postmaster who features prominently in ITV’s Mr Bates drama was pursued through a civil court by the Post Office purely “to defend the Horizon system” instead of recovering his debt, internal emails have revealed.
Lee Castleton, 55, was forced to declare bankruptcy in 2007 following the High Court case.
In 2004, he was accused of being responsible for a £26,000 shortfall in accounts at his branch in Bridlington, Yorks, and was suspended from work.
Subsequently, flaws in the Horizon IT system were uncovered, showing that it generated false accounting shortfalls for local Post Office branches, vindicating hundreds who had insisted their innocence.
Mr Castleton, played by Will Mellor in the television drama, disputed the shortfall and said faults in the Horizon system, used for managing branch offices, were to blame for generating a fictional shortfall.
The Post Office launched a High Court case against him, telling the judge it wanted to recover a debt.
However, internal emails sent at the time show bosses wanted to “send a clear message” to staff about challenging the controversial IT system.
It comes after it was revealed the Post Office knew there were issues with the Horizon software as far back as 2010, but did not take action over fears it would undermine prosecutions.
Clandestine recordings also showed Paula Vennells, former chief executive, told a business select committee in 2015 that there had been no miscarriage of justice.
This was despite the Post Office’s company secretary preparing a brief for Ms Vennells two years earlier, stating it was possible to access Horizon accounts remotely without postmasters knowing, which would have cast doubt on convictions.
Disclosed to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry, the emails from Tom Beezer of the law firm Bond Pearce, who was acting on behalf of the Post Office, were sent to in-house lawyers.
They showed how the state-owned postal business was happy to run up a £321,000 legal bill against Mr Castleton, while the sub-postmaster spent his savings in the years-long court battle.
Mr Breezer wrote in the 2006 correspondence: “Accordingly the purpose of pursuing this claim now is not to make a net financial recovery, but to defend the Horizon system and hopefully send a clear message to other sub-postmasters that the P.O will take a firm line and to deter others from raising similar allegations.”
Mr Castleton was eventually ordered to pay £347,000 and as a result of the case had to close his shop.
His wife suffered stress-induced seizures and his children were forced to move schools after they were bullied.
A study published in the British Psychological Society’s journal, Legal and Criminological Psychology, found Post Office scandal victims have higher rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than people who have served in Britain’s Armed Forces.
More than two thirds, or 67 per cent, of 101 sub-postmasters who had been investigated in relation to the Horizon scandal had PTSD, the study found.
Mr Castleton said: “They wanted me to sign a document that strictly made sure that Horizon was never to blame, and that I was mistaken.”F
When asked if he signed it, Mr Castleton said: “No. Never. Not while I had breath in my body.”
Between 2000 and 2014, more than 700 sub-postmasters were prosecuted and convicted of crimes based on evidence generated by Horizon – and in some cases were dragged through the civil courts for debt recovery action.
Rather than admit Horizon’s flaws, Post Office managers insisted that the system was robust and that anyone questioning its accuracy had to be shut down.
Paul Marshall, the sub-postmaster’s barrister, said: “Lee’s case is a frankly stupefying instance of injustice and a terrible indictment of our civil justice system which totally failed him.
“Had he had Jason Coyne to assist him, as Julie Wolstenholme had in the Cleveleys case a year previously, the Post Office wouldn’t have gone within 10 miles of a County Court, let alone the High Court,” added Mr Marshall.
A Post Office spokesman declined to comment, while a spokesman for law firm Womble Bond Dickinson, as Bond Pearce is known today, said it would be “inappropriate to comment” on Mr Beezer’s actions, adding: “However, it is important to restate that we have great sympathy for all those affected by Horizon’s failings.”
Fujitsu, whose expert witness Anne Chambers told the judge in Mr Castleton’s case that there was “no evidence whatsoever of any problem with the system”, declined to comment.
