Submitted 8 months ago by Emperor@feddit.uk to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68805556
Former sub-postmaster Alan Bates says he will consider raising funds for private prosecutions of Post Office bosses over the Horizon IT scandal.
He told the BBC he would act if the authorities did not take cases forward.
“It was fine when the Post Office brought private prosecutions, so if we’ve got to do it in return so be it”, he said.
Does this bloke ever sleep. Man needs to be invited to the Order of the Garter if not made a Duke.
This will probably drag into the next government the way it’s going and it will be interesting to see what PM Starmer does about this when he’s in office.
I mean, good. He’s right to do so and I support his goal, these bosses should pay for their actions.
But I suspect he is going to find out which class of people the judiciary works for the hard way.
NateNate60@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Why the fuck do private prosecutions still exist? It’s the 21st century. If only the CPS could prosecute I doubt the Post Office scandal would have even happened, if only because they’re more thorough than the Post Office idiots
JoBo@feddit.uk 8 months ago
The CPS, and equivalents in Scotland, brought around a third of the wrongful prosecutions.
The barristers the CPS employs to bring prosecutions are the same barristers used by the Post Office, using the same courts and the same judges.
This scandal just shines a light on how impossible the criminal justice system is for ordinary people with more limited means. Bates vs PO only happened because they managed to find 555 claimants (500 being the minimum their funders needed to risk it).
There was a case settled in 2003 because the court appointed a single independent expert to act for both sides and he pointed out all the holes in the Post Office case. That should have been the end of it. But they made her sign a confidentiality agreement, slandered him, and carried on prosecuting.
I told Post Office the truth about Horizon in 2003, IT expert says
Patch@feddit.uk 8 months ago
That’s actually not entirely true. Although the CPS does engage “free” barristers via chambers for some cases, most CPS prosecutions are handled “in house” by salaried barristers working directly for the CPS.
CPS’s in-house barristers are (as a rough rule) extremely experienced at prosecuting common-or-garden cases, but lack the specialist experience of barristers available to hire via chambers, who they will usually bring in for the more complex prosecutions (or ones involving a specialist area of expertise).
All barristers are only as good as the evidence given to them, though, and one of the real strengths of the CPS barristers is experience in working with the police- both in terms of knowing how to get the best evidence out of them, and knowing a police wild goose chase when they see one. This is the part that really breaks down in cases like the Post Office, where it’s private corporate investigators throwing complex technical evidence over the fence at random barristers who have mostly not worked with them before.
HeartyBeast@kbin.social 8 months ago
Because you probably don’t want the state to have monopoly on prosecutions
NateNate60@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Yes I do. Of all the options available, this is the best one. Any other option is worse by comparison.