A lawyer representing hundreds of victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal has hit out at ‘entirely unacceptable’ delays in dealing with claims for compensation – saying the process is causing victims further harm and illness.
Neil Hudgell, of Hudgell Solicitors, represents hundreds of former sub-postmasters who are seeking final damages settlements, though claims for malicious prosecution to various Government schemes which have been launched over the past few years.
In particular, he has highlighted the slow pace of reassessing compensation offers made by the Government through its Horizon Shortfall Scheme (HSS), which was established to compensate the thousands of people affected by the scandal.
The scheme compensates those not convicted of a crime by the Post Office, but who were still impacted when their branch accounts showed unexplained shortfalls, including those forced to ‘pay back’ money, people who were suspended and sacked, and those who lost their homes and businesses.
Mr Hudgell, who today gave evidence to a ‘Post Office: Fast and Fair Redress’ Parliamentary Business and Trade Commons Select Committee, says the scheme has not only left people ‘under-compensated’ – as many accepted final damages settlements without taking legal advice – but is now proving too long and difficult a process for those who do enlist expert support.
‘Falling short’
“The Horizon Shortfall Scheme is falling short and changes need to be made,” said Mr Hudgell.
The first failing is that lawyers generally have not become involved in the process until first offers have been issued to claimants, and almost without exception, in our experience, those offers have been inadequate. We have routinely secured significant increases as claims are reviewed and resubmitted.
Secondly, the process is wholly unacceptable when we enter a dispute process over the compensation offers made, as it just gets passed around too many times, during which period our clients are left waiting months in an informational vacuum.
Mr Hudgell highlighted how his firm has reviewed many cases where initial compensation offers made to former sub-postmasters have been ‘many thousands of pounds’ lower than they should have been.
His firm has been able to secure increased offers in excess of £100,000 and £200,000 in some cases, but says the process remains a slow and painful one, as the case is passed back to an Independent Advisory Panel to reassess, as part of the scheme’s Dispute Resolution Procedure.
He also says that ‘escalation meetings’ – in which former sub-postmasters are urged to meet Post Office officials to try and resolve their claims – had led to delay and confusion, with clients feeling they had been ‘led up the garden path’ as seemingly positive meetings led to no final outcome.
“Usually a claim is resubmitted to the scheme for redetermination following receipt of medical, accountancy and any other specialist input and typically takes 12-18 months to complete, but it is longer in cases which are more complex, such as those involving insolvency,” explained Mr Hudgell.
We have one case which has now been referred to Panel on three separate occasions, the most recent after an agreement had been reached to settle the claim ‘in principle’ after an escalation meeting in July.
Despite this, we have no final settlement in sight. The first offer on this case made by the Panel was around £42,000, which only rose to around £45,000 after the Panel spent a further six months reviewing the case.
The offer at the escalation meeting was substantially higher at more than £171,000 plus interest and tax to be calculated, although this has now been sent back to the Panel for a third time. It is completely unacceptable for claimants to be waiting months in an informational vacuum.
Our experience is that it is proving incredibly difficult to secure enough escalation meetings and formal mediations. Clients have been encouraged into dispute resolution meetings, with recommended outcomes that have not translated into any definitive proposal. They are left feeling they’ve been led up the garden path.
Family of former sub-postmistress offered just £8,000 damages
Mr Hudgell attended today’s hearing with client Jill Donnison, daughter of former North East sub-postmistress Janet Moorhead.
She told the committee how her mum ran her business for 16 years but had problems within a week of the Horizon IT system being installed.
A well-respected member of the community as a magistrate and a school governor, she lived in fear of a visit from the Post Office auditors as unexplained shortfalls at her Horden Post Office branch led to her using £20,000 of her own money to balance the books.
The family decided to sell the business in 2010 and spent £25,000 renovating the flat above the Post Office to try and make it a more marketable proposition, but it still sold for more than £30,000 less than what they had paid for it.
The family say Janet was unable to enjoy her retirement as the impact of her time at the Post Office hung over her for the rest of her life, and died of cancer before the Horizon scandal was uncovered.
Jill told the hearing that when the family received a damages offer from the Horizon Shortfall Scheme, they thought it was fair until getting legal advice and being told they were entitled to far more.
The Panel refused to make any award for the endless time that Janet spent trying to deal with the shortfalls, or, as the family had no medical evidence, any award for the stress cause to Janet. Hudgell Solicitors are now finalising a new claim with accompanying evidence.
Also giving evidence to the committee was Dewi Lewis, a county councillor who ran a shop and post office in Penrhyndeudraeth in North Wales.
He spent three months in prison in 2011, having been charged with theft.
Mr Lewis finally had his name cleared in August of this year when he received a letter from the Ministry of Justice quashing his conviction, following the introduction of new legislation.
He said he decided to accept the £600,000 final settlement offer, rather than have his case individually assessed, as he no longer has the fight left in him to go through anymore.
However, his interim payment of £200,000 was delayed due to a mix-up with a reference number, and he only received it last week.
Scheme ‘pays scant regard to the welfare of applicants’
Mr Hudgell is now calling for greater resource to be committed to resolving the many outstanding cases as soon as possible, highlighting the impact on those affected.
“We represent a former sub-postmaster who is now 78 years-old, who applied to this scheme in May 2020 and was offered just short of £10,000. In February 2024, following our review of his case, we submitted a claim for £305,000. As of today, no revised offer has been forthcoming and we are told a reasoned Panel decision is due shortly,” he said.
This client is elderly, anxious and we worry that he is the sort of vulnerable client likely to be tempted by the fixed sum settlement which is on offer to him, but would represent a significant under-settlement.
These final settlement offers become all the more tempting to people by every day that passes, but in many cases will not reflect justice and fair compensation.
The Horizon Shortfall Scheme pays scant regard to the welfare of applicants. There are a significant number of medical reports that demonstrate the process itself is causing Claimants to be unwell.
It seems to us the way ahead is simply to increase resources for the Dispute Resolution process so that, after a first offer has been determined by Panel, the Claimants can rework their cases and go before a streamlined process for discussion, negotiation and hopefully settlement,” he said.
At the end of the day, this is an ageing demographic of claimant. It is not the case that they wish to squeeze every penny in compensation. They simply want full, fair and timely compensation that enables them to get on with what is left of their lives.
Fighting for justice
Hudgell Solicitors continues to at the forefront of the continuing fight for justice for former sub-postmasters who were victims of what is now recognised to have been the biggest miscarriage of justice in UK legal history.
Our expert legal team is proud to stand at the side of victims and their families across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, representing law-abiding, honest and hard-working people whose lives and reputations were ruined when wrongly accused, and prosecuted, over branch shortfalls, based on unreliable computer evidence.
We have unrivalled experience in cases relating to the Horizon Scandal, and now represent around 1,000 clients across all compensation schemes.
Read more: Experts in Post Office Horizon Legal Representation
