{"id":223252,"date":"2024-01-15T17:16:03","date_gmt":"2024-01-15T17:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dominiclevent.com\/blog\/?p=223252"},"modified":"2024-01-15T17:16:03","modified_gmt":"2024-01-15T17:16:03","slug":"safeguards-are-needed-against-the-abuse-of-private-prosecutions-the-post-office-scandal-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dominiclevent.com\/blog\/safeguards-are-needed-against-the-abuse-of-private-prosecutions-the-post-office-scandal-shows\/","title":{"rendered":"Safeguards are needed against the abuse of private prosecutions, the Post Office scandal shows"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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B<\/span>efore the latest Post Office headlines<\/a> swept across the country, I expect very few people were aware that the law allows any adult, or organisation, to bring a private prosecution. In light of the Horizon scandal, the next question must surely be: how do we guard against abuse?<\/p>\n

The Bar Council, representing almost 18,000 barristers in England and Wales, last week called for parliament to review the safeguards associated with private prosecutions. The Post Office Horizon scandal<\/a> is one of the worst miscarriages of justice our country has seen and focus rightly turns to the circumstances in which the private prosecutions were brought.<\/p>\n

Prosecutions can be undertaken by any person or legal entity. Often they are brought by public bodies, some set up specifically for purposes of applying sanctions through prosecutions, such as the Food Standards Agency and the Health and Safety Executive. But private prosecutions can also be brought by corporate entities, including the RSPCA and the Post Office. These private prosecutions are not regulated, but the decision to prosecute must clearly be in the public interest, a test regularly applied and understood by the Crown Prosecution Service<\/a> (or CPS).<\/p>\n

The Bar Council has two key areas of concern that will be considered by the ongoing Post Office inquiry.<\/a><\/p>\n

First, before Horizon, the IT system developed by Fujitsu for tasks including accounting and stocktaking, the Post Office<\/a> was bringing a handful of prosecutions per year. Once Horizon was implemented in 1999, the number of prosecutions shot up to 50-80 a year. This stark difference ought to have given any prosecuting authority pause for thought.<\/p>\n

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