Event Horizon: 16 December 2019

Hi all (resending so you might get this twice)

The managing judge in the Bates and others v Post Office has indicated the Horizon Issues trial judgment will be handed down at 2pm on Monday 16 December at the High Court’s Rolls Building in London. The specific courtroom has yet to be announced.

If it is anything like the experience of 15 March (and I have no reason to doubt it won’t be), it will be both an awkward and strangely emotional experience.

What happens is that from 1.15pm onwards representatives of the parties will gather in the specified courtroom, as will claimants, and members of the press and public.

At 2pm the judge, Sir Peter Fraser, will enter from his chambers, and all will rise. The judge will then make some administrative remarks related to the distribution of the judgment (which didn’t last more than two minutes last time), then he will stand and leave.

Once the judge has left, the judge’s clerk will hand down paper copies of the judgment whilst taking email addresses from members of the press who wish to receive the judgment in email form.

From that moment the judgment is in the public domain and the formal process has ended. At some stage later in the afternoon, the judgment will be available online at bailli.org

First judgment handing down

On 15 March, immediately after the judge left the courtroom, reporters first grabbed their copy of the judgment, then gathered round Patrick Green, QC for the claimants. Mr Green made a couple of remarks and pointed us to some key passages in the judgment.

Then reporters went for quotes from James Hartley from Freeths and Alan Bates and any assembled claimants. The Post Office legal team declined to comment directly.

There were tears – mostly ones of relief. One of Freeths’ legal team broke down for entirely understandable reasons – the judgment symbolised the first concrete result after three years of immensely hard work, under considerable pressure.

Then everyone trooped downstairs to take up their camera positions and there was a short press conference on the pavement outside the Rolls Building, followed by a series of 1-2-1 interviews with James Hartley and Alan Bates. Channel 4 took claimant Jo Hamilton round the corner to film an interview with her which appeared on the news that evening.

Because so few claimants turned up and spoke to reporters last time, it worked to their disadvantage. The judgment would certainly have got more airtime and more coverage if 50 or even 20 claimants had been lined up, standing shoulder-to-shoulder behind the main speakers during the press conference.

One of the effects of people coming together at a moment like that is contacts are swapped, relationships established and things like pre-filming at claimants’ homes are mulled over and scheduled.

It was an opportunity missed, as it would have raised awareness of the litigation, meaning more media outlets would be interested in it this time round.

PR-wise, defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory. Some might argue you got the result so it doesn’t matter.

Hmm…

So what’s going to happen on 16 Dec?

First of all, neither party yet has any indication what the judge will decide. This time round the Post Office might score a stunning victory against the claimants. You can be sure if they do, they will waste no time telling the world.

I used to moan about the PR operation (or lack of it) surrounding this story and I was told many claimants do not have the time, money or emotional resources to run a press campaign, and the JFSA has no funds. So I stopped.

Nonetheless, a number of claimants and their supporters have recently taken to social media to complain about the lack of media interest in this story.

It is not the media’s fault.

The forthcoming judgment could easily be neutral or favour the Post Office. Even if it is another stunning victory for the claimants, it’s not as significant as 15 March.

The Common Issues trial judgment was the first tangible victory for campaigners after 16 years of work. The Horizon Issues judgment is not even the end of the story. No one gets any money. No one really “wins”. It’s not a turning point. The litigation continues.

That doesn’t mean, imho, that claimants shouldn’t come down to court. There will be some journalists there and they will want to speak to you. I certainly will want some reaction from claimants, whichever way the judgment goes.

If you are a claimant and you travel to the Rolls Building on 16 December the very least that will happen is that you will be one of the first people in the country to read the judgment.

You will get to chat to your legal team who will explain what the judgment means and you will swap contacts with some friendly journalists who might want to speak to you several months down the line as this litigation rumbles towards a close. You might even get photographed outside the Rolls Building with some fellow claimants and appear in the Daily Mail.

You may end up hugely disappointed by the decision. If the judge decides to agree with the Post Office’s position that Horizon is “robust” you may want to use the opportunity to offer a counter-narrative to journalists, or just go for a quiet drink and commiserate in a pub somewhere.

But if the claimants don’t work with Freeth’s PR team to have some kind of visually impressive showing down at the High Court on 16 Dec, whatever the outcome, you can’t complain if the media don’t cover your story.

In fact, even if you do, you can’t complain if the media don’t cover your story. The failure to organise any co-ordinated publicity campaign in the run up to this litigation and first trial judgment and the possible unclear outcome of the Horizon judgment could mean that even if all 550 claimants converge on the Rolls Building on 16 Dec, it likely won’t create much of a media stir.

Though if you start thinking about it now, it might.

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Today’s secret email is obviously brought to you by a grumpy hack who got out of the wrong side of bed this morning.

Sweetness and light will resume in the next secret email.

Thanks all so very much for the donations, comments, weblinks and documentation you have passed my way in the last couple of days. You know who you are. I am grateful.

Best regards

Nick