Research on Post Office Scandal nominated for prestigious Celebrating Impact Prize 2024
13 September 2024
The research project, titled ‘The Post Office Scandal: lawyers’ ethics and ruined lives’, is led by a team from UCL and the University of Exeter.
A research project helping victims of the Post Office Scandal - widely considered to be one of the largest miscarriages of justice in the UK - has been nominated for a prestigious research impact award by ESRC.
The study looks at the legal failings associated with the Post Office scandal to support improvements in culture and ethical practice to prevent similar injustice occurring in the future. The research team includes Dr Karen Nokes (UCL Laws), Professor Richard Moorhead, Professor Rebecca Helm and Dr Sally Day (University of Exeter) and Paul Gilbert (LBC Wise Counsel), with Alex White (UCL Laws) providing additional communications support.
The research team have conducted survey research, carried out research interviewsand analysed Inquiry evidence to collect data on the impact of the scandal. The research team have produced a series of working papers identifying lawyer misconduct and incompetence as a central cause of the scandal, and demonstrated the impact of the extraordinary mental health harms of victims caused by false accusations and convictions of debts and thefts. The work has assisted in the claimants’ arguments to the inquiry and for compensation. The team’s research supported arguments proposed by the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board for a blanket exoneration for all convicted sub-postmasters.
Dr Karen Nokes said:
“The Post Office scandal is a complex and multi-faceted phenomena involving actions that have had and continue to have a devastating impact on the lives of thousands of individuals, and their families. The Scandal should stand as a watershed moment for all lawyers to reflect on how they think and behave. Lawyers played a pivotal role in the Scandal and one of the central aims of our research is to explore the factors that influence lawyers to make poor and/or unethical decisions.”
The ESRC Celebrating Impact Prize, now in its 12th year, recognises the success of ESRC-funded researchers in achieving and enabling outstanding economic or societal impact from their research.
ESRC Executive Chair Stian Westlake said:
“The Celebrating Impact Prize is the Economic and Social Research Council’s way of recognising the remarkable achievements of the UK’s outstanding economists and social scientists.
“These researchers have made valuable contributions in many fields, from reducing the impact on children of parental conflict to unveiling the corporate malfeasance involved in the Post Office scandal.”
Image credit: UCL Imagestore