Ethnicity of Horizon Prison Sentences
Dear Post Office Limited,
In your original succesful prosecutions of @900 SPM what % received custodial sentences?How many of these individuals were Non-Caucasian and how many were Caucasian?
Yours faithfully,
john o'sullivan
Our ref: FOI2021/01130
Dear John O'Sullivan,
Thank you for your request for information which was received on 22nd
December. Your request is being considered under the terms of the Freedom
of Information Act 2000.
The Act requires that a response must be given promptly, and in any event
within 20 working days. We will therefore reply at the latest by 25th
January.
Please note that due to members of the Information Rights team being
absent due to Covid-19, it is taking longer to process information
requests at this time and regrettably we may be unable to respond to your
request by the due date identified above. We are progressing information
requests as quickly as possible in these circumstances and apologise for
any delay.
Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future
communications.
Yours sincerely,
Amanda Coghlan
Dear John O'Sullivan,
Please find attached the response relating to your Freedom of Information
request.
Regards,
David Sinclair
Information Rights Team
Ground Floor
Finsbury Dials
20 Finsbury Street
London
EC2Y 9AQ
Dear Information Rights Team,
Thank you for some of the information.My understanding is that you employed Peters and Peters to run the ruler over "around" 800 cases of prosecution,surely their investigations reported back all the relevant facts of the guilty including age,sex,ethnicity.A great wrongdoing was performed here and POL can shine the light on potential bias in sentencing by releasing the information you have already obtained.I respectfully suggest that it would not cost the amount you indicate and ask you to reconsider rejecting this request on cost grounds,
Yours sincerely,
john o'sullivan
Dear Mr O'Sullivan,
Please find an acknowledgement relating attached to your Internal Review
request.
Regards,
Amanda Coghlan
Information Rights Team
Ground Floor
Finsbury Dials
20 Finsbury Street
London EC2Y 9AQ
Dear John O'Sullivan,
Please find attached the outcome of your Internal Review request.
Regards,
David Sinclair
Information Rights Team
Ground Floor
Finsbury Dials
20 Finsbury Street
London
EC2Y 9AQ
Dear Information Rights Team,
Thank you for a reply and may a quote from it"To further explain, Peters & Peters Solicitors LLP (P&P) carried out a post-conviction
disclosure review on behalf of the Post Office, based on Post Office casework records.
P&P did not capture ethnicity data within this review as it was not deemed relevant to
the exercise, as a duty arises regardless of the ethnicity of an individual. I"Are you saying Peters and Peters did not capture ethnicity even though it existed on casework records or are you saying POL could or believed it could carry out private prosecutions without needing to record ethnicity?
Yours sincerely,
john o'sullivan
Dear Mr O'Sullivan,
Thank you for your email. As you have not requested recorded information,
we would like to reiterate the section in our letter of 22 February 2022,
that answers your question:
"Peters & Peters Solicitors LLP (P&P) carried out a post-conviction
disclosure review on behalf of the Post Office, based on Post Office
casework records. P&P did not capture ethnicity data within this review as
it was not deemed relevant to the exercise, as a duty arises regardless of
the ethnicity of an individual. In order to now capture this data, a
review of all case files would need to be carried out, which would also
not necessarily guarantee a complete set of ethnicity data."
We have nothing further to add to this response and consider the matter
closed.
Kind regards,
POL Information Rights Team
Dear information.rights,
“I ask the POL to disclose documents concerning the terms of engagement/reference for Peters and Peters to carry out the review of post-conviction disclosure review.
What exactly did the POL ask Peters and Peters to do when performing the a post-conviction review?
Also, who were the executives asking for this information, why did they require/need the review and to whom at POL or anyone else were the results given?
As the POL is expected to act with transparency and candour, who “deemed it irrelevant” not to capture the ethnicity data? Was it the POL or P and P or someone else?
Please identify the people involved in the “deemed irrelevant” decision process.
Finally, I would ask that you review the financial reasoning that you gave for not providing the information that I seek.
The sums mentioned to extract the data seem very small indeed given the time and money being spent in engaging P and P in all aspects of this scandal”.
Yours sincerely,
john o'sullivan
Our ref: FOI2022/00190
Dear John O'Sullivan,
Thank you for your request for information which was received on 2nd
March. Your request is being considered under the terms of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000.
The Act requires that a response must be given promptly, and in any event
within 20 working days. We will therefore reply at the latest by 31st
March.
Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future
communications.
Yours sincerely,
Jackie Lawrence
Information Rights Team
Finsbury Dials, 20 Finsbury Street
London, EC2Y 9AQ
Dear John O'Sullivan
Please find an update attached to your Freedom of Information request
Regards
Andy Jennings
Information Rights Team
20 Finsbury Street
London EC2Y 9AQ
Tel: 0333 665 3951
Email: [1][Post Office request email]
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[Post Office request email]
Dear John O'Sullivan
Please find an update attached to your Freedom of Information request
Regards
Andy Jennings
Information Rights Team
20 Finsbury Street
London EC2Y 9AQ
Tel: 0333 665 3951
Email: [1][Post Office request email]
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[Post Office request email]
Dear John O'Sullivan,
Please find attached the response relating to your Freedom of Information
request.
Regards,
Andy Jennings
Information Rights Team
Ground Floor
Finsbury Dials
20 Finsbury Street
London
EC2Y 9AQ
Dear John,
I am writing in relation to your FOI request of 22 December 2021, and
subsequent internal review correspondence, in which you asked: 'in your
original successful prosecutions of @900 SMP what % received custodial
sentences? How many of these individuals were non-caucasian and how many
were caucasian?'
We were recently in a position to provide some information to another
requestor which may be of interest to you. You can find the request and
our response here [1]Horizon, BAME victims - a Freedom of Information
request to Post Office Limited - WhatDoTheyKnow.
I hope this is helpful to you.
Kind regards
Jackie Lawrence
Information Rights Team
Finsbury Dials, 20 Finsbury Street
London, EC2Y 9AQ
References
Visible links
1. https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/h...
Dear [email address],
Thank you,this information is very useful.You appear to be claiming that when POL prosecuted people you did not need to record their ethnicity.Is that correct or did you in fact need to but often didnt?
Yours sincerely,
john o'sullivan
Dear Mr O’Sullivan,
Thanks for your email and I am pleased to hear that our response was
useful to you.
I can only underline the limitations of records currently held that were
responsive to the request. As our response states: “the information
relating to ethnicity is limited because this information is not held for
every case" and also it is “not clear in every case whether the
postmaster's recorded ethnicity was self-identified at the time the record
was made or attributed to them.” Post Office is making no claims or
assumptions in our response but we have pointed out these important
limitations to the data you requested.
I hope this is helpful.
Kind regards,
Andy Jennings
Information Rights Team
Dear information.rights,
Thank you for a reply.The NFSP website explains that it was unable to offer help to SPM's being interviewed as thes events took place under PACE 1984 Conditions.This act demands Ethnicity to be recorded.Is the information on their website wrong or did your people fail to act properly?
Yours sincerely,
john o'sullivan
Dear Mr O'Sullivan,
Thank you for your email. We don't have anything further to add to our
response letter. Should you have a further information request, we will,
of course, consider it as per our FOIA obligations.
Kind regards,
Andy
Andy Jennings
Information Rights Team
We work to defend the right to FOI for everyone
Help us protect your right to hold public authorities to account. Donate and support our work.
Donate Now