University of Exeter researchers playing a pivotal role in helping victims of the Post Office Scandal to find compensation and justice have been nominated for a prestigious award.

The academics identified the central role of lawyers, ensuring alleged professional misconduct became a primary focus of the ongoing public inquiry. They have done unique work on the devastating mental health impact of unfair accusations on sub-postmasters.

The work has been nominated for The Economic and Social Research Council’s Celebrating Impact Prize 2024.

The Post Office Scandal affected around 900 victims, who were wrongly prosecuted, and thousands had money taken from them. For two years the research team have recorded information about the impact on those involved through a survey, research interviews and analysis of Inquiry evidence.

The research team have produced working papers demonstrating lawyer misconduct and incompetence as a central cause of the scandal and 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.

It also promoted the Legal Services Board to develop a new strategy on professional ethics leading to better regulation to reduce the likelihood of similar problems arising again, and for the inquiry to lift legal professional privilege so the role of lawyers could be properly scrutinized. The team has led the debate on professional ethics in the corporate sphere.

The team’s research on the mental health impact of false accusation has been at the forefront of the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board’s deliberations and recommendations.

The team’s research into why innocent people plead guilty to crimes they did not commit formed part of the Boards arguments for convictions to be quashed en masse. This laid the ground for the UK Prime Minister announcing plans for a blanket exoneration for all convicted Sub-Postmasters rather than forcing them to each battle a complex appeal process to prove their innocence.

The Post Office Scandal Project team are Professor Richard Moorhead, Dr Rebecca Helm and Sally Day from the University of Exeter, Dr Karen Nokes, from University College London, and Paul Gilbert, from LBC Wise Counsel. They are supported by an esteemed advisory board.

Professor Moorhead, who is a member of the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board said: “Our aim was to shine a light on the injustice suffered by the victims of this Scandal and to ensure there was a vigorous and rich debate about legal professional ethics. It has been a privilege to work with those brave sub-postmasters and we are proud key steps forward – such as the quashing of convictions – have taken place this year. 

“A central lesson from our analysis is the need to change the way too many lawyers think and behave. In the next phases of our work we are working with practitioners and regulators to develop practical, evidence-based models tackling this challenge.”

The ESRC Celebrating Impact Prize is now in its 12th year. The prize is an annual opportunity to recognise the success of ESRC-funded researchers in achieving and enabling outstanding economic or societal impact from their research.

All finalists will have a film made about their work and its impact and have attended media training. Winners are awarded £10,000 to spend on further knowledge exchange, public engagement or other communications activities.

The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony at the Royal Society in London on 20 November 2024.

The project’s application for the award is supporters included lawyers acting for the sub-postmasters involved and the leading political figure in the Post Office case, Lord Arbuthnot, who paid a pivotal role in encouraging the Government to take action.

In his letter of support to the ESRC Lord Arbuthnot says: “I am very familiar with many members of the sub-postmaster community through my long-standing history of supporting them. Prof Moorhead’s [team’s] work has been warmly received both for the recognition that the way the justice system has treated these people, as well as the poor behaviour of the Post Office, as a significant part of the suffering they have enjoyed, as well has the unparalleled work by his team on mental health issues within that group.”