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NLJ this week: Post Office—sign of a broken system?

21 May 2021
Issue: 7933 / Categories: Legal News , Criminal , Legal aid focus
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The Post Office scandal has thrown institutional failings in the justice system into sharp relief—and 'demonstrates pretty clearly that we have lost the plot', writes Theo Huckle QC in this week's NLJ.

As part of the mammoth effort required to bring this David vs Goliath fight to court, the accused postmasters and postmistresses were forced to accept the help of litigation funders—a symptom, Huckle says, of ‘a system in which citizens are required to accept this or else not be able to access the court at all,’ given the catastrophic erosion of legal aid funding.

What this ‘shameful’ scandal shows is how little the enshrined right to a fair trial is adhered to in reality, with serious failings and inaccessibility in both the criminal and civil justice system leading to countless injustices—some large, but many more small.

MOVERS & SHAKERS

DWF—19 appointments

DWF—19 appointments

Belfast team bolstered by three senior hires and 16 further appointments

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Firm strengthens leveraged finance team with London partner hire

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Double hire marks launch of family team in Leeds

NEWS
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
In this week's NLJ, Steven Ball of Red Lion Chambers unpacks how advances in forensic science finally unmasked Ryland Headley, jailed in 2025 for the 1967 rape and murder of 75-year-old Louisa Dunne. Preserved swabs and palm prints lay dormant for decades until DNA-17 profiling produced a billion-to-one match
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
Charlie Mercer and Astrid Gillam of Stewarts crunch the numbers on civil fraud claims in the English courts, in this week's NLJ. New data shows civil fraud claims rising steadily since 2014, with the King’s Bench Division overtaking the Commercial Court as the forum of choice for lower-value disputes
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