The Institute of Directors (IoD) called the British Post Office scandal, also known as the Horizon IT scandal, ‘a failure of governance’ and ‘one of the worst scandals in UK corporate and legal history’.
This year’s IoD Guernsey Annual Convention will explore how over 900 subpostmasters were wrongly convicted of theft, fraud and false accounting due to faulty data. This miscarriage of justice highlighted the organisation’s many governance failures in decision-making, judgement and ethics.
Hear from Lee Castleton OBE, a former subpostmaster who was sued and subsequently bankrupted by the Post Office due to the faulty Horizon software. He helped to break the pivotal Computer Weekly story and went on to campaign for other victims of the scandal.
Lee's story was featured in the ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office and the BBC documentary, Surviving the Post Office and earlier this year, he was awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE) for service to justice
There will also be insights from Professor Richard Moorhead, a former solicitor and a leading academic in the field of law and professional ethics, who will explore the ethical failings that contributed to the scandal.
Professor Moorhead currently sits on the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board, advising the Department for Business and Trade on compensation schemes for victims of the scandal. He is also a co-lead on a major ESRC-funded research project examining the ethical failings at the heart of the crisis. This work was recognised with the 2024 ESRC Prize for Outstanding Societal Impact.
With more than thirty years of experience researching legal services and advising governments, NGOs and regulators, Professor Moorhead’s current focus is on the ethical responsibilities of lawyers. For directors, his session will provide practical lessons on how organisational culture, legal accountability and professional ethics intersect, and what leaders can do to ensure stronger oversight, better decision-making, and more responsible governance frameworks.
Glen Tonks, IoD Chair and host for the evening said: “The Post Office scandal highlighted the very ugly consequences of corporate governance failure. It caused immeasurable personal suffering and has undermined trust in existing frameworks of governance and business leadership.
“Our 2025 Annual Convention will lift the lid on the ‘bad and the ugly’, but we will also turn our attention to the ‘good’, focusing on the improvements to corporate governance that business leaders must now embed to ensure nothing of this magnitude can happen in the future.”
The event will take place on Thursday 2nd October and you can book your tickets here.