Two solicitors with very different roles in the Post Office Horizon IT scandal are being prosecuted by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and will face a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT). An SDT has the power to permanently removes an individual’s right to practice as a solicitor and leverage unlimited fines.

Jane MacLeod is former General Counsel at the Post Office, which meant she was the top internal lawyer within the organisation. She took the post in January 2015. In April 2019 the interim Chief Executive of the Post Office Alisdair Cameron told her she was being sacked over her disastrous handling of the Bates v Post Office litigation.

MacLeod famously refused to attend the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry to answer questions under oath. She has been confirmed as a “person of interest” by the National Police Chief Council’s Operation Olympos, the investigation into potential criminal activity at the Post Office during the scandal. The SRA’s decision to prosecute MacLeod is due to her failure “to co-operate fully with the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry in relation to a request for her to give oral evidence”.

Striking Gould

The other solicitor being prosecuted is Nick Gould. Gould represented former Post Office workers Seema Misra, Janet Skinner and Tracy Felstead during the Hamilton v Post Office Court of Appeal hearings in 2021. He represented all three women pro bono (without charge) during those hearings, but they agreed he would charge them for his work after their convictions were quashed.

Unfortunately, as first revealed on this website, Gould’s billing methods and justifications were… unusual. The SRA says that between May 2021 and April 2025, Gould “failed to provide adequate information in respect of the likely overall costs, the costs that were incurred and the legal work that he and/or the firm was instructed to undertake” for his clients. In January 2024, Gould raised or caused to be raised invoices or other notification of costs… without providing any or any adequate justification of the amount stated as to be paid”. He is also accused of sending “inappropriate and/or offensive” emails to his clients and breaching his duty of confidentiality.

According to the Legal Futures website, the SRA is acting in these cases because “the SRA has been able to take action because the nature of the cases means they are unlikely to prejudice criminal investigations or the inquiry”. I can see how that might be the case with Gould. Does this now mean the police are no longer interested in Jane MacLeod as a potential criminal suspect. That would rather contradict the information they gave out in a briefing at the end of May.

Richard Moorhead, a legal ethicist and member of the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board told me “on what we know publicly, both cases merit referral to the SDT. Although MacLeod is understood not to be practising, it may be this will make things difficult for her should she try to return to practice in Australia.”

Weird Optics

There are many solicitors involved in this scandal who have done bad things, and it’s important to note the accusations against both MacLeod and Gould are, in the SRA’s word “unproven”, but I am not alone in thinking the optics of this announcement are weird, to say the least.

Simon Goldberg, a solicitor who knows Gould and whose firm represents a number of Subpostmasters, said he was “astonished” that MacLeod and Gould have been “lumped together, and that Nick is now facing SDT Proceedings, especially when so many unethical lawyers who are in the Macleod category (including a number of partners of Womble Bond Dickinson (UK) LLP) continue to ply their trade without sanction.”

Goldberg called Gould “one of the true heroes in the Scandal. Back in 2021, the Post Office was willing not to contest 39 of 42 criminal appeals to the Court of Appeal on the basis of Category 1 abuse of process (non-disclosure). Only a handful of those cases were not contested by PO on Category 2 (prosecution misconduct). But as a result of the industry of Nick and the courage of his then clients, the Court of Appeal allowed 39 appeals on both Categories. In other words, Nick’s role was crucial in seeing that justice was done in granting all those appeals on both grounds not just one.”

John Hyde, whose Law Gazette article about the prosecutions was published on Thursday, said he found it “odd” that MacLeod and Gould’s prosecution notices were published at the same time “effectively grouped together, by the SRA, when they are such distinctive cases.”

There are also question marks over MacLeod and Gould’s status. Both live abroad. Neither are likely to practice in this country again and yet, as Goldberg notes above, there are far more powerful solicitors, with bigger cases to answer, actively working in the UK. Why no action against them?

The SRA says its “wider investigations are still ongoing. This includes issues relating directly to the Horizon scandal, where we are working closely with the Inquiry team and the Metropolitan Police. We can and will act if we find that solicitors we regulate fail to meet our standards.”

I have contacted the SRA, asking for more information.

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