Moorhead said the Horizon Inquiry had revealed incompetence, cynicism and impropriety across two decades
Professor Richard Moorhead, the legal academic whose work has helped support victims of the Post Office scandal in their quest for justice, has been awarded an OBE in the King’s Birthday Honours for services to legal ethics.
Moorhead, professor of law and professional ethics at the University of Exeter and a solicitor by qualification, has spent three decades researching legal ethics and working to improve the quality and accessibility of lawyers, courts and legal services. He also holds a part-time professorship at Monash University in Australia, where he teaches postgraduate students about lawyers, business and ethics.
In recent years, much of his work has focused on the conduct of lawyers, institutions and professional regulators involved in the Post Office Horizon scandal. His work has centred on the Post Office Project, a research initiative he leads with Dr Sally Day, Professor Rebecca Helm, Dr Karen Nokes and Paul Gilbert, examining the legal ethics, professional conduct, corporate governance and criminal justice failures exposed by the scandal.
Moorhead’s early submissions to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry helped ensure that the role of lawyers in the miscarriages of justice received detailed scrutiny. According to the University of Exeter, inquiry chair Sir Wyn Williams described the submissions as “powerful” when accepting Moorhead’s recommendation to lift legal professional privilege, allowing the conduct and advice of lawyers involved in the scandal to be examined more fully.
The Post Office Project received the Economic and Social Research Council’s award for outstanding societal impact in 2024. Moorhead also delivered the Hamlyn Lectures in 2024, using them to examine what he described as “frail professionalism” and the need to strengthen honesty, integrity and effectiveness in the use of law. Those themes will be developed in a book due to be published on an open-access basis in August.
Responding to the honour, Moorhead said: “Whilst delighted and not a little proud, it is important to say that a good dollop of luck and the support of those around me is what makes for moments like these.
“It is particularly sobering that my most important contributions have been built on the Post Office scandal. It has been a galvanising story of human misery and I owe a profound debt to the decency of the victims who are role-models for us all. Working on their experiences has enriched my life immeasurably. Their treatment holds up a mirror to an all-too-common corporate, professional, and legal culture that can ruin lives.”
Moorhead said lifting privilege had exposed conduct by lawyers that was “jaw-dropping”, with dozens of solicitors, barristers and in-house lawyers coming under scrutiny. He said the inquiry had revealed incompetence, cynicism and impropriety spanning two decades, with professional regulators and the police expected to consider the evidence gathered.
He was appointed to the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board in 2023. The board, chaired by Professor Chris Hodges and including Lord Beamish and Lord Arbuthnot, has advised on compensation and redress for those affected by the scandal. Supported by research from the Post Office Project, it has called for improved compensation arrangements, provision for victims’ family members and legislation to overturn affected criminal convictions.
Moorhead stressed that the work arising from the scandal remained unfinished. He said: “Many Post Office victims have been compensated but others have not. Accountability has yet to come through the courts and the regulators. The profession’s complacency is already rising again and remains to be challenged.”
He said further research would seek to demonstrate that the failures exposed by the scandal were not isolated, while the Post Office Project was developing practical training tools for lawyers and proposals for professional and regulatory reform. Moorhead said efforts to secure accountability and reform needed to “gather pace rather than dust”.
Before entering academia, he qualified as a solicitor and worked in white-collar criminal defence. He was the first member of his family to attend university, and his academic career has included roles at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, Cardiff University and University College London before he joined the University of Exeter.
Alongside his academic work, Moorhead has worked extensively with legal practitioners through conferences and workshops. He has also written widely about legal ethics and the Horizon scandal through his Lawyer Watch blog and other commentary.
Moorhead paid tribute to his colleagues on the Post Office Project and the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board, as well as victims, civil servants and politicians who had engaged seriously with the scandal. He said he was thrilled by the honour but that others deserved greater credit, adding that there remained “a great deal more to do”.
Moorhead was one of several figures from the legal profession recognised in the King’s Birthday Honours.