Legal Definitions - knight of the post

The term knight of the post is a historical legal phrase used to describe an individual who was paid or otherwise compensated to give false testimony under oath in a legal proceeding. Essentially, it refers to someone who committed perjury (lying under oath) for hire.

Here are some examples illustrating this concept:

• Business Contract Dispute: Imagine two companies, "Tech Innovations" and "Global Solutions," are embroiled in a lawsuit over a disputed contract. Tech Innovations, eager to win the case, secretly offers a substantial sum of money to a former employee of Global Solutions. This former employee then testifies in court, falsely claiming that Global Solutions intentionally misled Tech Innovations about their product's capabilities, even though the employee knows this to be untrue. In this scenario, the former employee, by providing fabricated testimony for payment, would be acting as a knight of the post.

• Criminal Alibi Fabrication: A person accused of a serious crime needs a solid alibi. They approach an acquaintance and offer them a significant amount of money to appear in court and swear under oath that the accused was with them at a completely different location at the exact time the crime was committed. The acquaintance, despite knowing this statement is false, agrees to provide this testimony in exchange for the payment. This acquaintance, by offering a false alibi for financial gain, embodies the historical role of a knight of the post.

• Property Inheritance Claim: In a complex inheritance dispute, a distant relative seeks to claim a valuable piece of property from an estate. To strengthen their claim, they pay a local resident to testify in court that they personally witnessed the deceased verbally promise the property to the distant relative, even though no such promise was ever made. The local resident, providing this untrue testimony for compensation to influence the inheritance outcome, would be considered a knight of the post.