Ministers, civil servants, Post Office executives, Fujitsu bosses and lawyers were among the big names to be shamed in the latest epic phase of the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry.
Some two years in, the statutory public inquiry into the Post Office Horizon scandal has so far heard oral evidence from 267 individuals, received written evidence from another 229, and covered a period of over 20 years. Only one phase remains and is due to start in late September.
The latest phase, which finished last week, was always going to be a big one. It had all the makings of an epic – two phases condensed into one 16-week chunk, oral evidence from 66 people including former ministers, the current leader of the Liberal Democrats and a disgraced former Post Office CEO, for starters. For spice, add to that the appearance of usually stealth-like civil servants and two million pages of evidence, and the fact that this was the first phase of the public inquiry to be widely covered by the media, having come after the broadcasting of ITV’s dramatisation of the scandal.
The latest phase, a combination of the previously planned phases five and six, had the monumental task of examining a huge range of complex issues. For example, it was tasked with understanding the forensic investigation of the Horizon system carried out by forensic accounting experts Second Sight, the mediation scheme that followed (and its collapse), the Post Office’s conduct during a High Court group litigation, as well as how the organisation responded to the scandal and more.
Proceedings began on Tuesday 9 April with a household name – who had been no such thing weeks earlier. When he opened the inquiry with his evidence, Alan Bates was Alan Bates, but midway through the phase he acquired a well-deserved knighthood for his relentless campaigning over more than two decades.
Sir Alan Bates, as he is now known, had turned down an OBE in January 2023, as revealed by Computer Weekly. He felt, at the time, that it would be inappropriate to accept any award while so many of the victims continued to suffer so badly and former Post Office CEO Paula Vennells retained a CBE and remained a “role model to the Honours Committee”. Vennells was stripped of her CBE in February 2024.
It was ironic that Bates received the offer of a knighthood during Vennells’ first day at the public inquiry.
Arise Sir Alan
Bates had originally refused to take part in the inquiry, which was initially established as a non-statutory review lacking the powers of a statutory inquiry. He believed it would have allowed the government to “brush it under the carpet”. In a February 2021 letter to then prime minister Boris Johnson, Bates asked for the non-statutory Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry to be paused, be re-established as a statutory inquiry, and a public consultation be held on the terms of reference.
Bates’ refusal to take part was a significant message. It played an important part in the review being converted to a full judge-led statutory public inquiry.
In his evidence to the inquiry, Bates pointed the finger at civil servants, who he said were more to blame than politicians for the length of time the Post Office scandal had been allowed to run.
He said he was certain that the civil service and the Post Office were “briefing ministers in the direction they wanted”. Later evidence from ministers and civil servants didn’t contradict this assertion.
Read more about Sir Alan Bates’ oral evidence to the inquiry:
• Civil servants more to blame for Post Office cover-up than ministers, says Alan Bates
Negligence at the top
Campaigners, like Bates, were hitting brick walls as the Post Office covered up problems with the Horizon system. Following a Computer Weekly investigation into problems being experienced by subpostmasters in 2009, MPs began to ask questions about their constituents being blamed and punished for unexplained accounting shortfalls in their Post Office branches.
David Smith, Post Office managing director from April to December 2010, was forced to commission a report to reassure MPs that Horizon was “robust”. It ended up a whitewash and just spoke of the positives that Horizon brought.
Smith told the inquiry he commissioned the report to establish what the Post Office’s position was regarding the Horizon system’s reliability. He said he would have asked investigators to look across the whole organisation, consider the types of questions that might be asked about the system, and give “an honest view, not a view that is one-sided”. But during an evidence hearing in phase three of the public inquiry, in May 2023, the report author Rod Ismay, head of product and branch accounting, said he was given the impression that he was “asked to present one side of the coin”.
In the recent hearing, Smith admitted he had failed to include written terms of reference. He also apologised for sending a celebratory email to his legal team after the conviction of West Byfleet subpostmistress Seema Misra in 2010. In the email, he congratulated his team for their work, which led to Misra’s imprisonment while pregnant, stating it was “brilliant news”. Misra had her wrongful conviction overturned in 2021. Smith apologised and blamed the large number of emails he received and his haste for the “poorly thought through” email.
Read more about David Smith’s oral evidence to the inquiry:
• Former Post Office executive’s neglect prolonged Horizon reliability myth
During questioning at the inquiry, former Post Office chief operating officer David Miller admitted to signing off a payment of £180,000 to keep problems with Horizon, at a branch in Lancashire, out of the public eye.
The hush money was paid to a subpostmaster after an IT expert had found problems with the Horizon system, which the Post Office didn’t want subpostmasters and campaigners to know about.
Miller agreed that had the Post Office investigated claims rather than using taxpayers’ money to cover them up, the suffering of subpostmasters in the Horizon scandal could have been avoided.
Read more about David Miller’s oral evidence to the inquiry:
• Post Office boss signed off hush money to cover up smoking gun
During the latest phase of the inquiry, Alan Cook, who was managing director of the Post Office when Computer Weekly exposed the scandal in 2009, was shown an email that revealed his derogatory attitude towards subpostmasters. In response to the Computer Weekly article about Horizon problems, he told the head of public relations at then parent company Royal Mail: “My instincts tell that, during a recession, subbies with their hands in the till choose to blame technology when they are found to be short of cash.”
Edward Henry, KC, representing former subpostmasters, asked Cook if he was responsible for the wrongful convictions of subpostmasters. Cook acknowledged he had accountability and that it had happened on his watch.
Read more about Alan Cook’s oral evidence to the inquiry:
• Post Office boss said subpostmasters had hands in till and blamed technology
An illogical crime
Cook’s assertions that subpostmasters “had their hands in the till” defied logic, according to evidence from Anthony Hooper, a former Lord Justice of Appeal.
Hooper, who was tasked with settling disputes between the Post Office and subpostmasters in 2013, said it was clear from the start that criminal prosecutions against subpostmasters were “fundamentally implausible”. He said he told the then Post Office CEO Vennells and chair Alice Perkins this during one-on-one discussions in 2014.
Questioned about his experiences of dealing with the Post Office, he said: “I was trying to make it clear to Post Office that [its] case didn’t make sense. It did not make sense that reputable subpostmasters, appointed by the Post Office after examination of their character, would be stealing these sums of money. It didn’t make sense particularly because within a matter of days of any alleged theft, they had to balance the books. It just never made sense.”
Read more about Anthony Hooper’s oral evidence to the inquiry:
• Subpostmasters stealing from branches ‘didn’t make sense,’ former judge tells inquiry
Lawyers behind illogical prosecutions
Sitting behind every prosecution was a team of lawyers. The public inquiry heard from them during the latest phase.
During questioning, it became clear that Post Office internal lawyer Rodric Williams turned his attention to all manner of Post Office challenges, while failing to meet the code of conduct of his chosen profession.
During the inquiry hearings, a barrister representing subpostmaster victims said Williams was at the centre of the “web” and “part of” attempts to hush up the Horizon scandal at the Post Office.
Through internal documents, it could be seen he was involved throughout the Post Office’s attempts to prevent knowledge of problems with the Horizon software becoming known outside the organisation.
Read more about Rodric Williams’ oral evidence to the inquiry:
• Post Office lawyer was a jack of all trades, but failed his own
The withholding of information was widespread. For example, in a 2014 response to a request from the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) for an update on a Post Office review of its own prosecution strategy and processes, the Post Office’s then interim general counsel, Chris Aujard, failed to give the statutory body evidence that would have identified the biggest miscarriage of justice years earlier.
In May that year, the CCRC was chasing the Post Office legal team for information about the review of its prosecution strategy and processes. The following month, Aujard signed and approved a letter providing an update to the CCRC, but failed to include findings of serious flaws in the Post Office’s prosecutions. These included the fact that the expert witness used in trials had been found by lawyers contracted by the Post Office to have given misleading evidence.
Read more about Chris Aujard’s oral evidence to the inquiry:
• Post Office legal boss withheld details from statutory body reviewing miscarriages of justice
An external lawyer who worked with the Post Office internal team told the inquiry that when a Fujitsu executive admitted in 2013 that the Horizon system contained bugs, it was a “bombshell moment”. Simon Clarke, a barrister contracted by the Post Office, said there was “an almost religious panic that Horizon must not be seen to have been impugned”.
He told the inquiry that he believed he was misled by the Post Office’s lawyers during his work with the organisation.
Discussing the case of Seema Misra, Clarke said at no stage in his appraisal of the case did he see the Post Office’s relevant prosecution file, which he believes was “deliberately withheld” from him.
“I asked for it on a number of occasions and I learned from this [public inquiry] process that somewhere there is a digital file,” Clarke told the inquiry. “I came to the conclusion that this was deliberately withheld from me,” he said. “I cannot understand why.”
Read more about Simon Clarke’s oral evidence to the inquiry:
• Barrister says Post Office lawyers misled him over Horizon cases
One notable legal absentee from the inquiry was former Post Office general counsel Jane Macleod. She was the most senior lawyer at the organisation from 2015 until 2019. This period covers some of the most egregious attempts to cover up the scandal, including sinking millions upon millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money into a court battle against subpostmasters. Although Macleod, an Australian citizen, has her fingerprints across the scandal, she refused to take part in the public inquiry.
Independent forensic accountancy firm Second Sight was contracted to investigate the Horizon system in 2012 after MPs forced the Post Office to get an external expert view.
Second Sight’s directors, Ian Henderson and Ron Warmington, are two of the heroes in the fight for justice. Their diligence, expertise and professionalism played a major role in lifting the lid on the Post Office’s behaviour.
The pair have been unable to speak about their experience in unearthing details of Horizon problems and prosecution malpractice for years, due to non-disclosure agreements. Their appearance in the latest phase was the first time they had spoken publicly.
During the session, they described Post Office cover-ups, threats, obstruction and the “worst corporate behaviour” seen in their long careers.
Henderson told the inquiry that when Second Sight’s investigation began, it…