Disgraced former UK Post Office Limited (POL) CEO Paula Vennells will be among 68 witnesses to testify when the UK Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry returns after Easter to explore the Horizon project’s governance and the reasons senior management repeatedly hid its faults.
Her actions, and those of the many other representatives of POL and Horizon developer Fujitsu, will paint new layers on the complex portrait that has emerged through years of hearings – most recently through Phase 4 testimony that ran from 4 July 2023 until 2 February this year – exploring how over 700 subpostmasters were investigated and prosecuted for a range of fraud and accounting offences over more than a decade.
The most recent part of the Phase 4 testimony – which ran for most of January – found, among other things, that investigators and prosecutors weren’t told about potential issues with the system that would have “undermined” prosecutions; and that Fujitsu conspired with POL by fudging evidence and routinely ignoring requests for more information about the Horizon system.
The hearings have seen “a parade of liars, bullies, amnesiacs and arrogant individuals give evidence,” barrister Sam Stein KC, who represents the largest cohort of prosecuted subpostmasters, said in a blistering attack as the subpostmasters’ legal representatives gave closing arguments.
“Our clients have been appalled to see the extent to which Post Office staff members treated subpostmasters as sub-humans,” he said.
“They hounded and harassed, and in some cases drove decent and honest men and women to their graves.”
“It is more than clear that if Fujitsu and the Post Office had come clear about the bugs, the purposes of the help lines, the interactions, the fact that the teams were fixing bugs in combination with remote access – if that had been revealed, in relation to any matters taken against subpostmasters and mistresses, in either civil or criminal actions – any judge having that brought to their attention would have required further and deeper information.”
With no understanding of Horizon’s failings, however, subpostmasters were assumed to be lying about the allegedly missing money and pursued with Horizon data that “was actually very useful,” financial investigator and former Post Office Security Team casework manager Graham Ward testified, “because it provided us with more information than we used to get from manual balancing.”
Yet limits on the number of requests the team was contractually allowed to lodge for Horizon ARQ audit data were reduced even as they became more aware of the data’s value to their investigations.
From 2003, a surge in the number of financial investigations undertaken by the team – which saw investigators “flooded with cases” even as subpostmasters increasingly protested Horizon’s faults – forced the team to raise the floor value of losses considered suitable for investigation from £10,000 to £20,000.
Despite the higher stakes, however, Ward said “there was no advice given on how [Horizon data] should be presented” to meet changing digital evidentiary standards – or how integrity issues might affect Post Office cases.
Nor, he admitted, did he register comments in a cc’d email about additional but overlooked Horizon ‘message store’ data – knowledge that, as casework manager for the prosecution that eventually bankrupted subpostmaster Lee Castleton, Ward said “would have concerned me greatly and I would have escalated that as an issue.”
Shining a light on Post Office governance
Set to commence on or around 9 April, Phases 5 and 6 will be combined into one phase that runs through 31 July, inquiry chair Sir Wyn Williams announced as he released a list of 68 witnesses who will testify.
Among them are senior figures including Vennells –who recently handed back her CBE award after pressure over the escalating scandal – as well as Ron Warmington, managing director of the forensic accountancy Second Sight whose engagement she prematurely terminated; POL legal head Rodric Williams; and former Postal Affairs Minister Pat McFadden MP, who recently said he couldn’t remember the Horizon IT system scandal ever being mentioned to him during a three-year tenure from 2007 to 2009, when dozens of subpostmasters were interviewed, prosecuted, and convicted.
Williams said a planned evaluation of the three compensation schemes – which was originally scheduled for Phase 5 – will be pushed back until Phase 7, which is slated to commence in September, “to do justice to this topic”.
He also appointed leadership, management, and governance experts Dame Sandra Dawson and Dr Katy Steward to support the combined next two phases, which will probe the management structures in place before, during, and after the Horizon prosecutions.
“This scandal could have been avoided if either the Post Office or Fujitsu had done the right thing,” Stein said, “[but] Fujitsu chose to hide behind its contract, actively supporting its contractual partner and financial benefactor.”
The monetary value of that financial relationship – in which, barrister Tim Moloney said, Fujitsu “did not, could not, or would not hear any warning that Horizon lacked integrity because their ears were stuffed with cash” – led to a “disastrous reality” in which the blame was shunted onto subpostmasters who, Moloney said, “were easy targets to point to, to persecute, to prosecute, and to pursue for apparent losses.”
“There was no money found secreted away in postmasters’ bank accounts, or in stuffed mattresses,” he said, “and yet the false narrative… allowed the Post Office to prosecute a large number of its own people… to pursue hundreds of thousands of pounds in false recoveries in reliance on false data.”
“The cost of this scandal includes what may be irreparable damage to the Post Office in our community consciousness.”
The recent interest in the Fujitsu Horizon Post Office scandal was ignited by the television series, Mr Bates vs The Post Office which screened in the UK earlier this year. In Australia, the series will be screened by Channel 7 and 7 Plus at 8.30pm on Wednesday 14 February, concluding Wednesday 21 February 2024.
