The Post Office Scandal

'What a miserable wretch of a man, cavilling and hair splitting until the end', wrote Marcus on the Post Office Scandal blog today.

He was talking about Andy Parsons, of course,  but it wouldn't be at all difficult to imagine Sluffy behaving in much the same way, albeit at a lower level, as a local government employee. He does seem to exhibit quite similar traits.

Hahaha

Touched a nerve have I Bob.

Trying to belittle me once again ("albeit at a lower level...")  ha ha ha, very good.

You can call me what you want, cocker, but it doesn't change the FACTS - the Post Office (and thereafter the government) only found out about Fujitsu's unilateral remote access into Horizon in 2013 (the Clarke Advice).

How can the government conceal (cover-up) something they didn't know about from 1998/9 until at the very least 2013.

Come on then brain box, where's you proof - in fact anything at all?

We all want to know.





But we all know you won't reply because you have NONE, NOTHING, ZILCH, it's all just your bonkers conspiracy theory based on your hatred of the Blair government.

The Furness General Hospital scandal involved an investigation by Cumbria Constabulary and other government and public bodies into the deaths of several mothers and newborn babies, during the 2000s at Furness General Hospital (FGH) in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England. Cases dated back to 2004, with a number of major incidents occurring in 2008. The death of Joshua Titcombe and a suppressed report by the Morecambe Bay NHS Trust brought the spotlight onto FGH in 2011 when investigations began.^[1] Claims of medical records being intentionally destroyed alongside the discovery of major wrongdoing on behalf of midwives led to threats of closure to the maternity ward.^[2]

The scandal was covered in a 2012 BBC Panorama episode titled "How Safe is Your Hospital?" with the Stafford Hospital scandal. In June 2013, Cumbria Constabulary announced they would only be pursuing the Titcombe case and that other complaints would not proceed to a criminal prosecution.^[3] Later in the same month, the British medical community was rocked by allegations that the Care Quality Commission (CQC), which took part in investigations, was fully aware of concerns of maternity care at FGH as early as 2008 and gave the hospital a clean bill of health in 2010, having destroyed evidence to the contrary, says Wikipedia.

Alan Johnson was Secretary of State for Health when my MP at the time, Ben Wallace, wrote to him in 2008 about the shocking state of governance of the NHS in Morecambe Bay. I have no idea why Johnson did nothing but the blatant financial irregularities just continued completely unhindered.

Its just the way it was in the noughties; turn blind eyes and lie and destroy documents if you have to. I had hoped that things might change with a new government in 2010 but I can't say that they noticeably did.
 
Johnson has his own place in the Post Office scandal. In 2001 he gloated that:


"Horizon is not outdated technology. We are wiring up 40,000 serving positions at 18,500 post offices at a rate of 300 a week. It has been extremely successful … Number of post offices computerised under the previous government – nil. Number of post office computerised under this government so far – 17,560.”

PFI, PFI, PFI  
 

In 2004, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Patricia Hewitt, said,


"We decided that there was no point in rescuing that absurd out-of-date Conservative proposition for a benefit payment card. Instead, we invested the best part of £500m in the Horizon platform ... Thanks to the investment and the decisions that we have made, the Horizon platform and the automation of the post offices have now modernised post offices.”

How much did you spend on lawyers and prisons, Patricia?

Very interesting Bob but what has that got to do with a cover-up in 2013 by Post Office executives?

You have made judgements based on your perceived prejudice of the Blair government...

Ten Bobsworth wrote:Its just the way it was in the noughties; turn blind eyes and lie and destroy documents if you have to. I had hoped that things might change with a new government in 2010 but I can't say that they noticeably did.

...and NOT the facts as happened in the Post Office scandal.

You had bias against anything that was Blairite evolved in such the same way that the Anderson haters had bias against Anderson before he even stepped through the door at the Reebok.

You both prejudged and were both found to be wrong.

The Anderson haters still are wilfully blind to the truth that Anderson did nothing wrong in his period at Bolton and I've no doubt you will always believe there will always have been a multi-governmental cover-up starting under Blair and continuing on to the present day and will include Wyn Williams findings from the Inquiry that the cover-up in effect started in 2013 (long after Blair) and was focused around the Post Office EXECUTIVES and the questionable legal advice they were led on.


And whatever you think, the Post Office needed to be modernised and automated or sold off, in order to bring it in to the twenty-first century and survive as it was losing £1m a day (even with the Horizon computer system) when the split between it and the Royal Mail happened in 2012.


Bob I've said it several times already on this thread, what happened was that the PO had to be modernised and competitive from what it had been, and a national computer system was introduced.  The system had bugs in it and this led to innocent people being imprisoned and having their lives ruined.  Regrettable as that may be, it was done on the honest belief at the time that the apparent shortfall in money could only have originated from the sub-post office end. In 2013 the Clarke advice informed the post office that their key prosecution witness, (Gareth Jenkins, Fujitsu) was 'unsafe' as there was unilateral remote access, and Jenkins had not disclosed this fact in the evidence he gave.  The PO for reasons to be determined by the Inquiry did not disclose knowledge of this.

It could only be at that point (2013) that a cover-up could begin because no one knew about Fujitsu's unilateral remote access before that date.

Christ the whole inquiry has basically focused around that point daily since Phase 5 started in April!!!

If you weren't so wrapped up in your clear bias and hatred of Blair-ism you would clearly have seen that too.

But YOU ARE, and YOU DIDN'T...


...or chose not to because the FACTS did not fit in with your beloved conspiracy theory.

You can't think straight for yourself, Sluffy, let alone think what anyone else is thinking.

Ten Bobsworth wrote:You can't think straight for yourself, Sluffy, let alone think what anyone else is thinking.

OK Bob, answer us this simple question then -

How did the Blair/Brown governments (1997 - 2010) hide the fact the people had wrongly been persecuted and prosecuted and even convicted on unsafe grounds, when the knowledge of an unsafe witness wasn't known until 2013 when Gareth Jenkins disclosed the fact of unilateral remote access from Fujitsu and not disclosed the fact in his witness statements as he was required to do?

Go on then.

It might be the third or fourth time I have posted this but I'm not sure that Sluffy has understood it yet.

I understand that you persistently are unable to back up your conspiracy theory of a Blarite continual multi-governmental, twenty year plus, cover up with any evidence or facts whatsoever and are continually avoiding this simple question...

Sluffy wrote:

OK Bob, answer us this simple question then -

How did the Blair/Brown governments (1997 - 2010) hide the fact the people had wrongly been persecuted and prosecuted and even convicted on unsafe grounds, when the knowledge of an unsafe witness wasn't known until 2013 when Gareth Jenkins disclosed the fact of unilateral remote access from Fujitsu and not disclosed the fact in his witness statements as he was required to do?

Go on then.

We are ALL waiting Bob.

Nope. He's still not grasped it.

Ok Bob, I may be stupid but the question isn't, so answer the question for the benefit of the rest of the class -

Sluffy wrote:

OK Bob, answer us this simple question then -

How did the Blair/Brown governments (1997 - 2010) hide the fact the people had wrongly been persecuted and prosecuted and even convicted on unsafe grounds, when the knowledge of an unsafe witness wasn't known until 2013 when Gareth Jenkins disclosed the fact of unilateral remote access from Fujitsu and not disclosed the fact in his witness statements as he was required to do?

Go on then.

We've all got our listening ears on...!

Sir Ian McCartney gave evidence to the Inquiry in November 2022. I haven't heard all of it yet but I did find it interesting to hear what he had to say, what evidence emerged and what a struggle the guinea pig SPMs were plainly having from the roll out of untried and untested technology in 1999.

But the 'Hobson's choice' of 'pay up or else' and other issues faced by SPMs seemed to be of little, if any, interest or concern to Alan Johnson and Patricia Hewitt. They were only interested in making political capital and crowing how wonderful they were for introducing Horizon whilst SPMs all around the country were in despair at the shithole government had landed them in (see post 303 above).

Tomorrow its the turn of Second Sight. Ian Henderson has already accused Paula Vennells of lying to a Parliamentary Select Committee so it should be worth watching. Its Ian first and then Ron Warmington.

Still not answered the question Bob.

Saying that a new computer system has bugs is news to no one (well maybe you) and do you know why sub-postmasters had to "pay up or else?

Well it was because EVERYONE believed that there wasn't any remote access to the sub-postmasters systems UNLESS they gave their approval for Fujitsu HQ to do so.


Of course as time went by and more and more prosecutions (and imprisonments) started to occur, sub-postmasters continued to protested their innocence and claiming that the cause of the discrepancies could only come from a bug in their system (or someone else had remote access unknown to them) - and indeed they were correct - so why did so many ended up with their lives ruined?

Was it the nasty Blair government covering things up (and by God you real must hate them - in the last two weeks alone you've mentioned Blair, Jack Straw, Mrs Straw (Alice Perkins), Peter Mandelson, Jacqui Smith, Alan Johnson and Patricia Hewitt - I'm sweating on Gordon Brown to have a full house!) or was it that the juries in the criminal cases believed Fujitsu's experts witness's who testified at their trials that Horizon was bug-free (bar one known fault rectified by them in 2001) and no remote access (unless with the full knowledge of the sub-postmasters)?

Well my money is on the testimony of the expert Horizon witness's and for two reasons...

The first because I don't remember a single case when Tony Blair, Jack Straw, Mrs Straw, Peter Mandelson, Jacqui Smith, Alan Johnson or Patricia Hewitt attended court to give evidence against the sub-postmasters, and secondly NO ONE found out there really were bugs in the system AND unilateral remote access until 2013 when Gareth Jenkins disclosed that there were to Second Sight (bugs) and Helen Rose (unilateral remote access) and which was the basis of the Clarke advice.

And 2013 is THRRE YEARS AFTER the Blair/Brown government left office!!!!

So I ask again on behalf of all who reads this thread...

Sluffy wrote:

OK Bob, answer us this simple question then -

How did the Blair/Brown governments (1997 - 2010) hide the fact the people had wrongly been persecuted and prosecuted and even convicted on unsafe grounds, when the knowledge of an unsafe witness wasn't known until 2013 when Gareth Jenkins disclosed the fact of unilateral remote access from Fujitsu and not disclosed the fact in his witness statements as he was required to do?

Go on then.

Bob we all know there couldn't be any cover-up until it was known that there was something to conceal and that didn't happen until 2013 and Tony and his gang clearly had nothing to do with it as they had gone when Cameron was elected in 2010.

And fwiw Mark Twain is wrong as YOU are the one being STUPID about this and you aren't brining me down to your level and you can't beat me because you have NO FACTS to support your utterly bonkers twenty years, successive governmental cover-up, conspiracy theory with.



Anyone for playing Bob's 'Blair's Cabinet bingo'?

I'm going for David Blunkett to be the next he names.

Nick Wallis is staggered. Here's an extract of Nick's email this evening.
Ron and Ian prepare to unload


I remain staggered that the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry has chosen to give Second Sight's Ron Warmington and Ian Henderson a mere half day each to be questioned about their knowledge of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal. They uncovered it. You'd think the Inquiry would want to hear about it. I certainly do. (Me too, Nick)

(Sir) Alan Bates and his Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance colleagues lived this disaster. James Arbuthnot and his fellow MPs supported the Subpostmasters as a matter of public interest. Ron and Ian went into the Post Office, asked for the relevant documentation, put the pieces together and between them pulled the lid off a can of worms.
Corporate lunacy
It's not Second Sight's fault that the truth they stumbled on was the biggest miscarriage of justice this country has ever seen. They went in with open minds. They listened to the evidence and followed the paper trail. They did their jobs.
When Ron and Ian tried (and I've heard the tapes, boy did they try) to explain to that they were looking at the possibility or even likelihood of unsafe prosecutions, the Post Office refused to listen.
It raised issues about their "work product". It tried to sack them. It belittled and discredited them. It did everything possible to distance itself from Ron and Ian's conclusions because the truth was simply too unpalatable for them to accept.
And in doing so it extended this scandal for at least another six years.
Blowing the whistle
Ron and Ian should be national heroes. When it became apparent the Post Office were trying to force them out of the door, they stuck at it. They dealt with the accusations of poor work, the game-playing and the adversarial attitude in order to keep patiently asking for documents and evidence. They got as close as they could to the truth.
Half way through Second Sight's investigation Ron and Ian were forced to sign NDAs as part of a renegotiated contract. They knew what they might be liable for if they went public - they could be sued and bankrupted. They were aware that as professional investigators contracted to the Post Office that if they spoke out against their client they ran the risk of never getting another investigation contract from any other client ever again. But they went public. In 2015, less than six months after being sacked, Ian Henderson appeared in our BBC Panorama Trouble at the Post Office to tell John Sweeney the Post Office suffered from an "institutional blindness" as to the truth.
Ron and Ian are, of course, not the only heroes of this tale. At the top of the mountain are the campaigning Subpostmasters. There is Kay Linnell, there are the parliamentarians and there are many, many other professionals - those who worked alongside Second Sight and those lawyers and IT folk who then used Second Sight's "work product" to take the fight back to the Post Office in the High Court and the Court of Appeal, but I do honestly think Ron and Ian's contribution should be more widely recognised beyond the few anoraks who follow this story as closely as I do.
I'm quite sure they're not living in penury, but they don't get reward or compensation for spending the last ten years doing what they can to avoid being sued, developing their investigation business (in a market which tends to value discretion and/or whitewashes) whilst also doing everything possible to ensure this story stays in the public domain. That's a tough gig.
What guided them? I have spent enough time personally dealing with Ron and Ian to assess their "work product" and their character. It is abundantly clear the thing that motivates them is the pursuit of the truth, and righting an obvious, awful wrong.
Ron Warmington and Ian Henderson got to the truth in the Post Office scandal, and they refused to let it go. They could have thrown the towel in earlier. They could have quietly moved on to their next gig after being sacked and called it quits, but they didn't. They refused to let it go, at an absolutely crucial stage in this scandal.
Half a day each
I am aware Lord Arbuthnot only got half a day at the Inquiry. I understand there might be more value in grilling Gareth Jenkins over four days and recalling Andy Dunks. I have been speaking to sources close to the inquiry asking why Ron and Ian only got half a day each and the line I've been given is that Ron and Ian wrote such thorough witness statements, the Inquiry doesn't need to question them on matters arising. Hmm. Womble Bond Dickinson's Andy Parsons submitted a 500 page witness statement and he still got two days in the chair.
Justice doesn't just need to be done, it needs to be seen to be done, and giving Ron and Ian a day each would give the public a far better understanding of what they went through, the work they did and the pressures they were under.
I can't disagree with any of that.

Still not answered that simple question Bob.


Actually I never knew Andy Dunks was in Blairs Cabinet because it seems to be him that led the line in ruining sub-postmasters lives - and as you firmly believe it's all about a government cover-up started under Blairs Premiership then Dunks must really be a Cabinet Minister and not Fujitsu's 'expert witness' back in Blairs time who basically told a pile of bollocks to a multitude of Criminal Courts...


The man in the photograph, Andy Dunks, gave evidence at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry this week. He works for Fujitsu. In the days when the Post Office wanted to prosecute Horizon users for crimes of dishonesty, it would go to Andy at Fujitsu for ARQ (Horizon’s audit record query) data or a log of helpdesk calls.

Andy was the cryptographic key manager for the Horizon system, working in Fujitsu’s Customer Service Post Office Account Security Team. Starting in 2002, Andy would extract data for Postmaster prosecutions, “analyse” or “summarise” it and attach it to a signed witness statement saying there were no problems with Horizon.

His statement (and this is taken from a standard Fujitsu witness statement) would say something like:

There is no reason to believe that the information in this statement is inaccurate because of the improper use of the computer. To the best of my knowledge and belief at all material times the computer was operating properly, or if not, any respect in which it was not operating properly, or was out of operation was not such as to effect the information held on it. I hold a responsible position in relation to the working of the computer.

This was usually enough to satisfy both the Post Office’s criminal prosecutors and the individual Subpostmasters’ defence teams, none of whom, you can bet, had the training or knowledge to challenge it.

Liar, Liar

When Andy Dunks gave evidence on behalf of the Post Office during the Bates v Post Office High Court litigation in 2019, he told the court Fujitsu had no “party line” when giving evidence on behalf of the Post Office. This was not true. In his judgment to the Horizon Issues trial, Mr Justice Fraser wrote:

There plainly is [a party line] it was used in the Fujitsu statements in 2010 and it was used by [Andy Dunks] in his statement for the Horizon Issues trial.

Mr Justice Fraser ruled that Dunks had “expressly sought to mislead” him.

You know this is serious, right?

Dunks’ lack of curiosity and knowledge about potential and real errors with the Horizon system is, and I say this with perhaps some understatement, troubling. Dunks became aware of the campaign by the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance whilst Postmasters were being prosecuted, but told Jason Beer he did not seek any internal clarification about it. It led to the following exchange:

JB: You just carried on providing the witness statements?
AD: In my – our area of the team, no, I don’t think we did discuss [the Postmasters’ campaign] at all.
JB: Looking back, do you think it ought to have been the topic of some discussion?
AD: At a higher level, possibly. Whether that went on, I don’t know. It wasn’t for us to discuss or make judgement.
JB: You were the one that was going along to court or providing witness statements?
AD: Yeah.
JB: It was your name at the bottom of the piece of paper that was signed?
AD: Mm-hm.
JB: Saying, “This is true”?
AD: Mm-hm.
JB: “I know I can be prosecuted”, I think it would have said, “if I have stated in it anything which I know to be false.”
AD: Yes.
JB: Did you not think that was quite a serious undertaking you were engaged in?
AD: Yes, I did.
JB: You heard, through the media and the like, that the Subpostmasters were saying, “There were faults in the system, the Horizon System, that are causing discrepancies for which I am not responsible.” You were providing witness statements at the same time, saying, “There is nothing that I’ve seen in the documents I’ve examined that could explain
a system-generated discrepancy”?
AD: Well, as you just stated, I would have probably taken it as it’s their opinion that there’s something wrong. I’m not – wasn’t aware there was something wrong, so I still believed my statement, on the witness statements I gave, were true at the time.

Richard Roll

Dunks’ lack of knowledge about the Horizon IT system and its propensity for causing errors was highlighted the day after he gave evidence to the Inquiry. Testimony on Thursday 9 March was provided by Richard Roll, a third line Service Support Centre (SSC) engineer at Fujitsu from 2001 to 2004. Richard has told Panorama (twice) and the High Court about the constant battles required to keep Horizon from falling over when he worked there.

On Thursday Roll described the Horizon coding he inherited as a “mess” and detailed the ease with which he and his colleagues were able to go into Postmasters accounts and change the the software in them in order to fix bugs.

Roll was asked by Jason Beer if he had heard of Andy Dunks, cryptographic key manager of the Horizon IT system within Fujitsu’s Customer Service Post Office Account Security Team.

Roll said: “No.”

Beer asked him if he knew what Dunks did:
JB: Can you recall a job title or role being undertaken of the cryptographic key manager?
RR: There was a key, which was a crypto key, if you like, which was generated by a secure PC in a locked room within the SSC, bearing in mind that the SSC itself was on the sixth floor of a very secure building behind double doors that were extremely secure. It was a very, very secure area. But that’s about all I can remember.
JB: Mr Dunks was the manager of the cryptographic key. We’ve heard from him recently. I think it follows from what you’ve said that you didn’t have any or you don’t recall any liaison with him or the security team?
RR: No.
JB: We know that he, the cryptographic key manager, was selected to give evidence by provision of witness statements and giving oral evidence in court, about what you and your team in the SSC had done in response to calls to the SSC and the work that your team had undertaken as recorded on call logs. Do you understand?
RR: Right.
JB: Do you know why one of that team, the customer service team, and, in particular, the person that managed the cryptographic key, was selected to give evidence about what you and your team were doing in the SSC?
RR: No.
JB: Did you ever hear any discussion or were you ever party to any discussion about why Mr Dunks, the crypto
key manager, was giving evidence about what was or wasn’t shown on helpdesk call logs that were completed
by you and members of your team, rather than a member of you and your team giving evidence?
RR: No.

What conclusions can we draw from all this, then?

On the face of it, Fujitsu Andy appears to have been in the business of giving incorrect or misleading witness statements to the Post Office in order to better assist it in the false prosecution of innocent Subpostmasters.

In each case Mr Dunks clearly believed he had done the minimum required to satisfy his limited worldview that what he was doing had validity, and what he was saying was true. Otherwise he was potentially committing a criminal offence.

This raises questions as to Fujitsu’s organisational integrity.

What did Fujitsu do to make Mr Dunks aware of the seriousness of his evidence and the need to ensure it was completed to exacting standards?

Who at Fujitsu knew it was allowing Mr Dunks to feed witness statements about information he didn’t understand into a judicial process he had no real knowledge of, with catastrophic consequences for the individuals at the wrong end of it?

What did Fujitsu say to Andy Dunks before he expressly attempted to mislead a High Court judge?

https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/why-hasnt-fujitsu-sacked-andy-dunks/


Bob, has the penny not dropped with you yet that Blair, Jack Straw, Mrs Straw, or anyone else in the Blair government had the faintest idea of unsafe prosecutions????

It had NOTHING to do with TPTB (The Powers That Be) having their hands all over this from the very start and EVERYTHING to do with Fujitsu's (criminally?) incompetent expert witness's giving unsafe testimony which ruined all those peoples lives.

SHAME ON YOU wanting it all to be a government cover up all because of your prejudice and bias of the state based on your unsatisfactory dealings in respect of what happened with your issue with your local health authority.


And you seek the truth you say?

No you don't, the truth has been staring you in the face week in, week out, for months now at the Inquiry and when I've rubbed your nose in the truth you've run away from it...

You couldn't possibly be wrong particularly to some Twerp on the internet...

You are such a goon, Sluffy.

Spike Milligan used to check into a large hospital near me when he was having one of his breakdowns. It was originally called the Lancaster County Lunatic Asylum but they changed the name later to the Moor Hospital. It doesn't exist any more; its all apartments and new build.


https://www.lancastercivicsociety.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/74-The-Moor-Hospital-Lancaster-2022.pdf

I emailed my best wishes for today to Ian Henderson and Ron Warmington this morning.

This was Ron's reply:

Wow!  What a lovely thing to say. Thanks so much (my name). Ian and I will both do our utmost not to let the side down.

You should have emailed him to ask how the Blair government covered up the fact that ALL the sub-postmasters lives were being ruined because the Post Office were under the impression from Fujitsu that any shortfalls at the sub-post offices had to be the sub-postmasters fault because Fujitsu told them there were no bugs in the system and they had no unilateral remote access to the sub-post offices and both turned out to be lies and only discovered in 2013, THREE YEARS AFTER Blair/Brown left office.

Because YOU clearly have no answer as to how that could be.



And neither will he!



Neither could anyone because it is IMPOSSIBLE to have happened.


As explained here -

Who are Ron Warmington and Ian Henderson?

You may not have heard of Ron Warmington and Ian Henderson, but they played a pivotal role in uncovering this terrible scandal. In the ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office, the pair are amalgamated into the character Bob Rutherford.

They led Second Sight, a team of independent forensic accountants, who were paid by the Post Office, at the instigation of MPs and the Justice for Sub-Postmasters Alliance, to investigate the growing complaints from sub-postmasters in 2012. They were tenacious and thorough.

Their interim report the following year (2013) revealed serious concerns. They reported the existence of two bugs which had caused problems with balances at 76 branches, raising doubts about the reliability of the Horizon data used to prosecute sub-postmasters.

They were involved in the subsequent mediation scheme to help victims.

The Post Office initially co-operated with Second Sight. But by 2015, Ian Henderson was telling MPs they were refusing to hand over prosecution files.

Within a month of his evidence to this parliamentary select committee, Second Sight were sacked and the PO had terminated the mediation scheme.

They pair allege they were stopped for "getting too close to the truth".

Sub-postmasters say they owe a real debt of gratitude to the Second Sight duo. Lee Castleton, who was made bankrupt by the Post Office seventeen years ago, says the pair could've just crumbled under the pressure from the Post Office. "They listened to us and instead of being told what to believe they went and found out for themselves. That's all we asked and they did it in spades, " Lee told the BBC.

Where are you Bob?

Have you had your listening ears on...


The Post Office was "constantly sabotaging" the work of independent investigators probing issues with the Horizon IT system, an inquiry has heard.

Forensic accountant Ian Henderson said the Post Office unjustifiably withheld documents from his company, Second Sight, which was brought in to investigate the accounting software in 2012.

He said protecting the Post Office brand was the priority, rather than supporting sub-postmasters.

Mr Henderson added that former Post Office boss Paula Vennells tried to steer investigators away from looking into potential miscarriages of justice.

Between 1999 and 2015 the Post Office prosecuted hundreds of sub-postmasters for offences such as theft and fraud on the basis of faulty accounting data from the Horizon IT system.


In 2012, under pressure from MPs, the Post Office commissioned a report from Second Sight to look into claims from sub-postmasters that Horizon had been to blame for shortfalls in their accounts, rather than criminality.

Mr Henderson and his colleague Ron Warmington began investigating various cases but were sacked by the Post Office in March 2015.

In a statement to the inquiry into the scandal, Mr Henderson said that rather than being interested in getting to the truth of what happened, the Post Office had tried to obstruct Second Sight's efforts.

"Requests for documents were either ignored or responses were excessively delayed," he wrote. "Unjustified claims of legal professional privilege were used to justify withholding documents from us."

As part of the probe, Second Sight asked for documents relating to prosecution cases to be collated.

Mr Henderson said that "within days" of being provided with the available documents in late October 2012, "we realised that we may be looking at a significant number of miscarriages of justice".

However, he said that Ms Vennells, who was Post Office chief executive at the time, "frequently and consistently attempted to steer Second Sight away from investigating potential miscarriages of justice".

By February 2015, Mr Henderson said he "felt we were dealing with a cover-up" by the Post Office "and possibly a criminal conspiracy".

At the time he was concerned the Post Office would take him to court for alleged breaches of confidentiality and a non-disclosure agreement.

His partner Mr Warmington said it became clear that the Post Office was "aware, possibly at the highest levels" that the Horizon system had "for years been producing spurious discrepancies in branch accounts".

He also said the Post Office "had been responsible for numerous unsafe prosecutions, convictions, custodial sentences, bankruptcies and even suicides" due to the "improper behaviour" of its prosecutors.

The investigators wrote an interim report into the Horizon system, published in July 2013, which identified bugs that could have made Horizon convictions unsafe.

Following this report the Post Office, along with Second Sight and campaigners led by former sub-postmaster Alan Bates, set up a mediation scheme in August 2013.

The Post Office closed this scheme in March 2015.

Mr Henderson said that towards the end of the scheme "some questions asked 12 months earlier had still not been answered".

"Protecting 'the brand' was the priority, not supporting sub-postmasters," he said.

He added that many aspects of the individual cases that were prosecuted "just didn't make sense".

"For example, in none of the cases that we looked at did we find any evidence of personal gain or benefit," he said. "This may indicate that the alleged loss was not real and was more likely to have been caused by a faulty computer system."

The Post Office did extensive vetting of sub-postmasters before taking them on, he added, but "would have us believe that significant numbers... had suddenly become career criminals. I found this implausible."

Mr Henderson added that at one point the Post Office had more people working in its public relations department than its legal department, which appeared an "inappropriate" and "unsustainable" priority for the business.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cyddlynqlryo

Vennells and other senior managers should be arrested and charged if this is all true!

Norpig wrote:Vennells and other senior managers should be arrested and charged if this is all true!

Don't you mean Tony Tony Blair, Jack Straw, Mrs Straw, Peter Mandelson, Jacqui Smith, Alan Johnson and Patricia Hewitt should all be arrested and charged?

And not before time, eh Bob?