Post Office Scandal

Martin Smith and the Instruction to Shred

Nick Wallis

Wed 1 May 2024

2 comments
9 min read

Smith takes the oath

The mystery of who at the Post Office (or Bond Dickinson) decided to shred minutes relating to an important meeting at the Post Office to discuss problems with the Horizon IT system got a little more dramatic today as Martin Smith, a solicitor working for Cartwright King, gave evidence.

Smith was a prosecuting solicitor who took on Post Office cases under instruction from the Post Office. He had no training in the role having been a duty defence solicitor who then joined Cartwright King and moved to Post Office prosecutions after Cartwright King won the Post Office contract.

Smith was walked through his involvement in the case of Khayyam Ishaq, an innocent man who Smith helped put in prison. Smith did not read relevant documents and he made disclosure decisions which seemed to fly in the face of the relevant requirements. Nonetheless it was his evidence about the Post Office’s apparent desire to illegally shred documentats relating to problems with Horizon which made the only two hacks in the Inquiry room – me and Fiona Parker from the Daily Telegraph – suddenly start paying very close attention at the end of a long day.

If you want to read my live tweets (lots of screenshots of documents and a blow-by-blow flavour of what’s happening) covering the entire day click here. Fiona’s live-blog (fewer posts, but plenty of direct quotes) can be found here.

Was it the external lawyers?

It is July 2013 – the Clarke Advice, written by Smith’s colleague, the barrister Simon Clarke, has been issued to the Post Office. The Clarke Advice was prompted by the realisation that Gareth Jenkins from Fujitsu was a tainted witness, and that some prosecutions were likely unsafe. To ensure all were across the risks going forward, Clarke had recommended setting up a weekly conference call between the Post Office’s IT, legal and security teams, their external lawyers Bond Dickinson and Cartwright King to monitor issues with Horizon to see if they affect any prosecutions.

The first meeting, known as the “Regular Call re Horizon issues”, opened (according to the minutes published on the Inquiry website) with a note from Rob King in the Post Office Security team stating “no minutes circulated, but we will be taking notes”. According to Smith, Andy Parsons from Bond Dickinson (later Womble Bond Dickinson who ran the disastrous Post Office defence of Bates v Post Office) explained that all documents would be kept on a central hub for reasons of keeping control of the dissemination of information.

In his witness statement, Smith said he thought this was a sensible idea:

“Mr Parsons expressed concern with regards to the difficulties which could arise following the circulation of minutes. He was particularly concerned that they could be further disseminated and attract opinion which might well be incorrect and also result in information being stored elsewhere without it being relayed back to the call. He explained that he had previous experience of such issues. It was evident that he was concerned about pre-action discovery in civil cases.

“My view from a criminal law perspective was that the information was to be reported to a single central hub in accordance with Mr Clarke’s advice – that was the very purpose of the call. I could also understand Mr Parson’s concerns that incorrect information could possibly be generated or that information might not be relayed back to the central hub.”

Was it the Head of Security?

Two weeks later, on 31 July, after the third Horizon Issues call, Martin Smith received a phone call from the Post Office’s (then) top criminal lawyer, Jarnail Singh. Smith was driving at the time. According to Smith’s note of the call, Singh told him:

“JScot [John Scott, the Post Office head of Security] has instructed that the typed minutes be scrapped.”

That’s the only contemporaneous statement available, but the call lasted 24 minutes. Julian Blake, asking questions for the inquiry, asked Smith what he remembered.

Smith’s note of his call with Jarnail Singh re John Scott. Note the key word: “scrapped”

Smith replied:

“I can recall complaining to [Singh] about the influence being exerted over Post Office in my view by the external civil lawyers and I can also recall him telling me that an instruction had been sent out that typewritten minutes should be scrapped and that if anyone asks, the Cartwright King would be blamed for providing that advice.”

Smith reports being “absolutely horrified and shocked” by what he heard. He continued:

“When I had the opportunity to pull over, I was able to use another mobile telephone to record, at a distance, the latter part of the conversation. Because I was so shocked by what I heard.”

Smith recalled saying to Singh that he understood that no minutes were being circulated, and could see the benefits, but:

“by the third [Horizon Issues] call there was some form of change proposed… I don’t remember exactly what the change was, but I do remember saying on the call, ‘no – hold on… you still have to keep a central record’.”

Smith resolved to get Simon Clarke to write another Advice which spelled out “absolutely in black and white” the Post Office’s obligations to record information. Smith actually thought it was the civil lawyers [Bond Dickinson] trying to “water down” and “pull away” from the Post Office’s agreement to keep minutes in a central hub:

“By the time we got to the third [Horizon Issues] call to start having a position where we’re not going to have anything in writing… that did worry me. I was concerned about that.

Julian Blake

Julian Blake wanted to know what Smith meant in his note by the word “scrapped”.

JB: From your understanding of that telephone call, was it that notes or typed minutes were to be “stopped” or “destroyed”?
MS: To be destroyed.
JB: Was that your clear understanding from that conversation?
MS: Yes.
JB: We know that in Mr Clarke’s Advice he uses the word “shredded” – do you know where that came from?
MS: I can only assume it’s arising out of my conversation with Mr Singh.
JB: And is that something you recall from your conversation with Mr Singh?
MS: Not at this point in time, no.
JB: So you don’t recall the specific word “shredded”, but you do recall that typed minutes were to be destroyed rather than there was going to be some kind of stop on taking future notes.
MS: That was very much my understanding…. Mr Singh told me that the minutes were to be destroyed – I can’t remember the exact phraseology….
JB: Were to be? Or had been? There’s a big difference between the two.
MS: I was under the impression that the instruction had gone out and that they had been.

Blake now wanted to know who the instruction had come from and who it had been sent to. Smith said he was definitely told it was John Scott who had sent the instruction out, but he was unsure who it had been sent to.

“I’m hesitant here because there were a number of people with the name David, and I’m thinking it was either David Pardoe or David Posnett [both in the PO Security Team], but I’m afraid I can’t… it was a long time ago.”

Was it the internal lawyers?

Blake wanted to know if Scott had “received advice on that matter or was acting on his own instigation.” Smith had no idea. Blake took him back to the third Horizon Issues call and wanted to know what had changed. Smith told him:

“I was left with the distinct impression that Post Office were no longer wanting to keep a record of the [Horizon Issues] calls, and I recall saying ‘No – you must still keep a central record…’.”

Blake cut in: “You say the Post Office. Who at the Post Office?”

“I think that was information that came from Rodric Williams”, replied Smith. “I think it was Rodric Williams who said that [and] I think I said “Rodric, you still need to keep a central record”, and I remember not being very happy about it and think this is one for Simon Clarke.”

All this begat the Second Clarke Advice, on shredding.

In summary, Martin Smith appears to be alleging that:

a) during the third Horizon Issues meeting on 31 July 2013, the Post Office lawyer Rodric Williams suggested not taking minutes. Smith remembers admonishing him, telling Williams he had to keep a recprd.

b) after the meeting, according to Smith’s recollection of his call with Jarnail Singh, a decision was taken at the Post Office to destroy the minutes anyway. John Scott had disseminated the order, and this was complied with.

c) Singh then called Smith to tell him of the decision and that if anyone queried it, Smith’s firm, Cartwright King, would be “blamed” for issuing the order.

According to Hugh Flemington’s evidence earlier this week, Scott and Singh did not get on. But something here doesn’t add up. Why would Scott take a unilateral decision to order the shredding of minutes? How could it possibly be accompanied by the suggestion that if word got out, Cartwright King would be blamed? What did Rodric Williams have to do with all this? And why did Simon Clarke’s shredding advice, once written and sent to the Post Office, sit in Rodric Williams’ desk for two weeks before being seen by Susan Crichton, the Post Office’s general counsel?

And why did none of them seem to give a flying monkeys about the Subpostmasters?

I am currently touring Post Office Scandal – the Inside Story. Please do come and see us as we make our way around the country (all dates here).

The journalism on this blog is crowdfunded. If you would like to join the “secret email” newsletter, please consider making a one-off donation. The money is used to keep the contents of this website free. You will receive irregular, but informative email updates about the Post Office Horizon IT scandal.

Inquiry, Prosecutions

Clarke Advice, Hugh Flemington, Jarnail Singh, John Scott, Khayyam Ishaq, Martin Smith, Rodric Williams, Simon Clarke, Susan Crichton
What Hugh Didn’t Do

Nick Wallis

Tue 30 April 2024

35 comments
3 min read

That would have been Susan Crichton’s area of responsibility

Hugh Flemington is a very careful man. The former Post Office Head of Legal spent his morning in the Inquiry witness chair characterising his involvement in the Post Office scandal as accidental, at best.

The problem was, the documents do seem to suggest he was involved at some level, though he couldn’t recall how. He didn’t remember doing things and mostly he didn’t remember not doing things and if he didn’t do something it wasn’t a failing on his part, it just hadn’t occurred to him at the time.

The tone was set quite early on when barrister for the Inquiry Sam Stevens asked if Mr Flemington knew that the standard of proof in a criminal trial was that a jury had to be sure of guilt. Mr Flemington wasn’t sure, telling Stevens he was reliant on comedy Post Office lawyer Jarnail Singh for his education in criminal law. Stevens was a little taken aback, as well he might be. If Flemington, a senior lawyer, was going to tell the Inquiry he was not able to confirm he knew what the criminal standard of proof was, it was going to be a long morning.

And it was. Flemington did receive emails but didn’t open attachments. He became aware of the Clarke Advice via osmosis. He didn’t have a view on the Jarnail Singh as the PO’s only criminal lawyer being supervised by Susan Crichton, a General Counsel with no experience of criminal law.

His one on the record observation about Jarnail Singh (to Susan Crichton) was that Mr Singh “doesn’t seem to be able to do recommendations” ie provide legal advice, the basic job of a lawyer. When asked whether this raised concerns about Singh’s competence, Flemington said it was a comment made in annoyance rather than anything more serious, giving him an excuse not to have to escalated the issue.

At the end of his session, Flemington told the inquiry:

“I just wanted to say how sorry personally I felt for all the pain and suffering that has been caused by this scandal to all the people who have suffered. I hope today that in some small way my witness appearance will help the inquiry establish lessons learned.”

“Small” being the significant word.

I am currently touring Post Office Scandal – the Inside Story. Please do come and see us as we make our way around the country (all dates here).

The journalism on this blog is crowdfunded. If you would like to join the “secret email” newsletter, please consider making a one-off donation. The money is used to keep the contents of this website free. You will receive irregular, but informative email updates about the Post Office Horizon IT scandal.

Inquiry, Prosecutions

Hugh Flemington, Jarnail Singh, Susan Crichton
Post Office rewarded director after she lied in court

Nick Wallis

Fri 26 April 2024

50 comments
16 min read

Can I get a bonus? Angela van den Bogerd, former Post Office Exec

Damning evidence about the culture within the Post Office at the very highest level was brought to light during the course of Angela van den Bogerd’s second and likely final day of evidence at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry today.

You can read my live-tweets and see the screenshots of documents posted up during the hearing here. For a summary of the lowlights, read on.

“Take a step back from the answer of an automaton”

Van den Bogerd started her career behind the counter of a Crown Office branch in 1985 just after leaving school. She rose to Director of Partnerships, before leaving in 2020. In all that time, she says, the most she contributed to the widest miscarriage of justice in UK legal history was by missing a few things in documents.

She is exactly the sort of person the Post Office likes. Long-serving, loyal, sharp and biddable. To get a measure of the sort of organisation she is part of, we were taken, at the beginning of the day, to the Post Office’s hounding of Martin Griffiths, a Postmaster driven to suicide.

Griffiths and his parents had poured tens of thousands of pounds into the Horizon-generated accounting holes in Griffiths’ branch in Hope Farm Road, near Ellesmere Port in Cheshire. At his lowest, Martin was attacked by armed robbers. The Post Office blamed him for that, too, initially demanding he give them the £38,000 that was stolen, later reduced to £7,600.

In a letter to the Post Office on 17 July 2013, Martin wrote:

“Over the last 15 months alone, February 2012 – May 2013, more than £39,000 is deemed to be my shortfall, an average of £600 per week. This surely cannot be correct, but the notifications from the Post Office state this is the case. The worry has affected [redacted] and plans for retirement have had to be postponed. I have not had a break in my business hours for more than four years, to keep a tight rein on the office. The financial strain on myself and my family is devastating and continues on a daily basis.”

Griffiths’ mother, who was in her eighties, also wrote to the Post Office around the same time, telling them:

“My son has been under severe pressure and I have personally had to take on more work in the retail side of the business, including providing financial support for the shortages. The so-called shortages over many, many months have been repaid mainly by myself and husband. Although you can continue to say there is no fault in the Horizon computer system, we eagerly await the results of the ongoing investigation being undertaken by Second Sight regarding software errors. Your letter of 3 July, stating termination of Martin’s contract, I feel is very harsh. Kevin Bridger [another Post Office employee] has compounded the severe problems adding insult to injury (and I mean injury), by requesting a fine of £7,600 which represents 20% of the robbery with violence which occurred in May. It was due to the identification of the culprit by a member of staff, that the Police were able to make a quick arrest and subsequently the robber received an 8 year jail sentence.”

By this stage Griffiths was in touch with Alan Bates at the Justice For Subpostmasters Alliance. When, on 23 September 2013, Alan was informed that Martin had deliberately stepped in front of a bus and was in a coma, he emailed the Post Office, with the family’s permission. Copying in Paula Vennells and Angela van den Bogerd, Bates wrote:

“I am aware of Martin’s case, and I know he was terrified to raise his shortages with POL [the Post Office] because of just this type of thing happening to him, but POL got him in the end. Regardless of what may or may not have occurred with him, why did POL have to hound him to the point of trying to take his own life? Why?”

The Post Office’s reaction was telling. Any thought for the victim, his family, the community? This is the internal email chain which followed:

The top comment “given the potential media element please can we line up a specialist media lawyer in case we need urgent advice this evening?” came from Mark Davies, the Post Office’s then Director of Communications.

As Jason Beer KC, counsel to the Inquiry asked van den Bogerd:

“So the immediate reaction, you agree, is not – is Martin Griffiths alright? What about his health?… The immediate reaction was not – what can we do to help this man’s family?… What about his wife and his children, what about his elderly parents, what about his sister? Shall we get someone down to the hospital? No. The first things was – let’s get a media lawyer. Was that what it was like working for the Post Office at the time? It was all about brand reputation? About brand image?”

Van den Bogerd embarked on an explanation which involved conflicting reports about what happened. When pressed on the immediate reaction of her colleagues, she said: “I don’t think [PR messaging] was the first thought. It was definitely a consideration in everything that we did, around… you know, PR and the comms element.”

Beer asked why. Why was it important in this case? “A man has walked in front of a bus,” he said, “one of your Subpostmasters.” Van den Bogerd replied:

“In all my time with Post Office from very early on I was very conscious that PR was very important and everything had to be… it was a comms team… Mark was comms director at the time. And that’s what he said.”

After a year, Martin’s daughter, Lauren, wrote to the Post Office:

“I am emailing to let you know how disgusted we are with the treatment our family has received from the Post Office. As you are well aware it has now been almost a year since we lost our Dad. We hold the Post Office solely and wholly responsible for what happened to him. As I am sure you can imagine, our family has had an extremely tough year… I cannot comprehend how our family has not been supported or compensated this past year. I firmly believe that we would not have received this kind of treatment from any other large corporate organisation.”

The Post Office’s solution, approved by Angela van den Bogerd, was a £140,000 settlement offer to Martin Griffiths’ wife, Gina. To get it, she would have to drop any future claim against the Post Office, drop out of the Mediation Scheme and sign an NDA. The Post Office proposed sending the cash to her in instalments. Post Office lawyer Rodric Williams told Bogerd the Post Office asked for an NDA “as an incentive to Mrs Griffiths maintaining confidentiality. As drafted, if Mrs Griffiths were to breach confidentiality, we could stop any further payments but not recoup sums already paid.”

Beer paused his reading: “An incentive to maintain confidentiality. That was important for the Post Office, wasn’t it?”

Van den Bogerd said it was Rodric Williams who wrote the email.

Beer stopped her: “This is about a different issue. This about the Post Office staging payments to act as an ‘incentive’ to her – a sword of Damocles hanging over her. You don’t get any more money unless you keep quiet. That’s what this is, isn’t it?”

“That’s what Rodric is setting out.” Van den Bogerd agreed.
“Did you see anything unsavoury in using money in ensuring Mr Griffiths’ case was hushed up?” asked Beer.
“This was the first I heard of it from Rodric, and the fact that he said it was accepted, then I just allowed it to continue,” Van den Bogerd replied, confirming to the chair that she approved the way the offer was structured.

Beer wanted to know about the Post Office’s use of NDAs.

Van den Bogerd said: “Any settlement agreement the Post Office entered into was done with a Non-Disclosure Agreement”.
“Why?” asked Beer.
“Because that’s the way they operated, that was always…”
“But why?” cut in Beer. “Take a step back from the answer of an automaton. Why does the Post Office always insist on Non-Disclosure?”
“Because that’s how they tied up the agreement…”
“Yes but why?” pushed Beer.
“Well I just accepted that that was the standard approach with all settlement agreements and that was how they all operated and still do today I believe
“Does it like secrecy?” wondered Beer.

Van den Bogerd failed to give a coherent answer.

No evidence of theft

Tim Moloney with the tie and Jo Hamilton on his left

Tim Moloney KC devoted his allotted slot to questioning Van den Bogerd about her presentation of his client Jo Hamilton’s case to MPs on 18 June 2012. Among the MPs was James Arbuthnot, Jo’s MP. Bogerd agreed she had compiled the information about Jo’s case from looking at the prosecution files. She also agrees this is about the concerns MPs had about the integrity of Horizon and the idea people might have been wrongly convicted.

Bogerd had prepared a briefing pack containing a timeline of what happened at Jo’s branch in South Warnborough. Jo sat and listened alongside Moloney, as she does most days during the Inquiry. Moloney noted the audit and investigation part of the timeline, he listed the helpline calls, the agreements reached between the Post Office and the branch to settle outstanding discrepancies, then he notes the closing audit, the charge, the admission of false accounting and the eventual sentence.

“It was meant to be an open and transparent engagement with MPs, wasn’t it?” asked Moloney.
“Yes.” replied van den Bogerd.

Moloney pointed out that James Arbuthnot was concerned Jo Hamilton was not guilty. Bogerd agrees. Moloney took her to the front of the briefing pack where Alice Perkins, the new Chair of the Post Office says the purpose of the meeting is to give the MPs “all the information” they have available to address the MPs concerns.

Moloney then took van den Bogerd to a report written about Jo’s branch by an internal Post Office investigator called Graham Brander. The report noted several things. Firstly that overnight, between the auditor doing an initial check and a subsequent check the next day, a mysterious £61.77 added itself overnight to Jo’s £36,583.12 discrepancy. As the auditor could not explain this, it was just added onto the amount Jo owed.

Brander also wrote: “I was unable to find any evidence of theft, or that the cash figures had been deliberately inflated.”

Mrs Hamilton was charged with theft, a charge which was only dropped if she gave the Post Office £36k and made a statement which made clear she was not blaming Horizon for the discrepancies at her branch.

Moloney wanted to know why those details weren’t in her presentation to Arbuthnot. It led to this exchange.

“It was a snapshot of what had gone…. I don’t know exactly what I reviewed, but that information isn’t in what I presented.”
Moloney asked again why the “important… details” he listed did not appear in her summary. Bogerd began to squirm.
“The detail that you’ve just gone through was not the detail that… was made available to me, so I’ve taken what I understood to be the key points out of the information that was provided to be able to provide that synopsis of what had happened. I didn’t do an investigation at that point.”
“You didn’t need to do an investigation Mrs Van den Bogerd. The fact that there is no evidence of theft, says Mr Brander, and yet she was still charged with theft. Doesn’t that have to go into your summary so that this MP actually knows what went on with his constituent’s case.”

Bogerd changed her tune. “I don’t know if that was in the information that was made available to me at the time.”
Moloney cut in. “It was in the investigation report, Mrs van den Bogerd. You said you read that.”
Bogerd replied “I read whatever files we had that were available. I don’t know exactly what they were.”

And on it went. Bogerd was now not sure she read the full investigation files, some of the investigation report, or something completely different. Moloney wondered what documents she might have got her information from if it wasn’t the investigation report. Did she see it or not?

“I can’t remember exactly what I referred to,” she replied. “I just wanted to present the picture as I saw it from the information I had available.”

The Chair of the Inquiry, Sir Wyn Williams noted her summary just happened to support the Post Office’s perspective.

“That’s my recollection… I would have expected to have all the information provided to me at the time.” she volunteered, introducing a new mystery person who had come between her and the investigation files. “I don’t even remember who gave me the information.”

There are people like this in every organisation. They believe they are good people, and, outside of work, they often are, but they would quite happily exercise their corporate power to destroy an individual employee if a company executive demanded it, without it troubling their conscience one iota. And they are well rewarded.

“Did you get your bonus that year, Mrs van den Bogerd?”

At the end of the day, Sam Stein KC asked Mrs van den Bogerd about her treatment of Jennifer O’Dell, a woman who was repeatedly told by the Post Office helpline to pay for the discrepancy which appeared in her branch. It is worth reading Mrs O’Dell’s witness statement to the Inquiry to get a sniff of what she was put through. She has PTSD and night terrors.

Sam Stein (l)

By this stage Angela van den Bogerd had already agreed that the Post Office’s directions to its helpline operators was to tell people with discrepancies that in the first instance, Subpostmasters were told to make good discrepancies before any investigation as to how they might have occurred was initiated. Mrs O’Dell was repeatedly told to pay up. Angela van den Bogerd was in charge of the helpline. She oversaw a mass theft of Subpostmaster funds, based on an imbalance of power and blatant mis-stating of the terms of the Subpostmaster contract by helpline staff.

Stein told Bogerd O’Dell claimed that Bogerd was “bullying”, “intimidating” and that her home would be taken away if she didn’t make good the branch discrepancy. Bogerd was adamant this was not her.

Stein raised the issue of credibility, and the finding made by Mr (now Lord) Justice Fraser in the Common Issues judgment, thus: “Unless I state to the contrary, I would only accept the evidence of Mrs Van den Bogerd and Mr Beal [another Post Office employees] in controversial areas of fact in issue in this Common Issue trial if these are clearly and uncontrovertibly corroborated by contemporaneous documents.”

Mr Stein wondered if, when it came to clash of evidence, who should be believed. Van den Bogered was again adamant that Mrs O’Dell was mistaken. Stein explored the Post Office’s response to the judge’s finding.

SS: What was said about you by Mr Justice Fraser was pretty serious, wasn’t it? Condemning you completely out of hand as being someone who simply he can’t trust. And he’s someone who has evaluated your evidence over quite some time in the witness box. It’s a pretty serious thing to hear about yourself, isn’t it?”
AB: Yes
SS: And the Post Office was obviously aware of what was being said about you? Yes?
AB: Yes.
SS: What did the Post Office do by way of an investigation into this? They must have looked into this. Did they?
AB: No.
SS: No? There was no discussion with you about – well hang on, that High Court judge said some pretty rum things about you, surely we should take this seriously. Nothing like that? Nothing ever done?
AB: No.
SS: No. I see. Alright. Did you get your bonus that year, in 2019, Mrs van den Bogerd?
AB: Yes.
SS: So despite a finding in the High Court – that basically you lied to the High Court – you got your bonus?
AB: Yes.

The sort of corporate culture which rewards people after they lied on the company’s behalf in the High Court tells you everything you need to know about that company and the individuals inside it. An organisation which actively supports employees who are evasive, withhold evidence and try to mislead a High Court judge is not that far from a criminal enterprise, which I guess is why it’s under criminal investigation by the Metropolitan Police. I don’t even think Angela van den Bogerd is a particularly special case.

Here’s a write up of part 1 of Angela van den Bogerd’s evidence.

I am currently touring Post Office Scandal – the Inside Story. Please do come and see us as we make our way around the country (all dates here).

The journalism on this blog is crowdfunded. If you would like to join the “secret email” newsletter, please consider making a one-off donation. The money is used to keep the contents of this website free. You will receive irregular, but informative email updates about the Post Office Horizon IT scandal.

Inquiry, Prosecutions

angela van den bogerd
The First Lady of Flat Earth

Nick Wallis

Thu 25 April 2024

29 comments
8 min read

Angela van den Bogerd, on oath once more

It is possible that Angela van den Bogerd and her senior colleagues (Rodric Williams, Mark Davies, Susan Crichton, Chris Aujard, Jarnail Singh, Patrick Bourke) were just not very bright. They were all aware of evidence which pointed to the exact opposite of what they were telling MPs, Subpostmasters and journalists about potential miscarriages of justice and the Horizon IT system, but they somehow didn’t join up the dots or make the connection. And by not making the connection, they could carry on persuading themselves campaigning Subpostmasters were wrong, or lying, or criminals.

If you want to scroll through today’s evidence with documents and a real time typed commentary, please go to the live tweet thread on this website.

This is the fifth day I’ve sat and watched AvdB give evidence on oath. After the first occasion in 2018 she was found to have attempted to mislead a High Court judge. On the second attempt, the judge said “there were no evident attempts on this occasion to mislead me in her oral evidence”, but, “I do not consider that her written evidence had provided plausible explanations. It provided explanations that the Post Office wished to advance… These explanations were not based on the facts.”

Were AvdB’s explanations based on the facts at the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry today…?

Well. Quite early on in the hearing, AvdB was presented with clear evidence that she was told in 2010, 2011 and 2014 that remote access to Subpostmaster branch accounts was possible. This is important because it went to the heart of the Post Office prosecution strategy. If other people could access Subpostmaster branch accounts, hundreds of prosecutions could be unsafe. AvdB told the High Court and the Inquiry she first found out about remote access in 2019 at the earliest.

AvdB said she did not read the first email to reach her inbox which was explicit about this, sent to her in December 2010. The email was from Lynn Hobbs, who was shortly to leave the business. In it Hobbs wrote:

“I found out this week that Fujitsu can actually put an entry into a branch account remotely. It came up when we were exploring solutions around a problem generated by the system following migration to HNGX [Horizon Online, rolled out in 2010]… One solution, quickly discounted because of the implications around integrity, was for Fujitsu to remotely enter a value into a branch account to reintroduce the missing loss/gain. So POL [the Post Office] can’t do this but Fujitsu can.”

AvdB is positive she did not see it. And it’s a very strange email, because it’s cut and pasted into the body of another email.

Jason Beer said twice today that the Inquiry found this odd, not because it was pasted into the body of another email, but because it was the only evidence the Inquiry had this email existed. The “original” email, sent to Mike Granville and Rod Ismay, could not apparently be found anywhere on the Post Office’s servers. Almost as if the a sensitive email chain containing a clear description of remote access, had been somehow removed from the Post Office’s data records. It would never have surfaced had the email’s contents not been cut and pasted into a different email chain. Funny that.

Anyway, AvdB was adamant she did not see it. She did admit seeing the 2011 email, which said:

“Fujitsu can remotely access systems and they do this on numerous occasions on a network wide basis in order to remedy glitches in the system created as a result of new software upgrades” and “Technically, Fujitsu could access an individual branch remotely and move money around however this has never happened yet”.

Although even that latter statement is untrue (by 2019 we knew Fujitsu had accessed branch data and moved money around on multiple occasions), it still contradicts what AvdB and colleagues told Panorama in 2015 – that there was “no functionality in Horizon for either a branch, Post Office or Fujitsu to edit, manipulate or remove transaction data”, going back to the beginning of Horizon’s birth.

AvdB’s excuse was that she hadn’t seen the significance of the 2011 email, or the 2014 email which said:

“Fujitsu have the ability to impact branch records via the message store”.

Given it is central to the scandal, that seems a weird position to take. But that is where the senior Post Office witnesses find themselves now, pleading incompetence or lack of awareness, because the alternative is to admit you were deliberately withholding information. And deliberately withholding information which might assist people appeal a conviction is literally perverting the course of justice, a criminal offence.

Admittedly, AvdB, did a better job than she did at the High Court. There she had to dissemble to maintain a corporate belief. Now that corporate belief has been thoroughly discredited, the only line she had to hold was her own naivety, lack of curiosity, and professional failure when it came to spotting and/or raising the alarm about remote access, and, in one lengthy segment of evidence, bugs in Horizon.

Corporate thugs

Dotted throughout the evidence today were written examples of the Post Office’s cultish desire to rebut or deny problems with Horizon and the sheer nastiness towards its agents.

One “building bridges” meeting with a Subpostmaster and her husband who’d seen a £700 branch discrepancy appear on a dormant terminal was taped, with a Post Office exec trying to insist the conversation was confidential.

In another, Graham Ward, a Subpostmaster who had ploughed £10,000 of his own money into a black hole in his accounts wondered to his manager if it was Horizon. One internal Post Office response stated:

“He makes a casual accusation that is extremely serious to the business. As usual he should either produce the evidence for this or withdraw the accusation.”

The contract means what we want it to mean

The Post Office’s incessant mis-stating of the Subpostmaster contract terms was infuriating. A Subpostmaster was only liable for discrepancies caused by his/her “carelessness, negligence or error” – something many were never told. AvdB told the Inquiry it was just the way it was. It led to this exchange:

AB: Back then, the assumption was, if there was a loss in the branch, that it was the responsibility of the Postmaster.
JB: Why was there an assumption?
AB: Because it was assumed it was user error.
JB: I’m sorry?
AB: Because it was assumed…
JB: Yes but why? There was a lot of assuming going on.
AB: I absolutely agree. There was.
JB: But why? Why does a multimillion pound business make assumptions when it’s got a written contract which prescribes the circumstances where a Subpostmaster was liable.

AvdB answers that there was no contractual change, in terms of policy or working practices to look into things. Beer was not having it.

JB: With respect Ms van den Bogerd, that doesn’t really answer the question. Did nobody read the contract and think, hold on, this contract says we can only recover money from Subpostmasters in these limited circumstances. The Subpostmasters have to prove nothing.
AB: That was the advice we were getting from legal.
JB: Who in legal?
AB: Back the it would have been Royal Mail.
JB: Yes, who in Royal Mail?

Eventually Bogerd coughs up to Mandy Talbot, Rob Wilson and Rebecca Mantel.

JB asks: “Was it the case that you very well knew the contract did not entitle the Post Office to recover money from Subpostmasters in any or all circumstances, but that’s what the Post Office pretended it said?”

AvbB told Beer it was all on legal, who told everyone else what the contract meant.

Vennells misleads MPs in private

The final section of the day concerned a readout of a meeting between Alice Perkins (PO Chair), Paula Vennells (PO CEO), AvdB and various MPs led by James Arbuthnot. In the readout of the meeting, Vennells tells the MPs that Subpostmasters can be tempted by the cash in their offices, that “there had not been a case investigated where the Horizon system had been found to be at fault” and “Every case taken to prosecution that involves the Horizon system thus far has found in favour of the Post Office.”

None of the three statements are found in the briefing pack put together for Paula Vennells and two of the statements are demonstrably false. AvdB tried to tell Beer that Vennells was perhaps emphasising elements of the briefing, until Beer points out that none of the above are in the briefing. The only thing AvdB is sure of is that she had nothing to do with it. She was just there, making up the numbers, failing to stop the untruths being spoken and failing to create them in the first place.

She’s cleverer than she looks.

Notes on Angela van den Bogerd’s second day of evidence can be read here.

I am currently touring Post Office Scandal – the Inside Story. Please do come and see us as we make our way around the country (all dates here).

The journalism on this blog is crowdfunded. If you would like to join the “secret email” newsletter, please consider making a one-off donation. The money is used to keep the contents of this website free. You will receive irregular, but informative email updates about the Post Office Horizon IT scandal.

Corporate, Fujitsu, Inquiry, IT, Prosecutions

angela van den bogerd, bugs, Paula Vennells, remote access
Former Post Office Hatchet Man gives himself the chop

Nick Wallis

Thu 25 April 2024

18 comments
1 min read

Aujard giving evidence yesterday

Chris Aujard answered questions at the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry yesterday. The day before, he resigned as General Counsel for five separate companies, and the day before that, he chucked it in at another.

etc etc

Is it mere coincidence he ceased to be an active director of any UK company within 48 hours of giving evidence at the Inquiry? Perhaps we should be told. FNZ’s insurers almost certainly were.

Aujard’s former employers, FNZ Wealth (and its various subsidiaries) and iProtect Technologies also appear to have scrubbed any mention of Aujard from their websites. Though FNZ does maintain some delightful guff about its culture.

I am grateful to an anonymous correspondent for the tip off.

Can someone get in touch and tell me what they think is likely to be going on?

I am currently touring Post Office Scandal – the Inside Story. Please do come and see us as we make our way around the country (all dates here).

The journalism on this blog is crowdfunded. If you would like to join the “secret email” newsletter, please consider making a one-off donation. The money is used to keep the contents of this website free. You will receive irregular, but informative email updates about the Post Office Horizon IT scandal.

Corporate, Inquiry

Chris Aujard, FNZ Wealth
The Hatchet Man: Aujard gives evidence

Nick Wallis

Wed 24 April 2024

9 comments
6 min read

That’s Aujard as in “O, jar” doncha know (usher Jane giving the oath)

Chris Aujard presents as thoughtful, intelligent and professional – a very different person to the one boasting about his crisis management skills shortly after leaving the Post Office in 2015. Older and wiser, perhaps, or better at image projection.

Aujard was involved in a deliberate attempt to frustrate Second Sight’s independent investigation into the Post Office, so I’m not going to apportion him much credit, but given some of the truly appalling human beings who have provided evidence to the Inquiry in recent months (hi, Rodric) he did, at least, deserve to be taken seriously.

Aujard’s great revelation was about Paula Vennells (the Post Office CEO) and her desire to keep prosecuting Subpostmasters beyond 2013. It came after we discovered he had made a recommendation to the Post Office Executive Committee on 12 November 2013 that the Post Office stops prosecuting. When asked why, he said it was “partly informed by both a personal view and a professional view.”

His professional view was that he did not think “prosecuting was the appropriate way for commercial organisations to deal with their agents”. To give context, Aujard said he came from a financial background “where these types of matters are dealt with in a civil court” or “an HR process”. His personal view was that he “felt that criminal prosecutions caused great distress and anxiety and didn’t have a place in a business such as the Post Office.”

This, in itself, was a principled stand for an interim appointee to take, and it was adopted by the Post Office’s Executive Committee – which obviously included Paula Vennells – there and then. Astoundingly, at an Audit and Risk Committee (ARC) meeting a week later, Aujard reports Paula Vennells “resiling” from this view. Aujard told the Inquiry Vennells “interjected, or made the comment” that stopping prosecutions entirely was not what the Post Office should be doing. Instead there should be “limited prosecutorial activity” allowing the Post Office to undertake “some prosecutions”.

In his witness statement, it is minuted the ARC felt a change in prosecution policy:

“might affect the progress of mediations by ‘raising questions on previous prosecutions, and there was an obvious reluctance to cease prosecutions as ‘in their view this acted as a deterrent’.”

Aujard states Vennells said the Executive Committee view:

“was not that POL [Post Office Ltd] would ‘never bring prosecutions, but that [POL] would be more circumspect in the cases it chose to take’.”

Given Vennells was singled out by Alan Cook as the person who signed off on spending £300k to go after Lee Castleton for a £26k discrepancy, you have to wonder quite what she gets out of putting helpless under-resourced people through the criminal and civil justice system. And shamelessly misrepresenting agreements made in Executive Committee meetings. We have yet to hear Ms Vennells’ point of view on either of the above allegations.

Keeping the lid on a scandal

The other two main lines of questioning today concerned Aujard’s failure to hand important information about Horizon’s bugs and poor security over to the Post Office’s contracted criminal law firm Cartwright King (so they could advise on whether or not to disclose them to convicted Subpostmasters), and his attempts to close down or limit Second Sight’s investigation into the Horizon IT system and Post Office business processes.

Sam Stevens, asking the questions

We know from recordings made of conversations between Second Sight and Chris Aujard that shortly after his arrival he was told explicitly about likely miscarriages of justice. He didn’t seem that bothered then, and during his questioning today he seemed very keen to distance himself from any prosecutions before his time, telling the Inquiry he was assured by Jarnail Singh and others it was all in hand.

It is unfortunate the Inquiry chose not to focus on Aujard’s experience of sitting in on the Complaint and Mediation Scheme Working Group meetings and his apparent determination to limit the scope and direction of Second Sight’s investigations (at the Post Office’s instruction), because that, frankly, is where he did the most damage.

I am also not alone in being disappointed he was not once asked by the Inquiry to step back from considering the day-to-day management of his in-tray to reflect on the wider nature of the complaints being raised by the Subpostmaster applicants to the Mediation Scheme.

Aujard had the power and influence to do the right thing. Instead he seemed to spend his time trying to manage Second Sight away from their pursuit of the truth, because of a belief within the Post Office that Ron Warmington and Ian Henderson had gone from being independent investigators to “campaigners” on behalf of Subpostmasters. Or as any sane person would have it, they were not prepared to subscribe unthinkingly to the Post Office’s (flat) worldview.

Tweets and Screenshots

You can relive the day’s events by having a scroll through my tweets from today formatted for this website in a single by ThreadReader. It features screenshots and hopefully cogent explanations of some of the day’s big documents. It starts with the remainder of Susan Crichton’s evidence before Aujard begins. As Janet Skinner noted, Crichton seemed to wake up a lot more helpful today than she was being yesterday:

Interesting change of mind this morning. A good night sleep seems to made Susan’s memory much better!! https://t.co/Izb7aQ1Ve4
— Janet skinner (@Janetsk20073533) April 24, 2024

I admit I was less measured about Crichton’s evidence than I have been about Aujard, which you might see as being unfair. Maybe I was hoping Crichton would give us some genuine insight and revelation and I vented in disappointment when she didn’t. I was expecting what we got from Aujard, and was actually quite impressed he made his mark on the issue of prosecutions. Nonetheless, Crichton tried to do the right thing, and came up against a board determined to discredit her for doing so. Aujard carried out that board’s instruction to the letter, demonstrating even less empathy for the victims of this scandal. Apologies for a possible expectation-based failure to be even-handed.

I guess Aujard and Crichton’s Post Office experiences also show how an amoral operator can thrive in a malign corporate environment far better than someone who approaches a problem with good intentions. Which is a worry for all of us.

Aujard will be coming back to the Inquiry to answer questions from representatives of other core participants at an unspecified date.

I am currently touring Post Office Scandal – the Inside Story. Please do come and see us as we make our way around the country (all dates here).

The journalism on this blog is crowdfunded. If you would like to join the “secret email” newsletter, please consider making a one-off donation. The money is used to keep the contents of this website free. You will receive irregular, but informative email updates about the Post Office Horizon IT scandal.

Appeals, Corporate, Inquiry, Prosecutions

Chris Aujard, Jarnail Singh, Second Sight, Susan Crichton
The Bleatings of a Sorry Scapegoat: Lady Susan’s Pity Party

Nick Wallis

Tue 23 April 2024

36 comments
9 min read

Susan Crichton

Susan Crichton cut a sorry figure at the Inquiry today. A woman apparently trying to do the right thing, but not trying hard enough. A woman whose stated intentions were not borne out (and occasionally downright contradicted) by the documentary evidence. A woman who came up against a company board more interested in reputation management than the truth, and who, instead of raising the alarm, imploded and walked away.

If you want to read it blow-by-blow, with added documentary evidence, you can, here, on a formatted tweet thread in the live tweets section of this website.

I find it difficult to have sympathy for Crichton. She wanted to do the right thing, which was manage the delivery of Second Sight’s independent (Interim) report, and to some degree she succeeded. She also colluded with her client, the Post Office, to change the language both in the Interim Report (a late draft was considered too “emotional”) and around it (Second Sight – and Fujitsu’s – references to “bugs” were regurgitated by her in external and internal Post Office comms at the suggestion of CEO Paula Vennells’ husband as “exceptions” or “anomalies”). Crichton even sought, on behalf of the Post Office, advice on whether Second Sight could be sued for defamation, or whether the Post Office could injunct their report.

Some time ago I spoke to Second Sight’s Ron Warmington about Crichton and whilst he admitted being “perplexed and puzzled” by her ten year silence on leaving the Post Office in 2013, he maintains she was “one of the few people with integrity” within the Post Office. According to Ron, she pushed for an independent investigation, and once Second Sight had been selected she “did what she could” to “protect” them from the malign forces within the Post Office trying to shut them down.

His word carries far more weight than mine, but from her evidence today, it seems Crichton was also far less interested in what had happened to the Subpostmasters than she was about her own career. Once Alice Perkins (the Post Office chair) had decided to make her a scapegoat for failing to manage the Second Sight report into something more palatable, Crichton got out as quickly as she could. She then sat on what she knew without (as far as we know) doing anything to bring the plight of the Subpostmasters to light publicly, or privately. I find this surprising, if not reprehensible. She had experienced the Post Office’s mafia culture first hand and come off worse, but unlike the Subpostmasters, she got away with a tidy settlement and her reputation intact.

I would like to have asked Ron what he made of Crichton’s evidence, but he’s in purdah, awaiting his own evidence session on 18 June.

The board want to sack Second Sight

Second Sight’s Interim Report was issued on 8 July 2013. Two days later a Bond Dickinson lawyer attending a meeting with Crichton notes that “The board want to sack SS [Second Sight] and of course are now not coping well with the fact that they are independent.”

The lawyer, Simon Richardson, also notices:

“There was generally an overall defensive air and the board are also feeling bruised. There are tensions between people and that includes Alice Perkins (the Chair), Paula Vennells (CEO) and SC [Crichton].”

When asked why, Crichton told the Inquiry that she felt she was being accused of “not managing the process properly” – ie failing to get the independent investigators deliver the result the Post Office wanted.

We are then taken to the minutes of a Post Office board meeting on 16 July 2013, during which Crichton stood outside waiting to deliver her findings into the fallout from the Second Sight report. At Alice Perkins’ request, she was not invited in. Paula Vennells delivered the findings instead. Crichton is informed by Alwen Lyons, the Company Secretary, that she is no longer required. She is humiliated. It is the beginning of her end.

Perkins takes aim

The Inquiry was taken to a note of a meeting between Crichton and Perkins made by Perkins. Perkins tells Crichton:

“the Second Sight interim report and the timing of its publication had been potentially very serious indeed for the Post Office in terms of our national reputation and the effect it could have on our funding negotiations with the Government. In the event, it had not come out so badly partly because of the way the Minister had handled her statement in the House of Commons. But it had been very worrying at the time.”

Perkins note continues:

“I understood that Second Sight’s investigation had to be independent but in the civil service there would have been someone marking it who was close to all the key people (SS, JA [James Arbuthnot], JFSA [Alan Bates’ Justice for Subpostmasters’ Alliance]) and knew what was going on between them.”

Perkins also blames Crichton for getting Second Sight appointed, despite Crichton stepping back from that process because she knew Second Sight MD Ron Warmington from working with him at General Electric.

Second Sight’s reward for getting their report over the line is outlined in an internal email from Perkins to many of the senior leaders within the Post Office on 31 July 2013 which states:

“while it is clear that we are committed to using SS for the 47 [Subpostmaster] cases which are already in the frame for their review, it is extremely important that we cap their involvement at that. The moment they are involved in additional cases beyond these, we will have lost the ability to end the relationship with them – an outcome which I do not want to have to contemplate.”

So much for her commitment to the truth, or indeed any concern for the Subpostmasters.

The inquiry then dwelt on Crichton’s highly confused handling of the Shredding Advice and her inability to properly explain away the actions and emails of her direct report John Scott, who allegedly issued an order to shred minutes of a Horizon issues meeting after Crichton allegedly said she wanted to keep things below the radar.

Yelling at Paula Vennells in a Costa

Finally we came to an extraordinary document made by Paula Vennells detailing two meetings she had with Crichton. In the first, Vennells meets Crichton on what is documented as 30 Sep 2013, but which Crichton and counsel to the Inquiry Julian Blake agree must be 30 August 2013. The two execs are in a Costa Coffee in Old Street. Vennells says she discusses the need to “right the wrong” of Crichton’s actions.

Crichton was apparently “very very angry. She yelled at me” reports Vennells. The anger stems from Vennells’ failure to send Crichton the terms of reference for an internal “lessons learned” review, presumably set up to ensure no-one at the Post Office inadvertently lets the truth out of the bag ever again. Crichton felt again she was being scapegoated for “not managing the process properly”, that is, letting Second Sight do their jobs. Vennells writes:

“She shouted that she was looking at other jobs. She threatened that we would have to back her – implying the importance of references.”

It doesn’t sound pretty. Crichton claims no recollection of the meeting at all, but says the behaviour described is out of character, especially in a public place.

There follows Vennells’ killer paragraph:

“My reflection on what happened with SS as I write this today (2/9/13), is that Susan was possibly more loyal to her professional conduct requirements and put her integrity as a lawyer above the interests of the business. She did not communicate clearly what she was concerned about. If as she says she felt compromised (personally and for the business) by being asked to manage SS more closely, then her misjudgement was that she did not make that clearer to me on the two or three occasions that I asked her to do so.”

Heaven forfend Crichton should put her personal or professional integrity before the Post Office. Professor Richard Moorhead has already seized on this as an indictment of Vennells’ appalling leadership and judgment. But what I would add is that whilst Crichton was clearly under huge amounts of pressure for having allowed Second Sight to open a can of worms, she was partly compromised by her own behaviour.

Crichton’s personal integrity was very much missing when she was seeking advice on suing or injuncting Second Sight, or getting them to tone down their report for being too emotional, or failing to investigate John Scott or reacting more firmly to the explosive first Clarke Advice. She only clung to her integrity when the gangsters running the show turned on her. No matter how she tried to paint her conflict with the Post Office board as a noble stand, Crichton’s evidence today amounted to little more than a personal pity party…

… which continues into tomorrow. Paula Vennells is up for three days beginning 22 May and Alice Perkins is up for two days beginning 5 June.

Singh’s light coital relief

Post Office comedy lawyer Jarnail Singh‘s mangling of the language got a laugh in the Inquiry today as he put up a spirited defence (in 2012) of the Post Office’s need to keep prosecuting Subpostmasters despite the evidential basis for doing so looking ever weaker. We think he meant “capitulation”:

A special anniversary

Today is the third anniversary of the quashing of 39 Subpostmaster convictions at the Court of Appeal. Here is Janet Skinners’ take:

3 years ago today, we made history together. Who would have thought we would still be fighting for justice and redress. Happy 3rd anniversary to each and everyone one of the 39, what a day. pic.twitter.com/smdaaFrEGC
— Janet skinner (@Janetsk20073533) April 23, 2024

Here’s a link to my newsletter from that day, my blog post and picture gallery.

I am currently touring Post Office Scandal – the Inside Story. Please do come and see us as we make our way around the country (all dates here).

The journalism on this blog is crowdfunded. If you would like to join the “secret email” newsletter, please consider making a one-off donation. The money is used to keep the contents of this website free. You will receive irregular, but informative email updates about the Post Office Horizon IT scandal.

Appeals, Corporate, Inquiry, Prosecutions

Jarnail Singh, Second Sight, Susan Crichton
The Second Sight Interim Report

Nick Wallis

Mon 22 April 2024

5 comments
1 min read

Ron Warmington (l) and Ian Henderston (r)

I’ve been talking a lot recently about Second Sight’s Interim Report, written by Ron Warmington and Ian Henderson. It is a game-changing, short, easy-to-read document, released on 8 July 2013 which sets out all of the Post Office’s problems to them in clear language.

It used to be published on the Post Office website, but it isn’t any more.

I am sure you can find it on the internet somewhere, but I thought it made sense to post it here. If you’ve never seen it before, it’s worth a read or a download.

20130708-POL-Interim-Report-Signed Download

I also did a fisking of the Interim Report in 2013 for a very old personal blog. Do have a read of that if you’re interested.

I am currently touring Post Office Scandal – the Inside Story. Please do come and see us as we make our way around the country (all dates here).

The journalism on this blog is crowdfunded. If you would like to join the “secret email” newsletter, please consider making a one-off donation. The money is used to keep the contents of this website free. You will receive irregular, but informative email updates about the Post Office Horizon IT scandal.

IT

Interim Report, Second Sight
Penny’s Printouts

Nick Wallis

Sun 21 April 2024

18 comments
5 min read

Penny Williams

This is Penny Williams. Penny ran the Manaccan Post Office in Cornwall between 2007 and 2013.

I have just come off stage with Penny at Launceston Town Hall where she spoke about her experiences at the hands of the Post Office.

During our conversation, Penny revealed she has paper evidence of what appears to be fraudulent back-end transactions at her Post Office. That is, computer printouts showing that money was withdrawn from her accounts, over a period of twelve months to 2013, during times when the branch was closed and no one was logged on to her Horizon IT terminal.

The Story

After a successful tenure as Manaccan Subpostmaster, Penny was selling up. She had run the branch without a problem for six years and fancied a change.

In September 2013, whilst she was away supply teaching, Post Office auditors descended on her branch and started an audit. Penny was contacted by phone after the audit and told she was £20,000 short. Penny was suspended pending an investigation. The Post Office wanted to know how she proposed to settle the outstanding amount.

Penny was alarmed. She had been audited eighteen months previously and there were no problems. Rather than settle the amount, Penny asked the Post Office to show her how and where this discrepancy had arisen. The Post Office refused, instead they invited her to interview under caution.

Penny asked if she could bring her lawyer. The Post Office again refused, so Penny declined the invitation and reiterated her suggestion the Post Office provide her with evidence of the negligence, carelessness or error which caused the £20,000 deficit. Penny used to work for Morgan Stanley.

Penny on stage in Launceston

That’s not to say she wasn’t in some distress. Penny knew the St Keverne Subpostmaster, Sue Knight, who was being prosecuted by the Post Office. Penny rang Sue and Sue put her in touch with Alan Bates from the Justice for Subpostmaster’s Alliance. Alan put Penny on his mailing list and told her to make sure any communication and correspondence from the Post Office went through her lawyer.

Penny began to receive letters from the Post Office’s debt recovery team, who demanded she give them £20,000. Penny held out, but her suspension had an immediate effect. The deal to sell the Post Office fell through. Rumours she was a thief spread round the community. People stopped coming into her shop and the pub she ran as a tenant landlady. Her income dried up.

The mysterious packet

Whilst all this was happening, Penny received a packet in the post. A brown envelope filled with dot-matrix computer printouts which appeared to be financial data relating to her branch. There was no covering letter.

Penny recognised some of the transaction data, but there was a lot of information requiring a proper forensic examination. She gave it to her sister, who worked in the payroll department of a major UK plc. Penny’s sister and her boss, a qualified accountant, began to work through the documents. According to Penny, they established beyond doubt that over the months covered by the printouts, during periods when the branch was closed, hundreds of small debit transactions (Penny mentioned a recurring £29 and the occasional £14.65) were being made at her branch. They added up to more than £16,000.

In 2014, Penny was made bankrupt by HMRC. Her pub was taken from her. Due to the internal ramifications of the independent investigation by Second Sight, the Post Office had decided to stop prosecuting people, so she was “lucky” in that respect (Sue Knight’s prosecution was dropped because, she was told, it was no longer in the public interest, without further explanation).

Penny was left to pick up the pieces of her life and career, which she did by continuing to teach, eventually turning her hand to pie-making. Penny’s Pies has become a successful business with a shop in Falmouth, an outlet at the Great Cornish Food Store in Truro and a dedicated pasty and pie-making facility in Helston (pictured).

Penny still has possession of the computer printouts. She still doesn’t know who sent them or why. I have asked if I can possibly have sight of them. If they corroborate her sister’s interpretation, she is sitting on a national news story and possibly the first concrete evidence of internal fraud at the Post Office during the Horizon IT scandal.

Penny, who very kindly brought some of her delicious pasties for us to sample after her talk, has said she will try to dig out the documents as soon as possible.

I am currently touring Post Office Scandal – the Inside Story. Please do come and see us as we make our way around the country (all dates here). I’ll be at the Acorn in Penzance with Penny once more at 7.30pm tonight. Come and hear her story.

The journalism on this blog is crowdfunded. If you would like to join the “secret email” newsletter, please consider making a one-off donation. The money is used to keep the contents of this website free. You will receive irregular, but informative email updates about the Post Office Horizon IT scandal.

IT, Live Events

Alan Bates, Horizon, Penny Williams, Sue Knight
Lord Arbuthnot and the Lies

Nick Wallis

Thu 11 April 2024

24 comments
7 min read

James Arbuthnot

The former MP who started the Parliamentary campaign to help Subpostmasters in their fight for justice, gave evidence at the public inquiry into the Post Office Horizon IT scandal on Wednesday.

James Arbuthnot told inquiry he was first alerted to potential problems with the Horizon system during a coffee morning in his constituency, in 2009, when he was introduced the former sub postmaster Jo Hamilton.

Arbuthnot at first attempted to raise Hamilton’s case with the government, specifically the Secretary of State for Business, Peter (now Lord) Mandelson. Arbuthnot received a “frustrating” response from Mandelson’s junior, Pat McFadden, effectively washing the government’s hands of the Post Office business, despite being its sole shareholder.

Undeterred, Arbuthnot founded a group of MPs who also had constituents claiming they had suffered life changing problems as a result of their interactions with the horizon IT system, and the Post Office’s punitive practices.

They eventually found themselves, in 2012, face-to-face with Paula Vennells and other senior executives at the Post Office. None of the execs would entertain the idea that there was anything wrong with the Horizon IT system. Paula Vennells went one further. According to the minutes of the meeting, Vennells told the MPs:

“Every case taken to prosecution that involves the Horizon system thus far has found in favour of the Post Office.”

Demonstrably false

Jason Beer KC, who was asking Lord Arbuthnot questions on behalf of the Inquiry, queried this in a series of important rhetorical questions which neatly summarised, and devastatingly undermined Paula Vennells’ assertion.

Jason Beer KC

JB: Would you agree overall that this is a fair summary: the problem is that a small number of postmasters borrow money from the till; the problem is not Horizon; every prosecution involving Horizon has found in favour of the Post Office; and not a single case existed where, on investigation, the Horizon system was found to be at fault?
JA: Yes.
JB: I think it follows that Alice Perkins, Paula Vennells, Angela van den Bogerd and Alwen Lyons did not disclose to you and the other eight MPs or their representatives the following: firstly, anything about the
Julie Wolstenholme case…
JA: No, they didn’t.
JB:… in which expert evidence had been served by a man called Jason Coyne concerning bugs in the Horizon system and which case was subsequently settled by the Post Office?
JA: They didn’t disclose that, no.
JB: They didn’t mention the case of Lee Castleton and the obtaining of a report from BDO Stoy Hayward, which had found errors in the operation of the Horizon system?
JA: No, they didn’t.
JB: They didn’t mention the acquittal of Maureen McKelvey by a jury in 2004, Mrs McKelvey having blamed Horizon for the causing of losses of money which she was accused of stealing?
JA: No, they didn’t.
JB: They did not mention the speedy acquittal of Suzanne Palmer by a jury in 2007, Mrs Palmer also having blamed Horizon at trial for the losses attributable or said to be attributable to her?
JA: No, they didn’t.
JB: A jury question directed at the Post Office to the effect of “What is Mrs Palmer supposed to do if she didn’t agree the figure that Horizon had produced”, which the Post Office had been unable or unwilling to answer, and an order that the Post Office pay £78,000 in costs?
JA: No, they didn’t.
JB: They didn’t mention any of the following bugs, all of which had been discovered and notified to the Post Office by this time, the Callendar Square bug – sometimes known as the Falkirk bug – operative, by the Post Office’s admission, between 2000 and 2006 and, on the findings later of Mr Justice Fraser, until 2010?
JA: No, they didn’t mention.
JB: They didn’t mention the receipts and payments mismatch bug of 2010?
JA: No.
JB: The suspense account bug that was operative between 2010 and 2013?
JA: No.
JB: They didn’t mention the Dalmellington bug, operative from 2010 and the fact that it was still operative at the time of this meeting?
JA: No.
JB: They didn’t mention the remming in bug operative in 2010 or the remming out bugs operative in 2005 and, again, in 2007?
JA: No.
JB: They didn’t mention the local suspense account bug operative in 2010?
JA: No.
JB: The reversals bug operative in 2003?
JA: No.
JB: The Giro bank discrepancy bugs operative in 2000, 2001 and 2002?
JA: No.
JB: They didn’t mention that consideration had been given to the commissioning of an independent expert review and report on Horizon in December 2005, and again in March 2010, but that on each occasion the Post Office had decided against it, on the latter occasion seemingly on the grounds that it might be disclosable in criminal proceedings?
JA: They didn’t mention that.
JB: They didn’t mention problems with the so-called ARQ data and whether those issues should be revealed to criminal courts who are hearing criminal charges against subpostmasters based on ARQ data and of which the Post Office had been notified?
JA: No.
JB: Does it follow that your state of knowledge at this time, based on what the Post Office board member and executive members were telling you, was that you were unfair of any bugs, errors or defects which had been detected in Legacy Horizon or which were then evident and emerging in Horizon Online?
JA: Yes, I was unaware. I think we were all unaware, but Mike Wood was raising the question: is this the only absolutely perfect computer program in existence?
JB: You were unaware of the problems with the so-called ARQ data…
JA: I was.
JB: …and its presentation to criminal courts?
JA: Yes, completely unaware of that.

I was surprised Mr Beer had not mentioned Nicki Arch’s acquittal in 2002. So was she. As Ms Arch was in the room, she approached Beer during the break. After the break, Beer resumed his questioning of Lord Arbuthnot thus:

JB: Lord Arbuthnot, in my list of 16 or 17 things that were not mentioned to you against being told that every prosecution involving Horizon had found in favour of the Post Office and that not a single case existed where on investigation the Horizon system was found to be at fault, I omitted to include one, that of Ms Nichola Arch, who was acquitted [in 2002], so, very early on. Was that something that was mentioned to you?
JA: No, that was not something that was mentioned to me.
JB: I had mentioned the jury acquittal in 2004 of Maureen McKelvey and the jury acquittal of Suzanne Palmer in 2007, that’s a third jury acquittal not mentioned.
JA: Right.
JB: In that list of 16, now 17, issues that were not revealed to you at the meeting that we were talking about in mid-June, does the same apply to all of the meetings you had with senior Post Office managers, and by that I mean the meeting with Alice Perkins and Alwen Lyons on 13 March 2012?
JA: Oh yes, the same applies. I was not told “Here is a list of bugs that you ought to take into account”, no. They failed to do that.
JB: I might divide it into three. One is civil and criminal cases, the second is bugs and the third is consideration in the past of independent investigations?
JA: Absolutely. They did not do that.
JB: Does the same apply to the meeting with Alice Perkins and Paula Vennells on 17 May 2002?
JA: Yes.
JB: In all of this time, did any of them ever mention the facts and matters which I’ve listed, 16 or 17 of them?
JA: No.

Funny that.

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Civil litigation, Inquiry, Prosecutions

James Arbuthnot, Nicki Arch, Paula Vennells