The mystifying thing about a lot of witnesses we’ve been hearing from recently is that Second Sight, the independent investigators tasked in 2012 to really dig into what was going on at the Post Office, were somehow not good enough at their jobs. The Post Office’s definition of not being very good at a job appears to be not telling the Post Office what it wants to hear.

Despite being presented with evidence from their own people (Subpostmasters) and Second Sight that their computer system didn’t work properly, their training was dreadful and their prosecutions and investigation work was not up to snuff, senior Post Office staff somehow persuaded themselves that the best thing to do was ignore and minimise this information and/or go spend a fortune get a more acceptable version of that information (hello Deloitte!) which they could use to persuade themselves that what they were doing was okay.

In her witness statement of April 2024, former Post Office Company Secretary Alwen Lyons spends a large amount of time slagging off Second Sight, stating that the company “was not providing the granular forensic analysis that the business really needed and instead was focusing on higher level and more subjective issues“.

Issues like the truth of what was really going on and what affected Subpostmasters. It is a theme Lyons returns to again and again:

“Second Sight’s contract was terminated because its review was taking longer than expected and it had not been sufficiently forensic and granular… Second Sight’s findings were more subjective, focusing on issues such as the fairness of the sub-postmaster contract, the quality and availability of
training, and the level of support provided by the helpline. These were all important issues but not the forensic review of the IT system the Board was expecting.”

Second Sight’s seminal Interim Report:

“identified various general issues with the Horizon system it did not address the specific forensic issues that the Board was seeking clarity on and for which the report had originally been commissioned.”

This is factually incorrect. Second Sight were instructed on the basis they would get to the bottom of the Subpostmaster complaints. Doesn’t stop our Alwen though:

“the Board believed that Second Sight had gone beyond its terms of reference, and instead of conducting a forensic analysis of figures and considering individual accounts in detail, had instead looked at wider and more subjective issues… the Second Sight review was taking too long, and had failed to deliver the granular forensic analysis that the Board required.”

At the end of her witness statement Lyons bleats:

“With the benefit of hindsight, there are many steps POL should have taken to address Horizon and the issues being raised by sub-postmasters… I now wish, with the benefit of hindsight, that greater scrutiny had been applied to the assurances that were given and I deeply regret this. I genuinely believed in Horizon’s integrity, however mistaken this belief has subsequently been shown to be.”

Second Sight were in the building doing everything they could to tell Lyons and her cronies what was going wrong and what had gone wrong. They were obstructed, sidelined and undermined. Lyons writes:

“I cannot imagine how it must be for the sub-postmasters whose voices went unheard throughout these years. I want to express my deep and genuine remorse for what has happened.”

Yet there is no recognition of the fact that she was one of the people who was determinedly not listening. Second Sight presented Lyons and goodness knows how many other people at the Post Office with clear evidence of what was going wrong. That was the scandal, staring you in the face, Alwen. And you missed it.

Toxic Subpostmaster cases

In her oral evidence of 21 May, Lyons was shown emails which demonstrate that she was trying to shape and control the flow of information around the investigation around the Horizon IT system whilst she tried to persuade the Inquiry:

1. she wasn’t acting on her own authority, and 
2. was trying to be as helpful as possible. 

She’s either deluded or a very good liar. It’s really hard to tell.

When Lyons was asked why she had removed a July 2013 draft board paper recommendation from Susan Crichton to stop prosecuting Subpostmasters, Lyons said “I can’t really comment… I don’t know why those two things changed” or why she thought the removal of a recommendation by her boss was “a better update for the board paper”. 

Lyons was also the company high-up who ordered that the word “bug” in relation to Horizon problems be replaced with “anomaly”.

When asked why some Justice for Subpostmaster Alliance cases were viewed in internal documentation as “toxic” she suggested toxic simply meant they were “specific cases” Alan Bates from the JFSA should “be discussed face to face”.

When a desperate Subpostmaster was found to have lost money due to an error in his cash machine rather than Horizon, Lyons playfully emailed her colleagues:

“This isn’t the only ATM [complaint] so we need to be careful we don’t make that the next computer system they want a forensic review of!”

Lolz.

Perkins knifes Crichton

Lyons did give an interesting account of the moment the Post Office General Counsel Susan Crichton was left out of a board meeting she was due to attend. Lyons told the Inquiry it was the board chair, Alice Perkins, who told Lyons to keep Crichton outside.

The 16 July 2013 meeting was significant because it would have given Susan Crichton the opportunity to tell the board about Second Sight’s Interim Report, the letter from the CCRC and the first Clarke Advice – a document Crichton had received the day before and evidently wasn’t ready to forward to the board in writing. 

When asked how Crichton had come to be left waiting outside the meeting instead of brought in to present her paper on Second Sight’s Horizon investigation, Lyons told the Inquiry:

“At the relevant point in the board meeting, I stood up and walked towards the door and was asked to ‘hang on a minute’… to ‘sit down’… because (I assumed) there was going to be a discussion before Susan came into the room.”

Julian Blake, counsel to the Inquiry, interjected. “Who asked you?”

“I believe… the Chair.”

“So it was Alice Perkins?” checked Blake, for the record. Lyons agreed.

On being asked why Crichton was left hanging around outside like a lemon, Lyons said she initially thought it might be because the board wanted to discuss something related to the Horizon matters before Crichton came in. Then Lyons realised it might be something else. Suggesting she couldn’t remember anything that was said, Lyons referred Blake to her minutes of the meeting in which it says:

“The Board were concerned that the review opened the Business up to claims of wrongful prosecution. The Board asked if Susan Crichton, as General Counsel, was in anyway implicated in the prosecutions.”

Lyons settled on that as her preferred explanation. Crichton could be conflicted, which is why Paula Vennells, the CEO, ended up delivering the Horizon briefing.

The Chair of the Inquiry, Sir Wyn Williams, wondered if it might have been more to do with the following point in Lyons’ minutes: 

“The Board expressed strong views that the Business had not managed the Second Sight review well and stressed the need for better management and cost control going forward”

… combined with another, later entry on the matter which stated:

“the Board asked the CEO if she had considered changing the person leading for the Business”

This oblique reference to the person, Lyons agreed, was probably Susan Crichton.

“This is really unusual”, volunteered Lyons, suddenly. “It’s really unusual that someone was left outside the door.”

“It being so unusual why is there no reference to that fact in the minutes itself?” countered Blake.

“Well, there’s reference that she is not in the room”, replied Lyons. “‘cos she’s not on the list.”

Blake was not buying it.

“There isn’t any reference throughout these minutes to the fact that the Chair had asked for Ms Crichton not to be called in…. so if somebody had been asked to attend, but had been kept outside you would not expect that to be minuted in the minutes?”

There was a long pause.

“I would not have expected it to be, no”, replied Lyons “because the board minute is what happened in that room. And she did not come into the room.” 

Blake tried again. “It wasn’t just that she wasn’t at the meeting. It was, as you’ve said, somebody specifically asked during the course of the meeting for her not to come in. Is that not a notable event which should be minuted?”

There was a very long pause.

“I don’t think so”, replied Lyons “but clearly… it could have been minuted differently.”

Whether this event is that significant to the enusing cover-up (or any future prosecutions) we might never know. We’ll get Paula Vennells’ side at some point over the next three days, no doubt.

To read today’s evidence as live-tweets with screenshots of documents shown to the inquiry, click here.

If you want to read about a Post Office lawyer pretending to care about miscarriages of justice in order to get the Criminal Cases Review Commission off the Post Office’s back, also revealed today, click here.

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