Wallis tells it like it is: the great Post Office scandal

The great Post Office scandal rumbles on, with key personnel due to be heard shortly by the statutory inquiry. But even 14 years after it was first brought to public attention, much remains to be done if the hundreds of wronged subpostmasters are finally to get justice, as investigative journalist Nick Wallis told a packed meeting in Hastings last week. Nick Terdre reports, photos by Cliff van Coevorden.

It was the press – let’s not forget! – which first exposed the greatest miscarriage of justice in British legal history, as it has been dubbed. Rebecca Thomson, a young reporter on the trade journal Computer Weekly, first wrote in 2009 about the malfunctioning Horizon IT system which, it turned out, was leading Post Office management to take a never-ending succession of subpostmasters to court for shortfalls in their accounts which they could not explain.

But coverage in the printed press has been disappointing, Wallis said – it has mainly been left to the broadcast media to publicise the scandal, not least with two hard-hitting BBC Panorama programmes fronted by the man himself. Last year he also published a book on the matter, with extensive details and background, which the following account also draws on. Now ITV is planning to screen a dramatisation next year.

Wallis was in Hastings at the invitation of Rosie Brocklehurst, who arranged the meeting at The Pig.

One reason why the flood of prosecutions remained more or less unknown outside Post Office management for so long was the company’s policy of restricting the flow of information as much as possible, mendaciously telling postmasters who complained that they were the only ones having problems. The National Federation of Subpostmasters, their Post Office-funded union, toed the Post Office line, parroting its claim that Horizon was robust.

In fact, while the decision to replace the complex paper accounts which every subpostmaster had to submit every week with a computerised system was in principle a good one, it was beset by problems from day one, when Fujitsu’s bid to develop the system was chosen by virtue of being the cheapest. In terms of technical ability, Fujitsu proved a poor choice, and discrepancies started arising as soon as Horizon was rushed into service.

Instead of looking for faults in the system, the PO assumed they must lie in malpractice by the users. Although there are undoubtedly some bad apples in the family of subpostmasters, of whom there were some 20,000 around the turn of the century, they are generally held in high regard by the communities they serve, and it is surprising that when the PO found itself bringing prosecutions against an ever increasing number of these respectable folks, it doesn’t seem to have occurred to them to wonder where the fault really lay.

706 convictions

Instead, between 2000 and 2015 convictions were secured against 706 subpostmasters on the grounds of theft and/or false accounting. They were required to make up the apparent shortfalls from their own funds, many were sent to prison, and all had their reputations and often their businesses ruined. Three are known to have committed suicide.

One of those whose family suffered was Katy Crane, who gave an account of her ordeal to the meeting. She was at secondary school in Bexhill at the time, when Post Office auditors claimed there was a £60,000 shortfall on the accounts, leaving her subpostmaster mother traumatised. Investigators came to their home and fingerprinted her mother. She was prosecuted and, as many did on Post Office advice, pleaded guilty in hopes of avoiding a jail sentence – which she did, though others didn’t.

But she was shattered by the experience, Katy said. And money left to Katy by her grandmother was used to pay off part of the shortfall.

Resistance forms

However, the refusal by a cussed few subpostmasters to believe they were committing fraud led to resistance forming, and eventually the case was taken up by a small number of MPs.

Wallis himself only got involved by chance, when he came in contact in 2009 with Davinder Misra on another matter and ended up learning that his subpostmaster wife Seema had been sent to prison, though pregnant, for falsifying the Post Office return.

In 2010 the first questions were asked in Parliament about Horizon, and in 2011 the first case against the Post Office was initiated. A key breakthrough came that same year, when Richard Roll, a former computer engineer who had worked on Horizon for Fujitsu, came into contact with Wallis and turned whistleblower.

In 2012, after hearing the concerns of MPs who had taken up the case, the Post Office’s new CEO, Paula Vennells, gave the go-ahead for Horizon to be examined by forensic accountants, the job going to a small company called Second Sight. Although Vennells had expressed the wish to get “the truth at all costs,” Second Sight’s reports in 2013 and 2014 cast such doubt on the cosy narrative that Horizon was robust and reliable and that Post Office investigators had treated subpostmasters fairly that the Post Office produced a rebuttal document challenging its findings.

In 2013 a report from the Post Office’s own solicitors recommended that all prosecutions should be reviewed after it discovered that a key prosecution witness, who had assured the courts that there were no problems with Horizon, had also told the Second Sight investigators that there were indeed problems. In 2014 the Post Office decided to stop routinely prosecuting subpostmasters.

In 2018 a series of civil actions finally got under way, including a class action on behalf of more than 500 subpostmasters. This resulted in a judgment in favour of the claimants, upon which a £57.8m settlement was agreed, most of which was swallowed up in subpostmasters’ legal costs. In 2020 the Criminal Cases Review Commission recommended that 39 cases should be referred to the Court of Appeal, leading to convictions being quashed. Further referrals have since been made.

Public inquiry

In June 2020 a non-statutory ‘review’ of the scandal was set up, chaired by Sir Wyn Williams, a retired High Court judge. This would have been a toothless affair, according to Wallis, but in May 2021 it acquired teeth when it was put on a statutory footing, meaning it can now compel witnesses to attend and be cross-examined, and documents can be subpoenaed.

The inquiry got going last year, when Williams also published a special report highlighting the “inept” way the compensation scheme set up by the Post Office in 2020, and employing arbitrary criteria of eligibility, had been handled. This summer it is due to hear Vennells’ testimony.

Following the end of the trial in late 2019, the Metropolitan Police were passed the file and began an investigation which, the following November, it said had become a criminal investigation. There has been little news since, however, and Wallis speculates that they may be awaiting the outcome of the inquiry before revealing their hand.

No arrests

To date there have been no arrests and no action has been taken against any Post Office executive or employee, although there appears to be strong evidence of malicious prosecution and perverting the course of justice.

With a history going back to the 16th century, the Post Office is an ancient institution and used to be a venerable one – until that reputation was trashed by the arrogant way the company persecuted innocent subpostmasters. Even as its gross failures have been brought to light, it has resisted and tried to derail legal actions and sought to avoid paying fair compensation. Towards the end of the class action it lodged a request for the judge to recuse himself on grounds of bias. He refused, and the Court of Appeal also turned down the application, describing it as “misconceived” and “absurd.”

And the latest news seems to suggest the Post Office has completely lost the plot. As Wallis told the meeting, when it published (late) its accounts for 2021/22, on the eve of the coronation, it made the false claim that it had helped the inquiry to finish in line with expectations, and that bonuses had been awarded on this basis. Subsequently it was obliged to issue a hasty retraction and apology. CEO Nick Read, Vennells’ successor, handed back part of his bonus and Tom Cooper, a civil servant representing the government on the Post Office board has now resigned.

Didn’t any director fulfil their duty of approving the accounts and comments before publication? Wallis asked. Two inquiries will look into the matter. And why should bonuses be awarded for cooperating with the inquiry – isn’t that what they are supposed to do anyway?

The corporate self-indulgence displayed by the Post Office is in sharp contrast to its stingy and reluctant approach to paying compensation. Why should management of the compensation scheme have been left in Post Office hands? Wallis asked. An independent body should have been appointed.

The compensation bill has now been passed to the government, which has set aside £685.6m to settle claims of those whose convictions have been quashed – which by last October numbered only 81. In the end it is down to the taxpayer to fund the restitution to the Post Office’s several hundred innocent victims.

So now we can see that the reckless actions of executives and staff, coupled with abysmal governance by the board, have in effect bankrupted the company, which has survived only because of government support.

The story runs and runs, so keep an eye open for further news, especially from the inquiry, which is nearing the end of its third phase this month and hopes to report next year.

In the meantime, consider donating to the Horizon Scandal Fund set up by the publishers of Wallis’s book, Bath Publishing. And you can buy his book, The Great Post Office Scandal, recently updated, for £13.99 here.

 

This article was amended by Nick Terdre on 18 May 2023.

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