Four-and-a-half years after their investigation into the Post Office scandal began, the Metropolitan Police have finally interviewed a third suspect under caution.

The two other individuals were interviewed in October 2021 and again in September 2022. They are believed to be former Fujitsu engineers Gareth Jenkins and Anne Chambers.

The third individual has not been named. He has been described by police as “a man in his 60s“.

This development might be related to something spotted by Karl Flinders from Computer Weekly. Whilst the Post Office’s current Company Secretary, Rachel Scarrabelotti was being questioned at the Post Office Inquiry last Friday, her six witness statements were published on the Inquiry website.

In her sixth statement, Ms Scarrabelotti wrote:

“A… whistleblowing complaint which I am aware of was included in the August 2024 Board update. It involved allegations that a senior Post Office member of staff had instructed their team to destroy or conceal material of possible interest to the Inquiry, and that the same individual had engaged in inappropriate behaviour. I understand that this is being dealt with appropriately given its serious nature. The POL [Post Office Ltd] employee in question has been suspended.”

This appears to be an allegation that someone was attempting to pervert the course of justice – a criminal offence. It is not the first time a senior Post Office employee has allegedly tried to destroy documents. Unfortunately Ms Scarrabelotti was not asked about her knowledge of the latest allegation during her oral evidence to the Inquiry.

The Awareness of Allegations

When I asked the Post Office who the individual described by Ms Scarrabelotti was, they said:

“Post Office can confirm the allegations involve a ‘Manager’. Not a ‘Senior Executive’. The allegations do not relate to any member of the Senior Executive Group – this includes those that have stepped back to focus on giving evidence to the Public Inquiry.”

I also asked the Post Office if they had passed the information in their possession on to Operation Olympus, the Met Police team investigating the Post Office scandal. I was told the Post Office’s “understanding” is that the Metropolitan Police were “aware” of the allegations.

When I asked the police what was going on, they said:

“We are currently assessing if there are grounds to conduct an investigation into whether or not there is evidence of criminality.”

… adding that “a man in his 60s” was interviewed under caution this September. This is a month after the Post Office Board (according to Ms Scarrabelotti) was told about the latest alleged attempt to pervert the course of justice.

Whether that man in his sixties interviewed by police was the same individual at the centre of the allegations raised by Ms Scarrabelotti has not been confirmed. The police won’t say. My guess (and I stress it is no more than a guess) is that it is. Why?

Because

In July last year the police told me the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry has “a direct bearing on the pace of and how we proceed with this ongoing investigation.“

Given the lack of visible progress (eg last interviews under caution – Sep 2022), this suggested to me they were waiting for the Inquiry to report before conducting any more interviews or carrying out arrests. My assumption was not disabused by a statement made to me in January this year in which the police said: “We are an interested party to the public inquiry and are monitoring and gathering the evidence it hears.”

With this latest development, it seems odd the police would change their apparent policy of publicly doing very little whilst the Inquiry is sitting* to arbitrarily interviewing a new suspect without some kind of external impetus. The external impetus in this case could be the Post Office making the police “aware” that someone in their organisation had allegedly “instructed their team to destroy or conceal material of possible interest to the Inquiry“, and they felt the need to act whilst the Inquiry was still active.

But, as I say, it’s just a guess.

If you work at the Post Office and know (or are, or represent) the individual(s) reported to the Post Office board in August and interviewed by the police in September, please get in touch in absolute confidence via the contact form on this website.

* Or, let’s face it, publicly doing very little at all since the judge in Bates v Post Office asked them to investigate back in January 2020.

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