Morning

Yesterday saw evidence at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry from Tom Cooper, one of the most significant witnesses in this whole inquiry to date.

Cooper was UK Government Investments’ man on the Post Office board, where he was a Non-Executive Director.

He joined in 2018, two years into the Post Office’s litigation against Alan Bates et al, and as soon as he became appraised of the Post Office’s arguments he was horrified.

Cooper was responsible for compiling a UKGI risk register on the Post Office, which would (or at least should) be seen by his superiors and members of the Business Department.

Despite what he would have us believe as some considerable effort, Cooper was unable to persuade the Post Office legal team, his fellow Post Office board members, UKGI or the government that the Post Office was heading towards disaster.

Having failed to influence anyone – saying his opinions put him in a “minority of one” – he did very little to escalate matters. We saw no documents in which he complained in the strongest possible terms. Neither did he resign, nor did he (according to his evidence), make a protected disclosure, or approach any journalist.

It was fascinating to watch, and I urge you to have a look at my blog post Poor Tom, which sets out some of the detail.

Or, given the Inquiry is not sitting today, watch his evidence in its entirety, read the transcript and Cooper’s witness statement, all of which can be found here.

If anyone saw Patrick O’Sullivan’s evidence yesterday afternoon, please let me know what you thought – I may get time to have a look at it today. I’ll also be at the Inquiry tomorrow to report on the evidence of Patrick Callard, Cooper’s predecessor.

More soon!

Nick