Inquiry + select committee double whammy
I honestly thought I’d get to watch yesterday’s Business Select committee hearing at home in my pyjamas, but we seem to live in a very different world nowadays.
As a result of calls from various broadcasters, my schedule involved a pre-hearing hit with BBC1’s Breakfast programme from outside the Inquiry, after which I trotted down to Portcullis House to witness the select committee hearing in person. Afterwards I did the Sky News podcast, Nihal’s show on BBC 5 Live, a pre-arranged chat at Global with James O’Brien for his podcast (out Friday, I believe) and then up to Broadcasting House for Newscast (with Simon Jack, Rebecca Thomson and Adam Fleming). Then I got a cab to the ITN building to drop in on a 5 News special programme and finally I fetched up at TalkTV where I started writing this to you.
So – what did get said at the select committee? Well, among many, many other things…
The Fujitsu boss man has promised compensation cash
Fujitsu’s European CEO, Paul Patterson, has admitted to parliament that Fujitsu and the Post Office knew all about remote access to Subpostmaster accounts whilst the Post Office was publicly denying it was possible and that Fujitsu helped the Post Office in its prosecution of innocent Subpostmasters. What Paul Patterson couldn’t tell us was why no one at Fujitsu attempted to put a stop to it, or raised it as a potential issue internally or externally. This, to me, is a straight-up admission of complicity in what may well turn out to be a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. I’m not sure Mr Patterson considered this as he said it, but he has just opened Fujitsu up to criminal investigation and I hope the police take note.
Mr Patterson also said his company had a “moral obligation” to pay Subpostmasters compensation. He didn’t say how much, or who would decide how much – he wanted to leave that discussion till after the inquiry reports.
A point raised during the hearing by one of the MPs was that Fujitsu has not, to date, put a provision in its accounts for Subpostmaster compensation. This rather suggests that Fujitsu’s discovery of its moral obligations only began with the screening of an ITV drama (watched by more than 10m people). Actually scrub that, Fujitsu only found its morals when it saw the sheer scale of public outrage at the ITV drama and made a cold-headed business calculation that it was probably going to have to agree to front up some cheese, or the PR fallout from the scandal would intensify, and start to affect its share price (Fujitsu’s share price has apparently already been affected, with more than $1bn disappearing from its value in the last week).
Another frankly astounding moment during the select committee hearing was when Alan Bates revealed he had not yet had a compensation offer from the government via the GLO scheme, despite the minister announcing that all applicants to the scheme would receive their first offer in 40 working days. This scheme was set up for non-convicted claimants who were part of the Bates v Post Office group litigation in 2019.
Mr Bates revealed it was now 66 working days and counting since his application went in (last October), and he had yet to have a sniff of an offer. Bates described the compensation process for all applicants as “bogged down” and something which had gone on “far too long”.
I commented in, er, quite a “lively” manner, about the delay to Bates’ compensation on TalkTV last night.
For a write-up of Mr Patterson’s evidence and the contributions from Alan Bates, Jo Hamilton, Neil Hudgell et al, read here:
Daily Mail “Fujitsu boss finally issues grovelling apology…”
Richard Moorhead’s blog: “Bad briefs, NDAs, and moral panic”
To watch the evidence session itself, click here. Transcripts from select committee hearings usually appear in Hansard one or two working days after they’ve taken place, so do look out for it from today.
Meanwhile, a mile or so down river…
… at Aldwych House on the Strand, the Post Office Horizon Inquiry was hearing from Rajbinder Sangha, a former member of Fujitsu’s Fraud and Litigation Support Office. Ms Sangha was involved in the extraction of Horizon ARQ (archive) data to support Post Office prosecutions. She claimed to be the junior member of a small team, and despite being copied in on emails relating to some serious problems with archive data integrity in 2010, she didn’t seem to appreciate the relevance of this to her job, and just carried on providing this data to the Post Office, without telling them it was potentially compromised.
Another thing which came up during Ms Sangha’s evidence was an internal document which made it clear the Post Office’s data requests of Fujitsu were worth “the best part” of the Fujitsu security team’s £850,000 annual revenue.
Fujitsu therefore had a financial and reputational interest in providing the Post Office with statements telling them everything was tickety boo with the Horizon system. If they said it wasn’t, that revenue stream would dry up pretty quickly.
Finally – my attention was drawn by a secret emailer to the final six minutes of Ms Sangha’s evidence during which Sam Stein KC, who represents a large number of Subpostmasters said: “We know that the Post Office stopped prosecuting cases itself, in other words taking people itself to courts, and the matters were left to the Crown Prosecution Service within England and Wales and other prosecution authorities in parts of the devolved jurisdiction, okay?… Cases are still being prosecuted of subpostmasters, this time by the CPS, using data from Fujitsu. Who is in charge of that? Who is dealing with that now?”
Ms Sangha did not know, but when Stein asked if the Horizon system “was still being used to provide data that is used in court proceedings?”
Sangha replied: “Yes, I think it is.”
I’ve written to the CPS asking how many cases they’ve prosecuted (and won) in England and Wales, and whether or not they were reliant on Post Office investigations or police investigations.
Nick Read on Richard Taylor
You may remember in the last newsletter I mentioned that the Post Office’s director of communications, Richard Taylor has been suspended after TalkTV broadcast a recording of him disparaging Subpostmasters and denying Horizon errors caused discrepancies in branch accounts. Last Friday Read issued an internal circular (pictured below) about the suspension. I thought it might be of interest. My thanks to the secret emailer who sent it on.
A former Postmaster writes
Since the drama has gone out I have had several messages from people who have decided to make contact with a journalist for the first time. I haven’t had the chance to start working on any of the stories, but I thought I’d give you a flavour of the sort of thing I’ve been receiving. The author of this note has kindly allowed me to publish it without using his name
“Hi, I was a Subpostmaster 2002-06. I was taken for £5000 on the day the office closed. The previous day had balanced, then overnight it was £5k down. The closing audit showed it as stamps, though no delivery of the said stamps were on record, and the office only held a stock of a few hundred pounds worth at any time.
“The Post Office auditor told me the system was wrong, but I was lucky it was only £5k. He said he knew of far worse cases. He tried to talk to the two Post Office officials who had turned up demanding the £5k before the audit had even started, but he told me they would not listen, I was to pay up or I was going to be arrested for fraud.
“There’s a lot more to say about what happened that day, if you want to hear about it, but I’m not the best at writing about it as get emotional still.
“I’ve not contacted anyone about this before as I have no idea who to contact. Also I was lucky at only £5k. The thought of going through the mental anguish again scares me if I’m honest, but I do believe the truth should come out.”
What a horrendous and disorientating experience.
Other hoo-ha
Another secret emailer has alerted to me an article in The Times quoting an un-named whistleblower from inside the Post Office who says they worked on the Horizon helpdesk in Yorkshire where they had the power to access branch accounts:
“You could go into their cash and adjust it, or wipe their cash off completely,” the source said. “You could go into their stock declaration and add 500 stamps on, or take 500 off. We wouldn’t do it, but if somebody wanted to muck them around, you could do it.”
This was followed up by The Daily Mail.
Sir Ed Davey should quit (Evening Standard)
Justin Welby should quit (Daily Telegraph).
Tony Blair should answer questions, but won’t (Daily Mail and ITV News).
Here’s an interesting piece in Compact Magazine which frames the Horizon scandal as Postmasters vs “Rentier Capitalists”.
Horizon Scandal Fund News
Due to everything that has happened over the past few weeks I have not been able to engage with my colleagues (all volunteers) at the Horizon Scandal Fund. They too have been rushed off their feet trying to deal with everything whilst holding down their own day jobs.
I asked one of our trustees, Helen Lacey, to send me a quick update for inclusion in this newsletter. She wrote:
“The Horizon Scandal Fund has been overwhelmed with donations since the ITV drama, Mr Bates vs Post Office, was aired 2 weeks ago – the trustees would like to send their huge thanks to everyone whose generosity has enabled us to make grants to desperate subpostmasters, many of whom are still in serious financial difficulty.
“Some donors have told us they are themselves struggling with the cost of living but feel so strongly about this scandal, they want to help in even a small way. The underlying message indicates the enormous level of support across the country, and we would urge anyone who has, or knows someone who has, suffered as a result of this scandal to come forward and consider talking to one of the trustees, in strictest confidence, to see if we can help.
“So far, we have been able to help 25 people in a variety of ways, including paying rent to prevent eviction, funding counselling sessions and handing out general hardship payments and more than £40,000 has been distributed to date. Thank you to everyone – your support will make a massive difference.
“If you want to apply for a grant, or if you know someone who might appreciate knowing that help is out there, click here. or send them this link:
https://www.horizonscandalfund.org/apply.html
“The entire process is completely confidential. The Horizon Scandal Fund is a registered charity, number 1199595.”
We do have cash to help. No grant request is too small or too large (though obviously we have to look at competing demands and scale of need and live within our means).
Work it, girlfriend
I would like to apologise to you if you are a recent or regular reader of these newsletters and you feel you might not quite be getting enough bang for your buck. I am really sorry I have not been able to send more.
In previous missives I have tried to get across a sense of what the last few weeks have been like whilst trying to process it myself. In short, we are witnessing Actual History. The unprecedented blanket quashing of 983 convictions (as promised) will be taught in British schools and universities long after we are all dead.
The way it happened, the number of failings, the authorities involved, the Subpostmasters’ campaign, the good politicians, lawyers and professionals who rallied to help… this is a case study for one of the biggest social, legal and (above all) human catastrophes to affect our country. No TV drama has had this impact before, or effected so much rapid change. The fallout from the series has meant I have been a bit busy, living a little in the moment, and focusing on what I think I am best placed to do – broadcast media – whilst there is this demand.
That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it. If it’s any consolation, I have refused all other written commissions and prioritised getting the few secret emails I have written out of the door.
And now for something completely different.
Poetry Corner
Jo Livingston is 79, she’s a brand new secret emailer, and she has written a poem about the scandal. This will be the first and last time this newsletter features poetry, but as it’s been a strange few days, I thought – why not?
My thanks to Jo for sending this in. It’s called “Making a Drama”.
For nearly twenty years, words beat the air,
But without listeners, words can cast no spell.
So many people knew – a little, not enough,
And those who knew it all would never tell.
Such stalemate needs a shock to open up
What drama, through the ages, can provide.
Dressing sordid truth in homely tales
That let ‘the people’ help to turn the tide.
For Greeks and Romans, drama was a tool
That could proclaim the truth behind a mask.
The Bard send messages within his plays –
‘Fly, all is known’ makes villains leave, aghast.
Hillsborough had McGovern for its voice
Who contradicted the official line.
Now drama-doc has shone a light on that
Which trampled people – vicious and malign.
So public fury fuels election year
And forces recognition of these crimes,
Committed not by those who were accused
But those who now find they’re in changing times.
Jo Livingston, 2024.
—–
Right – I’m on a train to Wales, aiming to meet up and film with two Subpostmasters, one still serving, one not. Both still fighting for compensation. I first met Sue and Steve them nearly ten years ago to film a One Show special on the Post Office Scandal (see the original films here) – the resultant film should be on BBC1 next week.
Don’t forget to book tickets for the upcoming theatre dates and please forgive me if I don’t respond to your emails. If it’s urgent and I don’t get back to you at all, try again in a couple of weeks. Hopefully things will have quietened by then.
If you are in immediate need, that is what the Horizon Scandal Fund is for. Go apply, they’re a friendly, expert and highly trustworthy, confidential bunch.
Very best
Nick