It seems like we’ve got the Post Office scandal all wrong. The moment in 2012 the Post Office caved and finally agreed to get independent investigators Second Sight into the building was nothing to do with the campaign by MPs and Alan Bates’ Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance. It was, in fact, all down to the Post Office’s heroic Chief Operating Officer, “Missing” Mike Young.

When the former army soldier-turned police officer joined the Post Office as Operations Director in 2008 he had responsibility for the Security Division, which spent its time conducting inept investigations whilst recommending the prosecution of innocent Subpostmasters. Young told the Inquiry that this department’s activities were none of his business. Catriona Hodge, the barrister asking the questions on behalf of the Inquiry, wanted to know why.

CH: Given that you had oversight of a team which conducted criminal investigations do you think that that’s entirely accurate to say that you had no responsibility for the investigation into potential criminality within the network?
MY: I do.
CH: Who did you think was responsible at executive level for managing and overseeing the criminal investigations carried out by the post office security team?
MY: There is an overlapping responsibility managed via Royal Mail Group for all criminal prosecutions across the group and John Scott, the head of security for POL [Post Office Ltd], was the lead into that. In my introduction, when arriving at the Post Office, it was made clear to me that that process did not need my supervision or my line management, because that had been in place over a number of years. I was told not to get involved and to leave it with both legal and that RMG – Royal Mail Group – framework.
CH: Who told you that?
MY: Alan Cook, my boss, the CEO.

Having been given permission to wash his hands of any involvement in the dirty business of prosecuting Subpostmasters, Young appeared to forget Horizon data (a major responsibility of his) was central to the Security Team’s activities. Throughout his testimony today, Young was shown evidence of his knowledge of Horizon errors. He eventually acknowledged failing to escalate a very serious Horizon defect to the board (the receipts and payments mismatch bug). He did not once seem to think that bugs causing discrepancies in branch accounts should be worth discussing when it came to the prosecution of Subpostmasters. There followed a grumpy exchange with Sam Stein KC, who represents a group of Subpostmasters:

SS: You must have been aware that there’s an implication with bugs in the system system, that this could impact upon investigations and police cases that are being considered and cases that are being taken through the court. You mentioned a couple of times that with your background [and] police experience – that things were of interest to you on occasions and you used that experience to analyse matters. You must have been aware that this was going to … implicate issues that related to police cases. It’s true isn’t it Mr Young?
MY: Possibly, and the only reason I’m hesitating to give an affirmative to that is I probably was looking at this purely from an IT standpoint, but does it have implications around those people that have been prosecuted? The answer is yes. I understand that.
SS: And you did nothing about that either?
MY: Can we just take a step back?
SS: Well, did you or did you not do something about that?
MY: I’d like to take a step back if that’s alright.
SS: I’d prefer you to answer the question.
[reader, he didn’t]

The penny dropped in October 2011 when Young was told by a Computer Weekly journalist that the Justice For Subpostmasters Alliance were working with a law firm called Shoosmiths, and the number of potential claimants was in the “hundreds”. This represented a potential threat to the Post Office.

Live Fast Mike Young

Young swung into action. Taking credit for the eventual decision to get independent investigators Second Sight into the building, the former army man told the Inquiry the full epic story:

“I’d got to the point where frankly I’d had enough and I rang Duncan Tait [his opposite number at Fujitsu]. It’s like a continuous drib-drab with Fujitsu… and I said, “Look, I’ve just had this call with Computer Weekly. This is where he says things are. This is reflecting badly on all of us. Your brand and our brand in POL and we need to address it and there’s no two ways about it Duncan, we’re gonna have to investigate this system thoroughly now”.
“I’m conscious at this point that there are – and you’ll ask me here and I won’t be able to name them – but but there were one or two people saying at the point you do that, you now question past performance prosecutions and other bits of it… but I’ve got to the point where the wealth of Subpostmasters that appear to have been affected and the media outlay [sic] that was now coming more and more to the fore where I felt we needed to be much more proactive and I… I had continued to knock on doors and more or less got the same reply each and every time.
“Every time there was a media outplay [sic] I used it as a mechanism to say “are we sure about the system? Are you sure you won’t have a look at it?”… This time around I’d got to a point where I’d had enough, and I said we’re going to do it, and more importantly I want your support. And in fairness to Duncan Tait he took a minute or two to think about that and calmly replied “okay I think you’re right.” Okay? And I said – which was a an important point rightly or wrongly – I said “I’m expecting Fujitsu to pay for this audit but I want it to be under Post Office’s leadership”, and he agreed to that.
“As soon as I finished that I rang Paula [Vennells] and repeated the conversation I had with Computer Weekly and the conversation I had with Duncan and she said, “Right, okay then.” I said, “I’ve got to get you into the room with Duncan so we can take this forward.” She asked for his phone number, I gave her the phone number, and my presumption… it is that there was some form of telephone call between the two of them, which I know took place because I think in Paula’s evidence she suggests there were phone calls that took place. But that’s how I left it, and that’s why my belief is carrying that through to June [2012] when Second Sight are brought on board from when I left in March it was clearly followed through.”

The core participants were not impressed. Flora Page, a barrister representing a high-profile group of Subpostmasters asked “Is that a little bit self-serving, Mr. Young?”

Young disagreed. Page took him to a different matter. This concerned her client Seema Misra, who was sent to prison whilst pregnant, a conviction which prompted a lot of internal crowing within the Post Office. In his witness statement to the Inquiry, Young had written:

“I was not involved in the prosecution of Seema Misra… I was not aware that as a result of a successful RMG/POL prosecution, a pregnant lady was imprisoned.”

Page took Young to an email he received which made it clear he was well aware of Ms Misra’s conviction.

“Do you think you’ve made any other self-serving errors of that nature in your evidence?” asked Page.
“It’s not self-serving,” replied Young. “Genuinely not self-serving.”

Towards the end of the day’s evidence, Young’s dramatic series of phone calls in October 2011 with Computer Weekly, Fujitsu and Paula Vennells were raised again, this time by Angela Patrick, who represents another group of Subpostmasters, including Jo Hamilton. Patrick asked him what happened between the calls he made and when he left in March 2012. Young replied:

“I had done a telephone introduction of sorts, certainly spoken to Paula and Duncan and said “You two guys need to meet.” And Paula had as much opportunity as Lesley [Sewell – PO CIO] to reach for the phone and speak to Duncan or the management team in Fujitsu to seek the clarity.”

Patrick summarised:

“Is your evidence that between this point in October 2011 and in March 2012, by the time you leave, there’s been no progress, nothing done to push forward this independent code-level review that you thought might be needed… that might have been covered in your conversation with Duncan Tait… which ought to have been paid for by Fujitsu?” She paused. “Nothing had happened, had it?”

“By the looks of it…” replied our hero, “No.”

Oh well.

---

The journalism on this blog is crowdfunded. If you would like to join the “secret email” newsletter, please consider making a one-off donation. The money is used to keep the contents of this website free. You will receive irregular, but informative email updates about the Post Office Horizon IT scandal.