An independent forensic accountant brought in to investigate the Horizon system has told an inquiry that ex-Post Office boss Paula Vennells ‘often and consistently’ tried to distract him from investigating miscarriages of justice.
Ian Henderson, one of two Second Sight forensic accounts paid by the Post Office (POL) in 2012 to review cases involving Horizon, said he felt he was “dealing with a cover-up… and possibly a criminal conspiracy.”
Mr Henderson told the Horizon IT investigation that he signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with POL and faced a “thinly veiled threat” from the company’s then head of legal, Chris Aujard, “to put me out of business to let go if I continued to cause problems.”
He said that despite Ms Vennells telling him POL was the “country’s most trusted brand”, he believed the company felt it was “above the law”.
An interim report prepared by Mr Henderson in July 2013, together with Second Sight colleague Ron Warmington, identified two bugs in the system causing problems for 76 branches.
The forensic accountants were fired in 2015 and Mr Henderson said he believed they were fired because they were “getting too close to the truth”.
He told the inquiry he felt POL “continually sabotaged our efforts to seek the truth, regardless of the consequences” and said Ms Vennells was “very open in meetings” about public perception of the company.
Referring to his conversation with Mr Aujard under questioning by inquiry counsel Jason Beer KC on Tuesday, Mr Henderson said: “He was clearly concerned about some of the things I said or raised at working group meetings.
“I remember this conversation – I thought it was inappropriate and to some extent somewhat surprising.”
Mr. Beer continued: “Whatever happened to the ‘shared desire to seek the truth regardless of the consequences?’”
Mr Henderson replied: “I think we have moved on from that.
‘I had come to the conclusion that Post Office received advice from external lawyers quite early in the process about the financial implications of what we discovered – the fact that they were potentially looking at very material compensation amounts.
“I remember doing a calculation from the back of cigarette packs, and I felt that if all the claims made by sub-postmasters through the conciliation working group came to fruition, we would expect to receive at least £300 million in compensation.
“That was a huge underestimate, but those were the kind of figures I had in mind at this stage.
“I think the Post Office was concerned as an existential threat to their business model… they were very concerned about the PR aspects of their business model.
“PR was a major factor in the decision at Post Office at this stage.”
Mr Beer then asked: “How did you know that?”
The witness replied: “Through contact with Mark Davies, head of PR.
“It was very clear that Post Office senior management were very concerned about public perception and brand image – I mean, Paula Vennells was very open about it in meetings.
“She was determined to promote the Post Office brand.”
In his witness statement to the inquiry, Mr Henderson said he felt Second Sight was dealing with a cover-up.
He said: “By February 2015 I no longer had confidence that POL was taking our concerns seriously or dealing with them appropriately.
“I felt like we were dealing with a POL cover-up and possibly a criminal conspiracy.
“I was concerned about the various threats that POL had made against me regarding alleged breaches of my confidentiality agreement and confidentiality obligations.
“Accordingly, I needed to find a way to convey my concerns but that limited the risk of legal action against me, or Second Sight, by POL.
“The most likely threats appeared to be an action for defamation, breach of trust or breach of contract.”
Mr Henderson was highly critical of POL in his witness statement, claiming their priority was “protecting the brand” and “not supporting sub-postmasters”.
He continues: “My work for POL and the (mediation) scheme was probably the most challenging in the 40 years of my career as a chartered accountant.
“One of the reasons it was a challenge was that POL said one thing in public and then did something else in private.
“An example of this was Paula Vennells’ statement to the parliamentary committee in February 2015 that our work had found ‘no evidence of miscarriages of justice’ and ‘it was important that we uncover any miscarriages of justice’.
“Paula Vennells often and consistently attempted to distract Second Sight from investigating possible miscarriages of justice.”
He continued: “When I first met Paula Vennells, she told me that POL was the most trusted brand in the country, with a history of over 400 years.
“As our work progressed, I increasingly felt that because of this history, POL somehow felt like it was above the law.
“I believed that POL continually sabotaged our efforts to seek the truth, regardless of the consequences.
“Requests for documents were ignored or responses were excessively delayed.
“Unjustified claims of legal professional secrecy were used to justify withholding documents from us.”
Concluding his evidence, Mr Henderson reiterated his position that POL’s conduct was “probably criminal”.
He said: “We tried to go where the evidence took us, but increasingly we found evidence of questionable behavior by the POL, some of which, in my view, was probably criminal.
“In the course of our work I came to feel more and more that our primary duty was, in a phrase attributed to Alan Bates, to help ‘the little, skinny people’ who had no voice and had been so poorly treated by the POL .”
Between 1999 and 2015, more than 700 sub-postmasters were prosecuted by the POL and given criminal convictions because Fujitsu’s flawed Horizon IT system made it appear as if money was missing from their branches.
Hundreds of sub-postmasters are still waiting for compensation, despite the government announcing that those whose convictions have been quashed will be eligible for a £600,000 payout.