In her latest report, Rosie Brocklehurst brings us up to date with the largest miscarriage of justice in British legal history – the Horizon Post Office Scandal. A Labour Hub long read.
Antics at the Post Office Inquiry have sometimes been described by Subpostmaster victims as being akin to entering the 19th century world of Lewis Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland. To other observers like me, it has elements that could have come straight out of a Dickens novel. The Circumlocution Office satirised in Dickens’s Little Dorrit (1857), is the type of government department in which an Establishment is shown to be run purely for the benefit of its incompetent and obstructive officials. The stream of grifters and dodgers who have been on display, all called as witnesses to the Post Office Horizon Inquiry, fit that description perfectly.
No one is accountable – the perennial cry of the ‘little man and woman’
To describe the risible and numerous car crash performances by witnesses to the Inquiry from former and current Post Office managers, investigators and auditors would take too long. All sessions are recorded on You Tube for downloading. Here you can watch the evidence of those who pursued and prosecuted Subpostmasters with an unquestioning zeal, as if they were part of some cult that believed computers can do no wrong.
One Inquiry observer said: “It has been hard to tell where the stupidity ends and the malice begins.”
Phase 4 of the seven-phase Inquiry began in July 2023. The appearance of a key Fujitsu witness, Gareth Jenkins, whose evidence helped put several Subpostmasters behind bars, was delayed for a third time, because of last minute failures of the Post Office to disclose thousands of crucial documents to the Inquiry. Even the Chair of the Inquiry Sir Wyn William’s decision to invoke his powers, which can include up to 51 weeks in jail for those held responsible, seems to have had little effect.
The lack of accountability at the top for dire failings of major British institutions often affecting people at the bottom, is a perennial cry in scandal after scandal in Britain. Only victims seem to pay the price of institutional and corporate wrongdoing.
Paula Vennells yet to be called
The Fujitsu IT system was rolled out in 2000-2001 into post offices across Britain. It has taken 20 years to fully investigate the gross miscarriages of justice caused by flaws in the software, long denied by Fujitsu and the Post Office. Sir Wyn Williams is not due to report until the end of 2024, and the former Chief Executive Paula Vennells is yet to be called as a witness.
Compensation that is not anywhere near enough to cover total losses has only been paid to around one-seventh of the 701 convicted Subpostmasters. There are many other Subpostmasters who were suspended and sacked whose lives were also impacted. Nick Wallis, journalist, and author of the brilliant The Great Post Office Scandal,at one time estimated the potential number as 3,000 Subpostmasters, and of course these victims had families, but no one has an exact figure.
ITV Four-Part Drama Airing Soon: Mr Bates Vs the Post Office
What may imminently cause the greatest alarm among the complacent in Government is the announcement that early in 2024, a four-part ITV drama will be shown starring Toby Jones. Called Mr Bates Vs the Post Office, it is based on Alan Bates and the Group Litigation of 555 Subpostmasters at the High Court in 2019. Those who have seen previews are sworn to secrecy, but I am reliably informed that this is one of the most powerful and moving dramatisations they have seen, enough to stir the emotions and perhaps the pitchforks of the nation.
A scandal that will cost an estimated £1 billion from the public purse
The Post Office is an ‘asset’ owned by the Government and is classified as an arm’s length body. UK Government Investments (UKGI) a government owned entity, manages the Post Office asset on behalf of the Department of Business and Trade and therefore on behalf of the taxpayer.
The estimated cost of the scandal, which, if compensation and investment in the Post Office for it to continue to function are included, could reach over £1 billion.
The ongoing saga is positively Dickensian with parallels in the fictional case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce portrayed in Bleak House (1853). A once-vast legacy was fought over by generations of litigants all of whom subsequently died, while many years later, the ultimate success in their court case of two young beneficiaries turns to dust when they realise all the money has been eaten up in legal fees.
Last week, Sir Wyn Williams announced the death of yet another wrongfully prosecuted Subpostmaster, Thomas Brown, who died just before receiving his long overdue compensation.
Mr Brown was a hero who had been awarded certificates by his employers for fighting off armed robbers at his post office but in later life was bankrupted by the Post Office prosecution and made homeless.
Some have made money from the scandal
Among the principal beneficiaries of the scandal have been lawyers and accountants working for the Post Office. While some lawyers have given their services pro bono to support distraught Subpostmasters, in 2022 former Post Office Minister Paul Scully revealed a total of £170 million in legal fees had been paid by the Post Office to lawyers and solicitors including Cartwright King, Wombles Bond Dickinson and Herbert Smith Freehills, all ultimately at the expense of the taxpayer.
Meanwhile, 100 or so Subpostmasters whose convictions have been overturned, have received little compensation, certainly not enough to meet the loss of income, home, business, nor to make up for the pariah status that many experienced in their communities over years. Many Subpostmasters bought their post offices in middle age before being suspended, sacked, and convicted. So much time has passed to get to the current phase of the Inquiry, over 61 have now died without seeing any justice at all.
Approximately 600 victims still await any compensation and most live in penury. None of these victims may apply for a loudly trumpeted Government £600,000 compensation scheme, until their convictions have been appealed and overturned. That’s right. None may apply.
Appeals could take years. Lord Arbuthnot, a long-time campaigner who sits on the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board (HCAB) believes the Government should intervene and use extraordinary powers to overturn convictions in all cases.
Meanwhile, where can Subpostmasters turn?
While the Scrooges in the Post Office are paid handsomely, people in need can turn to the Horizon Scandal Fund.
This is a charity that has been set up by campaigners, founded by Nick Wallis and Bath Publishing. They can help in small ways that make all the difference.
One anonymised testimonial is from an 82-year-old former Subpostmaster from Devon who received £1,147 in July.
“Until 2010 I had been a Subpostmaster for 20 years,” he says. “I was then falsely accused of theft by the Post Office but because I paid the money allegedly due to the Post Office the same day, I received a caution rather than prosecution, but I lost my business without compensation and my standing in the community. I was compelled to borrow using Equity Release on my home to pay my closing business and other expenses and found myself and my wife in very tight financial circumstances. It was only after 10 years that I spoke to my solicitor about it, and he made a claim straight away under the Post Office’s Horizon Shortfall Scheme in August 2020. It seems that the fact that I had been wrongly accused was conceded by the Post Office from the outset but three years after I applied, I have received no compensation at all. A few months ago, my solicitor became aware of the Horizon Scandal Fund and made application on behalf of my wife and I for a new bed which we badly needed but could not, in our reduced circumstances, afford. The money and bed came through extremely quickly. I am incredibly grateful to those who gave to the fund to make this possible. What makes me incredibly angry, as well as conversely grateful, is that such a Fund has had to be created at all to assist those who have been unjustly ruined by the Post Office whilst they await years for their claims to be dealt with to their satisfaction. I have no doubt that some will settle out of financial desperation, well short of their proper entitlement. My message to Subpostmasters who find themselves in the same financial circumstances as I did is to approach them to see how they can help.”
A former Subpostmaster in the Northeast received £13,502 over ninemonths.
“Over the past 12 months I got into difficulties with rent and household bills. After reaching out to the Fund, they were really supportive and understanding and made the process very easy. They were able to help me through some very dark and difficult times for which I am forever grateful. This is a very important charity for Subpostmasters as very few people understand the true devastation this scandal has had upon people’s lives over so many years. I would recommend any Subpostmaster in need of help or support to reach out to them: it can really make a difference.”
Mark and Gizmo
Gizmo is a support dog, given to Mark Kelly to help keep him calm. Mark was a Subpostmaster in Swansea. On two occasions Mark’s branch was attacked by armed robbers. The Post Office tried to hold him liable for the stolen cash. Although Mark came through this, he was suspended in 2006 after an audit.
By this stage he was extremely vulnerable. The Post Office said he had a £12,000 discrepancy, but Mark disputed this. He was told he would be prosecuted if he didn’t resign. Mark resigned but was still interviewed by the Post Office’s criminal investigators. This led Mark to suffer a breakdown. He was taken into care under the Mental Health Act. When he came out, he was interviewed by Post Office investigators again, this time at a police station. Although the Post Office decided not to prosecute him, they didn’t tell him this, and left him living in fear for years.
“I have depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Gizmo grounds me so I don’t, for example, attempt to end my life, like I have in past. In October 2022 Gizmo’s leg was run over by a car, and he needed immediate surgery. The Horizon Scandal Fund was able to fund a third of the cost of Gizmo’s treatment of £1,483.”
As of November, the charity has disbursed grants totalling just over £35,000.
Re-victimising Subpostmasters
Many former Subpostmasters are not able to apply for any compensation until their convictions are overturned. Those whose convictions are linked to Horizon but where Horizon was ‘not essential’ to their case, see no hope currently for any redress. ‘Not essential’ is a phrase used by the Post Office often to apply to those investigations, suspensions, and subsequent sackings where a ‘confession’ was made, often forced because of threats from the Post Office and Subpostmasters’ fear of prison often at a time when Subpostmasters were being told they were the only ones who were experiencing inexplicable losses.
Richard Moorhead, Professor of Law and Professional Ethics at Exeter University, sits on the Inquiry’s Horizon Compensation Advisory Board. The HCAB argues not just that ‘Horizon’ cases but that all Post Office cases need re-examining because the PO approach to prosecutions, investigations and disclosure contravenes established rules of justice.
Professor Moorhead told me that the Post Office is offering less money or no compensation to some Subpostmasters whose convictions have been overturned by the Crown Courts, because the Post Office had concluded “a retrial would not be in the Public Interest”.
“It should also be remembered that retrials would not be in the interests of the Post Office, given their expense, publicity, and likely failure,” said Professor Moorhead.
The Post Office had indicated that these ‘public interest’ cases, had received lower compensation offers because of the view that there had been no malicious prosecution to be compensated. The Board thought that this view was vulnerable because of the evidence emerging from the Inquiry. The (Post Office) approach “failed to put these victims of overturned convictions in the position which they would have been in if they had not been prosecuted, and the rationales for treating them differently in effect re-victimised them.”
Teju’s story:
Teju Adedayo was prosecuted in 2005 and her criminal conviction was quashed at Southwark Crown Court in May 2021. She is in a difficult position. She is classified in legal terms as a ‘public interest’ case, which puts her in a category where she was offered derisory compensation. Teju was prosecuted in 2005 after she found almost £41,000 of losses at her post office following account balancing.
“I was brought up to be honest and I am a Christian. I do the right thing. Not knowing what had happened, I was under extreme stress. I was told by the Post Office investigators that to avoid going to prison for two or three years I would need to make up a story, and I did not want to go to prison so made up something about paying some friends back. I was assured there was nothing wrong with the system. I signed a confession under duress. I had to remortgage my house to pay the Post Office which I later lost because I also lost my job, and I paid the Post Office almost £53,000. The amount of £41000 was on a printout from Horizon, so how can my case not be essential to Horizon? I just paid them what they asked for.
“I don’t believe there was any real loss at all. The Post Office made money out of me and others who paid them from loans and credit cards because our contracts made us fully responsible for any loss. That is the only explanation. But at the time I was made to feel a cheat, a thief and a liar. Because of the ‘non-essential to Horizon’ classification made by the Post Office, I am not included in the same level of compensation scheme as others. Yet in 2004 I had a home and a post office and a good standing in the community and life for me and my family looked positive. That was taken away from all of us.
“The Post Office’s lack of disclosure at the Inquiry is time-wasting. Some of us are ill and justice will not come in time if the Government does not step in to right the wrong. Fairness needs to be exercised to stop the abuse of power by the Post Office and we need healing time. It makes me feel like a second-class citizen in this country I have long seen as my home.
“I was coerced into accepting a tiny amount in compensation when my conviction was overturned. There are other Subpostmasters in the same position as me. Vipin Patel and Pamod Kalia are just two whose cases need to be addressed. We are labelled ‘public interest’ – the very point Professor Moorhead has raised at the Advisory Board on Compensation. I hope the Inquiry listens to them. We really must be restored to the position we were in before they destroyed our lives. That is the only acceptable justice.”
‘Bonusgate’ – new developments
Last Summer, the Post Office CEO Nick Read, ultimately responsible for the failure of disclosure of hundreds and thousands of documents to the Inquiry, was forced to return part of a £455,000 bonus he had received ‘for cooperating with the Inquiry’ -which many people assumed was his day job anyway – and for which he had already been paid a hefty salary of £405,000. The rest of the Post Office Board declined to give back all the money they received for what had been a metric based on a falsehood. The bonus metric was published in the long-delayed Post Office Annual Report and Accounts for the year 2021-22, formally presented to Parliament as being true. The serious error almost escaped scrutiny.
To make matters worse, the Annual Report stated that Sir Wyn Williams had agreed that the bonus metric had been achieved. He had not done so and knew nothing about it. This fact was covered up, even from him, until campaigner Tim McCormack picked up the bonus in the Annual Report and alerted the Inquiry in late March.
It was not until Friday, May 6th , the day before the Coronation, that news about the Bonus made it into the media, and it made quite a stir – although Fridays are traditionally thought to be “the perfect day to bury bad news”.
Kevin Hollinrake MP, Minister at the Department for Business and Trade (DBT), told the House of Commons on May 10th that he had only heard about the false metric on the evening of Thursday, May 5th. He also announced an ‘independent review,’ at even more cost to the public purse by Simmons and Simmons.
The DBT Committee speedily called the newly appointed Chair of the Post Office Ltd, Remuneration Committee executives and the CEO who benefited, along with some members of the current Post Office Board and asked them to account for themselves.
The Post Office Chair Henry Staunton was keen to impress upon the Committee that it had all been an error, an oversight that could not be explained and would not have happened under the newly appointed members of the Board who were far more qualified. Yet Nick Read had been appointed as CEO when the metric was devised.
According to the Guardian’s Rowena Mason writing last August, after Simmons and Simmons published their ‘independent’ report: “The Horizon inquiry was one of four ‘metrics’ on which bonus payments were awarded, with each accounting for 25%. The Post Office admitted it had made mistakes in its handling of the process and 33 employees voluntarily handed back a total of £64,252 in bonuses awarded in relation to a specific sub-metric linked to cooperating with the inquiry. Nick Read, chief executive of the Post Office, earlier this year apologised to MPs for the ‘error and the mistake’ and confirmed he had repaid about £13,000 of his own £455,000 bonus package – or about 3% related to the inquiry compliance sub-metric.”
However, the Post Office said in a letter to the previous DBT Committee chair, Darren Jones that it did not intend to ask executives to pay back the full proportion of the bonus related to the Inquiry.
Again, in August 2023, Mr Jones who was about to step down as the DBT Select Committee Chair, wrote to the Department of Business and Trade and the Post Office: “Will you now consider clawing back the bonus paid in relation to the overall inquiry metric on the grounds of the ‘clear governance’ failings identified by the Department for Business and Trade review and the change in the Inquiry’s status imposing obvious legal and ethical obligations on Post Office executives to engage fully with a statutory public inquiry?”
Jones also asked the Post Office to hand over details of who was responsible for overseeing the bonus metrics related to the inquiry, in confidence. He said the committee would consider whether and when to recall Post Office bosses for oral or written evidence after receiving its responses.
Simmons and Simmons has said that the payment of the bonuses was justifiable according to one reading of the wording of the metric. However, it said it was not possible to say whether this was the basis on which the bonuses were awarded because of ‘incomplete records.’
The Simmons and Simmons report has been called a whitewash and limited in scope by campaigners and lawyers representing Subpostmasters.
Asked in August about the Simmons and Simmons report, Henry Staunton said: “The report … found no basis to support suggestions of impropriety, that there was a justifiable basis to make the award and did not recommend any further repayment of bonus. The board is accepting each of the recommendations and has already put in place a number of measures to improve further the governance of remuneration.”
However, documents from a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by campaigner El Shaikh, received on November 24th, reveal that Ministers and senior officials at the Department had been made aware of the bonus metric in 2021.
On September 19th, this year the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, Kemi Badenoch, came before the Business and Trade Committee – watch here. When asked if her department would enforce clawbacks, she said, “It is hard to recruit at that level” – as if that was a reason not to claw back at least some of the money that this scandal had so far cost.
A summary of the FOI findings and a letter outlining the sequence of events and the apparent errors made has gone to the Inquiry, the DBT and also to Liam Byrne MP, the newly elected Chair of the Department of Business and Trade Parliamentary Select Committee who replaced Darren Jones MP. Watch this space!
Rosie Brocklehurst is a journalist and press officer (retired) who worked for the Labour Party, LWT, the BBC and several charities.
Main image: Source: Post Box in Snow. Author: CGP Grey, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. Image of Gizmo – c/o Mark. Image of Teju – c/o Teju.
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