by An independent forensic accountant drafted in to investigate the Horizon system has told former Post Office boss Paula Vennells he “repeatedly and consistently” tried to steer him away from miscarriages of justice.
Ian Henderson, one of the two forensic accountants from Second Sight paid by the Post Office (POL) to review cases involving Horizon in 2012, said he felt he was “dealing with a cover-up … and it was possibly criminal conspiracy”.
Mr Henderson told the IT Horizon inquiry that he had signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with POL, and had been “very mildly threatened” by the company’s then head of legal Chris Aujard “that I would go bankrupt if I continued to create trouble”.
He said that while Ms Vennells had told him POL was the “most trusted brand in the nation”, he believed the company felt it was “above the law”.
An interim report compiled by Mr Henderson in July 2013, along with Second Sight colleague Ron Warmington, identified two bugs in the system which caused problems for 76 branches.
The forensic accountants were spared in 2015, and Mr Henderson said he believed they were sacked because they were “getting too close to the truth”.
He told the inquiry he felt POL was “continually undermining our efforts to seek the truth regardless of the consequences” and said Ms Vennells had been “quite open in meetings” about the view of the community on the company.
Referring to his conversation with Mr Aujard during questioning from counsel for the inquiry Jason Beer KC on Tuesday, Mr Henderson said: “He was obviously concerned about some of the things I was saying or taking at working group meetings.
“I remember this conversation – I thought it was inappropriate and, to some extent, surprising.”
Mr Beer continued: “What happened to the ‘shared desire to seek the truth regardless of the consequences?’”
Mr Henderson replied: “I think we’ve moved on from that.
“I was of the opinion that the Post Office was getting advice early in the process from external lawyers about the financial implications we were getting – the fact that they could be looking at very material amounts of compensation.
“I remember calculating the back of a pack of cigarettes, and I felt that if all the claims that were being raised by sub-masters through the intervention working group came to fruition, we were looking at at least £300 million in compensation.
“That was a huge underestimate, but those were the sort of numbers I had in mind at this point.
“I think the Post Office was concerned about an existential threat to their business model…they were very concerned about the Public Relations aspects of their business model.
“PR was driving a lot of the decision at the Post Office at this point.”
Mr Beer then asked: “How did you know that?”
The witness replied: “Through contact with Mark Davies who was the head of Public Relations.
“It was clear that the senior management of the Post Office were very concerned about public opinion, about the image of the brand – 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 we were dealing with a cover-up by POL and possibly a criminal conspiracy.
“I was concerned about the various threats that POL had made to me in relation to alleged breaches of my NDA and confidentiality obligations.
“Accordingly, I had to find a way to express my concerns, but which limited the risk of legal action against me, or Second Sight, by POL.
“The most likely threats seemed to be an action for defamation, breach of trust or breach of contract.”
Mr Henderson heavily criticized POL in his witness statement, claiming their priority was to “protect the brand” and “not support sub-postmasters”.
He continued: “My work with POL and the Scheme (intervention) was probably the most challenging in my 40 years of career as a chartered accountant.
“One of the reasons it was challenging was that POL would say one thing in public, and then do something different in private.
“An example of this was Paula Vennells statement to the Parliamentary Select Committee in February 2015, that ‘no evidence of a miscarriage of justice’ was found in our work and that ‘it was important that we highlight any miscarriage of justice’.
“Paula Vennells repeatedly and consistently sought to steer Second Sight away 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 nation for over 400 years in history.
“As our work continued, I became increasingly convinced that POL somehow felt that it was above the law because of this history.
“I got the impression that POL was always sabotaging our efforts to seek the truth regardless of the consequences.
“Requests for documents were ignored or responses were delayed.
“Unwarranted claims of legal professional privilege were used to withhold documents from us.”
Concluding his witness statement, Mr Henderson reiterated his view that “POL’s conduct was probably criminal”.
He said: “We tried to go where the evidence led us, but more and more we were finding evidence of questionable behavior by POL, some of which, in my opinion, was probably criminal.
“During our work, I felt more and more that our overriding duty was, in a phrase attributed to Alan Bates, to help the ‘thin little people’ who had no voice and were treated so badly by POL.”
More than 700 sub-masters at POL were prosecuted and dealt with criminal convictions between 1999 and 2015 when Fujitsu’s faulty Horizon IT system revealed their branches were missing money.
Hundreds of sub-masters are still waiting for compensation despite the Government announcing that those made redundant are entitled to £600,000.
