Yahoo Finance Post Office scandal: Alan Bates warned Ed Davey in 2010 about ‘thugs in suits’, inquiry told
Alan Bates warned then-minister Sir Ed Davey in 2010 that the government had “allowed” the Post Office to be “asset stripped by little more than thugs in suits”, the inquiry heard.
The campaigner and former subpostmaster, portrayed by Toby Jones in the recent ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office, is giving evidence at the Post Office IT Inquiry today.
Lead inquiry counsel Jason Beer KC read aloud a letter to the then-minister responsible for postal affairs, Sir Ed, now Liberal Democrat party leader, dated to July 2010.
Urging Davey to meet with campaigners, Bates wrote: “It’s not that you can’t get involved or cannot investigate the matter; after all you do own 100 per cent of the shares and normally shareholders are concerned about the morality of the business they own.
“It’s because you’ve adopted an arms-length relationship.
“You’ve allowed a once-great institution to be asset stripped by little more than thugs in suits and you’ve enabled them to carry on with impunity regardless of the human misery and suffering they inflict.”
Bates later met with Davey, in his role campaigning with the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance, but told the inquiry he could not recall any positive developments from the meeting.
Glitches in the Horizon IT system supplied by Fujitsu and used by the Post Office meant money falsely appeared missing from many branch accounts, with workers prosecuted.
The scandal, which was ongoing from 1999 until 2015, is one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in UK legal history. Over 100 victims had convictions quashed by the Court of Appeal.
Before Bates began giving evidence, Beer told the inquiry looking into the scandal that the Post Office disclosed over 73,000 documents in a “highly disruptive” disclosure.
He informed the chairman, Sir Wyn Williams, that since the previous phase ended in February, the Post Office had disclosed 73,720 documents, which could relate to the next phases of the inquiry, and described the unexpected disclosure as “sub-optimal” failings.
Jason Beer KC said: “We’re committed to doing all that we can to ensure that the hearings can go ahead as planned and, subject to your views, that’s what we intend to do – to continue with the hearings.
“The alternative – further delay, to allow the Post Office to get its disclosure house in order – is not one which is acceptable.”
Giving evidence, Bates, who founded the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance, and led a group of 555 subpostmasters who took the Post Office to the High Court over the scandal, told the inquiry his search for justice and redress was “something you couldn’t put down”.
Bates said: “I think when Horizon came in… I was quite positive about it, because I knew what technology and these sorts of systems could do.
“But I found it a bit frustrating once the system was installed and we were operating, I found there were many shortcomings in the system.”
On his campaign, he added: “As you got to meet people and realised it wasn’t just yourself, and saw the harm and justice that had been descended upon them, it was something you felt you had to deal with. It’s something you couldn’t put down.”
The Post Office has said it “regrets” that documents were not disclosed to the Horizon IT Inquiry “as early as all parties would have liked”.
A spokesperson said: “We are fully committed to supporting the inquiry to establish the truth and we have disclosed almost half-a-million documents to date, reflecting both the unprecedented scale of the issues in the scandal and our commitment to transparency.
“This follows searches of over 176m documents, 230 physical locations and third-party sites, and across multiple systems.”
They added: “During the past six weeks, since the inquiry announced its current hearings timetable, we have disclosed the vast majority of documents required for those witnesses but regret a very small proportion of documents were not disclosed as early as all parties would have liked.
“The inquiry is examining issues that spanned more than two decades, including a lengthy period when the Post Office was part of Royal Mail Group.
“Disclosure is therefore highly complex and we continue to do all we can to deliver continuous improvements and incorporate past learnings into the disclosure process to avoid the risk of delays to the inquiry’s timetable.”
The inquiry continues.
