Post Office Inquiry: Week 1 – Recap

The Post Office inquiry resumed on 23 September for its seventh and final phase. Here is a summary of who gave evidence during week 1.

Monday 23 September

Gavin Ellison: YouGov

Phase 7 began with evidence from Gavin Ellison, a research Director of Public Services and Not for Profit at YouGov, an international research data and analytics group. Through his evidence he went through his two main reports which stemmed from a survey sent to current Sub-postmaster’s (SPMs) and those who are part of the Historic Shortfall Scheme (one of the three compensation schemes in place for victims of the Horizon scandal).

His evidence sadly seemed to highlight how many, especially those who had worked at the Post Office for over 10 years, felt undervalued, and believed that there was a lack of support and transparency from senior leaders.

Saf Ismail: Sub-postmaster (SPM) Non-Executive Director at Post Office Ltd

Mr Ismail was one of two Non-Executive Directors who also has experience of being a SPM. He was elected to the Board in 2021. Through his evidence we were able to see a different perspective on how the Post Office was being run, given his experience of dealing with SPMs as a Board member, and being a SPM himself.

Tuesday 24 September

Elliot Jacobs – SPM Non-Executive Director at Post Office Ltd

Straight after Mr Ismail’s evidence, his fellow SPM Non-Executive Director, Elliot Jacobs gave evidence. His experience was similar to Mr Ismail’s but had the added twist of having to deal with being investigated himself in relation to issues at his own branches. It was striking to see how the Post Office initially dealt with this, as it mirrored a ‘guilty until proven innocent’ approach that many of the SPMs who are part of the Horizon scandal, faced. It was only until the investigations passed from the audit team, to a different team that he was able to go through and explain what the issues were and eventually the matter came to an end.

Thursday 26 September

Calum Greenhow – Chief Executive of the National Federation of Sub postmasters (NFSP)

Mr Greenhow is the current CEO of the NFSP and began by thanking the Inquiry and all those involved including Jo Hamilton and Sir Alan Bates for all of their work in getting to the truth of what happened. Mr Greenhow became CEO in 2018, before the High Court concluded in December 2019 that the Horizon system that the Post Office had implemented was not as ‘robust’ as the Post Office had continuously asserted. Mr Greenhow stated that he recalled becoming concerned that the Post Office may have conducted wrongful prosecutions having watched the Panorama programme, and that the NFSP did not make a public statement in support of the claimants at the time of the Group Litigation because he did not think the NFSP could do so. He believed that the appropriate thing to do would be to wait and allow the legal process to take place, which if wrong, he gave his apologies for.

Friday 27 September

Amanda Burton – Non-Executive Director at Post Office Ltd

Ms Burton was a non-executive director on the POL board and Chair of the Remuneration Committee. She was brought in to review Post Office’s decision to pay bonuses to executives which included metrics for compliance with the Inquiry. Ms Burton stated her review found these were put in place before the Inquiry became statutory to ensure Post Office was fully engaged with the Inquiry. She found that although it was not unreasonable, it should have been reconsidered once the Inquiry became statutory. In evidence Ms Burton accepted in hindsight these bonuses were not appropriate even before the Inquiry became statutory.

Sir Martin Donnelly – former Permanent Secretary and Principal Accounting Officer at the Department of Business and Trade (Phase 5/6 evidence)

Mr Donnelly who was due to give evidence in the last phase, had to have his evidence rescheduled and so was the last witness for Phase 7, week 1. In his evidence, he accepted that his department’s shareholder executive, who managed the government’s relationships with state-owned business such as POL, bore responsibility to ensure that SPMs were treated fairly and that they were not able to prevent the serious of miscarriages of justice over many years.

He said that although the department was dealing with resource and funding cuts they had a structure in place appropriate to perform his role of having reputational responsibility for public sector funds given POL’s autonomy for operational matters.

Mr Donnelly’s evidence marked the end of week 1 for Phase 7. This week, we will be hearing from more people who either worked at the Post Office, or still do, including Henry Staunton (the former Chair of Post Office Limited) and Alisdair Cameron (the former Chief Financial Officer of Post Office Limited).

The Crime Team at Hodge Jones & Allen have the privilege of representing a number of SPM’s as Core Participants in the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry. The Civil Liberties & Human Rights Team and Dispute Resolution Team also represent SPM’s in respect of compensation claims. If you, or anyone you know, is a victim of the Post Office Scandal please call us now on 0808 278 8389 or email our legal experts at postofficeclaims@hja.net.