Post office managers who blamed the Horizon IT system for cash shortages at their branches were deemed “enemies of the business” by state-owned company investigators, a public inquiry has revealed.
The Post Office investigation uncovered portions of a draft report prepared in 2013 by researchers from accounting firm Second Sight. The report had been commissioned to investigate concerns surrounding Horizon IT systems.
Hundreds of people who run Britain’s post offices have had their lives ruined, wrongly accused of theft and false accounting, in what has been described as the worst miscarriage of justice in recent British legal history.
ITV drama Mr Bates v Post Office spotlighted this injustice earlier this year, calling on ministers to take action against the scandal amid claims that they were trying to delay compensation payments to victims. There were growing calls for more rapid action.
Chris Augyar, a former senior lawyer at the Post Office, told a public inquiry in London on Thursday that he was handed a draft report by Second Sight after joining the Post Office as interim general counsel in October 2013. Sometimes people asked me why I didn’t take any action. He remained with the company until 2015.
The Second Sight report said the culture within the Post Office’s investigation team “appears to be one of ‘presuming guilt’ rather than ‘seeking the truth’ when conducting investigations.” . It was discovered that some post office operators “fervently believed” that they were innocent.
The draft report states: “It appears that there were serious deficiencies in the group’s response. Investigators failed to investigate these claims (or gave them appropriate attention during interviews). By not paying, we alienated all of them. That group… really became the enemy of the business.”
Flora Page, a lawyer who represents many victims of the scandal, told Mr Ojal that the report showed “unnecessary hostility” by the Post Office’s investigation team.
“This is a unique case where a particular team is said to have taken a particular action…and I agree, this is as if that team were taking an adversarial approach to the investigation,” he said. “I can read it,” he said.
Mr Page then asked: “Does this not indicate that there are serious concerns about past prosecutions?”
Although he believed he would have asked questions about why the Second Sight report was produced and whether it was an attempt to exclude certain individuals from the investigation team, Mr. Ojal said, “I don’t know what I thought about the document at the time.” I don’t have any specific memories.” .
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He added: “This is a draft report that contains serious warnings, and if I were permanent general counsel and remained in that role, that would be the case at some point in the future… within that team.” Further research will be needed to understand what happened historically.” ”
“Did you need immediate attention?” Paige asked.
“My view at the time was that given that it was marked as a draft document and heavily flagged, it was something that needed to be investigated in due course,” Ojal said at the hearing.
Retired judge Wynne Williams, who is leading the investigation, asked Mr Ojal what happened to the draft report. He replied that once he got to the post office, he “would have read it and put it aside…I don’t remember taking any further action with this document.”
