image source, Post Office Horizon IT Question
- Author, Tom Espiner
- Role, BBC business reporter
- Report from Post Office Horizon IT Question
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Former Post Office chairman Tim Parker has denied he deliberately withheld a key message he entered into the Horizon IT system from members of the Post Office’s board.
A 2016 report written by former senior Treasury counsel Jonathan Swift raised concerns about the accounting software, which was later found to be flawed.
Incorrect data from Horizon led to the wrongful conviction of 700 subpostmasters for theft and fraud between 1999 and 2015.
An inquest into the scandal heard on Wednesday that only four copies of Swift’s message were made, none of which were shared with the Post Office Board or the government.
Mr. Parker said he acted on the advice of the Post Office’s lawyers not to share the document.
“It’s one of my regrets that I got that advice and took it,” he said. “Could we share it? In a way I wish we could.”
“I had this report typed in, I wanted to get some result from it, but then I got this advice.
All of the subpostmaster’s convictions have now been overturned, but many people have gone to jail or lost their businesses.
The Swift report was produced by the government following a BBC Panorama program in 2015 that raised concerns about the strength of the evidence against the convicts.
Although partially supportive of the Post Office, she raised key concerns about whether the Post Office had enough evidence to bring charges of theft.
It also disputed claims that Horizon’s data could not have been remotely altered by Fujitsu, which developed the software.
This turned out to be false and could have deprived the sub-postmasters of an important line of defense at their trials.
Mr Parker, who became chairman of the Post Office in October 2015 and will remain in the role until September 2022, told the inquest that the Post Office’s top lawyer Jane MacLeod advised him not to share the Swift message because it was legally privileged.
This meant that it had the same confidential status as attorney-client communications.
Mr Parker said he had been told that breaching this could result in the release of the report and that it needed to be kept within the Post Office’s “tight-knit” legal team.
“I had no personal interest in protecting the mail”
When challenged by lead inquiry counsel Jason Beer, Mr Parker admitted he had prevented the board from discussing the report’s findings.
But he said he believed the Post Office’s legal team would “buy in” to the report’s recommendations and denied he was hiding it for improper motives.
“What possible motive did I have at the time for hiding this report from my colleagues on the board, other than being advised not to share it?” he said.
“Mind you, I had no ax to grind, no interest in protecting the mail.
He continued: “Obviously in hindsight it seemed that some of the advice or the direction of the matter may have been motivated by motives that were not entirely fair or right or in the interests of people who would be harmed.
“However, at the time it seemed to me that the people giving me advice … were doing so in good faith and it was the right thing to do.”
In later questioning, lawyer Sam Stein said that as chairman Mr Parker was “part-time” and his decisions were “partially baked in”.
Mr. Parker initially worked one and a half days a week on his post office duties and later reduced this to half a day a week.
But Mr Parker rejected Mr Stein’s characterization, saying: “I don’t accept that. I gave the post office enough time and attention. I’m sorry.”
Following a review by Swift, auditors Deloitte were appointed in February 2016 to review Horizon’s transactions since 1999.
However, this probe was shelved in June 2016 after sub-postmasters, led by campaigner Sir Alan Bates, launched legal action against the post office.
Mr Parker admitted that if the report had not been classified, the Post Office may have taken a different approach to the High Court action, which it lost at a cost of more than £100m.
But he also said that at that stage he may have needed a judge to sort out all the issues.