Post Office’s ‘malignant culture’ destroyed Horizon victims’ lives, inquiry told

The “malignant culture” of the Post Office destroyed the lives of the victims of the Horizon IT scandal, not the system itself, an inquiry has heard.

The Horizon IT Inquiry was told the Post Office’s “corrosive prejudice” towards subpostmasters and its “desire for absolute control” over them was the “incubator for these terrible events”.

During his closing statement to the probe on Monday, Edward Henry KC, who represents a number of subpostmasters on behalf of law firm Hodge, Jones and Allen, told chairman Sir Wyn Williams: “Such heartlessness came from the top”.

More than 900 subpostmasters were prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 after faulty Horizon accounting software made it look as though money was missing from their accounts.

Counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC said a total of 270,785 documents had been disclosed to core participants throughout the process, with the disclosure coming to a total of 2,214,858 pages.

He said the probe has also heard oral evidence from 298 witnesses, and has received 780 witness statements, totalling 23,928 pages.

Mr Henry singled out former Post Office boss Paula Vennells for criticism, telling the inquiry she was “more bored than outraged by subpostmasters’ complaints”.

In written submissions made by Ms Vennells’ legal team, the former chief executive continued to deny knowledge of the extent of bugs in the Horizon system which subsequently led to wrongful convictions.

Her lawyers said: “Ms Vennells cannot, and does not, try to hide from the fact that whilst CEO she did not manage to uncover the truth about the extent of the bugs, errors and defects in Horizon.

“She simply did not get the information which she ought to have been given by her senior team, whom she trusted and to whom she delegated responsible roles.”

Sam Stein KC, who represents subpostmasters on behalf of law firm Howe and Co, highlighted the role of seven people in the scandal, who he described as “the rogue gallery of the Post Office”.

Alongside Ms Vennells, he made reference to former director Angela Van Den Bogerd, who is alleged to have given false evidence at the High Court in 2019 and Post Office investigator Stephen Bradshaw, who is accused of acting like a “mafia gangster” towards subpostmasters.

Leading Horizon engineer Gareth Jenkins, who is currently the subject of a Metropolitan Police investigation on suspicion of perjury and perverting the course of justice, was also mentioned by Mr Stein, as well as ex-Post Office lawyer Jarnail Singh, former chairwoman Alice Perkins and George Thompson from the National Federation of Subpostmasters.

Mr Stein said the seven he had highlighted to the inquiry were “memorable for their lies and incompetence”.

Beginning a series of closing statements, which are set to be heard over two days, he said: “Man’s cruelty to man are not caused by monsters, malfunctions or misfortune, but by those who claim to act in the name of good – enforcing a perverted vision of order that leaves no room for dissent.

“Cruelty has a human heart.

“The truth is that this tragedy… is not about an IT system.

“Horizon did not destroy the innocent. The malignant culture of the Post Office did.

“The Post Office’s inveterate contempt for the subpostmasters, its corrosive prejudice against them, its desire for absolute control over them, was the incubator for these terrible events.

“The seeds of this tragedy lie in the misappropriation of Horizon as a weapon of domination.”

Mr Henry continued: “The subpostmasters’ plaintive cries for help were dismissed.

“They were stigmatised as troublemakers, incompetent or dishonest, and they were then isolated and silenced with a lie: ‘It’s you, it’s only you. You’re the only one complaining about a problem. There’s nothing wrong with the system.’

“Such heartlessness came from the top.”

Mr Henry said the Post Office’s use of Horizon to “annex” the accounts of subpostmasters and the “removal of their right to challenge the figures” on their systems was a “modern form of corporate tyranny”.

“The atrocities that followed were the inevitable consequence of enforcing that dogma.

“People were ruined, people were bankrupted, people were imprisoned, there were atrocious miscarriages of justice, people died.

“Whether the board and the executive knew of these injustices from the start is an irrelevant diversion.

“They ought to have known or appreciated that by refusing to countenance the possibility that Horizon might generate shortfall errors, they had created a terrible risk.

“It was a recipe for certain disaster.”

Referring to how the complaints of subpostmasters were treated by the Post Office, Mr Henry said: “There was a culture of contempt, ridicule, even hatred towards the subpostmasters and their complaints.”

He continued: “They were all ‘crooks’ – and of course, like all culture, the prejudice was top down.

“Paula Vennells piously professed her disagreement with the instinct of her predecessor, Alan Cook, when he said that ‘subbies with their hands in the till choose to blame technology when they’re found short of cash’.

“But in 2014, Ms Vennells was to write disdainfully, because despite all she knew then… she was more bored than outraged by the subpostmasters’ complaints.”

In its written submissions, the Post Office said: “Some of the evidence has been deeply uncomfortable for (the Post Office) to hear and the mistakes that were made, and opportunities missed, when viewed through the sharp prism of hindsight, are ones which (the Post Office) deeply regrets.”