The Post Office was “constantly sabotaging” the work of independent investigators probing issues with the Horizon IT system, an inquiry has heard. Forensic accountant Ian Henderson said the Post Office unjustifiably withheld documents from his company, Second Sight, which was brought in to investigate the accounting software in 2012.
He said protecting the Post Office brand was the priority, rather than supporting sub-postmasters. Mr Henderson added that former Post Office boss Paula Vennells tried to steer investigators away from looking into potential miscarriages of justice.
Between 1999 and 2015 the Post Office prosecuted hundreds of sub-postmasters for offences such as theft and fraud on the basis of faulty accounting data from the Horizon IT system. In 2012, under pressure from MPs, the Post Office commissioned a report from Second Sight to look into claims from sub-postmasters that Horizon had been to blame for shortfalls in their accounts, rather than criminality.
Mr Henderson and his colleague Ron Warmington began investigating various cases but were sacked by the Post Office in March 2015. In a statement to the inquiry into the scandal, Mr Henderson said that rather than being interested in getting to the truth of what happened, the Post Office had tried to obstruct Second Sight’s efforts.
“Requests for documents were either ignored or responses were excessively delayed,” he wrote. “Unjustified claims of legal professional privilege were used to justify withholding documents from us.
As part of the probe, Second Sight asked for documents relating to prosecution cases to be collated. Mr Henderson said that “within days” of being provided with the available documents in late October 2012, “we realised that we may be looking at a significant number of miscarriages of justice.
Source: BBC
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