Crozier needs to account for Post Office scandal
Former head of Royal Mail, the parent of the disgraced PO at the time, can no longer remain silent
It is years since the appalling truth about the Post Office submasters scandal began to emerge. Yet it is hardly a surprise that questions still continue to be asked about what is now confirmed as one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British history. An ongoing public inquiry led by Sir Wyn Williams is now the focus of the inquisition.
Nor is it unusual, given the scale of the cover-up that allowed hundreds of innocent Post Office employees to be wrongfully convicted of fraud over a period of more than two decades, that some continue to see conspiracies. The premiere this week of ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office has prompted viewers to ask about the omission of former Royal Mail chief Adam Crozier from the four-part drama.
After all, the Post Office was part of Royal Mail during his time in charge so was he left out because he went on to become the channel’s boss? He was also a director of ITV Studios, which produced the series.
“Adam Crozier is conspicuous by his absence from Mr Bates vs The Post Office. ITV censorship?” asked one viewer on social media.
ITV was quick to reject any suggestions of subterfuge. “Mr Bates vs The Post Office tells the story of the Post Office scandal from the perspective of a select group who formed the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance, led by Alan Bates. Alan’s campaign for justice only began to make headway when Paula Vennells was promoted to chief executive, so that’s the relationship we dramatise,” the channel protested.
Nevertheless, it’s right to wonder how Crozier has managed to avoid the spotlight in relation to the scandal. The widespread criticism of Vennells is perfectly justified. She was in charge of the Post Office from 2012 to 2019 – part of the period in which more than 700 sub-postmasters were prosecuted for theft, fraud and false accounting on the basis of flawed data from its disastrous Horizon computer system. And it was during this spell that the truth came to light largely as a result of Bates’s brave campaigning.
Postal minister Kevin Hollinrake has said Vennells “ultimately [had] responsibility for what happened” for the simple reason that she was in charge, which is undeniable. Calls, including from Bates, for Vennells to surrender her CBE seem fair too given the immense suffering caused.
The idea that someone who oversaw such a disgraceful episode could retain such an honour is absurd. Some people wrongfully went to prison. Many others lost their homes and life savings trying to repay money wrongly thought missing. Four people took their own lives and as many as 60 died before they could get justice.
Yet, Hollinrake’s assessment is also a somewhat selective view of events given that the prosecutions pre-date her reign by many years, and there is a risk that in the clamour for someone to take the fall that the role of other senior executives is overlooked.
Surely Crozier should face the same scrutiny? He may not have been a director of the Post Office, nor the person who implemented the doomed Horizon programme, but he was chief executive of Royal Mail between 2003 and 2010 when the Post Office was still a part of Royal Mail. He may claim he was focused on turning around the parent and left matters such as the hounding of innocent sub-postmasters to underlings. If so, let’s hear it.
True, the spree of unjust private prosecutions was well under way when Crozier arrived. In the same way that Vennells was responsible for the prosecutions that took place on her watch, doesn’t the same apply to Crozier? Hollinrake himself has stated that the resultant public inquiry “should identify who is responsible”, so why has there been so little, if any, focus on Crozier’s role? Vennells, albeit under immense pressure, has at least had the good grace to apologise – and repeatedly too. “I remain truly sorry for the suffering caused to wrongly prosecuted sub-postmasters and their families,” she said last summer.
Crozier has managed to remain silent on the matter, a position helped in no small part by the fact that the inquiry has not thus far called him to give evidence. Even former employees who have had to testify have pointed out the glaring discrepancy, with one telling the inquiry last year: “He should be here answering questions.”
Crozier’s failure to come forward is particularly untenable for someone who has forged a reputation as the FTSE’S “Mr Fix-it” despite the fact that it didn’t take long for things to go backwards at Royal Mail, ITV and Asos, once he’d departed. Perhaps he has his head down again given the long list of problems and languishing share price that continue to plague BT, where he has been chairman since 2021. Or is it
‘There are still serious questions about the conduct of top executives during this bleak period’
his strange aversion to the publicity that goes with high-profile jobs that has stopped him speaking out? The Scot told The Guardian in 2007: “I will go to enormous lengths not to do public things – it is just not me.”
Contacted for this column, BT says it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to comment because of the ongoing inquiry, which is a cop out of enormous proportions. With Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey claiming this week that he was “deeply misled” by Post Office bosses on the Horizon scandal while serving as the postal affairs minister between 2010 and 2012, immediately after Crozier’s departure, there are still serious questions about the conduct of senior executives during this bleak period.
Friends of Crozier add that he stands ready to help the inquiry in any way he can, as and when requested.
It is time one of Britain’s leading business figures and chairman of two FTSE 100 companies made himself publicly accountable for his role in the Post Office scandal. The first words out of his mouth should be an apology to its victims.