PO investigator boasted of £68k he clawed back from suspects
A POST Office investigator who helped to convict two innocent sub-postmasters boasted about the money he retrieved from the flawed probe.
Robert Daily was part of the team that led to the prosecution of Peter Holmes and William Quarm, who died before their convictions were overturned.
Yet Mr Daily told his managers in 2014 that he’d recovered more than £68,000 in a year from suspects.
In a performance review the same year, he said he was “taking all steps” to claw back cash, as investigators were given tough targets.
Yesterday he refused to accept any personal responsibility for what happened to Mr Holmes, saying: “I was only doing my job.”
Newcastle sub-postmaster Mr Holmes, who died in 2015, was handed a community order and a curfew and Mr Quarm, who had a branch in North Uist, was sentenced to 150 hours unpaid work following their convictions.
Asked at the Horizon IT inquiry what he would say to Mr Holmes if he were alive, Mr Daily said: “From what I have heard last week in the select committee from Fujitsu and from the evidence given I’d have been pleased he’d have been cleared from any wrongdoing because throughout all of this we were told that the Horizon system was robust. It was wrong, we shouldn’t have been doing any investigations whatsoever.” A lawyer representing widow Marian Holmes, other subpostmasters and their relatives has said his clients “just don’t believe” Mr Daily’s claim that he had never heard of Horizon issues before interviewing Mr Holmes in 2008.
Yesterday the inquiry heard the Post Office raised “loss recovery” targets of 40% for investigators in 2009 to 65% by 2013. Ensuring a “robust approach to fraud recovery loss” was also assessed as part of performance reviews.
Postal minister Kevin Hollinrake was asked what more could be done to provide compensation for wrongly convicted sub-postmasters.
Meanwhile, the boss who said the Horizon computer system was as secure as Fort Knox is reported to be Duncan Tait, the chief executive of Fujitsu UK between 2011-14. He made the comment to Paula Vennells, his Post Office counterpart.