Post Office chief was warned cases made little sense

THE chairman of the mediation scheme for people who believed they had been wrongly prosecuted by the Post Office repeatedly told CEO Paula Vennells that cases against subpostmasters “didn’t make sense”, an inquiry has heard.

Giving evidence to the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry via videolink on Wednesday, former judge Sir Anthony Hooper said it did not make sense that “reputable” subpostmasters “would be stealing these sums of money”.

He told the probe: “I made that point over and over again.”

Sir Anthony chaired the working group that ran the mediation scheme and consisted of members of the Post Office, Justice For Subpostmasters Alliance and forensic accountants from the firm Second Sight.

The inquiry heard an official from the Department for Business suggested the government and the

Post Office could “capitalise” on Sir Anthony’s “waning” faith in forensic investigators who found faults in the Horizon system.

Richard Callard, of the Shareholder Executive in the Business Department, said in an email in March 2014 that Ms Vennells was “a bit worried about forcing the point too much” following Sir Anthony’s criticism of “substandard” reports by Second Sight.

The email read: “Apparently chair Tony Hooper has send (sic) the Second Sight reports back to them to be re-written – he considered them to be substandard and unsubstantiated (not sure of precise words but the sentiment was certainly there).

“And Tony Hooper has also decided to give Second Sight his idea of what the general framework paper should cover, so clearly his faith in Second Sight is waning.

“Whilst we could capitalise on this, Paula is a bit worried of forcing the point too much (ie we should let him draw his own conclusions, he might start to rebel if he feels he is being pushed in that direction).”

Addressing what he had told Ms Vennells about cases against subpostmasters, Sir Anthony said: “As I say in my witness statement, I tried to make it clear to Paula Vennells and to the chairman that the Post Office case didn’t make sense, and I felt that throughout and, no doubt, Second Sight did.

“It didn’t make sense that reputable subpostmasters, appointed by the Post Office after an examination of their characters, would be stealing these sums of money.”

Sir Anthony said he made this point to former Post Office chief executive Ms Vennells and then-chairwoman Alice Perkins on multiple occasions.

Sir Anthony said he wanted four prosecutions of subpostmasters that had been planned by the Post Office to be dropped in January 2014.

He said: “As I remember, there were about four cases which had gone past the charge stage and were to go to trial, and I was obviously concerned, not really in my position as chairman, but simply as someone who wanted to make sure there were no wrongful convictions.”