Campaigner tells inquiry Post Office is a ‘dead duck’ and ‘needs disbanding’
Lead campaigner and former sub-postmaster Alan Bates has told the Horizon IT inquiry he believed the Post Office was “definitely trying to outspend us” as part of its “aggressive” tactics at the High Court.
Givingevidenceinfrontofpost Officechiefexecutivenickread yesterday, Mr Bates said the organisation “needs disbanding” and called it a “dead duck” that is “beyond saving”.
Mr Bates also took aim at the UK government’s “fundamentalflaw”ofbeingunableto dealwithissuessuchas the Horizon scandal “easilyandsensibly”.
The campaigner said the mediation scheme set up to address the scandal was part of a “cover-up” and a “fishing expedition” to discover what evidence subpostmasters had about Horizon.
The Post Office has come underfiresincethebroadcastof Itvdramamrbatesvsthepost Office,whichputthehorizonit scandal under the spotlight.
More than 700 sub-postmasterswereprosecutedbythegovernment-owned organisation and handed criminal convictions between 1999 and 2015 as Fujitsu’s faulty Horizon system made it appear as though money was missing at their branches.
Mr Bates had his contract terminated by the Post Office in 2003 after refusing to accept liability for shortfalls in the accounts at his branch in Llandudno, North Wales.
The inquiry was shown slides from an undated presentation about Horizon integrity prepared by former Post Office manager Dave Smith, which said Mr Bates was sacked because he was “unmanageable”.
The inquiry also heard an internal review of Mr Bates’s dismissal concluded he was “unsuitable”tobeapostmaster, andsaid:“thedecisiontoterminate was not only right – it was the only sensible option.” Former postal minister Sir Ed Davey also came under fire for a “disappointing and offensive” letter in 2010 in which he declined a meeting and told the campaigner the government had an “arm’s length relationship” with the Post Office despite it being the sole shareholder.
Sir Ed’s words prompted Mr Bates to respond with another letter that read: “It’s not that you can’t get involved or cannot investigate the matter, after all you do own 100 per cent of the shares and normally shareholders are concerned about the morality of the business they own.
“It is because you have adopted an arm’s-length relationship that you have allowed a once great institution to be asset stripped by little more than thugs in suits, and you have enabled them to carry on with impunity regardless of the human misery and suffering they inflict.”
A Liberal Democrat spokesman said Sir Ed was “lied to” andwas“sorrythathedidn’tsee throughthepostoffice’slies,and that it took him five months to meet Mr Bates”.
Mr Bates said the government needed to be held “responsible” for its part in the Horizon scandal after “pumping huge amounts of money” into the Post Office.
The former sub-postmaster also reiterated his thoughts on the Post Office’s culture, saying: “It’s an atrocious organisation. They need disbanding. It needs removing. It needs building up again from the ground floor.”
700
sub-postmasters were prosecuted by
the Post Office