Post office accused ‘not told of bugs in the system’

A TOP lawyer brought in to advise the Post Office has told the Horizon IT inquiry it was “unhappily” the case that convicted or accused subpostmasters were not told about an expert witness withholding information about bugs in the system.

Brian Altman KC said he was not prepared to speculate, but told the probe that leading Horizon engineer Gareth Jenkins had “possibly” committed perjury based on the facts he was aware of when he was instructed in October 2013.

He said of his failure to disclose Mr Jenkins’s knowledge of bugs in the Horizon system to subpostmasters such as Seema Misra: “I just missed it, it’s as simple as that.”

Emails shown to the inquiry on Wednesday from the time prior to Mr Altman being instructed showed the Post Office were keen to employ him because he had “the ear” of the director of public prosecutions (DPP) and the Attorney General (AG) following his stint as first senior Treasury counsel between 2010 and 2013.

Counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC asked: “Did anyone communicate to you, upon instruction or otherwise, that an attraction of having you as counsel would have a political dimension to it – in particular because you have the ear of the DPP or AG’s office?” Mr Altman replied: “Never.” Emails within the Post Office prior to Mr Altman’s instruction suggested it was of “possible attraction politically” having a first senior Treasury counsel on board, and his connections sounded “useful”.

Mr Beer said: “Can you understand what they’re talking about here at all? Your connection, your having the ear of the AG’s office?”

Mr Altman replied: “I can see immediately from that email it was not me who made that representation, but I can see probably it was that that attracted them.”

The counsel to the inquiry continued: “Did you ever use such connections?”

Mr Altman said: “No.”

Mr Beer went on: “Were you ever asked to use such connections?”

The witness responded: “Absolutely not.”

More than 700 subpostmasters were prosecuted by the Government-owned organisation.