Post Office scandal: Phase four’s rogues’ gallery

The rogues and their evidence

Jarnail Singh, former head of criminal law at the Post Office

Jarnail Singh worked in the Post Office’s criminal law team as a senior lawyer during a period when hundreds of subpostmasters were prosecuted for financial crimes based on evidence from the Horizon IT system. His name is widely known in the public inquiry, appearing in many documents throughout.

He was not even a qualified criminal lawyer and ran a private practice alongside his job at the Post Office, where he had risen to the top because he was the only person left after the organisation outsourced much of the work.

During the previous phase of the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry, which looked at the operation of the Horizon system, evidence emerged that in 2012, Singh made celebratory comments to colleagues in an email following the successful prosecution of former subpostmaster Seema Misra, who was sent to prison after being found guilty of theft due to unexplained accounting shortfalls in her branch, despite there being no evidence against her.

He also said the victory would deter other subpostmasters from jumping on the “Horizon bashing bandwagon”. At the time, Computer Weekly’s first investigation of the Horizon system had spread the word that multiple subpostmasters were experiencing difficulties balancing their accounts with the system.

• Read Computer Weekly’s report on Singh’s evidence in phase four
• Watch Jarnail Singh’s evidence in phase four of the inquiry

John Scott, former head of security at the Post Office

John Scott was head of security at the Post Office and was named by the Post Office during the 2021 Court of Appeal hearing as the person who in 2013 instructed staff to shred documents that undermined the Post Office’s insistence that its computer system was robust, amid claims that errors in the system caused unexplained accounting shortfalls. During the public inquiry, Scott "categorically" denied the allegation.

One witness in phase four of the inquiry, David Pardoe, a former security executive, said he remembered “with some clarity” Scott assuring the security team that Horizon was reliable. He said former policeman Scott drilled home “persistent sentiment” that Horizon was “fit for purpose” and that he was never in discussions about halting prosecutions because “it was clear there was a fear that doing that would immediately cast doubt” on previous prosecutions.

• Watch John Scott’s evidence in phase four of the inquiry

Mandy Talbot, former Post Office lawyer

Described by Sam Stein KC as the “Post Office’s very own evil robot”, Mandy Talbot epitomised the institutional amnesia among the witnesses during this phase. In 2006, the former Post Office lawyer was at the centre of a legal battle designed to silence subpostmaster Lee Castleton when he raised questions about the robustness of Horizon.

She was repeatedly asked by barristers in an inquiry hearing to name people who had given direction on the strategy, but again and again, she said the direction had come from “Post Office Limited” and failed to remember a single individual involved in the strategy.

Talbot had also been involved in an earlier dispute, which saw another subpostmaster, at a branch in Cleveleys, Lancashire, challenge the reliability of Horizon. This case ended in an out-of-court settlement and the subpostmaster signing a confidentiality agreement. The Post Office denied the computer system was unfit for its purpose, but a report jointly commissioned by both parties in the run-up to the court hearing raised significant questions about the system.

In his report, expert witness Jason Coyne, then of Best Practice Group, said most calls made by the subpostmaster to the helpdesk were “without doubt” related to system failures, either hardware, software or interfaces, and only 13 of the calls he looked at “could or should” have been considered as the subpostmaster requesting help or guidance.

But during a phase four hearing, Talbot, a trained lawyer, said she did not think evidence about computer problems in Coyne’s report was relevant in Castleton’s case about alleged problems with Horizon, and the Post Office’s denial of them, claiming she thought Cleveleys was an “isolated case”.

• Read Computer Weekly’s full report on Mandy Talbot’s evidence
• Watch Mandy Talbot’s evidence in phase four of the inquiry

Graham Ward, former Post Office investigator

Graham Ward, who currently works for the Metropolitan Police, was a senior investigator at the Post office. Phase four of the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry revealed that he suggested altering a Fujitsu engineer’s witness statement to prove computer errors were not to blame for subpostmasters’ shortfalls.

The inquiry was shown evidence that Ward suggested Fujitsu’s Gareth Jenkins, who was acting as an expert witness in a case against a subpostmaster, should change his witness statement to remove the reference to a “system failure”. This was in relation to the prosecution of subpostmaster Noel Thomas in 2006, at a time subpostmasters were challenging the system’s integrity. In the email to Fujitsu staff, Ward wrote: “Given the allegations made by the postmasters, I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s very much in ourselves and Fujitsu’s interest to challenge the allegations and provide evidence that the system is not to blame for the losses provided.”

Thomas was sentenced to 12 weeks in prison, where he spent his 60th birthday. His wrongful dismissal conviction was overturned in 2021. He was one of the first seven subpostmasters interviewed by Computer Weekly in its 2009 investigation.

• Watch Graham Ward’s evidence in phase four of the inquiry

Gary Thomas, former Post Office investigator

In 2015, the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) began examining claims from former subpostmasters that they had been wrongfully prosecuted by the Post Office and convicted of financial crimes. Faced with CCRC investigation, Post Office executives requested documentation from those who had investigated the prosecuted subpostmasters.

That same month, following one such request, former Post Office investigator Gary Thomas told fellow investigator Graham Ward, who he referred to as his old Gunners mate, that he was “pleased” to say he had the electronic documents relating to two cases he had worked on.

When asked why he was pleased, he replied: “Because I want to prove that there is no FFFFiiinnn [sic] ‘Case for the Justice of Thieving Subpostmasters’ and that we were the best investigators they ever had and they were all crooks!!” The email included a derogatory reference to the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance (JFSA), a group of former subpostmaster campaigners who proved in the High Court in 2019 that the Horizon system was flawed.

• Read Computer Weekly’s report about Gary Thomas’s evidence
• Watch Gary Thomas’s evidence in phase four of the inquiry

Helen Rose, former Post Office auditor

Former Post Office auditor Helen Rose was involved in a legal battle with former subpostmaster Lee Castleton, who was made bankrupt after challenging the Post Office in court after it blamed him for unexplained accounting shortfalls. Rose produced a witness statement in court that differed from her original audit report.

During the latest hearing in the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry, Rose was questioned about her reports. It emerged there was an audit of Castleton’s branch in 2004 for which Rose wrote a report, but when she produced a witness statement in 2006, it only used information that supported the Post Office’s case. The Post Office auditor omitted details that were in the audit report of Castleton’s branch, which supported his claims that shortfalls were caused by computer evidence and retained details that went against him.

In the 2004 audit report, Rose wrote that Castleton was “very pleased” to see the auditors and had told her he had been in regular contact with his Post Office area manager about his concerns. He believed issues stemmed from computer errors and that none of his staff had committed theft, she wrote. This detail would have supported Castleton’s case when in court, but Rose omitted it from her witness statement, which was written two years later, and also included details suggesting he had been drinking alcohol while the audit was being carried out, which was not in the original audit report.

• Read Computer Weekly’s report about how Helen Rose changed her story for witness statement used to destroy subpostmasters
• Watch Helen Rose’s evidence in phase four of the inquiry

Rob Wilson, former head of criminal law at Royal Mail

In 2010, Rob Wilson, former head of the criminal law team at Royal Mail, warned Post Office executives of the risks associated with a plan to launch an independent inquiry into the Horizon system, amid questions over its robustness.

They ended up carrying out a one-sided internal investigation and produced a whitewash report, which only reported Horizon’s advantages.

Wilson was responsible for subpostmaster prosecutions, many of which were based on evidence from the Horizon system. But he was originally left out of the email chain regarding setting up a Horizon investigation. On being included in the 2010 email chain, Wilson reacted to the planned investigation into Horizon by stating that if there were integrity issues, an investigation was not only needed, but imperative. But he then gave a long list of reasons why the Post Office shouldn’t do it.

During a phase four hearing, inquiry barrister Jason Beer KC put it to Wilson that while his first sentence supported an investigation, his response was actually a list of reasons not to do the proposed investigation: “The rest of [the email] is a but, isn’t it?”

Wilson admitted in the inquiry that his response should have only stated the need and importance of an investigation, but in fact the email described, at length, the risks to the Post Office of investigating the Horizon system.

In his email to Post Office executives, he warned that subpostmasters would use an investigation into the Horizon system to challenge the Post Office if there were shortages in their branches, writing: “The only way they are left to challenge our evidence when they have stolen the money is to blame Horizon.” Wilson justified this line because he was angry when he wrote it and went “over the top”.

• Read Computer Weekly’s report on Wilson’s evidence
• Watch Rob Wilson’s evidence in phase four of the inquiry

Elaine Cottam, former retail line manager at the Post Office

Elaine Cottam, former retail line manager at the Post Office, told the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry that despite having signed a witness statement to be used in court, she has no recollection of writing it. The witness statement was to be used in court by the Post Office in a legal dispute with one of the 100-plus branches she oversaw in her role.

During Cottam’s evidence in phase four of the public inquiry, it emerged that her witness statement contained an attachment of call logs of requests for support made by the subpostmaster at the branch in question. But although the witness statement said attachments contained call logs from 10 January 2000 until 30 November 2000, the call logs attached were only from 9 February to 21 June. This meant logs of helpdesk calls, some of which were made by Cottam on the subpostmaster’s behalf, which had evidence that the subpostmaster was experiencing Horizon problems, were missing. Cottam said she didn’t remember any of the witness statement and would not understand the call logs.

When inquiry barrister Jason Beer KC asked Cottam if she thought somebody wrote the witness statement for her and she signed it, she said: “If it’s about contracts and things like that, they would have drafted it for me, definitely.”

During the hearing, Cottam denied any knowledge of the case at all and told the inquiry: “I didn’t know there was a civil court [case]. The first I knew that there’d been a court case was when I got this bundle of documents.”

It also emerged that, despite being responsible for supporting more than 100 Post Office branches, she had no experience of the Horizon system. She also said she didn’t understand why she was giving evidence at the inquiry.

• Read Computer Weekly’s report on Elaine Cottam’s evidence
• Watch Elaine Cottam’s evidence in phase four of the inquiry

David Posnett, former Post Office investigator

Former Post Office investigator David Posnett and colleagues were given bonuses based on a performance score, which was partly calculated based on how much money was recovered from subpostmasters in deficit.

Posnett told phase four of the inquiry that all financial investigators had bonuses that were linked to recovering money, as did those in the Post Office security department responsible for investigating subpostmasters who had unexplained shortfalls, which often led to prosecutions.

While the Post Office was prepared to pay staff bonuses to recover money and, according to Posnett, allow a department not seen as a profit generator to contribute to the company’s bottom line, it was reluctant, due to costs, to request underlying Horizon data during investigations of subpostmasters who claimed losses were caused by the system. This information, known as audit record query (ARQ) data, could have proved the subpostmasters were not to blame for the losses, but the Post Office was reluctant to use it because it had a limit on how many requests it could make for free before Fujitsu charged.

Posnett agreed that the Post Office was reluctant to request ARQ data because it would incur a cost and that the Post Office would limit the scope of requests to save money. “If the limit was reached, we would have to pay extra. We paid for services as part of the contract, and if we went over that we got charged extra,” he said.

Posnett could not remember the amount, but when asked by counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC whether it was seen as a sum of a level that acted as a “disincentive” to seek ARQ data beyond the limit, he said this was possible.

• Read Computer Weekly’s report on David Posnett’s evidence
• Watch David Posnett’s evidence in phase four of the inquiry

Alan Lusher, former Post Office auditor and contracts advisor

During phase four of the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry, former Post Office auditor and contracts advisor Alan Lusher revealed the preconceived notion of auditors and investigators when they visited branches with shortfalls.

He said when problems arose in branches, the first presumption was that the subpostmasters accounts were in a mess, which could be caused by a subpostmaster stealing money. “We referred colloquially to office accounts sometimes being in a muddle and sometimes as a result of a fiddle,” he told the public inquiry.

This confirmed previous details that Post Office staff had preconceived and derogatory views of the people who ran Post Office branches. During an earlier phase of the public inquiry, Jeremy Folkes, former senior tech lead at the Post Office, said investigators were so convinced that subpostmasters were cooking the books that they failed to investigate alleged IT problems.

Lusher’s evidence also revealed that the Post Office was only concerned about its own business and not the businesses or welfare of its subpostmasters. During the inquiry hearing, it emerged that when shortfalls were found that could not be explained at branches, the Post Office was more likely to suspend subpostmasters in small branches than those at large branches with high revenue streams.

• Read Computer Weekly’s report on Alan Lusher’s evidence
• Watch Alan Lusher’s evidence in phase four of the inquiry 

Susanne Helliwell, external solicitor acting for the Post Office

During questioning in phase four of the public inquiry, Susanne Helliwell, a solicitor acting for the Post Office in the earlier Cleveleys case, admitted that the Post Office was eager to prevent publicity of the dispute and not set a precedent that could see other subpostmasters challenge the system when they suffered losses.

An email from a Fujitsu worker to a colleague in June 2004 gave an account of a conversation he had with Mandy Talbot at the Post Office, with a trial date in the Cleveleys case set. “The Post Office are still taking advice as to how best to deal with this and [Mandy Talbot’s] view/belief was that the safest way to manage this is to throw money at it and to get a confidentiality agreement signed,” he wrote, adding that the Post Office was determined to keep evidence of Horizon problems secret. “[Mandy] is not happy with the ‘expert’s’ report as she considers it to be not well balanced and wants, if possible, to keep it out of the public domain. This is unlikely to happen if it goes to court.”

Helliwell was asked whether the suppression of Coyne’s report was a “cover-up”. She said: “It wasn’t a matter of covering up because [the subostmaster] could have told anybody about the findings of the report.” But the subpostmaster at the Cleveleys branch was made to sign a non-disclosure agreement when a settlement was agreed.

• Read Computer Weekly’s report on Susanne Helliwell’s evidence
• Watch Susanne Helliwell’s evidence in phase four of the inquiry

John Breedon, former Post Office contract manager

John Breedon, a former Post Office contract manager, told phase four of the public inquiry that the terms of the contract he was pushing on subpostmasters was not something he would “personally want to sign”.

He said the “obligations were all on the subpostmaster” and that it “put them on the hook for doing everything”.

Jason Beer KC, barrister to the public inquiry, asked Breeden why this view was not expressed in his 16-page written evidence. He said he didn’t know but admitted, when prompted, that it was “perhaps” because he wasn’t asked directly.

A key part of the Horizon scandal was that the contract contained a clause that stated: “The subpostmaster is responsible for all losses caused through his negligence, carelessness or error and also for all losses caused by his assistants. Deficiencies due to such losses must be made good without delay.”

Unless they could prove there was some other cause, such as a bug in the Horizon system, they would have to pay.

• Read Computer Weekly’s report on John Breedon’s evidence
• Watch John Breedon’s evidence in phase four of the inquiry

Chrisopher Knight, current member of the Post Office security team

Christopher Knight, who joined the government-owned organisation in 1983, remains part of the Post Office’s security team.

In his 40 years at the organisation, the one-time Post Office investigator has lived through Horizon’s complete life, but in his witness statement to the inquiry he claimed that during his time in the security team, he did not recall “a subpostmaster, subpostmaster assistant or Crown Office employee attributing a shortfall to problems with Horizon” before the group litigation order (GLO).

He said: “I do not recall being aware of any robust challenges to Horizon, other than the GLO.”

This stance was obliterated during his questioning, with the inquiry shown several documents that confirm Knight knew about subpostmaster challenges to Horizon when he was a Post Office investigator. He was shown a spreadsheet from 2011, which he had access to, that contained details of at least 20 cases where subpostmasters under investigation were raising issues with Horizon.

Knight was asked whether he accepted that at the time this email was sent he was aware that there were at least 20 cases where Horizon integrity had come into question. He said: “I would have to say yes, but I don’t know if at the time I comprehended that.”

• Read Computer Weekly’s report on Christopher Knight’s evidence
• Watch Christopher Knight’s evidence in phase four of the inquiry