Alan Cook… So how DID he get away with it?

The man who tried to promote LV to non-public fairness vultures has been thrust again into the highlight by the Post Office scandal.

Alan Cook was managing director of the Post Office between 2006 and 2010 when the non-public prosecution of a whole lot of harmless postmasters over a glitch within the Horizon IT system started.

He oversaw 161 prosecutions for alleged theft that noticed 141 individuals convicted and 57 imprisoned.

He went on to be chairman of Highways England the place he had a task in adjusting the design of controversial sensible motorways, together with reducing the variety of life-saving refuge areas.

Cook then took over as chairman of LV and tried to promote the 179-year-old mutual insurer to US purchaser Bain Capital for £530m earlier than his deal was rejected by the group’s 1.2m members after a profitable Daily Mail marketing campaign.

Members of the mutual stated they have been ‘dismayed and bewildered’ that Cook was allowed to go a monetary establishment after his involvement on the Post Office.

Alan Cook (pictured) was managing director of the Post Office between 2006 and 2010 when the non-public prosecution of a whole lot of harmless postmasters over a glitch within the Horizon IT system started

He oversaw 161 prosecutions for alleged theft that noticed 141 individuals convicted and 57 imprisoned

Despite the controversies, he has escaped public glare in regard to the Post Office scandal, with a lot of the fury being directed at former chief government Paula Vennells. MPs and victims now need Cook to be held to account for his position within the ‘greatest miscarriage of justice’ in British historical past.

The postmasters scandal noticed greater than 700 harmless individuals convicted – 263 of them jailed – and threw a whole lot extra into chapter 11 and monetary wreck.

Last evening, former sub-postmaster and victims campaigner Chris Trousdale stated: ‘We need everybody, from the highest to the underside, to be held accountable. People preserve asking if this sort of factor might occur once more.

‘If individuals like Cook preserve being given senior positions in huge corporations, then in fact it might. The public must be very involved most of these individuals are nonetheless working main establishments.’

Gareth Thomas, shadow minister for worldwide commerce, stated: ‘It is completely time that he’s held to account.’ Cook, who lives in a £1m home close to Milton Keynes, was appointed managing director of the Post Office by then chief government Adam Crozier who was impressed by Cook’s turnaround at National Savings and Investments, the place he had been chief government since 2002.

Crozier wished him to ‘clean up’ the Post Office. By the time Cook had retired 161 postmasters had been prosecuted, with 141 convicted and 57 imprisoned. He defended the Horizon pc system in a letter to MP Brooks Newmark in 2009 when questions have been raised about its reliability.

When he left in 2010 Crozier praised him for his ‘incredible contribution’ to the Post Office.

Cook is presently a board member at Milton Keynes College.

In 2021, a spokesman for LV stated that Cook had ‘deep sympathy for these postmasters wrongly prosecuted’.