Post Office boss admits fats cats might have gotten cash taken from scandal victims

Money wrongfully taken from victims of the Post Office scandal might have gone into the pay packets of the organisation’s executives.

Campaigners are calling for former boss Paula Vennells handy again the £2.2million she was paid in bonuses throughout her time in cost. Former Post Office employees’ lives have been torn aside by the Horizon IT scandal which led to some declaring chapter or remortgaging their houses.

Nick Read, who’s the Post Office’s present chief govt, was grilled by MPs on the wrongful convictions of a whole lot of subpostmasters. Pressed by the Labour MP Ian Lavery on whether or not cash taken from department managers may have been a part of “hefty numeration packages for executives”, Mr Read stated it was “difficult to say”. But pressed once more, he stated: “It’s possible, absolutely it’s possible.” He additionally promised to “get to the bottom of exactly what happened”.

It got here because the boss of Fujitsu admitted the agency has a “moral obligation” to pay compensation to sub-postmasters whose lives have been ruined by its defective IT system. Europe Director Paul Patterson stated the Japanese agency was conscious of “bugs and errors” in its Horizon programme from “an early stage” and admitted it supplied proof to the Post Office which led to workers being wrongly prosecuted.

Appearing earlier than the Commons Business and Trade Committee on Tuesday, he stated Fujitsu was “truly sorry” to greater than 900 postmasters and their households who have been wrongly pursued for theft and fraud because of the flawed IT system it developed. “We were involved from the very start. We did have bugs and errors in the system. And we did help the Post Office in their prosecutions of sub-postmasters. For that we are truly sorry,” he stated.

In a serious growth, Mr Patterson stated the agency would contribute to the large compensation invoice for Post Office workers who have been wrongly accused of theft and fraud as a result of its IT system. He stated: “I think there is a moral obligation for the company to contribute… absolutely we have a part to play and to contribute to the redress, I think is the words that Mr Bates used, the redress fund for the subpostmasters”.

The Government has already put aside £1billion of taxpayers’ money to permit the Post Office to fund payouts – however Tory Minister Kevin Hollinrake advised MPs on Tuesday he anticipated the invoice to rise additional.

In a bumper proof session, Mr Patterson additionally stated his “gut feel” was workers at Fujitsu knew of errors within the Horizon system earlier than 2010 – and insisted the Post Office was advised.

He could not say when the glitches have been found, telling MPs: “I can’t answer a month or a year. There were known bugs and errors in the system at a very early stage. I know there were bugs and errors when it was rolled out; in large IT projects there will always be some bugs and errors, particularly of this scale. The important thing is what do we do with that information. Did we share that information with the Post Office? Yes, we did.”

It comes because the impartial Post Office Inquiry heard that Fujitsu software program developer, Gerald Barnes, recorded issues over “duplicate transactions” not being faraway from Post Office digital level of sale service (EPOSS) machines, and the potential for it to affect “a number of high-profile court cases”. In 2008, Mr Barnes described the dearth of resilience to errors of the EPOSS machines, which have been run by the Horizon system, as “endemic”.

Fujitsu’s world boss Takahito Tokita additionally apologised when approached by the BBC on the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. In his first public feedback on the scandal, he stated: “This is a big issue, which Fujitsu takes very seriously.” Asked if he needed to apologise, he added: ” “Yes, after all. Fujitsu has apologised for the affect on the postmasters’ lives and their households.”

Fujitsu has been awarded nearly 200 public sector contracts since 2012, worth a combined total of £6.8 billion, according to analysts Tussell. These include IT services for Government departments, including the Police National Computer, which stores criminal records, the Government’s flood warning system, and the national emergency alerts system launched last year.

The Mirror previously revealed the Japanese tech giant had been awarded a £1million contract to provide computer services for HS2. The Government has said Fujitsu may be forced to stump up cash to contribute towards the compensation for Post Office victims, but it is refusing to prevent it bidding for contracts until a public inquiry into the scandal has concluded. The probe led by retired High Court judge Sir Wyn Williams was established in September 2020.

Downing Street said it wouldn’t prejudge the work of the Inquiry. The PM’s spokesman said: “We agree that those that are discovered to be accountable have to be held accountable, whether or not that is legally or financially. “We can’t prejudge the work of the inquiry. Part of that is establishing what went wrong and things like culpability, but obviously, we will act accordingly based on the findings of that independent inquiry,” they stated.

Meanwhile, Post Office Chief Executive Mr Read additionally blamed a “culture of denial” for the organisation’s sluggish progress in paying compensation to harmless postmasters. Asked by MPs whether or not he believed the Post Office prosecuted the harmless regardless of figuring out the system was flawed, he stated: “I sincerely hope not. But I have not had evidence to that effect.”

Challenged over why the Post Office fought makes an attempt to get compensation for harmless postmasters for therefore lengthy, he stated: “A culture of denial. I can only assume that that is the case. It’s a lack of understanding and perhaps a lack of curiosity of what is really going on.”

Committee chairman Liam Byrne stated he was “fairly shocked” by Mr Read’s failure to supply proof about key points comparable to when the organisation first knew that distant entry to the IT system was doable – one thing it repeatedly denied.

Campaign hero Alan Bates stated victims have been “suffering” and “dying” whereas they waited for payouts. The 69-year-old, who turned a family title by way of the ITV drama ‘ Mr Bates vs the Post Office ‘, stated his personal compensation course of had been delayed. “I think it was 53 days before they asked three very simple questions. It’s madness, the whole thing is madness,” he stated.

“There is no reason at all why full financial redress shouldn’t have been delivered by now. It’s gone on for far too long. People are suffering, they’re dying. It just seems to be tied up in bureaucracy.”

Jo Hamilton, who was wrongfully convicted in 2008 of stealing 1000’s of kilos, stated the method of getting compensation was “painfully slow”. She added: “It’s almost like you’re a criminal all over again – you’ve got to justify everything. It’s almost like you are being retried because everything you say you’d like, they say, ‘justify that’. It just goes on, and on, and on. Everything has to be backed up with paperwork – it’s just nonsense.”