The Post Office threatened, lied, and tried to intimidate the BBC over a Horizon whistleblower interview, the broadcaster has claimed.
In a bombshell report, the BBC mentioned the under-fire organisation “failed” in its efforts to suppress key proof that later helped to clear wrongly convicted postmasters.
In 2015 Panorama ran testimony from ex-Fujitsu engineer Richard Roll, who mentioned the Horizon pc system might be secretly altered – one thing denied by the Post Office. Before Trouble on the Post Office was aired, the BBC mentioned it was despatched “intimidating letters by Post Office lawyers” on the time.
The BBC, which pressed forward with the programme after a brief delay, claimed the Post Office additionally threatened to sue Panorama and complaints made to senior BBC managers. The report added: “This was just the latest in a long line of lobbying, misinformation and outright lies that had faced a small number of BBC journalists trying to uncover the truth about the Post Office scandal.”
The scandal noticed lots of of subpostmasters handed prison convictions after dodgy IT made it seem as if cash was lacking at their branches. Victims have described their lives being torn aside as they had been shunned by their communities, financially ruined and having their households destroyed.
A Post Office spokesperson advised The Mirror: “We share fully the aims of the Public Inquiry to get to the truth of what went wrong in the past and establish accountability. It’s for the Inquiry to reach its own independent conclusions after consideration of all the evidence on the issues that it is examining.”
At the Public Inquiry into the IT scandal on Friday, a authorized consultant for the Post Office mentioned he understood “profound mistrust in many quarters” after a litany of disclosure failings. In November round 363,000 emails had been discovered on a “legacy” mailing system, leading to witnesses being delayed. Chris Jackson, a accomplice on the regulation agency Burges Salmon, mentioned the Post Office despatched its apologies for the newest delay.
Earlier this week Ms Vennells gave up her CBE after 1.2million folks demanded she be stripped of the award amid rising anger over the Post Office scandal. She mentioned: “I am truly sorry for the devastation caused to the sub-postmasters and their families, whose lives were torn apart by being wrongly accused and wrongly prosecuted as a result of the Horizon system. I now intend to continue to focus on assisting the inquiry and will not make any further public comment until it has concluded.”