Image source, Post Office Horizon IT research
- Author, Tom Espiner
- Role, BBC business reporter
- Reporting from Post Office Horizon IT research
-
Former Post Office chairman Tim Parker has denied deliberately hiding a key report he commissioned into the Horizon IT system from members of the Post Office’s board.
The 2016 report, written by Jonathan Swift, a former top lawyer at the Treasury, raised concerns about the accounting software, which was later found to be flawed.
Incorrect data from Horizon led to the wrongful conviction of 700 postmasters for theft and fraud between 1999 and 2015.
On Wednesday, an investigation into the scandal revealed that only four copies of the Swift report had been made. None of these copies were shared with Post Office management or the government.
Mr Parker said he acted on advice from lawyers for the Post Office not to share the document.
“It’s one of my regrets that I got that advice and followed it,” he said. “Could we have shared it? I wish we had, in some way.
“I had this report drawn up and wanted to get a certain result out of it, but then I got this advice.”
All postmaster convictions have now been overturned, but many people have gone to prison or lost their businesses.
The Swift report was commissioned by the government following a BBC Panorama programme in 2015, which raised concerns about the strength of the evidence against convicted criminals.
While the letter was partly positive about the Post Office, it also raised significant concerns about whether the Post Office had sufficient evidence to file charges of theft.
It also raised doubts about claims that Horizon data could not be remotely modified by Fujitsu, the company that developed the software.
This turned out not to be true and may have deprived the postmasters of an important line of defense in their lawsuits.
Mr Parker, who became chairman of the Post Office in October 2015 and held the role until September 2022, told the inquiry that Jane MacLeod, the Post Office’s chief lawyer, had advised him not to share the Swift report because it was legally confidential.
This meant that it had the same confidential status as communications between a lawyer and a client.
Mr Parker said he had been told that breaching this rule could result in the report being made public and that it should remain within the Post Office’s “close-knit” legal team.
‘I had no interest in protecting the post office’
When challenged by the inquiry’s chief lawyer, Jason Beer, Mr Parker admitted that he had prevented the council from discussing the report’s findings.
However, he said he was confident the Post Office’s legal team would “adopt” the report’s recommendations and denied he had hidden the recommendations for improper reasons.
“What motive would I have had at the time to hide this report from my fellow board members, other than being advised not to share it?” he said.
“Remember, I had no ulterior motive in this, I had no interest in protecting the post office.”
He continued: “In retrospect, of course, it seems that there were motives underlying some of the advice or direction given here which were not entirely fair or just or in the best interests of the people who would be wronged.
“But then it seemed to me that the people who were giving me advice… were doing so in good faith and that it was the right thing to do.”
During later questioning, defense attorney Sam Stein said Parker had worked “part-time” as chairman and that his decisions were “half-baked.”
Mr. Parker initially worked one and a half days a week at the post office, but later this was increased to half a day a week.
But Mr. Parker rejected Mr. Stein’s characterization, saying: “I don’t accept that. I’ve given the Post Office plenty of time and attention. I’m sorry.”
Following the Swift review, accounting firm Deloitte was commissioned in February 2016 to investigate Horizon transactions dating back to 1999.
But this investigation was dropped in June 2016 after postmasters led by campaigner Sir Alan Bates took legal action against the Post Office.
Mr Parker acknowledged that if the report had not been secret, the Post Office might have taken a different approach to the High Court case, which it lost at a cost of more than £100m.
But he also said that at that point a judge might be needed to resolve all the issues.