Campaigner Alan Bates said the Post Office is an “atrocious organisation” and “needs disbanding” during his appearance at the public inquiry into the Horizon scandal.
The former sub-postmaster, who has spent more than 20 years fighting to uncover the biggest miscarriage of justice in British legal history, also spoke about the lack of interest from Government ministers and attempts by the Post Office to cover up the scandal.
The inquiry, chaired by Sir Wyn Williams, is now in its fifth phase and will also hear from key witnesses including former chief executive of Royal Mail Adam Crozier and former CEO Paula Vennells.
Here are six things we learned from the evidence given by Mr Bates on Tuesday:
Ed Davey declined to meet Alan Bates in 2010
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey wrote a letter declining to meet with Mr Bates back in 2010.
Mr Davey was the newly appointed Post Office minister in the Coalition Government when Mr Bates wrote to him outlining how sub-postmasters were suffering as a result of the Horizon scandal and asked for a face-to-face meeting.
He received a short reply from Mr Davey declining the invitiation on the grounds that the government had an “arms-length relationship” with the Post Office and could not “interfere” with its commercial business, despite being the sole shareholder.
In his witness statement shared at the public inquiry on Tuesday, Mr Bates said he found the letter “disappointing and offensive”.
A meeting between Mr Davey and Mr Bates eventually went ahead five months later, but Mr Bates said he did not recall anything useful coming of it.
Civil servants briefed Davey not to comment on Horizon
The inquiry saw a briefing note prepared by a civil servant for Mr Davey in which he was advised that the meeting had been agreed for “presentational reasons” because it was believed Channel 4 was preparing to run a TV documentary about the scandal.
Mr Davey was advised to tell Mr Bates that he could not comment in detail because of impending legal proceedings.
Questioned by counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC on why he took offence to Sir Ed’s letter in 2010, the former sub-postmaster said: “It was because of the structure, wasn’t it.
“The Government was the sole shareholder, they were the owners, as such, of all of this.
“How can you run or… take responsibility for an organisation without having some interest in… or trying to be in control?”
Responding to the criticism, a spokesperson for the Lib Dems said: “Alan Bates is a hero for all he has done to represent sub-postmasters through this horrific miscarriage of justice.
“Ed was the first minister to meet with Mr Bates and took his concerns to the Post Office and the Federation of Sub-postmasters – Ed, like Mr Bates and so many others, was lied to.
“No one knew the scale of these lies until the whistleblower from Fujitsu revealed the truth several years later.
“Ed has said that he’s sorry that he didn’t see through the Post Office’s lies, and that it took him five months to meet Mr Bates.”
Government was ‘responsible’ for the Post Office
Alan Bates said the Government needs to be held “responsible” for their part in the Horizon scandal after “pumping huge amounts of money” into the Post Office.
He told the inquiry: “Government was pumping huge amounts of money into Post Office year after year so they need to be held responsible.
“They need to be addressed really about the way that they had been going on.
“It was very hard to engage them in it – not nowadays, they’re a bit more interested these days – but at that time, trying to get Government to try and take it on board seriously, it was very hard.”
‘Surprise’ at lack of intervention from Paula Vennells
The inquiry also heard how Mr Bates wrote to former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells in 2013 expressing his surprise that she had not offered to meet following what had been discovered by forensic accountants Second Sight.
In his email to Ms Vennells, Mr Bates said: “Bearing in mind what has been discovered so far, I for one am surprised that we haven’t yet met to discuss the implications.
“Whilst I appreciate that the majority of the issues began under previous regimes and you have expressed a genuine willingness to address the concerns that the JSFA [Justice for Sub-postmasters Alliance] has been raising, these issues are still continuing.
“I have little doubt that it is now feasible to show that many of the prosecutions that the Post Office have pressed home should never have taken place.”
Post Office ‘after me one way or another’
Earlier, Mr Bates told the inquiry that he believes the Post Office terminated his contract as a sub-postmaster because “they didn’t like me standing up to them”.
The Post Office IT Inquiry heard that Mr Bates received a letter terminating his employment in 2003 in which no reason for his dismissal was given.
Mr Bates, when asked what he understood to be the reason for the termination, said: “Basically, I think it was because a) they didn’t like me standing up to them in the first instance; b) they were finding it awkward; and c) I don’t think they could answer these questions and they had a feeling I was going to carry on in a similar vein going forward.”
When asked how he felt upon receiving the letter terminating his contract, Mr Bates chuckled and replied: “I was annoyed with them, to put it mildly, but I think it was partly pretty obvious they were determined to – they were after me one way or another, and the build-up of correspondence over the period was certainly pointing in that direction.”
In his witness statement to the inquiry, Mr Bates said the Post Office had spent the entirety of the 23 years he has been campaigning “denying, lying, defending, and attempting to discredit and silence me”.
He said: “Prior to and since my termination from the branch, I have spent the last 23 years campaigning to expose the truth, and justice, not just for myself, but for the entire group of wrongly treated/wrongly convicted sub-postmasters.”
A Post Office spokesperson said: “Post Office is deeply sorry for the hurt and suffering that has been caused to victims and their loved ones, and we are committed to ensuring that they receive the justice and redress that they so deserve, with offers of more than £179m made to around 2,800 Postmasters to date. We are dedicated to ensuring the wrongs of the past cannot be repeated, and we are working to enable the inquiry to get to the truth of what happened.”
Post Office ‘beyond saving’
Alan Bates called the Post Office an “atrocious organisation” that is “beyond saving” and should be sold to Amazon.
When asked for his thoughts on the culture of the Post Office, the former sub-postmaster told the inquiry: “It’s an atrocious organisation.
“They need disbanding. It needs removing. It needs building up again from the ground floor.
“The whole of the postal service nowadays – it’s a dead duck. It’s beyond saving.
“It needs to be sold to someone like Amazon. It needs a real big injection of money and I only think that can happen coming in from the outside.
“Otherwise it’s going to be a bugbear for the government for the years to come.”
