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00:00It's been called the biggest miscarriage of justice in British history.
00:11Eventually I became bankrupt, the bank repossessed the premises, and I lost everything.
00:18A public inquiry has spent years trying to get to the truth.
00:23I actually attempted suicide, but somebody saved me.
00:28Did you tell the truth this time?
00:30So who's really to blame for the post office scandal?
00:34Do you apologise to see my misery in person, Mr Jenkins? Would you like to meet her?
00:39It would have been a different story, you know, like it would have told the truth.
00:42It would have been like a free woman, we would have enjoyed the pregnancy, we would have a happy life.
00:47We investigate some of those accused of hiding the truth.
00:51I find the whole lot of them absolutely despicable.
00:54And we ask, who could face prosecution?
01:01How do they sleep with knowing what they've done?
01:06Aldwych House in central London.
01:23Home to the post office inquiry.
01:25We've all heard the appalling stories.
01:31Postmasters unfairly jailed, lives destroyed.
01:37A suspended sentence of imprisonment for 32 weeks.
01:40That's correct, yes.
01:41When they said the 32 weeks in prison, and there was a gap, I could just hear my wife scream.
01:50Their reputations were ruined by Horizon, the faulty computer system that could make money disappear from post office branch accounts.
02:07Nearly a thousand people were prosecuted over missing cash.
02:10First time in court, not even parking fine before, it was a new experience for me.
02:22Nine month custodial sentence, and I was waiting for him to say suspended, but he didn't, and I heard the gate lock.
02:32Taken from there into prison, where I was strip searched, given a uniform.
02:37The public inquiry was set up to investigate the Horizon scandal.
02:46Postmasters hope it will answer a simple question.
02:50Who was to blame?
02:53We've been through the evidence in detail.
02:56It suggests senior people were responsible for the miscarriages of justice and the cover-up that followed.
03:02We're going to look at some of those who face criticism at the inquiry.
03:08The post office had a security team that was responsible for investigating allegations of missing money.
03:34John Scott was in charge when hundreds of the prosecutions took place.
03:40His team has been accused of pressuring postmasters to confess.
03:46Their objective wasn't to get to the truth.
03:48It was to get an admission and get the money back.
03:52That was their objective.
03:54That is a completely improper objective.
03:58Ron Warmington's forensic accounting firm was brought in by the post office in 2012 to investigate Horizon.
04:09Obvious that the people that I was interviewing were innocent, good people.
04:14What we actually found was that not one case was there any evidence of theft.
04:19Not one.
04:20No evidence of fancy cars, boats, fancy holidays.
04:24Security boss John Scott was told to set up a team looking at faults and bugs in Horizon.
04:35The post office should have shared the minutes of their meetings with postmasters who'd been convicted.
04:42But they weren't disclosed.
04:47Documents show John Scott asked for the minutes to be handwritten, not typed, and forwarded to him.
04:54I ensured that there were notes taken.
04:57Handwritten notes?
05:00Handwritten notes or whatever notes.
05:02No, handwritten notes. That's what you ensured, isn't it?
05:04Yes.
05:05An electronic note leaves a footprint, doesn't it?
05:08Yes.
05:09That's why you don't want electronic notes created, isn't it?
05:12But notes were created.
05:14Notes were maintained.
05:15I'm asking you about why you wanted handwritten notes, not electronic notes.
05:20Because that's the brief I had.
05:22It's because they are less likely to be found and disclosed, isn't it?
05:30John Scott was clearly a man who just saw his role as round them up, lock them up.
05:38That seems to be how he ran his team and that seems to be how most of the investigators working for him operated.
05:46You weren't innocent and proven guilty. You were guilty until you could prove you were innocent.
05:50Treated people. Treated people like dirt.
05:56Just constantly. Where's the money? Where's the money?
05:58Mr. Scott's lawyers told Panorama he had extremely limited operational responsibility.
06:08He told the inquiry his role was primarily one of management
06:11and he was not involved in carrying out or overseeing criminal investigations on a day-to-day basis.
06:19He said he had limited knowledge of the mechanics of an investigation.
06:23Alice Perkins, were you at the centre of a cover-up?
06:34Former civil servant Alice Perkins became chair of the post office board in 2011.
06:39And within days, she'd been warned there were serious problems with Horizon.
06:50Her own handwritten notes of that meeting say,
06:53Horizon is a real risk for us.
06:55Does it capture data accurately?
06:58And in cases of fraud, suspects suggest it's a systems problem.
07:03It was a clear warning, but Alice Perkins didn't act.
07:13There's no record of you having told the board?
07:17No.
07:18In fact, you didn't do anything with the information that he gave you?
07:24I don't accept that.
07:26Did you disclose this information to anyone else at the post office?
07:29I can't answer that question because I don't remember.
07:36She told the inquiry the meeting didn't ring alarm bells
07:39because she knew nothing about Horizon
07:41and she was new to the job and taking on a lot of information.
07:49So, if that was 2011,
07:52that's the year before I lost my post office,
07:56none of that needed to happen.
07:59And they knew.
08:03They deserve all they get.
08:09Over the next four years,
08:12the evidence about Horizon's failings mounted up.
08:15But the evidence suggests Alice Perkins tried to keep it secret.
08:20Instead of getting to the bottom of the problems with Horizon,
08:24Alice Perkins did the opposite.
08:26Take a crucial panorama programme from 2015.
08:32It revealed how Fujitsu computer technicians could go into Horizon accounts
08:37and make changes without the postmasters knowing.
08:40The post office denied that this sort of remote access was possible.
08:46We went in through the back door and made changes.
08:51Sometimes you'd be putting several lines of code in at a time.
08:56If we hadn't done that, then the counters would have stopped working.
09:00So, what the post office are saying is untrue?
09:05From my perspective, yes.
09:10Remote access fundamentally undermined the post office's claim
09:15that postmasters must be responsible for any missing money.
09:18It showed that their accounts could be secretly altered.
09:25How significant was that panorama in the whole post office story?
09:29Well, I think it's that Fujitsu whistleblower, hats off to him
09:34because he really cracked things open
09:36and it was only in 2015 that I saw the panorama programme
09:52that I realised that that is what could have happened at my office as well.
09:56The post office tried to stop the programme going out.
10:09At the time, Alice Perkins was also on the board of the BBC.
10:15She used her inside knowledge to advise the post office
10:18how to take their objections about panorama to the very top.
10:22Experience shows that pushing back does pay dividends in the end,
10:30even though it does not feel like it at the time.
10:33So, I would take this as high as you can go.
10:38Did the post office go nuclear with panorama?
10:42The post office was strong with panorama.
10:45I wouldn't use the word nuclear.
10:47Alice Perkins should have known the post office
10:53was making false statements about remote access.
10:58She'd been sent a briefing a year earlier explaining how it worked.
11:04This briefing says IT people can access Postmaster's accounts
11:09without their approval.
11:11They can edit and delete transactions.
11:14So they can make money disappear
11:17and it would look like Postmaster's were to blame.
11:22Cover up, cover up, cover up.
11:24Makes me angry.
11:27You know, if only she had acted on the information that she'd been told.
11:30We wouldn't be sitting here today.
11:32She should have made inquiries.
11:35She should have let it be known that the system is wrong
11:39and start all over again if needed to be.
11:43How do they sleep with knowing what they've done?
11:50Lawyers for Alice Perkins told Panorama she was not an IT expert.
11:55She told the inquiry she did not recollect receiving
11:58or reading the briefing about remote access
12:00and that briefings by senior executives
12:03were, at critical points, incomplete and sometimes misleading.
12:07She said she never engaged in any form of cover up.
12:17Was this a cover up, Mr Parker?
12:20When businessman Tim Parker took over as post office chair,
12:24the panorama had just been broadcast.
12:27The government wanted the allegations investigated.
12:32Within months, an independent review confirmed
12:36remote access was possible.
12:39I think there were some issues
12:42that definitely needed addressing pretty, yeah,
12:47pretty urgently.
12:48The review ordered by the government
12:52told the post office to investigate remote access
12:55since Horizon was set up in 1999.
12:59But Tim Parker allowed the recommendation to be watered down
13:03and a full investigation never took place.
13:08Had Tim Parker reviewed it back to 1999,
13:11what difference would it have made to sub-postmasters?
13:14Well, some of them would have been alive
13:15to see the right outcome.
13:18Some would have not lived in penury.
13:21A lot of harm, as it was done to a lot of sub-postmasters,
13:26families, children,
13:29grandparents that died
13:31not seeing their children cleared.
13:41Tim Parker told the inquiry
13:43he'd been committed to following the review's recommendations,
13:46but they were re-scoped
13:48after he received strong legal advice.
13:53Is it a defence to say,
13:55well, my lawyer said,
13:57so I did it,
13:58or should you be making your own choices?
14:00You always have to make your own choice.
14:02You know, you're the chairman of a massive company.
14:05You have to decide, ultimately,
14:07it's your decision.
14:08It's the director's legal duty to know.
14:13That is very clear from law.
14:14Who is responsible?
14:16The directors are responsible.
14:18Advisors advise.
14:20Directors decide.
14:21Tim Parker also ran the committee
14:26that oversaw the legal fight
14:27with postmasters in the civil courts.
14:31The post office's defence
14:32was that it was basically impossible
14:34to remotely change transactions
14:36without postmasters knowing.
14:38After the post office admitted it was possible,
14:44the postmasters won their case,
14:47opening the way for criminal convictions
14:49to be overturned.
14:53I think there was a sustained conspiracy
14:55to pervert the course of justice,
14:57and the post office had the resources behind it.
15:00They spent a hundred and odd million pounds
15:03trying to defeat them
15:05just by outspending them.
15:07Do you believe the court was misled?
15:09I think they were misled, yeah.
15:13Mr Parker's lawyers told Panorama
15:15his committee was only consulted
15:17on the most significant decisions,
15:19and he didn't think he'd seen
15:20the post office's defence.
15:23Mr Parker said he gave detailed explanations
15:26to the inquiry.
15:28There were complex legal issues around Horizon,
15:31and it was his considered judgment
15:33to accept the legal advice he was given.
15:37He regrets the board failed to resolve the issues earlier,
15:41and reiterates his sympathy for all those affected.
15:45The evidence I shall give...
15:47That the evidence I shall give...
15:48Shall be the truth...
15:49Shall be the truth...
15:50The whole truth...
15:51The whole truth...
15:52And nothing but the truth...
15:53And nothing but the truth...
15:54And nothing but the truth.
15:54Lawyer Andrew Parsons was hired by the post office
16:03to deal with allegations from postmasters about Horizon.
16:13Year after year, he advised them
16:15not to disclose problems with the system.
16:18This is what he said in 2013,
16:21when the post office was planning to admit
16:24it had mixed up different postmasters' accounts.
16:28In my view, this is a dangerous admission.
16:32I don't think we ever want to expressly document this.
16:35It's so unbelievable.
16:47Integrity of that there.
16:52I don't know.
16:53I don't even know what to say to that.
16:54I'm disgusted.
16:56Absolutely disgusted at that.
16:57In 2016, Mr. Parsons went further.
17:07He advised the post office
17:08to withhold an important document from postmasters.
17:13The guidelines used by the security team
17:16on how to investigate suspected theft by postmasters.
17:21For now, we'll do what we can
17:24to avoid disclosure of these guidelines
17:25and try to do so in a way that looks legitimate.
17:31However, we are ultimately withholding a key document.
17:37This document about the investigations guidelines
17:39could have been helpful to some postmasters, right?
17:42Yeah.
17:43So it's not just a question of propriety here, is it?
17:46You're really doing some harm to some people.
17:48Yeah, you're withholding evidence
17:49which will help your opponent's case.
17:51They should be disclosing those documents promptly.
17:53And what they say is we're going to resist disclosure.
17:56We don't have any grounds.
17:58We'll do that until we get found out.
18:00That's improper.
18:03Mr. Parsons told the inquiry
18:04his advice was very poorly worded
18:07and he regretted sending it.
18:11His spokesperson told Panorama
18:13he'd always acted on his client's instructions
18:16and in accordance with his professional obligations.
18:19He fully supported the inquiry
18:21and addressed matters comprehensively in his evidence.
18:24Will you apologise to seem a misery in person, Mr. Jenkins?
18:34Would you like to meet her?
18:35Gareth Jenkins worked at Fujitsu
18:37and was the IT expert in several of the prosecutions.
18:41It was his evidence that led to some wrongful convictions.
18:45He repeatedly told the courts
18:51that Horizon was robust
18:53even though he knew there were errors and bugs.
18:58The prosecutions, especially for theft
19:02were wholly reliant on the Horizon data
19:05to establish that anything had gone missing.
19:08It was the theft charges that were 100% reliant
19:11on the reliability and accuracy of Horizon.
19:17Gareth Jenkins also misled the courts
19:20about remote access.
19:22In this witness statement,
19:24he said there were no cases
19:26where external systems could manipulate branch accounts
19:29without the users in the branch
19:31being aware and authorising the transactions.
19:34He made it sound like remote access wasn't possible
19:38without postmasters knowing.
19:41A computer system that couldn't do remote access.
19:45Is that a normal computer system?
19:47Of course they can access it remotely.
19:49They have to fix things.
19:51So when they were saying it wasn't possible,
19:54we sort of thought, that's a load of rubbish.
19:59At the inquiry,
20:01Gareth Jenkins made a surprising admission.
20:04He had always known remote access was possible
20:07without postmasters knowing.
20:09When did you discover that this could be done?
20:14I always knew it could be done,
20:15but I didn't realise it was being done until 2018.
20:18OK, so you always realised that it could be done?
20:22Yes.
20:23Right from the year 2000?
20:25Yes.
20:28So Gareth Jenkins gave the court the impression
20:31remote access wasn't possible
20:33when he knew it was.
20:34It was at Seema Misra's trial in 2010
20:56that he gave the misleading statement.
20:58She was pregnant when she was sent to prison.
21:04It would have been a different story, you know,
21:05like it would have told the truth.
21:07It would have been, I would have been like a free woman,
21:09we would have enjoyed the pregnancy,
21:10we would have happy life,
21:12we would have been fine.
21:13We would have been fine.
21:15It was heartbreaking.
21:16It was heartbreaking.
21:19He had each and everything in his control.
21:23Could have stopped my trial,
21:25could have stopped sending me to prison.
21:28But I decided not to do so.
21:34Gareth Jenkins told the inquiry
21:36he'd made a genuine error in his witness statement.
21:39He said his description of Horizon as robust
21:42didn't mean it was infallible.
21:48Mr Jenkins' lawyers told Panorama
21:50he'd given hundreds of pages of evidence to the inquiry
21:53and it would not be right to comment on the same matters
21:57that the inquiry is still considering.
22:07Did you tell the truth this time?
22:08Tell the truth!
22:09There's one person many blame for the cover-up.
22:14Former chief executive, Paula Venels.
22:20I fully accept now
22:23that the post office...
22:26Excuse me.
22:33I'm incredibly sorry
22:35that that happened to those people
22:37and to so many others.
22:43Her evidence of the public inquiry
22:45has been widely criticised.
22:48I honestly can't remember
22:50what it was at the time.
22:51I can't remember in terms of this particular email.
22:54I simply don't recall.
22:56I don't know whether I did or I didn't.
22:59She said she couldn't remember
23:01or didn't recall
23:02more than a hundred times.
23:04I don't recall that, but if you say so, yes.
23:08I don't recall.
23:10I don't recall.
23:10I can't remember that.
23:12Genuinely, I don't recall.
23:14I don't recall it.
23:16That I can't remember.
23:21I didn't believe anything she said, really.
23:23I just felt it was calculated.
23:27It didn't feel genuine.
23:29It didn't feel heartfelt at all.
23:32How come CEO's not responsible?
23:34In which dictionary,
23:36which organisation says
23:37the CEO's not responsible?
23:40It was all crocodile tears.
23:42There's no acceptance
23:44what they have done wrong knowingly.
23:52Paula Venos denies it,
23:54but the evidence suggests
23:55she was part of the cover-up.
23:58In 2013,
24:00she knew the government
24:01had a top priority.
24:03Royal Mail had been split
24:05from the post office
24:06and was due to be privatised.
24:10It was the biggest privatisation
24:12for a generation.
24:13So, huge public interest,
24:16huge public scrutiny.
24:17And huge money at stake.
24:19Huge money at stake.
24:24By law,
24:25Royal Mail had to publish
24:27all possible risks
24:28in the privatisation prospectus.
24:31But Paula Venos
24:32had any mention of problems with Horizon
24:35removed from the document.
24:38She then sent an email saying,
24:40I have earned my keep on this one.
24:42and listed it
24:43as one of her key achievements
24:45in her appraisal.
24:49People, particularly Paula,
24:51knew full well
24:52that it was a risk.
24:55That's why she was so proud
24:56of getting it removed.
24:58Should it have been removed?
24:59Of course not.
25:03The Horizon risk
25:05was an existential risk.
25:07That sentence was removed
25:08from the prospectus
25:09because people understood
25:11it was potentially dynamite.
25:20Paula Venos also knew
25:23IT expert Gareth Jenkins
25:25was considered
25:26an unsafe witness.
25:28And that could undermine
25:29Postmaster's convictions.
25:31But she kept that secret too.
25:36You had been told
25:38by two people.
25:40Yes.
25:41There's no record
25:41of you telling the board
25:42about that.
25:43No, there isn't.
25:44And
25:45I don't know
25:47at what stage
25:48the board
25:48became aware of it.
25:50She told the inquiry
25:56she didn't understand
25:57how serious
25:58an issue it was
25:59and that she relied
26:00on advice
26:01from others.
26:02It was a similar story
26:03with bugs in Horizon
26:05and remote access.
26:07Paula Venos
26:08was warned
26:09and failed to act.
26:12For seven years,
26:14Paula Venos
26:15ran an organisation
26:16that tried to conceal
26:18the truth.
26:19Evidence that could have
26:20helped Postmasters
26:21clear their names
26:22was hidden away.
26:24And the public,
26:25Parliament
26:25and the courts
26:26were misled.
26:30So could she now
26:31face prosecution?
26:32I think ultimately
26:36you can see signs
26:38that particularly
26:40Paula Venos
26:41and some others
26:42around her
26:43were working in ways
26:44which look suspicious
26:45and that deserves,
26:47I think,
26:47a public trial.
26:50Paula Venos' lawyers
26:52told Panorama
26:52it would be inappropriate
26:54to respond
26:54when the inquiry's
26:55work is ongoing
26:56and that she'd addressed
26:58many of the claims
26:59in her extensive
27:00written and or oral evidence.
27:02The inquiry
27:11will deliver
27:11its final report
27:13later this year.
27:15And the police
27:16have more than
27:17100 officers
27:18investigating
27:19the post office scandal.
27:22But decisions
27:23on who might be charged
27:25are not expected
27:26until next year.
27:28Justice is still
27:30a long way off
27:30and we need
27:32to keep shouting
27:33about it.
27:33We need to keep
27:34telling people
27:35how bad it was.
27:39Postmasters want
27:40to see senior executives
27:42prosecuted.
27:44They say it shouldn't be
27:46one law for them
27:47and another
27:48for the bosses.
27:51A verbal warning
27:52and a slap on the wrist
27:53just doesn't do it.
27:55There must be
27:56there must be
27:56there has to be
27:58a deterrent
28:00and that deterrent
28:02must be strong enough
28:03to make people
28:03not want to do it.
28:05I think
28:06they need to
28:07be held accountable.
28:09They need
28:10to answer
28:12for what they've done
28:14and why they've done it.
28:15So many postmasters
28:20were unfairly prosecuted.
28:23Should some of those
28:24accused of being
28:25responsible
28:26now be in the dock?
28:27On BBC Sounds
28:38the baffling tale
28:39of one of Scotland's
28:40most mysterious
28:41disappearances.
28:42Listen to
28:43Crime Next Door
28:44The Vanishing Cyclist.
28:45Next here on BBC One
28:47the series finale
28:48of Linley.
28:49The Vanishing Cyclist
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