Horizon IT inquiry: Alan Bates says 'atrocious' Post Office is 'beyond saving'

Alan Bates, who led 555 sub-postmasters to take the Post Office to the High Court over the Horizon IT scandal, became a household name when his fight for justice was told in an ITV drama, ITV News UK Editor Paul Brand reports

Words by Westminster Producer, Elisa Menendez

Prominent campaigner and former sub-postmaster Alan Bates has called the Post Office an "atrocious organisation" that's "beyond saving" and will be the "bugbear" of government for years to come, in his evidence to the Horizon IT inquiry.

Speaking from the witness box, Mr Bates accused the organisation of attempting to "discredit and silence" him for more than two decades and “definitely trying to outspend us” as part of its “aggressive” tactics at the High Court.

But he insisted his campaign for justice for himself and his fellow sub-postmasters was “something you couldn’t put down” after seeing the "harm that had been descended upon them".

Mr Bates - whose story recently became the subject of ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office - also took aim at the government’s “fundamental flaw” of being unable to deal with issues such as the Horizon scandal “easily and sensibly”.

The campaigner said the mediation scheme set up to address the scandal was part of a “cover-up” and a “fishing expedition” to discover what evidence sub-postmasters had about Horizon.

The inquiry heard how Mr Bates - who said he flagged issues with Fujitsu's faulty Horizon system for years - was eventually sacked because the Post Office considered him "unmanageable".

Though Mr Bates was only a sub-postmaster for five years, he told the inquiry he has spent 23 years campaigning for justice and to "expose the truth" not only for himself but for all his wronged colleagues.

"I didn't set out to spend 20 years doing this. I hadn't expected to be doing this so much by myself. It got more and more complex," he told the inquiry.

“I have dedicated this period of my life to this cause which, sadly, has been necessary since Post Office Limited has spent this entire period denying, lying, defending, and attempting to discredit and silence me and the group of SPMs that the Justice For Subpostmasters Alliance (JFSA) represents," he added in a witness statement.

As Mr Bates gave evidence to the inquiry, former Post Office boss Paula Vennells was today accused of misleading the government after ITV News obtained a letter from March 2015, which shows she claimed there was no evidence sub-postmasters had been wrongfully convicted.

This was despite the Post Office being told in 2014 by the law firm it had itself hired to review prosecutions that it found problems in at least 26 cases.

A Post Office spokesperson said: “We are deeply sorry for the hurt and suffering caused to victims and their loved ones and remain fully focused on getting to the truth of what happened and supporting the statutory Public Inquiry, which commenced Phases 5 and 6 of evidence gathering today, to achieve this.”

As Mr Bates continued to give evidence, a petition demanding compensation for people affected by the Horizon IT scandal grew and has now garnered almost 600,000 signatures.

Following the airing of ITV drama, the Post Office has been under the spotlight for the scandal which saw more than 700 sub-postmasters prosecuted and is now recognised as one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in UK legal history.

The sub-postmasters were handed criminal convictions - with some jailed - between 1999 and 2015 after glitches in Fujitsu’s Horizon system made it appear as though money was missing at sub-postmasters' branches, when in fact it was not.

Mr Bates and team flagged Horizon issues to Post Office helpline 85 times

Mr Bates said he was initially "quite positive" when the Horizon IT system was introduced by the Post Office believing the new technology could be beneficial to sub-postmasters' jobs.

“But I found it a bit frustrating once the system was installed and we were operating, I found there were many shortcomings in the system," he told the inquiry.

It was heard how he contacted the helpline seven times on December 13, 2000.

One of those calls was an hour in length. Mr Bates claimed the Post Office was "not really" of any assistance.

"The impression I got was that they [Post Office] couldn't access the system any further than I could at that time," he said.

Up until Mr Bates was sacked in November 2003, it was heard that he and his assistants made 507 calls to the Post Office helpline, of which 85 related to Horizon and balancing problems.

When Post Office CEO Nick Read was pressed by ITV News' Paul Brand about whether his predecessors lied about what they knew about the Horizon IT issues, he replied: 'I'm not going to go into the specifics of what my predecessors did'

Post Office claimed Mr Bates was sacked because he became 'unmanageable'

The inquiry heard Mr Bates received a letter terminating his employment as a sub-postmaster in 2003 with no reason given for his dismissal.

It came after he refused to accept liability for shortfalls in the accounts at his branch in Llandudno, North Wales.

Slides were shown from an undated presentation about Horizon integrity prepared by a former Post Office manager, which claimed Mr Bates “clearly struggled with accounting” but said he'd become "unmanageable".

The presentation, created by the organisation’s former managing director of branch accounting Dave Smith, read: “Bates had discrepancies but was dismissed because he became unmanageable. Clearly struggled with accounting, and despite copious support, did not follow instructions.”

Mr Bates said he was unaware the reason for his dismissal was being "unmanageable", adding that he did not struggle with accounting, and laughed when it was asked if he received "copious support".

An internal review of Mr Bates’s dismissal concluded he was “unsuitable” for the job and said: “The decision to terminate was not only right – it was the only sensible option.”

Mr Bates claimed the Post Office fired him because “they didn’t like me standing up to them”.

“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," he said.

Post Office tried to 'outspend' sub-postmasters at High Court, he says

Counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC questioned Mr Bates on what he believed the Post Office’s litigation strategy was during the case, after the judge at the time warned against “aggressive” tactics.

Mr Bates said: “They were definitely trying to outspend us – we had to raise commercial funding from it, they had a bottomless pocket as such, being a government organisation.

“So anything they could do to spin it out, anything they could do to recuse the judge or whatever, they did.

“Anything to cost us money and try and get us to stop the case.”

When asked for his thoughts on the culture of the Post Office, the former sub-postmaster told the inquiry in front of Post Office chief executive Nick Read: “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.”

'Government needs to be held responsible' for 'pumping money' into Post Office

Mr Bates said the government needs to be held “responsible” for its part in the Horizon scandal after “pumping huge amounts of money” into the Post Office.

He was particularly critical of Sir Ed Davey after the former postal affairs minister refused a meeting with him in 2010 and claimed he'd allowed the Post Office to be “asset stripped by little more than thugs in suits”.

Mr Bates told the inquiry he took offence to a letter from the then-postal affairs minister after he claimed the government adopted an “arm’s length” relationship with the Post Office despite being its sole shareholder.

This prompted the campaigner to respond with another letter which read: “It’s not that you can’t get involved or cannot investigate the matter, after all you do own 100% of the shares and normally shareholders are concerned about the morality of the business they own.

“It is because you have adopted an arm’s-length relationship that you have allowed a once great institution to be asset stripped by little more than thugs in suits, and you have enabled them to carry on with impunity regardless of the human misery and suffering they inflict.”

A Liberal Democrat spokesman said Sir Ed was “lied to” and was “sorry that he didn’t see through the Post Office’s lies, and that it took him five months to meet Mr Bates”.

"Alan Bates is a hero for all he has done to represent sub-postmasters through this horrific miscarriage of justice," he added.

Next steps in the inquiry

The inquiry has now entered into the significant phases five and six, which will look at governance, redress and how the Post Office and others responded.

It opened on Tuesday morning with the lead counsel describing the Post Office’s “sub-optimal” and “highly disruptive” disclosure failings.

Mr Bates' evidence was delayed this morning by the revelation that the organisation had disclosed a staggering 73,720 documents to the inquiry since February.

Jason Beer KC told the inquiry that despite this they are committed to pressing ahead with hearings, adding: “The alternative – further delay, to allow the Post Office to get its disclosure house in order – is not one which is acceptable.”

Former chief executive Paula Vennells, who led the Post Office at the height of the scandal, will face the inquiry in late May.

Ms Vennells, who led Post Office Ltd between 2012 and 2019, has come under fire over why hundreds of sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted for fraud and false accounting under her watch.

Ms Vennells, who joined the Post Office in 2007, handed back her CBE for services to the Post Office and to charity, after the screening of ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office and ensuing public anger.

She said she would “support and focus on co-operating with the inquiry”, adding: “I have so far maintained my silence as I considered it inappropriate to comment publicly while the inquiry remains ongoing and before I have provided my oral evidence".

Last month, ITV News exclusively revealed a secret recording of a meeting in 2013 attended by Vennells in which she was made aware of allegations that Sub-postmaster branch accounts could be accessed remotely.

This is something the Post Office had denied for years as hundreds of Sub-postmasters were convicted.

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