Justice versus conscience

A former senior Post Office executive gave “false” evidence to the high court about the ability of the Horizon IT system to be accessed remotely, a public inquiry has heard.

Angela van den Bogerd, who was business improvement director at the postal company, was asked about testimony she gave in 2018 in a lawsuit brought by the former branch operator Alan Bates and 554 others suing the Post Office over their persecution and prosecution because of the Horizon system.

The public inquiry was shown a “slew of emails” sent to Van den Bogerd in December 2010, 2011 and 2014 that referred to the fact that Horizon could be accessed remotely and branch accounts tampered with by Fujitsu, the Japanese company that developed the IT system.

Jason Beer KC, counsel to the inquiry, put it to Van den Bogerd that she had made a “false” statement when she told the high court she had only been aware of remote access to the IT system “a year or so” beforehand..

Beer said: “You’re telling the [high] court the first time you knew of the possibility of inserting transactions was in the last year … That was false wasn’t it?”

“At the time I didn’t think it was … The message on remote access kept changing,” she replied, adding that she could not remember seeing the 2010 email. In her witness statement, Van den Bogerd said she was not aware of remote access until after 2011.

She was also asked at the inquiry about a January 2011 meeting with Rachpal Athwal, a Dorset branch operator who had been sacked by the Post Office and wrongly accused of stealing £710 that had gone missing from her accounts, according to the IT system. A transcript of the meeting showed Van den Bogerd told those present that no one from the Post Office could remotely access or tamper with the branch accounts.

“In the light of the email you received a month before … what you said there wasn’t true was it?” Beer said.

“Post Office can’t … that is what I said there,” Van den Bogerd said, adding: “What I said there was correct.”

Beer replied: “No one in the Post Office can do this but Fujitsu can – that would be the open and transparent thing to say wouldn’t it?”

Van den Bogerd, who is giving evidence across two days, began by saying she was “truly sorry” for the suffering of the branch operators. She later said she “did not knowingly do anything wrong”.

The Post Office, which is owned by the UK government, pursued hundreds of branch operators for more than a decade, alleging financial shortfalls in their accounts and prosecuting them. It has since emerged the shortfalls were probably caused by bugs within the Horizon system.

The high court case found Horizon was unreliable and it paved the way for victims of the scandal to have their criminal convictions quashed.

Bates has been at the forefront of the campaign for justice, which was dramatised in the ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office.

The public inquiry is examining the scandal, which has been described by MPs as the biggest miscarriage of justice in British legal history.

The hearing continues.

Former Post Office executive gave ‘false’ evidence at high court, inquiry hears