Forensic accountants sacked by Post Office for ‘getting too close to the truth’

'Paula Vennells frequently and consistently attempted to steer us away from investigating potential miscarriages of justice.'

A forensic accountant who was called in by the Post Office to investigate the Horizon software thinks he was fired because he was ‘getting too close to the truth’.

Ian Henderson is one of two independent forensic accountants from Second Sight hired by the Post Office (POL) to review cases involving the Horizon software in 2012.

They were both sacked in 2015 after an interim report spotted two bugs which caused problems for 76 branches.

Speaking at the Horizon IT inquiry, Mr Henderson claimed that ex-Post Office chief Paula Vennells ‘frequently and consistently’ tried to steer him away from investigating potential miscarriages of justice.

He felt like he was ‘dealing with a cover-up, and possibly a criminal conspiracy’, and that POL was ‘constantly sabotaging our efforts to seek the truth irrespective of the consequences’.

Ms Vennells had also told him POL was ‘the nation’s most trusted brand’, with Mr Henderson believing the company felt it was ‘above the law’.

In his witness statement to the inquiry, he explained: ‘By February 2015, I no longer had confidence that POL was taking our concerns seriously or dealing with them in an appropriate manner.

‘I felt we were dealing with a cover-up by POL and possibly a criminal conspiracy.

‘I was concerned about the various threats that had been made to me by POL concerning alleged breaches of my NDA and my duties of confidentiality.

‘Accordingly, I had to find a way of communicating my concerns, but which limited the risk of a legal action against me, or Second Sight, by POL.

‘The most likely threats appeared to be an action for defamation, breach of confidence or breach of contract.’

Mr Henderson was heavily critical of POL in his witness statement, claiming their priority was ‘protecting the brand’ and ‘not supporting sub-postmasters’.

He continued: ‘My work for POL and the (mediation) Scheme was probably the most challenging in the 40 years of my career as a chartered accountant.

‘One of the reasons it was challenging was that POL would say one thing in public, and then do something different in private.

‘An example of this was Paula Vennells’ statement to the Parliamentary Select Committee in February 2015, that our work had found “no evidence of miscarriages of justice” and “it was important that we surface any miscarriages of justice”.

‘Paula Vennells frequently and consistently attempted to steer Second Sight away from investigating potential miscarriages of justice.’

‘When I first met Paula Vennells, she told me that POL was the nation’s most trusted brand with a history of over 400 years.

‘As our work continued, I increasingly formed the view that because of this history, POL somehow felt it was above the law.

‘I formed the view that POL was constantly sabotaging our efforts to seek the truth irrespective of the consequences.

‘Requests for documents were either ignored or responses were excessively delayed.

‘Unjustified claims of legal professional privilege were used to justify withholding documents from us.’

Concluding his witness statement, Mr Henderson repeated his view that the conduct of POL was ‘probably criminal’.

He said: ‘We tried to go where the evidence took us, but increasingly we were finding evidence of questionable conduct by POL, some of which, in my opinion, was probably criminal.

‘In the course of our work, I increasingly felt that our overriding duty was, in a phrase attributed to Alan Bates, to help “the skint little people” who didn’t have a voice and had been so badly treated by POL.’

More than 700 subpostmasters were prosecuted by POL and handed criminal convictions between 1999 and 2015 as Fujitsu’s faulty Horizon IT system made it appear as though money was missing at their branches.

Hundreds of subpostmasters are still awaiting compensation despite the government announcing that those who have had convictions quashed are eligible for £600,000 payouts.

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