The Post Office is investigating allegations that a senior executive instructed staff to destroy or conceal documents that could be of interest to the Post Office scandal public inquiry.
The sixth witness statement of company secretary Rachel Scarrabelotti includes detail of the whistleblowing matter being dealt with by the Post Office. She wrote that the issue was included in an update to the Post Office board last week.
Under the heading: “Speak Up matter regarding destroying or concealing material,” Scarrabelotti’s statement reads: “It involved allegations that a senior Post Office member of staff had instructed their team to destroy or conceal material of possible interest to the inquiry, and that the same individual had engaged in inappropriate behaviour.”
She stated that she “understands that this is being dealt with appropriately given its serious nature.”
The Post Office employee in question has been suspended. Her statement continued: “I further understand that the POL [Post Office Limited] board has been updated periodically on developments with this Speak Up matter, most recently in the briefing document that went to the POL board in August 2024.”
“Speak Up” is an internal Post Office programme for staff to confidentially provide whistleblower information.
The shocking revelation echoes evidence from appeals against wrongful convictions in 2021. During the Court of Appeal trials it was revealed that a senior Post Office executive instructed employees to shred documents that undermined an insistence that its Horizon computer system was robust, amid claims that errors in the system caused unexplained accounting shortfalls.
During the Court of Appeal hearing, lawyers representing former subpostmasters appealing to have wrongful prosecutions quashed, referred to advice given to the Post Office in 2013 by Simon Clarke, a barrister advising the Post Office at the time.
In a note to the Post Office, written in 2013, referring to a conference set up to act as “the primary repository for all Horizon-related issues,” Clarke wrote: “The minutes of a previous conference call had been typed and emailed to a number of persons. An instruction was then given that those emails and minutes should be, and have been, destroyed: the word ‘shredded’ was conveyed to me.”
The head of the inquiry, former judge Wyn Williams, has on more than one occasion reprimanded the Post Office over failures to disclose information pertinent to the inquiry.
A Post Office spokesperson said:
Scarrabelotti’s witness statement also revealed there have been allegations that senior contractors in the Post Office’s Remediation Unit slowed the pace of the handling of compensation claims in order to extend their contracts. She wrote that an investigation had been completed and no evidence was found to support the allegations.
According to her witness statement: “An external law firm was engaged to conduct an investigation and the Investigation Oversight Group (an executive/leadership team level group) is maintaining visibility. I understand that there has been no evidence to date which would support the concerns raised and that a draft report was expected circa 29 July 2024.”
The Post Office scandal was first exposed by Computer Weekly in 2009, revealing the stories of seven subpostmasters and the problems they suffered due to Horizon accounting software, which led to the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history (see below timeline of Computer Weekly articles about the scandal since 2009).
• Also read: What you need to know about the Horizon scandal •
• Also watch: ITV’s documentary – Mr Bates vs The Post Office: The real story •
• Also read: Post Office and Fujitsu malevolence and incompetence means huge taxpayers’ bill •
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