Former Publish Workplace managing director Alan Cook dinner says he assumed the police and DPP have been concerned in prosecutions
Alan Cook dinner mentioned he had not beforehand encountered an organisation that would provoke prosecutions itself, and he describes it as “one among my regrets” that he didn’t “decide up on that earlier”.
He informed the Publish Workplace Horizon IT inquiry:
I had assumed that the police/DPP had been concerned. I shouldn’t have presumed, however I did presume, sadly. After which “it had gone to courtroom” was the expression they used. I had not encountered the notion of an organisation that would make that call by itself. And I suppose I had an excessive amount of assumed information. And while you see the phrases that have been written, I can see why that view nonetheless perpetuated in my thoughts, as a result of it didn’t overtly say “We have now taken the choice to prosecute.”
Chair Wyn Williams interjects, and says:
As I perceive it, it follows from what you’re saying that while you grew to become the managing director, nobody throughout the firm Publish Workplace Ltd thought it essential to inform you “And by the way in which, we prosecute individuals, within the sense that we don’t simply examine them, however we provoke and conduct the prosecution.”
Alan Cook dinner says that’s right.
He’s proven some minutes about courtroom instances from a gathering he didn’t attend however would more than likely have learn on the time. The phrasing nonetheless didn’t, he says, strike him as which means that Publish Workplace Ltd was itself finishing up the prosecutions.
“I’m not blaming others,” he mentioned “It’s my misunderstanding, however I had simply not encountered that sort of scenario.”
Key occasions
Adam Crozier is being requested in regards to the company construction of the Royal Mail and the Publish Workplace, which these week has clearly established was very convuluted.
Whereas that’s taking place, PA Media have produced a fuller transcript of the trade the place Alan Cook dinner was accused of a “straight out lie” earlier.
In his inquiries to Alan Cook dinner, Sam Stein KC, on behalf of quite a lot of subpostmasters, requested: “In your assertion, you say this, ‘to the perfect of my information the Threat and Compliance Committee was not given any info or reporting, nor did I’ve any oversight of the prosecution of subpostmasters. In consequence I didn’t take any steps … to make sure the Publish Workplace was performing in compliance with its authorized obligations. In relation to these prosecutions and civil proceedings towards subpostmasters, I used to be not conscious they have been happening.’
“It’s only a straight out lie, isn’t it Mr Cook dinner?”
The previous Publish Workplace managing director mentioned: “The purpose I used to be attempting to make was in regards to the initiation of prosecutions – I’ve repeatedly acknowledged that there have been instances underneath investigation, and that I used to be conscious there have been instances underneath investigation.”
Stein continued: “Properly to start with you do agree you have been conscious they have been happening and secondly, in your assertion, you’re pretending that you simply weren’t conscious to keep away from the implication which you wanted oversight of the issues.
“Simply merely not true, is it Mr Cook dinner?” The witness replied: “That was not my intention.”
Stein continued: “Then why did you write that in your assertion, Mr Cook dinner?”
Cook dinner mentioned: “Properly I believed it on the time, definitely.”
Jason Beer KC is now going to query Adam Crozier on the Publish Workplace Horizon IT inquiry. Crozier headed Royal Mail when it owned the Publish Workplace between 2003 and 2010. You’ll be able to watch it right here …
The Publish Workplace Horizon IT inquiry is taking a ten minute break to change witnesses, who I’m anticipating to be Adam Crozier. I’m additionally going to take a fast break till they resume.
Wyn Williams is saying that underneath Alan Cook dinner’s watch in 2006 that the Publish Workplace spent £300,000 attempting to recuperate about £25,000 from Lee Castleton. Williams is attempting to get Cook dinner to elucidate the place that cash got here from to pursue the case, and why Cook dinner claimed to not have heard of Castleton.
“They didn’t come to me for approval,” mentioned Cook dinner. Cook dinner says it will have been delegated.
Williams asks “there would have been an individual throughout the Publish Workplace organisation who would have had authority to log off spending the cash with out taking it both to you or to the board.”
Cook dinner says sure, and suggests it will have been Paula Vennels.
Chair Wyn Williams is questioning Alan Cook dinner now on the Publish Workplace Horizon IT inquiry. He says:
You’ll have informed me that in early Could 2009 this chance that there have been quite a lot of instances involving a problem to Horizon got here as a little bit of a bolt out of the blue. And your first response was to instruct Mr McLean to analyze. And you probably did so since you thought extremely of him. However then studying the remainder of that paragraph, it appears to me a minimum of and that is what I need your assist with, that this inquiry simply petered out.
Cook dinner says he can’t keep in mind what the response of the investigation was.
Williams mentioned Cook dinner didn’t go away till eight months later, however this investigation seems to have produced no outcomes. Williams continues:
Forgive me if it sounds crucial, and maybe it’s crucial, that there doesn’t seem like any urgency in your half to get a solution from him in case you enable it eight months to go by.
Cook dinner has given a prolonged reply saying he doesn’t keep in mind a lot and that paperwork being produced “fills within the image for me”. He says “I keep in mind the story, I’ve problem remembering the order and the dates, so I keep in mind moments.”
Alan Cook dinner has been accused of a “straight out lie” in his assertion. He has been accused of pretending not to pay attention to prosecutions to evade duty.
He’s now being requested particularly about one subpostmistress who’s in courtroom who served a jail sentence.
“I didn’t respect what was occurring” says Cook dinner. “Once I had reviews about them and the person who pleaded responsible, then I assumed we should have been in the correct.”
The lawyer is saying it was a deliberate technique, that this girl had remodeled 100 calls to the helpline about balancing faults, after which was prosecuted.
“Are you happy with presiding over that tradition” he’s requested.
There are actually going to be questions for Alan Cook dinner from Sam Stein who represents subpostmasers.
He’s requested in regards to the phrase prosecuting authority and if he knew he was one. “My view of that modified throughout my time,” mentioned Cook dinner.
He’s requested what he thought “the prison regulation workforce” did. Cook dinner says he can not recall the pinnacle of prison regulation Rob Wilson.
He’s proven a doc that claims:
The principal goals of the investigation workforce are to cease prison offences happening, apprehend and prosecute those that commit offences towards us, so as to maximise our restoration and cut back loss to Publish Workplace Ltd and its purchasers by the identification of areas of weak spot
Stein says “it does seem on the face of this doc that you simply’ve bought info that there’s a prison regulation workforce that’s working throughout the enterprise, and secondly, an investigation workforce with goals of stopping prison offences happening apprehending and prosecuting individuals.”
Cook dinner is sustaining that was all about buyer fraud and “scams”.
Miliband: Labour celebration is ‘100% behind Angela Rayner’ and he or she is ‘an inspiring particular person’
Ed Miliband has mentioned that the Labour celebration is “100% behind” Angela Rayner and he or she is an inspiring particular person and “precisely the type of particular person we’d like in politics”.
The shadow vitality minister informed PA Media:
We’re completely 100% behind Angela. We’re completely assured that she has complied with the foundations. She welcomes the very fact she will set out the info.
My message to the nation is we’re extremely happy with Angela Rayner, our deputy chief.
She is an inspiring particular person, she is precisely the type of particular person we’d like in politics. If a Labour authorities is elected, I stay up for Angela Rayner serving as deputy prime minister.
Frankly the Conservative celebration is a determined celebration that has nothing to say to the nation in regards to the large points that it faces.
On the Publish Workplace Horizon IT inquiry, former managing director Alan Cook dinner is being requested about an e mail which says “Alan Cook dinner is asking for a extra strong defence of Horizon” in a interval when the Publish Workplace had begun to analyze the system.
He mentioned “One of many perils of being the boss is the individuals use your identify to get issues achieved,” and means that he would have meant the phrase “strong” to imply an intensive investigation, and wouldn’t have used the phrase defence.
Sam Stevens, the barrister asking the questions, places it to him that somebody utilizing his identify may equally have mentioned “Alan Cook dinner is asking for an unbiased assessment of Horizon” or “Alan Cook dinner is asking for a assessment into its integrity” if that’s what he had been saying or wanting.
Cook dinner says “At this stage there was the Pc Weekly article, and some complaints on particular instances. And I used to be greater than ready to consider that the reply could be totally different to every of them. And that the reply wasn’t that there’s nothing fallacious. However clearly that’s the stance that the organisation took within the occasion.”
PA Media has simply alerted that the Labour celebration mentioned it stays assured that Angela Rayner has complied with the foundations, and the deputy chief “welcomes the possibility to set out the info with the police”.
Police have reopened an investigation over claims she could have damaged electoral regulation by giving false details about the place she was residing earlier than she grew to become an MP.
It comes after James Daly, the deputy chair of the Conservative celebration, made Better Manchester police conscious of neighbours contradicting the deputy Labour chief’s claims.
Former Publish Workplace boss says he ‘regrets’ saying subpostmasters had their ‘fingers within the until’ and have been blaming Horizon
By the October of that yr, a Royal Mail Group’s PR particular person Mary Fagan had emailed “there’s a steadily constructing nervousness in regards to the accuracy of horizon of the horizon system. And the press are actually on it as properly.”
Former Publish Workplace managing director Alan Cook dinner at that time mentioned to her in an e mail:
My instincts inform that in a recession subbies with their hand within the until select guilty expertise when they’re discovered to be in need of money.
He tells the inquiry “it’s an expression I’ll remorse for the remainder of my life. It was an inappropriate factor to place in an e mail and never in step with my view of subpostmasters.”
Sam Stevens, the barrister, is now saying Cook dinner had mentioned he was “shocked” by the Pc Weekly article, and had a number of letters from MPs. There was now a “physique of complaints” Stevens says. He asks why Cook dinner didn’t order an indpendent inquiry.
“Step one appeared to be to analyze it ourselves,” Cook dinner says.
Alan Cook dinner is proven an e mail from 10 February 2009 by Brian Binley MP which incorporates the declare that “random flaws within the IT are inflicting deficits of their weekly accounts, typically £1,000s of kilos at a time”. He’s informed that he obtained it in Could, and he says he recollects studying it.
He’s additionally proven the Rebecca Thomson article in Pc Weekly about Lee Castleton. Cook dinner says that he noticed this. He claims he didn’t know in regards to the prosecution of Castleton, or if he did it will have been one among quite a lot of prosecutions talked about in a report.
Cook dinner says the Pc Weekly article was a shock to him:
This text was a shock to me. Ought to it have been a shock to me? No, it shouldn’t have been, but it surely was.
He doesn’t seem to have the ability to make clear when or if he linked the 2 issues in his thoughts.
On the Publish Workplace Horizon IT inquiry, Alan Cook dinner has agreed that he visited over 200 branches throughout his time there and located the visits “illuminating”.
He mentioned:
Once I arrived, I felt the subpostmaster group felt unloved. To a level by Publish Workplace Ltd. And one of many one among my early aims was to attempt to get near the Publish Workplace or group. And I attempt to resolve that. One of many first issues I did was set up a powerful relationship with the chap who was then the Federation’s high man.
That is fascinating as a result of earlier within the week Alan Bates, in his proof, mentioned that the Nationwide Federation of Subpostmasters have been of no assist at occasions to his marketing campaign as a result of reasonably than performing on behalf of subpostmasters, he felt it acted like an extra arm of the Publish Workplace.
Cook dinner seems to be speaking about his outreach efforts to employees the place he would drop in to branches for example of him being a visual boss and having good relations and says with a small chuckle that as you possibly can think about he bought loads of suggestions.
Sam Stevens, the barrister asking the questions, is gently declaring that due to this fact he should have had some suggestions in regards to the Horizon IT system.
Keir Starmer is out on a marketing campaign go to too, at BAE Methods in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria.