Ex-minister tells Post Office inquiry she was repeatedly ‘misled’ by officials

A former postal affairs minister said she became “worried” about Post Office prosecutions in the Horizon IT scandal when she realised they concerned “leafy middle-class people” with no previous convictions.

Baroness Lucy Neville-Rolfe told the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry she was repeatedly “misled” by officials, including civil servants, who failed to provide her with sufficiently accurate and impartial advice regarding issues surrounding the IT system and unsafe prosecutions.

The Conservative peer previously served as a business department minister where she was responsible for postal affairs between May 2015 and July 2016.

She told the public inquiry on Tuesday that, before postal affairs was added to her portfolio, she was aware several MPs had raised issues regarding the Horizon system and related prosecutions in Parliament but was repeatedly advised there was no evidence to support these concerns.

Lady Neville-Rolfe said she became “worried” once she had examined individual examples and realised they involved seemingly “honest citizens” with no criminal history that had “suddenly” been handed convictions.

I had got all this evidence that everything was fine, that there was nothing wrong, that there’d been an independent inquiry that had actually told us that the Post Office was right, and yet the people who were 'going down' were terribly honest citizens

The former Cabinet Office minister said her “road to Damascus” moment was a meeting she attended in June 2015 with MPs and Post Office officials where MPs Andrew Bridgen and Kevan Jones outlined issues in specific cases.

Speaking at Aldwych House in London , she told the inquiry: “As I got into the individual cases, which earlier on I’d been discouraged from thinking about, it became apparent that these were honest citizens… leafy middle-class people who, suddenly out of the blue, with no even suggestion that they, either themselves or any of their friends and relations, had been involved in anything dishonest were suddenly ending up in court and being convicted mainly, I think, on the grounds of false accounting but, in some cases, of theft.”

Against the backdrop of large ministerial workloads and wide-ranging pressures, ministers must be able to rely on officials to do their jobs properly: providing thorough, accurate, impartial and objective information and advice

She continued: “I had got all this evidence that everything was fine, that there was nothing wrong, that there’d been an independent inquiry that had actually told us that the Post Office was right and yet, the people who were ‘going down’ were terribly honest citizens.

“I have to say – that is the thing that worried me.

“It’s not only about keeping the business going, it’s about having an element of common sense and thinking about your staff – so that was what worried me,” she added.

Lady Neville-Rolfe told the inquiry she was “somewhat perturbed” when she discovered that then-Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells had been advised by communications staff not to attend a meeting with her and MPs in July 2015 to discuss these issues and had citied a “diary clash”.

She told the probe: “I was somewhat perturbed when I subsequently saw this – that actually it was strategic rather than a diary clash because I think having her there would’ve been good as she would have had to listen to the MP’s concerns and answer them herself.”

In her witness statement, shown to the inquiry on Tuesday, Lady Neville-Rolfe said she was “misled” into thinking concerns raised about the Horizon system and related prosecutions were unfounded by advice from officials, which she believes was inaccurate and subjective.

The former minister wrote: “Against the backdrop of large ministerial workloads and wide-ranging pressures, ministers must be able to rely on officials to do their jobs properly: providing thorough, accurate, impartial and objective information and advice.

What I would have been helped with was accurate information in relation to Horizon — sadly, this was in short supply. I believe I was misled, and this is an unacceptable situation

“I feel I was sold short by officials in this instance.”

“What I would have been helped with was accurate information in relation to Horizon — sadly, this was in short supply. I believe I was misled, and this is an unacceptable situation,” she added.

Lady Neville-Rolfe told the probe she “wasn’t aware” that one of reasons the Post Office had stopped prosecutions was because they were unable to find an expert witness that would testify regarding the integrity of the Horizon system, and had only discovered this once the public inquiry had started.

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

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