Sir Anthony Hooper: Post Office Horizon IT cases are ‘the greatest scandal that I have ever seen’
Sir Anthony Hooper, the former senior judge who chaired the mediation panel in the early 2010s to try to resolve claims between the justice for subpostmasters campaign and the Post Office involving the Horizon IT system has described it as “the greatest scandal that I have ever seen”
Speaking at the end of giving evidence remotely to the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry, he said “In the criminal justice process, we’ve had many miscarriages of justice, but nowhere near as many of these.”
He went on to say “we need to reevaluate how we approach criminal cases of this kind. Something went very, very wrong and I don’t envy the chairman’s task and trying to find out how it all started. Something went very, very wrong.”
Hooper said one of his concerns was cutbacks in legal aid, saying that it used to be that senior members of the bar would work on cases on legal aid, but “that’s all gone now, largely gone.”
He also sugggested the justice system needed a fundamental reform, saying:
All that a prosecutor has to establish … is enough evidence to support a conviction. That is a very low threshold. It means defence have to do a large amount of work to see whether there is some alternative to guilty.
He was highly critical of the Post Office refusal to countenance in public that there were any problems with the Horizon IT system, leading to them by default assuming that any criticism of it or suggestion it was malfunctioning was untrue.
Hooper said in many years as an appeals judge, the largest problem he saw over and over again was non-disclosure.
Yesterday’s session of the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry began with lead counsel Jason Beer KC again criticising for late disclosure of documents by the Post Office to the inquiry.
Key events
Summary of the day …
-
The former senior judge who ran the mediation service between the Post Office and the Justice for Subposmasters Alliance in the early 2010s has described the Horizon IT scandal as “the greatest scandal that I have ever seen”. He said after working on the mediation project, which was ultimately cancelled by the Post Office, that “My initial view that it was very unlikely that these people had stolen money remained.”
-
Former MP James Arbuthnot, who is now a Conservative peer, told a public inquiry that the Post Office appeared to have been operating a “behind-the-scenes deception process” about the reliability of its faulty Horizon computer system. Arbuthnot, who campaign on the issue for years as an MP, said “I think that with the help of this inquiry, we are moving belatedly to the right place.”
-
Rishi Sunak has doubled down on the UK’s decision not to suspend arms sales to Israel, echoing foreign secretary David Cameron’s words from yesterday by saying that “none of our closest allies” have stopped existing export licences. On LBC this morning, Sunak said the UK has a “long-established process” relating to the arms export regime and “we review these things regularly”. Sunak also criticised Nato allies for failing to increase defence spending
-
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper has renewed Labour’s calls for the government to publish its legal advice on Israel’s military action in Gaza, saying there were “real, deep, serious concerns” about the war.
-
Three people have been charged with public order offences after a pro-Palestine demonstration outside Labour leader Keir Starmer’s home, the Metropolitan police have said.
-
The prime minister has said again that he is “confident” his government can get its plan to deport to Rwanda asylum seekers who have reached the UK. The Financial Times has reported that Rwanda’s state-owned airline turned down a UK government proposal to transport asylum seekers, with reports that it considered it “brand damaging.”
-
The Times has reported that Sunak faces a cabinet revolt if he continues with his threat to leave the European convention on human rights (ECHR). It names Jeremy Hunt and James Cleverly among those opposing the move, alongside ten others. Sunak again this morning on LBC said he would not let what he called a “foreign court” prevent his government’s Rwanda deportation policy from coming into operation.
-
The UK taxpayer spent £4.3bn (27.9%) of the total UK international aid budget on supporting the housing and food costs of refugees based in Britain, an increase of £600m from 2022, new official government aid statistics for 2023 show.
-
The government is investing more than £55m in expanding facial recognition systems – including vans that will scan crowded high streets – as part of a renewed crackdown on shoplifting. Sunak appeared with police in a shopping centre in Horsham to promote the scheme.
-
Sunak has tried to deflect criticism of his handling of the William Wragg sexting scandal by saying that Starmer has been weak about Angela Rayner’s tax affairs. Wragg voluntarily resigned the Tory whip yesterday, days after the scandal first emerged.
-
Ministers are reportedly considering banning the sale of smartphones to children under the age of 16 after a number of polls have shown significant public support for such a curb.
-
Police Scotland received 7,152 complaints under Scotland’s new hate crime law in the first week of operation, with 240 hate crimes and 30 non-crime hate incidents recorded, the force has announced.
-
Labour’s leader in Scotland, Anas Sarwar, has described a poll from YouGov that puts Labour ahead of the SNP in Westminster voting intentions for the first time since 2014 as “a huge moment”.
That is it from me, Martin Belam, today. I should be back with you tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of your evening and I will see you then.
Sir Anthony Hooper: Post Office Horizon IT cases are ‘the greatest scandal that I have ever seen’
Sir Anthony Hooper, the former senior judge who chaired the mediation panel in the early 2010s to try to resolve claims between the justice for subpostmasters campaign and the Post Office involving the Horizon IT system has described it as “the greatest scandal that I have ever seen”
Speaking at the end of giving evidence remotely to the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry, he said “In the criminal justice process, we’ve had many miscarriages of justice, but nowhere near as many of these.”
He went on to say “we need to reevaluate how we approach criminal cases of this kind. Something went very, very wrong and I don’t envy the chairman’s task and trying to find out how it all started. Something went very, very wrong.”
Hooper said one of his concerns was cutbacks in legal aid, saying that it used to be that senior members of the bar would work on cases on legal aid, but “that’s all gone now, largely gone.”
He also sugggested the justice system needed a fundamental reform, saying:
All that a prosecutor has to establish … is enough evidence to support a conviction. That is a very low threshold. It means defence have to do a large amount of work to see whether there is some alternative to guilty.
He was highly critical of the Post Office refusal to countenance in public that there were any problems with the Horizon IT system, leading to them by default assuming that any criticism of it or suggestion it was malfunctioning was untrue.
Hooper said in many years as an appeals judge, the largest problem he saw over and over again was non-disclosure.
Yesterday’s session of the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry began with lead counsel Jason Beer KC again criticising for late disclosure of documents by the Post Office to the inquiry.
Sir Anthony Hooper said that by 2014 he thought it was likely there had been serious miscarriages of justice. While chairing the mediation scheme.
He told the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry:
My initial view that it was very unlikely that these people had stolen money remained.
I wanted people who probably already left prison, people who had suffered so badly, I wanted everyone to get on, identify the miscarriages of justice by one route or another, get their convictions quashed – that’s what I wanted.
He also expressed the view that it was likely if you were charged with theft of £10,000 and were found guilty you would end up in prison, whereas pleading guilty to false accounting on the same amount would avoid a custodial sentence. He suggests that is why people were pleading guilty.
Mark Brown
North of England correspondent Mark Brown has spoken to Chris McEwan, Labour candidate in May’s Tees Valley mayoral election:
Many people would like the poll to be a verdict on Lord Houchen’s stewardship of Teesworks, the flagship regeneration project on the site of the former steelworks at Redcar. An independent report into Teesworks was damning. It said the vast project had been excessively secretive and taxpayers were not being guaranteed value for money or transparency.
Crucially, it said there was no evidence to support allegations of corruption or illegality raised under parliamentary privilege by the Middlesbrough MP, Andy McDonald.
Chris McEwan, in an interview with the Guardian, said a mayoral priority for him would be to start projecting “openness and honesty. Particularly openness because things have been very closed and tight.”
He stressed he had never used the word “corruption” in relation to Teesworks, but said it was “beyond belief” that there were 28 recommendations for change in the report. He also said that Teesworks was not the unadulterated success story that government ministers claimed. He sees it as a missed opportunity.
How much the Teesworks report influences voters remains to be seen. When the Guardian canvassed views in Darlington town centre, no one raised it as an issue. Potholes, on the other hand, were complained about over and over, and they are the reason why the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, was comically pictured peering into one when he visited Darlington a year ago.
Read more of Mark Brown’s report here: ‘We have to get the basics right’: Labour’s Chris McEwan in Tees Valley
Sir Anthony Hooper is expressing great regret about the suffering of people due to the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, and has said over the years he has experienced many times that government won’t swiftly apologise and say “we are sorry, something has gone wrong” and move to put things right. He said all he was ever trying to do was move things forward.
The Times has reported that Rishi Sunak faces a cabinet revolt if he continues with his threat to leave the European convention on human rights (ECHR).
It names Jeremy Hunt and James Cleverly among those opposing the move, alongside ten others. Sunak again this morning on LBC said he would not let what he called a “foreign court” prevent his government’s Rwanda deportation policy from coming into operation.
In a piece by Matt Dathan which the Times labels an exclusive, he writes:
The Times has established that at least 12 ministers who attend cabinet would oppose any move to leave the ECHR altogether, double the number who are understood to be supportive of leaving the convention.
The remaining 14 ministers are either undecided or have not disclosed their position to colleagues. One cabinet minister opposed to leaving said it would “fuel the fire” of extremists in Northern Ireland, given the importance of the ECHR to the Good Friday agreement.
At the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry, Sir Anthony Hooper said that the mediation process was never going to uncover a “smoking gun” with the Horizon IT system, since it was only ever looking at things on a case by case basis, rather than being a deep dive review of the whole system.
Hooper, who chaired the mediation process, was asked by chair Wyn Williams if it was his belief that the Post Office went into the mediation process with the position that there could be nothing wrong with Horizon, and ended the process still holding that position. Hooper concurred.
Hooper said it had been “ridiculous” to shut it down in 2015. Appearing remotely, he told the hearing in Aldwych House while being questioned by Julian Blake:
Conflicts gradually grew and grew, and grew and grew, until we were finally closed down in March 2015. So I can’t tell you at what stage it disintegrated, it was a slow disintegration. I thought it was ridiculous to close down the scheme at this stage when we were still at the very early stages.
Sir Anthony Hooper has said that the mediation scheme between 2013 and 2015 had no chance of working because the Post Office would not accept that there could be any problem with the Horizon IT system.
There is a short break in proceedings at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry. I will be taking a short break as well. See you in a bit.
Labour’s leader in Scotland, Anas Sarwar, has described a poll from YouGov that puts Labour ahead of the SNP in Westminster voting intentions for the first time since 2014 as “a huge moment”, but “we take nothing for granted”.
The single YouGov poll of Scottish voters gives Labour a slight lead over the SNP when people are asked how they would vote in a general election, while the SNP retains a narrow lead over Labour when people are asked who they would vote for at constituency level in a Scottish parliament election.
Sir Anthony Hooper said he wanted four prosecutions of subpostmasters that had been planned by the Post Office to be dropped in January 2014.
The former chairman of the mediation scheme for those who believed they had been wrongly prosecuted told the Horizon IT inquiry on Wednesday: “As I remember, there were about four cases which had gone past the charge stage and were to go to trial, and I was obviously concerned, not really in my position as chairman, but simply as someone who wanted to make sure there were no wrongful convictions.
“So I think I asked to look at the case summary and I think I suggested that I would hope that these four cases would be dropped. That’s my memory.”
Talking about the cases that the mediation scheme examined, he has also said there was tremendous difficulty with the paperwork. He said:
Some of these cases went back to 2005, 2006. So there was an absence of paperwork on perhaps on both sides. SPMs who had lost paperwork, obviously had given up. There was difficulties with the paperwork from the Post Office.
He has said several times that he knows a lot more now about the circumstances than he was allowed to know then, and at times seems genuinely indignant about the way the Post Office held information back from the work he was doing, when he was acting in good faith to try to progress case reviews as quickly as possible.
There is a thorny bit where documents from the Post Office are implying that Hooper was losing faith in Second Sight. Hooper says he was not.
He says that in advice he was giving to Second Sight he was simply “doing my best to try and help to get better reports in a way that will be easily understandable and readable by the mediator.”
He says he had faith in Second Sight to the very end
Anthony Hooper tells Horizon IT inquiry he wishes he’d spoken directly to Post Office board about ‘fundamental implausibility’ of its case
At the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry, Sir Anthony Hooper has praised forensic auditors Second Sight, saying they had “a difficult path to tread”, but also that they only had two or three people working on it, and were dealing with 150 cases that had come forward. Hooper was chair of the mediation process investigating the affair between 2013 and 2015.
“These were very complex and difficult cases that we were looking at,” he says. “And throughout the whole of the time of the mediation scheme, the Post Office would maintain over and over again that the Horizon system was robust, there was nothing wrong with it.”
We now know that they were aware of multiple bugs in the system.
Hooper said the Post Office case “didn’t make sense.”
He said:
I tried to make it clear to Paula Vennells and to the chairman that the Post Office case didn’t make sense. And I felt that throughout. It didn’t make sense that reputable SPMs, appointed by the Post Office after examination of their characters, would be stealing these sums of money. It didn’t make sense.
He pointed out earlier that when he took on the role he knew very little about the background, and that we only know about what is called the Post Office Horizon scandal because of reporting by Computer Weekly, Private Eye, and the work of MPs like James Arbuthnot, who gave evidence earlier today.
Julian Blake, questioning him, observes that he is “more animated” today than the words in his written submission appear. “I mean, I’m not always very measured,” Hooper says, to laughter in the room.
Hooper says now he wished he’d spoken directly to the Post Office board about “The fundamental implausibility of the Post Office case.”
Here is an exchange from the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry evidence from earlier today, when former Conservative MP Lord Arbuthnot was appearing, in which he said he felt that Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells was “ashamed” when he called her out in a meeting for breaking her word.
PA Media has pulled the section out in its coverage, quoting Arbuthnot saying:
They said that the Post Office should exclude altogether from the mediation scheme people who had pleaded guilty – a different proposition from their being put to the back of the queue.
I asked them how they thought I would have supported a scheme which excluded my constituent, Jo Hamilton, to which they had no answer.
This, for me, was the final straw. Paula Vennells seemed almost cowed by their stronger personalities and said little. I told her she was breaking her word.
I sensed, rightly or wrongly, that she felt ashamed. The meeting broke up in acrimony.”
He said the meeting had also featured Angela Van Den Bogerd, the then-head of network services, and former general counsel Chris Aujard.
