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Telecon IRH RJW BC AP re part 2 August 11, 2014
BELINDA CROWE: Thank you for signing in. I wanted to
have -- I thought it would be a good idea to have
a conference call, and this is possibly in advance
of a meeting where we probably should sit down with
Angela to go through part 2, but I wanted to set out
to you where I'm coming from in relation to this.
So, first off, I am doing this with a Post
Office hat on.
IAN HENDERSON: Okay.
BELINDA CROWE: Just so that you are absolutely clear.
IAN
And the reason that I'm doi
know, i. GRO
g it is, as you
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the reasons it's taking a bit of time to get back to
is that I did contact him about this in
doing so. So I just want to be clear that in
Chris's absence someone has to pick this up for him,
so that's what I'm doing.
HENDERSON: Belinda, what I would say, and I know you
and I have got slightly different recollections, but
the working group -- what the working group had in
mind was that, sort of, almost as a courtesy to
Post Office and JFSA, we would give a very short
period of preliminary exposure to give you an
opportunity to correct any factual errors. So what
we had in mind was, you know, the number of branches
or, you know -- or something like that, not any
comments of any substance which we would expect to
see made in the more -- in the formal sort of
exposure of the document, which is -- which is
Phase 2.
So that's point 1. The other thing is, whilst
obviously we're always very happy to talk to you
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guys, because of the potential importance of part 2,
I think it's absolutely vital that we have an audit
trail of exactly what comments are made and -- and
clearly, you know, what our updated report looks
like having, sort of, considered those comments.
So whilst I'm happy to have this call, I don't
want it in any way to be a substitute for a formal
response from the Post Office.
BELINDA CROWE: I've got no problem with that, Ian, at
all. The only process point with which I disagreed,
and that is a distinct recollection, indeed one of
Tony's -- so when you sit down and talk about it, is
that there is a con -- there was supposed to be
a conversation about it prior to going out to the
working group.
Now, that conversation which you had with Andy
and Angela was not on the detail of this report
because Post Office --
IAN HENDERSON: No, I don't think it's been provided --
I agree.
BELINDA CROWE: So, to me, a sit-down conversation is
still to happen. And so I agree with you about an
audit trail, got no problem with that at all, but
the sit-down conversation as -- well, I've got Andy
here in any event but I've also spoken to Angela --
was primarily around four questions that you had
asked us, because Post Office hadn't had a chance to
look at the -- look at the report. So it wasn't on
the -- on the report.
So that is -- to me, that is a process, a part
of the process that has been missed and
Post Office's view is we would like that to happen.
Post Office is very, very happy to set out in
writing exactly what its comments are, but there's
a bit that hasn't happened that should have
happened.
IAN HENDERSON: Okay, maybe we've got slightly different,
sort of, recollections. Certainly the intention of
our meeting with Andy and Angela was to discuss
those four questions and incorporate your responses
into the report.
I don't recall Tony asking us to then have
a second meeting to discuss the -- you know, how we
dealt with those four questions in -- in the report.
So I feel, and I welcome Ron's comments in a minute,
that we actually have done what Tony asked us to do,
which was sit down and meet with you in order to
get, you know, answers to those four questions.
RON WARMINGTON: Well, Ian, thanks for that.
Well, its Elephant Warmington here. I don't
forget these things. My recollection of this was it
was Tony's suggestion that we had a sit-down. One
thing that was not clear to me is whether, and if
not why not, we would have that sit-down meeting
with Post Office and not with -- with Alan present.
What --
BELINDA CROWE: Sorry, Ron, just so -- the original notes
that went out --
RON WARMINGTON: Yeah.
BELINDA CROWE: Sorry, Alan did -- sorry, Tony did say to
Alan --
RON WARMINGTON: Yeah.
BELINDA CROWE: -- it would be good if you could join if
you want to.
RON WARMINGTON: Ah, right.
BELINDA CROWE: And Alan said he didn't know that he
would either be able to or it was --
RON WARMINGTON: Oh, that was it?
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BELINDA CROWE: Sorry.
RON WARMINGTON: That makes sense. Yes, that's --
BELINDA CROWE: And so there's no problem with that at
all.
RON WARMINGTON: Right, that's good. So what we did
then, and this will, I'm sure, be what everybody
else recalls, we said there were four. In the end
there were five issues that I put in my 29 July
email, which was the day before the meeting, where
we said, look, yeah, there were questions, they're
in various states of answer, but these were always
intended to be the most -- among the most -- the
items in the part 2 report that were most in need of
debate. And were very serious issues.
So it was always meant to be a big chunk of the
part 2 issues but I quite -- totally agree that we
did not put on the table the full part 2 report at
that point.
BELINDA CROWE: Okay. So -- so we may have different
views of the process but -- but regardless of that,
I would still like to -- I'd still like to have the
conversation and -- but has your report then changed
in light of the discussion with Andy and Angela?
IAN HENDERSON: Yes, and we told you in the meeting that
it was going to change and that we already had some
changes sort of in the pipeline that would also be
incorporated. So the version I sent --
BELINDA CROWE: Are those the ones -- sorry, are those
the ones that -- so, at the meeting with Andy and
Angela, what you said was that you would make some
amendments to the report and get them out by the
Thursday evening. We got that -- I got that from
you, Ian, on 5th August.
IAN HENDERSON: Yes.
BELINDA CROWE: So is that your latest version?
IAN HENDERSON: Yes.
BELINDA CROWE: Okay. So some of the issues that you
discussed with Andy and Angela aren't actually in
the second (unclear) ?
IAN HENDERSON: No, they are. To the extent that we felt
it was appropriate to reflect the comments made in
the meeting.
BELINDA CROWE: Okay. And does that also include the --
that also includes the briefing, the written
briefing, that Post Office has given you?
RON WARMINGTON: Yes.
BELINDA CROWE: Because I think in terms of pensions and
allowances.
RON WARMINGTON: Yes.
BELINDA CROWE: Which is not -- which is not reflected in
here.
IAN HENDERSON: I'm just trying to remember --
RON WARMINGTON: Yeah, I know the situation on this, Ian.
The answer is: yes, we did get the paper, which
largely says, on pensions and allowances, largely it
says -- or includes in it remarks along the lines
of, look, you wanted to know why these things
were -- failed. One of the primary reasons they
failed is because we were reliant on old people that
died or -- or, you know, weren't able to come to
court.
Have we reflected all of that in the current
version of part 2? Not completely, because we are
not -- we are -- and as we have undoubtedly -- I've got
it next to me, I don't even have to look at it to know
this, we will have said that investigations on this
matter are continuing, as indeed they are, because
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we've got a load of cases that we haven't looked into
yet that deal with pensions and allowances issues.
IAN HENDERSON: And Ron, that's -- more importantly also,
in the meeting, Angela and possibly Andy as well
agreed that they were going to go away and look at
probably the legal files and establish what gave
rise to the launching of the prosecutions, sort of
relating to pensions and allowances, and my
question -- my specific question was, you know, was
it intelligence-led? Was it a tip-off from some
particular sort of source?
We need to, sort of, understand the background
to it, and that was one of the things that was also,
sort of -- we felt, sort of, missing in terms of the
overall context.
RON WARMINGTON: So -- so although -- Andy, although --
ANDY: Sorry, sorry, can I just correct that, because
I don't think that was one of the questions, in
fact, because that question is addressed in the DNA
notes, and so we would not have taken that one away,
because we had already addressed it.
IAN HENDERSON: Okay. All I'm saying is that I raised it
in the meeting and my understanding was that Angela
was going to look into that but, you know --
ANDY: We left it that you guys would go away and
re-review the P & A note and come back with any
questions, and we haven't had any follow-up
questions.
IAN HENDERSON: All right. Well, we've obviously got
a slightly different understanding, which perhaps
just reinforces why it's so important to, you know,
maybe rely on, sort of, you know, documents rather
than meetings with differing recollections.
RON WARMINGTON: And Andy, you know, the key phrase in
13.2 is "and we have asked Post Office to help us
gain a deeper understanding of the cases that were
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investigated", blah, blah, blah, and -- and of
course we, in response to receiving the 7-pager,
said to ourselves -- and said: do we actually say
there -- and they have since come in with, you know,
a 7-page report or whatever that says some stuff.
Frankly, we looked at that and decided not to.
Now --
BELINDA CROWE: Sorry, Ron.
RON
WARMINGTON: Yes.
BELINDA CROWE: Can I -- if I can just stress here, every
IAN
time Second Sight asks a question, a considerable
amount of work goes into trying to address that
question very specifically and (unclear) input into
that. So it's not a question of said some stuff
it's a question of trying to give Second Sight our
specific questions that they have asked, because
this is -- you know, these are not matters that we
take lightly at all.
So can I -- regardless of the process and
accepting the need to have a proper audit trail,
which I entirely am sympathetic of, the reason that
I wanted to call was to set out what the
Post Office's concerns are about the part 2 report
and see if we can come to a way, with a properly
audited trail, of addressing those, should you so
choose.
Now, it's my understanding that part 2, like
part 1, is -- the reason for its existence is to
assist applicants during the mediation process.
HENDERSON: Sorry to interrupt, I just want to make
sure that what you're proposing is consistent with what
the working group asked us to do, which was, you know,
either a 24 or a 48-hour quick exposure to give both
sides the opportunity to correct any factual errors
prior to the more detailed exposure where we would be
inviting sort of comments of substance.
It just strikes me that what you seem to be
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proposing now falls more into the latter category
rather than, you know, the former.
BELINDA CROWE: That may or may not be correct, Ian, and
IAN
we may or may not have a differing understanding of
what the task was, but surely what we're all
concerned about is creating a document that
expresses(?) the applicant. What I'd like to do is
to have a conversation so that you are aware of
Post Office's (unclear), and they are considerable,
and that we seek if we can to address those, in an
absolutely transparent way, but factual -- it's,
like, factual inaccuracies are both in terms of
facts that are in the report and also facts
omission, and in the view of the Post Office there's
a lot of information that is missing from this
which, in the view of the Post Office, will not be
helpful in terms of helping the mediator, and what
I want to do is to surface(?) some of those concerns
with you now -- no, we can surface it before the
working group but there might be a way that we can
address that in a way that is satisfactory to you
before it comes to the working group discussion
about whether or not this document does actually
assist the applicant.
HENDERSON: In commenting on that, there's two
immediate, sort of -- sort of, thoughts.
Firstly, I think I would regard what you're
describing as factual omissions as more properly
falling into the category of substantive, sort of,
comments on the report rather than corrections to,
you know, numerical or other facts contained in the
report.
You know, if we've got 60 days when it should be
42 days or the other way round, that's what we
intended will be a very quick first exposure.
So my first question is: are you going to, sort
of, respond to that? And if the answer is no, what
we will do is quickly move to the more formal stage,
where we will be inviting that more substantive
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comment in accordance with the instructions or
recommendations from the working group.
BELINDA CROWE: And the answer to that is yes, we will
IAN
respond, but I would still appreciate the conversation
around whether or not this report actually helps the
applicant and whether or not there's anything more
Post Office needs to be doing, apart from asking the
specific question -- asking the specific questions,
some of which are new. But there's some broader issues
here which -- to be honest, there are issues that
I don't necessarily feel should be exposed to you first
into the -- first in relation to the working group, and
that is -- and if you want me to deal in specifics,
that is there are a number of areas in the report, four
that I counted up, where it says "enquiries are
continuing".
Now, there are two issues as far as I am
concerned. One is whether or not that assist the
applicants. And the other is, Second Sight has been
investigating these issues since 2012 and one of the
concerns in the Post Office is that is a long time
still to have enquiries continuing.
HENDERSON: I agree, but it shouldn't be any surprise
because, you know, from a long time ago we said that
both part 1 and part 2 would be living documents
that would be updated as we received further CQRs
and POIRs. So I'm a bit surprised that you're
raising that as a comment or an observation at this
stage, because the working group certainly has been
well aware of that and has been supportive of that
approach.
BELINDA CROWE: And I don't -- and -- and I absolutely
RON
accept that, that these are going to be living
documents, but there are some issues that were dealt
with in the spot reviews.
WARMINGTON: Belinda, one of -- one of the issues
that was dealt with in the spot reviews, and there
are many, one of them was the fundamental issue
raised by Rudkin, the famous Bracknell event, on
which we asked two years ago nearly now for access
to emails, which have never turned up. So --
BELINDA CROWE: Excuse me Ron -- Ian, you might have been
the recipient of this but my understanding was that
a huge number of emails were provided to you.
RON WARMINGTON: Yeah, but they weren't --
IAN HENDERSON: That's correct, but not from the right
period.
RON WARMINGTON: They weren't the right period.
IAN HENDERSON: And I've sent two emails to, sort of,
Post Office reminding Post Office of that and we've
never had a response.
RON WARMINGTON: I mean, that's just one of the issues.
BELINDA CROWE: Sorry, can I -- can I just -- on the
matter of Rudkin --
RON WARMINGTON: Yeah.
BELINDA CROWE: -- why are you making a comment in
your -- so the bit that was left hanging was whether
or not there is evidence of the subpostmaster --
because I remember when queried in relation to
Rudkin, as I understand it, about transactions, it
was whether or not he overheard something --
RON WARMINGTON: No, he didn't -- it wasn't it was
overheard, he was told something, yeah. He says.
BELINDA CROWE: Whether or not he was, Rudkin claims that
he was.
RON WARMINGTON: Yeah.
BELINDA CROWE: And the bit that was outstanding was that
the person who Rudkin is -- maintained that he was
going to meet.
RON WARMINGTON: Mr Rolf, yes.
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BELINDA CROWE: Couldn't remember.
RON
IAN
WARMINGTON: Meeting him?
HENDERSON: Belinda, that's only one aspect of it.
What had been agreed was that we would be provided
with the entire email records for the Post Office
team that potentially would have had some contact
with whatever was going on in the basement in 2008.
We've been told that technically it's available but
for some reason we've never, you know, progressed
much beyond that point.
BELINDA CROWE: So, Ian, there is an answer to that
question, and that is: you have been provided with
a significant amount of email traffic. However,
there is --
RON WARMINGTON: Of the wrong date.
BELINDA CROWE: -- an issue about the extent to which it
is appropriate for us to send -- wade through
IAN
people's in-boxes which potentially contains all
sorts of information that Second Sight has no right
to have access to, so that would be personal
information, but in no way associated with this. So
what Post Office has said is that if you -- if you
ask us a question, we will give you the answer, but
what we can't do is -- we've provided lots and lots
of information, but what we can't do is to enable
you to -- to trawl through masses and masses and
masses of extraneous emails. I mean, that's just
not appropriate. That's a fishing expedition.
HENDERSON: Belinda, I mean, we have addressed that,
sort of, previously. I mean, firstly, your chief
executive assured us that anything that we asked for
would be provided, and we've specifically discussed
emails with -- with Paula.
The emails that had previously been provided,
yes, were the entire sort of mailbox for half
a dozen or so, sort of, individuals for an entire
year. It was agreed, in some detail, the procedures
that we would follow in order to properly protect
the privacy rights of individuals, and everybody at
the time was happy with that. The only thing that
hasn't been provided is the emails for the relevant,
sort of, year in question.
So actually we had previously agreed the
principle that, yes, we could have it and (b) the
approach that we were taking that would protect the
privacy rights of individuals.
RON WARMINGTON: Which, by the way, Belinda, is certainly
not something we haven't dealt with, like, 150 times
before on other cases.
BELINDA CROWE: Okay.
RON WARMINGTON: So we're used to dealing with this
globally. You know, for example, in Scandinavian
countries there are really tight --
IAN HENDERSON: Ron, let's just stick to the specifics --
RON WARMINGTON: Yeah, but, I mean, the fact is,
Belinda --
BELINDA CROWE: I will --
RON WARMINGTON: -- when you refer to large amounts of
data being provided, it's irrelevant because the
data that was provided was not the data that we were
seeking.
BELINDA CROWE: So I will respond to you in writing on
that point.
IAN HENDERSON: It would be helpful to know, you know,
even now, whether or not we're going to get what
we've -- what we've asked for, because that will
ultimately be reflected either in a part 2 report or
somewhere else.
ANDY: Ian, sorry, I'm not aware of the history on this
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particular topic, but just for my benefit can you
let me know what you're looking for in those emails?
What's -- what's --
IAN HENDERSON: What we're looking for -- what has been
agreed was that we would be provided with the entire
email box for a list of named individuals for
calendar year 2008 --
BELINDA CROWE: What are you looking for, Ian?
ANDY: In those emails, yeah.
I mean, what I'm trying to get to is -- is
that -- whether you are aiming for a particular
target, whether there's a way we can help you get to
that particular target.
IAN HENDERSON: Yeah, the way you can help, Andy, is
giving us the emails. We have agreed that we will
do the searching, we will, you know, decide what
search terms are appropriate. We are not prepared
to be sort of limited in terms of the searches that
we carry out, and all of that has previously been
agreed.
ANDY: That wasn't what I was proposing. Again, what is
it that -- what I don't understand is how these
emails are going help. I'm not trying to be
facetious and difficult in any way. I genuinely
don't, I -- and I wasn't in the history, I do not
know what you're looking for, I don't know how these
emails --
IAN HENDERSON: We're looking for evidence of, really,
sort of two or three things. Firstly, was there
this, you know, alleged secret unit operating in the
basement of the Fujitsu office in Bracknell? And,
secondly, did they have in some way the ability to
alter transaction records at branch level --
RON WARMINGTON: Or stock levels.
IAN HENDERSON: -- directly, without the knowledge or
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authorisation of the subpostmaster.
ANDY: That's useful. Let us take that away and we'll
respond to you in writing on it.
IAN HENDERSON: Okay. But none of that is new. I mean,
we've been asking that question for well over a year
now.
ANDY: And I don't know the history so I can't comment
but I know where you are aiming with it now, so
we can deal with that.
IAN HENDERSON: But Belinda, just stepping back briefly,
you said that we will be provided with comments on
the factual sort of inaccuracies of the 5th August,
sort of, draft. What's the timetable on that?
BELINDA CROWE: So there was some questions that had not
been raised with us before that we're looking at.
I would hope to be able to get you something within
the next few days, but it's -- on some questions
that are new to us, it might take us a little bit
longer. I'm saying within the next couple of days.
But that won't stop me wanting to have
a conversation with you, because I would still like
to have an opportunity to set out what my concerns
are on this.
IAN HENDERSON: Okay. It's just when we spoke last week
you were hoping to get something to us either by
close of play Friday or sort of early yesterday or
whenever it was, or even -- yes.
BELINDA CROWE: I was. JI was. And what you'll
understand, Ian, I'm sure, is that we have been
presented with a report we have not previously seen.
It's light on evidence and fact, and what we're
having to do is quite a lot of work to try and
answer some of those points.
IAN HENDERSON: Okay.
BELINDA CROWE: And we will do our utmost to get you the
IAN
comments. I realise that it's quite difficult in
terms of the timing of this, but I would like to
remind you that this was a report that you said
could be viewed -- that you had said would be ready
on 26 March. And you'll remember, I'm sure, our
conversations about this, because you put it on the
agenda for the MPs' meeting back in March and said
to the MPs that it would be ready by 26 March. So
it's been a long time in the preparation and
Post Office wants to be -- to make sure that it
addresses as many of the points as it possibly can.
What's important is getting this right.
HENDERSON: Right, which is why we were giving you
the opportunity to go for a quick response. We're
talking about 24 pages. I think what we hoped was
that somebody, you know, with quite a lot of
experience could probably read that in, I don't
know, an hour or something like that and relatively
quickly, you know, just address whatever sort of
factual errors have -- have been made. What you're
describing sounds much more like the more
substantive sort of response which is -- which is
Phase 2.
ANDY: I think -- I think the challenge we have is --
RON
IAN
RON
I think two are entwined, it's quite difficult to
separate one from the other actually in going
through it. What one person may call a factual
error another will call a point of substance, so
I don't think there's a clear divide as to what
we're struggling with.
WARMINGTON: Yes, I mean --
HENDERSON: Well, we're only a couple of days away.
WARMINGTON: Belinda, you were right in saying that
there are four points in the report -- and I'm
surprised there are as few as that, frankly -- where
we said enquiries --
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BELINDA CROWE: No, sorry, Ron, what I am saying is there
are four points in the report --
RON WARMINGTON: Yeah.
BELINDA CROWE: -- where it says "enquiries into this are
still continuing", and one of our concerns is: how
could it help the applicant to have that in there?
So in relation to pensions and allowances, if I take
that example --
RON WARMINGTON: Yeah.
BELINDA CROWE: -- we have N002, she has a copy of her
report in draft. She is waiting -- so she has her
pack. She is waiting for part 2 because -- because
what you said was that your report needs to be read
in conjunction with part 2, and she is a pensions
and allowance case, and it simply says in the report
that enquiries are continuing. So where it says
that, I'm not sure how that helps the applicant.
RON WARMINGTON: Well, it may not help the applicant at
this stage. It may not. If it is sufficiently
open-ended at this stage it is just a place marker
that says that the matter is not resolved yet on
this point.
And, frankly, you know, we are looking at all of
the cases -- I think 15 -- where pensions and
allowances issues have been raised. The only way we
can accelerate this process of concluding that
paragraph is to take this 6 and a half pages that
has been produced and study that in the context of
all the cases on which we have received the CQR and
POIR among those 15 and all those that we haven't,
and only when we've concluded that will we actually
get to the truth, and even then -- you know, Ian's
earlier mentioned question of, well, what -- you
know, how did all this start off and how was this
triggered exactly?
BELINDA CROWE: Sorry, excuse me -- excuse me, Ron, so we
don't get into the detail of that, we've answered
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IAN
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that. You asked the question about whether or not
there was a particular issue that cuts across all of
this, and -- and what the response said -- and
I know what it said because I was the one that
co-ordinated the putting it together -- is there
wasn't.
But my question remains: what -- if N002
(unclear) so if Joy goes into mediation with
a report that says enquiries are continuing, how
does that help the mediation of her case?
HENDERSON: Well, I think the short answer is that that
is just one out of a number of -- of issues. We don't
know when that mediation is going to actually occur.
It's entirely possible we may have an updated report by
that point.
BELINDA CROWE: So -- okay. And so what we would -- what
RON
we would do then is just, in advance of mediations,
send the latest version of the report.
WARMINGTON: Well, what you have to -- what we have
to understand, without -- and I am deeply resisting
the temptation to get down into the weeds -- on the
Joy Taylor case, among others, what happened in that
case is that the evidence that was going to go into
trial and was presented included all sorts of
reference to data relating to other branches that
weren't even the branch in question. Now, that has
only -- that was -- that triggered in the COR
a challenge from, in this case, Howe+Co, that
said: it doesn't make any sense; why are you raising
all this stuff rage to other branches?
Then Angela, in dealing with it thoroughly, came
back and said, "Yeah, actually that wasn't meant to
be there, it's just that we printed out stuff -- or
stuff had been printed out -- reports had been
printed out that included a lot of extraneous data."
Okay?
Now, that work had not been done until the POIR
effort was carried out and, therefore, it's
unsurprising that, in terms of the applicant and her
professional adviser, understanding what all this
stuff was all about was absent. They didn't know
what it was all about because there was a (unclear)
in there that was irrelevant to the case, and -- and
they leapt on that and said --
BELINDA CROWE: -- issues, one is a bit of the (unclear)
case, which is a Howe+Co case --
RON WARMINGTON: Okay, but one of the others --
BELINDA CROWE: (Unclear) is that might be specific to
this -- to that -- that particular case --
RON WARMINGTON: Yes.
BELINDA CROWE: -- but it doesn't -- it doesn't detract
from my basic issue, and that is -- what we have
said to this applicant is she needs part 2 and to
read that in conjunction with her case, and part 2
just said investigations are continuing --
RON WARMINGTON: Yes, but what -- what's the alternative,
Belinda? The alternative is either to remove that
section completely or not issue part 2 at this stage
or to take her report back and say, "No, you don't
need to look at that section", or --
ANDY: Or deal with the P & A issue in PRR on the Joy
Taylor case.
RON WARMINGTON: Or deal with it on a case-by-case basis,
just in that one. Yeah.
ANDY: And I think -- I think that's one of the, sort
of, overarching points we had around this, is that
the purpose of the part 2 report is assist the
applicants, and we envisaged that there would be
these thematic issues where you have a single issue
impacting on multiple applicants. But I think
there's a number of topics within the briefing
report, and at present P & A is one of them, where
there doesn't seem to be a thematic issue there at
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RON
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all, actually, it seems to be a collection of
individual points (unclear) on a case-by-case basis.
WARMINGTON: But, Andy, this -- this is just
man-to-man stuff. Look, you know, you're
a reasonable guy and all the people round these
telephones are reasonable people. The bottom line
on this material is that, you know, people like Ian
and I have dealt with cases like this for decades
and, ordinarily, foremost in the evidential material
heap would be computer evidence pointing at the
frequency of occurrence of reintroduction. It would
say: last year across the entire network eleven and
half thousand branches, there were 4,912
reintroductions, and guess what, 4,900 of them
occurred in one branch, and guess what, 4,899 were
carried out by one person. That sort of --
BELINDA CROWE: Excuse me, Ron, isn't that -- so, sorry,
RON
I thought that's what you were doing.
WARMINGTON: Pardon? Sorry?
BELINDA CROWE: So -- so when you first came in to look
RON
IAN
at Horizon-associated issues, the whole idea of the
exercise was for you to identify these (unclear).
Are you saying -- because Post Office would be very
happy to do this, and what Post Office is going to
have to do is to do just that, because if this
report goes to the mediators as drafted in the
absence of what Post Office said and what evidence
Second Sight has found to show that that is wrong,
then that -- that will be part of a standard pack
that Post Office will have to give to the mediator.
I really don't see that -- how that helps. Which is
why Post Office and Second Sight really needs to be
addressing those -- those points.
WARMINGTON: Well, first of all --
HENDERSON: Belinda, just standing back a bit,
I mean, you are putting that proposition, really, to
the wrong people. It is Tony more than anybody else
who has been cracking the whip and saying, "Get it
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out, get it out, get it out", and that's what we're
trying to do. It's not, you know, a decision that
was made unilaterally by Second Sight.
Tony knows that there will be omissions, he
knows that there will be sections that say, you
know, enquiries are continuing. But we're not the
decision-making body relating to this. We are just
trying to execute an instruction, if I can put it
that way, that was given to us by the working group.
BELINDA CROWE: But, Ian, that instruction emanated from
IAN
the fact that Second Sight said that this report was
necessary.
HENDERSON: Yes?
BELINDA CROWE: And so Tony then said -- but let's not
IAN
RON
banter words about what Tony may or may not have
said or meant, but the instruction from the working
group was then: well, then, you need to get on and
produce it.
HENDERSON: Yes, which is what we've done.
WARMINGTON: Actually, Ian -- Ian, Belinda, this --
this wasn't the point that I was trying to make, and
obviously I didn't make it very thoroughly.
Apologies.
The point that I was making is that -- not that
this information and data about frequency of
occurrence and so on would -- should be obtained
now, and if so by Angela or by us, that isn't the
point I'm making at all. The point I'm making is,
having brought these sort of cases myself, you would
expect that material to have been in the material on
file at the time that the charges were made; in
other words, how did we arrive at the certainty that
these people had carried out this theft when they're
saying that -- obviously they're saying they didn't
and the evidential material that we have seen in
every case so far that we've looked at -- and we
haven't looked at all of them -- is -- to say it's
weak is a raging understatement. It is just -- it's
just incomplete.
BELINDA CROWE: So in response to that, what I would say
is that you are not lawyers and criminal matters are
outside the scope of this.
RON WARMINGTON: Yes, but it's -- I'm not looking at it
as a barrister, I'm looking at it from the viewpoint
of what was it that caused the loss and who brought
it about, and there's -- it is obviously relevant to
us to make the determination of whether we think it
is on the balance of probabilities more likely than
the individual stole the money than that they --
which is what was they were charged with up and
until the time the cases were pulled -- as opposed
to it being more likely that these were either
accidentally entered or, in fact, entered by some in
some the branch, which was what was being suggested,
and that was -- that argument was quite powerfully
supported by the fact that other branch material was
included in the evidence pack.
So, you know, we're not trying -- we didn't jump
out of bed and say, "Let's see if we can make life
difficult for Post Office", we're saying that the
evidence itself on these cases is so bad and
confusing that it is -- first of all, it's little
surprise that we're getting so much ferocity on the
incoming COQRs, but it's also little surprise that
none of the cases ever got to prosecution, or if
they did, they failed.
BELINDA CROWE: Sorry, Ron, just so that we are clear --
RON WARMINGTON: Yes.
BELINDA CROWE: -- that is a case-specific issue.
RON WARMINGTON: Oh, it's case-specific across quite
a few of the cases we've looked at.
BELINDA CROWE: How many?
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RON WARMINGTON: It is the fact that we saw this same
generic story repeated in at least four occasions so
far, and we've got 15 on the books, that caused us to
trigger the question in the first place.
In fact, I listed 15 in my email and re-listed it
on 29 June email. So we've specifically drawn
Post Office's attention to the individual cases, and
what I've got is a 6 and a half page kind of general
response to the issue, which is a very good document --
make no mistake, it's a superb document -- but that
doesn't, of course, give me the answers, yet, to every
case where this has come up.
ANDY: (Unclear) at least every case, it's a -- you
know, that document that was produced on P & A fraud
was a general overarching document and then that has
to be --
RON WARMINGTON: Which is fine, Andy.
ANDY: -- applied down into the individual circumstances
of the cases.
RON WARMINGTON: Correct, and we're -- we will --
ANDY: Likewise --
RON WARMINGTON: Yes.
ANDY: -- the individual findings of the cases and you
draw up information to create general themes.
I think where we're -- I think where we're
struggling with is, is there at the moment any
general overarching theme relating, for example, to
P & A cases? And if not, then why are we putting it
in the part 2 report? It may well be that at the
outset we go, well, look, 15 cases of P & A, they
look very similar to (unclear) by those 15 different
(unclear) a reason for whatever problems occurred.
RON WARMINGTON: Yes.
ANDY: And this report wouldn't be the appropriate place
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to, sort of, do a recitation of those 15 different
individual circumstances. It's only if we've got
a general -- a general topic that goes through
a number of cases that warrant going in here.
I guess the concern from our point of view is that
if you are Joy Taylor and you pick up this report,
do you then think that there is a general theme
that's going to affect your case when, in fact,
there isn't? Because at the moment I can't see that
there is that common thread running through the
P & A cases. Actually I think we've only done one
P & A case, which is the Joy Taylor case.
IAN HENDERSON: Andy, that's a perfectly valid point for
you to make, but it falls more within either the
substantive comments that you want to make on the
report or perhaps a sort of a question that you want
to put back to the working group and to have
a debate on whether or not there is any benefit in
issuing the part 2 report at this stage.
BELINDA CROWE: So I think there is sense in it. I mean,
you know, this -- the purpose of this call is to see
if there is any possibility of working together in
order to get this into a position that helps the
applicant. So, Ron, you have said that it may not
help the applicant in relation to the specific cases
because enquiries are continuing, but there's no
alternative to that because there is pressure to
(unclear) to get the part 2 --
RON WARMINGTON: No, I didn't -- I didn't say that.
I said -- I said that -- the original concept
was not that it would be helpful to the applicant or
that it would be helpful to Post Office but rather
that it would be helpful to the mediator in getting
a grasp of what the issues were. That was the
original purpose. That's why we originally had
called it the mediator briefing report.
Now, the point --
BELINDA CROWE: Ron, you said specifically that it may
not be helpful to the applicant.
RON WARMINGTON: Correct --
BELINDA CROWE: It's got to be helpful to the
applicant --
RON WARMINGTON: -- I did say that.
BELINDA CROWE: -- as well as the mediator hasn't it?
RON WARMINGTON: No. Why?
BELINDA CROWE: Well, I'm not asking for this to be
helpful to Post Office. To be absolutely clear, it
is perfectly acceptable for Second Sight to produce
evidence which refutes something that Post Office
has said.
RON WARMINGTON: Yeah.
BELINDA CROWE: But what is not clear from this is what
Post Office has said, despite the fact that
Post Office had attempted to answer all of your
questions, and it doesn't say then what cases you
had looked at and what the evidence is which causes
you to take a different view.
RON WARMINGTON: Okay. Belinda, I tell you what -- how
we can characterise this discussion. It is the
antithesis of what I was assured by the chief exec
and chairman, which is -- our work, we pledge to
you -- because I said I wouldn't take on the job
unless they agreed to this -- is to seek the truth
as to what has happened. All right? The
characteristics of the conversations we are having
are one of litigants, one against the other, trying
to defend their case. It's perfectly acceptable and
perfectly normal. But a search for the truth would
have been far less an effort to protect the
organisation from an attack but more a sort of
volunteering of what the entire background was.
We've looked at all the cases, this is what we found
they did, this is where we went right, this is where
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we went wrong. And, you know, that isn't what we've
got here. We're in an antagonistic situation,
frankly, and you are asking us to pose questions,
and they will be carefully answered, rather than
what I was assured, which is that we would research
the situation and tell you what we've discovered.
BELINDA CROWE: And that --
RON
WARMINGTON: Without you having to ask individual,
carefully worded questions which we will very
carefully answer.
BELINDA CROWE: So, sorry, the -- so if we come back to
IAN
what Ian has just said he thought the working group
asked, it was for Second Sight to ask the questions
of Post Office that it wanted the answer to. So
that's what the working group said. So Second Sight
is asking those questions and Post Office is
answering them. It is not about -- this is not
antagonistic. It's not about not getting to the --
not getting to the truth of a particular case,
and -- but I think it's just -- so it's not impeding
you in any way, it's just trying to come up with
something that is helpful to the applicant. But
what you haven't provided is evidence that would
have allowed Post Office even to get into that
situation. And so -- and so I suppose the point, as
far as I'm concerned, is you are perfectly at
liberty to disagree with anything that Post Office
has said or shown you, but the Post Office needs to
see what the evidence for that is, as do the
applicants to the court(?).
HENDERSON: Belinda, those are all perfectly
legitimate points for Post Office to make but really
they fall more into the -- sort of the category of
substantive, sort of, comments, which is the next
stage in this process. What you seem to be seeking
to do at the moment is very substantially, you know,
move the -- sort of, the goal posts.
We have been totally transparent about the steps
leading up to the finalisation of part 2. We've
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discussed it at the working group on a number of
occasions. Yes, we did have this face-to-face
meeting on four/five, sort of, questions. It's
really very late in the day to start raising
fundamental, sort of, questions about whether or
not, you know, this is going to be of benefit to
applicants that are we doing the right thing.
ANDY: Just (unclear), Ian, is we understood, rightly or
IAN
wrongly, that -- originally this was called
a thematic issue or that it was to draw up thematic
issues to assist the applicant, and what we're
saying is that a number of the topics within the
(unclear). So we're not trying to change the
objective, we're not moving the goal posts, we're
simply saying that that was the objective set at the
beginning and we're questioning and asking: is there
a way that we can get the report better that
actually hits those (unclear). At the moment, on a
few of the (unclear) -- few sections, it is missing
the mark. It's not adding anything. There's no
value in it, most of the sections, and the PéA
section is a disaster.
HENDERSON: But, Andy, make those points when we get
to the substantive sort of comment period, and when
you're -- you know, very seriously, sort of, looked
at those. And yes, we probably would be prepared
to, sort of, sit down and have a -- you know,
a face-to-face, sort of, discussion on those. But
we want to get to that point -- you know, to use
Tony's phrase, can we move this forward?
ANDY: (Unclear) need to find -- why can't we have the
RON
discussion now? It's going to happen --
WARMINGTON: Well, Andy, Andy, you're taking the now
well aired but not resolved yet pensions and
allowances issue, you know, we know that -- we know
both the Joy Taylor, the Nalik(?) case and the
famous Downey(?) and all that stuff, we know that --
or we've got one or two others that have gone in, so
we can -- we can look at those, and others that are
yet to come in, in terms of both the COR and the --
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more seriously, the POIR. We've got to be able
to -- if you want to help the applicants, what the
applicants need is an answer to the fundamental
question: why was I accused of theft, dragged
away -- in one case literally -- in handcuffs, and
my life was trashed?
BELINDA CROWE: Ron, can we just keep the language not
emotional, please.
RON WARMINGTON: I'm saying this is what they are asking.
I'm relaying with -- through the -- a buffer of
improving and reducing the language from some of
what's been said to us to something that's quite
calm.
They're saying: you know, my life was then
thrashed, I was told this was being investigated.
In many cases months, sometimes a year later, on the
courtroom steps, the threat to the charge was
dropped, the entire prosecution was dropped, and
I don't know why. They just told me it was dropped.
But in the meantime I'd gone bust and I've lost, you
know, my livelihood.
ANDY: This is one of the challenges we have in --
RON WARMINGTON: Yeah, and now, you know, we -- if you
want to be helpful, we help them answer that
question.
ANDY: -- in there is a number of -- a number of legal
issues around -- around the contract and the process
of (unclear) contracts --
RON WARMINGTON: Yeah.
ANDY: -- the contractual obligations that have been
missed, prosecution processes. There's -- there's
a number of quite technical (unclear) legal issues
there, which is --
RON WARMINGTON: And some of those are off --
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ANDY: -- it's dangerous to --
RON WARMINGTON: -- some of those are off piste for us.
I perfectly understand that, Andy. But I've had
a conversation with --
ANDY: -- as you can imagine why you terminate someone's
contract is a very case-specific (unclear) the
reason you will stop the prosecution.
RON WARMINGTON: Yes.
ANDY: You know, and we would -- as I say, we will
address it on a case-by-case basis, but can you go
back to the point is there a genuine overarching
issue here that needs to come out in the report?
RON WARMINGTON: Yes, exactly.
ANDY: Yes.
BELINDA CROWE: So I think -- so this is not an attempt
to get you to anything out of the report.
Absolutely. And it's not an attempt --
RON WARMINGTON: Yeah, right.
BELINDA CROWE: -- to fetter your findings in any way,
it's an attempt to assist in making this as useful
a document as it can be, bearing in mind where we
are in the process, but --
RON WARMINGTON: Right, Belinda, thank you for that. We
understand that. But let me get the sort of
objective clear. We, as investigators, are driven
by one objective above all else, in fact overrides
everything, and that is to get truth. And we report
the truth.
I don't care whether it helps the applicant, the
mediator, Post Office, Alan Bates, Uncle bloody Tom
Cobley. I don't care who it helps. Our job is to
report what we have found and put it as fairly and
precisely as we can, being the truth.
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Now, I have no objective to help the applicants
on this or, for that matter, really, the mediators.
The purpose of this is to cover the points that have
been raised by, you know, several people -- and,
sort of, several in our mind means, like, ten or
more, which is why we were on the borderline when it
came to motor vehicle licence issues, on which very
few people have complained. But the point is to try
and get to the truth of what's happening. And where
we don't yet know, as on some of these issues that
are -- have got the four -- you know, the four items
-- the enquiries are continuing, which includes ATMs
of course, we -- you know, the alternative is to not
put anything in there at all. And we do not think
that is the truth. The truth is enquiries are
continuing.
BELINDA CROWE: So on the question of what the report is
for, that -- as far as I'm concerned, that's an
issue for the working group, because I can't answer
that. I have a view and I think it's to assist the
applicant and mediator. You clearly have
a different view.
The -- I think the -- getting to the truth is an
interesting point, but I'm not sure that actually --
RON WARMINGTON: Interesting?
BELINDA CROWE: -- the lack of facts and evidence and the
lack of findings in here actually takes us very much
further. So that's, in part, my concern.
There are a number of areas where Second Sight
has said many subpostmasters -- so we can deal with
-- with questions about -- what we're talking about
here is -- is a number of applicants and a number of
applicants within the -- within the scheme, as
opposed to subpostmasters -- well, not all of them
are existing subpostmasters, but I think that's
probably a (unclear) of detail -- have raised these
issues with us, but there's no indication of whether
or not they have been investigated, whether or not
RON
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they have been fully reviewed and, therefore, from
the point of view of the applicants reading this,
they may feel that the issues are far more
widespread than they really are and, again, with my
"Does this help the applicant?" distinction,
I wonder whether or not it is --
WARMINGTON: I don't care if it helps.
BELINDA CROWE: -- because it's not currently clear to me
IAN
actually what the findings are.
HENDERSON: But, Belinda, again, all valid points,
very happy to, sort of, consider those when we get
to the substantive comment phase, but, you know,
what we're trying to do is move this forward in
accordance with the instructions from the working
group. And we're happy to be flexible in terms of
that but, I mean, what we had in mind was: receive
your comments on simple sort of factual errors, we
will then update the report, issue it -- re-issue it
and invite comments from both you and JFSA. And we
want to be -- we need to be very careful that we're
not seen to be preferring one against the other.
So, you know, that's another potential issue
regarding, sort of --
ANDY: No, no, no, no, no, sorry, can I jump in there.
IAN
That is a terrible statement to make. You must in
some cases prefer one against the other. Your job
is to assess the relative strength of the comments
and go with whichever one you think is correct. And
if you believe that one party is correct, you should
go with it. There should be no preference as to
where the comments come from, you should make
decisions based on facts there.
HENDERSON: Andy, I agree. What I meant by
preferring one against the other is, for example,
agreeing to a face-to-face meeting. Now, you know,
you will be aware that there have been a number of
sort of, tribunals and -- and other similar sort of
bodies that have come unstuck for exactly that
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reason.
ANDY: Yeah, you --
RON WARMINGTON: Andy, I understood what Ian meant, that
he was not --
ANDY: Maybe I misunderstood him.
RON WARMINGTON: Yeah, he was not talking to the
substance, it was in terms of the process, that
we've got to be even-handed in terms of listening
with both ears for the same amount of time to both
parties and then making our decision. We understand
that completely, Andy. But thank you for pointing
it out.
BELINDA CROWE: So there is no difficulty with Alan
attending a meeting and that was -- so -- so Tony
suggested to you that you invited him along, and
I understand it was an open invitation to him.
IAN HENDERSON: Yes.
BELINDA CROWE: And that's a very sensible way to
proceed, in my view. So it's not a question of
preferring one against the other.
And also, you know, I understand your process,
Ian, but there are, in the view of the Post Office,
in the view of Post Office, a number of issues that,
as Andy said previously, are inextricably linked.
It's quite difficult just to say, "Oh, well, you
said five and we think it's six", because in actual
fact it's more substantive than that.
And also there are a number of issues that --
there are two issues specifically that are just out
of scope. The issue of the contract is not within
scope. It's not (unclear) an associated issue.
It's only relevant to the extent that it provides
the benchmark against which the actions of the
Post Office and applicant should be assessed.
IAN HENDERSON: But, again, Belinda, that's a substantive
point which Post Office is perfectly entitled to
make. When we get to that stage --
RON WARMINGTON: That's a trap.
IAN HENDERSON: -- we will consider it and we will update
our report, you know --
RON WARMINGTON: Put that in writing and see what
happens.
IAN HENDERSON: -- as we see fit.
I mean, what we want to do is just move this
forward as quickly as possible, ideally following
the -- sort of the linear process that we have been
asked to do by the working group.
BELINDA CROWE: Which was to sit down with Post Office.
IAN HENDERSON: Which we have already done.
BELINDA CROWE: Yes, but not to discuss the report,
because the Post Office didn't have sight of it, so
it's -- and it was our right --
IAN HENDERSON: That was not the requirement, Belinda.
Belinda, the requirement was to discuss the
outstanding questions that had been on the table for
some months and it was an attempt I think by Tony
to, you know, bring closure to those outstanding
items which were perceived as holding up the report.
ANDY: So what you're saying, Ian, and not going to go
through the history, but what you're saying is now
is not the right time for Post Office to make
comments on what you call substance and you won't
take those comments at this time?
IAN HENDERSON: Well, what I would like to do is move to
the next -- I mean, we have -- we have gone public to
the extent of, you know, agreeing with the working
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RON
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group what process we will follow. We're already
behind that sort of timetable, you know, which
disappoints me, but it's maybe not a big surprise
bearing in mind the complexity of the issues and so on.
What I'd like to do is very quickly, or as
quickly as possible, receive what I am still calling
your factual comments. We will then issue an
updated version take account of those comments.
That is when both yourselves and JFSA will have an
opportunity to make substantive sort of comments and
we will then move towards finalising the report.
What we had envisaged is that all of those
comments would be in writing for the reasons that
we've touched on. We are certainly not ruling out
the possibility of a face-to-face sort of meeting,
and I think that's something that we would like to
think about, sort of, offline. But I'm certainly
not rejecting it.
WARMINGTON: No, exactly.
ANDY: That sounds fair. However, just to be clear
RON
IAN
then, you're saying that you won't take substantive
comments from us at this stage?
WARMINGTON: Well, not on the phone, Andy, will we,
obviously? Matters of huge principle, like whether
the contract -- the comments on the contract are out
of scope are very minor. They have been on the
thematic spreadsheet as T16 for the last two years.
That is something that -- clearly we're not going to
remove it based on a phone call. Why would we?
HENDERSON: I don't know if this helps. I mean, if
we want to call it something else, you know, rather
than "factual comments", if you want to call it,
say, "preliminary comments" or something like that,
we would be happy -- you know, we would be prepared
to accept that. All we want is something to happen
that enables us to at least move to the next stage
with an updated report and we can then sort of feel
that at least we've delivered on our part of the
bargain rather than it all falling into a rather
I don't want call it a black hole but a rather
unclear pot in terms of what the status is and
what's happening and -- and so on.
what was the second out of
alluded to? You said there
RON WARMINGTON: Belinda,
scope issue that you
were two.
BELINDA CROWE: Criminal matters.
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RON WARMINGTON: Pardon?
BELINDA CROWE: Criminal --
RON WARMINGTON: Oh, criminal. Oh, criminal. Yeah,
okay, okay, okay.
IAN HENDERSON: On that point, what we're differentiating
between is the criminal process,
prosecution sort of process,
or even the
and the underlying,
sort of, evidence. It's a bit like, you know, the
concept that there is no property in a witness. We
are looking at the underlying, sort of, evidence
that can, of course,
a variety of,
be used by either party for
sort of, purposes, and we are most
definitely, sort of, commenting on that, sort of,
evidence. What we are not doing is trying to,
of, put ourselves in place of, you know,
or even the decision-maker within Post Office,
know, relating to the decision to prosecute. We
sort
the courts
you
are
focusing primarily -- exclusively on the underlying,
sort of,
ANDY: That's unfair, Ian, on that line then.
really see where section 22 would fit which is
evidence and forming views based on that.
I don't
a question on -- which is a whole section dedicated
to the investigation process but perhaps we can
(unclear) seems to out of scope on that --
IAN HENDERSON: Well, again, happy to,
a dialogue sort of on that.
you know, have
BELINDA CROWE:
So can I just ask you a general question.
In these areas where you are -- not a comment on the
report but in these areas where you are commenting
on legal matters, are you taking legal advice?
IAN HENDERSON: No.
BELINDA CROWE: Right. Okay.
IAN HENDERSON: We're attempting to comment on the
evidence. I mean, you may be characterising them as
sort of legal sort of matters --
BELINDA CROWE: So the subpostmasters' contract and the
balance of risk is entirely a legal matter but not
only it's legal, but it's commercially legal.
IAN HENDERSON: Well, I certainly agree that it's
a commercial sort of matter but it's an issue that
has been raised by a number, in fact quite
a significant number, of SPMRs.
And why do you think that is out of scope?
BELINDA CROWE: Because the matter of -- and Chris has
made this point to you on numerous occasions and you
may or may not agree with it. But the contractual
relationship between the Post Office and an agent is
based on -- a relationship between a principal and
the agent is a legal matter. The contract, as you
say, is quite long. It's a balanced legal document
and just to pick out various bits of it and comment
on it seems to me to be not a legal approach and nor
does it contain any analysis as to why the
apportionment of obligations which are on both
parties are not appropriate or unlawful.
IAN HENDERSON: Well, if I can answer that question in
a slightly sort of different way. I mean, the way that
is the first sort of came up as raised by a number of
subpostmasters was actually, "I've never seen the
contract". You know, I signed a four-page sort of
document and that was the most that I was ever sort of
provided with. Now, we know what Post Office's
position on that is but that, you know, is the
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information being provided to us by a large number of
SPRs. So that, I think, I hope you would agree, is
a perfectly legitimate sort of issue, you know, to deal
with in our part 2 report.
ANDY: That's a fair point, Ian. Again, I don't know
whether that's a general issue. It seems to be on
a case-by-case basis whether they signed the
contract or not. I think we have to be very -- this
is the risk of straying into the legal field here,
is that -- I'm sorry, this is with my lawyer(?) hat
which I try not to do. But because it's
a principal/agency relationship, it actually doesn't
really matter whether they sign the contract not
because most of the principals are defined by the
common law anyway and, in a sense, the postmaster
contract simply codifies all those rules. This is
the problem if we start going down this rabbit hole,
there are layers upon layers of legal arguments.
RON WARMINGTON: Yeah. Andy, one of the sections of
course we address is the famous section dealing with
the -- in which instances the POID (the Post Office
Investigation Department) is deployed, which ties
together both the first and last sections of the
report, both of which you're challenging.
The point that we made there, and it has been
made multiple to us by, in some cases, some of the
more experienced and sophisticated applicants,
particularly those that have -- you know, we've got
airline pilots, chartered accountants among the
population of 150 -- particularly those that have
worked in big companies that had in their own mind
an expectation of an availability of an
investigation support function which, under the
contract, which they had not seen, was never to be
made available. Now, is that not relevant to the
cases? They think it is.
ANDY: I think there is room in the part 2 report to
(unclear) about the various parts of the contract
and some (unclear) --
RON
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WARMINGTON: Yeah.
ANDY: -- I'm not trying to -- you know, in our
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experience, having read the CORs, the cases change
their focus on the following bits of the
subpostmasters' contract (unclear) your point.
WARMINGTON: Yeah, yeah.
ANDY: Then it's going to go on then to commenting about
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and this is fair or not reasonable or not lawful or
not, because I think we're in a dangerous ground
there, especially because -- and this is probably
self-preservation for you guys -- is that you might
find some of the applicants then start taking that
as scripture and relying on what you said as legal
advice and that's -- well, you don't want to go
there.
So that's why we just -- there's a line to be
drawn and these are the legal provisions that are
engaged in the matters we've seen in a neutral
fashion. It's a step further we can go back to but
then you're dealing with a Horizon Issues, you're
actually doing a legal analysis which (unclear) for
reasons we've already gone through.
HENDERSON: Again, all fair points, Andy, and we're
happy to take them on board, you know, if you make
them a part of the substantive comments.
ANDY: Sorry, I'm unclear. I said when do you want them
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because, you know --
HENDERSON: Well, if we're moving away from the quick
response on factual sort of errors, are you inclined
to move towards what I've described as, you know,
preliminary headline sort of comments just to help
us sort of move forward to exposing an updated
report for more formal sort of comments? Then
obviously the sooner we get to that point, you know,
the happier I can imagine everybody will be.
BELINDA CROWE: So what we will do is let you have our
IAN
comments in response to the request of this --
HENDERSON: Yes.
BELINDA CROWE: If we stray into matters that you
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consider to be substantive that we consider them to
be (unclear) because our comments would be -- our
comments, they will be preliminary comments, to take
your term, Ian, and you will have them -- we will
attempt to get them to you within the next couple of
days.
HENDERSON: Very happy with that, Belinda. Thank
you.
BELINDA CROWE: Okay. The points that I just want to
IAN
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make sure that I'm not leaving this call without you
being clear on the point that our concern is that,
as drafted at the moment, this falls short of what
we think is helpful for the applicants and therefore
what we were expecting, and that was reason that we
wanted to have the -- that was the reason that we
wanted to have the call because what we didn't want
to do was to send some comments and then afterwards,
in a conversation with the working group, make those
points. I wanted to have that conversation with
you, and also just make the point that there are
a number of issues, absolutely accepting what you
say, Ian, about the fact that you haven't finished
doing all of this work yet, there are a number of
issues that had been previously dealt with and, in
view of the that Second Sight have been engaged for
a considerable period of time and has been paid
a considerable amount of money, there are some areas
where we would expected your thinking and your
evidence and your investigations to be more advanced
than they are.
HENDERSON: Fine. And, again, perfectly legitimate
points to make and, you know, we will try to address
them.
WARMINGTON: One final point, Belinda. When you say,
and you've used the phrase a lot in this telephone
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call, really coming from the position of is this
helpful to the applicant, I think I'm clear on
whether you are distinguishing between the entirety
of the document, which is I would hope helpful to
somebody but I haven't -- we haven't put a big label
in front of our desk saying with regard to every
sentence: "is this particular sentence helpful to
the applicant?" Have we done that? No. Would we
propose to do that? No.
Again, our purpose is to summarise where we are
on each of the -- certainly the thematic issues,
with the exception of the thematic issues which we
have seen lots of comments on but which we are
regarding as out of scope and one of those hasn't
even been mentioned yet. One is the criminal
matters, criminal prosecution process issue, and the
other is the several number of comments have been
made about what people are clearly referring to as
the sort of black ops team of peculiar practice in
terms of the selling of their branches. Pardon?
BELINDA CROWE: Sorry, that's the Rudkin case.
RON WARMINGTON: No, no, no, that's a separate black ops
matter. That was where people are saying there was
some skullduggery going on in connection with the
closure of my branch and doing me out of my
compensation payment. Now, we have not dealt --
ANDY: That is out of scope, isn't it?
BELINDA CROWE: That is absolutely out of -- absolutely
out of scope.
RON WARMINGTON: Of course it is, and that's why it's not
in the report.
BELINDA CROWE: I think the -- I think what would be
helpful is to understand, but we will make this
point in writing is --
RON WARMINGTON: By the way, sorry, in that I readily
agreed to it being out of scope, that does conflict
IAN
RON
IAN
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with the mission which was that we were to
investigate every issue raised by the applicants
and --
HENDERSON: And, Ron, probably more important is what
comes after that with a view to achieving, sort of,
closure, you know, between applicants and the
Post Office. So I think we need to be very careful
about overusing out of scope --
WARMINGTON: Yes.
HENDERSON: -- sort of, concerns because we're
potentially sort of shooting ourselves in the foot.
WARMINGTON: Yes.
BELINDA CROWE: So I think my understanding was that it
was the mediation that was supposed to achieve
closure. If the mediation doesn't achieve closure,
then if there is an issue to be decided but also
I think one of the reasons that there is a (unclear
here, and it's an important one too, that if there
are areas that are areas that Second Sight are not
qualified to investigate, then that might be an
issue that Post Office needs to consider, but
Post Office needs to consider how those matters are
investigated because -- you know, had the (unclear)
seen to look at criminal process and procedure,
then, with the best will in the world, I'm not sure
the Post Office would have engaged a firm of
forensic accountants to do that, likewise, with the
contract and anything else that might be potentially
out of scope.
So this was -- this whole thing came about as
a result of subpostmasters considering that there
was a problem with Horizon. The Horizon and
associated issues that we've defined, you defined it
with input from the Post Office, and that was the
definition in your interim report. The application
form specifically requires you to say whether or not
the issues they are raising are Horizon-related
issues and so, if there are any issues that are
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outside of that, then Post Office, I am sure, would
be very happy to look at them and consider them.
But they do not fall within the scope of this which
is one of the reasons why Horizon was specifically
mentioned on the application form, to ensure that
the subsequent investigation remained within scope.
Otherwise, it would have been "is there anything
about the Post Office that you would like to
complain about?" but it wasn't.
HENDERSON: Belinda, I mean, this is probably no more
than an observation at this stage. It does seem
very late in the day to start raising out of scope
sort of issues bearing in mind the number of
meetings that we've had; the number of sort of draft
reports; you know, the COQRs that have been sort of
reviewed. You know, I don't recall anyone raising
in a substantive way, you know, this applicant is
touching on issues that are out of scope. What we
consistently have been asked to do is take the COR
and deal with it. In the formal appointment letter,
yes, there were -- there was at least one matter
that was specifically identified as being out of
scope and that was in a criminal prosecution, and so
on.
But it's the first time, as far as I can recall,
that there has been any serious attempt to extend
out of scope to include all these other topics.
BELINDA CROWE: I think this has never come up before,
IAN
Ian, because the scheme was set up to investigate
allegations related to Horizon and associated
issues.
HENDERSON: But if you think back to some of the
face-to-face meetings, you know, we spent a lot of
time sort of talking about the contract, whether or
not people sort of, you know, sort of received that,
whether or not there was investigative support being
sort of provided, and so on. Nobody has previously
sort of cried foul in relation to any of those sort
of discussions and even suggested that we shouldn't
be looking into those matters.
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ANDY: We're not crying foul now. We're (unclear)
raised a inside the scope and just too many
additional signed the contract (unclear)
IAN HENDERSON: Yes.
ANDY: It's the questions around (unclear) community
closure programme, the lawfulness or not or
reasonableness of the contract and the prosecution
process are the three key areas which we say are out
of scope. As far as I'm aware, I don't think we've
ever discussed those in a detailed working group.
Yes, they have been raised in some of the CQRs, but
they've also been raised on a sort of whole host of
(unclear) in scope, and your CRRs have, quite
rightly I think, stayed off those out-of-scope
issues so far. I think the reason we're raising it
now is this is the first time out-of-scope issues
have appeared in the report because a few of them
are in the part 2 report and that's the only reason.
RON WARMINGTON: I mean, Andy, you can believe that we,
as a team in Second Sight, have agonised over some
of this stuff, you know, really seriously trying to
get to the right course of action and, yes, there
will be one or two mediators who will be puzzled
when faced with an applicant screaming blue murder
about the black ops closure of his lovely beloved
branch and we said, "Well, what's Second Sight got
to be about that?" The answer is nothing. We
didn't even mention it.
ANDY: That's fine because potentially, Ron, what we're
saying is the (unclear) burden on us --
RON WARMINGTON: Yes.
ANDY: -- because ultimately it would be slightly
foolish of Post Office to go into a mediation
unprepared for an EQA like the one you just had.
RON WARMINGTON: Yes, exactly.
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ANDY: You could hold the mediation below the waterline
before you can --
RON WARMINGTON: Exactly.
ANDY: -- leave that one with us, we'll deal with it.
RON WARMINGTON: Exactly, and equally -- and Belinda and
I have had this conversation before, it predates the
involvement of any of you, and that is that I'm
crystal clear about job 1, if you like, pre-dating
the mediation scheme entirely which was that the
MPs, in hiring us, shortlisted firms they said they
wanted -- you know, they were looking for firms that
had dealt with matters where people had been wrongly
accused.
They said that their primary concern -- and this
was voiced principally by James Arbuthnot but echoed
by others like Letwin and Andrew Bridgen, Mike Wood
and others. Their communication with us was: the
most important thing that we want to find out is
have there been any miscarriages of justice. Now,
obviously one can take that to mean in civil cases
or criminal, and we have made it abundantly clear
that we are accountants, not lawyers, and that we
would consider it contemptuous of the court process
of England to say, "Well, Ian Henderson thinks this
was a wrongful prosecution". There's no way we're
going to do that. We would be -- we're too modest
to do that.
IAN HENDERSON: Ron, just to --
RON WARMINGTON: And we're not qualified to do that.
IAN HENDERSON: -- you're potentially muddling job 1
with --
RON WARMINGTON: Yes, I am but I want -- exactly. I'm
not muddling it but, yes, I'm potentially muddling
it, Ian, because it must be clear to you that we
have clarified in our own minds the serious
distinction between the part 1 job or, sorry, the
job 1 and the mediation job where it is not relevant
and it is out of scope.
BELINDA CROWE: So, Ron, what you said to me was that job
1 was in the cupboard. MPs haven't engaged you.
Let's be clear on that.
RON WARMINGTON: Pardon?
BELINDA CROWE: You have not been engaged by MPs.
RON WARMINGTON: No, I know. Exactly. We were
interviewed by MPs and Post Office.
BELINDA CROWE: You have said in the cupboard. As I said
to you, if you are doing any additional work that is
outside of that letter of engagement, then
Post Office do need to have visibility of that,
unless you're charging somebody else for it.
RON WARMINGTON: No, we're not charging anybody else for
it. In using the analogy I did, I said that hat is
in the wardrobe and is gathering dust. But, you
know, clearly, as we go through in juggling and
taking decisions on what is in scope and out of
scope in regard to the mediation job, we can't
forget the other hat that's in the cupboard. That's
all.
BELINDA CROWE: So -- and I think my point in relation to
that is there has to be -- we talked about
transparency and there has to be transparency in
relation to that. What you said to me, Ron (because
I don't forget much either), what you said to me was
that what you were doing for MPs was in the
cupboard, but also there were things that you that
were said in meetings between -- meetings with you
and them and meetings that Post Office didn't
attend. Now, Post Office needs to have transparency
of whether or not you are doing anything else and,
if you are, whether or not you're charging the
Post Office for it. That's my only point. If you
do start to have an issue where hat 1 comes out of
the cupboard --
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RON WARMINGTON: Yes.
BELINDA CROWE: -- then Post Office needs to be aware of
that and also, if there is any lack of clarification
about what that actually involves, and whether or
not that involves you -- Post Office did not engage
you to look at criminal matters.
RON WARMINGTON: Yes.
BELINDA CROWE: And so if you start to look at those
things, then we do need to have a conversation about
whether or not that is appropriate and whether or
not you're doing that for Post Office or you're
doing that for somebody else. So I think we can
park that one for the moment.
RON WARMINGTON: Well, the fact is that until the
mediation scheme was launched, Belinda, the work
that we were doing was job 1 and Post Office was
paying for it because my understanding is it had
been instructed to do so by the minister.
ANDY: Yes, and we referred to the scheme.
RON WARMINGTON: Correct, and that point we took --
IAN HENDERSON: Belinda, I'm very sorry -- it's Ian --
I did tell you that I would have to leave roundabout
now.
BELINDA CROWE: You did.
IAN HENDERSON: I've got another appointment.
BELINDA CROWE: You did, and I'm sorry that we've kept
you so long, Ian. We will -- just so for absolute
transparency and clarity, Post Office will send you
its preliminary comments within the next couple of
days and, if they are beyond what you consider in
terms of the process that you're thinking of, beyond
factual, then they are there and on the table as
part of the next stage of the process in terms of
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the way that you describe it, Ian. Does that work?
HENDERSON: That's helpful, Belinda, and I'm happy to
proceed on that basis.
BELINDA CROWE: Okay. So everything that we have
IAN
discussed will come to you, either by way of our
preliminary comments -- so there's no question about
this being not transparent. It will come to you by
way of our preliminary comments and any subsequent
comments that we make. So you don't -- don't feel
that you need to do anything in terms of -- you
know, we will set this out in writing -- there's
absolutely no problem with that -- so you don't feel
in any way compromised. Is that okay?
HENDERSON: Yes. Happy with that, Belinda. Thank
you very much.
BELINDA CROWE: Okay. Excellent. Sorry that's taken
IAN
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rather longer than I would have hoped but we will do
that.
HENDERSON: Great.
WARMINGTON: Superb.
BELINDA CROWE: Okay.
RON
WARMINGTON: Okay.
BELINDA CROWE: Thank you very much.
ANDY: Thanks everyone.
RON
WARMINGTON: Thank you. Bye.
(Recording ends)
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