WITNO9980500
WITNO9980500
Witness Name: Benjamin Andrew Foat
Statement No: WITN09980500
Dated: 29 May 2024
THE POST OFFICE HORIZON IT INQUIRY
FIFTH WITNESS STATEMENT OF
BENJAMIN ANDREW FOAT
I, Benjamin Andrew Foat, will say as follows:
Introduction
1. I have been employed by Post Office Limited (POL) as its Group General
Counsel (GC) since 1 May 2019.
Fourth witness statement
2. I wish to produce a further document [POL00104220]. It is a relevant
document related to question 38 of the request made by the Post Office
Horizon IT Inquiry (the Inquiry) pursuant to Rule 9 of the Inquiry Rules 2006,
dated 27 March 2024, which asked me to provide a full account of my role and
Page 1 of 5
WITNO9980500
WITNO9980500
involvement in the settlement negotiations and their outcome. The letter
details an inequity in compensation. This issue was brought to the attention of
the Chairman. I flagged the issue and subsequently had an input on the
drafting of the letter, which was sent to Paul Scully MP.
Background
3. On 3 May 2024 my fourth (signed) witness statement (Fourth Statement) was
provided to the Inquiry.
4. On 15 May 2024, the solicitors representing me (Farrer & Co), were contacted
by the Inquiry requesting that I provide a fifth witness statement, addressing
certain document references contained within my Fourth Statement, along
with its accompanying index, and amending them as necessary and/or
requested.
5. The facts in this witness statement are true, complete, and accurate to the
best of my knowledge and belief.
Amendments to document references in Fourth Statement
6. I have set out the amendments in the table below, in the order that they appear
in my Fourth Statement:
Paragraph in Fourth Reference in Fourth Amended reference
Statement Statement
48 POL0146535 POL00158234
Page 2 of 5
WITNO9980500
WITNO9980500
48 POL0146594 POL00158365
95.16 POL0006397 POL00006397
95.19 POL0020135 POL00023656
95.19 POL0020136 POL00023657
116 POL0152923 POL00152923
205 POL000112590 POL00112590
225 POL000023525 POL00023525
225 POL000123523 POL00023523
236 POL0031089 POL00031089
250 POL000103870 POL00103870
I append to this statement an updated index to my Fourth Statement, to reflect
the amended document
reference numbers.
Page 3 of 5
have highlighted the
WITNO9980500
WITNO9980500
amendments in red in Exhibit 1 [WITN09980501] and provide a clean copy of
the index at Exhibit 2 [WITN09980502].
8. I hope the above clarification is of assistance. The content of my Fourth
Statement otherwise remains unaffected and true to the best of my knowledge
and belief.
Statement of Truth
I believe the content of this statement to be true.
Benjamin Andrew Foat
Date: 29 May 2024
Page 4 of 5
Index to Fifth Witness Statement of Benjamin Foat
WITNO9980500
WITNO9980500
No. URN Document Description Control Number
1 POL00104220 Letter from Tim Parker to Paul I POL-0103803
Scully MP dated 25 May 2021
2 WITNO9980501 I Updated index to the Fourth I WITN09980501
Witness Statement of Benjamin
Foat (redline)
3 WITNO9980502 I Updated index to the Fourth I WITN09980502
Witness Statement of Benjamin
Foat (clean)
Page 5 of 5