Ex-Royal Mail CEO casts doubt on Post Office boss’s ‘I did not know’ defence

Alan Cook is now being questioned by Edward Henry KC, who represents Janet Skinner, a sub-postmistress who served a nine-month sentence for false accounting after pleading guilty in 2006.

“She’d been jailed on the lie, Mr Cook, that Horizon was infallible,” Mr Henry said. “But you said you had no idea that these prosecutions were being instituted in your name. Is that right?”

Mr Cook replied: “I knew there were prosecutions.”

Mr Henry continued: “She pleaded guilty to false accounting only because she’d been told that if she did not, the Post Office would prosecute and pursue her for theft. She hadn’t stolen a penny, Mr Cook. All of this was being done in your name and yet you claim you didn’t know.”

Mr Cook responded: “I just can’t be more apologetic, it’s, it’s not…”

Mr Henry interjected: “Mrs Skinner was the mother of two young children. Wrongly accused of theft, she was told that if she pleaded to false acocunting as an alternative to that baseless theft charge she wouldn’t go to prison. Now this was common practice by the Post Office: charge theft and accept a plea to false accounting. Were you aware of that strategem, Mr Cook?”

He replied: “No, in fact worse than that. I, I, when I had reports about them and the individual had pleaded guilty then I thought we must have been in the right. I did not appreciate what was going on.”

Mr Henry then asked: “So this stratagem was reinforcing your ignorance and the general prejudice that these sub-postmasters had their hand in the till. Is that right?”

Mr Cook replied: “I, in the particular cases where the individual pleaded guilty, I, I had assumed that they believed they were guilty. It didn’t occur to me at the time that that was recommended to them by their lawyers.”

Mr Henry said: “It was the most profound structural injustice.”

Mr Cook replied: “I agree.”

Mr Henry replied: “Unmeritorious charge of theft was being used as a jemmy or sledgehammer to force a plea or crush sub-postmasters into submission.”

Mr Cook then conceded: “I don’t know if that was a deliberate strategy by the Post Office but that’s how it manifested itself and it’s unacceptable.”