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Former Royal Mail chief exec Crozier says ‘I was not aware’ Royal Mail lawyers were prosecuting Post Office subpostmasters
Former chief executive of the Royal Mail Group Adam Crozier said he was not aware that lawyers within the group conducted prosecutions at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry.
At the time Royal Mail owned the Post Office, and the Post Office used the Royal Mail’s legal department.
In his witness statement Crozier said:
I do not recall any involvement in or knowledge of the oversight of the investigations and prosecutions brought by Post Office Ltd against subpostmasters, either for theft, fraud and false accounting for alleged shortfalls in branch accounts for the recovery of such alleged shortfalls through the use of civil proceedings.
Counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC asked: “Were you not aware that in fact there was no Post Office legal team – it had no separate legal in-house function and that civil and criminal proceedings were brought by lawyers within the Royal Mail Group legal team?”
Crozier replied: “I was not, no.”
Beer continued: “So lawyers from within the group gave advice on prosecutions, they made decisions about prosecutions and within prosecutions, and they conducted the proceedings, not any Post Office lawyers, you didn’t know that?”
Crozier replied: “I was not aware of that, no.”
The BBC has previously reported that Crozier was paid £9.7m in salary and bonuses in his time at Royal Mail. 400 convictions using Horizon data took place while he was in charge of Royal Mail.
Key events
Summary of the day …
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Adam Crozier and Alan Cook, who both held senior roles while the events of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal unfolded, have both claimed to the inquiry that they were not fully aware of the prosecutorial function of the business. Crozier claimed he did not realise it was the Royal Mail legal team that was enacting prosecutions on behalf of the Post Office. Cook said it was only near the end of his tenure he realised that he was the managing director of an organisation that could prosecute people. In his evidence, Crozier described Cook’s statement on that as “surprising”. A counsel acting for subpostmasters described part of Cook’s written testimony as a “straight out lie”.
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Cook also told the inquiry that Paula Vennells “likely” signed off on a trial bill of more than £300,000 after a subpostmaster was accused of having a £25,000 shortfall at his branch. Lee Castleton’s prosecution in 2006 was the subject of the 2009 Computer Weekly article that began to draw wider attention to the complaints about the Horizon system. Cook said the article “shocked” him. Vennells is scheduled to appear at the inquiry in May.
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Keir Starmer has said he is “fully confident that Angela Rayner has not broken the rules” after Greater Manchester police said it had reopened a probe into claims Labour’s deputy leader may have broken electoral law over information she gave about her living situation a decade ago.
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The latest GDP figures show that the UK economy grew slightly by 0.1% in February, which coupled with the “technical recession” of the final two quarters of 2023 show the economy has been flat-lining for months. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said the figures were “a welcome sign that the economy is turning a corner”. Year-on-year the economy is 0.2% smaller than it was in February 2023.
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Rishi Sunak’s government has discussed the possibility of using a UK-based airline to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, industry sources have confirmed.
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Starmer visited Barrow-in-Furness today where nuclear submarines are being built, and said “the only way to have a safer world is to have an effective nuclear deterrent.”
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Energy and net zero minister Graham Stuart has said he is stepping down from Sunak’s cabinet to concentrate on his constituency.
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The Bank of England’s recent record of forecasting inflation and the path of interest rates was undermined by out-of-date methods and a failure to communicate clearly with the public, according to an independent assessment.
Thank you for reading and all your kind words and comments this week – and for helping me out and flagging when I’ve made typos. I will no doubt see you somewhere else soon on the Guardian website. Take care, have a good weekend.
Here is a little bit more from Adam Crozier’s testimony today at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry, via PA Media, which has pulled out these bits of transcription, where Crozier said he “doesn’t know” if the money paid by subpostmasters for accounting shortfalls was recorded as profit.
Sam Stein KC, who is acting at the inquiry on the behalf of a large group of subpostmaster and has been notably tenacious in his questioning of witnesses, said: “Subpostmasters and mistresses were being told to pay up. It’s your contractual duty, they were told, to pay up. And many of them did pay up for shortfalls that were certainly not their fault. They got that money from their own pockets.
“They got that money sometimes borrowing from friends. Some, you may recall, got the money from their kids’ piggy banks. Others got money from loan sharks at extortionate interest rates, tipping them into financial chaos and bankruptcy. Help us please understand what happened to that money when it was paid in? Was it properly accounted for?”
Crozier, who headed Royal Mail when it owned the Post Office between 2003 and 2010 responded: “I assume it was through the financial team.”
When asked if it was accounted for as profit, he said: “I don’t know.”
Stein then asked: “It would be wholly wrong, would you agree, to account for a payment as shortfall as profit?”
Crozier responded: “I’m not an accounting expert. I wouldn’t know exactly how you account for different payments.”
Energy and net zero minister Graham Stuart to quit cabinet
Conservative energy minister Graham Stuart has said he is stepping down from Rishi Sunak’s cabinet to concentrate on his constituency.
PA Media reports he said in a statement “I’m proud to have served in the government for most of the past eight years, but now it’s time to focus on Beverley and Holderness.”
Stuart had held the ministerial role since February 2023.
On Wednesday, while appearing on a phone-in at LBC Radio, prime minister Sunak said “There are a lot of things facing the country that we’ve been working hard on that your callers I’m sure are interested in, whether its helping with the cost of living, tackling the waiting lists, stopping the boats, having a more sensible approach to net zero.”
The Post Office Horizon IT inquiry has concluded for the day. It resumes on Tuesday. On the schedule are former managing director of the Post Office David Miller and David Mills, former chief exec of Post Office.
But chair Wyn Williams has observed that it has “been a stretch” having two witnesses a day over the last couple of days, and Jason Beer KC says they will review the schedule. That could mean an earlier start – as happened today – or it could mean a rejig of who appears when. Williams has previously indicated that he was not inclined to alter the timetable and that he did not think the inquiry should last a day longer than was necessary because of the anguish caused to those who were affected.
Adam Crozier has just added “I am not an accounting expert” to his earlier “I am not a lawyer” while giving his evidence. He is being asked whether the Post Office was generating and recording a profit when it was getting these payments from subpostmasters generated from what we now know may have been phantom or duplicate Horizon transactions.
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This block has been edited at 16.00. It originally said “Adam Crozier has just added ‘I am not an accounting expert’ to his earlier ‘I am not an expert’ while giving his evidence.” He had in fact earlier said “I am not a lawyer”, not “I am not an expert”. With apologies.
The questions are trying to get at whether Adam Crozier can see that because the whole Post Office solvency was up in the air, there was an incentive not to say that a business critical system like Horizon was failing. He is saying he always wanted a culture of transparency.
Sam Stein KC has now taken over questioning on behalf of subpostmasters. He is saying to Crozier that hundreds of subpostmasters called the helpline and raised problems with the systems. “They were the subpostmasters under your care,” Stein says. They were told to pay up contractually from their own pockets, he is told.
Crozier said he always assumed the prosecutions were being carried out by a mix of the Post Office’s own legal team, some Royal Mail lawyers, and some external lawyers. Earlier he claimed he was not aware that the Post Office did not have its own legal team.
Adam Crozier is now being questioned by other lawyers, the first set of questions is trying to drill down into whether from the documents referring to Royal Mail prosecutions he could have known they were prosecuting Post Office staff.
Adam Crozier has been asked to concur that the Horizon IT system was a business critical system for the Post Office, and hence for the broader Royal Mail group that he headed.
He is asked by Jason Beer KC “What steps did the main board take in your seven years to ensure that it was running reliably? Were you aware of any internal audit conducting any review or investigation into the use, reliability and accuracy of the data that Horizon produced.”
“I genuinely can’t remember,” Crozier says.
There will now be a ten minute break. I will take one too.
My colleague Daniel Boffey has written this piece summing up the testimony this morning at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry from Alan Cook.
Adam Crozier has just told the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry that he would find it “surprising” that Post Office managing director Alan Cook did not know the company had a prosecution function until late in his tenure.
Crozier says Cook always gave the impression he was on top of his brief. He says Cook never gave the impression of being anything other than in control of that brief.
Former chief executive of the Royal Mail Group Adam Crozier has said he did not have a “developed understanding” of the way in which Royal Mail carried out prosecutions.
Asked by Jason Beer KC “Is the truth of the matter that in your position you did not have a developed understanding of the extent to which Royal Mail prosecuted or the way in which things were or were not carried into effect?”
Crozier responded “I am not a lawyer. I would not claim it is my area of expertise.”
During Crozier’s time at the helm of the Royal Mail, its legal team, acting as a central team on behalf of the separate Post Office corporate entity, prosecuted hundreds of subpostmasters using Horizon IT data.
Former Royal Mail chief exec Crozier says ‘I was not aware’ Royal Mail lawyers were prosecuting Post Office subpostmasters
Former chief executive of the Royal Mail Group Adam Crozier said he was not aware that lawyers within the group conducted prosecutions at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry.
At the time Royal Mail owned the Post Office, and the Post Office used the Royal Mail’s legal department.
In his witness statement Crozier said:
I do not recall any involvement in or knowledge of the oversight of the investigations and prosecutions brought by Post Office Ltd against subpostmasters, either for theft, fraud and false accounting for alleged shortfalls in branch accounts for the recovery of such alleged shortfalls through the use of civil proceedings.
Counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC asked: “Were you not aware that in fact there was no Post Office legal team – it had no separate legal in-house function and that civil and criminal proceedings were brought by lawyers within the Royal Mail Group legal team?”
Crozier replied: “I was not, no.”
Beer continued: “So lawyers from within the group gave advice on prosecutions, they made decisions about prosecutions and within prosecutions, and they conducted the proceedings, not any Post Office lawyers, you didn’t know that?”
Crozier replied: “I was not aware of that, no.”
The BBC has previously reported that Crozier was paid £9.7m in salary and bonuses in his time at Royal Mail. 400 convictions using Horizon data took place while he was in charge of Royal Mail.
Adam Crozier has just said he was not aware that the Post Office did not have its own lawyers and it that it using the central legal function of the Royal Mail group. Crozier headed Royal Mail when it owned the Post Office between 2003 and 2010.
It should be noted that earlier Alan Cook was essentially saying on the Post Office side of things, because they were using the Royal Mail legal function, they didn’t have full oversight of it.
Keir Starmer has been talking to broadcasters about the UK’s nuclear deterrent, saying it is “the single most important part of our armoury to protect our country”.
During a visit to Barrow-in-Furness, PA Media reports he told broadcasters:
The commitment I’ve made here today is really important, I think I’m the first Labour leader to come here to the shipyard here, to see the building of the submarines for 30 years and to make a very important generational commitment which is to the Dreadnought submarines, to the continuous at-sea deterrent and to the upgrades that are needed over time and of course there’s AUKUS in there as well so this is a generational commitment.
The only way to have a safer world is to have an effective deterrent. The nuclear deterrent has been effective now for decades. It’s the single most important part of our armoury to protect our country, and that’s why I’m so committed to it.
And it’s important that we see this as a long term project because not only do we need the deterrence today, but we need … continued deterrence as we go forward.
Adam Crozier has just confirmed that in his seven year period at Royal Mail (2003-2010) he is not aware of any external audit of either the Post Office’s IT and Horizon systems or an external audit of the prosecution processes being undertaken by the Post Office. He is being reminded that company directors have a legal obligation for accounts to be accurate.
Incidentally the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry usually runs from 10am to 3pm on a Friday when sitting, but because there was a lot to go through today, chair Wyn Williams asked for an earlier start at 9.30am today. The plan is apparently for this session to run until 3.45pm, but they may have to include an extra break for the benefit of the transcribers at the hearing.
The Post Office Horizon IT inquiry is restarting, with Adam Crozier being questioned by Jason Beer KC. You can watch it here. I will bring you the key lines that emerge …
Rajeev Syal
Rajeev Syal is the Guardian’s home affairs editor
Rishi Sunak’s government has discussed the possibility of using a UK-based airline to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, industry sources have confirmed.
AirTanker, a charter airline with Ministry of Defence and RAF contracts, is understood to have been involved in talks about flying people 4,000 miles to Kigali.
The disclosure comes as No 10 prepares for the latest Rwanda bill to return to parliament on Monday in its attempt to deter asylum seekers from travelling across the Channel in small boats.
Government insiders remain confident that the bill will pass by the end of April after another round of parliamentary ping pong between the House of Commons and the House of Lords, and that flights will take off in the spring.
Asylum seekers facing deportation, many of whom are from Iran, Iraq and Syria, are poised to launch legal action against the law.
Read more of Rajeev Syal’s report here: UK government in talks with charter airline over Rwanda deportation flights
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