Post Office inquiry hearing from former Horizon director David Miller

After a break, David Miller is now being questioned by lawyers representing the sub-postmasters.

Sam Stein opens the questions, asking about a correction Miller made earlier.

Earlier, Miller changed his statement to say that he was involved in part of the Impact programme, introduced in the late 1990s to update accounting processes at the Post Office to reduce costs. His statement had previously said he was not.

As part of the Impact programme, there were suspense accounts. This is where money that was disputed or unexplained would stay until the issue was solved.

However, the Impact programme removed this, taking away the Sub-postmasters ability to suggest they were not at fault through this method.

Miller is asked why this was removed.

“There was a view that previously the suspense account had been used to store all sorts of things,” he says, and that they wanted it to be “a lot cleaner”.

However, he is “not sure that the precise impact” of this removal was “fully comprehended”.