Lawyers spar during tetchy exchanges at Post Office inquiry

The inquiry has been shown an email from a Royal Mail senior lawyer, Emily Springford, in October 2011.

It was sent to Post Office top brass. She flags up there are four claims from sub-postmasters making allegations which could end up in court.

First, she reminds everyone about the rules of disclosure.

But then, in a section called document creation, she warns about putting anything in writing which might be damaging to the Post Office’s defence as it may have to be disclosed.

Tim Moloney KC, one of the barristers for sub-postmasters, says the thrust is don’t put anything in writing that causes us trouble. Ironically this is in writing, he says. It’s in black and white.

Post Office inquiryCopyright: Post Office inquiry

After facing the deceptively gentle but probing questions of the inquiry counsel Jason Beer for the past day and a half, Rodric Williams is now being interrogated by lawyers for victims of the Post Office scandal.

First up was Edward Henry KC, on behalf of sub-postmaster Seema Misra, who was jailed while pregnant in 2010. It took more than a decade for her to clear her name.

He did not hold back. Williams was, he said part of a “suppression, obstruction and cover up” of the rights of sub-postmasters appealing their convictions. On one point, he directly accused Williams of lying.

Drawing on a succession of emails, not to mention Williams’ own notes, he suggested that information had been held back deliberately – and that efforts had been made to “drip poison” in the ears of the Criminal Cases Review Commission.

He insisted that the Post Office lawyer had been aware of facts that undermined Misra’s conviction, years before it was overturned.

Williams insisted several times that he was not involved in criminal cases – and said he wasn’t sure the information he had would have been enough to quash a conviction.

He added that he was deeply sorry to have been associated with someone wrongly being sent to prison.

“You weren’t associated with it," Henry said.

“You were in the middle of the web, and you were part of it."

One of the most interesting areas of questioning has been the issue of remote access.

Sub-postmasters were repeatedly told that no one else but could access their branch accounts. Prosecutions hinged on this crucial point.

Rodric Williams commissioned the Deloitte Report on Horizon in 2014, which Second Sight independent investigators weren’t even aware of. It finds remote access was possible, without postmasters knowing about it, but it would have to be a deliberate act.

Yet at the same time Second Sight and BBC Panorama were being told it wasn’t possible.

Williams said he’d “missed”’ these key details of the Deloitte report, despite being the point man on it. He didn’t recall anything being done to correct the statement to the BBC and thought only minimal steps were made to clarify this key question the SS team had also been raising.

What the Post Office was saying publicly was very different to the emails flying behind the scenes.

More difficult questioning for Rodric Williams at the inquiry this morning.

To kick off, he was asked what he knew about advice from an external lawyer working for the Post Office that minutes of a conference call may have been destroyed – and potentially shredded.

In particular, he was asked – repeatedly – what action he had taken to ensure such an allegation was fully investigated.

His initial answer? “I don’t know what you mean by fully investigated.”

That led to a tetchy exchange with the inquiry counsel, Jason Beer KC.

Beer repeatedly pressed him over whether any investigations had been carried out at all.

Williams admitted such allegations should have been investigated, but had they? He didn’t know.

Later, attention turned to a Deloitte report on the reliability of the Horizon IT system, commissioned by Williams.

We were shown an email, in which he told the firm how the Post Office wanted to respond to allegations the system was faulty, and show it was robust and fit for purpose.

He was asked whether he was pre-empting the report’s conclusions.

His response was that there are many things people want, but they don’t always get them.

Beer: “Is that your best answer?”

Later, he was asked about his involvement in inaccurate statements being given to the BBC and to the forensic accountants Second Sight about the integrity of Horizon.

At the time, the Post Office claimed Horizon could not be remotely accessed – but Beer presented an email and a report which made it clear remote access was possible.

Williams said he had made a mistake – and that lines prepared for the media were inaccurate.

Here's a quick profile of Post Office lawyer Rodric Williams to bring you up to speed as he gives evidence for a second day at the inquiry:

Williams joined the the Post Office as a litigation lawyer in 2012, a period in which it was continuing to prosecute sub-postmasters.

Since then he has risen through the ranks to become the company's current head of legal for dispute resolution and brand.

This role means he is in charge of Post Office's Remediation Unit - which deals with appeals from sub-postmasters, as well as the compensation and redress schemes.

But in his witness statement submitted to the inquiry, Williams said he transferred these responsibilities to other lawyers within the unit in April 2022.

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Inquiry lawyer Jason Beer sought to refresh Rodric Williams' memory yesterday by putting on display a series of emails and other messages written by him or sent to him.

They painted a picture of what he admitted was a “bunker mentality” within the post office, where a sub-postmaster activist was accused of “mischief” and an enquiry from the BBC was described as “puerile”.

Beer used these messages to look at what the post office knew and when – about problems with the Horizon system, about the unreliability of a key witness used in court cases.

Had the Post Office entered a cover-up mode, he was asked?

His answer was lawyerly: he wasn’t aware of a “positive decision” having been made to cover anything up, but “somebody probably could see that".

Today, he faces more questions – not just from the softly incisive Beer, but also from lawyers acting on behalf of sub-postmasters themselves.

He may be asked whether the Post Office had a policy of trying to drag out legal proceedings as long as possible, so its opponents ran out of money.

Whatever happens, It’s unlikely to be an easy ride.

You might expect a lawyer to be fluent and confident under interrogation, swiping away loaded questions with the ease of a master batsman.

But the Post Office lawyer Rodric Williams was not like that during his appearance before the Inquiry yesterday

A man more used to operating behind the scenes, he found himself taking centre stage, and didn’t seem to enjoy the experience.

He was nervous and jittery. Sometimes he appeared confused. “I’ve fluffed my lines”, he said at one point.

Was it an act? It’s hard to tell. There were certainly still plenty of lawyerly touches.

Questions about his attitude towards the media, and what his strategy for dealing with press enquiries was, were stalled by a discussion of what was actually meant by the word “strategy”, for example.

Time and time again, probing questions from the inquiry’s own counsel Jason Beer KC were deflected with “I don’t remember”, or “I don’t recall”.

You can follow today's hearing live by heading to the top of this page and tapping the large Play icon.

This morning's session has started, with Post Office in-house lawyer Rodric Williams resuming his evidence.

As a reminder, we won't be bringing you regular text updates here of the inquiry today.

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Speaking to the BBC yesterday during the inquiry, a Post Office scandal victim called for Rodric Williams to be removed from administering Horizon redress schemes.

Former sub-postmaster Lee Castleton described the senior Post Office lawyer as being "conflicted" and said that he needed "removing from the process"

He added that the victims didn't "need to be traumatised any more and it needed to be done by an independent person".

Williams rose through the ranks to become the Post Office's current head of legal for dispute resolution and brand - the unit which handles appeals from sub-postmasters, compensation and redress.

But according to his witness statement to the inquiry into the Post Office scandal, since April 2022 he had "transferred my [redress] responsibilities to other lawyers within the unit's legal team" so he could respond to requests for legal information.

Castleton, who was portrayed in the ITV drama by actor Will Mellor, tried to defend himself against accusations he had stolen money in the High Court and was bankrupted when he lost the case.

While he did not call for Williams to lose his job, Castleton did say there should be "hopefully some accountability at the end point" of the inquiry.

Read more here.

The Post Office's senior lawyer Rodric Williams spent all day Thursday giving evidence to the inquiry, and there were several tense and uncomfortable exchanges.

Here are some of the main lines we've picked out for you from the day:

• Williams called former sub-postmaster, Tim McCormack, who was trying to warn others about Horizon a "bluffer" in a 2015 email to colleagues
• The inquiry also saw a 2014 email, in which Williams told his colleagues: "We don't need to do research on Horizon" and if sub-postmasters did not like it "they can choose not to provide services for us"
• "I don't think any action was taken," Williams said, when speaking about the discovery that the statements given by Fujitsu employee Gareth Jenkins to prosecute sub-postmasters were problematic
• He looked uncomfortable when quizzed about the bugs in the Horizon system, saying: "I had no idea what the impact on prosecutions might have been"
• He claimed the Criminal Case Review Commission (CCRC) was "jumping down every rabbit hole" by asking the Post Office to reveal information about bugs in the Horizon system

More than 900 sub-postmasters were prosecuted for stealing because of incorrect information from a computer system called Horizon.

The Post Office itself took many cases to court, prosecuting 700 people between 1999 and 2015. Another 283 cases were brought by other bodies, including the Crown Prosecution Service. Many sub-postmasters went to prison for false accounting and theft, and several were financially ruined.

In 2017, a group of 555 sub-postmasters took legal action against the Post Office. In 2019, it agreed to pay them £58m in compensation, but much of the money went on legal fees. A draft report uncovered by the BBC showed the Post Office spent £100m fighting the group in court despite knowing its defence was untrue. The Post Office said it would be "inappropriate" to comment on the report.

Although campaigners won the right for their cases to be reconsidered, only 95 convictions had been overturned by mid-January 2024.

The Criminal Cases Review Commission said the scandal was "the most widespread miscarriage of justice" it had seen.

The Metropolitan Police is also investigating the Post Office over potential fraud offences.

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Good morning and welcome back to our live coverage of the Horizon IT inquiry as we expect to hear more from senior Post Office lawyer Rodric Williams.

This will be the second day of his testimony. The inquiry is due to resume at 09:45 BST and as we wait for it to start we will bring you up to speed on what Williams was questioned on yesterday and what we learnt.

Once the hearing gets going, we won't be bringing you regular text updates but you'll be able to watch it live by pressing Play at the top of the page.

Thanks for joining our coverage of the Post Office inquiry today. It has been a long day of questioning for Post Office lawyer Rodric Williams and he'll be back tomorrow at 09:45 BST for another day.

If you want to read more about the inquiry and why a former sub-postmaster thinks Williams should be removed from administering Horizon redress schemes, click here.

Today's page was edited by Aoife Walsh, Adam Durbin, James Harness and me.

The writers were Sophie Abdulla, Imogen Foulkes, Ali Abbas Ahmadi, Seher Asaf, Gabriela Pomeroy, Catherine McGowan and Barbara Tasch.

Rodric Williams looked very uncomfortable answering questions today with umpteen “I don’t recalls”.

It’s the closest I’ve seen Jason Beer to losing his temper with some of the answers he was getting on disclosure, or lack of it.

It’s one of the big themes of this inquiry. The email from the external Post Office solicitor suggesting supressing documents for the defence team in the Bates group legal action was one of the most revealing moments of today, along with Williams' rambling response.

His evidence reminded me of the former Post Office Head of Criminal Law, Jarnail Singh, who appeared before the inquiry last year and exasperated barristers with his answers.

But unlike Singh – who’ll be back again in this phase – Williams is still employed by the Post Office in a senior legal role.

The Post Office's senior lawyer Rodric Williams has finished giving evidence to the Inquiry for the day. Here are some of the key things he said:

• Williams called former sub-postmaster, Tim McCormack, who was trying to warn others about Horizon a "bluffer" in a 2015 email to colleagues
• The inquiry also saw a 2014 email, in which Williams told his colleagues: "We don't need to do research on Horizon" and if sub-postmasters did not like it "they can choose not to provide services for us"
• "I don't think any action was taken," Williams said, when speaking about the discovery that the statements given by Fujitsu employee Gareth Jenkins to prosecute sub-postmasters were problematic
• He looked uncomfortable when quizzed about the bugs in the Horizon system, saying: "I had no idea what the impact on prosecutions might have been"
• He claimed the Criminal Case Review Commission (CCRC) was "jumping down every rabbit hole" by asking the Post Office to reveal information about bugs in the Horizon system
• Also today, former sub-postmaster Lee Castleton has called for Williams, who is still employed by the Post Office, to be removed from administering Horizon redress schemes

At one point during today's evidence Rodric Williams was questioned about "cynical" language in an email exchange with a colleague.

They were discussing correspondence from journalist Nick Wallis. Williams today appeared to regret the tone of the emails written in 2014.

The last topic of the day was a long discussion about the Helen Rose report. Rose was commissioned to investigate a suspected Horizon error by a sub-postmaster at his branch.

The questions revolved about whether the report - looking at whether issues were caused by software or human error - should have been disclosed further.

Beer pressed Williams on why he wanted to keep mentions of the "Rose report to a minimum", as seen in the evidence presented.

Williams said that the Helen Rose report was being disclosed but that he didn't think it was particularly relevant going forward.

As it approached the end of the day, the inquiry also heard more about the involvement of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).

An email sent to Rodric Williams in 2016 from its group leader requested more information and documents. That included "transaction logs" the CCRC was not able to find in relation to the Seema Misra case.

Williams forwarded the email to a number of colleagues, the inquiry was shown. He said he wanted to discuss how they could "force the issue", saying the CCRC seemed to be "jumping down every rabbit hole they're directed to".

Williams told the inquiry his impression was lots of people were raising lots of issues that would get looked into, and not go anywhere. He said this would extend the review without reaching conclusions.

He was pressed on this by Jason Beer KC.

"I think that's just me writing a short email" he added.

The inquiry has just wrapped up and will resume with further questioning of Rodric Williams tomorrow morning at 09:45 BST.

Closing the day, Chairman Sir Wyn Williams advises him to relax if he can and suggests to Williams that he doesn't discuss his evidence with anyone overnight.

Stay with us as we'll wrap up a few more lines from the final session.