MAFIA methods and Fujitsu’s failings were under the spotlight today as politicians scramble to keep clear from the fallout of the Post Office scandal.
Post Office investigator Stephen Bradshaw, being examined at the public inquiry into the crisis, denied acting like a “mafia gangster” in his pursuit of wrongly suspected subpostmasters.
He claimed that his interrogation of the unfortunate postmasters was always “professional” and that he and his colleagues were not “looking to collect their bounty with threats and lies,” as had been alleged by victimised postmaster Jacqueline McDonald.
Mr Bradshaw did however make the barely less extraordinary admission that he was “not technically minded” and was incapable of assessing whether there were flaws in the malfunctioning Horizon IT system.
He further blamed court statements made by him in various wrongful prosecutions asserting that there was nothing wrong with the troubled system on Post Office lawyers who drafted them.
“In hindsight… there probably should have been another line, stating these are not my words,” Mr Bradshaw said, additionally claiming it was Fujitsu’s responsibility to draw attention to flaws in the system.
Investigators like Mr Bradshaw were offered cash bonuses for every conviction secured. Another investigator, Gary Thomas, was revealed in evidence submitted to the inquiry to have branded all the postmasters as “crooks.”
Mr Thomas admitted that the prospect of bonuses influenced his conduct as an investigator.
“I’d probably be lying if I said no,” he said. “It was part of the culture of the business.”
Fujitsu, which sold the Horizon system to the Post Office, could be forced to pay compensation to the government if the inquiry finds it at fault.
Justice Secretary Alex Chalk told ITV that “if the scale of the incompetence is as we might imagine, we would want to secure proper recompense on behalf of the taxpayer,” confirming he was referring to Fujitsu.
The company has however continued to wax fat at the state’s expense, having been awarded nearly £5 billion pounds-worth of government contracts since a 2019 judgement that its software was flawed.
Ministers claim they tried to block further contracts for the company but were prevented from doing so by public procurement rules.
Downing Street said today that “we will use the facts established by the inquiry to hold those individuals and businesses, should they be found culpable, to account.”
The political ripples of the scandal continued to spread wider, despite the government announcing that emergency laws were to be rushed through parliament exonerating the persecuted postmasters.
Those in the frame include Labour’s national campaign co-ordinator Pat McFadden, a Blairite who was Post Office minister during the last Labour government.
He publicly backed the Post Office over Horizon but now claims that he was “misled” by the Post Office, which claimed there was nothing wrong with the system.
And it has emerged that three dodgy prosecutions of postmasters were undertaken by the Crown Prosecution Service while it was headed by Keir Starmer.
Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey was also under fresh pressure to resign. As Post Office minister under the coalition government, Mr Davey fully backed crooked Post Office bosses and brushed aside appeals to meet from justice campaigners led by Alan Bates.
Mr Davey, who claims that he was the victim of “lying on an industrial scale” by the Post Office, now faces a possible electoral challenge from former postmaster Yvonne Tracey in his south London constituency.
Ms Tracey, now an independent councillor in the Kingston seat, said: “Come the next election, it’s incumbent on those seeking justice for our subpostmasters to stand against Ed.”
