The government sold the service on the cheap to leaders whose principal focus was on its profits. This is the sorry result
If the Horizon inquiry has one consistent theme, it’s ignorance. Alan Cook (managing director, 2006-2010) wasn’t even aware that the Post Office oversaw prosecutions of subpostmasters, he told the inquiry last week. Sir Michael Hodgkinson (chair, 2003-2007) knew nothing of the problems with Horizon (and seems to have done nothing to find out). David Smith (managing director, 2010) believed his junior colleagues when they told him Horizon was “robust”.
That Post Office leaders would be so clueless may strain credulity. Almost every senior witness, however, has told the inquiry (in one way or another) that they didn’t pay proper attention to the Horizon scandal because they were focused on making a profit. Before we put this down to greedy businessmen being greedy, it might be worth actually listening to one of the victims of the scandal: Alan Bates. Since being catapulted to household-name status by the eponymous ITV programme, Bates has offered some of the most nuanced and insightful analysis of the scandal. Last week, giving his own evidence to the inquiry, Bates argued that the Post Office itself is institutionally flawed.
Sam Fowles is a barrister, author and broadcaster
