“The evil the Post Office did was profound”, a lawyer has instructed the Horizon IT scandal inquiry whereas describing a “deliberate conspiracy” and “cover up”.
Edward Henry KC, who’s representing victims, delivered his closing submission to the hearings with a robust and damning monologue.
He accused the Publish Workplace of “profound evil”, including that it “was the cause, the perpetrator and prolonger of the one of the most serious miscarriages of justice in our history”.
Greater than 900 sub-postmasters have been wrongfully convicted of offences together with theft, fraud and false accounting between 1999 and 2015.
Watch: Stay stream of Publish Workplace Inquiry
Defective Horizon pc software program, offered by Fujitsu, prompted misguided shortfalls in accounts, however Mr Henry asserted that “Horizon didn’t destroy the innocent – the malignant culture of the Post Office did.”
He described it as having “contempt” for sub-postmasters and spoke of “corrosive prejudice” in opposition to victims alongside its “desire for absolute control over them”, saying that was the “incubator for these terrible events”.
Extra on Publish Workplace Scandal
Mr Henry instructed Sir Wyn Williams, the chair of the inquiry, that the Publish Workplace’s “words of apology are bogus”, that “it cannot be trusted” and that “deplorable wrongdoing went to the top”.
“The truth is that human beings engaged in a deliberate conspiracy,” he additional claimed, “first to convict innocent people either in criminal courts or to destroy them in the civil courts – and then to cover it up.”
Mr Henry stated that sub-postmasters have been “stigmatised as troublemakers, incompetent or dishonest” and their cries of assist have been “dismissed”.
“Such heartlessness came from the top”, he continued.
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“Whether the board and the executive knew of these injustices from the start is an irrelevant diversion.
“They should have identified or appreciated that by refusing to countenance the chance that Horizon would possibly generate shortfall errors, that they had created a horrible threat.
“It was a recipe for certain disaster.”
Amongst others he singled out former Publish Workplace boss Paula Vennells, stating that she had written in 2014 that “she was more bored than outraged by the sub-postmasters’ complaints”.
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He made his remarks as her personal last submission to the inquiry said there was “nothing to show she acted in bad faith”.
Mr Henry stated there was a tradition of “contempt, ridicule and hatred” in direction of victims.
He additionally requested the query: “Is the Post Office worth saving?” after which answered: “Only when and if it is safe.”
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Paula Vennells is seen giving proof to the inquiry earlier this yr
He said that it might solely be secure as soon as it may “understand the nature of its own history rather than continuing to deny it”, including “it can only be trusted when its deeds match its words and when it has restored justice by way of full and fair compensation to those it destroyed”.
Former sub-postmaster Chris Head described the morning’s submission as “extremely powerful testimony” and likewise mirrored on delays to monetary redress schemes for victims.
“(Edward Henry’s words) cut through all the PR strategy used by both the Post Office and their shareholder, the government, to portray that they have changed and are doing everything possible to right the wrongs,” he stated, “whilst at the same time behind closed doors continuing down the same path of delay, deflect and inflict harm on those affected.”
“They advance every possible legal argument regardless of merit to limit liability likely pushed and encouraged by the Department for Business and Trade and Her Majesty’s Treasury.”
The inquiry continues.
