Post Office chief ‘misled High Court about Horizon’
A former Post Office boss has been accused of misleading the High Court by claiming she did not know the Horizon IT system could be accessed remotely before 2018.
Testifying under oath in March 2019, Angela van den Bogerd told the court in the case of Mr Bates vs the Post Office she had first become aware transactions could be inputted without a sub-postmaster’s knowledge the previous year.
However, on Thursday, the inquiry into the Horizon scandal was shown a number of emails which revealed she was told remote access was possible as far back as 2010.
Ms van den Bogerd, who held various senior roles during her 35-year career at the Post Office and was in charge of handling complaints about Horizon from 2010, told the inquiry during her long-awaited appearance that she never “knowingly” did anything wrong in the scandal.
The revelation provides further evidence that the former top Post Office executive misled High Court judge Peter Fraser in the 2019 case.
He said at the time: “There were two specific matters where [Van den Bogerd] did not give me frank evidence, and sought to obfuscate matters, and mislead me.”
The inquiry was shown an email sent on December 5, 2010, from Lynn Hobbs, the organisation’s general manager of network support, to Ms van den Bogerd, which said she had “found out that Fujitsu can actually put an entry into a branch account remotely”.
When asked about this by Jason Beer KC, lead counsel to the inquiry, Ms van den Bogerd said she did not remember receiving the email.
“Is what truly happening here is that you’re telling us that you don’t recall it because you know the email of December 5, 2010, presents you with a problem?” Mr Beer asked.
She responded: “No not all - I wish I had remembered that information.”
The fact that sub-postmaster accounts could be accessed remotely was a key part of the Horizon scandal, which saw more than 900 sub-postmasters wrongfully prosecuted because of faulty Horizon software producing fictional shortfalls on their accounts.
The inquiry heard that while giving evidence in the Mr Bates vs the Post Office High Court case in March 2019, Ms van den Bogerd said she first knew about remote access “in the last year or so”.
Mr Beer asked: “That’s false isn’t it?”, to which she replied: “At the time I didn’t think it was.”
The inquiry was shown further emails from 2011 and 2014 in which Ms van den Bogerd was told about remote access.
Ms van den Bogerd initially came under fire earlier this year after she was portrayed in the ITV drama, Mr Bates vs the Post Office, which brought global attention to the scandal.
She was described in the drama as being part of the “Gruesome Twosome” alongside Paula Vennells, the former Post Office chief executive who was stripped of her CBE in February.
On Thursday, Ms van den Bogerd began her evidence by saying she was “truly, truly sorry” for the “devastation” caused to wrongly convicted sub-postmasters and their families.
However, she refused to take responsibility for her role in the scandal, telling the inquiry: “I didn’t knowingly do anything wrong, and I would never knowingly do anything wrong.”
Mr Beer pointed out that she had not apologised for her role in the scandal in her 132-page witness statement to the inquiry.
She responded: “I apologise for not getting to the answer more quickly. But with the evidence I had and the parameters of my role at the time, I did the best I could to the best of my ability.”
Ms van den Bogerd held various roles throughout her career at the Post Office, starting as a network change operations manager, then on to head of network services, head of partnerships, director of support services and the director of people and change.
She was appointed as the Post Office’s business improvement director in 2018, but stepped down from the role in 2020, telling the inquiry she had become “disillusioned” with delays in compensating postmasters.
She is due to return on Friday for a second day of giving evidence before the public inquiry.
04:47 PM BST
That’s all for today
Thank you for following our live coverage of the Post Office inquiry.
04:43 PM BST
Today’s headlines
Here’s what we learned at the Post Office inquiry today.
Angela van den Bogerd, a former senior manager at the Post Office, apologised for the “devastation” caused by the Horizon scandal
But she insisted that she “didn’t knowingly do anything wrong” and “did the best I could and to the best of my ability”
Ms van den Bogerd admitted that Paula Vennells encouraged the use of “Orwellian” language by referring to bugs in the Horizon accountancy software as “anomalies”
She was accused of misleading the High Court in 2019 when she claimed she had only become aware in 2018 that Horizon software could be accessed remotely. Emails shown the inquiry showed her having been told about this in 2010 and 2014
Ms van den Bogerd she never perceived sub-postmasters as “just subbies with their hands in the till” and said they were “hard-working, honest, decent people”
She admitted that the burden of proof was on sub-postmasters to prove they were not guilty of theft or false accounting, rather than the Post Office having to definitively rule out that Horizon faults were the reason for discrepancies
Jason Beer KC, lead counsel to the inquiry, asked her to tell the inquiry “what you did do” after getting frustrated with her saying she did not recall or was not involved in events relevant to his line of questioning
04:17 PM BST
Inquiry adjourns
The inquiry has now adjourned for the day and will begin proceedings on Friday at 9.45am.
04:16 PM BST
‘Can you tell us what you did do, Ms van den Bogerd?’
Jason Beer KC, lead counsel to the inquiry, has asked Angela van den Bogerd to “tell us what you did do” in her role after saying on a number of occasions that she does not recall or was not involved in areas being questioned about.
He asked: “Can you tell us what you did do? So far today you’ve said you weren’t close to many things.”
Ms van den Bogerd then said she was not involved in prosecutions.
Mr Beer replied: “Not involved in briefing, not involved in IT, not involved in the provision of information concerning Horizon to Second Sight, not involved in investigating those early complaints about Horizon, not involved in considering the impact of the Second Sight report on convictions. What were you doing at this time?”
She replied that she had a “separate role”.
04:03 PM BST
Vennells was told Post Office should investigate sub-postmasters itself
A Post Office IT boss said in a briefing note to Paula Vennells that the organisation’s main concern was to investigate sub-postmasters itself to “bring things under our control”.
Simon Baker, the organisation’s former head of IT projects, wrote in a briefing note to Paula Vennells in 2013: “The primary focus has to be proving to JFSA [Justice for Subpostmaster Alliance] and MPs that we can take on the role of independently investigating cases. That way we can start to bring things under our control.
“Our plan to do this is to augment Second Sight with POL [Post Office Ltd] resources, build up our credibility, and then, at the right time, remove Second Sight.”
Forensic accountants Second Sight had been tasked with investigating claims that the Horizon IT system was generating spurious branch shortfalls – and had published its findings earlier in 2013 which identified bugs in the system.
Ms van den Bogerd told the inquiry she was “startled” when she saw the document.
03:14 PM BST
Inquiry resumes
The inquiry has now resumed.
03:08 PM BST
Inquiry takes break
The inquiry has taken a break.
02:59 PM BST
Van den Bogerd denies ‘dripping poison in MP ears’
Angela van den Bogerd has denied “dripping poison in MPs’ ears” by mentioning that sub-postmasters were subject to “temptation” at a June 2012 meeting with parliamentarians who represented convicted constituents.
Notes on the meeting show both Alice Perkins, the Post Office chairman, and Paula Vennells, the chief executive, mentioned the “temptation” of handling large quantities of cash.
Ms Vennells also told MPs in the meeting that “every case taken to prosecution that involves the Horizon system thus far has found favour of the Post Office”, the inquiry heard.
Questioning Ms van den Bogerd, Jason Beer KC asked: “Were you party to any discussion with either or both of Ms Perkins or Ms Vennells in which it was decided that the thing that should be mentioned is the temptation that faces sub-postmasters?”
“No,” she replied.
Mr Beer continued: “We should try and drop a little poison in the MPs’ ears, drip a little poison in the MPs’ ears.”
Ms van den Bogerd replied: “Not at all, I wasn’t party to that conversation.”
Mr Beer then asked: “Was there a deliberate strategy to put that idea in the MPs’ minds right at the beginning of the meeting, focusing on the temptaiton faced by sub-postmasters”
Ms van den Bogerd responded: “I don’t think there was, but I can’t comment.”
02:40 PM BST
Burden of proof was on postmasters to prove they were not guilty
Angela van den Bogerd has admitted that the burden of proof was on sub-postmasters facing accusations of theft or false accounting to prove that they were not guilty.
Jason Beer KC, lead counsel to the inquiry, asked: “We’ve seen a couple of examples now that happened to concern you in the roles you performed, relatively early on in the life of Horizon, with sub-postmasters raising the suggestion that the loss attributed to them is in fact caused by Horizon. Why was something not done to investigate that?”
Ms van den Bogerd said she expected regional management to take the lead on any investigations, adding: “But there wasn’t a formal approach, there wasn’t anything documented on it, there wasn’t any policy on it.
“It was very much, ‘It’s up to the postmaster to show they weren’t responsible for the loss’. That’s very much how it was.”
02:32 PM BST
‘Rumblings’ of Horizon errors as far back as 2004, van den Bogerd admits
Angela van den Bogerd has said there were “rumblings” of issues with the Horizon system as far back as 2004.
Asked about concerns raised in 2004 and whether they would be classed as an “early rumbling”, she responded: “Yes.”
An email sent to her that same year from a colleague, regarding a sub-postmaster named Stephen Morgan who had a shortfall of more than £1,400, read: “I...have one of my team onto this – Richard Benton.
“I have asked Richard to put together a checklist of obvious things that could have caused this discrep [discrepancy] in the Branch. If we can discount those it gives us a greater level of confidence that it really is Postmaster error.”
02:00 PM BST
Inquiry resumes
The inquiry has now resumed.
01:22 PM BST
Inquiry breaks for lunch
The inquiry has taken a break for lunch and will resume at 1.55pm.
01:22 PM BST
Sub-postmasters were ‘hard-working, honest, decent’, says van den Bogerd
Angela van den Bogerd has said sub-postmasters were “hardworking, honest, decent people” as she was asked whether the Post Office’s senior management perceived them as “subbies with their hands in the till”.
Jason Beer KC, lead counsel to the inquiry, asked: “There wasn’t a cabal of long-serving, up-through-the-ranks, started off as counter clerks or similar, who held the belief that this was just subbies with their hands in the till?”
Ms van den Bogerd replied: “Not at all, not at all. I mean, my position was, I’d worked very closely with postmasters for a number of years and I said on a number of occasions into the organisation where people did think sub-postmasters did have their hand in the till that in my view post-masters were hard-working, honest, decent people and they didn’t come into the Post Office to defraud.
“That wasn’t why they came into the Post Office. It was quite the opposite. They came to serve the communities that they lived within.”
12:59 PM BST
Post Office insisted it had to protect money and Horizon had ‘nothing wrong’
The inquiry was shown a briefing prepared for Angela van den Bogerd from 2015 ahead of the BBC Panorama programme Trouble at the Post Office.
The briefing included a list of “key messages” the Post Office wished to convey to the public.
The first key message was: “This is not about missing money, which we have a duty to protect”.
The document explained: “We have a duty to protect the money in our branches. If cash goes missing and this is covered up we must investigate and act on this.”
It added: “We don’t prosecute people for making mistakes – we never have and we never will. Prosecutions are very rare and only ever in light of all the available evidence and circumstances.”
The other two key messages were: “We do not control the legal process”, and “there is nothing wrong with the computer system”.
“We have never said Horizon is perfect or infallible,” the document read. “It’s a computer system so of course things can go wrong. But this is about facts, not theories and there is not a single example of Horizon causing losses in any of the cases we’ve examined.”
12:47 PM BST
‘I must have missed Post Office spin doctor’s incorrect remote access lines’
A Post Office spin doctor told management in 2014 that if asked about remote access to branch accounts, they should say: “This is not and has never been possible”.
An email sent from Melanie Corfield to several Post Office bosses including Angela van den Bogerd read: “Our current line if we are asked about remote access potentially being used to change branch data/transactions is simply: ‘This is not and has never been possible’.”
She added: “This line holds but if we are pressed regarding SS’s [Second Sight’s] point about ‘admitting’ there is remote access etc, we can say: ‘There is no remote access for individual branch transactions’.”
Ms van den Bogerd said she does not remember if she did anything to correct these “false lines”. When asked why she did not say it was “wrong”, she said she cannot recall.
She later said: “If it had registered with me, I would have challenged it,” adding: “I just must have missed it”.
12:28 PM BST
Inquiry resumes
The inquiry has now resumed.
12:22 PM BST
Inquiry takes break
The inquiry has taken a break and will resume at 12.25pm.
12:22 PM BST
Van den Bogerd was told again about remote access in 2014
Angela van den Bogerd was told a second time that Horizon could be accessed remotely in 2014.
The inquiry has been shown a 2014 email in which Ms van den Bogerd was sent an October 2008 email in which Andrew Winn, a middle manager in the Post Office’s product and branch accounting team, said remote access could be done “via the transaction correction process”.
“These have to be accepted by the branch in the same way that in/out remittances are I guess,” the email reads. “If we were able to do this, the integrity of the system would be flawed.”
He added that “Fujitsu have the ability to impact branch records” and had “extremely rigorous procedures” to prevent unauthorised “adjustments”.
Questioning a second time why Ms van den Bogerd told the High Court that the first time she knew of remote access was in 2018, Jason Beer KC said: “Did you reveal that to the High Court when you gave evidence?”
Ms van den Bogerd replied: “I don’t believe I did.”
Mr Beer interjected: “Did you forget about this email, too?”
11:59 AM BST
Van den Bogerd told High Court she first knew of remote access in 2018
Angela van den Bogerd told the High Court that the first time she heard about remote transactions was in November 2018, the inquiry has heard.
Asked while giving testimony in the Mr Bates vs the Post Office case in March 2019 when she first knew about remote access, she said it was “in the last year or so”.
This is despite an email to the inquiry showing she was told as early as December 2010 in an email.
Jason Beer KC asked: “That [your testimony] was false, wasn’t it?”
She replied: “At the time, I didn’t think it was”.
She added that the “message on remote access kept changing” around this time.
11:41 AM BST
Van den Bogerd told Horizon victim Post Office had no remote access
Angela van den Bogerd told a Horizon victim that nobody from the Post Office could access individual branch accounts remotely.
She was being questioned about a transcript of a January 2011 meeting between her and Val and Rachpal Athwal, husband and wife sub-postmasters, after Ms Athwal was wrongly accused of stealing £710 and sacked.
In the meeting, Ms van den Bogerd insisted that Horizon could not be accessed remotely, despite her having been told the previous month that Fujitsu could do so. “POL [Post Office Ltd] cannot categorically access information in branch because it’s all done against a user ID,” she had said.
Jason Beer KC, lead counsel to the inquiry, asked: “In light of the email that you’d received the month before on December 5, what you said there wasn’t true, was it?”
Ms van den Bogerd replied: “On December 5, Lynne said, ‘Post Office can’t, Fujitsu can’. And that;’s what I’ve said there that no one at Post Office can get into the system.”
Mr Beer then interjected: “Oh come on, Ms van den Bogerd. Are you saying that what you said overall there is accurate?”
Ms van den Bogerd said: “So that is accurate. [I] Go on to talk later about Fujitsu, I believe. But in terms of what I said there that was accurate. Post Office...Nobody at Post Office could get into the system then and I still don’t think anyone can now, even today.”
11:19 AM BST
Inquiry resumes
The inquiry has now resumed.
11:06 AM BST
Inquiry takes break
The inquiry has taken a break and will resume at 11.10am.
10:59 AM BST
Van den Bogerd: ‘I don’t remember receiving remote access email’
Angela van den Bogerd has told the inquiry that she does not remember receiving the December 2010 email informing her that Fujitsu could tamper with branch accounts, saying it was a “very strange” email.
“What I’m saying is I don’t remember seeing it and the way it’s constructed is really strange,” she said when asked by Mr Beer KC how she can say “positively” that she did not see it.
She added that she normally read and responded to all her emails and noted that she did not reply.
10:44 AM BST
Van den Bogerd knew about remote Horizon access in 2010
Angela van den Bogerd received an email in December 2010 informing her that Fujitsu could access sub-postmasters’ branch accounts remotely.
The inquiry was shown an email from Lynn Hobbs, the Post Office’s general manager of network support, who said she had “found out that Fujitsu can actually put an entry into a branch account remotely”.
Asked by Jason Beer KC if she agrees that she had been “given information on December 5 2010 that Fujitsu can actually put an entry into a branch account remotely”, she replied: “Yes”.
In her witness statement, Ms van den Bogerd says she was not aware of remote access to accounts until 2011.
10:41 AM BST
Van den Bogerd admits Vennells used ‘Orwellian’ language
Angela van den Bogerd has told the inquiry that Paula Vennells’ use of language was “Orwellian” after she chose to use “anomalies” as a “non-emotive” word to refer to “bugs” in Horizon.
Asked by Jason Beer KC about why she had used “anomalies” instead of “bugs” in her witness statement to refer to faults in the Horizon system, Ms van den Bogerd said: “So I think, and I’m sure there is a technical categorisation for each of bugs, errors and defects. I don’t know what that is.”
Mr Beer then pressed her: “Do you, reading this now, can you see this is an attempt through the use of language to control a narrative? Mr Blake [counsel to the inquiry Julian Blake] might call it Orwellian?”
Ms van den Bogerd replied: “Yes.”
She added: “We certainly had in all my time at Post Office and Royal Mail prior to that, we always had agreed messaging in terms of messages and words that we would use. I didn’t think too much of this at the time.”
The inquiry heard on Tuesday that Ms Vennells, then the chief executive, came up with the word with the help of her husband.
10:24 AM BST
Van den Bogerd insists she did ‘nothing wrong’ in Horizon scandal
Angela van den Bogerd has said she did “not do anything wrong” Horizon scandal despite apologising for the “devastation” it caused.
It was pointed out by Jason Beer KC, lead counsel to the inquiry, that the former Post Office boss has not apologised for her role in the scandal in her written statement to the inquiry.
Asked if she felt personally responsible for anything that happened, she said: “I didn’t knowingly do anything wrong, and I would never knowingly do anything wrong.”
Mr Beer then pressed her: “You don’t apologise for your role in any of the events being examined in the inquiry, do you?”
Ms van den Bogerd replied: “I think, and I’ve reflected on this quite a bit and the disclosure I’ve seen throughout this process, there are things that … knowing what I know now. I would give further weight to some of those documents than I did at the time, so they would have more significance.
“So things like that, things that I might have missed at the time, I really regret them and wish I’d been able to see that back then.”
Again pressed by Jason Beer KC, who asked: “You don’t think you did anything wrong, do you?”, she replied: “I apologise for not getting to the answer more quickly, but with the evidence I had, and the parameters of my role at the time, I did the best I could and to the best of my ability.”
10:06 AM BST
Prosecutions happened under my watch, van den Bogerd admits
Angela van den Bogerd agrees with inquiry counsel Jason Beer KC when he asks if she “lived and worked through the development and rollout of Horizon”.
Asked to confirm if the prosecutions of subpostmasters based on evidence produced by Horizon “happened when you were there”, she responds: “Yes, I wasn’t involved in those but they happened during my time.”
The former Post Office boss had a career spanning 35 years at the organisation, before finally leaving in May 2020.
09:50 AM BST
Van den Bogerd apologises for ‘devastation’ of Horizon scandal
Angela van den Bogerd has started giving evidence by saying she is “truly sorry” to for the “devastation” the Horizon scandal.
“Saying sorry I know doesn’t change what happened, but I do want to say to everyone impacted by wrongful convictions and wrongful contract terminations that I am truly sorry for the devastation caused to you, your families and friends,” she said.
“I hope my evidence will assist this inquiry with getting to the answers you and so many others deserve.”
09:49 AM BST
Angela van den Bogerd sworn in
Angela van den Bogerd has been sworn in and will be questioned by Jason Beer KC, lead counsel to the inquiry.
09:37 AM BST
Post Office scandal timeline
You can remind yourself of how far the Post Office scandal stretches back by scrolling through our timeline below.
09:16 AM BST
Who is Angela van den Bogerd?
Angela van den Bogerd is today set to make her long-awaited appearance in front of the Horizon inquiry.
She held various senior roles during a 35-year career at the Post Office, including head of partnerships, director of support services and the director of people and change.
From 2010 onwards, she was the director in charge of handling complaints about the Horizon system before leaving the organisation in 2020.
Ms van den Bogerd was among the Post Office bosses portrayed in the ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office, which brought global attention to the scandal earlier this year.
It emerged this month that she was told the organisation had “misled the courts” in the case of a conviction of a sub-postmaster, six years before his name was cleared.
A recording obtained by ITV News shows she was informed in January 2015 that the Post Office had “materially misled” the courts in prosecuting sub-postmaster Carl Page.
09:14 AM BST
Welcome to the live blog
Good morning and welcome to The Telegraph’s live coverage of the Post Office inquiry.
