Post Office Inquiry live: Former GC Susan Crichton gives evidence

4.10pm: And that is that for today. Blake says he has a few more issues to go through with Crichton and suggests to chair Sir Wyn Williams that there might be time to pick it up tomorrow. Williams responds: 'If you are trying persuade me after a long hard day that we should stop now, then you needn't say any more.'

We'll be back in the morning.

3.20pm: Inquiry goes to a break after a significant line of questions from Blake about Crichton's position within the Post Office and her role in making information available.

A contemporaneous note from chair Alice Perkins states that Crichton felt ‘very unhappy’ at being excluded from the board meeting and was not prepared to be treated as a ‘scapegoat’ for the Second Sight report being more critical than had been expected.

A further note from Perkins states that Crichton felt it was inappropriate for her to influence key stakeholders such as Second Sight. Perkins wrote that she was privately ‘astonished’ by this view. Around the same time Paula Vennells had been critical that Crichton’s report to the board had been ‘bland’.

The inquiry then moved on to Crichton’s response to the Clarke Advice, where it was disclosed the Post Office head of security John Scott had suggested that documents be ‘shredded’. Scott wrote to Crichton the following day saying she wanted to provide an ‘under the radar’ escalation point and did not want any electronic communication which may be subject to disclosure.

Crichton is asked what her response was to this and whether she pressed Scott as to whether anything should be shredded. She says she cannot recollect.

Inquiry counsel said that following the criticism from senior executives, the lack of response to the Clarke Advice was proof that Crichton had ‘effectively drunk the corporate kool aid’ and was worrying about having given Second Sight too much information. Crichton does not agree with his observation.

2.35pm:  The relationship between Crichton and the board was clearly strained after July 2013. Crichton told the Post Office chair she was very unhappy about being excluded from a board meeting and said she was not prepared to be made a scapegoat.

Crichton tells the inquiry her exclusion was 'not appropriate' when such a significant issue as the Second Sight report was being discussed and she should have been able to explain it. 

'It was important as an in-house lawyer I should be able to behave with integrity,' she tells the inquiry. She had wanted an inquiry into Horizon but felt like a 'sole voice' at senior level.

2.15pm: We’re into the afternoon session now. The morning finished with discussions about how the Post Office board was unhappy with Crichton for her oversight of the Second Sight review.

In an email from 26 July 2013, chief executive Paula Vennells states that the had spoken to Crichton about three areas of concern but to reassure her she had confidence in her general counsel. Vennells talked about protecting the business and Crichton says she was concerned about how damaging the Second Sight report could be for the business.

12.50pm: By July 2013 there was a ‘real worry’ that Fujitsu’s Gareth Jenkins knew about some of the Horizon problems but had not referred to them in his statements or reports to the court when he was called as an expert witness in trials. Crichton flagged up these concerns to Paula Vennells and the board.

12.20pm: Lengthy discussion about how the Post Office’s language changed around how to describe what Second Sight had referred to as defects with Horizon. Chief executive Paula Vennells (pictured below) emailed in July 2013 to say she had asked her husband for a ‘non-emotive word for computer bugs, glitches, defects that happen as a matter of course’.

Her husband suggested ‘exception or anomaly’.

The inquiry then sees various notes from meetings attended subsequently by Crichton in which the Post Office refers to ‘exceptions’ rather than defects or bugs.

Blake says the language is ‘positively Orwellian’ and asks whether this was an example of the ‘smoke and mirrors’ tactics employed by the Post Office. Crichton agrees ‘it certainly seems that way’.

12pm: Crichton is pressed on whether the Post Office was trying to limit the scope of the Second Sight review. The inquiry sees an email she wrote in 2013 on how to ‘box off’ the work of Second Sight.

She tells the inquiry she wanted to understand what issues were being examined.

Counsel Julian Blake tells her: ‘You are not asking that… you are saying how do you stop this being looked into.’

Soon after, a colleague emailed Crichton saying that there was an ‘opportunity to really contain the scope of the investigation’ and advising the Post Office to ‘take advantage of this’.

11.20am:  Inquiry sees records of a strategy meeting in 2012 about who to bring in to carry out an independent review. This meeting featured Crichton, her colleague Hugh Flemington, Gavin Matthews from external firm Bond Pearce and counsel Richard Morgan KC and Daniel Margolin. 

The meeting summary records that whatever the findings of the expert report it would not resolve the 'impasse' over Horizon litigation. If the report found no problems with Horizon then sub-postmasters would see this as a 'whitewash' but if it was negative this would 'open the floodgates' to damages claims by those who were imprisoned for false accounting and theft. 

The summary also notes that it was 'crystal clear' that any investigation would need to be disclosed in court and would lead to appeals and stayed prosecutions. Crichton says this was the view of counsel and she wanted to proceed with an independent review by forensic accountants.

10.45am:  Crichton tells the inquiry she did not agree that prosecutions should continue while the Second Sight review of Horizon is ongoing. There appears to be a lot of concern from people within the organisation at this approach. Former senior security manager Dave Pardoe emailed that a change of stance needed to be a 'carefully worded missive' stating that there was no admission of Horizon integrity issues.

Counsel Julian Blake says that in the summer of 2012 the Post Office may not have brought new cases but that for existing cases it was 'business as usual'. Crichton says she agrees with this summary. There is no evidence from the time that she disagreed with Post Office staff suggesting that prosecutions should carry on.

10.20am:  Crichton is asked what her approach was to civil cases brought against sub-postmasters where shortfalls were found in their branch accounts. She says she would approach IT and senior executives for assurances and to 'convince me' that Horizon faults were not to blame. 

'I was trying to understand that part of the Post Office process. I relied upon the information given by IT and the network team'.

10.10am:  Inquiry is shown an email from October 2010 in which Post Office lawyer Mandy Talbot (who gave evidence last year) informs Crichton and others there have been a number of allegations about Horizon from sub-postmasters accused of wrongdoing. 

The email states that the Seema Misra prosecution in particular will be important and that 'if the prosecution is only partially successful then it is likely to make the civil claims [against sub-postmasters] very difficult to proceed with if we cannot rely on the Horizon data'.

The Post Office Inquiry continues Phase Five with an appearance from one of the key legal figures involved: Susan Crichton, general counsel from 2010 to 2013. Crichton oversaw the legal department at a time when sub-postmasters continued to be convicted and suspended, but when it also started to emerge that the Horizon system may be flawed.

Crichton, portrayed in the recent ITV drama Bates v The Post Office, did bring in accountants Second Sight - who helped to uncover the Horizon failings - and left the organisation very suddenly, so her evidence will be highly instructive as to what management knew about the unfolding scandal and how they responded.