Alan Bates gives his evidence — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00onto the main story of the day yesterday Mr  Bates took on the post office yet again when
2. 0:05he appeared at the public inquiry now in case  you've been under a rock this is Alan Bates a
3. 0:10sub postmaster sucked into the scandal of post  office software wrongly totting up the day
4. 0:16takings which led to the wrongful prosecution of  thousands of people for theft and fraud when the
5. 0:21post office bosses knew apparently all along all  those cases were unsafe we've got a short clip of
6. 0:27him at the inquiry yesterday here it is uh there  an atrocious organization they need disbanding it
7. 0:33needs removing it needs building up again from  the ground floor and as I've been quoted quite
8. 0:39commonly the whole of the the whole of the Postal  Service nowadays it's it's beyond it's a dead
9. 0:46duck it's beyond saving and to be quite Fair it  needs to be sold to someone like Amazon um it it
10. 0:52needs a real big injection of money and I only I  think that can only happen coming in from outside
11. 1:00otherwise it's just going to be it's going to  be a bug bear for the government for the years
12. 1:05to come now it's been pretty excoriating it would  seem at least about um the post office and it its
13. 1:14likelihood of surviving never mind what it did  to sub postmasters and Mr Bates there set up a
14. 1:19campaign group and his leadership was lionized by  an ITV drama which made him the focus of the fight
15. 1:24for justice Lizzy this was his chance you know 20  23 years after the Scandal started to really land
16. 1:31one on the post office and a portion blame for  what they had done did he did he do that yeah I
17. 1:39think um it had obviously been a long time coming  and the significance of his evidence meant that
18. 1:44he had an entire day uh of of you know questions  at the inquiry whereas like lots of other people
19. 1:51have much shorter stins um obviously Alan bates's  story has been well told um and he's given lots
20. 2:00of interviews and he's been campaigning for a  long time so you know there were things about
21. 2:03it that were familiar though his testimony was  very powerful um but I think there was just Lots
22. 2:10there were lots of good details in there that  we I certainly hadn't heard before there were
23. 2:17um the the inquiry also was able to get to things  like um email chains from post office bosses sort
24. 2:25of saying you know we've got to get rid of Bates  he's unmanageable when just before he was sacked
25. 2:31there was some things about um sort of post office  lawyers saying that what they knew and when and
26. 2:38them basically admitting it was a bad PR move  certain things so I think it was really good to
27. 2:44kind of get into some of the detail um and it sets  us up for the next kind of next I think two three
28. 2:51months where the post office inquire is really  going to get to the heart of it now where there's
29. 2:57going to be a number of senior bosses from both  the post office and Fujitsu the Japanese company
30. 3:04that developed the software that was is was faulty  basically the Horizon software so um I think the
31. 3:11former there's a few former Chief Executives on  this week and then next month we've got Paula
32. 3:17venel the former Chief Executive who has become a  real kind of focal point for a lot of the anger um
33. 3:25she's giving evidence for three days in May about  what she knew she was chief executive between 2012
34. 3:31and 2019 so she sort of oversaw the point where  um the Alan Bates and the 554 other postmasters
35. 3:42uh took legal action against the post office and  she was in charge when the PO post office decided
36. 3:48to contest that legal action and what's been  quite interesting recently is there's been a lot
37. 3:53of leaked recordings coming out letters that sort  of thing basically suggesting that the post office
38. 3:59was aware as far back as 2013 that there were  problems with the Horizon software that it was
39. 4:05causing issues that it could be accessed remotely  by Engineers from fujitsu's headquarters which is
40. 4:12was a key thing that they denied endlessly and so  we're now looking at a situation when Paul lenos
41. 4:19is up is did the post office knowingly mislead  Parliament mislead government and engage in
42. 4:26legal action when they knew that their arguments  were false yeah and give give tell people things
43. 4:32which ended up being repeated in court which  were just not true um Mike says is there is
44. 4:39an expected end date on this inquiry will the  government be hoping to push any compensation
45. 4:42payments onto the next Administration I think  in answer to your last question yes Mike yes
46. 4:48because every compensation payment that's that's  floating around at the moment there's quite a few
47. 4:53uh is going to be pushed on the expected end date  I think is sometime isn't it next year Lizzy yeah
48. 4:59the evidence um the final phase of the inquiry  will take evidence in the Autumn so they're sort
49. 5:05of estimating it will end I think it starts in  September so I suspect we may get the report and
50. 5:11the recommendations next year yeah it was a little  bit Wilder so one of the things that um Alan
51. 5:17bit said it's described on the front page of the  mirror today he described the post office as thugs
52. 5:21in suits he said that the post office limited  to spent the entire period which is two decades
53. 5:27pretty much at least a decade since Paul lenos  was in charge the entire period denying lying
54. 5:32defending attempting to discredit and silence me  and it's the kind of thing that um it's affected
55. 5:38thousands of people this case I don't really  know if inspired the right word but it certainly
56. 5:43infected with rage millions of others I think it's  safe to say and today's letters page in the mirror
57. 5:48is a case in point if you have a copy I suggest  trying to read through some of these so we've
58. 5:53got Steve from Milton ke am I the only one who's  deeply puzzled by the lack of Court proceedings
59. 5:59against Paul venos and other senior post office  and Fujitsu Executives the long-standing everg
60. 6:04grown dossier of primer Facey evidence surely  warrants arrests um there's someone from SL in
61. 6:10barkshire who says I was watching an interview on  BBC breakfast with Jess cor a sub poost mistress
62. 6:15who was a victim of the Horizon Scandal I thought  I couldn't get shocked by revelations anymore but
63. 6:19Jess emotionally revealed on live TV that while  she was in hospital suffering with severe trauma
64. 6:26and mental health breakdowns directly caused  by the post office they sent their own doctors
65. 6:32in to find out if she was faking it that they  couldn't even trust the clinical diagnosis of
66. 6:38the NHS doctors who were treating her um Ronnie  from Norwich says now documents have approved
67. 6:43bosses and lawyers knew of the issues they should  be investigated by the police I mean these letters
68. 6:48are just a a a a stream of Demands from the  public as we've seen as well after the ITV
69. 6:55drama that someone's held to account that there is  this sense isn't there that there must have been
70. 7:01a crime committed here somewhere because it's so  wrong uh whether it's perjury whether it's falce
71. 7:07accounting you know covering your own backside  unfortunately isn't a criminal offense at the
72. 7:11moment but since this drama was aired and these  tape conversations have been leaked it it does
73. 7:17seem that someone really knew that the crimes  that were being prosecuted by the post office
74. 7:24itself weren't really they weren't they weren't  something that could really be substant iated
75. 7:30safely in criminal terms uh and you know if you  could remotely access Those computer systems it
76. 7:37would have been possible to reverse engineer the  convictions even is this Lizzie do you think this
77. 7:42is going to lead to where people think it should  that it it it will get to a court case at any
78. 7:47point I think it's certainly possible the issue  at the moment is um everyone's sort of waiting for
79. 7:56the inquiry to end which is in the sense that it  is good for the inquiry to do its job to establish
80. 8:03the evidence that it's getting and all of that  without the interference external interference
81. 8:09but a number of MPS that I've spoken to about this  including um the labor MP Kevin Jones who's been
82. 8:15campaigning on this for a long time and sits on  the compensation Advisory Board they are starting
83. 8:21to say we don't understand why there aren't  prosecutions already why do we have to wait
84. 8:25for the inquiry this is getting ridiculous and I  I think there's some simp y with that argument the
85. 8:30government says the inquiry needs to finish first  and then let's see but post office Minister Kevin
86. 8:35Hollen has been saying for a while now that he  thinks that those guilty should be sent to prison
87. 8:40and the me police um began an investigation I  think in 202 where they are looking at sort of
88. 8:48um as far as I understand it um possible offenses  of Ford and perverting the course of justice but
89. 8:54we don't know a lot about that inquiry and who's  actually being looked at um but I suspect if the
90. 9:00inquiry finds that you know people did know post  office bosses did know that if software was F was
91. 9:08faulty and that these prosecutions were unsound  that people should be should be in court and I
92. 9:15hope that you know that the post Masters will get  that Justice because I think that's what you know
93. 9:20that's what Alan Bates and so many of them keep  saying you know the compensation is one thing yes
94. 9:25people's lives were ruined but like people need  to you know people need to be held to account for
95. 9:30this like the money won't take back the time the  the time that people have lost the damage their
96. 9:36reputations lots of people have died without ever  having their names cleared like somebody needs to
97. 9:42you know multiple people perhaps need to be held  accountable for that yeah that's the catharsis
98. 9:47isn't it if there's been an injustice there has  to be a release and a and a correction a balance
99. 9:52in the other way some way but I dare say um if  all those people and I'm sure there are viewers
100. 9:57out there saying yes there should be people  arrested why aren't they clink already if we
101. 10:00had that situation and say let's say Paula venos  got arrested for something tomorrow she wouldn't
102. 10:06be giving evidence of the public inquiry because  her lawyers and everything else would just say
103. 10:10well you can't because you're going to interfere  and significantly uh affect a future court case
104. 10:16once criminal proceedings start they become  active there's some things you can't do in
105. 10:21this country and you have to let Justice run its  course so if there's a public the public inquiry
106. 10:26would end up having to go on Ice I suspect for a  while to let um convictions and court cases sort
107. 10:32of play out and that would mean people couldn't  give evidence to the public inquiry it would
108. 10:37mean any evidence they did give would be sort of  extra lawyered and everything else and so that's
109. 10:41probably why the inquiry is heading on before  there's any criminal cases because otherwise
110. 10:46if it was the other way around we'd be going why  can't the inquiry get to the bottom of this and
111. 10:50why is it all on Ice just to wait for you know  three years or something for a case to come to
112. 10:54court so this is probably the best way of doing  it even though it's not necessarily perfect dare
113. 11:00say we'll all be there waiting when when the Cuffs  finally go on somebody I'm sure they will at some
114. 11:05point