Post Office would stand by prosecution of more than 350 sub-postmasters, boss told minister in letter

Published

3 months ago

February 22, 2024

admin

The boss of the Post Office wrote a letter to ministers saying he would stand by the prosecution of more than 350 of the sub-postmasters convicted in the Horizon scandal.

Chief executive Nick Read sent the letter to Justice Secretary Alex Chalk last month, informing him that the Post Office would be “bound to oppose” appeals against at least 369 prosecutions.

The document was dated 9 January – the day before the government announced plans for a new law to exonerate and compensate sub-postmasters who had been wrongly convicted in the Horizon scandal.

Mr Read’s letter was published by the Post Office on Thursday, as the government confirmed it was pressing ahead with the legislation to automatically quash convictions by July.

In response, the government said it would introduce “safeguards” to avoid “anyone who was rightly convicted” attempting to “take advantage” of the compensation scheme.

“Innocent post-masters have suffered an intolerable and unprecedented miscarriage of justice at the hands of the Post Office, which is why we are introducing legislation to swiftly exonerate all those convicted as a result of the Horizon scandal,” a government spokesperson said.

In the letter, Mr Read wrote that the Post Office had conducted an external legal review into prosecutions linked to the Horizon IT system between 1999 and 2015.

The period saw hundreds of sub-postmasters prosecuted because of discrepancies in the IT system, in what has been called the biggest miscarriage of justice in UK history.

Mr Read wrote that the review found that the Post Office was “bound” to oppose appeals against 369 of the roughly 700 prosecutions made in the period of the Horizon scandal because the evidence relied on in these cases was unrelated to the faulty system.

He wrote that a further 11 cases were under review, while there was insufficient evidence to take a decision either way in 132 cases.

“This clearly raises acute political, judicial, and communications challenges against the very significant public and parliamentary pressure for some form of acceleration or by-passing of the normal appeals process,” he wrote.

Attached to Mr Read’s letter was a note by Nick Vamos, the head of business crime at Peters & Peters, the solicitors for the Post Office.

In the note, Mr Vamos wrote that it was “highly likely that the vast majority of people who have not yet appealed were, in fact, guilty as charged and were safely convicted”.

The publication of the letters comes after allegations from the former chairman of the Post Office, Henry Staunton, who claimed there was “no real movement” on payouts to sub-postmasters until after the airing of ITV drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office earlier this year.

The claim was denied by the government and sparked a high-profile row between Mr Staunton and Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch.

While making the allegations, Mr Staunton revealed the existence of Mr Read’s letter.

The Post Office published the letter and the note on Thursday with a comment which said they were sent to “explain the work that the Post Office had requested its legal counsel, Peters & Peters, undertake to proactively identify, on the papers available, any convictions that could be unsafe”.

“This was primarily to offer the government any support that might assist them as they consider relevant issues in advance of passing legislation, without any value judgement on what the correct course of action might be,” it said in a statement, alongside publishing the letters.

The Post Office also said the note provided by Peters & Peters was “not solicited” by them and was sent to “express the personal views of its author”.

“(The) Post Office was in no way seeking to persuade the government against mass exoneration,” it said.

“We are fully supportive of any steps taken by government to speed up the exoneration of those with wrongful convictions and to provide redress to victims, with the information having been provided to inform that consideration.”

On Thursday, the government announced it aimed to get the exonerations done “as soon as possible before the summer recess” on 23 July.

Writing to the House of Commons, Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake said: “As noted in my statement on 10 January, the legislation is likely to exonerate a number of people who were, in fact, guilty of a crime.

“The government accepts that this is a price worth paying in order to ensure that many innocent people are exonerated.”

In an attempt to ensure people are truthful in signing up for compensation linked to convictions being overturned, they will have to sign a disclaimer confirming their innocence.

“Any person found to have signed such a statement falsely in order to gain compensation may be guilty of fraud,” Mr Hollinrake added.

An independent public statutory inquiry is ongoing to establish a clear account of the implementation and failings of the Horizon IT system at the Post Office over its lifetime.

Business

Marks & Spencer’s website and app go down

Published

16 hours ago

May 18, 2024

admin

Marks & Spencer's website and app go down

Marks & Spencer’s website and app has not been working for several hours, with a message telling shoppers “you can’t shop with us right now”.

“We’re working hard to be back online as soon as possible,” it adds.

All the menus and images have disappeared apart from one showing a model in a green jacket.

Customers trying to use the app got the message: “Sorry you can’t shop through the app right now. We’re busy making some planned changes, but will be back soon.”

The site is understood to have been down for several hours.

Replying to one customer on X, the retailer said: “We’re experiencing some technical issues but we are working on it.”

M&S is the latest high street name to have technical issues – last month some Sainsbury’s shoppers had problems with their online orders.

The outage comes a few days before M&S is expected to reveal a big jump in annual profits.

It’s been a successful year for the brand, with strong sales across the business following a turnaround plan that has included store closures and cost cutting.

Business

Employees at fintech giant Revolut to cash in with $500m share sale

Published

19 hours ago

May 18, 2024

admin

Employees at fintech giant Revolut to cash in with 0m share sale

Bosses at Revolut, Britain’s biggest fintech, are drawing up plans to allow employees to cash in with a sale of stock valued at hundreds of millions of pounds.

Sky News has learnt that the banking and payments services provider is lining up investment bankers to coordinate a secondary share sale worth in the region of $500m (£394m).

Morgan Stanley, the Wall Street bank, is expected to be engaged to work on the proposed stock offering, which will take place later this year.

Money blog: How to sell your home without an estate agent

City sources said this weekend that Nik Storonsky, Revolut’s co-founder and chief executive, was determined to seek a valuation of at least the $33bn (£26bn) it secured in a primary funding round in 2021.

“This will not be a down-round,” said one person familiar with Revolut’s thinking.

Although the fintech, which has more than 40 million customers, is not planning to raise new capital as part of the transaction, any sizeable share sale will still be closely watched across the global fintech sector.

It is expected to be restricted to company employees.

Revolut ranks among the world’s largest financial technology businesses, with revenue virtually doubling last year to around £1.7bn, according to figures expected to be published in the coming months.

Founded in 2015, it has experienced a string of regulatory and compliance challenges, with reports last year highlighting its release of funds from accounts flagged by the National Crime Agency as suspicious.

The company’s growth has taken place at breakneck speed, with customer numbers soaring from 16.4m at the point of the Series E fundraising nearly three years ago.

Insiders argued that despite the protracted downturn in tech valuations over the last two years, Revolut’s relentless expansion would easily justify it maintaining its status as Britain’s most valuable fintech.

Monzo, the UK-based digital bank, recently confirmed a Sky News story that it had closed a funding round worth nearly £500m, including backing from an arm of Google’s owner, Alphabet, and a Singaporean sovereign wealth fund.

Elsewhere, however, the funding landscape has been bleaker, with a growing number of tech companies which had attracted unicorn valuations of more than $1bn now struggling to stay afloat.

Revolut has allotted stock options to many of its 10,000 employees as part of their compensation packages, although it was unclear how many would be eligible to dispose of equity in the transaction later this year.

A source close to the company said it had had numerous expressions of interest from prospective investors.

Revolut’s current shareholders include SoftBank’s Vision Fund and Tiger Global.

News of the proposed share sale comes as Revolut’s investors continue to await positive news about its application for a UK banking licence.

The company applied to regulators to become a bank in Britain more than three years ago, but has so far failed to secure approval.

Mr Storonsky has been publicly critical of the delay, and last year questioned the approach of British regulators and politicians, as he suggested that he would not contemplate a listing on the London Stock Exchange.

An initial public offering of Revolut appears to still be some way off, although it would not surprise investors or industry peers if it initiated a listing process in the next couple of years.

One person close to Revolut said board members were among those expected to participate in the secondary share sale, although further details were unclear this weekend.

Listen and subscribe to The Ian King Business Podcast here

The company is chaired by Martin Gilbert, the City veteran who has faced governance and performance challenges at Assetco, the London-listed asset manager he runs.

Its other directors include Michael Sherwood, the former Goldman Sachs executive who was jointly responsible for its operations outside the US and who was regarded as one of the most skilled traders of his generation.

An external shareholder in the company said the exclusion of non-employees from the deal could draw criticism from some investors.

Revolut has conducted secondary share sales of this kind in the past, including after its 2021 Series E round.

This weekend, Revolut declined to comment.

Business

Ex-Post Office head of IT says Paula Vennells ‘hoped to avoid’ inquiry – and reveals she blocked her number

Published

3 days ago

May 16, 2024

admin

Ex-Post Office head of IT says Paula Vennells 'hoped to avoid' inquiry - and reveals she blocked her number

A former Post Office executive has said she was forced to block ex-boss Paula Vennells’ phone number after the ex-CEO called multiple times asking for help to avoid an independent inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal.

Lesley Sewell, previously the company’s head of IT, told the Post Office inquiry on Thursday that former CEO Ms Vennells had reached out to her four times between 2020 and 2021.

Ms Sewell said that she blocked Ms Vennells’ number due to discomfort with the contact.

In her witness statement to the probe, Ms Sewell said that one of Ms Vennells’ emails referenced the need to fill in memory gaps regarding Horizon and “Project Sparrow”, a committee addressing issues with forensic accountants who identified flaws in the accounting system.

“Paula contacted me on four occasions in total. I recall blocking her number after the last call as I did not feel comfortable with her contacting me,” Ms Sewell said.

“I had not spoken to Paula since I had left POL [Post Office Limited] in 2015.”

According to Ms Sewell’s testimony, former chief executive Ms Vennells said that she had “been asked at short notice” to appear before a parliamentary select committee on “all things Horizon/Sparrow and need to plug some memory gaps”.

Ms Sewell says Ms Vennells added: “My hope is this might help avoid an independent inquiry but to do so, I need to be well prepared.”

Ms Sewell, who struggled to contain her emotions and broke down in tears while giving her oath at the start of her inquiry evidence, was offered support and breaks as needed by chairman Sir Wyn Williams.

Sir Wyn told the former executive: “Ms Sewell, I appreciate this may be upsetting for you, Ms Price will ask you a number of questions in a proper and sensible manner, but if at any time you feel you need a break, just let me know, all right?”

The Post Office has faced significant scrutiny following the ITV drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office which highlighted the Horizon IT scandal.

The faulty system led to the prosecution of more than 700 sub-postmasters between 1999 and 2015, with many still awaiting full compensation despite government announcements regarding payouts for those with quashed convictions.