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There was “possibly a criminal conspiracy” at the Post Office, according to an independent forensic accountant drafted in to investigate the controversial Horizon accounting system.

Ian Henderson, one of the two forensic accountants from Second Sight paid by Post Office (POL) to review sub-postmaster convictions involving Horizon in 2012, told the public inquiry into the scandal that former chief executive Paula Vennells “frequently and consistently” tried to steer him away from probing miscarriages of justice.

Mr Henderson explained how he had signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with the Post Office and claimed he later faced a “thinly veiled threat” from the company’s then head of legal Chris Aujard “to bankrupt me if I continued causing trouble”.

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A 2013 interim report produced by Mr Henderson and his colleague Ron Warmington identified two bugs in the Horizon system that caused problems for 76 branches.

The forensic accountants were sacked in 2015, and Mr Henderson said he believed they were dismissed because they were “getting too close to the truth”.

He told the inquiry he felt the Post Office was “constantly sabotaging our efforts to seek the truth irrespective of the consequences”.

Counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC asked: “What had happened to the ‘shared desire to seek the truth irrespective of the consequences?'”

Mr Henderson replied: “I think we’d moved on from that.

“I’d formed the view that quite early on in the process, Post Office was getting advice from external lawyers about the financial consequences of what we were finding – the fact that they might be looking at very material amounts of compensation.”

He added: “It was very clear that Post Office senior management were very concerned about the public perception, the brand image – I mean, Paula Vennells in meetings was very open about it.

“She was determined to promote the brand of Post Office.”

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Vennells accused of talking ‘nonsense’

Legal ‘threats’ under NDA

In his witness statement to the inquiry, Mr Henderson said he felt Second Sight was dealing with a cover-up.

He said: “By February 2015, I no longer had confidence that POL was taking our concerns seriously or dealing with them in an appropriate manner.

“I felt we were dealing with a cover-up by POL and possibly a criminal conspiracy.

“I was concerned about the various threats that had been made to me by POL concerning alleged breaches of my NDA and my duties of confidentiality.

“Accordingly, I had to find a way of communicating my concerns, but which limited the risk of a legal action against me, or Second Sight, by POL.

“The most likely threats appeared to be an action for defamation, breach of confidence or breach of contract.”

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Scandal ‘a huge part of what my life’s been about’

Second Sight ‘steered away’ from truth

He continued: “My work for POL and the (mediation) Scheme was probably the most challenging in the 40 years of my career as a chartered accountant.

“One of the reasons it was challenging was that POL would say one thing in public, and then do something different in private.

“An example of this was Paula Vennells’ statement to the Parliamentary Select Committee in February 2015, that our work had found ‘no evidence of miscarriages of justice’ and ‘it was important that we surface any miscarriages of justice’.

“Paula Vennells frequently and consistently attempted to steer Second Sight away from investigating potential miscarriages of justice.

“When I first met Paula Vennells, she told me that POL was the nation’s most trusted brand with a history of over 400 years.

“As our work continued, I increasingly formed the view that because of this history, POL somehow felt it was above the law.

“I formed the view that POL was constantly sabotaging our efforts to seek the truth irrespective of the consequences.

“Requests for documents were either ignored or responses were excessively delayed.

“Unjustified claims of legal professional privilege were used to justify withholding documents from us.”

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Concluding his witness statement, Mr Henderson added: “We tried to go where the evidence took us, but increasingly we were finding evidence of questionable conduct by POL, some of which, in my opinion, was probably criminal.

“In the course of our work, I increasingly felt that our overriding duty was, in a phrase attributed to Alan Bates, to help ‘the skint little people’ who didn’t have a voice and had been so badly treated by POL.”

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In her own evidence to the inquiry last month, Ms Vennells said she had been perhaps “too trusting” of people around her when it came to getting to the truth about miscarriages of justice.

More than 700 sub-postmasters were wrongly convicted of charges including theft and false accounting between 1999 and 2015 and many are still awaiting compensation.

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AA owners line up banks to steer path towards £4.5bn exit

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AA owners line up banks to steer path towards £4.5bn exit

The owners of the AA, Britain’s biggest breakdown recovery service, are lining up bankers to steer a path towards a sale or stock market listing next year which could value the company at well over £4bn.

Sky News has learnt that JP Morgan and Rothschild are in pole position to be appointed to conduct a review of the AA’s strategic options following a recovery in its financial and operating performance.

The AA, which has more than 16 million customers, including 3.3 million individual members, is jointly owned by three private equity firms: Towerbrook Capital Partners, Warburg Pincus and Stonepeak.

Insiders said this weekend that any form of corporate transaction involving the AA was not imminent or likely to take place for at least 12 months.

They added that there was no fixed timetable and that a deal might not take place until after 2026.

Nevertheless, the impending appointment of advisers underlines the renewed confidence its shareholders now have in its prospects, with the business having recorded four consecutive years of customer, revenue and earnings growth.

A strategic review of the AA’s options is likely to encompass an outright sale, listing on the public markets or the disposal of a further minority stake.

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Stonepeak invested £450m into the company in a combination of common and preferred equity, in a transaction which completed in July last year.

That deal was undertaken at an enterprise valuation – comprising the AA’s equity and debt – of approximately £4bn, the shareholders said at the time.

Given the company’s growth and the valuation at which Stonepeak invested, any future transaction would be unlikely to take place with a price of less than £4.5bn, according to bankers.

The AA, which has a large insurance division as well as its roadside recovery operations, remains weighed down by a substantial – albeit declining – debt burden.

Its most recent set of financial results disclosed that it had £1.9bn of net debt, which it is gradually paying down as profitability improves.

AA owners over the years

The company has been through a succession of owners during the last 25 years.

In 1999, it was bought by Centrica, the owner of British Gas, for £1.1bn.

It was then sold five years later to CVC Capital Partners and Permira, two buyout firms, for £1.75bn, and sat under the corporate umbrella Acromas alongside Saga for a decade.

The AA listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2014, but its shares endured a miserable run, being taken private nearly seven years later at little more than 15% of its value on flotation.

Under the ownership of Towerbrook and Warburg Pincus, the company embarked on a long-term transformation plan, recruiting a new leadership team in the form of chairman Rick Haythornthwaite – who also chairs NatWest Group – and chief executive Jakob Pfaudler.

For many years, the AA styled itself as “Britain’s fourth emergency service”, competing with fierce rival the RAC for market share in the breakdown recovery sector.

Founded in 1905 by a quartet of driving enthusiasts, the AA passed 100,000 members in 1934, before reaching the one million mark in 1950.

Last year, it attended 3.5 million breakdowns on Britain’s roads, with 2,700 patrols wearing its uniform.

The company also operates the largest driving school business in the UK under the AA and BSM brands.

In the past, it has explored a sale of its insurance arm, which also has millions of customers, at various points but is not actively doing so now.

By recruiting a third major shareholder last, the AA mirrored a deal struck in 2021 by the RAC.

The RAC’s then owners – CVC Capital Partners and the Singaporean state fund GIC – brought the technology-focused private equity firm, Silver Lake, in as another major investor.

A spokesman for the AA declined to comment on Saturday.

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US-EU trade war fears reignite as Europe strikes back at Trump’s threat

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US-EU trade war fears reignite as Europe strikes back at Trump's threat

Fears of a US-EU trade war have been reignited after Europe refused to back down in the face of fresh threats from Donald Trump.

The word tariff has dominated much of the US president’s second term, and he has repeatedly and freely threatened countries with them.

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This included the so-called “liberation day” last month, where he unleashed tariffs on many of his trade partners.

On Friday, after a period of relative calm which has included striking a deal with the UK, he threatened to impose a 50% tariff on the EU after claiming trade talks with Brussels were “going nowhere”.

The US president has repeatedly taken issue with the EU, going as far as to claim it was created to rip the US off.

However, in the face of the latest hostile rhetoric from Mr Trump’s social media account, the European Commission – which oversees trade for the 27-country bloc – has refused to back down.

EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic said: “EU-US trade is unmatched and must be guided by mutual respect, not threats.

“We stand ready to defend our interests.”

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after signing executive orders regarding nuclear energy in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, May 23, 2025, in Washington, as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth listen. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday

Fellow EU leaders and ministers have also held the line after Mr Trump’s comments.

Polish deputy economy minister Michal Baranowski said the tariffs appeared to be a negotiating ploy, with Dutch deputy prime minister Dick Schoof said tariffs “can go up and down”.

French trade minister Laurent Saint-Martin said the latest threats did nothing to help trade talks.

He stressed “de-escalation” was one of the EU’s main aims but warned: “We are ready to respond.”

Mr Sefcovic spoke with US trade representative Jamieson Greer and commerce secretary Howard Lutnick after Mr Trump’s comments.

Mr Trump has previously backed down on a tit-for-tat trade war with China, which saw tariffs soar above 100%.

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Sticking points

Talks between the US and EU have stumbled.

In the past week, Washington sent a list of demands to Brussels – including adopting US food safety standards and removing national digital services taxes, people familiar with the talks told Reuters news agency.

In response, the EU reportedly offered a mutually beneficial deal that could include the bloc potentially buying more liquefied natural gas and soybeans from the US, as well as cooperation on issues such as steel overcapacity, which both sides blame on China.

Stocks tumble as Trump grumbles

Major stock indices tumbled after Mr Trump’s comments, which came as he also threatened to slap US tech giant Apple with a 25% tariff.

The president is adamant that he wants the company’s iPhones to be built in America.

The vast majority of its phones are made in China, and the company has also shifted some production to India.

Shares of Apple ended 3% lower and the dollar sank 1% versus the Japanese yen and the euro rose 0.8% against the dollar.

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British taxpayers’ £10.2bn loss on bailout of RBS

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British taxpayers' £10.2bn loss on bailout of RBS

British taxpayers are set to swallow a loss of just over £10bn on the 2008 rescue of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) as the government prepares to confirm that it has offloaded its last-remaining shares in the lender as soon as next week.

Sky News can reveal the ultimate cost to the UK of saving RBS – now NatWest Group – from insolvency is expected to come in at about £10.2bn once the proceeds of share sales, dividends and fees associated with the stake are aggregated.

The final bill will draw a line under one of the most notorious bank bailouts ever orchestrated, and comes nearly 17 years after the then chancellor, Lord Darling, conducted what RBS’s boss at the time, Fred Goodwin, labelled “a drive-by shooting”.

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Insiders believe a statement confirming the final shares have been sold could come in the latter part of next week, although there is a chance that timetable could be extended by a number of days.

The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is likely to make a statement about the milestone, although insiders say the Treasury and the bank are keen to simply mark the occasion by thanking British taxpayers for their protracted support.

A stock exchange filing disclosing that taxpayers’ stake had fallen below 1% was made last week, down from over 80% in the years after the £45.5bn bailout.

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The stake now stands at 0.26%, meaning the final shares could be offloaded as early as the middle of next week, depending upon demand.

Total proceeds from a government trading plan launched in 2021 to drip-feed NatWest stock into the market have so far reached £12.8bn.

Based on the bank’s current share price, the remaining shares should fetch in the region of £400m, taking the figure to £13.2bn.

In addition, institutional share sales and direct buybacks by NatWest of government-held stock have yielded a further £11.5bn.

Dividend payments to the Treasury during its ownership have totalled £4.9bn, while fees and other payments have generated another £5.6bn.

In aggregate, that means total proceeds from NatWest since 2008 are expected to hit £35.3bn.

Under Rick Haythornthwaite and Paul Thwaite, now the bank’s chairman and chief executive respectively, NatWest is now focused on driving growth across its business.

It recently tabled an £11bn bid to buy Santander UK, according to the Financial Times, although no talks are ongoing.

Mr Thwaite replaced Dame Alison Rose, who left amid the crisis sparked by the debanking scandal involving Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader.

Sky News recently revealed that the bank and Mr Farage had reached an undisclosed settlement.

During the first five years of NatWest’s period in majority state ownership, the bank was run by Sir Stephen Hester, now the chairman of easyJet.

Sir Stephen stepped down amid tensions with the then chancellor, George Osborne, about how RBS – as it then was – should be run.

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Lloyds Banking Group was also in partial state ownership for years, although taxpayers reaped a net gain of about £900m from that period.

Other lenders nationalised during the crisis included Bradford & Bingley, the bulk of which was sold to Santander UK, and Northern Rock, part of which was sold to Virgin Money – which in turn has been acquired by Nationwide.

NatWest declined to comment on Friday.

A Treasury spokesperson said: “We now own less than 1% of shares in NatWest which is a significant step towards returning the bank to private ownership and delivering value for money for taxpayers.

“We are on track to exit the shareholding soon, subject to sales achieving value for money and market conditions.”

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