Post Office has ‘corporate amnesia’, warns wife of Horizon scandal victim

Marion Holmes, whose late husband, Peter, was wrongly convicted of false accounting while at the Post Office – LORNE CAMPBELL/GUZELIAN

The widow of a wrongly prosecuted Post Office manager has claimed that witnesses to the public inquiry into the Horizon scandal are suffering from “corporate amnesia”.

Marion Holmes told The Telegraph that watching evidence from former Post Office investigators at the hearings had “given her more insight” into the stress her late husband was under leading up to his conviction.

She also said she would like to see Robert Daily, a former Post Office investigator who was involved with her late husband’s case, apologise to victims and their families when he gives evidence to the inquiry on Tuesday, although she added that she was “not holding out hope”.

Peter Holmes, a former police officer, had been the manager of a Post Office branch in Jesmond, Newcastle, for 13 years when he was accused of stealing £46,000 and sacked from his job.

In 2010, the father-of-three pleaded guilty to four counts of false accounting in order to avoid a prison sentence. He was acquitted of theft by direction of the judge.

Mr Holmes was sentenced to a community order with a three-month curfew between 7pm and 7am. Five years after his conviction, he died from a brain tumour in October 2015, aged 74, without having his conviction overturned. His widow had to wait until April 2021 before his name was finally cleared at the Court of Appeal.

Mrs Holmes, 78, said: “So far, a lot of the witnesses seem to acquire corporate amnesia whenever they are asked a question which could force them to admit they did something wrong.

“Hopefully, Mr Daily will begin by apologising but I am not holding out hope.

“The investigators and all those involved need to accept the effect they have had on other people’s lives.”

Mr Daily is not the first former Post Office investigator that the inquiry will hear from as it continues to investigate the scandal which saw more than 900 sub-postmasters wrongfully prosecuted.

‘Bonus objectives’

Last December, the inquiry heard from former investigator Gary Thomas, whose witness statement described how investigators were motivated by “bonus objectives” based on the amount of funds recovered.

Earlier this month, investigator Stephen Bradshaw, who is still employed by the Post Office, denied calling a former sub-postmistress a “b—-” and hounding her with “intimidating telephone calls”.

Like many other witnesses who have given evidence so far, both were unable to remember every detail they were questioned on.

Mr Thomas could not remember when he became aware that he could ask the Japanese-owned IT firm Fujitsu for Horizon transaction data on cases. Mr Bradshaw could not remember whether he had discussed a witness statement with Post Office lawyers before signing it in 2013.

Meanwhile, several current and former Fujitsu staff who gave evidence at last week’s inquiry hearings were unable to remember receiving specific emails or conversations with colleagues.

Mrs Holmes said: “Watching these people give evidence has given me more insight into the kind of stress Peter must have been feeling at the time.

Marion Holmes says throughout her husband’s case the Post Office was ‘so aggressive’ – ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP

“Throughout the investigation, the Post Office was so aggressive and they used his good character against him.

“Peter worked hard and would always come into work early but they went on to claim that he was doing this so he could steal money from the Post Office in the morning.”

When glitches in the Horizon software first began to indicate false shortfalls on the Jesmond branch counter, Mr Holmes began using the couple’s own money to make up the balance.

Suspended from work

Speaking yesterday, Mrs Holmes said: “The first time I knew anything was wrong was when he came to my shop in September 2008 and told me he had been suspended from work … until then, I didn’t even know he was having problems at work. He dealt with it all himself because he did not want to worry me.”

As well as investigating Mr Holmes, Mr Daily was involved in the case of William Quarm, who died in 2012 – two years after being wrongly convicted for misappropriating cash from the Post Office branch that he ran on the Outer Hebridean island of North Uist.

His wife Anne Quarm only managed to clear his name last year, over a decade after Mr Quarm’s death, aged 70.

A Post Office spokesperson said: “We fully share the aims of the current public inquiry, set up to get to the truth of what happened in the past and accountability.

“It’s for the Inquiry to reach its own independent conclusions after consideration of all the evidence on the issues it is examining.”

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