Former boss did not realise Post Office was prosecuting court cases

But I wonder, Mr. Smith, if I could just say before we get started, I’d like to put on record most strongly my personal apology and sympathies with all sub postmasters, their families and those affected by this. As we get into the conversation, obviously there’ll be an opportunity for me to elaborate, but it just felt to me that was an important thing for me to say upfront. And you can you earlier referred to, when I asked about Legal being a group function, you referred to legal being centralized in other group companies. You were aware of another group of companies where legal is centralized at the group level or the parent level and the subsidiary carries out or is responsible for prosecuting members of its own workforce? No, I’m sure not. Do you think Post Office Limited would have benefited from its own legal team? Well, I would have liked its own legal team. I I would have. I would have felt happier. I would have felt more accountable. I’m. I’m not saying to you that the problems would have been unearthed massively quicker as a result, but I would have been closer to the issue. And what what was stopping you from having your own legal team? Well, it was not the proposed organizational structure, so it wasn’t it. It was a non negotiable when I was being appointed. Now your evidence, which we will come to shortly, is that you were unaware that Post Office was involved in the prosecution of sub Postmasters until May 2009. No, that’s not quite right. I was, I was unaware that the post office were the prosecuting authority if you see one. I knew there were court cases, but I didn’t realise that post office in about 2/3 of the cases had initiated the prosecution. I see as opposed to you know, the DPP or the police or or whatever. So just to clarify and to clarify that. So you’re you’re saying you were you were aware that the business investigated for theft, fraud and false accounting but you thought that it went to another agency for the prosecution and and the expressions that you would typically see with things like the case went to court and it was, you know, and I now know because I’ve, I’ve poured all over this and I’ve checked all the figures that about 1/3 went down that route. But 2/3 were the post office taking the decision to prosecute themselves. And paragraph 59 talked about the Risk and Compliance committee. And about 5 lines down, you say to the best of my knowledge, the Risk and Compliance committee was not given any information or reporting, nor did it have any oversight of the prosecution of SPMS. As a result, I did not take any steps as a member of the Risk and Compliance Committee to ensure that Paul was acting in compliance with its legal obligations in relation to those prosecutions and civil proceedings against SPMSI was not aware that they were taking place. Correct that saying in terms that the post office made decisions to prosecute, isn’t it it it does. It’s not how I read it. This is this is my regret. I mean there was AI don’t know. There was a sort of high and mighty tone, some sometimes there and people I don’t know. It fed a sense of self importance. I never occurred to me reading that, that the post office was the sole arbiter of whether or not that criminal prosecution would proceed. I felt what they were saying was we agree it’s proceeding but but somewhere else had to had to agree to it. Going ahead where did you where did you get that assumption from that it was somewhere else. I I had never come across a situation before where a a trading entity could initiate criminal prosecutions themselves. So I’d. I’m not, I’m not blaming others for this. It’s my misunderstanding. But I I just not encountered that type of situation and I would have just read those in in the in the in the vein of we agree it should be done. Do you think you should have known that post office was making those decisions. I think I think I should yes I I and that’s clearly there are many regrets on on many aspects of this but but that that is one of mine that I I didn’t understand. I was going to call it a subtlety that would be an insult. It’s not a subtlety, it’s really important. But it was it was a a a different nuance on it. Could we please turn to Paul? 3 zeros 21421. Your evidence is still that At no point in the years that you were a managing director anyone in the security or investigation team raised the fact that they made decisions to prosecute. I I well that is my position definitely. I I think it’s sometimes what’s said and what’s heard and the problem that I was bringing to the piece was I just had a presumption and I didn’t hear something sufficiently categoric to say what you mean. We decide on our own and no one can stop us. I never asked that question. Well when I say I never like I did, obviously when we got to the Computer Weekly article, which we’ll get to. But but prior to that point I had, I had gone through not picking up that. And I’m not blaming them for not spelling it out enough. I’m I’m, to be frank. I’m blaming me for not picking up on it.