Lawyers held back the full reasons for a tainted witness being dropped by the Post Office – potentially stopping past convictions from being reconsidered, the public inquiry into the Horizon scandal heard yesterday.
Former senior director Angela van den Bogerd said that she approached Post Office head of legal Rodric Williams after expert witness Gareth Jenkins was suddenly dropped from giving evidence on Horizon-related cases in 2013.
Williams and other Post Office lawyers had received advice from Cartwright King barrister Simon Clarke saying that Jenkins’ credibility was seriously compromised and that there were existing convictions that may be unsafe.
But Bogerd, who was about to launch a mediation scheme for sub-postmasters, said that Williams mentioned none of this to her when she raised queries about Jenkins’ sudden removal.
‘I remember having a conversation with Rodric Williams to see particularly when I found out about Gareth Jenkins [and] saying what is the impact?’ said Bogerd. ‘His response to me was “it is fine, we have a QC looking at the implications on past convictions”. I had satisfied myself it was in hand and I took it at face value from the legal team.’
Bogerd revealed that she never saw Clarke’s advice until it was disclosed to her a few weeks ago in preparation for her appearance before the inquiry.
She said she had been ‘concerned’ about Jenkins’ removal before she received Williams’ assurance that there was no need for further enquiries on past convictions.
Clarke had advised that Jenkins, a Fujitsu employee, failed to disclose material known to him but which undermined his expert opinion. This failure had a ‘profound’ effect upon Post Office prosecutions and there were ‘a number of convicted defendants to whom the existence of bugs [with the IT system] should have been disclosed but was not’. Clarke went on to say that this disclosure failure could be used by sub-postmasters if they challenge their convictions in the Court of Appeal.
Clarke’s advice, the inquiry heard, was sent to a number of lawyers, including Susan Crichton, Jarnail Singh, Hugh Flemington and Williams from the Post Office, and Andy Parsons and Martin Smith from external firms.
Bogerd said she worked alongside Parsons until 2020 without his ever raising the existence of the Clarke advice.
Inquiry counsel Jason Beer KC asked: ‘Did anyone advise that Mr Jenkins was a tainted witness whose role has been found on advice to be compromised?’ Bogerd said she knew there was an issue but what she was told was ‘very different’ from Beer’s analysis.
The hearing continues today with a second day of evidence from Bogerd.
