Alan Cook, a former Post Office boss, claimed that “subbies” had “their hands in the till” when cash was missing at their branches.
Cook, who was managing director from 2006-2010, told the Horizon IT inquiry that he was unaware that the Post Office was the prosecuting authority.
Instead, he assumed the police and DPP were the ones taking sub-postmasters to court. Between 1999 and 2015, over 700 sub-postmasters were prosecuted by the Post Office and handed criminal convictions due to Fujitsu’s faulty Horizon system.
Cook emailed the Royal Mail Group’s PR officer in October 2009, stating that there is a steadily building nervousness about the accuracy of the Horizon system and the press’s attention to it.
Cook said that in a recession, sub-postmasters with their hands in the till choose to blame the technology when they are found to be short of cash.
