Post Office inquiry live today: Alan Bates sacked in Horizon scandal ‘for becoming unmanageable’, document claims

The inquiry is now taking a lunch break and will resume at 2pm.

Alan Bates has told the Horizon IT inquiry that he took offence to a letter from former postal affairs minister Sir Ed Davey after he claimed the government adopted an “arm’s length” relationship with the Post Office despite being its sole shareholder.

Questioned by counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC on why he took offence to Sir Ed’s letter in 2010, which declined an invitation to meet with Mr Bates, the former subpostmaster said: “It was because of the structure, wasn’t it.

“The government was the sole shareholder, they were the owners, as such, of all of this.

“How can you run or… take responsibility for an organisation without having some interest in… or trying to be in control?”

In his letter, Mr Bates asked for a meeting to show Mr Davey, who now leads the Liberal Democrats, the vast amount of evidence against Horizon, but the MP said the meeting would not serve “any useful purpose”.

Responding that his comments were “offensive”, Mr Bates said that he was ignoring the misery being inflicted on sub-postmasters and listed several issues with the Post Office, after which Mr Davey agreed to the meeting.

Alan Bates said he has not returned to work since being dismissed as a subpostmaster due to his campaign for justice, adding: “I didn’t set out to spend 20 years doing this.”

The former subpostmaster told the inquiry: “The key issue has always been to expose the truth right from the outset because the other things, they followed on – once you know the truth about issues, the rest will hopefully follow on afterwards.

“I didn’t set out to spend 20 years doing this.

“I hadn’t expected to be doing this so much by myself but it got more and more complex and it was harder and harder to share out work as a bigger group to take things forward.

When asked why he had continued his campaign for justice, he responded: “Because the further down the road you went with it the more you realised you couldn’t let it go.”

Alan Bates said the Post Office terminated his contract as a subpostmaster because “they didn’t like me standing up to them”.

The Post Office IT Inquiry heard that Mr Bates received a letter terminating his employment in 2003 in which no reason for his dismissal was given.

Mr Bates, when asked what he understood to be the reason for the termination, said: “Basically, I think it was because a) they didn’t like me standing up to them in the first instance; b) they were finding it awkward; and c) I don’t think they could answer these questions and they had a feeling I was going to carry on in a similar vein going forward.”

Mr Bates said he attended one meeting, where a subpostmaster told him: “I’ve just had my post office taken off me and I’d had problems with Horizon and all the rest. The Federation, the exact people who were there, escorted him out of the back of the place.”

Federations, such as the National Federation of Subpostmasters (NFSB), are meant to respresent and help subpostmasters.

He added that the federation nearly always took the side of the Post Office and that he had never heard of any sub-postmasters receiving assistance on IT issues.

The Post Office has said it “regrets” that documents were not disclosed to the Horizon IT Inquiry “as early as all parties would have liked”.

A Post Office spokeswoman said: “We are fully committed to supporting the inquiry to establish the truth and we have disclosed almost half-a-million documents to date, reflecting both the unprecedented scale of the issues in the scandal and our commitment to transparency.

“This follows searches of over 176 million documents, 230 physical locations and third-party sites, and across multiple systems.

“During the past six weeks, since the inquiry announced its current hearings timetable, we have disclosed the vast majority of documents required for those witnesses but regret a very small proportion of documents were not disclosed as early as all parties would have liked.

“The inquiry is examining issues that spanned more than two decades, including a lengthy period when Post Office was part of Royal Mail Group.

“Disclosure is therefore highly complex and we continue to do all we can to deliver continuous improvements and incorporate past learnings into the disclosure process to avoid the risk of delays to the inquiry’s timetable.”

A letter from Richard Barker, then general manager of the communications network at the Post Office, explained to Bates’ MP that his sacking was the “only sensible” option.

He wrote that nothing had been found to support his claims over the faulty Horizon claim and that he was “unsuitable” for the position of sub-postmaster, and had continued to “flaunt” instructions.

In his evidence, Bates countered this but stating he had previously received letters praising his performance and to say “well done” for all his hard work.

“It’s nonsense,” he said. “This was just them flexing their muscles and deciding they were right and I was wrong.”

An internal Post Office document, titled “Horizon Integrity”, described Alan Bates as having “become unmanageable”.

The apparent review of possible cases of Horizon faults claimed the former subpostmaster “clearly struggled with the accounting and despite copious support did not follow instructions”.

Detailing several other possible known cases, it then states: “Details of the cases do bear looking at.”

Mr Bates denied that he struggled with accounting, laughed when asked if he received copious support, and on the matter of instructions, said: “Basically try and bankrupt myself? No I didn’t, not to that extent.”

While Alan Bates said he “never” received a reason for the Post Office terminating his contract, he has been shown a letter by the company to an MP in 2003 claiming that it had “lost confidence in his willingness to conduct the job in the manner expected”.

The claim came in correspondence – seen by the inquiry – to MP Betty Williams, who had written to the Post Office to relay her constituent’s concern about the temporary closure of the branch run by Mr Bates.

Asked if that had ever been explained to him, Mr Bates told the inquiry: “No.”

Alan Bates has said he believed the Post Office were trying to “make a lesson” of his case when terminating his contract in 2003.

“I felt they were going to make a lesson of my case – because a number of other people knew what was going on at that time, and I think it was something the Post Office liked to try and give lessons of how they were in charge,” he told the inquiry.