Post office operators union's former leader accused of 'betraying' members

The former leader of post office operators association has declared he was “too trusting” of information given by the Post Office about its faulty Horizon IT system while denying being “too close” to the state-owned body and “betraying” his own membership. He also stated that Post Office's Horizon system is "very robust".

George Thomson, a former general secretary of the National Federation of Sub Postmasters (NFSP), an association that represents post office operatives, was testifying to the ongoing public inquiry. The inquiry heard that, in 2013, the NFSP signed a 15-year deal with the Post Office to represent all post office operatives in return for annual payments of more than £1m a year from 2014-15 onwards.

Thomson served as general secretary of the group between 2007 and 2018.

George Thomson, the former leader of the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters (NFSP), told a long-running inquiry, "The Horizon system is not the scandal, the Post Office stupidity on steroids handling of the situation is the scandal."

Thomson said that the number of sub-postmasters who had been prosecuted was a "tiny percentage" of the 100,000 people who have used Horizon over 25 years.

Between 1999 and 2015, more than 900 sub-postmasters were prosecuted for offences including theft on the strength of faulty data from the Horizon IT system.

Thomson was asked by Julian Blake, the counsel to the inquiry, whether he had been “too close” to the Post Office and whether he lacked sympathy for the convicted operators after criticism that the NFSP, which has now distanced itself from Thomson, had failed to help a number of victims of the scandal.

Thomson replied, “No I don't … I would not say that I was close to the Post Office.” He said that during his tenure as general secretary he had investigated 20 or 30 cases at the “highest level”. In a series of testy exchanges, Thomson was accused by lawyers representing victims of the scandal of taking the “Post Office shilling”.

Sam Stein KC, barrister for a number of operatives, told him that his clients were “of the view that you got into the Post Office bed with [former Post Office chief executive] Paula Vennells and did whatever she wanted you to do. Is that a fair description of what was going on?”

Thomson replied: “It’s nonsense.”

Stein said, “You essentially betrayed your own membership didn’t you?” Stein asked him.

Thomson said, “My position on Horizon changed not one jot after a deal with Post Office."

Thomson said in his witness statement that the “Horizon system is systemically robust and is still giving a great service to our clients, RMG [Royal Mail Group], government and now in particular to the UK’s banks who are increasingly using the PO [Post Office] network”.

He added that only “a very small number of users of the Horizon system over the last 25 years have claimed to have had problems” and said he had been reassured by the Post Office about the IT system and in retrospect was probably “too trusting”.

The inquiry also heard the former union general secretary privately tipped off the Post Office about those "sniffing around" the Horizon IT system.

In an email from Mark Davies, communications and corporate affairs director at the Post Office, sent on May 10 2015, part of the chain read: "Our media relationships with George [Thomson] and team are very good at present - he has been tipping us off, privately, about people sniffing around Horizon."

Thomson's statements were met with anger from Post Office IT scandal victims and public alike.