Jacqueline Howard
Reporting from the inquiry

It's clear that many former sub-postmasters and postmistresses wouldn't describe Angela van den Bogerd as one their favourite people.

She was an executive at the Post Office for many years, oversaw a number of the complaints about the Horizon system and was on a working group dealing with the fallout of the scandal. In short, she was a major figure in the scandal.

A key theme of her evidence over the past two days is that she heard "rumblings" of issues with Horizon, but nothing substantive enough to spark concerns until it was too late.

Her evidence of these "rumblings" were met with rumblings of another kind in the inquiry room. Dozens of former sub-postmasters and postmistresses - some of who dealt with Van den Bogerd directly in their complaints, and in some cases were wrongly prosecuted - were not shy in reacting to her claims.

Her responses were regularly met with groans, laughter and shakes of the head, which grew particularly animated during the fiery questioning towards the end of the day.

These sub-postmasters and postmistresses were under no illusions that they would get any sense of satisfaction or closure from Van den Bogerd's evidence - but they felt compelled to turn up and face her all the same.

That's us (almost) done covering the Post Office inquiry for today - thanks for following along. It's been a long old day of evidence, with former PO executive Angela van den Bogerd grilled by inquiry counsel as well as lawyers who represent former sub-postmasters.

Before we go, here's a quick summary of what we learnt:

• In a discussion about former sub-postmaster Martin Griffiths's death, it was put to Van den Bogerd that she and the Post Office were more concerned with the company's reputation than the wellbeing of Griffiths and his family (he took his own life after being accused of stealing £100,000 from his Cheshire branch)
• Van den Bogerd - shown emails where she and her colleagues discussed hiring a media lawyer after learning Griffiths was seriously ill in hospital - insisted she was "concerned for the family" and called the case "tragic"
• Other emails shown to the inquiry revealed that Griffiths's widow had to sign a non-disclosure agreement with the PO in exchange for staggered compensation payments - and that his daughter once said she "solely and wholly" blamed the company for her father's death
• Elsewhere, Van den Bogerd admitted she lacked the "knowledge base" to fully understand Horizon and how it worked - but repeatedly denied lying for the PO and being a "safe pair of hands" for then CEO Paula Vennells
• Repeatedly asked if she had known about "rumblings" to do with the faulty IT system for longer than she had previously stated, Van den Bogerd said "no" and argued that she believed there was a "genuine attempt to investigate" claims being made by sub-postmasters about Horizon
• To finish off, she admitted that she had received a bonus from the PO in 2019 - the same year the High Court ruled in favour of 555 sub-postmasters who took legal action against the company

Head to our main news story for more.

Towards the end of today's evidence, Angela van den Bogerd admitted she had received her Post Office bonus in 2019 - despite receiving condemnation in the same year from a High Court judge during a trial over the Horizon software.

She was being questioned by Sam Stein KC, a lawyer who represents dozens of sub-postmasters and postmistresses.

Watch the moment in full here:

Oliver Smith
Reporting from the inquiry

We’ve been speaking a lot over the last two days to Parmod Kalia, a former sub-postmaster from Orpington, Kent, who was given a six month jail sentence after being falsely accused of stealing £22,000 from the Post Office.

Earlier, he sat in the inquiry room with tears in his eyes as inquiry counsel Ed Henry KC questioned Angela van den Bogerd about a letter she sent to him in 2015 insisting that the Horizon system was robust.

I caught up with Parmod here at the inquiry and he told me the exchange was "very tough" to watch. He welled up again as he told us how he was feeling:

I asked if he had heard what he wanted to from Van den Bogerd, to which he told me he was looking at her throughout the questioning because he "wanted some kind of acceptance".

“I haven’t got what I’m looking for which is a public apology to me personally. I know she apologised to everyone yesterday, but that was off a bit of paper," he said.

“I still need the Post Office to acknowledge what they put me through. She’s broken me."

Stein refers again to Mr Justice Fraser's 2019 judgement (after 555 sub-postmasters took the Post Office to the High Court two years prior), in which he said he had a "distinct impression" that the Post Office was "less committed to a speedy resolution than are the complainants".

Asked if this was a deliberate strategy, Van den Bogerd says "not that I was aware of".

Stein moves on to look at a report - the day's last document, he promises - from law firm Bond Dickinson, which acted for the Post Office, and particularly a section titled: "Overall Post Office Strategy".

In one paragraph, it shows lawyers suggesting that they believe "the better solution is to try to force the claimants into a collective position where they will either abandon the claims or seek a reasonable settlement", due to the way the sub-postmaster action is funded.

Image source, Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry

Van den Bogerd says this isn't the strategy as she recalls it - but acknowledges it's "clearly" what became of it.

Citing previous evidence in which she said she cared about the "public purse", Stein says this is "hardly the action" of a company worried about the public purse.

"I was always concerned about taxpayers money," she replies, adding that she eventually left the company after becoming "disillusioned" as a result of "more money being spent defending, or trying not to pay out, on the historical shortfall scheme than [there] was on paying out".

And with that, today's evidence comes to an end.

Before the inquiry finished, Stein's fiery questions included reminders of some of the sub-postmasters who were affected by the Horizon scandal.

He mentioned Jacqueline Falcon, who worked as a clerk at a Post Office branch in Hadston, Northumberland, between 2000 and 2015.

He says she got blamed by her employer for a shortfall.

Falcon was arrested and charged with fraud, given a suspended prison sentence, shunned by her local community, barely able to leave her house and was put on antidepressants, Stein says. He added that she was arrested in 2015.

“Why didn't the Post Office send out a message to make sure people were not unnecessarily blamed for, what might be, or could be a problem with the system?” he asked Van den Bogerd.

Van den Bogerd said the message given to sub-postmasters was that help was available when she was in support services, but that assistance wasn’t there earlier than that.

The inquiry has finished for the day, and will return next Tuesday.

But stay with us as we bring you a few more lines this afternoon and analysis from the inquiry.

Image source, Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry

Angela van den Bogerd is now being shown her witness statement, and Stein is focusing on a part in which she admits she was aware of "rumblings" about the Horizon system. Van den Bogerd says it was from 2011.

At this point, Sir Wyn Williams cuts in to say that during earlier questioning from inquiry counsel Jason Beer, she admitted to knowing about one such "rumbling" in 2004. She confirms that.

The "rumbling" was due to an issue with data logs being passed over to sub-postmasters.

"By the time you get to 2010, you've got background rumblings, you got the incredibly brave Computer Weekly publishing faults of Horizon IT system, you got MPs talking about it, sending letters to managing directors. A lot of rumblings going on here in relation to the integral part of the Post Office system called Horizon. It seems worrying that everyone was saying there were issues with Horizon. Do you agree?" Stein asks.

Van den Bogerd agrees, saying that she started to be "exposed" to all these issues when she took on a new area of responsibility around 2010. "That's why I wanted to be involved in the initial investigations and then the scheme," she adds.

Just as a reminder, Angela van den Bogerd was the head of network services from 2009 to 2012, dealing with branch relocations, closures, financial services and compliance audits.

Following that denial about her behaviour towards O'Dell, Sam Stein reminds Van den Bogerd that a High Court Judge - Mr Justice Fraser - found in 2019 that he "simply couldn't trust" her evidence.

That was during a case before the court, after a group of 555 sub-postmasters took legal action against the Post Office. In 2019, it agreed to pay them £58m in compensation, but much of the money went on legal fees.

Stein asks if, that same year, she received her bonus. "Er, yes," replies Van den Bogerd.

Stein continues: "So, despite a finding that you essentially lied to the High Court, you got your bonus?"

"Yes," she says.

Following the back and forth about the case of Jennifer O'Dell - who we mentioned in our last post - Sam Stein tells Van den Bogerd about O'Dell’s current state as a result of the Horizon scandal.

He says O'Dell, who had lived in the village where her Post Office was for more than 50 years, has PTSD, night terrors and still struggles to sleep because of the scandal. People crossed the road to avoid her when she was accused of stealing money from her branch, Stein adds.

He then references O'Dell's 2022 witness statement, in which she says Van den Bogerd acted in a "bullying" and “intimidating” way towards her and had accused her of stealing money.

Van den Bogerd denies the claims, saying that they had met twice and that such a conversation “did not take place” in both meetings.

Jacqueline Howard
Reporting from the inquiry

The inquiry is looking at notes recorded by staff at the Post Office helpline that was set up as a support line for sub-postmasters.

Specifically, we are looking at a series of calls made by Jennifer O'Dell, who was accused of stealing thousands of pounds from her branch in Cambridgeshire.

Each of the call logs record helpline staff advising O'Dell that the onus was on her to "make good" the shortfalls of £1,000 per month, and that she refused, arguing it was not her wrongdoing.

Stein asks Van den Bogerd a question about it, in an obvious attempt to lead her to clearly condemn the conduct of the helpline as wrong.

"What I would have expected here," she begins to say by way of reply, but this is drowned out for a moment by a groan from someone in the public audience.

A few of the former sub-postmasters here today told me during the lunch break that they see Van den Bogerd as a bit of a question-dodger.

Image source, Post Office inquiry

Stein goes on now to say he wants to "test" some of what Van den Bogerd has told the inquiry.

He asks her if she regards a situation where sub-postmasters being told to pay up for large sums of missing funds is fair.

No, she says, adding that her expectation would be that they would get help to find out where that shortfall came from.

He then asks her if she's trying to claim that in 2011, the Post Office legal team told her that the company could blame sub-postmasters for anything.

She says no, but that the policy approach - which was approved by the legal team - was that sub-postmasters were liable under the terms of the contract for errors due to their negligence.

He goes on to question whether she knew that sub-postmasters were being told to pay-up, irrespective of fault.

She says the helpline told them that they were liable for losses, but that would have been referred to their contact advisers if it "needed a further conversation".

Sam Stein KC says that of a 102 participants [sub-postmasters] represented by the Howe & Co law firm, 43% were told by the helpline that it was their shortfall, and they owed the money to the Post Office and they had to pay.

And 48% were told they were the only sub-postmasters who were having issues with the Horizon system.

He goes on to ask: "That's a very high number of people contacting the helpline, it is a lot of people, a high percentage, isn't it Mrs Bogerd?"

Van den Bogerd agrees.

He goes on to suggest, "what is going on here is fraud, isn't it?"

She says it "depends on the what detail of the conversation [between sub-postmasters and helpline staff] would be, I don't know the specifics you are talking about."

Van den Bogerd says "I am not saying it is fraud at all."

Sam Stein KC, representing a large numbers of sub-postmasters and mistresses is asking questions.

He speaks of the large number of former sub-postmasters and mistresses who were repeatedly told to make good for shortfalls despite the fact they said the didn't know where the money had gone and they were not responsible.

He asks Van den Bogerd who had told the helpline staff that was what they had to say.

She says it would have been in their knowledge base, or advice they were giving out to the caller.

Stein clarifies what she means by knowledge base and asks her to define it.

She says it's a library of information from which the helpline staff draw on in relation to particular queries.

He asks if this is a script people working at the Post Office's helpline would use.

She says they weren't intended to be thought of as scripts.

Stein also asks Van den Bogerd if the helpline staff had been told to tell the sub-postmasters that they were the only ones affected by the issue.

She says that wasn't the case

Now, Watts takes an even more stern tone with Van den Bogerd, as she asks whether she was responsible for, or complacent in, the lie that there was nothing wrong with Horizon.

Van den Bogerd responds with a one word answer - "no" - a response that's becoming very familiar as the inquiry nears its end for the day.

Watts pushes Van den Bogerd on whether her actions were all to protect the Post Office from an "existential threat".

"That wasn't my intention," she responds.

Jacqueline Howard
Reporting from the inquiry

We are listening now to Catriona Watt, representing the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters, who puts it to Angela van den Bogerd that for a person to be chosen to be a sub-postmaster or postmistress, they needed to be a reputable person of good character.

Van den Bogerd agrees.

The conclusion Watt draws, and cites the same from Sir Anthony Hooper who was the chairman of the Post Office's mediation scheme, is that it makes little sense that these honest and reliable people were guilty of theft.

Here, Van den Bogerd disagrees. She says that pre-Horizon, she had direct experience of reputable postmasters who became a "victim of circumstances and actually stole from the Post Office".

There's some back and forth about a report into a specific part of Hamilton's case, in which a Post Office investigator says there was not always evidence of theft in her case.

Chair Wyn Williams interjects to clarify what Moloney's asking, after Van den Bogerd says she isn't following.

He asks if, when she met Hamilton's former MP James Arbuthnot in 2012, she revealed that "in the investigator's report - one of the first documents to come into existence - that some doubt had been cast on the charge of theft".

Williams flags that this is his wording, not Moloney's or the report's.

"I don't recall that I was aware of any doubt at that point," she says, adding that she "would've raised it at the time" if she had.

Jacqueline Howard
Reporting from the inquiry

Jo Hamilton has not taken her eyes off Angela van den Bogerd since her lawyer, Tim Moloney KC, began questioning her on the former sub-postmistress's case.

She's kept her expression neutral, hands clasped in her lap as her lawyer accuses Van den Bogerd of negligence or lies.

The questions that lawyers are asking today, and to all the key Post Office figures who have given evidence previously in the inquiry, have come from the sub-postmasters and postmistresses they represent directly.

Being here with, literally in Hamilton's case, a front row seat to bear witness to those questions and answers, is something that has been a long time coming for many of them.

Tim Moloney KC, a lawyer who represents various former sub-postmasters and postmistresses, is now asking Angela van den Bogerd questions.

He says he wants to begin by talking about a briefing given by the Post Office to MPs in June 2022.

Moloney later says the briefing occurred in 2012, rather than 2022, though doesn't correct his earlier statement.

At that meeting, which Van den Bogerd was in charge of going through case studies for, Jo Hamilton's case was mentioned. She's a former sub-postmistress who was prosecuted over a shortfall of £36,644.89 at her Hampshire branch in 2006, and she is sitting sat next to Moloney now.

They go through a timeline of Hamilton's case - as was set out in the briefing in question - which concludes in the already-known fact that Hamilton eventually pleaded guilty to false accounting - something she's since said she was persuaded to do by the Post Office because she assumed she had done something wrong.

Jacqueline Howard
Reporting from the inquiry

Nicki Arch dealt with Angela van den Bogerd a lot when she was wrongly accused of stealing £26,000 from her Chalford Hill branch near Stroud more than 20 years ago.

Today is the first time she's seen Van den Bogerd since.

She tells me she didn't come to the inquiry yesterday because she didn't think she could face her, but after watching from home, decided she wanted to be in the room with "likeminded people", her fellow former sub-postmasters and postmistresses.

Arch doesn't hold back in her scathing assessment of Van den Bogerd, telling me she was "brutal" when dealing with her case all those years ago, and she can't see that much has changed.

"Ice cold, isn't she?" Arch says, before joking that Van den Bogerd would fit in nicely among politicians.