Summary

  • Stephen Bradshaw, a former Post Office investigator, tells the Post Office inquiry he is not a bully and did not hound a former sub-postmistress

  • Bradshaw, who was involved in the criminal investigation of nine sub-postmasters, denies he and colleagues behaved like "mafia gangsters"

  • It's put to Bradshaw that he was "drenched in information that Horizon wasn't working" - he accepts that information "came through"

  • He says he heard reports of problems with the software, but wasn't "technically minded... I would expect that to come from the people above"

  • Between 1999 and 2015, the Post Office prosecuted 700 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses based on the faulty Horizon IT system

  • The inquiry, designed to "ensure a public summary of the failings" and learn lessons, began in February 2021 - but a recent ITV drama has thrust the scandal back into the spotlight

  • On Wednesday, the government announced a new law to "swiftly exonerate and compensate victims"

Live Reporting

Edited by Marie Jackson and Emily McGarvey

  1. A timeline of the Post Office scandal

    Cast of the ITV Drama Mr Bates vs The Post OfficeITV

    Cast of the ITV Drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office

    • 1999: The Horizon accounting system is rolled out in Post Offices across the UK
    • 2000: The first issue with the system is reported by Alan Bates, sub-postmaster of a branch in Wales
    • 2003: Bates loses his job after refusing to accept responsibility for missing funds in the branch accounts
    • 2004: More sub-postmasters find themselves asked questions about missing funds - at times in the tens of thousands of pounds. Jobs are lost, some are declared bankrupt and some eventually sent to prison
    • 2010: A high-profile case of wrongful conviction occurs - pregnant Surrey sub-postmaster Seema Misra is jailed after being accused of stealing £74,000
    • 2012: Formal investigations into the Horizon software begin
    • 2015: The Post Office halts private prosecutions of sub-postmasters
    • 2017: Legal action is launched against the Post Office by a group of 555 sub-postmasters
    • 2019: Post Office CEO Paula Vennells stands down, before the company agrees to pay £58m to the 555 sub-postmasters
    • 2021: The first inquiry into the scandal begins
    • 2023: The government announces that every wrongly convicted sub-postmaster will be offered £600,000 in compensation
    • 2024: There's a resurgence of interest in the scandal after ITV releases a mini-series titled Mr Bates vs the Post Office. Vennells hands back her CBE

  2. Why is the Post Office scandal back in the news?

    Production still from ITV drama, Mr Bates vs the Post OfficeITV

    Toby Jones as Alan Bates and Julie Hesmondhalgh as Suzanne

    The ITV series ‘Mr Bates Vs The Post Office’ has thrust the Post Office scandal into the national consciousness.

    The show came out on New Year’s Day and follows the real story of postmaster Alan Bates and the legal battle he led and won against the Post Office.

    Since the series aired on 1 January, more than 100 other potential victims have contacted their lawyers, claiming they were wrongly prosecuted by the institution.

    The government announced plans to clear the names of hundreds of people wrongly convicted in the scandal.

  3. What has happened in the last few days?

    On Wednesday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told the House of Commons that those previously convicted in England and Wales would be cleared of wrongdoing and compensated under a new law.

    The Scottish government also announced a similar plan for those convicted in Scotland, which has a separate legal system.

    Downing Street said its aim was to complete the process of overturning the convictions of those affected by the end of 2024.

    The prime minister's spokesman said the government intended to "introduce the legislation within weeks" and was "confident it will be well-supported".

    The government also confirmed it would:

    • introduce a one-off £75,000 payment for the 555 ex-postmasters whose group court case, led by Alan Bates, helped to expose the injustice (NB: most of the 555 were not criminally convicted)
    • allow those whose convictions are overturned by the new law to sign a form, declaring their innocence, which will entitle them to £600,000 compensation
    • review whether people whose convictions were upheld after an appeal can also be overturned by the new law
    • work with administrations in Scotland and Northern Ireland to ensure sub-postmasters in those nations can also be cleared

  4. What is the inquiry?

    The Post Office inquiry is an independent public statutory inquiry. Its aim is to gather a clear account of the failings of the Horizon IT system.

    The faulty software was supplied to the Post Office by Fujitsu and introduced in 1999. It was used for tasks like accounting and stocktaking.

    Within a year, sub-postmasters complained about bugs in the system after it falsely reported shortfalls - often for many thousands of pounds.

    A public inquiry began in February 2021, and will resume today after breaking a break for Christmas.

    More than 700 sub-postmasters and mistresses were wrongly accused and convicted of fraud and theft between 1999 and 2015.

    The government has announced the convictions will be overturned.

    The aim of the inquiry is to understand what went wrong, and what lessons can be learned.

    It will look into how the the Post Office used information from Horizon in the legal cases against sub-postmasters.

  5. Welcome back to our coverage

    Nadia Ragozhina
    Live reporter

    Good morning and welcome to our live reporting of the next phase of the Post Office inquiry, which is due to resume at 10:00 GMT today.

    Today we will hear from a former Post Office investigator, Stephen Bradshaw, who was involved in the criminal investigation of nine sub-postmasters.

    The inquiry has been under way since 2021 but the scandal hit the headlines after ITV aired a dramatisation of the events last week.

    The latest phase of the inquiry is expected to probe into the action taken against sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses.

    Stay with us for regular updates.