Exclusive: Paula Vennells was briefed about “covert operations team” that could alter subpostmaster accounts two years before parliamentary appearence

Paula Vennells was briefed by senior post office officials about a “covert operations team” at Fujitsu’s Bracknell headquarters that could remotely alter subpostmasters’ accounts.

The bombshell new tapes obtained by Channel 4 News reveal Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells was aware of an allegation concerning the existence of the remote unit at Bracknell’s Fujitsu headquarters, two years before she appeared in Parliament.

In never before heard audio recordings dating back to 2013, two forensic accountants from Second Sight – hired by the Post Office to conduct an independent investigation – witness general counsel Susan Crichton confirms twice that Paula Vennells had been briefed about the allegation and that they were investigating.

“[Paula] knows about the allegation. She knows we are working on it” – the voice of Crichton in the newly-released audio.

“She’s got everything. The way that I’ve tried to brief Paula is, as soon as I have evidence that, you know, that there is a problem, she knows about it the next minute”, Crichton adds.

Tonight’s latest instalment from Channel 4 News comes a week after the programme showed the Post Office and Fujitsu knew their computer system could remotely access and adjust subpostmasters’ accounts.

Evidence of possible remote access to the Horizon system by Fujitsu operatives has been central to the ongoing Post Office scandal.

“My chaperone introduced me to those that were left as being the covert operations teams”

Former Post Office union official Michael Rudkin, central to ITV’s January dramatisation for his role in first discovering and reporting Fujitsu’s covert operations unit, tonight hears the tapes for the first time.

Shown the recordings by Channel 4 News, he recalls the moment he was shown remote access and adjustment in real time, during a visit to Fujistu’s Bracknell headquarters on Aug. 19, 2008.

In stunning revelations, Rudkin tells Alex Thomson: “My chaperone introduced me to those that were left as being the covert operations team.  I was astounded.  He altered the figures of one of the branch accounts on a live terminal in the boiler room at Fujitsu headquarters. I asked him: Have you just altered those figures and is this real time? The reply was:  ‘Yes’.  I said:  ‘Are you absolutely sure?  ‘Yes’, this is real time.”

Michael’s union had been told categorically by the Post Office that secretly accessing subpostmasters’ accounts was impossible.

“Realising my disdain as to what I’d just witnessed, I was then more or less just ushered back upstairs and pushed out through the door like a common criminal”, he adds.

Rudkin shared his bombshell findings four years later in disclosures to forensic accountant Ron Warmington, as part of Second Sight’s investigation, with email evidence he said proved he visited the site.

As was shown in the ITV drama, he recalls tonight his phone conversation with Warmington as he shared the bombshell email.

Referring to the email Rudkin calls it: “The smoking gun”. “To me, there seemed to be a long period of deathly silence to which Ron replied back: ‘Oh my fucking good god. They are in a world of shit now’, he recalls.

Rudkin attempted to blow the whistle. The day after his visit to Fujitsu, he woke at home to an

auditor in his bedroom accusing his wife Susan – who ran the post office branch they owned – of a £44,000 accounting shortfall.

The Post Office would go on to deny he had ever visited the site at Bracknell. He says he wrote to Paula Vennells to advise her directly of remote access.

Post Office chief lawyer states twice Paula Vennells in aware of Bracknell unit

In the tapes, Rudkin hears Post Office executives briefed about Bracknell’s operations, as he is personally named in the tapes for his involvement in uncovering the unit.

In the new audio, the Post Office’s chief lawyer Susan Crichton admits twice that Paula Vennells had been briefed about the allegation concerning a Bracknell covert operations unit.

Present on the call are Second Sight investigators and Alwen Lyons, company secretary of the Post Office. They show for the first time Ron Warmington warn that Paula Vennells could be questioned by James Arbuthnot – campaigning on behalf of the subpostmasters – on the covert Bracknell operation.

“If James says something like, ‘And where are you on this assertion about the Bracknell covert operations team, as it was referred to by Rudkin?”, Warmington asks in the newly-released audio.

“Well look, that’s a specific case. We’ll come back to it when we finish the investigation”, Crichton responds.

“Yeah, well, as long as she doesn’t come back and say, ‘Look, so what’s this Bracknell issue, what is he talking about?’; ‘Oh, we’ve known about that for two months”, Warmington probes.

“She knows about the allegation. She knows we are working on it”, Crichton responds.

“Oh, that’s alright then. Good.” Warmington responds.

“We mentioned it to her. We’re all going, ‘Well, that’s all very odd’,” Crichton concludes.

Seven years later in 2020, Paula Vennells would write personally to Darren Jones MP, then Chairman of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee stating she “raised this question repeatedly, both internally and with Fujitsu, and was always given the same answer: that it was not possible for branch records to be altered remotely without the sub-postmaster’s knowledge.”

Later in the same tape, Crichton advises again of her role in appraising Paula Vennells of issues identified by the independent investigation.

“She’s got everything.  The way that I’ve tried to brief Paula is, as soon as I have evidence that you know, that there is a problem, she knows about it the next minute”, Crichton says.

“Paula agrees that the original scope of the investigation did not go as far as looking at whether it was the miscarriage of justice point”

Also contained in tonight’s tapes, Post Office officials relay conversations with Paula Vennells that the independent investigation could raise the spectre of a “miscarriage of justice,”  despite assurances to Parliament two years later that any such concern would be “surfaced”.

They instruct the investigators that this is not in the scope of their investigation as general counsel Susan Crichton clarifies their remit.

“Ian had a chat with Paula earlier on. And we’ve had a couple of chats this morning. So Paula agrees that the original scope of the investigation did not go as far as looking at whether it was the miscarriage of justice point, Ron and Ian. So that’s, that’s not what she’s looking for. She’s looking for the systematic – or systemic rather, not systematic – systemic weakness in the Horizon systems. But not, as I said, it doesn’t go on to that next point around whether or not it’s caused the miscarriage of justice, or suspension of a subpostmaster.  Because I think that, once you found it, then it’s up to us to look for and see what impact it might be, if that happens,” Crichton says.

Two years later, Vennells would tell members of parliament at a Select Committee appearance that “If there had been any miscarriages of justice it would’ve been really important to me and the post office that we surfaced those.”

Post Office General Counsel asks how to close down the MP interference

As pressure mounts in the early 2010s’ over a possible growing scandal, the tapes show for the first time an active desire from the Post Office to limit political interference.

Heard in the tapes, Susan Crichton says: “The need to somehow have a plan to close down this process. I mean, even to the extent of stopping MPs sending cases in now. So how do we close down the MP side of the process. And what would work for MPs? And what can we sell to MPs? And how quickly can we do that?

She continues: “So is there any way, and I’m thinking out loud here, is there any way of shutting down the MP cases, and making James and his friends happy, so they’ll just go away basically?”

The Second Sight accountants were later fired by the Post Office; they say, for getting too close to the truth.

Michael Rudkin reacts: “Rudkin you were right!”

Channel 4 News played these recordings to Michael Rudkin, some fifteen years after his now infamous visit to Fujitsu.

Chief Correspondent Alex Thomson visits the home he still shares with wife Susan, near the Post Office business repossessed from them over fifteen years ago.

He joins those demanding police action instead of waiting years for the public inquiry to conclude.

Commenting on the tapes, he becomes emotional saying: “The minute I first heard it, it was one of elation saying ‘Rudkin you were right!’. The second one is one of sadness thinking ‘Why did my wife and kids have to be put through this?  For all them years. We shouldn’t have had to endure this level of oppression. And for this, I hope they get sent to hell and back.”saying: “The minute I first heard it, it was one of elation saying ‘Rudkin you were right!’. The second one is one of sadness thinking ‘Why did my wife and kids have to be put through this?  For all them years. We shouldn’t have had to endure this level of oppression. And for this, I hope they get sent to hell and back.”

“Susan did consider and contemplated suicide. The risk was very high that she would overdose and kill herself. She was so depressed.”

“It’s not just us that’s affected. It’s the whole family. The way that you are shunned within the local community – whispers, ‘No smoke without fire’. Susan’s reputation and mine for that matter, just dragged through the mire. And I can’t understand for the life of me why it’s taking so long for the Metropolitan Police to get on top of this. Somebody’s got to be held to account”, Rudkin concludes.

Tonight’s exclusive report comes a week ahead of the resumption of the independent public statutory inquiry into the Horizon Post Office scandal.

The inquiry was commissioned in 2020 to provide an account of the implementation and failings of the Horizon IT system at the Post Office over its lifetime.

Fujitsu and the Post Office declined to comment on the allegations raised in this report, citing the Public Inquiry now examining this scandal. The Post Office says it is “fully focused on getting to the truth of what happened”.

Paula Vennells, Susan Crichton and Alwen Lyons did not respond to Channel 4 News’ requests for comment.