page 20, please. can we rotate it, please? 90 degrees clockwise. we cannot, i am told.

i cannot date this, because it comes within a loosely assembled pack of papers. and it is not dated itself. but given it has got the chairman of the plc as allan leighton, and david mills as ceo of post office, it must be before 2006?— be before 2006? yes. we see _ be before 2006? yes. we see at _ be before 2006? yes. we see at the - be before 2006? yes. we see at the top, - be before 2006? yes. | we see at the top, the be before 2006? yes. - we see at the top, the chairman be before 2006? yes. _ we see at the top, the chairman is allan leighton, and the deputy chairman, orto allan leighton, and the deputy chairman, or to the less, company secretary of royal mail holdings, jonathan evans. the chief executive of royal mail, you. and then a line around two company—wide functions from you. and then to direct responsibilities, parcelforce worldwide, and logistics, to you? yes.

on the right—hand side, we should have worked away across the business pa rcelforce, have worked away across the business parcelforce, logistics, royal mail letters, royal mail international, on the right hand side, post office limited. obviously david mills is the chief executive at this time. it has a line, i think, into allan leighton, the chairman of royal mail holdings, plc? that leighton, the chairman of royal mail holdings. plc?— holdings, plc? that would be correct. not to the deputy chairman? no. not intojonathan evans? that not to the deputy chairman? no. not into jonathan evans? that is correct? also correct. �* also correct. and then the line i think goes _ also correct. and then the line i think goes to — also correct. and then the line i think goes to you, _ also correct. and then the line i think goes to you, correct? - also correct. and then the line i think goes to you, correct? in i also correct. and then the line i i think goes to you, correct? in the sense that _ think goes to you, correct? in the sense that i _ think goes to you, correct? in the sense that i reported _ think goes to you, correct? in the sense that i reported into - think goes to you, correct? in the sense that i reported into allan i sense that i reported into allan leighton, yes.

all three, myself, l marr, and david, all reported indirectly to alan. and executive deputy chairman was in effect a first among equals. was effectively the lead executive. this diagram represents, or should be taken to represent issues arising from david mills, the chief executive of the post office, coming through you? no. not at all. as i said, he reported directly to allan leighton. what does the line above the chief executive post office limited, david mills, that comes up and goes across the page and comes back down to you

mean? i the page and comes back down to you mean? ~ ., , the page and comes back down to you mean? ~ . , , ._ mean? i think that is “ust the way these things h mean? i think that is “ust the way these things are _ mean? i think that isjust the way these things are drawn. - these things are drawn. very clearly all three authors directly reported individually into allan leighton. we should take this to mean that you at this time had no role, you are on the opposite side of the diagram, nothing in relation to post office passed through you or indeed any other part of royal mail holdings, except insofar as it went straight to the chairman? correct. is that a reflection of the great autonomy that that post office enjoyed? autonomy that that post office en'o ed? , enjoyed? yes. you _ enjoyed? yes. you told - enjoyed? yes. you told us i enjoyed? yes. | you told us that enjoyed? yes. - you told us that you enjoyed? yes. _ you told us that you think enjoyed? yes- _ you told us that you think you attended two meetings of the post office board. when you didn't attend did you receive minutes of the post office board?— office board? yes, that royal mail holdinus office board? yes, that royal mail holdings board _ office board? yes, that royal mail holdings board to _ office board? yes, that royal mail holdings board to receive -

office board? yes, that royal mail holdings board to receive minutes| holdings board to receive minutes from each of the operating companies, were included in that board pack. you said royal mail holdings received them, did you personally received them, did you personally receive the minutes of the post office board? yes. did you receive the minutes of post office limited committees? ida. post office limited committees? no, i do not post office limited committees? no, i do not think— post office limited committees? my i do not think we did. thinking in particular of audit and risk committee. audit risk committee, if there was a pure audit that went to the royal mail auditing committee meeting for further looking and work, i am not sure if they always receive the minutes of the risk committee. you ersonall minutes of the risk committee. you personally did _ minutes of the risk committee. you personally did not always receive the minutes of the post office limited auditing risk committee? i definitely didn't, no. as far as i recall. an example of a meeting of post office board that you did attend.

we can see it is post office limited board meeting april 2006, april 20. we can see those who are members of the committee who are present. and we can see in attendance, second down, is you. correct. page four. we can see that the solvency of post office was being addressed. does that reflect the point that you made

earlier that financial viability and existence of post office was critical concern to you? it was. it didn'tjust impact post office but because of the scale it impacted the solvency of the group as a whole, and the ability of the group to sign its accounts as a going concern. mr corbett is recorded as outlining the company's financial position in further detail, it was clear that the company was insolvent, and that in the absence of support from its parent company or ultimate shareholder, that is the government, it should be unable to meet its debts as they failed you for the foreseeable future? it was reported to the board the government had agreed in principle that support of royal mail to write a letter to the company under which the government acknowledged the solvency issues facing the directors of the company, and the directors were prepared to continue trading on a going concern

basis, only on the basis of the following support. scroll down. we can see it as set out. yes. is that while you were attending this meeting, because it was solvency of post office issue which in turn reflects accounting a potential viability of royal mail group? indeed. page ten. if we scroll down, please. we can see that there is an operations report, and the document will have been produced, and then it summarised the horizon s 90 release. there is a four—point explanation of what the horizon s 90 release was. read that to yourself.

and then, an issue of the network resilience was raised. am i right in thinking that you would have picked these things up in a sense by chance because you are at this meeting? correct. see for picking things like this which are about horizon and network resilience by chance, where you reliant, entirely reliant, on the information pushed up the line to you, whether, from the md or ceo of post office or company secretary? yes. or if anything was mentioned by group technology director. how would that occur?

the it director in the post office would have reported to ceo of post office. that is management speak, but it is a hard line relationship. group technology director, who was largely focused on driving through this automation and modernisation of royal mail, was also there for advice and help to the post office technology team if required. if, as we now know to be the case, putting it neutrally, there were issues with horizon technology, would you have expected, or was the system, that the pol it structure, post office it structure, would have pushed those issues up for your attention and for the royal mail group board attention, through the group board attention, through the group it director route? first of all, i do not require pol it ever doing that.

second of all, i would have expected them to raise it with pol executive team first of all, that was the reporting lines, they were running and controlling post office and had responsibility for horizon. if they needed technical expertise, yes, i would have expected them to speak to group technology director, but if there were any real issues, that is why both the ceo of post office and chairman of post office were on the group board, to enable them to have a direct line to really any issues of post office to the rest of the board. in paragraph 11 of your witness statement, page four. turn that up, please. just wait for it to come up on the screen. page four.

paragraph 11. you say, whilst you have tried to address as best you can your recollection of the corporate structure, i must stress that my responses are not in any way intended to detract from the fact that it intended to detract from the fact thatitis intended to detract from the fact that it is clear to me now that this structure did not help facilitate vital information regarding horizon, and the conduct of criminal proceedings reaching the audit board of royal mail as it should have done. you make precisely the same point in paragraph 98.1 of your witness statement, page 33. before getting into the detail, can we address first what you say is clear to you now, what was not clear to you presumably at the time? firstly, what in the corporate structure prevented or did not facilitate vital information from reaching you and the board? i think it was, if i may expand a

little, this is a reflection of trying to help, in a sense, of what could have gone wrong here. i should stress, at the time, actually it's made perfect sense to me, because the two companies had been set up with such a different objective, one in an entirely commercial market, one really trying to become a sustainable public sector, public service. and one that needed to modernise at enormous speed, as it opened up to competition, and the other one that absolutely had difficult issues in terms of managing the size of the network, thatis managing the size of the network, that is largely through the same business, if you like, as it had previously had, albeit with less government revenue and more financial services revenue. the issue, looking back, thati financial services revenue. the issue, looking back, that i could see, was unhelpful, was in the way

in which it impacted on two attitudes or cultures of the two companies. which is that in royal mail, because everything was fundamentally broken, everyone on that the board was aware of that starting position. everything didn't work. therefore there was no option but total, utter transparency. because if anyone had brought a presentation saying everything is fine, they would not have been believed. it was all about getting everything out on the table, transparently dealing with it, and trying to make progress. i worry come up with the benefit of hindsight, that because pol did not have that same burning bridge, for want of a better phrase, that same transparency did not allow information to flow up through that governance system on its own. and that potentially the separation of the two aided and abetted people not

getting at that information. here you point to the corporate structure prevented or did not help facilitate. what about the corporate structure, ratherthan facilitate. what about the corporate structure, rather than the couch within each organisation, what acted as a bar in the corporate structure to the provision of information to royal mail? because internally it was very clear that people worked for the post office or the rest of the group, it's just generated that sense of two different companies. and i think the structure again, benefit of hindsight, it didn't allow for the easy flow of information. what was that vital information about horizon which the structure of the companies prevented you from being told about? as far as i recall, i don't remember

anyone in the post office governance system, whether the board, risk committee, executive team, general counsel, legal teams, committee, executive team, general counsel, legalteams, most counsel, legal teams, most importantly counsel, legalteams, most importantly the operations and it teams who bought horizon, i don't trimmer any of those people flagging up trimmer any of those people flagging up any concerns in that system. —— | up any concerns in that system. —— i don't remember. they might have flagged it internally but it did not reach the holdings board. what was vital information about contact of criminal proceedings which the structure prevented you from being told about? for me, i am not a lawyer, obviously, but it is clear to me that central to all of this is the issue of disclosure. i noted more

recently the judgments of the appeals court, and clearly there were some material deficiencies with the disclosure process. that seems very clear. what was it about the structure that prevented or did not help facilitate information about the conduct of criminal proceedings from reaching you? we are going to come onto it after lunch, but the proceedings were instituted, pursued, and completed, by a legal team that sat within royal mail holdings, not post office. ~ ., ~' within royal mail holdings, not post office. ~ ., ~ ., ., ., office. working with horizon team. i don't recall the _ office. working with horizon team. i don't recall the company _ office. working with horizon team. i don't recall the company secretary, l don't recall the company secretary, jonathan evans, who had responsibility for that area, talking about that at any of the holdings board meetings. that is a separate issue, mr crozier, whether he talked about it. what is it about the structure that

did not help facilitate, as you see, information about the conduct of criminal proceedings, reaching the board of royal mail? i’m criminal proceedings, reaching the board of royal mail?— criminal proceedings, reaching the board of royal mail? i'm not sure i mentioned — board of royal mail? i'm not sure i mentioned anything _ board of royal mail? i'm not sure i mentioned anything specifically - mentioned anything specifically about structure. this sentence year on the screen. it is now clear to me that this structure did not have vital information regarding... conduct of criminal proceedings reaching me. what about the structure prevented information about criminal proceedings reaching you or the board? i think i was meaning more with regards to horizon than the proceedings themselves. that is an appropriate moment to break. it is quarter past now. i wonder if you would mind breaking until five past two. that is fine. thank you very much. inquiry— that is fine. thank you very much. inquiry breaking for lunch. we have

been hearing from adam crozier giving evidence to the inquiry which carries on until this afternoon. he says horizon had a relatively high degree of autonomy under its delegated powers. horizon enjoyed its latest amount of autonomy out of the wider royal mail group and was the wider royal mail group and was the only one with its own governance set up. asked why that was the case, he said it goes back to the gamut setting up the company in 2000. royal mail had to modernise, be a commercial company, operating in an environment with competitors. post office on the other hand had to try to become a sustainable public service. adam crozier now confirms post office and royal mail relied on external legal advice, and was subsequently asked if he thinks some of the prosecutions of sub—postmaster is were conducted by external lawyers, he said, i believe they had a big role in that, yes. in his answer to a follow—up question he reveals, he is not sure exactly what that role entailed.

what did you make of what he had to say? there were a lot of questions they are concerning the governance of the two organisations and to what extent they overlapped. we talked about it before, and it is what we expected. what they are trying to do right now is to find the relationship between royal mail and the post office during adam crozier�*s tenure. he has insisted that there is a separate board of governance, that he was not on, and thatis governance, that he was not on, and that is why he would not potentially have had knowledge, extensive knowledge about these issues. in fact that this why prior to this is later statement had been he had no involvement with horizon system, but he still extended his heartfelt sympathies for the families. though it is worth remembering that during this period, that he was at the head of royal mail, 2003—2009, the

majority of his time there, there were 400 convictions of sub—postmaster is. that is according to evidence that was submitted to the inquiry. there may have been this degree of autonomy that adam crozier has pointed to during this inquiry. he said it was the greatest degree of autonomy that any of the entities that were under the royal mail group. but it still reminds you of the stakes here. he was in charge when there were hundreds of lives that were being affected by this scandal. well, indeed. what more do you think we are going to hearfrom him this afternoon? there seems to be an attempt to isolate him in the sense of trying to work out to what extent he should have seen things, and one can only imagine that the questioning will go in that direction. as they did this morning with alan cook, managing director.

apologies. it sounds like there is some drilling. it is live tv. i had trouble hearing you there. i think what you were telling me was what can we expect for the rest of this inquiry? hopefully not any more drilling. one of the main questions is that degree of the main questions is that degree of accountability. i have been speaking to some of the lawyers, some of the victims, hundreds of the victims in fact, they were saying that as far as they are concerned, he was the boss, therefore there should be a degree of accountability for him. that is what this inquiry is going to seek to understand. that's another issue that may come up that's another issue that may come up is that in the last few years of this inquiry there have been witnesses to former sub—postmasters, who have said that they have written to adam crozier about the problems they were having, about the prosecutions. one in fact told the

inquiry in 2022 that he wrote to adam crozier directly, e—mailed him, received no response, and then was told off, told, no one e—mails adam crozier, never do it again. interesting. what is also fascinating is the precision with which those questioning him bring particular pieces of evidence and communication and question them about it. absolutely. you saw that forensic questioning with the inquiry council earlier today when it comes to alan cook as well. first, trying to establish the role, trying to establish what theirjob entitled, what their responsibilities would have been on paper, because it is all well and good to see, i did not understand that e—mail, i am not sure i remember seeing that document. if it is yourjob to understand that, then that should have bigger implications. that is what this

inquiry is trying to understand, by asking these questions. if this was knocked on your purview, if you see you do not understand or remember, how does this e—mail that has literally informed you of this, the bigger question is one that you and i cannot ask here, cannot answer, as essentially, aside from those documents that were presented to people like alan cook, adam crozier, how much of that was something that they can be held accountable for? is that is what these victims want to know. they don't really care about the particulars, they don't care about these answers. what they want to know is, is there enough evidence now, as they have been pressing their three minister, is there enough evidence right now, for these people to face consequences, to really identify who is responsible for hundreds of wrongful convictions, and seeing that they have their own day in court, the me that so many of these victims were

forced to have. and of course, at the heart of this, as this horizon system. we have heard it again and again this morning. there was an underlying assumption that it works, that it functioned stock that is certainly what alan cook was saying. yes. and that was a difficult moment for a lot of the victims to listen to. because of course it was in may 2009 that that computer weekly article came out that first reported on the scandal. the issues with horizon system. months later alan cook was asked about the rising nervousness about horizon system by his post office pr officer. he clearly was sceptical about it all. he could see he didn't know about these issues, but at that point they were being flagged up to him. and his response was that his instinct was that during a recession somebody with their hand in the tail tend to blame the software. i have spoken to people here, they are upset about

it, lawyers are indignant, not to mention someone who was 18 years old when he took over a post office, the exact same year that alan cook became managing director of the post office. he ended up having problems with the system very early on. his shortfalls rose to the tens of thousands and he was wrongfully convicted because of it. he called that response which alan cook said he regrets, as a complete disgrace, and doesn't understand how he could have jumped to that conclusion if he says he never asked those questions, never investigated the issue, wasn't aware. thanks very much. let as just here a little bit of alan cook's answers. he began by putting on record what he described as a personal apology to the sub—postmasters, supposed mistresses, and their families, to the sub—postmasters, supposed mistresses, and theirfamilies, for what they had been put through. let us take a lesson. if i could

just say before we get started, i would like to put on record most strongly my personal apology and sympathies with all sub—postmasters, theirfamilies, and those sympathies with all sub—postmasters, their families, and those affected by this. as we get into the conversation there will be an opportunity for me to elaborate. it just felt to me that is an important thing for me to say up front. alan cook this morning, he was a former managing director between 2006 and 2010, during which time well over 100 workers were prosecuted, falsely. i suppose the question is, where is this leading for those who were wrongly convicted? what they want is some form of compensation, more quickly than they are getting it? well, there is a financial redress scheme. there are three schemes that the government has introduced in order to compensate some of these

victims. i hesitate using the word compensate, because a lot of them have a problem with that word. they find there is no way to compensate them for the years that they have lost, pain the they have suffered through. they prefer the term financial redress. the issue is that that it's a very long time. and some victims have said, and we talked about it this week, for them it is a re—traumatising. they have to go through receipts all over again, the way that they did with investigators back when this scandal first begun. they also have to then go through medical assessments, all over again, the way that they did with investigators back when this scandal first begun. they also have to then go through medical assessments, they also have to then go through medicalassessments, orto they also have to then go through medical assessments, or to prove that the damage really occurred. but kevin hollinrake, post office minister, has acknowledged that perhaps some of those processes, that frantic investigation, health requirements, these assessments, need to be eliminated, because it is taking too much time for these people to get the redress that they are talking about. now, also there is a law that was introduced by the government to overturn these convictions. we are

at little over 100 wrongful convictions overturned at this point. they are hoping to get the majority of them overturned byjuly. just remember, more than 900 sub—postmasters were wrongfully prosecuted, over a faulty software system. but of course a lot of these victims feel like this is taken, frankly, too long. certainly something that alan bates, who started this campaign, and assisted upon on tuesday when he spoke to the inquiry. we arejust going inquiry. we are just going to play now a little bit of adam crozier. his evidence. because of what we inherited, effectively on the royal mail site, a broken company that hadn't been invested in for a decade, hadn't hit its quality of services, was the least modernised postal company in europe, what that meant was on the royal mail site

there was no option other than to be fundamentally transparent and the fact that most of what we inherited wasn't working. that and carries a lot of transparency and we set up a properly functioning internal audit unit, which was one of the ways that we could also find out what was happening elsewhere in the group. board and attended all the pol boards, as well. we created a whole brisk agenda in the business —— business. they look at that risk register, it was debated. at that risk register, it was debated-— at that risk register, it was debated. ., , ., debated. can you recall whether the conduct of prosecutions _ debated. can you recall whether the conduct of prosecutions and - debated. can you recall whether the conduct of prosecutions and the - conduct of prosecutions and the possibility of bringing supposed masters to justice, possibility of bringing supposed masters tojustice, including by imprisoning them, and the issues that arise when conducting

prosecutions was on the royal mail