Graham Ward, a former Post Office financial investigator, was questioned before the public inquiry examining what MPs have described as one of the biggest ever miscarriages of justice.
The state-owned body wrongly prosecuted hundreds of post office operatives, alleging financial shortfalls at their branches. It emerged that the Post Office's Horizon IT system was not reliable and had defects.
Ward was asked about changes he made in 2006 to a draft witness statement from Gareth Jenkins, an IT engineer at Fujitsu, the company that developed the Horizon IT system. The Post Office had wanted to use Jenkins' statement in the criminal prosecution of Noel Thomas, a post office operative from Anglesey, Wales, who is one of the highest-profile victims of the scandal.
Thomas was jailed for nine months for false accounting in 2006 but had his conviction quashed in 2021.
The inquiry was shown a copy of the draft witness statement made by Jenkins to which Ward made changes highlighted in red.
This story is from the June 21, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
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This story is from the June 21, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
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