Union representing sub-postmasters repeatedly ignored Horizon IT concerns | ITV News

v

news

has uncovered new evidence that many of the sub

postmasters

caught up in the Horizon it scandal did not even get the backing of their own

union

. The evidence comes in documents we have seen and what whistleblowers have told us now, these suggest that the

union

The National Federation of Sub

postmasters

did not support its wrongly accused members until the Postmasters won a case in the high court in 2019, until then he had never publicly criticized the Horizon computer system. Our exclusive report is from Nick Mollis, an executive officer at the National Federation. for subpostmasters, mention the National Federation of Subpostmasters to some activists and you might get an angry reaction.

The Federation knows that the Federation gave me back my membership. Faith said she wouldn't represent me, they told me to find a good criminal lawyer and that was the last I heard from them, our so called Union has been in bed with a post office for years, former Bridlington sub postmaster Lee Castleton, confirmed to ITV News that when he asked, the nfsp refused to help with the application form and actual money orders. During the year they sent me subs with no message, no letter, nothing, and we can see that it says October 2009. I showed Lee a document sent to ITV News, the minutes of an executive committee meeting from 2009.

The case of Lee and Horizon's wider problems were being discussed Horizon says and according to the minutes the then nsp general secretary, George Thompson, said at the meeting that the Federation had to be very careful with Horizon Thompson said that if the nsp's corporate clients If the post office believed the system was flawed, they would be reluctant to do business at a time when contracts were desperately needed Helen Baker ran a embattled post office in East Sussex. It is now our charity shop. She was elected to the nsp executive committee in 2013, so we've just settled in here a little bit.

This is the first. The time Helen talked about her experience, she says she raised the issue of Horizon's trustworthiness in their first meeting. I told him what's going on, what do we know about this, what are we going to do about it and they immediately shut me down and I said, that's it. it's not on the agenda that's not what we're talking about you know it's a bunch of nonsense just people trying to blame Horizon for the mistakes they made or the mistakes of their staff and that was George Thompson in 2015 more of 700 previously innocent subpostmasters had been convicted using evidence from the Horizon system MPS launched a parliamentary inquiry George Thompson listened to campaigner Alan bat's

concerns

about Horizon and dismissed them we have to be careful, we are not creating a cottage industry that damages a brand that makes clients like the DWP and dvla think twice.

I'll kick the post office when they deserve it, but they haven't done anything wrong at Horizon. George Thompson retired from the NFSP in 2017. He declined all interview requests. about the Horizon scandals since we sat down with him to get some answers, do you have a policy of not helping subpostmasters who have problems with Horizon at all? We had no help. We help members throughout Horizon and I will give all my feedback. in the exposition in I understand that just for a second, could you explain to me why you never publicly criticized Horizon Mr. Thompson, we never publicly criticized that Horizon had systemic problems, yes, it did not have systemic problems, but we did not know that the back door could come in through the back door by engineers, the post office denied me on many occasions.

I will give all this information. No, I understand, but why didn't you listen to your members who were having problems? Because you did? Listen to the post office, why did you think the post office outnumbered its members? The vast majority of members had no problems with it, but I will give all this information to the investigation. I believe that on June 21 you said yes. on trademark protection, the nfsp did not make any statements supporting the campaigning subpostmasters until after their high court victory in 2019. Helen Baker believes George Thompson should have done more, he could have stopped him, he knew They had given him all the information he needed.

All I had to do was say enough was enough, all I had to do was investigate GE Thompson and the Federation needs to step up and realize exactly where all the victims, the vast majority of members, went wrong, right? ? Mr Thompson's evidence is expected during the next phase. The public inquiry will shed more light on what he knew and the decisions he made while he led the NFSP. I thought I couldn't be more surprised by this story, but guess what I'm saying, what does the Federation say? Well, the nfsp did. I didn't make anyone available for an interview saying they have ongoing obligations to the current public inquiry into the Post Office scandal, uh, but they did say they can't speak directly about what previous Federation officials have now said or done.

Regarding Lee Castleton, the Federation said he applied to join the NFSP following the termination of his contract by the Post Office, however the NFSP accepts that he should have been given a fuller explanation as to why he would not join. was able to accept his application for membership and we regret that now, interestingly, it was not Davy who we saw earlier at the launch of his local election campaign, was asked about his interactions with the nfsp because he was minister for postal affairs when a lot of this was happening and said the nfsp backed up the post office by telling it directly that there was no remote. access to Horizon and there is no problem and when Sered was asked if the nfsp had not done enough to support its members he said it seems that way and so it continues Nick Wallace, thank you