Post Office scandal: Sub-postmasters self-indulgent, said exec

Mr Bourke, who in 2015 was government affairs and policy director at the Post Office, also left out any mention in the briefing for ministers of issues raised by “tainted” expert witness Gareth Jenkins.

The inquiry saw evidence that just five days before the briefing was completed, he received an email from Post Office criminal lawyer Jarnail Singh that Mr Jenkins was aware of bugs in Horizon which he had not mentioned when sub-postmasters were prosecuted.

On 8 January 2015, Mr Singh wrote: “The difficulty here is made worse by the fact that Gareth Jenkins, an employee of Fujitsu, has been making statements for use in criminal proceedings which made no references to the very bugs which it is understood he told Second Sight about.

“People were prosecuted and pleaded guilty following the receipt of his statement which implied no bugs had been found.”

Yet in his briefing for ministers five days later, Mr Bourke wrote: “No evidence has been identified by Post Office…to suggest that the conviction of any applicant to the scheme is unsafe.”

Mr Bourke accepted that with the benefit of hindsight, he ought to have included the information about balancing transactions, software bugs and a discredited witness in his briefing for ministers.

“In retrospect, that was not the right call. And if I had my time again, I would have included it in this briefing,” Mr Bourke said.

However, asked whether Richard Callard, the government representative on the Post Office board, would have been aware of the issues about Mr Jenkins, Mr Bourke said that given how well known it was that they could not proceed with prosecutions due to problems with the expert witness, he couldn’t imagine that he would not have been informed.