Graham Ward - Post Office Inquiry

Post Office Manager Graham Ward delivers the revelation to the Post Office Inquiry that he NEVER found ANYTHING suggesting the innocence of subpostmasters accused of wrongdoing at their Post Office branches. This is despite his involvement in high profile criminal prosecutions of subpostmasters in addition to civil cases - most notably those of Noel Thomas and Lee Castleton. Whilst seeming to understand that his role requires both 'thorough investigation' and to explore 'all reasonable avenues' of enquiry he struggles when asked by Jason Beer KC as to what his understanding of both these terms are. #PostOfficeInquiry #PostOfficeScandal #PostOffice #GrahamWard

Senior Post Office Manager Graham Ward is WARNED not to Self Incriminate by Sir Wyn, chair of the Post Office Inquiry, prior to giving his testimony and evidence today. In an usual move compared to recent witnesses, despite all having such a right, Graham Ward is specifically warned about this right and the process to follow if he wishes to exercise his right against self incrimination. Could this be indicative of the Post Office Inquiry believing he may have some very interesting things to say considering he has held senior roles within the Post Office and has direct involvement in a number of subpostmasters cases? #PostOfficeInquiry #PostOfficeScandal #PostOffice #GrahamWard

NO Post Office Investigation Changes Following Horizon despite the fact that it was the largest non-military project embarked upon in Europe at the time and the fact that it fundamentally changed how Post Offices up and down the country worked. Formal training didn't happen - on the system or seemingly any other topic and only informal work shadowing of someone using the Horizon system for half a day or so seemed to be the sum total of all training. There was no training on how Horizon produced data or even how to analyse the data it did produce. Questions about the accuracy of Horizon were not raised as part of investigations from memory. #PostOfficeInquiry #PostOfficeScandal #PostOffice #GrahamWard

Post Office Manager describes Casework Management at Post Office Security as essentially a function to make subpostmasters prosecution documents look PRETTY! Along with 'managing' two spreadsheets by entering data collected by others and literally handing off files from one organisation to an other the main duty of the role appears to have been formatting of documents and ensuring that page numbers were appropriately applied. Graham Ward tells the Post Office Inquiry that there was no checking of the substance or conduct of the investigation as that was the responsibility of their line manager. #PostOfficeInquiry #PostOfficeScandal #PostOffice #GrahamWard

Post Office Manager Graham Wards tells the Post Office Inquiry that the purpose of his 'performance' reports to senior Post Office management was due to the fact 'we had to JUSTIFY our EXISTENCE' when referring to the Post Office Security Team. He details how he managed staff when promoted to Casework Management including the stationary administrator and details a lot of people 'managing' things whilst being non-specific as to what that actually entailed day to day. He discusses performance related pay and bonuses awarded to the entire Post Office Security team based upon 'losses and recoveries' whilst performing their roles. #PostOfficeInquiry #PostOfficeScandal #PostOffice #GrahamWard

Post Office Manager Graham Ward tells the Post Office Inquiry that the Financial Investigation Unit, charged with pursuing subpostmasters that had been convicted following their prosecutions, had 'Too Many Cases' To Handle as it used the Proceeds of Crime Act to get orders taking money and assets of subpostmasters to cover alleged shortfalls identified using Horizon following Post Office Investigations. The 'floor amount' of £10,000 had to be increased to £20,000 when it became clear there were too many cases to pursue with amounts below this being considered too low a priority to pursue. #PostOfficeInquiry #PostOfficeScandal #PostOffice #GrahamWard

Post Office Manager Graham Ward tells the Post Office Inquiry that 'we weren't popular' with other parts of the Post Office business including subpostmasters despite his feeling that they previously had a good relationship. He identifies cultural change in 2008/9 when a new security manager joined the team and set out his vision. Despite him saying that the culture changed for the worse and people weren't happy he says that it didn't personally affect him but said he was 'glad to leave' the team when an opportunity for secondment came up in 2012. #PostOfficeInquiry #PostOfficeScandal #PostOffice #GrahamWard

Post Office Policy on timescales for subpostmaster investigations show that they wanted to investigators to close or prosecute accused subpostmasters within a MONTH! Questions about the thoroughness of the investigations against subpostmasters at the Post Office and whether all reasonable lines of inquiry were followed have been raised on numerous occasions and the timescales outlined in the Post Office Security team policy seem to place pressure on investigators to conclude cases within a set period of time rather than after an investigation would naturally complete. Therefore there is additional worry that cases against subpostmasters, some of which are complex, couldn't necessarily be thoroughly investigated whilst sticking to this 'must do' police from the Post Office. #PostOfficeInquiry #PostOfficeScandal #PostOffice #GrahamWard

The Post Office Inquiry continues to hear from Graham Ward, a former Post Office Security Manager as he reviews management documents that he was sent highlighting 'MAJOR Procedural Weaknesses' and Sloppy Documents without dates on. It appears from the documents that the Post Office wasn't concerned with addressing such major procedural weaknesses but instead doing their best to AVOID DISCLOSURE of those to subpostmasters legal teams so as not to undermine the prosecution cases the Post Office was bringing at the time. #PostOfficeInquiry #PostOfficeScandal #PostOffice #GrahamWard

Post Office Manager Graham Ward tells the Post Office Inquiry that he was 'not aware' of computer-based EVIDENCE requirements, despite being charged with obtaining said evidence from Fujitsu based on the Horizon data for use within Post Office prosecution cases against subpostmasters. Despite receiving no training from Fujitsu in interpreting the reports and data - including ARQ or Audit Record Query data - he says that understand the Excel spreadsheets that they sent across was 'common sense'. So why did it seem to go some badly wrong in many cases? #PostOfficeInquiry #PostOfficeScandal #PostOffice #GrahamWard