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'Opportunities missed' to investigate Horizon

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
Published date12 April 2024
Publication titleEvening Chronicle
David Smith said the organisation's board members were "not as focused as we could and should have been on the Horizon issues"

due to a banking crisis and "concern" over the separation of the business.

Mr Smith told the Post Office inquiry he felt a "huge sense of regret and remorse" about the scandal, and said if he knew the system could have been "tampered with" he would have approached things differently.

He admitted potential opportunities were missed to "consider an external investigation" after the Post Office commissioned a report, known as the "Ismay Report", which the inquiry previously heard was designed to give assurances about the faulty IT system. The report was prepared by former head of product and branch accounting Rod Ismay, who denied he was engaged in a "whitewash" when he authored it in 2010 during his evidence to the probe in May last year.

In his witness statement to the inquiry, Mr Smith said: "Looking back, I think that there was an institutional bias to not interrogate further what was being said by SPMs and the public about Horizon.

"At the time, the board took...

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