Former Post Office minister Sir Ed Davey speaks on the Post Office inquiry, after the scandal was publicised from a TV drama. The Liberal Democrats leader says the Post Office “lied to the British public” and his “thoughts go out to those people who have been so badly hit by that”. Report by Rowlandi. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00 When I met Alan Bates, I listened to him very closely and I put his questions to my officials,
00:07 to post office executives and indeed to the National Federation of Subpostmasters,
00:14 a bit like their trade union, because he had many questions. But they all told me the same thing,
00:21 that the Horizon system was working, that there weren't that many subpostmasters involved,
00:28 and it was clearly a conspiracy of lies. And what's become clear throughout this,
00:34 through ITV's programme and from others, is that the post office were lying to the
00:39 subpostmasters, lying to the victims, lying to courts and judges, lying to ministers of
00:45 all parties over two decades, and of course lying to the British public. And it was a conspiracy of
00:51 lies. And my thoughts go out to those people who've been so badly hit by that. And my focus,
00:58 as I think all our focus should be, is on making sure the subpostmasters have their convictions
01:04 overturned where they were actually convicted, have them quashed, and also have the compensation
01:10 for all the subpostmasters, including ones who weren't prosecuted but had their businesses taken
01:14 away from them and were financially ruined.