Fujitsu manager described post office operator as ‘nasty chap’, inquiry hears

Peter Sewell addressing the Post Office Horizon inquiry. In a 2006 email he said Lee Castleton would be ‘all out to rubbish the FJ name’. Photograph: Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry/PA

A Fujitsu manager described Lee Castleton, whose bankruptcy over missing Post Office funds featured in a recent television drama, as a “nasty chap” in an email urging a colleague to be strong in court, a public inquiry has heard.

Before a hearing in December 2006 in the high court in central London, where the Post Office was pursuing Castleton for a £25,000 shortage recorded by a Fujitsu accounting system, Peter Sewell contacted one of his team, Andy Dunks, who was due to give evidence.