Summary
Here’s a roundup of the key developments from the day:
The Post Office’s leadership has been accused of showing contempt for victims after its lawyers told the inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal that it was not reasonable to expect them to “leave no stone unturned” in getting to the truth.
Chris Jackson, the lawyer acting for the Post Office, did apologise for delays in the disclosure of documents, at a hearing in London as part of the public inquiry. He also admitted the Post Office’s disclosure of documents to the inquiry had been “sub-optimal” and said the Post Office provided “inaccurate” information to the high court.
Ministers need to “immediately” update the law to acknowledge that computers are fallible or risk a repeat of the Horizon scandal, legal experts say. In English and Welsh law, computers are assumed to be “reliable” unless proven otherwise.
The Post Office threatened and lied to the BBC in 2015 ahead of a Panorama programme with a Horizon whistleblower which exposed the scandal, the public broadcaster said. The BBC said experts who were interviewed for the programme were sent intimidating letters by Post Office lawyers, who also sent letters to the broadcaster threatening to sue Panorama.
Keir Starmer said only a “handful” of prosecutions linked to the Horizon scandal may have been handled by the Crown Prosecution Service during his tenure as director of public prosecutions. The Labour leader said the CPS handled 4m cases and had 7,000 members of staff while he was leading it.
The independent MP Andrew Bridgen has declared receiving £4.4m in loans from the Reclaim party funder Jeremy Hosking. In the register of members’ financial interests, Bridgen said he had received the money between 2020 and 2023 for “legal services provided in relation to a civil case”.
Scotland’s first minister, Humza Yousaf, is calling for the UK parliament to be recalled to discuss the strikes in Yemen. Yousaf said it was “pretty frustrating” that he was not briefed in advance of the UK and US strikes carried out last night.
Rishi Sunak made a surprise visit to Ukraine to meet President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, as the UK announced it will provide £2.5bn in military aid to the country over the coming year.
Keir Starmer has said Labour will not build the Manchester leg of HS2 if the party gets into power this year. The opposition leader said the current government had “blown the budget” and that “contracts are going to be cancelled”.
We’re closing this liveblog now. Thanks so much for all the emails and comments.
Updated
The Post Office has not disclosed any staff WhatsApp messages to the Horizon IT inquiry because they have not been deemed to be relevant, the inquiry has heard.
Chris Jackson, a partner at the law firm Burges Salmon which represents the Post Office, told the inquiry it was his understanding that “nobody in the Post Office used WhatsApp to discuss issues of substance”.
In communications with the inquiry’s legal team, Jackson’s firm said the Post Office had not identified any collection of WhatsApp messages “reasonably anticipated to be responsive as substantive”, PA news reports.
When questioned on the approach taken to WhatsApp messages earlier today, Jackson said: “That is our understanding but we are keeping it under test.”
In Tuesday’s communications with the inquiry’s legal team about disclosure, the correspondence read:
Post Office wants to ensure that the inquiry is aware of decisions Post Office has made relating to the collection of data.
Accordingly, by way of update, Post Office has not identified ... repositories of WhatsApp messages reasonably anticipated to be responsive as substantive evidence to the inquiry’s terms of reference and completed list of issues so has not collected WhatsApp messages from custodians’ eMedia devices.
Post Office will continue to investigate custodians’ WhatsApp usage and will keep decisions relating to the collection of WhatsApp messages under assessment when considering future requests for documents from the inquiry and in light of knowledge acquired through disclosure and structural review processes.
Asked to explain what the passage meant, Jackson said:
We have tested whether it would be needed to be done by asking them questions as to ... do they use WhatsApp and (what) do they use it for?
The responses, as I understand it, came back effectively that it is administrative ... so not the situation ... where people would be having substantive discussions of the kind that are being canvassed in other inquiries at the moment.
But if that changes, or if we have a reason to believe it changes, then we would revert.
Jason Beer, counsel to the inquiry, asked:
So, if Paula Vennells was intending to attend a meeting and was going to discuss with Angela van den Bogerd beforehand what to say and what not to say, she wouldn’t have used, on your understanding, WhatsApp to do so?
Jackson said:
Based on the information we’ve had, no she wouldn’t.
There may have been liaison in terms of who is free on ... what date but, as we understand it, not substantively.
Beer added:
It may be a surprise to a member of the public that nobody in the Post Office used WhatsApp to discuss issues of substance relating to the Horizon system.
Jackson replied: “That is our understanding but we are keeping it under test.”
Updated
