Post Office exec stripped of some duties over remote access scandal, inquiry hears

A senior Post Office executive was stripped of some of her responsibilities, after it was revealed that she was aware branch owner accounts could be remotely accessed at a time it was being publicly denied by the organisation, it has emerged.

Tracy Marshall, retail engagement director at the Post Office, told the inquiry into the IT scandal on Wednesday that she had the "postmaster engagement" part of her role removed earlier this year after the inquiry heard she was aware that the faulty Horizon system could be accessed remotely by its supplier, Fujitsu.

The inquiry is hearing evidence into the scandal, which involved hundreds of branch operators being pursued for more than a decade, with the Post Office alleging financial shortfalls in their accounts and prosecuting them.

It has since emerged that the shortfalls were probably caused by bugs within the Horizon system. Witnesses to the inquiry have repeatedly been questioned as to who was aware that staff at Fujitsu's support service centre in Bracknell, Berkshire, could remotely access branch accounts and insert transactions.

In April, the inquiry was shown emails and letters involving Marshall between 2010 and 2011 showing that she knew about the remote access issue which the organisation at the time had denied was possible .

Marshall, who joined the Post Office in 1998 and took on her current role in 2020, failed to mention her involvement with remote access in an 86-page witness statement made public by the inquiry on Wednesday.

In one email from 2011, Marshall said that, while Fujitsu could access an individual branch remotely and "move money around", that "this has never happened yet". She went on to say that any remote changes would be "spotted and the person making the change would be identified".

Giving evidence to the inquiry on Wednesday, Marshall said she was just repeating what she had been told by other senior executives because in her role she "certainly wouldn't have known the ins and outs of the Horizon system or remote access".

"I would accept here there are mails where I have relayed information to people that concern remote access," she said. "I wouldn't say I was involved ... in anything involved in remote access. This was an area very much outside my expertise and comfort zone. I wouldn't have written this without very clear direction from experts on what to say."

In an undated letter circa 2011-2012 to a subpost office operator who was appealing against allegations of financial wrongdoing, written by Post Office appeals manager Craig Tuthill, he cites Marshall as saying she is "fully satisfied that the Horizon systems and the accounting processes around it are robust and fit for purpose".

Marshall said the phrase used by Tuthill attributed to her would have been provided by the Post Office PR team.

"This form of words would have been a standard position line used in external comms that I would have been provided by the comms team," she said.

Marshall said that, after the remote access emails were shown at the inquiry, she was "asked to step back from some of my role in late May or early June this year".

Thousands of post office operators have complained that they continue to suffer problems with the system and say that trust in the organisation is low .

"I stood down from the postmaster engagement area of my role, a small part of my role," she said. "My role hasn't changed, I have had some responsibilities removed from it. For almost the last four years my role has been completely focused on trying to do the right thing by postmasters and make changes to policies, procedures and processes."

In a whistleblower letter previously shown at the inquiry, Marshall is named as one of allegedly 120 employees in "long-term roles with a conflict of interest involved to a greater or lesser degree in the wrongful prosecution of subpostmasters".

"I'm disappointed to see there are disenfranchised employees in the Post Office who clearly have concerns about me and my role," she said. "There are some confusing facts in [the letter]. I never played a role in unlawful convictions of postmasters."

Marshall was asked why she did not mention remote access in her witness statement. She said that the document was a response to "specific" requests from the inquiry in line with her appearance as a "corporate witness" for the Post Office relating to the current practices and culture within the organisation.