Ex-Fujitsu boss admits Post Office meetings where Horizon discussed

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The former boss of Fujitsu UK has admitted having four meetings with Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells, some of which included discussing Fujitsu’s Horizon IT system.

Previous media reports had indicated that Michael Keegan, the husband of former Conservative minister Gillian Keegan, only met Ms Vennells once and that Horizon was not discussed.

Between 1999 and 2015, more than 900 sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted after the faulty Horizon software made it look like money was missing from Post Office branch accounts.

Lawyers for Mr Keegan said he regretted that sub-postmasters were prosecuted unfairly and denied playing any part in it.

Mr Keegan has confirmed to BBC News he had four meetings with Ms Vennells during his 13 months as chief executive of Fujitsu UK, from May 2014 to June 2015.

Two of these were face-to-face meetings and the other two were telephone calls.

During his time in charge, MPs launched an inquiry into the Horizon software, and Second Sight, a team of forensic accountants, were investigating the system.

Ms Vennells was chief executive of the Post Office from 2012 to 2019.

In 2022, Mr Keegan successfully complained to the press regulator IPSO, about a Sunday Times article. A summary of the complaint in the IPSO ruling, indicated that he had met Ms Vennells only once.

Lawyers for Mr Keegan said that at the time, he had only remembered having one face-to-face meeting.

Post Office Minister Gareth Thomas said he was surprised to hear about the meetings.

He said: “Certainly [the Post Office IT inquiry’s] conclusions about Fujitsu will be one of the things in particular that I look out for in [the] inquiry report.”

In response to a Freedom of Information request by the BBC, the Post Office said that after a review of emails, it had located references to six meetings during Mr Keegan’s time in charge but that it was “unable to verify whether all these meetings took place”.

It also said it did not believe the information it held was a “complete record of all meetings between both parties”.

Mr Keegan’s lawyers said two of the meetings referred to by the Post Office never happened.

One conversation, in 2015, between Mr Keegan and Ms Vennells followed Fujitsu being approached by BBC Panorama about its investigation into the Post Office and the flawed Horizon IT system.

And despite previous media reports claiming that the Horizon system was never discussed, a letter from Mr Keegan to Ms Vennells includes reference to the “current application”. It appears that the application he was referring to was Horizon.

In the letter dated 14 November 2014, Mr Keegan appears to be arguing against the Post Office shaking up the structure of its IT systems, including Horizon, and inviting new suppliers to bid to run them.

He also appears to propose that the Post Office should keep at least some parts of Horizon and pitched this to Ms Vennells as an “evolutionary approach that will provide the digital front end you need but will retain much of the investment already made in the stable back end of the current application [Horizon]”.

Mr Keegan’s lawyers said that his involvement in the Post Office contract related to strategic and commercial decisions, he did not discuss the details of Horizon with Ms Vennells, and that the letter related to Fujitsu’s decision to exit as the supplier of the Front Office Tower – the name given to the IT contract which encompassed Horizon.

The documents reveal that Mr Keegan and Ms Vennells met for the first time within days of his appointment as chief executive of Fujitsu UK.

In an email dated 23 May 2014, he writes: “It was good to meet on Monday.”

He thanks Ms Vennells for her “candour” and adds: “Within Private Sector, you are our most important customer by far and I want that position to remain as such for the foreseeable future.”

His second meeting with Ms Vennells is confirmed in a letter dated 14 November 2014, which he says is a follow-up to “our conversation on 31 October”.

Mr Keegan’s lawyers said the first meeting was not about Horizon and was attended by several other people.

They said the second meeting was a short telephone call to inform the Post Office that Fujitsu would not be bidding in the procurement process to replace Horizon.

A few weeks later, according to the records disclosed by the Post Office, the two chief executives met on 2 December.

Ms Vennells followed this up with an email in which she wrote: “Thanks again for the meeting.”

Lawyers for Mr Keegan told the BBC this was the only time their client attended a one-to-one meeting with Ms Vennells and the purpose of the meeting was to discuss Fujitsu exiting as a supplier of Horizon.

The documents also give the impression of a close relationship.

“Thank you for your time and your honesty. We both have concerns in this situation and I’m glad we were able to share them in a frank way,” Ms Vennells writes.

“I suggest we keep regular contact – and breakfast on me next time, or a drink in (REDACTED).”

Mr Keegan replies by email 10 minutes later.

“My pleasure and really good to spend time together to discuss all these matters in such an open way.”

Mr Keegan’s lawyers say the pair did not keep in regular contact or meet again in person.

They did however have one further telephone call, on 25 June, after Fujitsu was approached by BBC Panorama about the programme’s investigation.

The following week Mr Keegan started a new role as head of Fujitsu Hardware.

The Panorama investigation was originally due to air on 22 June 2015 before being delayed until 29 June, four days after Mr Keegan and Ms Vennells’ call.

The programme, which broadcast the testimony of a Fujitsu whistleblower, eventually aired on 17 August.

The Post Office said it had found references to two other meetings over the final weekend of May 2015 but Mr Keegan denies they took place.

Mr Keegan’s lawyers told BBC News that the prosecutions of sub-postmasters as a result of Horizon data had effectively ceased by 2013, pre-dating his appointment as UK chief executive.

The BBC’s Freedom of Information request was originally made in January 2024 when Gillian Keegan was education secretary and her husband was four years into a Cabinet Office role overseeing the government’s relationship with a key commercial supplier.

The Post Office only responded to the BBC’s request in August, more than six months after the deadline required by law.

Mr Keegan voluntarily stepped down from his Cabinet Office job in late January while his wife lost her seat at the general election in July.

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