Former union boss George Thomson denies being ‘very close’ to the Post Office as he gives evidence at the inquiry | Business News

The former head of a sub-postmasters union has denied that he had become “too close” to the Post Office and that it was “flush with money”.

George Thomson, a former member of the National Federation of SubPostmasters (NFSP), also denied having any sympathy for those who were wrongly convicted during the Post Office scandal, which occurred following failures in the organisation’s Horizon IT system.

This comes after the TUC claimed earlier this year that the Communications Workers Union (CWU) had been prevented from organizing effectively at the Post Office, and claimed that the NFSP received funds from the Post Office.

Thomson, who served as general secretary between 2007 and 2018, gave evidence at the Post Office Consultation on Friday.

When asked by inquiry counsel Julian Blake whether he had become “too close” to the Post Office, he replied: “No, I haven’t.”

Thomson later added: “We worked closely with the Post Office because we both needed to have a successful franchise – that’s the reality.”

The inquiry was shown an email sent on behalf of Mr Thomson in August 2013 which outlined plans for the Post Office and the NFSP to sign a 15-year contract to represent all Post Office operators.

It included annual payments starting at £500,000 in 2013/14 and reaching £2.5 million from 2017 to 2028.

Thomson said it took “a lot of insistence” from the then chief executive of the Post Office Paula Vennelles to agree to the deal. He also stated that his team “would have preferred the NFSP to wither on the vine.”

Put to him by Blake that they were significant figures, Thomson told the inquiry that the NFSP had “taken on new functions” as part of the agreement.

When asked whether the NFSP was financially dependent on the Post Office at the time the problems with Horizon were ongoing, Mr Thomson said the federation had lost 8,500 subpostmasters in the previous 12 or 13 years, and that the money was “replacing what It used to be the members’ money.”

He added: “It was never linked to Horizon.”

The investigation also saw a May 2009 Computer Weekly article that detailed the affairs of several high-profile subpostmasters, including Sir Alan Bates.

Sub-postmasters told the magazine that their union “refused to help them investigate their concerns.”

Asked by Blake why the NFSP did not help them, Thomson said the federation had to first ask the Post Office for permission.

He said: “We fight their cases, but we ask the Post Office: ‘What should we do as an organization?’

“Every case that was brought to us, we took it to the Post Office.

“You’re trying to pretend that we were somehow flush with money… That’s not right.”

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Thomson said he investigated 20 or 30 cases at the “highest level” during his time as general secretary and would have tried to hire a computer specialist if he had known more about the problems with Horizon.

He said: “I’ve been here a long time – there have always been suspensions, there have always been prosecutions, also in the manual system.

“We had a franchise that was in crisis and we always tried to help people.”

Thomson described Horizon as “a strong system.” He added: “It is a well-used system and I still support it systemically because it is very robust.”

However, some former deputy postmasters reacted angrily to his testimony on Friday.

They included Christopher Head, who wrote in X: “[Mr Thomson] and your organization has failed in its primary overarching duty to protect its members. They are a disgrace and have no place today to try to represent the interests of the current Postmasters, they are a disgrace…

“The NFSP should be completely dissolved.”

More than 700 subpostmasters were convicted between 1999 and 2015, after errors in the Post Office’s Horizon IT system made it appear that money was missing from many branch accounts, when in fact it was not.

It was marked as biggest miscarriage of justice in British legal history.