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 o …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnThe 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 o …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
