The former chair at the Post Office Limited who has links to Blackburn was called to give evidence at the inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal yesterday.

Alice Perkins, the former chair of Post Office Limited from 2011 to 2015, and also the wife of former Blackburn MP Jack Straw, gave evidence at the inquiry on Wednesday, June 5.

Between 1999 and 2015, more than 900 Post Office sub-postmasters were prosecuted for stealing because of incorrect information from a computer system called Horizon.

They were convicted of theft, fraud and false accounting based on faulty Horizon data, with about 700 of these prosecutions carried out by the Post Office.

Ms Perkins' husband, Jack Straw, was MP for Blackburn from 1979 to 2015 and served in the Cabinet from 1997 to 2010 under the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

Ms Perkins, 75, began her evidence by apologising to the victims in a prepared statement, stating she is "more sorry than I can say".

She said: "I realise that the words that I am about to use may not be acceptable to some people, and I understand that.

"I wanted to apologise to all of the sub-postmasters and their families who have suffered at the hands of the Post Office.

"I have some understanding of what people have been through, and I am more sorry than I can say." 

Ms Perkins oversaw the Post Office board during a crucial period in the scandal, when concerns about the Horizon IT system began to rise.

She also chaired a Post Office sub-committee, codenamed "Project Sparrow", which aimed to investigate the issues with Horizon.

In April 2014, Ms Perkins decided to sack the independent forensic accountants 'Second Sight', who had found bugs in the Horizon IT system, a decision known by the then Conservative/Lib Dem coalition government.

When asked for reasons why she eventually decided to sack Second Sight by Jason Beer KC, Ms Perkins listed "time, efficiency and money" as reasons the Post Office was unsatisfied with the group, despite finding at least two bugs in the early reports.

Ms Perkins said: "Second Sight were taking so long to report their findings, and there was a real risk of them saying crucial things about the Post Office operations [that were classified].

“We had commissioned them [Second Sight] over a year before, and it was taking a very long time.

"I had been told about the length of time by other executives, and that they were losing objectivity.

"The cost was constantly rising and falling and there was a real risk that we weren’t going to get the report we wanted.

“At the time we were very anxious about lots of things, as a lot of other things were going on at the Post Office, not just this report, so I struggle to remember the exact details of things.”

Who are Second Sight?

Second Sight were appointed in 2012 and in its first report found at least two bugs in the system causing shortfalls or account imbalances at at least 76 branches. It also noted the Post Office did not investigate reports of IT issues and criticised its focus on prosecution and account recovery.

A year after being sacked, Second Sight published a confidential report in 2015 which heavily criticised the Horizon system and Post Office investigations into shortfalls, saying the system was prone to errors and if it had been better could have avoided shortfalls in branches, and again criticised the Post Office's prosecution over resolution approach.

It also revealed the Post Office new technicians at Fujitsu could remotely alter branch data, something the Post Office had previously said was not possible. The report was dismissed by the Post Office.

An example of Ms Perkins' notes of a meeting with Paula Vennells in 2012, the former chief executive of Post Office Limited from 2012 to 2019, were also brought up by Mr Beer.

Her notes stated: "We do not like prosecuting sub-postmasters. We are one of the few public bodies who are able to prosecute people and we do not take them very lightly.

"No one also easily pleads guilty to a criminal charge."

Throughout her cross-examination, Perkins also referred to how she would have done things differently with hindsight, and could not remember all of the facts that Mr Beer put to her.

In response to this written evidence, Perkins said she did not know where it came from, but acknowledged that it was her handwriting.

She said: "I do not think I would have used the wording 'we'."

Ms Perkins is due to appear before the inquiry again today (June 6).