In his first in-depth interview about his time as Post Office minister, Sir Ed Davey refuses to apologise for his part in the Horizon scandal. When asked more than 10 times by ITV News reporter Paul Brand, the current leader of the Liberal Democrats says he “regrets” being lied to on an “industrial scale”, but won’t go as far as to say “sorry”. Report by Rowlandi. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 Why not draw a line under it then and just apologise? Can you apologise to some postmasters?
00:04 Of course, I regret...
00:06 That's not an apology.
00:07 Well, I've said of course, I think it really is.
00:10 Well, why don't you say I am sorry?
00:12 Well, I've said time and time again that I deeply regret...
00:17 That's not I am sorry.
00:18 That I was lied to.
00:19 That's not an apology.
00:20 I was lied to on an industrial scale and of course, I'm sure every other post office minister
00:28 who was lied to regrets that they were part of this huge conspiracy that the post office
00:34 perpetrated.
00:35 Why can't you say sorry?
00:36 Well, of course, I feel that I'm right to express regret for not getting to the bottom.
00:43 Why can't you say sorry? It's the least they deserve. Look what they've been through. Just
00:47 say sorry for your part in not having got to the answers.
00:49 My heart goes out to the hundreds of people...
00:52 Not enough to say sorry.
00:53 ... that I hit and I deeply regret that we didn't get to the bottom of the lies untold.
01:01 And I deeply regret it took till 2019 in the High Court case till people got the truth.
01:08 And what we absolutely need to focus in on now is getting that compensation quickly.
01:13 When you listen to the sub-postmasters, that's what they want. They want to make sure that
01:16 compensation is there.
01:18 And I think of my postmaster who I'm working for. His case was extremely difficult. When
01:25 we worked with his lawyers, we were told because he had pleaded guilty, there was no chance.
01:30 So we need to get the action to help people like him.
01:33 One last chance to say sorry.
01:36 Of course, I regret what happened. Of course, I'm sure the judges and I'm sure all the post
01:42 office ministers deeply regret. And I hope the inquiry can get to the bottom of those
01:47 people.
01:48 But the postmasters don't get an apology. They don't deserve that apology.
01:50 Well the postmasters deserve a huge amount. They deserve compensation.
01:55 They deserve a huge apology from the post office.
01:58 Not from you.
01:59 From Fujitsu and from all the people who led this conspiracy of lies against them and frankly
02:07 the whole British public.
02:08 All right. Swed Davy, thank you very much.
02:09 Thank you.
02:09 Thank you very much.