Lunch with Ian Henderson
Tuesday 18th March | 12.00 for 12.30 | Clive Room | £65.00
As a former Royal Engineer, Ian Henderson knows all about public service. So, when he was asked though his work at the forensic accounts company, Second Sight, that he established with Ron Warrington after leaving the Army, to assess the Post Office’s IT system, what he unearthed was, to him, simply a dereliction of duty.
On the back of this, Ian assumed a central role in what is now known universally as the Post Office Scandal. The Second Sight report was apparently suppressed by those who commissioned the work and Ian dismissed from further involvement in the Post Office rectifying the IT problems he had laid bare. Yet, as someone portrayed as a central character in the acclaimed ITV television docudrama, Mr. Bates Versus the Post Office, Ian remained involved as much as his terms of engagement with the Post Office allowed in helping pursue justice for the much-wronged sub-postmasters. The Second Sight report and his knowledge of the Post Office has proved crucial in taking the institution to task. Indeed, he continues to assist in the quest for sub postmasters, some of whom were wrongly sent to prison, to receive compensation.
Over a salon-style lunch with Ian, for which the Club is acquiring a deserved reputation for providing personal, unique insight in convivial surrounds, hear his thoughts on the scandal’s path. Having worked with the likes of Paula Vennells, formerly Chief Executive of the Post Office, and other key characters in this matter, of whom the public became acutely aware with the broadcast of Mr Bates Versus the Post Office, share in Ian’s first-hand insight into them and consider how his military training equipped him for the challenges he faced amid an apparent cover up. Learn what the public inquiry has been like from both the point of view of a witness and observer of others to take the oath. A lunch not to be missed when the Post Office Scandal will be considered at an altogether more profound level by someone central to events and often present at defining moments.