Post Office: Fujitsu sacked prime boss at top of Horizon scandal | EUROtoday

Fujitsu, the corporate that constructed the flawed Horizon IT system, sacked a prime boss on the top of the scandal.

Rod Vawdrey, 67, was dismissed as Fujitsu’s international president in 2014 for private conduct points, former colleagues say.

He returned to his native Australia, the place he’s now being sued for his involvement in a “train wreck” inventory market float which made him hundreds of thousands.

Mr Vawdrey advised the BBC he wasn’t concerned within the Horizon mission.

Mr Vawdrey had duty for the UK operation from 2011 to 2014 – an important time within the Horizon scandal.

But if the Horizon concern was mentioned by the UK board, Mr Vawdrey will need to have been conscious of it. Companies House filings say he was govt chairman of Fujitsu Services Ltd, the UK firm, and sat on its audit and company governance committees.

At this time particulars had been starting to emerge in public, with MPs and journalists elevating issues. But till 2013 the Post Office was nonetheless prosecuting dozens of individuals yearly based mostly on proof from the flawed department laptop system.

Alarm bells had been ringing internally too. In 2013, a barrister warned the Post Office {that a} Fujitsu worker was giving incomplete proof in courtroom, failing to reveal details about bugs in his witness statements.

This was an important turning level within the story, however neither Fujitsu nor the Post Office got here clear about issues with Horizon till years later, piling but extra struggling on the a whole bunch who had been unfairly convicted.

Mr Vawdrey was the one Westerner on the primary Fujitsu board, with duty for its operations exterior Japan, together with the UK which was an essential market.

Two well-placed former colleagues of Mr Vawdrey advised the BBC that he was “terminated for cause” by the corporate early in 2014. This was because of private conduct points, not something associated to Horizon, the sources allege, together with operating up too many bills. “Living high on the hog,” as one put it.

One described his administration fashion as “rumbustious”, typically shouting at colleagues – both a “bulldog” or a “bully”, relying on which facet you had been on; the opposite supply agreed.

His tenure was comparatively temporary – slightly greater than two years – and Fujitsu’s UK accounts present no document of a departure fee to Mr Vawdrey, in contrast to the multimillion-pound sums paid to departing bosses earlier than and afterwards.

Mr Vawdrey will not be at present because of seem on the Horizon Inquiry, although it is going to hear from Duncan Tait, who was UK chief govt and reported to him. Foreign nationals can provide proof, however the Inquiry has no powers to compel them until they return to the UK.

After Fujitsu, Mr Vawdrey moved again to Australia and was concerned in one other public scandal, which left him a really rich man.