Post Office: Fujitsu sacked top boss at height of Horizon scandal

Fujitsu, the company that built the weak Horizon IT program, sacked a top manager at the top of the incident.

Rod Vawdrey, 67, was dismissed as Fujitsu’s world leader in 2014 for private do problems, former acquaintances say.

He is currently facing legal action for his role in a” coach disaster” stock market fly, which earned him million when he returned to his native Australia.

Mr Vawdrey told the BBC he was n’t involved in the Horizon project.

From 2011 to 2014, Mr. Vawdrey held the lead role in the UK activity, which was a critical period in the Horizon incident.

However, Mr. Vawdrey must have been informed of the Horizon problem if the UK table had a discussion about it. According to business documents, he was the chairman of the UK-based Fujitsu Services Ltd. and a member of the company’s assessment and corporate governance committees.

Details were already being made common at this time, with editors and MPs reporting on issues. However, despite receiving data from the weak branch computer system, the Post Office continued to prosecute dozens of people annually up until 2013.

The concern was ringing both internally and externally. A lawyer in 2013 issued a warning to the Post Office that a Fujitsu staff was giving insufficient evidence in court and had not disclosed details about bugs in his see statements.

Although this was a critical turning point in the story, neither Fujitsu nor the Post Office made any public comments about Horizon difficulties until decades later, adding still more suffering to the hundreds of people who had been badly found guilty.

The only Westerner on the principal Fujitsu table, Mr. Vawdrey, was in charge of the company’s operations abroad, including the UK, which was a significant market.

Two well-placed original Vawdrey coworkers told the BBC that the business “terminated for trigger” him at the beginning of 2014 and that he had been “terminated for trigger.” This was due to personal do issues, certainly everything related to Horizon, the publications allege, including running up to many expenses. ” Living higher on the hog”, as one put it.

One described his administration tone as “rumbustious”, occasionally shouting at colleagues- either a “bulldog” or a “bully”, depending on which area you were on, the other supply agreed.

His career was comparatively small, extending for a little over two years, and Fujitsu’s UK accounts do not reveal any departure payments made to Mr. Vawdrey, in contrast to the multimillion-pound sums paid to departing bosses both before and after.

Although Duncan Tait, who was the UK’s main administrative and reported to him, Mr. Vawdrey is not already scheduled to appear at the Horizon Inquiry. Foreigners may testify, but the Inquiry has no authority to urge them unless they return to the UK.

Mr. Vawdrey returned to Australia after working for Fujitsu and was a victim of yet another common scandal, which made him a very rich man.

After a while, Mr. Vawdrey joined what was then a modest American start-up, a technology firm called Nuix, and served as the company’s chief executive in 2017.

It was a significant business success, and numerous private investors bought in as it was introduced on the American stock change in December 2020, marking the biggest business debut of the year.

Mr Vawdrey himself took home nearly AUS$ 28m ( £15m,$ 18m ) in cash straight away, and was left with another AUS$ 8m worth of shares.

However, within months the share price collapsed, leaving many investors sitting on big losses.

On June 15, 2021, Mr. Vawdrey resigned, and the following week Australian police raided the company’s headquarters.

Former senior executive and whistleblower Rolf Krolke claimed the Nuix float was a” train wreck waiting to happen” during an investigation by the Australian parliament last year. Nuix said it “rejects” his assertions.

The stock exchange regulator, ASIC, is now taking Nuix and its board, including Mr Vawdrey, to court for allegedly “breaking continuous disclosure laws” and “breaching their director’s duties”. The court has yet to make a decision despite the fact that the case was heard last December, according to ASIC.

Nuix and the relevant directors have disputed the issues that are the subject of the ASIC proceeding, according to a statement in an email.

Mr Vawdrey said:” I’m not interested in talking to journalists about] Horizon], I was n’t involved”, and gave no further comment on the detailed allegations put to him.

Fujitsu declined to comment.