ITV drama is inaccurate, says one half of Post Office ‘Gruesome Twosome’
A Post Office executive portrayed as hounding the widow of a postmaster who took his own life has insisted she is not how she was depicted in the ITV drama.
Angela van den Bogerd, pictured for the first time since Mr Bates vs the Post Office aired, broke her silence to say claims she had forced Gina Griffiths to sign a non-disclosure agreement were not accurate.
The 58-year-old was the director in charge of handling complaints about Horizon from 2010. She was seen outside her detached home in Neath, Swansea, checking her postbox on Thursday morning.
Postmaster Martin Griffiths stepped in front of a bus in September 2013, aged 59, after the Post Office hounded him for £100,000 that it wrongly suspected he had stolen from his branch.
The scene was re-created in the ITV drama, and Mr Griffith’s sister, Jayne Caveen, told The Times that Mrs Van den Bogerd had later applied pressure on his widow to accept a settlement and sign a non-disclosure agreement.
In a statement provided to the paper, Mrs Van den Bogerd said: “I remain deeply saddened by the tragic death of Martin Griffiths.
“Whilst I’m unable to make detailed comments about this or any other Post Office matter ahead of being required to provide evidence to the inquiry, my involvement from my recollection is not as portrayed in The Times article of Jan 9, 2024, or indeed the ITV drama scenes with Gina Griffiths.”
She said she “respected the inquiry process” and would cooperate “fully and willingly” but was unable to make any further comment.
At her local Post Office on Thursday, staff spoke of their disgust over the scandal and revealed they too had lost money as a result of the flaws in the Horizon system.
Simon Jeremy, 39 who has worked in the Caewern Post Office alongside his brother, Scott Jeremy, 38 and sister Samantha Adderley, 46, for the past two decades, said his family lost £1,000 as a result of the problems.
He told The Telegraph: “We weren’t looking to claim or make an issue, because at the end of the day it was only £1,000. We just didn’t want to get involved with it. If it had got worse and seriously impacted me and my family members and she walked in to get a parcel now, I would be furious.”
Mrs Van den Bogerd lives a 10-minute walk away from the shop in a four-bedroom detached property worth around £800,000. There was no answer at her home, where a Mercedes-Benz convertible with a customised number plate was parked on the drive.
She was described in the ITV drama as being part of the “Gruesome Twosome” alongside Paula Vennells, the former Post Office chief executive who this week said she would be handing back her CBE.
Mrs Van den Bogerd is said to be the executive who knew more about Horizon than anyone else. She had been fielding complaints about the system since 2010, and was part of an initial mediation scheme created in 2014.
She also appeared before MPs at a parliamentary select committee inquiry into Horizon in 2015 and co-authored an internal report on the software.
At the public inquiry, Jennifer O’Dell, a postmistress, claimed she was bullied and intimidated by Mrs Van den Bogerd at a hearing concerning her suspension in 2010.
Mrs Van den Bogerd left the Post Office in 2020 when she was appointed head of people by the Football Association of Wales, a job she eventually left amid criticism of her suitability after the Post Office scandal. She now works at Integral UK, an engineering company, where The Mirror reports that she is involved in redundancies.
One unnamed employee dubbed her the “Ice Maiden” for her stern demeanour.
