26 July 2023 – Jason Coyne and Susanne Helliwell
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(9.30 am)
Mr Blake: Good morning, sir.
Sir Wyn Williams: Morning, Mr Blake.
Mr Blake: Sir, this morning we’re going to hear from Mr Coyne and Ms Helliwell. As you know, we finish today at 2.00, so the plan is to take two breaks, two 15-minute breaks every hour and a half or so.
There will be a fire alarm at 10.00 today. The plan is for us to put our hands over our ears, rather than leave the room.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yeah, fine.
Mr Blake: There wouldn’t be any lunch. Everybody will take their lunches at 2.00.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, that’s fine, Mr Blake.
Mr Blake: Thank you very much. I’m going to call Mr Coyne, please.
Jason Coyne
JASON PETER COYNE (sworn).
Questioned by Mr Blake
Mr Blake: Can you give your full name, please?
Jason Coyne: Jason Peter Coyne.
Mr Blake: Mr Coyne, you should have in front of you a witness statement dated 16 May 2023; is that correct?
Jason Coyne: Yes, I do.
Mr Blake: Thank you, if you turn to page 16, is that your signature?
Jason Coyne: Yes, it is.
Mr Blake: Is that statement true to the best of your knowledge and belief?
Jason Coyne: Yes, it is.
Mr Blake: Do you have any clarifications to make in respect of that statement?
Jason Coyne: In this witness statement I said that I hadn’t seen the letter of instruction from Ms Helliwell, which was correct at the time that I made that statement, but later on, at the back end of last week, I was provided with a number of other documents and within there was the letter of instruction.
Mr Blake: Thank you very much. I’m going to start today by asking you about your background. Your witness statement, WITN00210100 – it doesn’t need to be brought onto screen but that’s just for the purposes of the transcript – that will be published in due course.
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: In terms of your background, it’s set out in that statement. Most relevant for today is that in 2000 you were part of a company, you were a shareholder in the company called Best Practice Group Plc; is that right?
Jason Coyne: Yes, that’s right.
Mr Blake: Can you very briefly tell us what your role was in that company and what the company did?
Jason Coyne: Yes, so we set up that company in 2000 because we’d noticed that technology within companies was accelerating rapidly and, whereas before, technology was just an aid to businesses, technology was now being talked about in terms of business transformation, so requiring fundamental changes to businesses whilst technology was brought in.
We spotted that there was a number of what we at the time called misaligned expectations, the suppliers would think they were delivering one things, the customer would think they were going to receive something different. So Best Practice Group was set up to help the parties come together throughout the contracting process to understand what would be delivered and what the parties’ relative roles and responsibilities would be.
It was as a result of that that we started to be instructed by parties that had frustrated implementations to try to avoid disputes and that built up our contact with law firms.
Mr Blake: Was one of the roles you had at that time acting as an expert witness?
Jason Coyne: Yes. Yes, it was.
Mr Blake: It was in that role that you acted in a case that we’re going to be coming to, which is the Cleveleys case, or what we refer to as the Cleveleys case?
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: You then moved in 2009 to IT Group UK; is that correct?
Jason Coyne: That’s right, yes. And IT Group was looking purely at the distressed end of computing, so it was looking at things like failure mode analysis to find out why projects had gone wrong, whether they could be brought back on track or not or whether we could provide expert witness evidence throughout the dispute resolution process, if the contract needed to come to an end.
So we helped people like insurers, we were instructed by law firms, often instructed by technology companies, to advise how to get projects back on track, or purchasers of technologies to find out what they should change within their own organisation to make the technology project work better for them.
Mr Blake: It was while you were at IT Group UK that you acted in the Bates & Others litigation, as also an expert witness?
Jason Coyne: That’s right, from about 2016.
Mr Blake: That’s something that we’ll be looking at in more depth in Phase 5 of this Inquiry.
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: You’re now a partner in Evolution Project Consulting; is that correct?
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: Is that broadly the same or different to those two previous –
Jason Coyne: No, it’s broadly the same. The companies that I’ve worked for have gone through various mergers and acquisitions over the years, and Evolution Project Consulting is now just back to me on my own, rather than part of a larger organisation. But doing broadly the same thing, helping people with technology disputes.
Mr Blake: Do you continue to act as an expert witness?
Jason Coyne: I do, yes. The company has only been operating on its own for a couple of months, so I don’t yet have any instructions but that is the desire.
Mr Blake: When did you first become an expert witness?
Jason Coyne: I believe it will have been probably the turn of – of 2000, or something like that, when we started Best Practice Group.
Mr Blake: What did you understand and perhaps what do you understand now to be the role of an expert witness, in summary?
Jason Coyne: Well, the overriding obligation is to assist the court and to ensure that you take an independent viewpoint and that you consider all evidence very carefully, you don’t fail to report any evidence that you’ve seen and that you search out all the evidence that might be available.
It’s really the independence side of it that was the very, very early teachings that I got from all the material that I took from the Institute of Experts and all the different various parties that were involved in expert witness training in those early days, and still today.
Mr Blake: Was it broadly the same in the early 2000s as it is today, in terms of your duties as an expert?
Jason Coyne: Yes, I believe so I think the majority of the changes were in the late 1990s, and CPR35, I believe, was updated, certainly before 2000, to ensure that experts were shown to be more independent and, in fact, were more independent. And there was the declaration of independence that has to be signed now on all expert reports.
Mr Blake: In the Cleveleys case you were a joint expert –
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: – and in the Bates litigation you were an expert for one particular party?
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: Can you tell us the difference between those two situations?
Jason Coyne: I mean, your obligations are still exactly the same. Your obligation is to assist the court and you have to remain independent, whether you are instructed by two parties or whether you’re instructed by one party, such as was in the Bates litigation. So your opinions don’t change. The way you go about the process, the analysis, doesn’t change. You have to take as much care and diligence, irrespective of which process is followed.
The only difference really is that the two parties in a joint litigation – in a joint instruction come together to generally agree what your instruction should be, and you accept that as a joint instruction, and then, when you submit your report, you generally invite questions from both parties and then you would generally respond to those questions. That’s typically the process and the difference when it’s a joint instruction.
Mr Blake: I’m going to move on now to talk about the Cleveleys case.
Jason Coyne: Mm-hm.
Mr Blake: You’re the first witness in this Inquiry who is going to be addressing questions on the Cleveleys case, so I’m going to take you through some very basic facts to begin with just to set the scene.
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: Can we look at POL00118218, please. It’s page 3 of the trial bundle. You’ll see here that the claim was served, if we scroll down a little bit, on 26 April 2001, and it began life, if we look at the top, in the Croydon County Court. The value of the claim, in the bottom right-hand corner, is approximately £11,000.
Jason Coyne: Mm-hm.
Mr Blake: Is that your recollection?
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: Can we look at page 5, please, if we scroll on a couple of pages, there is the particulars of claim. The defendant is a lady called Mrs Julie Wolstenholme.
Jason Coyne: Mm-hm.
Mr Blake: If we look at paragraph 2 she was the subpostmistress at Cleveleys branch and her contract had been terminated. The Post Office were suing her for return of certain equipment. If we scroll over to the next page, and keep on scrolling to the end of the particulars of claim, we have there, that’s signed by – a statement of truth by James Cruise or Jim Cruise, who we will, in due course, become familiar with, and there’s also the name Catherine Churchard of Legal – Consignia Legal Services.
This is a document I think that you were provided with when you prepared your expert report?
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: Thank you.
If we turn over the page to the Defence and Counterclaim, paragraph 2 of the Defence, so page 8 now, this is Mrs Wolstenholme’s defence, and at paragraph 2, we see there it says:
“The Defendant asserts that her employment was terminated unlawfully and she has made an application to the Industrial Tribunal …”
So her defence was that she had been unlawfully terminated.
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: There is a counterclaim in her claim, if we keep on scrolling down to the next page, towards the bottom of page 7, there appears to be a counterclaim, a little bit further down. This begins at the bottom of that screen. If we go over the next page to paragraph 14 of the Defence and Counterclaim, thank you.
Perhaps, if we could blow up paragraph 14.
This is where the issue of the computer system is raised, it says there:
“Further or in the alternative it was an implied term of the contract between the Claimant and the Defendant that the computer system provided by the Claimant would be fit for its purpose and the Claimant is in breach of this term in that the computer system provided was unfit for purpose and the Claimant failed to ensure that the system was working adequately.”
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: Thank you very much. If we scroll down to the next page, Mrs Wolstenholme was claiming damages, if we keep on scrolling down, damages for wrongful dismissal, damages for breach of the implied term to provide a computer system fit for purpose, and further damages, and it’s signed there at the bottom of page 12. The date of this document is 6 June, 6 June 2001 –
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: – which may be of relevance because we’re going to address issues of the provision of audit data, et cetera, so the date the claim began, and the date of the defence hear it is June 2001, when the issue of the computer system was first raised.
If we scroll over the page, there’s Amended Particulars of Claim. These don’t matter for present purposes and we can continue scrolling to page 15, which is the end of the Amended Particulars and at the bottom of that page we see the name of Ms Helliwell, who we will be hearing from later today, who is the signatory there.
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: If we continue to scroll to page 17, this is still with the Amended Particulars of Claim, and we see there for the first time appearing in this bundle the name of Weightmans Vizards solicitors, who, by that stage, were on record acting for Post Office.
Jason Coyne: Yes, mm-hm.
Mr Blake: Can we please turn now to page 93 of this bundle. This is the Post Office’s reply to Mrs Wolstenholme’s defence, by now, by this time we’re in the Blackpool County Court, so it’s been transferred.
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: If we scroll down we’ll see that’s the reply and the defence to the counterclaim, and it’s page 95, paragraph 4. We see there that the Post Office state:
“It is denied that the said computer system was unfit for its purpose and it is averred that the same worked adequately.”
Jason Coyne: Mm-hm.
Mr Blake: Thank you. I’m going to take you to a few court orders just to set the scene and again to take you to a few relevant dates for your instruction. Can we turn to page 98, please. This is an order of the Blackpool County Court of 16 July 2001 and, if we look at point (B) on the notice, it says:
“There may be an issue as to expert evidence given the counterclaim.”
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: Can we go to the next page which is another order, this time 30 August 2001, Order paragraph 2. At this stage it says:
“Both parties … have permission to rely upon one expert each in computer systems.”
Jason Coyne: Mm-hm.
Mr Blake: If we turn to page 103, that’s an order of 5 August. It seems as though by that stage there was a stay until October of that year, possibly because Employment Tribunal proceedings were continuing during that period.
Jason Coyne: Right. Mm-hm.
Mr Blake: If we turn over the page to 104, that’s 14 February 2003, so by this stage matters had resumed and, if we look at paragraph 8 of that order, it is ordered by the Blackpool County Court that:
“On it appearing to the court that expert evidence is needed on the issues of liability/causation and that the evidence should be given in the form of written reports of a single expert instructed jointly by the parties in the field of Computer Technology.”
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: So this is the first mention of a single joint appointed expert.
Can we please now turn to page 107, thank you very much.
By 17 May 2003, we have Mrs Wolstenholme writing to the Deputy District Judge and it appears that she is complaining in this letter that Weightman Vizards hadn’t yet appointed an expert and also that she had requested call logs and they hadn’t been provided.
If we go back a page to page 106, this is the subsequent order of 5 June 2003, where the District Judge says that upon reading her letter and it appearing that the claimants have failed to give standard disclosure to the defendant and that the parties had failed to instruct a single joint expert, the matter latter is listed for, essentially, a case management hearing.
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: Then we turn to page 110. A case management hearing has ultimately taken place on 7 July 2003, and there are certain orders made that are relevant to your instruction and paragraph 1 says that:
“[The] Claimant do by 4 pm on July 21st serve on the Defendant copies of the relevant computer logs from June 2000 until November 2000.”
Paragraph 4, it says there:
“It appearing to the Court that archived material on the computer may have been destroyed, it is directed that
“a) Claimant solicitors so make further enquiries and copy any correspondence to Defendant [and the]
“b) Parties [are to] make enquiries of expert as to whether an opinion can be given using only computer logs.”
Jason Coyne: Right, yes.
Mr Blake: Can we now turn to POL00118221, please. It’s page 47 of that bundle. This is part of the trial bundle but there are relevant documents within that that I’m going to take you to. This is page 47. We’re now on 3 September 2003. Thank you very much. This is a letter to yourself at Best Practice Group and it is from Weightman Vizards and it says at the beginning:
“We refer to previous communications between this firm and Judith Bohren and confirm that we are acting on behalf of the Claimant, Post Office Limited in connection with its claim against Julie Wolstenholme.”
Can you assist us, who was Judith Bohren?
Jason Coyne: Judith at this time was working in the capacity of a general administrator within Best Practice Group.
Mr Blake: Do you recall why you were selected at this stage?
Jason Coyne: Possibly proximity to the computer, and I live in – near Preston, Lancashire, so it’s only relatively round the corner from Cleveleys. But – perhaps, but I really don’t know.
Mr Blake: It appears as though there was a conversation before this letter, discussing your instruction?
Jason Coyne: Yes, and I seem to think that – it’s a hazy recollection – but Judith will have come to me and explained that we’ve had a call, an enquiry, what types of things, would we need? So it probably would have been Judith that went back to Susanne Helliwell and said, “I’ve spoken to Jason and these are the things that he would need in order to opine on this”.
Mr Blake: Thank you. Can we go to the bottom of this page. Can I just check, you’ve mentioned Susanne Helliwell there. Was she your only contact with at Weightman Vizards or was there anybody else you had contact with or did you speak to the Post Office?
Jason Coyne: No, I certainly didn’t speak to anyone directly at the Post Office or I don’t believe I did. And I think it was only Susanne Helliwell that I dealt with at Weightmans.
Mr Blake: Thank you. Can we have a look at the bottom paragraph of this page. It explains the background. So:
“Various matters are raised by Mrs Wolstenholme in the proceedings regarding the inadequacy of the Horizon computer system and in this regard, on 10 February 2003, it was ordered that evidence should be given in the form of a written report of a single expert instructed jointly by the parties in the field of Computer Technology.”
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: Can we scroll down the page, over to the next page. Just looking at this letter here, can you summarise briefly for us what you were asked to do?
Jason Coyne: To produce an opinion on whether, essentially, the use of the Helpdesk by the Cleveleys post office was reasonable use, whether the calls that were being placed to the Helpdesk by the subpostmaster were placed appropriately, and I was given somewhere between 80 or 90 call logs, really without very much context, and I was asked to go through those and effectively categorise them as calls requesting general help. So, for example, “Could you tell me how I do this”, so that might suggest a lack of training or a lack of understanding, or whether they were calls relating to a defect, generically a defect, could be with hardware/software interfaces in the operation of the system, and therefore the subpostmaster called the Helpdesk seeking guidance and resolution about that defect.
So that’s the process that I went through.
Mr Blake: As we saw from those previous court orders, it seems as though, by that stage, there wasn’t the audit data available to actually look at the underlying transaction data; is that correct?
Jason Coyne: Yes, but I think that, in itself, is quite surprising. And, you know, I did note that there was talk about, you know, data being kept on the machine for so many days, I think it was 30 days, and then data being removed after 18 months. From my knowledge since this matter, I don’t believe that that would have been correct at the time. I don’t believe that archived data would have been removed after 18 months.
So perhaps there was other data that was available. There were certainly things like KELs and things like that that were available at the time that would have assisted me to come up with my opinion but none of those were provided either.
Mr Blake: When you say you think the audit data would have been longer than 18 months is that because you know subsequently that later data had been held for longer.
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: So it may have been there was a change in the procedure in how long they held data?
Jason Coyne: It’s possible that there was a change and that statement was correct at the time. Certainly, later on, data was kept for a lot longer than that.
Mr Blake: The letter that’s on our screens right now, is that what you understood to be a letter of instruction?
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: Thank you. Can we go over the page now to page 49 of the bundle and it’s another letter. This is a letter from yourself to Ms Helliwell of 19 September 2003. Looking at this document, can you tell us what your response to that letter of instruction was?
Jason Coyne: Yes, so I said it’s not clear to me what you’re asking me to do. You’ve simply provided me with 70 or 80 telephone call logs and, in order to opine whether the system was operating normally, that what I would need to do – I’d need to do a comparison of the Cleveleys subpostmaster – Horizon System with other terminals in other branches to see if I could see whether there was a difference with either the operation – the way Ms Wolstenholme operated the system or whether there was something specific about the technology within Cleveleys or whether this was stereotypical of all the Horizon systems.
Mr Blake: It seems as though what you’re asking for there is a further set of logs –
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: – from other branches?
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: You’re not asking there for, for example, statistics?
Jason Coyne: No.
Mr Blake: But you’re asking for the actual underlying logs from other branches?
Jason Coyne: Yes, and I say there “I believe a further set of support logs would be required”.
Mr Blake: If we turn over the page we have the response from Weightman Vizards, 17 November 2003, and it’s the bottom of that first page I’d like to look at. It says there:
“As you are aware, our client has unfortunately been unable to obtain a set of comparable call logs and it has therefore been agreed between the parties that copies of the pleadings, witness statements and relevant documents in the proceedings would be provided to you to assess with a view to confirming whether you would be able to provide a report which would be of value to the Court and if so, detailed the matters upon which you would be able to report.”
So you’re being told in that letter that there isn’t a comparable set of call logs. Was your understanding from reading that that there wasn’t a set of call logs, that there was an issue with finding comparable cases, or what the issue was there?
Jason Coyne: I believe that, because I’d set out various criteria, you know, similar numbers off similar sites, that they were unable to find either a similar sized or similar turnover Post Office.
I now know that that statement that’s made there can’t really be correct at the time because, as a better understanding of the Post Office estate there, there would have been many sites that could have been used as comparators, and because I now understand that these are PEAK logs – well, there was many thousands of PEAK documentation that could have been used, and the support logs that could have been used to pull together that comparable information.
Mr Blake: Thank you. We dealt with this in Phase 2.
Jason Coyne: Mm-hm.
Mr Blake: At that time, there may have been PinICLs as well as PEAKs –
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: – or at some stage it switched over?
Jason Coyne: That’s right, yeah.
Mr Blake: I’m going to turn to your report in a moment but before we look at your report I just want to bring up the statement that had been submitted in those proceedings by Elaine Tagg, who was the retail manager of the – Retail Network Manager at the Post Office, that’s POL00118219. This again was in the trial bundle, so this was in a bundle you would have seen at the time?
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: I think, in fact, we’ll see in your report that you refer specifically to the witness statement of Ms Tagg. That’s at page 5 of this bundle. This is a statement of 16 October 2003, and it explains there that Ms Tagg was employed by Post Office, her title was previously Retail Network Manager and, at some point, it was changed to Retail Line Manager.
Jason Coyne: Mm-hm.
Mr Blake: Can we go, please, to page 7 and I’m going to just look at two paragraphs there because you refer specifically in your report to the second of these two paragraphs, it’s paragraph 11 and 12 so the bottom of page 7, please.
So paragraph 11 sets out the difference between the Horizon System Helpdesk and the NBSC.
Jason Coyne: Okay, yes.
Mr Blake: Then if we scroll down to paragraph 12.
There’s the fire alarm. We’ll just take a short break.
(Fire alarm sounds)
Mr Blake: I think we can continue. Could we zoom into paragraph 12, please. I’m just going to read out that paragraph. It says:
“Mrs Wolstenholme persisted in television the Horizon System Helpdesk in relation to any problems which she had with the system and generally, these problems related to the use and general operation of the system and were not technical problems relating to the system. Copies of the call logs for the period 10 January 2000 to 30 November 2000 together with a brief analysis of the calls to the Horizon System Helpdesk which I prepared following Mrs Wolstenholme’s suspension are at [she gives the reference]. Whilst there were some problems at other branches, they were not insurmountable and were often due to the system crashing or were general teething problems.”
Jason Coyne: Mm-hm.
Mr Blake: This is a particular paragraph that you, in due course, pick up. I’m just going to take you to a few more extracts from this witness statement to provide a bit more context. Can we look at paragraph 15. That’s over the page on page 9 and the second half of paragraph 15. She says:
“In the first six weeks of Mrs Wolstenholme’s appointment and prior to the installation of the Horizon equipment, the office had an average balancing record. Following the installation of the Horizon computer system a period of adjustment time was allowed and in any event the shortages at Mrs Wolstenholme’s post office were not excessive up to June 2000 for an office of that size.”
The next paragraph, she says that on 1 June there was an audit, or the results of an audit, and it can be seen that the report states that there were good controls in relation to the Horizon System.
Then it’s paragraph 17 where she says:
“On 21 June 2000, [she] wrote to Mrs Wolstenholme stating that it was now some ten weeks since the Horizon System was deemed to be fully operational and stating that there was currently a loss being held in her account in the sum of £2,497.94 and requesting that arrangements be made to repay the loss … Mrs Wolstenholme responded by letter dated 9 July 2000 blaming the shortages on the problems which she claimed to be having with the Horizon System.”
Jason Coyne: Mm-hm.
Mr Blake: If we go over the page, it says there:
“The Post Office was not experiencing any problems of this nature with the other sub post offices and as I have stated above, whilst there were some problems at other offices, they were mainly teething problems or involved the system crashing and were not ongoing to the extent of the problems which Mrs Wolstenholme was experiencing. I was very much of the view as is evidenced by the call logs that the problems which she was experiencing were largely due to the misuse and operation of the system and apart from the times when the system crashed, were not usually the fault of the system.”
If we scroll down or go over to the next page, page 11, paragraph 22, I’m going to again read that paragraph. It says:
“On 1 November 2000, I receive a call from Mrs Wolstenholme during which she informed me that the Horizon System had crashed and that she was unable to roll two stock units, namely those of herself and Mr Harrison, into the next cash account period.”
Just pausing there, this is actually a log that we’re going to come to in due course.
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: “On 2 November 2000, I attended Cleveleys sub post office and met with Mrs Wolstenholme. My colleague, Carol Hargreaves, another Retail Line Manager, was also in attendance. We found the system to be operational but accepted that there had been some problems following the upgrade, none of which would have prevented rollover. Mrs Wolstenholme was reluctant to open the office as she felt that the Horizon System was malfunctioning. Mr Harrison indicated that he may turn off the system as he had no faith in it. I warned him at the time that Mrs Wolstenholme would be in breach of contract to do this and would be suspended. Carol and I checked the cash and stock which was correct and the office opened at 2 pm. During my visit, I discussed with Mrs Wolstenholme the position regarding the losses on her account.”
If we go to page 13, this is the penultimate paragraph I’m going to be taking you to this morning, paragraph 26, just at the top of paragraph 26, it says:
“On 30 November 2000, I received a call from the Post Office Helpline to say that Cleveleys sub post office had not rolled the office and that again only Mrs Wolstenholme’s and Mr Harrison’s stock had been affected. I was also informed that the subpostmaster had reported a ‘large shortage’ and was refusing to roll the office over until the ‘problems’ were sorted out. I telephoned the office and told Mr Harrison to open the office with the 8 stocks which had been rolled correctly. He stated that the office was already open but that they were working manually and would not be using the Horizon System until it had been ‘sorted out’.”
I’d now like to look at the very final paragraph of this witness statement. It’s page 19. Ms Tagg ends that statement by saying:
“Approximately 18,000 post offices are using the Horizon System which is fully backed by the Federation of SubPostmasters. I am of the view that the problems encountered by Mrs Wolstenholme stemmed from the misuse and operation of the system and save for the early teething problems in February/March 2000 were not technical problems relating to the Horizon System itself. On the occasions when I and other employees of the Post Office used the Horizon System at Cleveleys post office we experienced no problems whatsoever. The Post Office had grounds to terminate Mrs Wolstenholme’s contract and the contract was properly terminated.”
We see at the bottom of that statement, a statement of truth.
Jason Coyne: Mm.
Mr Blake: Do you recall reading this at the time?
Jason Coyne: I do, yes.
Mr Blake: I’m now going to turn to your report, that can be found at WITN00210101. This is your covering letter to Ms Helliwell, 21 January 2004. If we turn over the page, this is your opinion. Now, on the second paragraph there you set out your initial opinion prior to examination. Can you briefly summarise your initial opinion for us?
Jason Coyne: So what I set out here is that, of the calls that I’ve examined, the call logs that were provided, that 63 of those calls are, without doubt, system failures, so relating to either hardware, software or interfaces, and only 13 of the calls that I looked at could or should be considered as Mrs Wolstenholme requesting help or guidance.
Mr Blake: Sorry to pause you there, but I think that’s your substantive opinion.
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: In the second paragraph, if we could just zoom in to that, you gave an initial opinion, I think you’re repeating the initial opinion there.
Jason Coyne: Yes. No, what I’m saying – what I was saying there is it would be difficult of me to give an opinion without a comparative across the estate. But when I was told that that wasn’t available, I was told that I would just have to give an opinion based on the call logs that I’ve seen for the Cleveleys one.
Mr Blake: Thank you. Then if we go about halfway down that page, it begins “The statement from Ms Tagg”, and if we could highlight perhaps from there down to and including the penultimate paragraph, so yes, from the bottom there from the word “This”, if we could highlight that section.
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: You make findings based on Ms Tagg’s statement. Can you please tell us what those findings were, up to the penultimate paragraph.
Jason Coyne: Yes. So I say that, in my opinion, what Ms Tagg states is not a true representation of the evidence that I’ve seen from looking at the calls, the 90 or so calls. And, as I stated a minute ago, 63 of those calls are system failures, and only 13 are Ms Wolstenholme calling the wrong support Helpdesk and, in Ms Tagg’s statement, she suggests that the vast majority are asking for help and that there are practically no reports of system problems.
Then I go on to say that the system issues we see, screen lock freezes and blue screen errors, can’t possibly be of Ms Wolstenholme’s making but are due to the faulty computer system, and I specifically highlight a call there and I make reference to the constant rebooting that was requested of her.
Mr Blake: In fact, if we look at the final paragraph on that page, you address the advice from the Post Office to reboot the system.
Jason Coyne: Mm-hm.
Mr Blake: Can you tell us what you say in that final paragraph or summarise that final paragraph for us?
Jason Coyne: Yes, from the looking at the detail in the call logs, there appeared to be a pattern emerging where Ms Wolstenholme was told to reboot – just simply reboot the terminal. And I made the observation that, whilst rebooting might get you back up and running, it essentially masks what the underlying problem might be. There needs to be analysis of things like crashdumps, you know, why did the system freeze, what did go wrong. But I couldn’t see within the call logs that that analysis was really going on. It was more just get the machine back up and running.
That’s not to say that people weren’t changing things in the background but you couldn’t necessarily see that from the logs.
In fact, from the knowledge in Bates, we know that there was a huge amount of changes that was going on in the background and being pushed out, so it might well be that, you know, a reboot and then a couple more days, something then might change with the Horizon terminal.
Mr Blake: Can we go over to the next page, which – is it a continuation of the opinion, or has the word “Opinion” at the top? Are you able to assist us with whether this is the core of your opinion or something different to what we’ve just seen?
Jason Coyne: Yeah, it’s a very curious note this, really, and it’s not in the format that I would typically put together expert witness notes with, and my consideration at the time is that this was a report that would go in that would then prompt additional information being provided and that ultimately might turn into a better formatted expert report with various sections. But because there was almost very little to work with, it’s formatted in this curious way. It’s more like an observation, a canter through the various highlights that we see in the call logs.
Mr Blake: Thank you. Beginning with what’s at the top, down to but not including the paragraph that begins “From 31 October”, are you able to summarise the types of faults that you observed and your findings in that respect?
Jason Coyne: Yes. So when a screen freezes, you know, you can be pressing the keys and nothing is happening, that has to be a system fault. The user can’t cause that and we certainly saw those types of problems. We had blue screens, where the system, the operating system, crashes. You may well see it on your home PC, you often call it the “blue screen of death”, you lose all your work and it’s just a blue screen. That can’t be anything that a user can cause. It’s typically a hardware fault and there was a number of those that was going on.
There was also the need to exchange hardware. Hardware was switched out by Post Office, or Fujitsu, suggesting that they suspected ongoing hardware problems, although it would seem that there was no real improvement that was made. I also point out that there was a reduction in the calls at the end of June 2000 and I’m not sure if we managed to identify what that might be.
Mr Blake: I think you say in the report that it could be due to the faults reducing in frequency but it could also be that Mrs Wolstenholme tired of –
Jason Coyne: That’s right, yes. One thing that happens with users – and this is from a direct experience of managing helpdesks – is if the users are constantly told to reboot, effectively they’ll stop ringing the Helpdesk because, if all you’re told is just to reboot, well when you might as well reboot yourself. You don’t have to waste your time on the phone, knowing that someone is going to tell you to reboot. So you do see that apathy, I think it might be, that you just simply reboot yourself and don’t log the call.
Mr Blake: So a reduction in calls could be caused by a number of things?
Jason Coyne: It could be, yes.
Mr Blake: It could be caused by the system being fixed –
Jason Coyne: That’s right.
Mr Blake: – but also it could be caused by apathy, as you put it?
Jason Coyne: Mm-hm.
Mr Blake: If we look at the bottom two paragraphs on this page can you please summarise those paragraphs for us?
Jason Coyne: Yes. We start to see within the call logs, discrepancies being discussed. Whether the word itself “discrepancies” are mentioned, or whether it’s an imbalance, or something failed to post, or something like that and there’s a reference to all sorts of figures showing minuses where there should be pluses. So that appears to be something within the Horizon System has either changed, so a different version has been pushed out by Fujitsu that’s tried to fix something and that’s perhaps broken something else, or, alternatively, a new type of working has been experienced at Cleveleys, they’re doing something in a different way, and that’s exposed defects within the Horizon System.
Mr Blake: The final paragraph?
Jason Coyne: Yeah, so in one of the calls it says that the PM was advised that this was an issue since an upgrade has taken place, so consistent with what I’d said before. A new version of Horizon has been released, was pushed out to the terminals and, although the subpostmasters wouldn’t necessarily know they were using a new version, behind the scenes it would be a new version. And it would seem that this problem has been seen across the estate by Fujitsu since they’ve moved out an upgrade.
Mr Blake: I’ll take you to that particular call log shortly. Can we just turn over the page, please, to the summary of your opinion. You have three conclusions there. Can you please take us through, briefly, each one of those conclusions?
Jason Coyne: Yes. Yes, okay. So I say that the technology installed at Cleveleys was clearly defective in elements of its hardware, software or interfaces, and that the majority of the errors in the fault logs could not be the making of Ms Wolstenholme. The next statement I made is that Post Office is more focused on simply closing calls rather than trying to get to the bottom of what the issues might be and the instruction to reboot would allow the business to get back up and running again but it could potentially mask the efforts, certainly from the Post Office – from the postmaster – to understand what’s going on.
And then I also point out that whilst there was a reduction in calls between July and October, it might be user disillusionment with the Helpdesk or comparative system stability. But then I do point out that from late October, the re-occurrences of the faults, which had been the subject of the earlier log calls, seem to resurface after, in quotes, an “upgrade” to the counters which seems to have occurred around 23 November 2000.
Mr Blake: Thank you. I’m now going to take you, just by way of an example, to one of those logs you analysed. Can we look at POL00118252, please, and it’s page 24 of that particular document. This does feature in the trial bundle but this is just a clearer version of the same document.
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: We see there this is an issue that was opened on 1 November 2000, so that was the date I took you to in Ms Tagg’s statement.
Jason Coyne: Mm-hm.
Mr Blake: We see there the caller is Julie Wolstenholme.
Jason Coyne: Mm-hm.
Mr Blake: Are you able to interpret the particular problem very briefly for us?
Jason Coyne: I think the simple answer is not. I wouldn’t be an expert in the actual process that was going on. But there certainly appears to be an issue with the adjustment of stock figures and that they are – appear to be showing in the different units. So there’s some sort of imbalance going on, as a result of a fault.
Mr Blake: If we scroll down to the fourth entry, this is something you’ve already referred to.
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: It says there:
“PM advised that this is an intermittent problem occurring since the counters were upgraded on 23 October.”
Jason Coyne: Mm-hm.
Mr Blake: Thank you. If we go over the page, to the second entry of that, it says:
“Still awaiting a reply – getting very upset – waiting to balance and get to family, etc.”
This is a call on Wednesday, so I think Wednesday may have been balancing day –
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: – and this was 7.08 pm, 7.00 in the evening, and it seems to record a message from Mrs Wolstenholme getting upset.
Jason Coyne: Yes, and it’s – part of this is to do with the entry of – or the remming in of the smart cards so entering them into stock and registering the value of those cards within the system and it would appear that they didn’t register correctly or they registered on one terminal but not the other terminal or with a different value.
Mr Blake: We see below that it says, “RNM”, so Regional Manager, “Elaine Tagg”, that’s the author of the witness statement.
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: “… called re the call she is on her way to the office and wants updating on the situation. Spoke to ref Cath on third line who advised she will check who is working on the call and get them to ring the office asap message relayed back to the [Regional Manager]. [Regional Manager] not very happy with response.”
If we go down four further entries it says:
“PM [subpostmistress] chasing call, contacted EDSC who advised are looking at this now, relayed back to PM, who advised has managed to roll 7 stock units but 3 have not. Advised PM needs to contact NBSC and let them know of the situation as they will probably not be able to do a cash account.”
Jason Coyne: Mm-hm.
Mr Blake: The one below says:
“mm calling they have called a few times now …”
I think that may be Regional Manager calling:
“… they have called a few times now expecting a call back with info and no one has called them, the office is closed but they are waiting for a call.”
Jason Coyne: Mm-hm.
Mr Blake: The next substantive entry says:
“Contacted the [Regional Manager] for this office as she has now made a complaint regarding this issue.”
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: “Elaine advised that all SUs have now been rolled over and they are now checking them to see if the final balance is showing to be correct. One of the SUs had something added to it, whilst rolling over. Elaine was very annoyed that no one from 3rd line had called her back, as she had been promised number of callbacks. Apologised for not receiving any callbacks, and advised that I would escalate the fact that the agents she has spoken to have promised callbacks within the hour, as they should not be making promises like these. Advised that 3rd line are very busy with their investigations and sometimes do not have time to call back. They may call back sometimes if they require additional information … etc. Advised that I would monitor the call, and if any updates occurred, I would notify them.”
The entry below says that there is a KEL and it says:
“The KEL explains that it is currently being investigated by development. I have not spoken to the customer.”
Do you now know what a KEL is and did you at the time?
Jason Coyne: I don’t believe at the time I knew what a KEL would be. It would be my expectation that I should have been provided with the KELs that matched the call logs because that would have held my opinion vastly.
Mr Blake: There’s an entry of Monday, 6 November, which says, “contacted pm on [6 November].” If we look at the end of that entry it says:
“Not made any declarations, 4,000 short in bal …”
That must be balance.
Jason Coyne: Balance, “that week”.
Mr Blake: Yes. Then the entry below says:
“Call E was reassigned from the [Horizon Helpdesk] to group SMC1. Reassign for development as this is a known problem with KEL and await solution.”
Jason Coyne: Yes, so that’s the software needs to be changed to fix this problem.
Mr Blake: We read earlier – that can be taken down thank you – the statement from Elaine Tagg of the Post Office, that stated to the effect that Mrs Wolstenholme’s calls to the Helpdesk were not technical problems. Was this a technical problem?
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: We also read in the statement of Mrs Wolstenholme – sorry, Ms Tagg that suggested that post offices weren’t experiencing this kind of problem or the kinds of problems that she described.
Jason Coyne: Mm-hm.
Mr Blake: Seeing as we know that there was a KEL, a Known Error Log for this particular issue –
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: – was that a fair statement?
Jason Coyne: No, it was an incorrect statement. I mean, certainly there were a large number of problems at Cleveleys and with the information that I finally got from Post Office, whilst it wasn’t comparative logs, it was giving me high level information about the types of problems in another – I think it was six post offices.
They were suffering large numbers of problems with hardware and software of interfaces in the same way that Cleveleys was, and I asked for that to be representative of the estate. So that suggests that the whole estate was suffering similar types of problems as well as what was being experienced at Cleveleys at that time.
Mr Blake: Seeing Ms Tagg’s name as the Regional Manager and the contact with the Helpdesk in this particular instance, do you have any views on whether her statement was fair and accurate?
Jason Coyne: No, it wasn’t fair or accurate because she clearly would have had knowledge of that particular – of that particular call and was keeping abreast of what was going on, so was fully aware that there was technical problems.
Mr Blake: Thank you. I’m going to move on now to some discussion within Fujitsu about your report and also official responses to your report.
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: Can we please look at WITN04600304. These are comments made by Steve Parker to Jan Holmes within Fujitsu, so it’s not an email that you would have seen at the time.
Jason Coyne: Mm-hm.
Mr Blake: It’s dated 17 February 2004, and we’ll come on and see that there was an official response on 20 February –
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: – so shortly before the official response. They seem to be comments on your report. I’ll take them one by one.
If we look at the first, there’s a comment on the passage which says that the technology is clearly defective.
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: He says there:
“Any technology that runs 24 hours a day will have hardware defects that require fixing. This is normal business.”
Do you have a view on that at all?
Jason Coyne: So it would be fair to say that there is a risk that exists that with any technology that runs 24 hours a day it will, at some point in time, suffer a hardware defect that will require fixing. But it will require that qualification that the – they call it the “meantime between failure”, so how much time would you expect before the next failure exists. We were seeing failures in Cleveleys almost on a daily or weekly basis. So that is an unreasonable meantime between failure.
So there is a real danger with that statement that’s made there that the non-technical user, reading that, might take that to be that I’m incorrect in what I’m saying, whereas I think what is being said is actually he agrees with what I’m saying but I think it’s very, very clumsily worded.
Mr Blake: If we look at the second point, he comments on your point about the Helpdesk being focused on closing calls and he says:
“True, but this focus is also about getting the PM working again in the fastest possible time to ensure that the PMs business is not interrupted.
“It is a trade off between time taken to diagnose and impact to PMs business.”
Do you have a view on that at all?
Jason Coyne: Well – and again, it is true, whenever you’re going to decide to reboot and get up and running, and we’ll see this in our own businesses, that is a trade-off. Do I spend the time on the telephone reporting all the issues to then just reboot or do I just reboot myself? At least I’ll be up and running, I’ll be operational, the business continue to trade.
The difference here is the process of rebooting and not analysing the information that’s led to it, could well mean that you have accounts that are incorrect as a result of that system flaw and, ultimately, that imbalance, that discrepancy, may well be used in evidence against you in later action. So I don’t think it’s fair on the subpostmasters for Fujitsu to be using the fastest possible – or Post Office to be using the fastest possible approach to getting the Horizon terminals back up and running then, because, essentially, it’s only Fujitsu and the Post Office that benefit from that reboot and get up and running; the subpostmasters are potentially massively disadvantaged by that.
Mr Blake: The third point comments on your view that there work were worrying discrepancies. He says:
“Must be the major issue. Counter systems caused discrepancies. Answer has to be ‘no way’.”
He makes three points. The first is:
“Almost all accounting errors in computer systems are caused by user error. GIGO principle.”
Is that “garbage in, garbage out” principle?
Jason Coyne: I think it is. It really is quite a delusional view, though. Why should it be the case that accounting errors are caused by user error? Anyone in technology will know that it’s typically bugs within the code that will lead to the types of errors that we see here. You’ve always got to examine what the user was doing and whether it was being used appropriately. But if these systems are designed to be quite robust it’s typically a software defect that will lead to an imbalance.
Mr Blake: “b) ‘Systems’ are in place … (NBSC, suspense account entries, etc) like any other computer system to ensure that such discrepancies can be resolved.”
Do you have a view on that?
Jason Coyne: It is true that over time, a number of additional systems and processes were set up by Post Office to deal with the inadequacies of Horizon in the early days, and there was number of other checks and balances and teams of people that were fixing transactions.
So it should say that, whether they were at this point in time or whether they developed later over time, systems are in place, but there was the huge potential for flaws. They were very heavily human-based systems that were put in place and that – some of them were mechanised later.
Mr Blake: Go when you say human-based, do you mean workarounds and things like that, rather –
Jason Coyne: Yeah, workarounds and people putting things into a Excel spreadsheet and seeing if it added up and making corrections and, yeah, various human workarounds.
Mr Blake: There’s reference to the suspense account system being in place. Are you aware of the suspense account being removed at a point in time?
Jason Coyne: Yes, I was. I don’t recall at the moment when the suspense account was moved but, yes, the suspense account would allow a place for transactions to be essentially parked until it’s worked out later what has gone wrong, whether it was a misposting or whether it was a defect and then it could be taken out and reposted somewhere else, and then that was removed later.
Mr Blake: If we look at (c), he says:
“Yes, software errors can make such mistakes. However, the systems in place ensure that such errors are picked up and resolved. If this problem was caught by a software error the same error would exist on all Horizon sites. 17,000 PMs are not complaining of misbalancing and discrepancies.”
Jason Coyne: No, that’s incorrect. What you see with defects in software is that they may only trigger with a very specific series of either key presses or series of transactions, or certain events going on with – on the estate. Because when developers test software they generally test what’s called the happy path, so, if everything goes well with the transaction, you’ll get the successful result at the end. It’s only if something differs within that or if certain types of transactions that have done, or certain transactions are done in certain sequences.
So what goes on at a particular post office that exposes a defect may only be seen in a handful of other post offices because of the nature of it. And, certainly, in some of the defects that we looked at as part of the GLO, you will see in the bug table at the back, some of the defects only hit 20 or 30 or 50 different post offices at various points to in time. So that’s an incorrect statement.
Mr Blake: Thank you very much.
Sir, we’re about halfway through Mr Coyne’s evidence. Because of the timetable today I think it may be sensible to actually take our first break of the day now.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, that’s fine with me, yes.
Mr Blake: So if we could come back at 10.55.
Sir Wyn Williams: 10.55, that’s fine. Okay, see you then.
Mr Blake: Thank you very much.
(10.39 am)
(A short break)
(10.55 am)
Mr Blake: Thank you, sir. I’m going to try to perform some computer wizardry of my own and bring two documents on side by side: one is FUJ00121512 and the second is FUJ00121535. Thank you very much.
On the left-hand side of our screen, we have the Fujitsu response to your expert report, and on the right-hand side we have your response to their response.
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: So the left-hand side is dated 20 February 2004 and your response is a week later, 27 February 2004.
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: I’m going to take you through, one by one, each of their comments on your report. So if the left-hand document, if we could go over to the next page, please, thank you. So they address first the Horizon System Helpdesk. Can you assist us with what your understanding is of what Fujitsu were saying about your comments on the Horizon Helpdesk?
Jason Coyne: So Fujitsu are explaining that there is what they call a strict contractual service level agreement covering up – sorry, covering aspects such as pick-up time, time to fix, time to close and that they operate to that criteria because that’s the commercial contract that they have with the Post Office.
So it could well be the case that it is better for Fujitsu to close a call by rebooting a computer than it is to spend a lot of time investigating it because that might put them in breach of their service level agreement. I don’t know, I haven’t seen that service level agreement and that’s why I’ve said it’s a matter for the Post Office and Fujitsu because it’s their commercial agreement, rather than me to comment on that.
Mr Blake: The final part of the entry on the left-hand side says:
“Whilst the primary objective of the HSH is to return the Outlet to normal operation as soon as possible, and rebooting the Counter often meets that objective, this does not mean that the problem is closed at that point in time, as a detailed scrutiny of overall problem management processes would reveal.”
Jason Coyne: That may well be the case and, in my report, I requested other information with regard to these calls and I was told that there was no information available. So if there are – if there’s other material available that references the calls that were made by the Cleveleys post office, then that should have been provided to me so I could have opined on that.
Mr Blake: Is an example of that the Known Error Log?
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: In respect of this particular entry, knowing what you know now, the experience you’ve gained over the years, your involvement in the Group Litigation, et cetera, do you have any observations now on that particular issue?
Jason Coyne: Sorry, when you say “that particular issue”?
Mr Blake: The Horizon System Helpdesk point from your original report. Do you still stand by it? Do you have any other thoughts that have developed over time in relation to that?
Jason Coyne: Well, I have got a far better understanding of how the process operates, how the calls are placed, the different tiers of support and the documents that are created throughout that process. But I don’t believe it operates significantly different when I was looking at it in 2016 to 2018, than what it operated then. You know, the desire to reboot and get operational appeared to be consistent then with what it – now with what it was then. And the fixing of faults and effectively pushing those fault fixes out in the background was also the same.
I think in my second report to the GLO, we – I listed a number of release notes suggesting that something had been changed and pushed out and it was in the thousands. So the system constantly evolves and, for that reason, the reboot, it’s conceivable that that might – the rebooting might not fix the problem but if something is changed in the background and then you’re told to reboot, then that might actually lead to an improvement.
Mr Blake: If we scroll down on the left side, Fujitsu then addressed the transaction handling on reboot.
Jason Coyne: Mm-hm.
Mr Blake: Are you able to assist us with your understanding of what Fujitsu’s position on that was?
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: It may be – we can scroll down the page, as well, onto the next page on the left-hand side, because they say:
“Simply put, the design of the system precludes the possibility of a Session Stack being partially, or doubly committed and thus accounting errors cannot be introduced through system crash or forced reboot.”
Jason Coyne: Yes, and that always has been the position that’s been advanced and that was the position that was advanced in the GLO later, in that, essentially, by rebooting, there couldn’t possibly be any inconsistencies within the counter transactions. Although, as the number of different types of transactions occurred, and certainly other sort of off-counter transactions, Camelot and things like that, and credit and debit card transactions, as it started to grow, we opined it in the GLO, there were certainly bugs, errors and defects that related to that process and it was shown that discrepancies did occur as a result of that.
Mr Blake: So is that statement at the bottom of the left-hand side, in your view, incorrect?
Jason Coyne: Well, the design, if carried out effectively, should have precluded the possibility. So from a design perspective, but, you know, bugs, errors and defects in systems aren’t by design. They creep in as a result of development or a lack of testing or just circumstances that haven’t been considered that need dealing with when they arise. So because the reference is to design and it might not be an incorrect statement, but it doesn’t set the context correctly.
Mr Blake: If we look on the right-hand side, can you summarise what your response was at the time on that particular issue?
Jason Coyne: Mm-hm. I would – just by Fujitsu simply stating that that is their position, I could not accept that as altering my position, and whilst I’ve said that whilst it assists my understanding, it would not be proper of me to alter my opinion based on an explanation but if you can present supportive evidence to me, but I was told that that had been destroyed, I’m more than happy to consider that evidence.
Mr Blake: Thank you. Moving down on the left-hand side to “‘Reasonableness’ of calls to [the Helpdesk]”, what is your understanding of what Fujitsu were saying in relation to this particular point?
Jason Coyne: So Fujitsu had looked at some call logs and these should have been the call logs that should have been disclosed to me but they said that they couldn’t be disclosed to me. But then they’d found some – they gave it a particular term for these – it was unregulated data or something like that that they then looked at. They’d then done some analysis on those calls, and had presented in overview their view from looking at those calls and they were setting out in that table the detail.
But if you look at that detail, you’ve actually got, for example, “H” is hardware. If you look down the “H” column, you can see that, you know, Headingley 5, Dungannon 2, so pretty much in that representative sample lots of people were suffering from hardware issues, a number were suffering from implementation issues.
Sorry, can you just show me the legend a bit further down?
Mr Blake: Absolutely. If we scroll down slightly, and it actually goes over the page, as well.
Jason Coyne: Yes, “S” is software. I mean, you know, there’s – there’s some very big numbers there, in software. And so all of the post offices that are listed on the left have all been suffering software problems. So these aren’t user problems because user problems will be under “A”, advice and guidance.
Mr Blake: Are you, in interpreting that particular table, also reliant on what call type had been attributed to that call by the Helpdesk itself or by whoever is making the log in the first place?
Jason Coyne: Yes, on the left-hand side this isn’t my data, this is Fujitsu’s data, and they have put numbers in the respective boxes. So it’s Fujitsu that have decided, for example, that Headingley has suffered 27 software calls in a particular period, and I say I don’t know what that period actually is.
Mr Blake: I think you said earlier that you hadn’t been provided with the underlying logs and had asked. Just to clarify, you didn’t have a conversation with Fujitsu about this? This was with Weightman Vizards or with somebody else?
Jason Coyne: No, that’s right. Yes, that’s correct. I didn’t have a conversation with Fujitsu about that. But I believe I say, in my response – yes, I do. So the – under “Reasonableness of calls”, second paragraph starts with “Now it seems”. So what I say there:
“Now it seems that your client has located data that they believe enables comparison. Although the raw data has not been made available to me …”
Mr Blake: If we scroll down on that page as well, I think there’s another paragraph under the “Reasonableness of calls”.
Jason Coyne: At the top of that I say:
“Although I must stress that no raw data has been [provided] so I am disadvantaged, is it your client’s intention to rely upon the data sample referred to in this letter?”
So am I to take that table as evidence that I should be considering or am I going to get the raw underlying data?
Mr Blake: If we could scroll down on that left-hand side, what is it that Fujitsu were saying that analysis shows?
Jason Coyne: So Fujitsu were suggesting that Cleveleys is no better or worse, broadly, than the rest of the estate, which I thought was quite a bizarre position to take and I think I made a comment on this because it appears that the whole estate was suffering huge numbers of problems. So by just saying they’re all as bad as Cleveleys, I didn’t know why that was helping anything.
But then what they say is it is worth noting that Fujitsu Services is not aware of similar complaints or claims being made from the other outlets on the list. But I know full well that there was a number of complaints and claims being made broadly across the estate. That’s not to say that it was those particular post offices on the list there. So I didn’t know whether had list had perhaps been cherrypicked because there’d been no complaints by them or not. But I know across the estate that there was large numbers of problems.
Mr Blake: Looking at your response on the right-hand side, what was your response at the time in relation to the analysis that had been put forward by Fujitsu?
Jason Coyne: Yes. Okay. I say from the sample presented, the mean for software issues is 20 across the rest of the estate but for Cleveleys it’s 35; for network, the mean is one against five for Cleveleys; software, the mean is 20 against 35; and hardware, the mean is four against six. So what I say is that all of these issues are significantly higher for Cleveleys than the mean. So it’s inconsistent with the statement that Fujitsu are making that Cleveleys is largely no better or worse than the rest of the estate.
Mr Blake: So is it an accurate summary of your evidence now that, on the one hand or first of all, the figures themselves don’t really help because they show lots of problems at lots of places?
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: But, second, to the extent that they do help, what they do show is that Cleveleys was actually suffering from a large number of software faults –
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: – compared to others?
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: Do you have any observations again, now having gained further experience of the system, your experience in the GLO, as to the response that was provided at that time by Fujitsu, the accuracy of the response or fairness of the response?
Jason Coyne: There consistently appears to be, within Fujitsu and/or Post Office, a reluctance to ever really grasp the analysis of the issue and to look at it. And the times that this is – that this comment about, you know, by design, double entry bookkeeping, the way that the audit logs are kept, all of these sort of principled issues are just repeated, when really it’s often absolutely obvious that there has to be a technical problem that should be looked at.
And I don’t know whether it’s an outward facing position, “This is what we say but we will actually have a look at it”, or whether it’s “This is what we say and we don’t need to bother having a look at it”, and I don’t know which of those it actually is.
Mr Blake: If we now look at “Operator advice to ‘Reboot’”, and if we scroll down on the right-hand side, so that they match up – thank you. Can you tell us what you understand Fujitsu to be saying in this respect and your response to Fujitsu?
Jason Coyne: Yes, so Fujitsu agree with me that it deals with effect and not the cause but they say that work goes on in the background and regular maintenance updates are made to adjust those problems. So the suggestion there is that they acknowledge that there are problems, that the system is then changed and that an update is then rolled out. So, theoretically, it should be better the next time, although there has often been cases where a fix has been rolled out that’s then caused what’s called regression problems. So it breaks other things that had been previously fixed, when – because of version control issues within the software.
Mr Blake: So being told that there are fixes, is that helpful or does it cause other issues that you might want to investigate?
Jason Coyne: Well, you see, whenever a fix is made within the software, you then have to understand what the impact of that fault actually was and, in order to look at the impact, you’ve got to know when did that version of software get pushed out to the estate, when did we fix it and, during that period of time, how many subpostmasters have the potential to be impacted by that particular defect?
And if there was an impact, you’ve really got to, effectively, rerun all of the accounts, or potentially make an exclusion that there was knowledge of a particular issue during that period and, therefore, you certainly couldn’t rely upon that data, certainly not for a prosecution, but you just couldn’t rely upon that data because you don’t really understand what the impact or potential impact on the data that defect might have had.
Mr Blake: Again, knowing what you know now, your experience in the GLO, et cetera, do you have any additional views on this particular response from Fujitsu or is that the evidence you’ve just given?
Jason Coyne: No, I think I’m content.
Mr Blake: Thank you.
Moving down to “Defective Equipment”, again can you tell us what you understood Fujitsu to be saying there and your response at the time?
Jason Coyne: So Fujitsu suggests that it was just simply a subjective view that I provided. But my response is that this is tool for business. This isn’t a home PC that might – at the time might have got used, you know, a couple of hours a day and got switched off every night. You know, this needs to have a much lower level of defect and a much higher meantime before failure than the rest of the technology because of the criticality of it. So I say that I was confident in my statement that it was clearly defective.
Mr Blake: Again, knowing what you know now, is there anything you would add to that?
Jason Coyne: Well, only that, you know, we know that there was a large number of hardware – or hardware and interface problems that were seen, whether it be PIN pads or printers or network devices that have all suffered from problems that led to or had the potential to cause problems with postmaster accounts.
Mr Blake: The next one “Closing Calls”, I don’t think that is actually addressed in your response but are you able to assist us with what you understood Fujitsu to be saying there?
Jason Coyne: Yes, so again, Fujitsu are referring to their own commercial agreement with Post Office, and rightly so. If they’ve got that agreement with Post Office, that’s the way that they should operate. It doesn’t necessarily correlate with the interests of the subpostmaster. So just Fujitsu saying, you know, “We’re doing what we said we would do” to Post Office, doesn’t really help the matter with Cleveleys suffering horrendous problems.
Mr Blake: If we scroll down on the left-hand side to the section on “Worrying Discrepancies”, I’m going to read you that first paragraph. It says:
“It is difficult to comment on the statement made by the Expert in this part of the Summary although he is alluding to the fact that system errors may be responsible for this. I have explained why this cannot happen earlier in this report. The argument has been put forward by a number of postmasters in the past when challenged by Post Office Limited for unacceptable losses and each time it has fallen when confronted by transaction data that demonstrates that the system was operating normally during the disputed period.
“Unfortunately Fujitsu Services is unable to provide archived transaction data in respect of Cleveleys for the disputed period as, under the terms of the contract in force with Post Office Limited at that time, it would have been deleted from the archive 18 months after it was …”
What was your response to that?
Jason Coyne: So what I said at the time is I’m unsure how this can be resolved, as, clearly, the PM reported discrepancies and those discrepancies correlate with the reported upgrade in the system. So the suggestion is that the upgrade has led to these discrepancies. But I’ve said, without further information, I think you’d need an additional witness of fact to be able to opine on that, if there’s no documents or a system that I can look at, because I’ve been told it’s not available – although we know that there was additional information that was available – that then there’s very little I can do with that.
But then I conclude that by saying, in short, the answer posed by your letter – and this was the letter from Susanne Helliwell – will I change my opinion, is no, my opinion currently remains as set the out in my original note.
Mr Blake: The statement on the left-hand side that system errors can’t happen, knowing what you know now, reading the precise words that are on the left-hand side, do you have any views on what’s said there?
Jason Coyne: Well, you know, I mean, absolutely we know, as a result of the work that was done in the GLO, that system errors can be responsible for accounting issues, shortfalls and, in fact, we proved, and Judge Fraser agreed, that a number of – I don’t exactly know what the number was off the top of my head but 25, 28 or whatever of the defects, had lasting impacts.
So, effectively, all of the workarounds that may well have been put in place by Post Office to deal with the technical defects weren’t successful and it was lasting problems with accounts. And it’s clear from the – well, I say recent disclosure from my point of view – I only got the documents on Wednesday or Thursday of last week – there are references to PEAKs in those documents that I’m absolutely convinced were not disclosed to me as part of the GLO.
So the number that we reported to the GLO of bugs, errors and defects may possibly increase with other disclosure.
Mr Blake: I’m going to take you to one more response by Fujitsu, and that’s WITN04600206, please. It may be that you didn’t see this particular document. Are you able to assist us with whether you saw this or received this at the time?
Jason Coyne: No, I didn’t see this at the time. I think this was provided to me by the Inquiry.
Mr Blake: Yes. It was certainly in your document pack that was provided.
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: I’d like to just take you through each one of those headings and see if anything that was said further internally at Fujitsu that wasn’t received by you would have changed anything.
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: If you have look at the first entry, so “Horizon System Helpdesk”.
Sir Wyn Williams: Sorry, Mr Blake, is there a date on this document?
Mr Blake: There’s not a date on the document itself. I’m sure I can assist at some point by providing that date.
Sir Wyn Williams: Thank you.
Mr Blake: If we look at the third paragraph it says:
“I have spoken to Jim Cruise, (Post Office Case Manager) and we both feel that there is probably another opportunity to influence the Expert’s opinion by inviting him to Post Office Account locations … and providing him with access to data, records and people who can deal with his observations directly.”
Is that ever an opportunity that was extended to you?
Jason Coyne: No, no, and, you know, I was told that there was no records that were available. It’s only now, when my opinion appears to be adverse, if you will, to them that they’re now suggesting that they can set up people and documents that I can go and have a look at.
Mr Blake: If you have a read to yourself of that first entry, the “Horizon System Helpdesk”, are you able to assist us with what you understand Fujitsu to be saying there and whether that changes your position at all?
Jason Coyne: So, I mean, what they are simply saying is they’re restating the primary objective of the Helpdesk is short-term and return the outlet to normal business as rapidly as possible, and certainly what we saw in the call logs was lots of reboots:
“Advice to reboot is the most effective way of doing this. It is not the function of the HSH to analyse crashdumps while on the phone to postmasters.”
Because crashdumps are one of the things that are typically created when a machine will blue screen and that was experienced at Cleveleys. So I suggested, I think in the first document that I sent, that I would analyse those crashdumps but Fujitsu said that they’ve now been deleted so they weren’t available to me. But what he does go on to say here is that my comment regarding not getting to the bottom is flawed because he says that there is a KEL that was produced at least for one of the calls, that shows that they were investigating things.
And, again, if that KEL had have been provided, it may well have been the case that my opinion would be – have been extended to “Whilst they are rebooting, I can see that there are KELs which show that further analysis was going on in the background”, but that wasn’t provided to me.
Mr Blake: If we scroll down to “Transaction Handling on Reboot” again, are you able to just have a quick read of that and summarise it for us and tell us if that would have changed your opinion in any way?
Jason Coyne: No, it wouldn’t have changed my opinion. And, you know, I agree the way the system is designed, and if you went to test a system, as I did as part of the GLO, and tried to reboot and try and make it cause a transaction failure, you’d struggle to do it. You might have to do this thousands or tens of thousands of times to get it to happen for you on demand, or then it might happen for a subpostmaster five times in succession, but that’s just the way these issues occur. So, no, there’s nothing in there that would change my opinion.
Mr Blake: Thank you.
Jason Coyne: I’m quite surprised that they say that the audit data would be deleted as quick as this because I thought it was kept for a longer time. Maybe that’s only changed in more recent times.
Mr Blake: The next heading “Reasonableness of Calls”, can you assist us with that, please?
Jason Coyne: Yes. So –
Mr Blake: Perhaps we can scroll over the page, as well.
Jason Coyne: Yeah. So I think there appears to be suggestion there that Fujitsu say that they could pull the raw data for the call logs, which was asked for at the time but wasn’t provided. But it would appear that that data, it’s now being suggested, could be available, but only after my initial opinion has been documented.
Mr Blake: In respect of the dispute between the two of you with regards to the comparison data, do you have a view on what they say there?
Jason Coyne: So what’s being said there is that there are other factors, including but not limited to training, competency, capability and the PM’s attitude towards raising calls. Interestingly, that list only includes the human factors rather than the technology factors or the differences in the types of transactions that the post offices do.
Mr Blake: “Operator advice to Reboot”. Again, are you able to assist us?
Jason Coyne: So they acknowledge that I’ve asked for the crashdumps but said that they will have been destroyed. They offer for me to go, and it looks like there’s some sort of – they’re going to offer me a walk around to assure me of the support and proper resolution activity.
Mr Blake: Would that have assisted you?
Jason Coyne: I mean, it might be of interest to see how it works but, when it comes to committing something to an expert report, then you really need to evidence the detail of this. So I’d really want to drill into what specifically was going on at Cleveleys. So going there and asking them to drill into the records at Cleveleys might be – might have been interesting but, no, I wouldn’t be convinced just by a walk around and an assurance.
Mr Blake: The next one, “Defective Equipment”.
Jason Coyne: So the response here is that he would need to understand the basis of my opinion. Well, that opinion was formed from the call logs and it talks about equipment being changed, which would suggest that somebody contemporaneously has determined that it was faulty, or blue screens. Blue screens is normally a hardware fault or perhaps software fault. So I think that’s a reasonable assumption to make, that there was likely hardware faults.
Mr Blake: Finally on this document, they address your point on “Worrying Discrepancies”. If we could scroll down.
Jason Coyne: Yes, so that appears that they haven’t yet considered the specific calls that I referred to at that point in time.
Mr Blake: Because it says “We need to consider” –
Jason Coyne: “We need to consider the specific calls that the Expert is referring to.”
I mean, the worry there is that they’ve made statements there about how robust and resilient the system is generically, without actually going and looking at these particular issues that I raised. So that’s, you know, potentially a failure there, really and they should have been considered in detail, presumably before this action was ever started.
Mr Blake: Can we briefly look at FUJ00121690. This is a covering letter, a covering email from Jan Holmes of Fujitsu to Keith Baines, Mandy Talbot, Susanne Helliwell and others, Colin Lenton-Smith mentioned there as well. The date of this is 5 August 2004 and it attaches further analysis that has been carried out as at this date. So we’re now in August 2004. And if we look at FUJ00121691, this is the further analysis.
Jason Coyne: Oh, right.
Mr Blake: Is this anything that was shared with you at the time or anything that you were aware of at all?
Jason Coyne: It looks like that table is the same table, is it not? Headingley and Dungannon?
Mr Blake: It certainly has the same post offices, there are slightly different statistics, it may be a slightly different period.
Jason Coyne: Right.
Mr Blake: But I don’t believe that this is a document that you have ever seen?
Jason Coyne: I don’t believe I’ve seen that document, no.
Mr Blake: Thank you. Can we look at POL00022842. This is the summary of bugs, errors and defects from the Bates & Others litigation?
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: Can we turn over the page, please. If we look at number 2 “Callendar Square”, it’s agreed that the bug occurred between the years of 2000 and 2006.
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: If we go down to number 9, “Reversals”, this occurred for a short period in 2003.
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: Number 10, “Data Tree Build Failure discrepancies”, its identified effect was during 1999 and 2000.
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: Over the page, “Girobank discrepancies”, that’s number 11.
Jason Coyne: Mm-hm.
Mr Blake: It occurred between May and September 2000.
Jason Coyne: Mm-hm.
Mr Blake: Number 12, “Counter replacement issues”, the first was created in 2000.
Jason Coyne: Mm-hm.
Mr Blake: 15, “Phantom Transactions”.
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: That arose in 2001.
At number 16, “Reconciliation issues”, mentioned in 2000.
Jason Coyne: Mm-hm.
Mr Blake: 18, “Concurrent logins”.
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: This occurred in 1999 and 2000.
If we go over the page, number 22, “Bugs/errors/defects introduced by previously applied PEAK fixes”.
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: Some of the PEAKs are from 2000.
Thank you very much.
Knowing that these bugs were present, some during the period in which you were toing and froing with Fujitsu in respect of your expert report, do you have a view as to the sufficiency of information that you were given during that Cleveleys case about bugs, errors and defects in the Horizon System?
Jason Coyne: Yes, I mean, that – the information that I was given was deficient. There was lots of information that would appear was available, and had to be available because we’ve seen it or we saw it as part of the GLO, that simply wasn’t provided to me.
Mr Blake: Would knowing about those bugs, errors and defects that I’ve just highlighted in 2000, 1999, et cetera, would they have made a difference to your report in its strength of opinion or otherwise?
Jason Coyne: It may have been a longer report, setting the scene better but I think, ultimately, my opinion was that the Horizon System, as installed at Cleveleys, was flawed. It had hardware, software and interface problems and had suffered from discrepancies. So my opinion wouldn’t have changed. There might have been more underlying evidence that would have supported that ultimate opinion.
Mr Blake: Do you have a view as to whether it should have been disclosed to you at the time?
Jason Coyne: Certainly, yes. My position is that all information that relates to defects, because this was a report about whether there was defects or not, should be disclosed, and I think that the question of relevance should actually be left with the person who’s opining on it, rather than lawyers taking a view on whether something is relevant or not, because there is a danger that documents get taken out because they’re considered as being not relevant, where if you had the technical context, you might be able to see that a document was relevant.
In addition, I expressly asked for certain categories of documents and they weren’t provided. I was told that it was destroyed.
Mr Blake: Can we look at FUJ00121724. This is an email you won’t have seen at the time but it has subsequently been provided to you. It’s from Jan Holmes of Fujitsu to Colin Lenton-Smith, and William Mitchell. It says:
“Colin, Bill.
“following on from the Cleveleys outcome, what looks like the reappearance of Shobnall Road and the possible outcome of that case I believe we should consider a risk position around the litigation support.”
He then comments on the Cleveleys case. He says:
“Although Cleveleys may appear to be closed it could be construed that POL bought off Mrs Wolstenholme rather than defend their system. Even if a gagging order is placed on the woman she apparently had a gaggle of postmasters lined up to support her case and they will be well aware of what the final outcome was. I’m sure they will not be keeping quiet. It is not clear why Post Office chose to settle rather than fight although I suspect they realised that to expose the HSH transcripts in Court would not help their case – personally I can understand that position.”
Number 2:
“Shobnall Road has come back. Bill has apparently been asked to provide a Witness Statement to the effect that nothing contained in the HSH calls over the period in question could have caused, or be described as, a system malfunction. I’m attaching a brief analysis of the HSH transcripts that I did in April. Comments made by engineers that ‘keyboards can cause phantom transactions’ do not help the Post Office’s position. I suspect that we cannot make the statement required and when [Post Office] read the transcripts in detail they may well think that they could not submit them anyway.”
That reference there to an issue in Shobnall Road and keyboards can cause phantom transactions, in that email of August 2004, does that impact your view as to the sufficiency of information that you were provided with in the Cleveleys case?
Jason Coyne: I don’t know what the particular issue was at Shobnall Road but I am certainly aware now of phantom transactions and, throughout the GLO, there was a number of documents that we looked at that theorised about whether keyboards could lead to phantom transactions but, certainly during the Cleveleys investigation, none of that was provided and, if that’s thought to relate to Cleveleys, then that’s significant.
Mr Blake: If it isn’t thought to relate to Cleveleys but if it is an ongoing case at an approximate time in which reference is made to phantom transactions, would that information have assisted you in your analysis of the Cleveleys case? Do you think it would or should have been disclosed to you?
Jason Coyne: Yes. It should have been disclosed. I mean, I expressly asked for call logs from other postmasters with a similar profile – I think that was the word that I used. So I would have thought that I would – you know, should be able to distill something from that. Certainly if anyone was aware of defects that was causing discrepancies at the time, those should be disclosed and then the exercise that should follow from that is, once we’re aware of what the defects are and how they lead to discrepancies, then attempt to demonstrate that Cleveleys was or was not subject to that particular defect. And that – that would have to be done across the whole estate and certainly should have been provided to me by way of evidence.
Mr Blake: Thank you. I want to ask you about a different topic very briefly and that’s ARQ data.
Jason Coyne: Yes.
Mr Blake: A significant feature of the Cleveleys case is that there was no audit data available.
Jason Coyne: Mm-hm.
Mr Blake: Were you at the time aware of different types of data that might be available to you, had it been available, had it been kept?
Jason Coyne: I’m not sure I would have been aware of the different types. I would have known just from general industry experience of accounting systems – yeah, I’ve created accounting systems myself – that there would be some sort of audit data. But I perhaps wouldn’t have known it was called or ultimately ends up being ARQ data. I don’t think I would have known that at the time.
Mr Blake: We’ve heard, and we will no doubt hear more, about differences between a standard ARQ extract and raw data from the audit store.
Jason Coyne: Yes. Mm-hm.
Mr Blake: What would you have wanted to have seen had you had the opportunity in the Cleveleys case?
Jason Coyne: So for the particular transactions of interest, or days of interest that you can determine from looking at the call logs, the expectation would then be, or the next request would then be “Can I have a look at the transactional data for those days?”, which would show me the transactions in accounting terms, and then from that, look at the audit data that’s behind those transactions, to try to determine whether something has gone wrong with the posting of the transactions or systematically from the back end.
Mr Blake: Are you able to assist us at all, and you may not be, whether filtered ARQ data is something you would have been satisfied with in this case or whether you would have wanted to see more?
Jason Coyne: I would never be satisfied by seeing filtered anything, without understanding what filtering has gone on. The danger is with any filter, well, what has been taken out? So my preference would always be to go for the raw data, and then I will filter myself based on what I see fit.
Mr Blake: Knowing what you know now, do you have any concerns in that particular regard?
Jason Coyne: Well, I certainly know that filtered and unfiltered data was a feature in the GLO and there was problems then with the filtering, as such, about what was left out. But there is a factor that I just noted in the documents that were disclosed – certainly disclosed to me only last week – that relates to a discovery that the ARQ data itself has duplicates within it. So it shows that transactions have been duplicated in the ARQ data. And this is a report, I believe, from Penny Thomas and Gareth Jenkins, and it refers to two PEAKs, the numbers of which I don’t recognise, and it also refers to two specific post offices that were involved in some form of litigation or criminal action at the time.
So it would appear that, as a result of pulling the ARQ data perhaps – and I don’t know this for a fact – but perhaps to support the litigation or whatever it was at the time, they discovered that ARQ data was incorrectly showing duplicate transactions.
Now, the potential impact that flows from that could be huge but, without investigating it further, I don’t know. There is a PEAK number – there’s two PEAK numbers listed in there.
Mr Blake: It is a matter we will be dealing with with other witnesses in due course.
Jason Coyne: Right.
Mr Blake: Finally, I’d just like to take you to a few criticisms that were made by Fujitsu and by the Post Office in respect of your report or you acting as the expert in the Cleveleys case. Can we look at FUJ00121561, please. This is an email from Jan Holmes to Colin Lenton-Smith, and he says:
“Draft email to Jim Cruise for you to consider. I’ve transferred the contentious statements from the paper to the email because it’s not in the interests to piss the Expert off. That said it has to be pointed out to Jim that his report is far from impartial and, in truth, we have a problem because there is little we can do to dispel some of the assertions other than say ‘rubbish’.”
I want to take you to one more document before I ask the question and that’s FUJ00121747. This is a subsequent report on the Cleveleys case and it was written by Jan Holmes. Can we look at page 4, please, of that report. It’s halfway down, under 3.1. He says there:
“The Expert, who was supposed to be jointly appointed, has taken a very one-sided view of life and has drawn conclusions that are based on a paper review of HSH call logs covering the period from initial rollout of the office to November 2000. In some cases his analysis of the call logs is incomplete and stops at the point where it supports his opinion.”
What’s your view of those comments that were made by Mr Holmes?
Jason Coyne: I mean, certainly I dispute that “taken a one-sided view of life”. Part of my training, and it’s a constant focus in what I do, is I have to look – I have to take a very balanced view. And, certainly, when it’s a joint expert report, you have to make sure that everything that’s available from the parties has been considered. So I completely refute that view.
And the fact of the matter is, I did only do that paper review because that was the only information that was said to be available to me. He’s obviously got other additional information that wasn’t disclosed to me.
Mr Blake: Finally, similar points made by the Post Office. It’s POL00031815. This is a PowerPoint presentation by somebody called Dave Smith who was the IT Director at the Post Office. If we look at page 3 of this presentation, he addresses the Cleveleys case, and he says there:
“Solicitor appoints ‘expert’.
“Expert was not challenged or managed.
“Expert assumes status of ‘joint’ expert.
“Produced a report which in my view exposed the expert as a ‘sham’.
“Nonetheless expert concluded that Horizon could have caused the discrepancy.
“Did not have access to audit trail so couldn’t refute.
“That is prove that what the expert said could happen didn’t happen.”
Are you able to give is your view on that opinion?
Jason Coyne: Well, I mean – I believe it’s delusional to then look at evidence and simply say that that isn’t correct, and I looked at the evidence and I said what my opinion was, and still remains: that system was absolutely flawed at that point in time and throughout the GLO we proved, and Judge Fraser agreed, that that system had a large number of bugs, errors and defects.
If Fujitsu aren’t going to look at the detail of the evidence or they’re going to look at the evident and then say they have a different view of it, I do believe that that is a delusional view. They just fail – they fail either to consider it or their opinions are flawed when looking at that evidence. Or, alternatively, from Fujitsu’s point of view, they’re looking at it from a commercial lens that all they need to do is satisfy Post Office. They don’t have any real primary interest in satisfying subpostmasters.
Mr Blake: Finally, are there any other matters relevant to the Cleveleys case that you think should be drawn to the attention of the Chair?
Jason Coyne: No, not relevant to Cleveleys, no. No.
Mr Blake: We may well have you back in Phase 5 to address issues relating to the Group Litigation.
Jason Coyne: Mm-hm.
Mr Blake: Sir, before I ask whether any Core Participants have any questions, do you have any questions?
Sir Wyn Williams: No, thank you very much, no.
Mr Blake: I don’t believe there are any questions from any Core Participants, so we are finished.
Sir Wyn Williams: Thank you very much, Mr Coyne, for coming to give oral evidence and for making a witness statement in advance. As you will appreciate, I have read a great deal of what you’ve had to say in many different contexts, so it’s nice to put a face to the voice, so to speak. Thank you.
The Witness: Thank you.
Mr Blake: Thank you, sir. Can we take a 15-minute break until 12.10 and then we will hear from Ms Helliwell.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes. I’m very sorry that there’s a sort of hard endpoint at 2.00, so that even a few minutes, I’m afraid, we can’t go beyond it, but I know that you’ll manage it very well, Mr Blake.
Mr Blake: Thank you, it’s actually Ms Price who will be managing it very well, even better.
Sir Wyn Williams: Oh, well, then you’ll have new points to manage. Thank you.
Mr Blake: Thank you.
(11.53 am)
(A short break)
(12.10 pm)
Ms Price: Sir, can you see and hear us?
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, I can, thank you very much.
Ms Price: Thank you. May I call Ms Helliwell, please.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes.
Susanne Helliwell
SUSANNE JANE HELLIWELL (affirmed).
Questioned by Ms Price
Ms Price: Good afternoon, Ms Helliwell, my name is Emma Price. As you know, I ask questions on behalf of the Inquiry.
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: Could you give your full name, please?
Susanne Helliwell: Susanne Jane Helliwell.
Ms Price: Thank you for coming to the Inquiry to assist it in its work and for providing a witness statement to the Inquiry. We are very grateful.
You should have in front of you a hard copy of a witness statement in your name –
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: – dated 14 July 2023?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: If you turn to page 7 of that statement; is that your signature?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes, my signature has been removed, obviously, but I did sign that statement.
Ms Price: Are the contents of that statement true to the best of your knowledge and belief?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: For the purposes of the transcript, the URN is WITN09420100. There is no need to display that.
Today I’m going to be asking you about issues which arise in Phase 4 of the Inquiry, focusing on action taken by the Post Office against subpostmasters and others and, in particular, upon the proceedings brought by the Post Office against Julie Wolstenholme in relation to her time as a subpostmaster of Cleveleys sub post office.
In terms of your background, you were admitted as a solicitor in 1990; is that correct?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: Where did you practice when you first qualified?
Susanne Helliwell: When I first qualified, I practised at a small firm in Manchester called – it was called Shammah Nicholls.
Ms Price: Around 10 years after being admitted as a solicitor, in January 2000, you became a solicitor at Weightman Vizards; is that right?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: Which team at Weightmans did you first join?
Susanne Helliwell: I first joined the commercial litigation team, as it was known then, and then I had done some employment work at my previous firms, so I started – I moved more into employment over time. So I did a mix of commercial litigation and employment work.
Ms Price: Which team were you in at the point you became involved in the Cleveleys case?
Susanne Helliwell: I believe – I was still doing a mix but I had moved more towards employment but I was still doing a mix of commercial litigation as well.
Ms Price: You remained employed with Weightmans until around July 2005?
Susanne Helliwell: Yeah, that’s – yes, for the best of my recollection it was around then.
Ms Price: Then for around four years you were away from the practice of law running your own business?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: Then in 2009, you went back to practice as a solicitor with a firm in Manchester; is that right?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes, that’s right.
Ms Price: You left to take on a consultancy role to that firm in 2019, a role you remain in now?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes, that’s right.
Ms Price: Before the Cleveleys case, had you been involved in any other cases on behalf of the Post Office?
Susanne Helliwell: I believe that I may have had some involvement in some employment cases. But I can’t – it’s just the timing is very – it’s just very difficult to think of the timing but I believe I may have had some involvement or it may have coincided with me having some involvement in employment cases for the Post Office.
Ms Price: Did you have any knowledge of the Horizon IT System before becoming involved in the Cleveleys case?
Susanne Helliwell: No, not as far as I can recall.
Ms Price: You have explained in your witness statement that proceedings against Mrs Wolstenholme were initially issued and dealt with by the Legal Services Department of Consignia Plc; is that right?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: We have a copy of the trial bundle prepared for the Cleveleys trial, which was listed in August 2004. Could we have on screen, please, trial bundle A from that, which contains the pleadings in the case. The reference is POL00118218.
Starting please on page 3 of that document using the external electronic numbering, we have the claim form and, towards the bottom of the page, please, we have the issue date here of 23 April 2001. We can see, about halfway down the page, brief details of claim, delivery up of goods belonging to the claimant and, going over the page, please, the statement of truth on the claim form, towards the bottom. This is signed by James Cruise, said to be a senior lawyer at Consignia Plc Legal Services.
Could we go over the page again, please. These are the original Particulars of Claim; is that right?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: Over the page, please, to the second page of those particulars. We can see at the bottom that these are dated 19 April 2001 and again the statement of truth is signed by James Cruise?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: You say at paragraph 5 of your statement – I don’t think we need to turn it up – that you would have become involved in the case at some point after the issue of proceedings in 2001, and prior to the preparation of the Amended Particulars of Claim in February 2003. Should we understand from these documents that, as of 19 April 2001, the date of the original Particulars of Claim, Weightmans had not yet been instructed on the case?
Susanne Helliwell: I believe so. I believe that we were instructed subsequently and that they might have been dealing with it, I assume dealing with it, in-house.
Ms Price: Could we turn, please, within this bundle to external page 87. This is the “Notice of Transfer of Proceedings” dated 11 June 2001, and we can see that this is addressed to the claimant’s solicitor identified as being Consignia Legal Services?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: So it seems as though the matter was still being dealt with in-house at this stage on 11 June 2001?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: Turning, please, to page 98 of the bundle. This is the notice of allocation or listing hearing, dated 16 July 2001.
Susanne Helliwell: Mm-hm.
Ms Price: We can see here the claimant’s solicitor is here identified as Weightman, so would we be right to understand by this, that by the 16 July 2001, Weightman Vizards was on record as acting for the Post Office?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: Could we turn back, please, to page 5 in this document, the original Particulars of Claim looking at paragraph 3, please. We can see the description here of number of items and equipment, including two safes, Horizon computer equipment, an alarm system and some scales, and then estimates of value of these items at paragraph 4. Then at paragraph 5 we have this:
“Expressly or by implication the Defendant agreed that she would deliver up to the Claimant and/or would permit the Claimant to collect the said items and equipment on demand and/or after termination of the said contract and/or on or after cessation or use of the said premises as a sub post office and/or within a reasonable time of such demand or termination or cessation of use.”
Turning over the page, the background to the dispute is provided. Then at paragraph 8 we have this:
“The Defendant has therefore refused to deliver up the safes and other equipment or permit the same to be collected …”
About halfway down the page, we can see what the claim was for:
“delivery up of these items and equipment or their value in damages …”
So it’s right, isn’t it, that the original claim brought by the Post Office related only to the recovery of items and equipment or their value in damages?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes. Could I just correct one small thing that I mentioned before about which department I was in at the time that Weightmans became involved.
Ms Price: Of course.
Susanne Helliwell: Just having seen the fact that our name appeared on the notice back in July 2001, at that stage I would definitely have been just in the commercial litigation department.
Ms Price: Thank you. Turning, please, to page 8, using the external pagination, this is the defence and counterclaim on behalf of Mrs Wolstenholme. Paragraph 2 of that reads as follows:
“In relation to paragraph 2 of the Particulars of Claim the Defendant admits that she was a subpostmistress but she contends that on its true construction the contract between her and Claimant was a contract of employment. The Defendant asserts that her employment was terminated unlawfully and she has made an application to the Industrial Tribunal for unfair dismissal and in that claim she has claimed re-engagement and reinstatement at the premises in Cleveleys where she was carrying out her employment …”
Mrs Wolstenholme raises here the ongoing employment proceedings she had bought against the Post Office for unfair dismissal.
Susanne Helliwell: Mm-hm, yes.
Ms Price: Over the page, please, to paragraph 5 of that document, which reads:
“Paragraph 5 of the particulars of claim is denied. In the alternative it is necessary for the said items to remain in the said premises until the determination of the disputes between the parties.”
We see here Mrs Wolstenholme’s response to the claim. She denied that she had agreed to surrender the items and equipment. Alternatively, it was necessary to keep them for those reasons.
Then, over the page again, please, at paragraph 14:
“Further or in the alternative it was an implied term of the contract between the Claimant and the Defendant that the computer system provided by the Claimant would be fit for its purpose and the Claimant is in breach of this term in that the computer system provided was unfit for its purpose and the Claimant failed to ensure that the system was working adequately. The Defendant has supplied the Claimant with details of the persistent inadequacies of the said computer system.”
It’s right, isn’t it, that Mrs Wolstenholme was raising as part of her counterclaim an allegation that the computer system in her branch was unfit for purpose and that the Post Office had failed to ensure that the system was working adequately.
Susanne Helliwell: Yes, she has raised that allegation.
Ms Price: Turning, please, to page 93, using the external pagination, this is the reply and defence to counterclaim. Could we have, please, page 97. Scrolling down a little, we can see that this document appears to be dated 2001, it’s no more specific than that. And there is a statement of truth going up a little, please, signed by a solicitor named David Robert Jacks. Weightmans’ name and address appears beneath this. Was David Jacks a fellow solicitor at Weightmans?
Susanne Helliwell: I believe he was a partner at Weightmans, but he may not have been at that time because he describes himself as a solicitor, but I believe he was a partner.
Ms Price: Can you help us with whether you were the file handler on this case from the start when Weightmans were first instructed or whether the file was transferred to you at a later date?
Susanne Helliwell: Is it possible to just go back to the notice from the court where Weightmans appeared?
Ms Price: Of course.
Susanne Helliwell: That could have the reference on it.
Ms Price: This is page 98 of the bundle. Notice of allocation or listing hearing. Was this the order you were looking for –
Susanne Helliwell: Yeah.
Ms Price: – 16 July 2001?
Susanne Helliwell: Yeah, at that stage it’s just David Jacks’ reference. My name doesn’t appear on it and it would have done if I was the file handler at that time.
Ms Price: Does this help you date your involvement at all?
Susanne Helliwell: Possibly. Sorry, could you just go back to the document you were in before, was that the Reply and Counterclaim?
Ms Price: Yes, that’s page 93, please, and the last page of that, sorry, is 97.
Susanne Helliwell: Yes, so I think that I probably – I wouldn’t have been involved at that stage and, again, to the best of my recollection, I may have become involved when we dealt with the Amended – just before we dealt with the Amended Particulars of Claim in, was it February 2003? Because again, with the proceedings stayed for a period of time after this, I can’t remember the exact dates. But proceedings were stayed and then I think the first time my reference comes into play is more around 2003.
Ms Price: When you did pick up the file, presumably you would have read the pleadings that were on file?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: Just looking then, please, at the substance of the Reply and Defence to Counterclaim, this is page 95, please. At paragraph 3, we can see here the Post Office’s case in relation to whether or not the agreement was lawfully terminated.
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: We can see here, 3.1:
“The Defendant well knew and accepted that the Claimant had given lawful and proper notice of termination of the said agreement and offered a payment in lieu of the 3-month notice the Defendant was entitled to under the written agreement;
“The said sum was calculated from the date of suspension of the Defendant (30/11/2000) with the last date of service identified as 28/2/01;
“3.3 The Defendant normally would have £19,322.85 in commission for this period. Due to the fact that there were outstanding losses incurred by the Defendant (£17,825.37) and for which she was liable to make good to the Claimant, the claimant paid the balance or excess of commission or remuneration to the Defendant in the sum of £1,497.48.”
So the Post Office was suggesting that there were outstanding losses incurred by Mrs Wolstenholme, which was why she was not paid the full commission she would have received in the three-month notice period. Is that a fair reading of that?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes, it seems to be, yeah.
Ms Price: Then at paragraph 4, please:
“It is denied that the said computer system was unfit for its purpose and it is averred the same worked adequately.”
Would you agree that it is clear, on the face of the pleadings we have been through so far, all dated 2001, that an issue in the case from the outset was whether the computer system in the Cleveleys branch was fit for purpose and worked adequately?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes, I’d agree with that.
Ms Price: Could we have on screen, please, WITN09020113. This is a draft letter exhibited by Julie Kay, (née Wolstenholme) to her witness statement provided to the Inquiry.
We need not have her statement up on screen but the reference for the witness statement for the transcript is WITN09020100. This document is referenced at paragraph 9 of that statement and it is her evidence that this was drafted by her father.
Could we have, please, the second page of that document, three lines down:
“On 28 August 2001 we wrote via solicitor to Weightmans for logs from June 2002, [I think that’s ‘NO 2000’] never received. I wonder why.”
It may be that you can’t help us if you believe you were involved later but were you ever aware of a request in 2001 on behalf of or from Mrs Wolstenholme for call logs.
Susanne Helliwell: No, I wasn’t, no.
Ms Price: At any stage before the Particulars of Claim were amended in February 2003, did anyone at Weightman Vizards ask the Post Office for records of any reports made by Mrs Wolstenholme of problems with the computer system? I know you may be slightly limited by what you would have picked up, if you took that file on later, but were you ever aware of such a request before February 2003?
Susanne Helliwell: I can’t recall, to be truthful, I just can’t recall. It’s 19 years ago, or more, isn’t it, then? But, yeah, I just can’t remember.
Ms Price: We have a number of court orders in the trial bundle which provide some insight into the progress of the proceedings after the Reply and Defence to Counterclaim was filed on behalf of the Post Office in 2001. Starting, please, with page 98, and this is going back, please, to the trial bundle POL00118218. That’s page 98. This is the order we’ve looked at already of the 16 July 2001, for the purposes of trying to date Weightmans’ involvement, and we can see here that an allocation hearing is being listed.
Over the page please, we that have the order of 30 August 2001. This appears to be an order made following the allocation hearing?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: As far as you are aware, were you involved in this stage in August 2001? If we just scroll down a little, so we can see the directions there.
Susanne Helliwell: I don’t believe I was because, again, my reference doesn’t appear on the order.
Ms Price: Do you have any recollection of there being a direction at one stage in the proceedings giving permission for both parties to rely on one expert each in computer systems?
Susanne Helliwell: I actually don’t. My recollection is that there was the – an order was made for a joint expert. I don’t – yeah, when I saw this, I just don’t have any recollection of that. It’s obviously before my involvement and I don’t think it was ever really acted on, was it, because the proceedings were stayed.
Ms Price: We’ll come in due course to that order you’re thinking of in terms of the single joint expert direction. Over the page, please, to the order of 11 March 2002. We can see the case management conference which had been listed being adjourned to May. Over the page again, 14 May 2002, again we have an adjournment to June 2002. Over the page again, please, the order of the 14 June 2002. We have another adjournment to July 2002.
Susanne Helliwell: Can I just – my reference then appears on that order, doesn’t it?
Ms Price: If you can just indicate where you see your reference?
Susanne Helliwell: The – this is the general form or judgment of order, dated 14 June 2002. My reference appears in the claimant’s reference. The reference to NJK was the partner, the Head of Commercial Litigation, from memory, in Liverpool.
Ms Price: Okay, and who was that individual?
Susanne Helliwell: Neil Kelly.
Ms Price: How do you spell that surname?
Susanne Helliwell: K-E-L-L-Y.
Ms Price: Just going back, please, one page, so your reference doesn’t appear on that May 2002 document and it does for the first time –
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: – on the next page, please, 14 June 2002. So does that help us pinpoint then when you became involved?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes, it does, yes.
Ms Price: If we can go over the page again, please. This is the order of 5 August 2002. We can see the claim is stayed until October 2002. Paragraph 2, please, of the directions, just a little further down the page:
“Upon termination of the stay, the Claimant’s solicitor shall within 14 days of termination write to the court explaining the position in relation to the hearing before the EAT, and the court shall then consider whether to list for a case management conference or whether to order a further stay.”
So it would appear that there were a number of adjournments and then a stay, seemingly because of the ongoing Employment, and then Employment Appeal, Tribunal proceedings.
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: Do you recall that being the case?
Susanne Helliwell: Vaguely. Having read the bundle, the trial bundle, it did come back to me that there was a stay for a period of time, yes.
Ms Price: If we could turn, please, to page 104. We come now to a directions order of 14 February 2003. Just looking at the recital there, it appears that a hearing took place at which the claimant was represented by a solicitor from Weightman Vizards. Was this you?
Susanne Helliwell: I can’t specifically recall but I believe it would have been me.
Ms Price: It appears here that the defendant was in person at that hearing?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: We can see from paragraph 2 here that permission was given for amended Statements of Case from the Post Office and permission for an Amended Defence and Counterclaim. The order records that Mrs Wolstenholme’s claim and appeal to the Employment Appeal Tribunal had been dismissed. Then at paragraph 8, we have this:
“On it appearing to the court that expert evidence is needed on the issues of liability/causation and that the evidence should be given in the form of written reports of a single expert instructed jointly by the parties in the field of Computer Technology.”
What can you recall, if anything, about the change in the directions in the case from each party having permission to rely on its own expert to the direction for a single joint expert?
Susanne Helliwell: I actually don’t really recall why that happened. It may have – I’m guessing, but it may have been that there was more of a move towards a single joint expert, maybe previously parties had been each allowed to rely on their own expert but there was – I don’t know when the shift was but there was a shift to the courts, you know, going more along the single joint expert approach. So whether it’s that, I don’t know.
Ms Price: Can you recall now what the Post Office’s position was on whether each party should have its own expert or whether there should be a single joint expert? I know it’s difficult after so much time?
Susanne Helliwell: I can’t recall. No, I can’t recall, I’m afraid.
Ms Price: Could we look, please, to the amended Particulars of Claim, which is page 13 of this bundle, using the external pagination. We can see here particulars were amended pursuant to the order of Deputy District Judge Lambert, which we have looked at. Turning, please, to page 15, scrolling down to the bottom, please, we can see your name and signature on the statement of truth on behalf of the Post Office.
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: Were these Amended Particulars drafted by counsel? It may assist if we scroll down a little more.
Susanne Helliwell: Yes, I think they were. Is it Tina Rañales-Cotos?
Ms Price: Just scrolling down a little more, please.
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: Looking, then at the new paragraphs in these particulars, page 13 again, please. Starting with paragraph 3:
“A copy of the contract for services is attached at pages 1-60. The Claimant will rely on the contract for services for its full terms and effect at trial.”
Paragraph 4:
“In particular, pursuant to section 9(M) paragraphs 12 and 13 of the contract for services, the Defendant is reliable for losses arising at the defendant’s post office during the period of the contract for services.
“The Defendant’s subpostmaster’s account shows an overall final loss in the sum of £25,034.04 in respect of the period up and to including 4 December 2000. An itemised breakdown of this figure is attached at pages 61-67. Such sum remains outstanding to date.”
Over the page once more, please. Paragraph 13 reads:
“Further the Defendant is indebted to the Claimant in the sum of 25,034.04 which represents the overall final loss figure on the Defendant’s subpostmaster’s account and the Claimant claims such sums.”
It’s right, isn’t it, that the Post Office was no longer limiting its claim to the return of equipment, it was also seeking payment of the sum of £24,034.04, a sum it claimed represented losses in the Cleveleys branch, which Mrs Wolstenholme was liable for under her contract for services?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: The Post Office was relying upon section 9(M) of the contract and, in particular, paragraphs 12 and 13, which was appended to the Amended Particulars of Claim. Could we have, please, page 45 of this bundle. Paragraphs 12 and 13 read as follows:
“The subpostmaster is responsible for all losses caught through his own negligence carelessness or error, and also for losses of all kinds caused by his assistants. Such losses must be made good immediately.
“The financial responsibility of the subpostmaster does not cease when he relinquishes his appointment, and he will be required to make good any losses incurred during the term of his office which may subsequently come to light.”
There is no reference, is there, in the Particulars of Claim, the Amended Particulars of Claim, to the losses alleged by the Post Office having been caused by Mrs Wolstenholme’s negligence, carelessness or error, is there?
Susanne Helliwell: Sorry, could you just repeat that?
Ms Price: Of course. So the Particulars of Claim, the Amended Particulars of Claim we’ve just looked at, contained a bold statement that Mrs Wolstenholme was liable under the contract for the losses?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: But there was no reference there, was there, to those losses having been caused by Mrs Wolstenholme’s negligence, carelessness or error?
Susanne Helliwell: Not in that document, no.
Ms Price: Did this reflect your instructions at the time that subpostmasters were liable for all apparent losses in branch, regardless of the cause of those apparent losses?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes, it did.
Ms Price: At the time that the Particulars of Claim were amended, were you asked to advise on the contractual position on liability of subpostmasters like Mrs Wolstenholme for apparent losses or shortfalls occurring within their branch?
Susanne Helliwell: I just don’t – I don’t recall.
Ms Price: Moving then, please, to the Amended Defence and Counterclaim, page 88, please. We can see here that the title of “Defence” has been amended to “Re-amended Defence”, and looking at the first page, scrolling down a bit, please, we can see an amendment to the paragraph numbers to reflect the new numbering in the Amended Particulars of Claim, a change to paragraph number 6. So at paragraph 3, there. Over the page, please, we see some further changes to paragraph numbers. The paragraphs dealing with the new aspects of the Post Office’s claim, that is the claim for losses to be paid, were paragraphs 3, 5 and 13. Just scrolling down, please, to check, they don’t appear to be referenced, do they, in this re-amended defence?
Susanne Helliwell: No.
Ms Price: Just for completeness, turning to the last page of this document page 92, please. This document is dated 14 April 2003.
External page 110, please, in this bundle. This is the order of District Judge Bryce, dated 7 July 2003 and it appears from the recital that, again, a solicitor from Weightmans attended this hearing on behalf of the Post Office. Was this you, do you think?
Susanne Helliwell: I believe, unless if I was on holiday or anything like that, it probably would have been me that attended that hearing.
Ms Price: We can see the first direction here reads:
“Claimant do by 4 pm on July 21st 2003 serve on Defendant copies of relevant computer logs from June 2000 until November 2000.”
Does this direction tell us that the Post Office had not, up to this point, provided Mrs Wolstenholme with the computer logs for this period?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes, it does tell us that.
Ms Price: Can you help us at all with why that was?
Susanne Helliwell: I’m afraid I just – I can’t recall. It may be that we had been asking for them but, without seeing my correspondence to the Post Office around this time, I can’t – I just can’t recall.
Ms Price: At point 4 of the directions please:
“It appearing to the Court that archived material on the computer may have been destroyed, it is directed that
“a) Claimant solicitors so make further enquiries and copy any correspondence to Defendant.
“b) [I think that is] Parties make enquiries of experts as to whether an opinion can be given using only computer logs.”
So were these your instructions at the time in relation to archived material, that they may have been destroyed? There appears to be some uncertainty about that.
Susanne Helliwell: Yes, it would have been my instructions at the time and we were probably trying to make enquiries just to see what had happened, and that’s why that direction was given.
Ms Price: That document can come down now. Thank you.
Is it right that this material, the archived material, was held by Fujitsu and not the Post Office?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes, as I understand it. Yes.
Ms Price: Looking, then, to what steps were taken by and on behalf of the Post Office following this directions order, may we have on screen, please, the second part of trial bundle C, which is the documents bundle. The reference for that is POL00118221. If we could turn to external page 217, please. This is a letter to you dated 24 July 2003. Going over the page, please, down to the bottom, please, we can see this is from Jim Cruise. Was he your primary Legal Services contact at this time?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes, he was.
Ms Price: We can see from the first paragraph, going back to the first page, please, that this letter addresses the court order of 7 July 2003 and computer evidence in particular. The next paragraph sets out the basis on which computer equipment was provided by Fujitsu and then two paragraphs down, starting “The Horizon System”:
“The Horizon System went live at Cleveleys on 10th February 2000 and the sub post office at Cleveleys closed on 30th November 2000. It is understood that the computer equipment was left plugged in and running for some time after the office closed and the data would therefore have been archived. Fujitsu Services have informed Post Office Limited that their technicians would not be able to retrieve the data in these circumstances.”
The next paragraph deals with data which would have been held by the data warehouse which would have been kept for 13 weeks, and then, over the page, please:
“Beyond the data warehouse Fujitsu have a message store which holds greater detail. This detail is held for 35 days in an accessible area and after that time it is archived. I have been informed by Fujitsu that prior to 1st April 2003 this detail was only held for 18 months. The position is now that since 1st April 2003 Fujitsu hold message store information for 7 years.
“However, no transaction details are now available and accessible for the period 1999 and 2000.”
Some emails appear to have been attached to Mr Cruise’s letter and those appear over the page, please. Starting please at the bottom of the email chain, which is page 220, scrolling down, please, the first email in this chain is from a man called Reg Barton, writing to Kevin Parkin at 8.35 on 4 July 2003, the first line reads:
“I understand … that POL have been raising some questions about Cleveleys SPSO …”
He goes on to explain the position in relation to Horizon equipment and the data warehouse.
Going back, please, to page 219, just one page, about two-thirds of the way down the page. There is an email from John Moran. He addresses the position in relation to the data warehouse and the message store. Then over to the top of the next page, please.
“In any case it would appear that any date in 2001 is well beyond the 18-month everywhere thus there is nothing we can do on this one.”
Was it your understanding at the time, from these emails, that this was the first time the Post Office had tried to attain any data relating to the relevant period at the Cleveleys branch, in early July 2003?
Susanne Helliwell: It was certainly the first time I’d have raised it with – around the first time I’d raised it with them. I’m not sure if it had been raised with them before then.
Ms Price: Before we move to a different document in this bundle, just going up, please, to the top of page 219, it would seem that by this point, Mandy Talbot, from Legal Services, had at least some involvement in the case, because she’s at the top of that email chain. Was there a time when both Jim Cruise and Mandy Talbot were involved in the case?
Susanne Helliwell: There may have been. I’m just trying to remember Mandy Talbot’s position at that time. Was she Jim Cruise’s – was she senior to Jim Cruise?
Ms Price: We know from correspondence that she is described as his boss, in effect.
Susanne Helliwell: Yeah. So maybe she had some involvement. I don’t know. But it looks obviously as though she did have some involvement.
Ms Price: Could we have, please, page 47, still within this bundle. This is a letter from you to Mr J Coyne from Best Practice Group. That is Jason Coyne, the single joint expert in the case; is that right?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: It’s dated 3 September 2003. You set out in that first paragraph the background to the matter?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: Then, over the page, please, you provide the history of the contact between your firm and Mr Coyne. Is that right that the first contact was in June 2003?
Susanne Helliwell: I believe it would have been because that’s when I referred to it in the letter.
Ms Price: Can you recall how the Best Practice Group and Mr Coyne specifically came to be approached as a potential single joint expert?
Susanne Helliwell: I can’t specifically recall but, at that time, we’d have – I’d have looked at suitable experts in that field – that’s the best information I can give – unless he was recommended by somebody.
Ms Price: Then three paragraphs down, you explain that you’re enclosing the letter that we’ve just looked at of 24 July 2003. So that’s the fourth paragraph on the page:
“We enclose a copy of the letter from the Post Office to this firm dated 24 July 2003 …”
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: You continue:
“… we are writing to you for the purposes of ascertaining whether you would be able to provide an expert report having that sight of only the computer logs and having not had an opportunity to inspect the computer system.”
Finally, on the last paragraph, you enclose the computer logs. So:
“We accordingly enclose copies of the computer call logs between January 2000 and November 2000.”
Just pausing there, the information that was provided to you by the Post Office and which was passed on to the expert was that in 1999 and 2000, archived material was held for 18 months.
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: So had a request for archived material in the message store been made in June 2001, when the Post Office received Mrs Wolstenholme’s original defence, then material going all the way back to January 2000 would, on this estimate of time, still have been available?
Susanne Helliwell: On this estimate, it would have been, yes.
Ms Price: In terms of why such a request was not made, Mrs Wolstenholme raised this point in correspondence with you in November 2003 and then January 2004.
We need not look at both letters as the point is restated in exactly the same terms in the second but if we could have, please, page 231 in this bundle, this is a letter dated 21 January 2004 to you, the penultimate paragraph reads as follows:
“Why when it was obvious in December 2000 that this case was going to be pursued through court were all computer details destroyed?”
If we can go over the page, please, to page 232, we will find your response dated 26 January 2004. Over the page again, please, at point 5, we find your response on this particular issue and you say:
“Proceedings were commenced by our client in April 2001 seeking only delivery up of the goods and equipment at the former post office premises following your suspension in November 2000. The fitness of the computer equipment was referred to in your Defence and Counterclaim received in June 2001 and it is therefore not correct to state it should have been obvious to our client in December 2000 that this was going to be an issue. As we now know, the computer records were only kept for a limited period at that time under the procedures then existing. Unfortunately, it was not apparent to our client’s representatives at the time that the computer records would feature so heavily in the preparation of the case. Further, you did not at any time request that they be preserved.”
Who were you referring to when you described your client’s representatives at the time? Were you referring to Royal Mail in-house Legal Services or Weightmans?
Susanne Helliwell: Royal Mail in-house Legal Services.
Ms Price: Were these your instructions: that the Post Office had not appreciated that the computer records would feature so heavily in the preparation of the case?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes, they were my instructions. They would have been – the letter would have been written in accordance with those instructions.
Ms Price: Did you find it surprising that nobody within Post Office had recognised the need to obtain computer records upon receipt of Mrs Wolstenholme’s defence in June 2001?
Susanne Helliwell: Did you say “do” I find it or “did” I find it?
Ms Price: Did you then and do you now?
Susanne Helliwell: To the best of my recollection, I do recall being surprised that there were no records available: surprised and probably frustrated.
Ms Price: With hindsight, should your firm have recognised the need for Post Office to obtain computer records in this case when the firm was first instructed in July 2001?
Susanne Helliwell: It’s difficult because, obviously, I wasn’t involved at the time and I don’t know what information and on what basis we were instructed. I also don’t know whether the person that dealt with it before me made a request to the Post Office, so it’s difficult for me to comment on that.
Ms Price: Of course. There was some further correspondence between you and Mr Coyne before he provided his opinion, wasn’t there? So Mr Coyne replied to your letter of 3 September 2003 on 19 September 2003, and this is within the bundle we’re currently looking at, at external page 49, please. If we can scroll down a little bit, please.
So Mr Coyne is effectively asking in this letter for clarification, further information, and instructions, isn’t he?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: I think you’ve had a chance to see this letter before?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: Then you wrote to Mr Coyne on 17 November 2003 before he provided his opinion, enclosing some further documentation, so may we go to that letter, please, page 50 in this bundle.
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: The first line there:
“We refer to your recent telephone conversation with our Ms Helliwell and in that regard, we enclose copies of the followed …”
So the letter appears to have been sent following a telephone call that you had with Mr Coyne. Do you recall now what you discussed with Mr Coyne during that telephone call?
Susanne Helliwell: I don’t. It was virtually 20 years ago.
Ms Price: Of course. We can see here that you enclosed those documents listed below, including the witness statements being relied upon by the Post Office and Mrs Wolstenholme.
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: You refer to the background to the case set the out in your previous letter and, just scrolling down a little, please, there is reference to the comparable call logs that Mr Coyne had asked for and then we have “As you are aware”, the last paragraph there.
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: “… our client has unfortunately been unable to obtain a set of comparable call logs and it has therefore been agreed between the parties that copies of the pleadings, witness statements and relevant documents in the proceedings would be provided to you to assess with a view to confirming whether you would be able to provide a report which would be of value to the Court and if so, detailing the matters upon which you would be able to report.”
Was this letter and your previous letter to Mr Coyne, dated 3 September 2003, the extent of your instructions to Mr Coyne, as far as you can recall?
Susanne Helliwell: As far as I can recall.
Ms Price: Do you recall whether Mrs Wolstenholme had any input into the instructions provided to Mr Coyne?
Susanne Helliwell: I think she would have had to have some. Yeah, she would have had to have some involvement because it was a joint instruction and I referred to that in my correspondence. Do I – is she copied into my letter, or – or not?
Ms Price: If we can scroll up to the top, please. Not on the face of that letter.
Susanne Helliwell: There’s nothing at the end of it, then.
Ms Price: If we can just scroll down and go over the page, please, and just scrolling down a little further, please.
Susanne Helliwell: I can’t – I mean, I can’t recall, but it’s a joint instruction, so she would have had to have had some involvement and I refer to agreement being reached between the parties for the expert to report, as far as – if to the extent he is able. So that would – yeah, that would obviously assume that she has had involvement and has seen correspondence but I can’t be certain, just because of the time.
Ms Price: The Inquiry does have documentation indicating that it was a joint instruction. It was just in terms of the content of that letter but if you can’t recall –
Susanne Helliwell: I can’t recall.
Ms Price: One of the documents which was sent to Mr Coyne was a witness statement from a lady called Elaine Tagg, who was Mrs Wolstenholme’s Retail Line Manager. You say in your statement to the Inquiry at paragraph 13(v) that, to the best of your recollection, you were involved in the drafting of the witness statements of Keith Baines and Jan Holmes.
You have fairly recently, I know, had the opportunity to refresh your memory as to the content of Elaine Tagg’s statement dated 16 October 2003. If we can have that, please, on screen that’s POL00118219. That is external page 5, please.
If we could scroll down a little more. To the best of your recollection, were you involved in the drafting of this statement?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes, to the best of my recollection, I would have been – I was. I obviously hadn’t recalled because I didn’t have the document and I couldn’t remember who the witnesses were so I was only – my statement was based on the documents that I had at that time.
Ms Price: Of course. This statement addresses the call logs which are exhibited to the statement by Ms Tagg. Did you yourself do any analysis of the call logs for the period 10 January 2000 to 30 November 2000?
Susanne Helliwell: I can’t recall. I assume I worked through the statement with each individual and that would have been the case with Elaine Tagg, and worked through the documents with her. But that’s as far as I can recall.
Ms Price: Going, please, to paragraph 12 of that statement which is external page 8:
“Mrs Wolstenholme persisted in telephoning the Horizon System Helpdesk in relation to any problems which she had with the system and generally, these problems related to the use and general operation of the system and were not technical problems relating to the system. Copies of the call logs for the period 10 January 2000 to 30 November 2000 together with a brief analysis of the calls to the Horizon System Helpdesk which I prepared following Mrs Wolstenholme’s suspension are at the pages 28-112 of ‘EMT1’. Whilst there were some problems at other branches, they were not insurmountable and were often due to the system crashing or were general teething problems.”
At the time, did you have any concerns about the accuracy of Ms Tagg’s assessment of the types of problems which Mrs Wolstenholme was reporting via the Horizon System Helpdesk?
Susanne Helliwell: I don’t recall that I did, because we were just acting on the information and instructions that we received from the client and, obviously, the documents, you know, that were provided.
Ms Price: You refer in your statement for the Inquiry to your involvement in the drafting of Keith Baines’ witness statement. He was at the time a Post Office employee who held the role of contract manager with responsibility for contracts with Fujitsu Services; that’s right, isn’t it?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: He appears to have produced two witness statements for these proceedings, one dated 14 October 2003 and the second dated 11 August 2004, the second one being a matter of days before the trial date. Just to clarify, were you involved in the drafting of both of those statements?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes, I was involved in the drafting of both of them, and I think, as I mentioned in my statement, it would also have been the case that counsel was instructed to review and advise on the draft statements, as he would have been with Elaine Tagg’s as well.
Ms Price: Just looking for now at the first of these statements, please, may we have on screen POL00118250. If we can go over the page, please, to paragraph 5 of this statement. We see here the evidence:
“Any faults that occurred in the Horizon computer system were eliminated once they were identified. Whilst it is possible for mistakes to occur, this is usually through incorrect inputting to the computer system in the office affected by the mistake. All subpostmasters were fully trained in the use of the Horizon equipment. The system was fully tested before it was used by the Post Office and it is fit for its purpose. The system itself does not create losses as is claimed by Mrs Wolstenholme.”
What was the process by which Mr Baines’ first statement was drafted; can you remember?
Susanne Helliwell: What do you mean by “the process”?
Ms Price: Did you take instructions over the telephone? Did you have a meeting? Did he send you a draft?
Susanne Helliwell: I would have either taken instructions over the telephone or face-to-face, and then produced a draft, which we’d have amended and looked at over a period of time. I can’t remember, is it in this statement or his other one where there’s – isn’t there a query in the draft?
Ms Price: There is a version of this statement with a query in the draft –
Susanne Helliwell: Yeah.
Ms Price: – which we can turn up if you’d like us to. My question for the moment is about who else was involved in the process. So was anyone from Royal Mail Legal Services involved in this process?
Susanne Helliwell: With all the statements before they were finalised, everything went through my contact at Royal Mail, or it would have done. That’s whether, you know, it’s Jim Cruise or Mandy Talbot and, as I said, counsel would also be involved as well.
Ms Price: Were you told by Mr Baines or indeed anyone else from the Post Office about the faults that occurred in the Horizon computer system that are referenced at that paragraph 5 when the statement was being drafted? Were you told what they were?
Susanne Helliwell: I can’t remember.
Ms Price: Jason Coyne provided an opinion in the case in January 2004. May we have this on screen, please. It is WITN00210101. That first page is the covering letter, dated 21 January 2004, sent to you and copied to Mrs Wolstenholme. We’ve been through this document in some detail this morning with Mr Coyne and I know you are familiar with it, so I don’t intend to go over the report line by line but, just picking up on the key points, going over to the second page, please, about halfway down. A little further down, please, starting:
“The statement from Ms Elaine Tagg, the Retail Network Manager of the Post Office Limited, at paragraph 11 stated that:
“‘Mrs Wolstenholme persisted in television the Horizon System Helpdesk in relation to any problems which she had with the system generally, these problems related to the use and general operation of the system and were not technical problems relating to the system.’
“This, in my opinion is not a true representation on the evidence that I have had access to. Of the 90 or so fault logs that I have reviewed, 63 of these are without doubt system related failures. Only 13 could be considered as Mrs Wolstenholme calling the wrong support helpdesk requesting answers to ‘How do I …? type training questions.”
Pausing there, did you find this assessment of Ms Tagg’s evidence by Mr Coyne troubling at all?
Susanne Helliwell: Well, I would have done at the time, yes.
Ms Price: Did you raise it with Ms Tagg or anyone else from the Post Office, as far as you can remember?
Susanne Helliwell: I don’t remember specifically raising this but I know I certainly raised concerns about the report itself. Not only the – his opinion about Ms Tagg’s statement but just generally.
Ms Price: Mr Coyne goes on in the next paragraph:
“The majority of the system issues were screen locks, freezes, and blue screen errors which are clearly not a fault of Mrs Wolstenholme’s making, but most probably due to faulty computer hardware software, interfaces or power.”
Over the page, please, about halfway down, we then have this:
“From 31st October, (starting at call log number 10253234) there seems to be a number of logs which talk of ‘large discrepancies’ in stock figures, trial balances with ‘all sorts of figures showing minus figures’ [with another call log referenced].”
What was your reaction at the time to Mr Coyne’s opinion?
Susanne Helliwell: I was shocked and concerned.
Ms Price: Would you have sent this opinion from Mr Coyne to your primary Post Office contact from Legal Services in the first instance?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes, I’d have sent it to Jim Cruise, I think, at the time, would I? But yeah, I’d have sent it to my primary contact immediately, yes.
Ms Price: May we have on screen, please, POL00118249. This is an email from Jim Cruise to Keith Baines and others, copied to you, dated 30 January 2004. We can see here:
“You have previously had some involvement with this case in which losses at the above SPO are being blamed by the former SPM on the Horizon computer system being faulty and causing the losses.
“The case is before Blackpool County Court and a computer expert, Best Practice Group Plc, is the expert witness and they have produced an opinion which concludes that the system was defective and the majority of errors noted in the fault logs could not be attributed to being Mrs W’s case fault. This is clearly unhelpful to POL’s case.”
Then he asks:
“Who would be the best person to see the opinion and comment on it please. Would it need to be referred to Fujitsu itself? It may be that we can take up with the expert witness some of the matters referred to in the report and clarify them or even persuade them that they are wrong – if this is possible.”
Turning over the page, please, we see Mr Coyne’s opinion was sent under cover of this email to its recipients.
Ms Price: Being conscious of the time, sir, should we have a very short break now? I do hope still to finish my questioning by 2.00 when we need to finish for the day but I’m conscious we’ve been going for some time. Just five minutes, sir.
I think you may be on mute, sir.
Sir Wyn Williams: I’m saying that I’m in your hands and five minutes is fine by me.
Ms Price: Five minutes, then.
(1.20 pm)
(A short break)
(1.28 pm)
Ms Price: Sir, can you see and hear us?
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, thank you.
Ms Price: We just had up on screen the document POL00118249, the email from Jim Cruise to Keith Baines and others from 30 January 2004.
Can you remember now what Mr Cruise’s immediate response to Mr Coyne’s opinion was?
Susanne Helliwell: I believe it was surprise and, you know, shock, similar to mine.
Ms Price: Did you think Mr Cruise’s suggestion, if we can go back, please, to the first page of that document, that it may be that they could persuade the expert that he was wrong, was an appropriate one?
Susanne Helliwell: Sorry, could you just repeat that again?
Ms Price: Did you think that suggestion from Mr Cruise, that it may be that they could persuade the expert that he was wrong, was an appropriate one?
Susanne Helliwell: No, but, obviously, I wasn’t involved in the drafting of that detail but I certainly wouldn’t have advised that that be said or that be, you know, that that would ever be done.
Ms Price: May we have on screen, please, FUJ00121515. This is another email from Jim Cruise, this time dated 24 February 2004. It’s sending an attachment called “Cleveleys letter” to Keith Baines and Colin Lenton-Smith. It is copied to you, among a number of others. We have the letter which was attached. Could we have that on screen please, it is FUJ00121512. This is a letter from Colin Lenton-Smith to Keith Baines, dated 20 February 2004. So scrolling down, please, we see Colin Lenton-Smith at the bottom there.
He explains that he’s writing:
“… in response to [Mr Baines’] letter of 6 February 2004 and note Post Office’s concern in respect the Expert’s opinion that the Horizon System installed at Cleveleys branch was defective and that the HSH was more concerned with closing call than preventing recurrence of faults.
“An appendix is attached which sets out Fujitsu Services’ view of and response to the main points in the Expert’s report.
“In respect of the earlier correspondence between Jan Holmes (Fujitsu Services) and Jim Cruise (Post Office Limited), we would be prepared to discuss this further if this would help progress the situation.”
Then going over the page, please, we can see an attached document entitled “Appendix”. Do you remember reading this document at the time?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes, I do now, having seen it, yes.
Ms Price: Just pausing there. You say at paragraph 17 to your statement of the Inquiry that Peter Sewell asked Fujitsu to review Mr Coyne’s report. The reference you provided in your statement is to an email chain from August 2003, before Mr Coyne’s instruction. Is it right to understand that it was, in fact, Mr Baines who asked Fujitsu, through Mr Lenton-Smith, to review Mr Coyne’s opinion?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes, it is right, yes.
Ms Price: May we have on screen, please, POL00118221, at external page 236, please. This is a letter from you to Mr Coyne, dated 27 February 2004. Was this you sending on the Fujitsu document entitled “Appendix” containing comment on Mr Coyne’s opinion?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes, I believe it would have been that, yeah.
Ms Price: We have Mr Coyne’s response to Fujitsu’s observations. Can we turn up, please, external page 57, within this bundle. Mr Coyne’s response came by email on 2 March 2004 and we can see Mr Coyne’s conclusion over the page, please, just above the “Best Regards”:
“In short to answer the question posed in your letter, No my opinion, currently, remains as stated in my original note.”
One of the reasons Mr Coyne gave for the comparative figures from other branches provided in Fujitsu’s appendix not changing his mind was that he had not been provided with the raw data. Do you know why the raw data from the comparison exercise was not provided to Mr Coyne?
Susanne Helliwell: No, I don’t, I’m afraid, no.
Ms Price: May we have on screen, please, FUJ00121534. This appears to be an email sent on 3 March 2004 by your secretary, but sending on your comments about Mr Coyne’s response; is that right?
Susanne Helliwell: Mm-hm. Yes.
Ms Price: In those comments you say:
“The response to the initial report of Jason Coyne of Best Practice Group has been sent to him and his reply is attached. He has not taken on board any of the points made and has not revised his report at all.
“I would welcome any further points you have to make on his further report but it seems to me that his report cannot be accepted by PO Limited and that an application needs to be made to the court for Fujitsu to give evidence about the Horizon System and its working in view of the stance taken by the expert witness.”
So was this your advice to the Post Office, that an application should be made for the Post Office to rely on evidence from Fujitsu about the Horizon System and its working?
Susanne Helliwell: From – to the best of my recollection, what would probably have happened is that we were – the Post Office were being told one thing by the expert and something else by Fujitsu, so, on the basis of the information that they were receiving from Fujitsu, then I would have said that on the basis of that, then we couldn’t accept the report and Fujitsu would need to therefore, like I say, give evidence and then it would be a matter for the court to decide.
Ms Price: May we have on screen, please, FUJ00121567. This is an email from Jan Holmes to Jim Cruise, dated 12 March 2004, copied to Colin Lenton-Smith. It doesn’t appear that you were copied into this email but I’d like to ask you about some of the observations made in it. Mr Holmes gives his observations on Mr Coyne’s reply in the first sentence:
“We have reviewed Jason Coyne’s reply to our paper and are disappointed that he was unable or unwilling to change any of his original opinions based on our original submission.”
He made some further observations on Mr Coyne’s reply and explains that a further paper is attached. Then this, in the penultimate sentence:
“We are happy to accommodate him at any or all of our locations and arrange such interviews and access to data that he requires, and would ask that you make this offer to him.”
May we have on screen, please, WITN04600206. This is the attachment to Mr Holmes email of 12 March.
Sir, you were asking about the date for this document earlier in relation to the evidence of another witness. It was attached to an email of 12 March 2004.
Sir Wyn Williams: Thanks very much.
Ms Price: Were you provided with the email from Mr Holmes or the attached response from Fujitsu that we see here at the time?
Susanne Helliwell: I don’t remember seeing the email that you just showed me before. I can’t say. But I would have been provided with this response.
Ms Price: About halfway down this page there is a reference to a Known Error Log, a KEL, and that’s his statement, that paragraph starting “His statement that the HSH”. Did you understand what a KEL was at the time of your involvement in Cleveleys?
Susanne Helliwell: Gosh. I may have known at the time but I can’t recall.
Ms Price: If you had known that Known Error Logs still existed, would you have considered those to be potentially disclosable documents?
Susanne Helliwell: If I’d have known that they existed, I would have said that they were disclosable documents, yes.
Ms Price: Were you aware at the time that Fujitsu had made an offer to Jim Cruise, for forwarding to Mr Coyne, to accommodate Mr Coyne at Fujitsu locations?
Susanne Helliwell: I don’t know, I actually don’t remember that at all.
Ms Price: May we have on screen, please, FUJ00121637. This is an email from Jan Holmes to Colin Lenton-Smith, dated 7 June 2004. We can see here that there’s an account of a conversation with Mandy Talbot and this was the document that I was thinking of earlier, the reference to Jim Cruise’s boss:
“The PM rejected the offer that was made to her some time ago and a trial date has been set for August (I don’t know exactly when). POL are still taking advice as to how best to deal with this and Mandy’s view/belief was that the safest way to manage this is to throw money at it and to get a confidentiality agreement signed. She is not happy with the ‘Experts’ report as she considers it to be not well balanced and wants, if possible, to keep it out of the public domain. This is unlikely to happen if it goes to Court.”
Is this description of Mandy Talbot’s view of the case consistent with your recollection of the Post Office position at the time, that the safest way to manage this was to throw money at it and get a confidentiality agreement signed?
Susanne Helliwell: I don’t ever recall having that discussion or even the reference to a confidentiality agreement. I don’t think that was discussed with myself anyway. I don’t think so.
Ms Price: Were you aware at all that it was a priority for the Post Office to keep Mr Coyne’s opinion about the Horizon System confidential?
Susanne Helliwell: I think it – I may not have been involved at this – I may not have known that at this stage but then I’ve seen the advice that we got from our barrister, Stefan Lewinski and advice on evidence and quantum, and that talks about publicity. So if it was – it would have been referred to probably shortly after this or around the time of the conference with counsel that the Post Office were concerned about publicity.
Ms Price: Picking up, then, on that advice from counsel, may we have this on screen, please. The reference is POL00118229. May we have page 18 of this document, please. We can see here that the date of the document is 26 July 2004, so less than a month before the listed trial. Would you have drafted the instructions to counsel to advise on evidence in quantum?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes, I would have done.
Ms Price: Turning back, please, to page 3 and starting at paragraph 10, we have here the advice from counsel:
“Mrs Wolstenholme has defended the proceedings, claiming that the computer system installed by the Post Office was defective and this was, in fact, the cause of the losses recorded within her accounts. Further, Mrs Wolstenholme puts the Post Office to strict proof of the losses it claims. Finally, Mrs Wolstenholme counterclaims for damages in respect of: wrongful termination of her contract; breach of her human rights; a claim under the Commercial Agents (Council Directive) Regulations 1993; a claim for the breach of the implied term to provide a computer system fit for its purpose.”
At paragraph 11:
“The trial of this matter is now about one month away. A joint computer expert’s report has been obtained. This report concludes, from the limited records available, that the computer system installed by the Post Office did appear defective. There is a very limited amount of documentation available in respect of the detail of calls made by Mrs Wolstenholme and problems with her computer at the relevant time as well as in relation to the errors and losses which built up in her Post Office records. This is because these records were destroyed about 18 months after events occurred.
“Recognising the weakness of its position, the Post Office has made a payment into court of £25,000.”
Over the page to paragraph 14, we can see that counsel was advising on a number of matters, the first one being the Post Office claim against Mrs Wolstenholme and the issues of evidence that it raised. Over the page again, please, we find the crux of the matter at paragraph 17:
“In view of the negative expert’s report in this case regarding the computer system in place, Mrs Wolstenholme’s suggestion that the errors that arose were the result of defects in the computer system must be taken seriously. It is sufficient to place genuine and significant doubt on the evidence relied upon by the Post Office. In my opinion, to dispel that doubt and to persuade a Court that its claim was justified, the Post Office would need to be able to produce to the Court sufficient original evidence in support of its claim. It is unable to do so. I therefore conclude that the Post Office’s claim against Mrs Wolstenholme in respect of losses on her asked would be likely to fail.”
Over the page, again, please to paragraph 19:
“Further, for the Post Office to have a chance of succeeding in its monetary claim against Mrs Wolstenholme it would also need evidence of the following:
“(i) clear proof that the secondary evidence provided by the Post Office had to be or was extremely likely to be, correct;
“(ii) clear evidence that the computer problems reported by Mrs Wolstenholme would not or could not have had any impact on the losses and figures contained within her accounting system;
“(iii) ideally, clear evidence to counter the criticisms made by the computer expert in this case.”
Paragraph 20:
“On my understanding of this case, I do not anticipate that such evidence will be available.”
Then at paragraph 21, in relation to the claim for wrongful termination of Mrs Wolstenholme’s contact:
“Given the lack of evidence in support of the Post Office’s position on losses, and also the strong evidence suggestive of serious failures in the computer system installed at the Cleveleys’ premises, the suggestion that Mrs Wolstenholme was in serious or repudiatory breach of her subpostmaster agreement appears unsustainable. In the circumstances, there would appear not to have been grounds for summary termination of that contract. Accordingly, pursuant to paragraph 9(1)(m) of the Contract, Mrs Wolstenholme was entitled to a minimum of three months notice of termination.”
Over the page, please, to paragraph 25:
“In the circumstances, Mrs Wolstenholme’s breach of notice claim appears likely to succeed.”
May we turn, please, to page 11 of this document, which is paragraph 37, a little further down, and this is dealing with Mrs Wolstenholme’s claim that there had been a breach of an implied term in respect of the computer:
“Mrs Wolstenholme claims that there was a breach of an implied term that she be provided with a computer system that was fit for purpose. This term has not been admitted by the Post Office and there is a case for arguing that any such term should only extend as far as the obligation to take reasonable steps to provide a computer system that was fit for its purpose. The basis for implying either term would be that it was necessary for the purpose giving the subpostmaster contract business efficacy and/or as representing the obvious but unexpressed intentions of the parties.”
Over the page, please. Counsel addresses a possible argument on the qualification of such a claim at paragraph 39, namely that Mrs Wolstenholme’s contract would never have been terminated were it not for the defects in the computer system.
Then at paragraph 40, there is some advice on how to address this aspect of Mrs Wolstenholme’s claim:
“It is in relation to the possibility of such a claim being advanced by Mrs Wolstenholme that the form of any implied term in respect of the computer system becomes important. If the term extended simply to the Post Office taking all reasonable steps to provide a computer system fit for its purpose, then the fact that the system provided may have been defective on occasion does not necessarily indicate a breach of this term. However, evidence would need to be adduced, on behalf of the Post Office, that reasonable steps were indeed taken. For this reason, I consider it would be advisable to seek to introduce, on behalf of the Post Office, further evidence setting out further detail as to: support provided in respect of the computer system installed; and attempts made to rectify defects identified. This evidence might be from an appropriate employee within the Information Technology part of the Post Office business, and/or from an appropriate employee from the suppliers of the computer system itself.”
Moving, then, to counsel’s conclusions. Page 15 of this document, please, paragraph 49 at the bottom of the page:
“On the basis of the above, it can be concluded that the Post Office claim against Mrs Wolstenholme will fail, save for the return of the equipment which she has possibly retained. Her claim against the Post Office in respect of failure to give proper notice is likely to succeed. What is the appropriate course of conduct in the circumstances, particularly given the desire of those instructing me and the Post Office to avoid, if possible, publication of the negative experts’ report in the public arena?”
Just pausing there, “the desire of those instructing me and the Post Office”, who had expressed the view, as far as you can remember, that they wanted to avoid publication of the negative experts’ report in the public arena?
Susanne Helliwell: The Post Office.
Ms Price: Can you remember who in particular, now?
Susanne Helliwell: No, it would be whoever I was dealing with at that time.
Ms Price: What did you understand lie behind this concern of the Post Office?
Susanne Helliwell: At the time, I can’t remember what would – I don’t know what lay behind that, because I just knew, from their point of view, that they wouldn’t want the adverse publicity of defects being shown in the system – in the Fujitsu – you know, the Horizon System. But I don’t remember. I can’t remember anything more than that. I mean, I suppose it was already – Mrs Wolstenholme had already brought a claim in the Employment Tribunal. It had gone to the EAT and they probably just were concerned that adverse publicity would follow any decision of the court.
Ms Price: Did you share counsel’s view that the Post Office’s claim against Mrs Wolstenholme will fail, save for the claim relating to the equipment retained?
Susanne Helliwell: The Post Office would have had a copy of that, of the advice – of counsel’s advice.
Ms Price: Yes, but did you share counsel’s view on the case, on the merits?
Susanne Helliwell: Did I share that with the Post Office?
Ms Price: Did you share that view? Did you agree with it?
Susanne Helliwell: Oh, yes. Yes, I did.
Ms Price: Would we be right to understand that the only aspect of the claim or counterclaim which counsel was advising should not be conceded was claim for the breach of the implied term that the computer system provided to Mrs Wolstenholme would be fit for purpose?
Susanne Helliwell: Sorry, could you just repeat that, please?
Ms Price: We’ve been through a number of aspects of the claim. So the claim the Post Office brought against Mrs Wolstenholme for the recovery of losses, the counterclaim relating to not giving notice of termination and then the alleged – the counterclaim relating to an alleged breach of an implied term that the computer system provided to Mrs Wolstenholme should be fit for purpose. The counsel addressed each of those and, in relation to the implied term point, seemed to be taking a slightly more nuanced view.
Susanne Helliwell: Mm.
Ms Price: So looking, please, at paragraph 51:
“In the circumstances, it seems that one method by which seems the Post Office might best achieve its objectives could be by making careful admissions within the Court proceedings. This is a matter which I have discussed already with those instructing me, but I can set briefly out a possible approach.
“To illustrate, the Post Office could formally abandon its claim against Mrs Wolstenholme and formally admit her claim of wrongful termination of her contract. The matter could then proceed to a more limited hearing to deal specifically with the remainder of her counterclaim.”
Just going over the page, please, at paragraph 54:
“The opportunity for taking these points will of course be the dates already listed for trial. The issues for the client and those instructing me are the additional evidence raised above and the question of how the trial should be approached. Again, I have already discussed this with my instructing solicitor. Having considered the matter further, my view is that the most appropriate course would be for these matters to be raised at trial following appropriate application having been made in respect of any further evidence and/or changes to the statement of case put forward by the Post Office. With careful case management, the issues identified could then be isolated at trial and dealt with as deemed fit by the trial judge.”
So the evidence that counsel was advising in relation to appears to relate to reasonable steps taken to produce a computer system that was fit for purpose to deal with that implied term breach argument being made by Mrs Wolstenholme.
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: So my question is: is that the only aspect of the claim that counsel was advising should be continued with, that should be defended?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes, it does appear that that’s the case, yes.
Ms Price: So was it in this context that counsel was suggesting further evidence should be obtained from the Post Office and Fujitsu?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes. Yes, to the best of my recollection, I think it would have been.
Ms Price: We know that Jan Holmes and Keith Baines both produced statements dated 11 August 2004, shortly before trial and I think it’s your evidence that you assisted with the drafting of those statements. Was that the point of these statements: to address reasonable steps taken by the Post Office to provide a computer system that was fit for purpose?
Susanne Helliwell: I believe so but there’s a reference to – we clearly had a conference with Stefan Lewinski, as well.
Ms Price: We can go to that. May we have on screen, please, WITN04600310. We can see there’s a list of attendees there, including you, Mandy Talbot, counsel, Jan Holmes and Keith Baines, and there are some notes with counsel’s opinion on the case, on the first page.
Going over to the second page and the third page, we see about halfway down:
“SL: cannot say there were no glitches. Will be candid about that but what did we do to help it?”
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: Then there’s some discussion further down this page about evidence that might be obtained from POL or POA. Over the page again, to the last page, please. We see:
“JH will take up with KB.
“Turning info into Witness Statements – JH & KB liaise with SH.”
So is that you?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes.
Ms Price: “SH agreed.”
So is that the background to you working on those statements with Jan Holmes and Keith Baines?
Susanne Helliwell: Yes. We’d have had the – received the advice from counsel and then had the conference, on the basis of the advice which he gave, to discuss it in more detail, and then, as a consequence of this conference, those statements would have been prepared.
Sir Wyn Williams: Ms Price, we’re perilously close to 2.00.
Ms Price: Sir, I was just comparing notes with Mr Blake. We are going to need to come back tomorrow, I’m afraid, sir. I don’t have much more but it will be another five or ten minutes and we are now nearly at 2.00, I’m afraid. I apologise for not being able to keep to my time.
Sir Wyn Williams: No, that’s fine. Subject to anybody in the room thinking this is inappropriate, if you really are only five or ten minutes away from finishing, then I would have no objection to the witness being asked to answer questions in writing to complete her evidence, rather than be dragged back tomorrow, unless of course she doesn’t mind. If she doesn’t mind, that’s fine.
But feel free to discuss that possibility. All right? I don’t need to make a ruling about it. You can decide between you how best to proceed in these rather unfortunate circumstances.
Ms Price: Sir, I think we have some questions on behalf of Core Participants, maybe about 20 minutes in total, as I understand, in addition to my five or ten minutes. So we do have around half an hour of evidence left.
Sir Wyn Williams: All right, that’s fine. I’ll say no more, then. See you in the morning, 10.00.
(2.00 pm)
(The hearing adjourned until 10.00 am the following day)