19 September 2023 – Helen Rose
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(9.06 pm)
Mr Beer: Good morning, sir, can you see and hear me?
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, I can, thank you.
Mr Beer: Sir, before we move to call Helen Rose, can I say something briefly about ongoing disclosure?
Sir Wyn Williams: Of course.
Mr Beer: As everyone will know, following the hearing held on 5 September this year, you decided that the Inquiry could commence hearing from Phase 4 witnesses today and you subsequently issued a statement giving further directions. As has been made clear on previous occasions when the Inquiry has addressing the issue of late disclosure, all of those interested in the work of the Inquiry, including but not limited to witnesses and Core Participants, should understand that the fact that the Inquiry has decided to continue to hear evidence does not mean that the witnesses from whom evidence is about to be taken will be giving evidence just once.
The Inquiry will not hesitate to request a further witness statement or statements from witnesses and call witnesses back to give evidence in the event that sufficiently relevant material is either disclosed before the witness gives evidence but the Inquiry has not had the opportunity to process it or such evidence is disclosed after a witness gives evidence.
This is not only to ensure that all sufficiently relevant material is put to witnesses but also in fairness to witnesses, so that they have the opportunity to address all sufficiently relevant material.
To put into context what I’ve just said, I should say that since 3 July this year, so just before the first disclosure hearing, the Post Office has disclosed approximately 23,000 potentially relevant documents to the Inquiry. This included disclosures right up until the end of last week with 1,500 documents coming in on Thursday and 1,500 documents coming in on Friday of last week.
Of those approximately 23,000 documents, on the basis of how the Post Office has categorised them when disclosing them, approximately 15,200 are said by the Post Office to relate to Phase 4 of the Inquiry.
Many but not all of these documents have been provided in response to the three disclosure failings that you identified following the disclosure hearing held on 4 July, namely search terms, family documents and deduplication.
These documents relate to a range of requests made by the Inquiry to the Post Office dating back to 8 October 2021 and running up until 5 June 2023.
It follows from what I’ve said that a high number of potentially relevant documents have been disclosed in the recent past by the Post Office and many of them are presently being processed by the Inquiry, albeit a large number of them appear to be duplicates of material already disclosed to the Inquiry.
As I’ve said, no one should be surprised if witnesses have to be re-called as a consequence of this and other disclosure issues.
Sir, you’re still on mute.
Sir Wyn Williams: Thank you, Mr Beer. I don’t propose to add to what you’ve said but I certainly endorse it.
Mr Beer: Thank you. Just so everyone knows, we propose to sit until 1.30 pm today, rather than the 2.00 pm that was advertised.
Sir Wyn Williams: That, I have to confess, is due to my personal circumstances so I apologise for that.
Mr Beer: Thank you, sir.
Might I therefore call – and she’s giving evidence remotely – Helen Rose, please.
Sir Wyn Williams: Of course, yes.
Helen Rose
HELEN ROSE (affirmed).
Questioned by Mr Beer
Mr Beer: Thank you very much. Mrs Rose, my name is Jason Beer, as you know, and I ask questions on behalf of the Inquiry. Can you give us your full name, please.
Helen Rose: Helen Rose.
Mr Beer: Thank you for attending remotely to assist the Inquiry in its work and for previously providing a witness statement to the Inquiry. You should have in front of you a hard copy of that witness statement. It’s in your name and dated 10 May 2023. If you turn to the last page of it, which is page 9, there’s a signature. Is that your signature?
Helen Rose: It is, yes.
Mr Beer: Are the contents of that statement true to the best of your knowledge and belief?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: For the purposes of the transcript, the URN is WITN00790100. That need not be displayed.
Can I start by asking you some questions about your career qualifications and experience. You joined the Post Office in 1997; is that right?
Helen Rose: Correct, yes.
Mr Beer: Did you have any professional qualifications prior to joining the Post Office?
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: Having joined in 1997, you worked in what you describe in your witness statement as head office branches. Can you describe what a head office branch is, please?
Helen Rose: It was the Post Office Counters but it was in main branches, the Crown Offices.
Mr Beer: So what we know as Crown Office branches?
Helen Rose: Correct, yeah.
Mr Beer: Whereabouts were you based?
Helen Rose: I was based at Huddersfield.
Mr Beer: What responsibilities did your role entail when you were working in the Crown Office branch?
Helen Rose: Serving customers, dealing – I think it did eventually go on to Horizon. I can’t confirm if it was Horizon when I started at the Crown Office.
Mr Beer: Okay, so you were working on the counters, essentially?
Helen Rose: Correct.
Mr Beer: I think you remained there until 1999 when you became an auditor; is that right?
Helen Rose: Correct, yes.
Mr Beer: If that chronology is right, I think it follows that you wouldn’t have worked with Horizon before moving to become an auditor because it hadn’t –
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: – been rolled out by 1999?
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: What if any knowledge did you have of the Horizon System when you worked on the counters in the Huddersfield Crown Office?
Helen Rose: I can’t remember the system back then. It was a computerised system but I couldn’t tell you which it was.
Mr Beer: In any event, you became an auditor in 1999 and remained an auditor for five years until 2004; is that right?
Helen Rose: That’s correct, yeah.
Mr Beer: Did you have any qualifications to be an auditor?
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: Did you receive any training to be an auditor?
Helen Rose: I believe it was on-the-job training.
Mr Beer: Did you have any training on the operation of the Horizon System?
Helen Rose: I can’t remember whether we did any courses or whether it was, again, on-the-job training with the system.
Mr Beer: Did any on-the-job training as an auditor, or indeed later as an investigator, include any discussion of any bugs, errors or defects in the Horizon System?
Helen Rose: Not that I can remember, no.
Mr Beer: Did your training as an auditor on the job or later as an investigator include any discussion about the role of Fujitsu in providing support for the correction of any bugs, errors or defects in the system?
Helen Rose: Not that I can recall, no.
Mr Beer: When you were an auditor, where were you based?
Helen Rose: Leeds.
Mr Beer: Did you have a geographical area of coverage?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: What was that area?
Helen Rose: From memory, it was the northeast, so I seem to think it was from Lincoln, potentially up to the Scottish border and across to the east side of Manchester.
Mr Beer: Thank you. What did your responsibilities entail when you were an auditor for those five years?
Helen Rose: It would have been – given a list of offices to visit and confirm cash and stock at branches.
Mr Beer: What do you mean by confirm cash and stock at branches?
Helen Rose: From memory, attending a branch and just ensuring the assets were on site.
Mr Beer: So was it essentially a counting function?
Helen Rose: Yes, basically, yes.
Mr Beer: If there were discrepancies, did your role as an auditor involve investigating why the discrepancies had arisen?
Helen Rose: Not that I can recall. If it was clear that you could see where the error was made, I would obviously report that. But no, no, it would be passed up the line.
Mr Beer: Did your role as an auditor involve consideration of whether the Horizon System was responsible for any discrepancies in accounts or figures?
Helen Rose: No, I wouldn’t have thought so, no.
Mr Beer: In the witness statement you gave in the Lee Castleton trial – I’m not going to turn it up at the moment, I’m just going to give the reference, it’s POL00082945, page 2, paragraph 4 – you said that you carried out at least one audit every day, sometimes two or three audits a day, sometimes four, and that, in this five-year period, you completed well over 1,400 audits. Is that accurate?
Helen Rose: From memory, yes.
Mr Beer: In those 1,400 audits, what audit information held by Fujitsu would you have ordinarily accessed when carrying out your audit?
Helen Rose: As an auditor, none.
Mr Beer: To whom did you report at this time?
Helen Rose: I can’t remember my first line manager. I believe my line manager at some point in auditing was John Jenkinson but, sorry, I can’t remember any other names.
Mr Beer: That’s all right. How many people were in your audit team?
Helen Rose: Oh, wow. There were a few different audit teams. I’m going to hazard a guess at six, I think, but that probably changed on and off.
Mr Beer: Between 2004 – so for two years – and 2006, you became an investigator in the Security team; is that right?
Helen Rose: That’s right yes.
Mr Beer: Where were you based?
Helen Rose: Sheffield.
Mr Beer: What responsibilities did your role as an investigator within the Security team entail?
Helen Rose: From memory, it would have been – you would have been a case to look into to try to understand what had happened in that case.
Mr Beer: How would you understand what had happened in that case?
Helen Rose: That would have been more looking at transactions, findings, results from previous audits. I’m sorry, I don’t remember an awful lot in that role.
Mr Beer: When you say that it would involve looking at transactions, how would you look at transactions?
Helen Rose: I can’t remember whether there was a system that we could download it on. We had to go in and look at the actual – when you visited the office. Sorry, I haven’t got very much recollection from then.
Mr Beer: By this time, had you received any specialist training in the operation of the Horizon System?
Helen Rose: Not that I can recall, no.
Mr Beer: Had you received any training in the operation of the Horizon System by this time?
Helen Rose: Other than gaining experience in the years of auditing and not that I can recall, no.
Mr Beer: Between 2006 and 2016, you say in your statement that you undertook a range of analytical roles; is that right?
Helen Rose: Correct, yes.
Mr Beer: Until you left the Post Office in 2016?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: I wonder whether we could look at some documents, please, to try to jog your memory as to what some of those analytical roles were. Can we start, please, and it’ll come up on the screen in front of you, Mrs Rose, POL00104906.
Can you see this is a document entitled “Fraud & Conformance Team, Team Leader Handover”, 3 March 2012?
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: So this would have been well into your role as an analyst or undertaking analytical work in the Security team, yes?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: Can you remember what the Fraud and Conformance team was?
Helen Rose: Not specifically, no. I know it was a team in Chesterfield but other than that, no.
Mr Beer: Were you a part of it?
Helen Rose: Sorry?
Mr Beer: Were you a part of it, the Fraud and Conformance team?
Helen Rose: I don’t think so.
Mr Beer: Can we turn to page 3, please. Looking at “Team Purpose”:
“Since 2008 additional agency resource has been used on the team to enable detailed Branch Investigation. This resource has been utilised to check branch accounting activity and has been used to identify new fraudulent indicators. It has also been used to support elements of the Santander contract with POL to address non-conformance and identify fraud relating to Green giro transactions and despatch.”
Was what is described there part of your role?
Helen Rose: Prior to this, yes, but I can’t remember the details, I’m sorry.
Mr Beer: When you say “prior to this”, prior to March 2012? What do you mean, “prior to this”?
Helen Rose: Prior to that date. I used to look at data at – I can’t remember which data – to identify any fraudulent indicators or compliance that – I’m sorry, I don’t have an awful lot of memory on that.
Mr Beer: Can we look at page 9 of the document, please. There’s a table that lasts in summary form a couple of pages and then in many more pages in detail, called “Fraud Indicators Summary”?
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: You’ll see down the left-hand side there is a list of indicators, cash, scratchcard stock, or cheques, a level of risk, and then a method of detection?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: You’re, for the first and third on there, cash and cheques, said to be a useful contact. Can you see that?
Helen Rose: I can, yes.
Mr Beer: Why were you a useful contact for the fraud indicators of cash and cheques?
Helen Rose: I’m presuming at the time I had quite a bit knowledge on the data and what it was telling people.
Mr Beer: What kind of people contacted you about these fraud indicators?
Helen Rose: The Fraud team.
Mr Beer: Okay, so they were based in Chesterfield and you were in Sheffield; is this right?
Helen Rose: No, I worked – I was in Sheffield when I did the investigation role. When I did the analytical role I was based – I think initially I was based home working and then it went into Manchester but I did do quite a bit of work in Chesterfield.
Mr Beer: Okay. Anyway, members of the Fraud and Conformance team, of which you were not a part, contacted you?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: Why would you be contacted?
Helen Rose: I can only think that at the time I had knowledge to assist any questions.
Mr Beer: What kind of advice would you give?
Helen Rose: I honestly couldn’t remember. Advice on, I would guess, where to look for things. But I can’t remember the systems, I’m sorry.
Mr Beer: Can we turn to page 23, please. There’s a list of “Key Contacts from around the business” within this document and if we see, about seven or eight lines in, your name I see mentioned and your role is described as “Crime Risk”?
Helen Rose: It is.
Mr Beer: Did your role involve investigating branches to look for evidence of criminal activity such as theft or false accounting?
Helen Rose: It would have been to identify anomalous behaviour, which could be theft, false accounting, compliance, human error, various things.
Mr Beer: When performing that role, did you consider whether the Horizon System was at fault, that that was amongst the list of potential problems that you ought to encourage people to look at or you look at yourself?
Helen Rose: At the time, I don’t recall that coming to light, no.
Mr Beer: When you were undertaking this role, crime risk, did you review what’s known as ARQ data?
Helen Rose: Looking at the documents I’ve been sent over, yes, I believe I could have done. I don’t recall any but potentially could have done.
Mr Beer: What role did you play in determining whether branches were to be investigated or not?
Helen Rose: If my memory serves me right, if anything highlighted outside the normal – and I can’t tell you what the normal is without seeing the data – I would have probably passed that on to somebody to look into further.
Mr Beer: What role, if any, did you play in determining whether branches or subpostmasters operating branches were to be the subject of prosecutions?
Helen Rose: None.
Mr Beer: Did you play any role in supporting prosecutions?
Helen Rose: Other than providing data for anybody that requested it, no.
Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at POL00105025. This will come up on the screen for you, Mrs Rose. This document appears to set out the objectives of each member of the security team for 2013 to 2014. If we go to the second page, please, we can see that there’s an index and it goes through role by role, person by person. Can you see that?
Helen Rose: I can.
Mr Beer: That index goes on for 3 pages. You’ll see there that your name appears –
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: – “Helen Rose – Security Manager, Grapevine”.
Helen Rose: Mm.
Mr Beer: It says go to page 44 but, in fact, that’s wrong. It’s page 55, please, in the document. We can see your role set out. It appears to be one of those documents that sets out, in the second box in, an objective and then a timescale for achieving it in the far right-hand side; can you see that?
Helen Rose: I can, yes.
Mr Beer: You’re described as at this time as a Security Manager in Grapevine. What was Grapevine?
Helen Rose: My memory of Grapevine would have been just a Security team name.
Mr Beer: So it was a Security team name; is that right?
Helen Rose: From memory, yes.
Mr Beer: You were the manager of it, is that right, or a manager of it?
Helen Rose: No, I think Security Manager was given to just about most people within the Security team.
Mr Beer: Everyone was a manager, were they?
Helen Rose: I think that was just the name that people working in the Security team at that time were given.
Mr Beer: You’ll see in paragraph 1 – if you just read that to yourself, paragraph 1 –
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: – the third bullet point states the following in relation to your role:
“Provide end-to-end process map for all procedures to identify current known risks.”
Do you remember that being a function of yours, to produce a process map for all procedures to identify known risks.
Helen Rose: I don’t recall it – no, I can’t remember it.
Mr Beer: Would you have produced such a map if that was your objective for the following year?
Helen Rose: I presume at the time I would have – if that was my objective, I would have produced the process map, yes.
Mr Beer: Reading this to yourself now, such a map was to identify “current known risks”. What would you understand “current known risks” to refer to? Risks to what or to whom?
Helen Rose: Post Office assets.
Mr Beer: So the money and physical possessions of the Post Office?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: Can you recall whether the map addressed any risks inherent in a computer system such as Horizon?
Helen Rose: I can’t recall that, no.
Mr Beer: Can you recall how large the Grapevine team was?
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: You can’t remember how many people were in it?
Helen Rose: No, I can’t.
Mr Beer: In respect of Grapevine, how was it different from any other Security team? Why was it called “Grapevine”?
Helen Rose: I don’t know. My very vague memory of Grapevine was more external loss, robberies, burglaries, that kind of thing. I don’t have any other recollection of it, sorry.
Mr Beer: The first of your objectives is listed as:
“Identify potential fraud investigations and trends.”
Then skipping to the fourth one:
“Train and develop colleagues on the use of Credence and other analytical tools.”
Would you agree that by 2013, it appears that you played a role, an important role, in helping to identify potential fraud and trends?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: Your role was an analytical one?
Helen Rose: Correct, yes.
Mr Beer: You were amongst other functions helping to identify trends in fraud investigation across the business?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: You were responsible for training others on analytical tools to find fraud and help in the investigation of fraud; is that right?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: Your performance was being tested against those tasks?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: Can you help us as to what Credence was, please?
Helen Rose: I believe it was a software program that you could download Horizon data, but that’s a very vague memory of it.
Mr Beer: By this time, 2013 to 2014, was it the case that the Post Office, in your section of it, relied predominantly on Credence for the purposes of investigation?
Helen Rose: I believe it relied quite heavily on the initial data, yes.
Mr Beer: There’s no reference here or elsewhere in this document to Fujitsu audit data or ARQ data or even enhanced ARQ data. Does that reflect the fact that you would not habitually access such data in order to conduct investigations?
Helen Rose: Not in that role, no.
Mr Beer: Is it also the case that, by this time, investigators didn’t habitually access Fujitsu audit data or ARQ data or enhanced ARQ data in order to conduct their investigations?
Helen Rose: I don’t know what individual investigators would have accessed.
Mr Beer: This fourth bullet point refers to “other analytical tools”. Can you recall what they were?
Helen Rose: No, I can’t. Sorry.
Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at POL00120956. Thank you. You’ll see this is an email from Dave Posnett; do you remember him?
Helen Rose: I do, yes.
Mr Beer: Do you remember what function he performed at this time, mid-2012?
Helen Rose: I know from reading the document that was sent me that – at the time I believe he was a financial investigator but I don’t know from what dates he did that.
Mr Beer: You’ll see that it’s dated 15 June 2012 and it’s sent to a wide range of people.
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: Looking at those, do they appear to be people who worked in the Security team or people who were performing analytical functions, such as you?
Helen Rose: I recognise quite few of the names, yes, I believe they were a part of the Security team.
Mr Beer: So they’re mainly Security team people?
Helen Rose: I would say so, yes.
Mr Beer: You’re amongst them; can you see that?
Helen Rose: I can, yes.
Mr Beer: It’s about case compliance and do you remember the topic of case compliance?
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: Let’s read it together if we scroll down, please:
“All,
“Just a little reminder that the compliance on green jacket/offender files will recommence in July. I associate the emails …”
I think that means “I attach”:
“[I attach] the emails and attachments I sent out a month or two ago for reference.”
If you just control up, please, you’ll see a zip file is an attachment; can you see that?
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: Then carrying on reading:
“The compliance checks on submitted offender interview case files will continue in 2012/2013. Associated are all the supporting documents needed, which have been amended where appropriate. I suggest that these are referred to when you have time and/or when submitting an offender interview case file. Some salient points and changes are summarised as follows, to take effect immediately where applicable.”
Then there’s a list of bullet points in changes in case compliance; do you see that?
Helen Rose: I can, yes.
Mr Beer: So, essentially, in June 2012, the contents – in July 2012, the contents of case files for offenders were going to be checked for compliance. That process was going to recommence and this was giving everyone a heads-up, yes?
Helen Rose: Mm-hm, that’s what it looks like.
Mr Beer: I’m so sorry?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: If we just scroll down:
“This communication has been sent out now to inform you in advance of the changes in compliance and provide you with the information needed on recommencement of the compliance checks.”
You can see Mr Posnett’s title, yes?
Helen Rose: Yeah.
Mr Beer: Now, we saw that there was a zip file attached. That zip file contained various documents, some of which I would now like to look at. Before we do that, do you remember the need to comply with certain standards when submitting an offender file?
Helen Rose: A vague memory of things you had to ensure were in there, but in the role I was doing at that time, I wouldn’t have been completing those files.
Mr Beer: Why would you be sent the email?
Helen Rose: I don’t know. I’m guessing because I may have supported people with any documentation.
Mr Beer: What do you mean by you may have supported people with documentation?
Helen Rose: At the time, my job would have been the analytical side, so if people needed things looking at, I think I probably assisted them, but, to be honest, I can’t remember any specific ones. I would have been a support, I guess.
Mr Beer: I’m sorry, I missed that?
Helen Rose: I would have been a support to them rather than actually providing the green jackets.
Mr Beer: So you wouldn’t have been sending your own green jackets in, you might have been helping other people in the compilation and completion of their own?
Helen Rose: Of any data that they asked for. Not the actual completing of the green jacket, no.
Mr Beer: So presumably it was important that you had sight of the case compliance standards so that you could provide that support function knowing the standards which the investigators themselves had to comply with?
Helen Rose: I would guess that’s why I was copied in, yes.
Mr Beer: So, presumably at the time, I don’t expect you to remember it now, you would have read the email and looked at the attachments?
Helen Rose: Yes. I would have presumed so, yes.
Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at POL00038452. This is one of the attachments within that zip file; do you understand?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: If you look at page 1 that we’re looking at now, “Security Operations Team Compliance, Guide to the Preparation and Layout of Investigation Red Label Case Files”, can you remember what a red label case file was?
Helen Rose: I’m sorry, I can’t remember now, no.
Mr Beer: “Offender reports & Discipline reports”. Then page 2, we can see the purpose of the document, essentially:
“The purpose of the Suspect Offender report is to provide a storyboard of the events and evidence of an investigation to the relevant stakeholders and Post Office Limited Legal & Compliance Team to enable a decision to be made as to the future conduct of a case.
“This guide is produced for all Security Operations Managers, irrespective of location …
“The general principle is that the description of investigation activities should read in the sequence they occurred … The following is only a guide …
“A single report is required in cases where more than one suspect offender is identified …”
Then at the foot of the page, please, just a bit below:
“The aim of this document is to give guidance to Security Operations Managers and Team Leaders on the current compliance …”
Then over the page:
“… standards for the preparation of red label case offender reports and discipline reports.”
Then there is set out, essentially, on page 3 a template or an index for what the case file should look like.
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: Then if we go to page 5, please. We can see a template, essentially, for a case file, and so the preamble suggests that headers and footers should read “Post Office Limited Confidential Investigation, Legal”.
Does that reflect the fact, to your recollection, that offender reports were kept internally and not disclosed to those who were being investigated?
Helen Rose: To be honest, I don’t know the answer to that. I would imagine if that was completed, the person that you were completing it about should know what details. They would have had to provide the details surely.
Mr Beer: What do you mean “they would have had to provide the details”, the person being investigated?
Helen Rose: Well, the date of birth, which office, what their name was, what service, what their National Insurance was. I would think they would have had to have been aware.
Mr Beer: They would be aware that they were being investigated and they could be asked “Hello, what’s your name, what’s your branch code, what’s your National Insurance number”, or whatever. This is saying that the document that’s created as a result, the offender report, is to be headed on each page, the header and footer, “Post Office Limited Confidential Investigation, Legal”?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: Which tends to suggest that it’s confidential, it’s for the eyes of Legal and would not be disclosed to the suspect. Can you recall whether that is correct or not?
Helen Rose: I honestly have – I couldn’t answer that, I’m sorry.
Mr Beer: Okay, well, we’ll see a little bit later in this policy document whether what I’ve said is correct or not.
Helen Rose: Okay.
Mr Beer: You can see on the right-hand side of the page there that one of the things that investigators were required to complete were identification codes, numbers, 1 to 7 only; can you see that?
Helen Rose: I can, yes.
Mr Beer: I won’t ask you about that for the moment but just remember that’s there. Can we go forward to page 10, please, and scroll down, please. I’m so sorry, scroll up to 1.24. Thank you.
Paragraph 1.24 of the policy reads as a heading:
“Details of failures in security, supervision, procedures and product integrity.
“This must be a comprehensive list of all identified failures in security, supervision, procedures and product integrity it must be highlighted bold in the report. Where the Security Manager concludes that there are no failures in security, supervision, procedures and product integrity a statement to this effect should be made and highlighted in bold.”
Do you remember that, that in the offender report any of the four species of failures listed there had to be highlighted in bold in the report?
Helen Rose: I can’t remember that but at this time I wouldn’t have been doing offender reports.
Mr Beer: You would have been seeing offender reports though, wouldn’t you?
Helen Rose: I would probably have been seeing them as they came thorough. I honestly can’t remember. Sorry.
Mr Beer: Would you agree that that kind of description there is broad enough to capture issues discovered, any issues discovered, with the reliability of Horizon data?
Helen Rose: It should do, yes.
Mr Beer: If we go to the bottom of the page, please. We then turn to the discipline report. Can you see there, it says “Header and footer” – so this is what’s to go at the top and bottom of the document – “Post Office Limited Confidential Investigation, Personnel”.
Yes?
Helen Rose: Mm-hm. Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: Can we go, please, to page 12 of the document, please, and look at 2.15 at the foot of the page. A very similar paragraph to the one we’ve just read:
“Details of failures in security, supervision, procedures and product integrity.
“This must be a comprehensive list of all failures in security, supervision, procedures and product integrity it must be highlighted in bold”, et cetera.
So that’s the same as the paragraph we’ve just read, yes?
Helen Rose: Yes, it is, yes.
Mr Beer: Over the page, please:
“Significant failures that may affect the successful likelihood of any criminal action and/or cause significant damage to the business must be confined, solely, to the confidential offender report. Care must be exercised when including failures within the Discipline Report as obviously this is disclosed to the suspect offender and may have ramifications on both the criminal elements of the enquiry, as well as being potentially damaging to the reputation or security of the business. If you are in doubt … discuss with your Team Leader.”
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: Do you remember this difference of approach, that if it has been discovered that there were significant failures that affected the likelihood of criminal proceedings or caused damage to the reputation of the Post Office, they weren’t to be included in a document that was disclosed to the offender but were to be kept in the confidential offender report?
Helen Rose: I don’t recall that, sorry.
Mr Beer: Can you remember anything like that, that any failures that concerned the integrity of, for example, Horizon data or any other failures in process that affected or might affect the reputation of the Post Office business weren’t included in a document that would be disclosed to the suspect, but were included in a confidential legal report?
Helen Rose: I don’t recall that part but, as I say, that probably wouldn’t have been part of my role at that time. I would have probably seen a document like this but I can’t recall completing these reports.
Mr Beer: Can we look, please – that document can come down – at POL00115672. This is another of the attachments to the zip file.
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: This appears to be a template drawn from the policy itself and is essentially in a Word document, either as a first page or a file front page. Do you remember the files – the green jackets being set out in a format such as this?
Helen Rose: I can remember the green jackets used to be set out in a formal but I can’t remember any of the documentation in it.
Mr Beer: You will see this requires the person completing the file to include identification codes, can you see that on the right-hand side?
Helen Rose: I can, yes.
Mr Beer: Can we look at POL00115674. This is another one of the attachments to the case compliance email sent to you –
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: – which contains a list of identification codes?
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: So this document is an attachment to an email being sent around the Security team and you in June 2012. Just read it for yourself, please.
Helen Rose: Okay.
Mr Beer: Does anything strike you about it?
Helen Rose: Not really, no.
Mr Beer: What was the purpose of recording the identification codes of suspects?
Helen Rose: I don’t know. I can’t answer that one.
Mr Beer: Sorry?
Helen Rose: I don’t know why I would have been asked to answer that one.
Mr Beer: Can you recall any discussion as to the purpose of recording the ethnic or racial identity of a suspect?
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: Do you know what was done with the information that was recorded as to the racial or ethnic identity of a suspect?
Helen Rose: No, I don’t, no.
Mr Beer: To your knowledge, was any database kept of any racial or ethnic identity?
Helen Rose: Not that I’m aware of, no.
Mr Beer: Have you any clue as to what was done with the information?
Helen Rose: No, none whatsoever.
Mr Beer: To your knowledge, did anyone say anything at the time about any of the language used in this document?
Helen Rose: No, not that I’m aware of.
Mr Beer: Nothing strikes you about it, even now?
Helen Rose: No, I can’t actually remember the document, but no.
Mr Beer: I think that document can come down, thank you.
I think you left the Post Office in 2016.
Helen Rose: I did.
Mr Beer: Why did you leave?
Helen Rose: Just a career change.
Mr Beer: What have you done since, if you don’t mind me asking?
Helen Rose: Analytical and financial roles?
Mr Beer: Sorry, analytical and financial roles?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: Using computers?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: Can I turn, then, to the claim against Lee Castleton. You were involved as an auditor of Mr Castleton’s Post Office branch in Marine Drive in Bridlington in Yorkshire. You provided two witness statements in the claim brought by the Post Office against him and you gave oral evidence at his trial.
I want to ask you about each of those events, if I may.
Helen Rose: Yeah.
Mr Beer: In a witness statement provided to the Inquiry, Mr Castleton – I’m not going to ask for it to be turned up but it’s WITN03730100 at page 2, paragraph 17 and 18 – Mr Castleton says that he’d made 91 telephone calls over a period to a helpline and, in the course of those, had asked for an audit. Was it common for postmasters themselves to ask for an audit?
Helen Rose: I don’t know, to be honest. As an auditor you would have been given a list of offices to visit. I wouldn’t have dictated which they were.
Mr Beer: Would you know whether this was a random audit, a scheduled audit or one that had been requested by the postmaster himself or herself?
Helen Rose: Ooh, 20 years ago, vague memory, we would have been told if it was random or scheduled but I don’t know whether we would have been given details as to why we went.
Mr Beer: In broad terms, what did you a typical audit process involve at a branch?
Helen Rose: Verifying assets, cash and stock.
Mr Beer: So what would you do when you arrived?
Helen Rose: Oh, vague memory, gosh, it’s 20 years ago, um –
Mr Beer: But you did 1,400 of them?
Helen Rose: I did, yes, but it is a long while ago. You would introduce yourself, you would check the cash against the system, check the stock, check the transactions. I believe if any differences were found the postmaster would be with you at the time of checking it, so they could double check your figures, make sure they agreed with your counting and your asset verification.
Mr Beer: Thank you. Would you consider any data before attending an audit?
Helen Rose: Not that I can recall, no.
Mr Beer: Would you have accessed any call logs –
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: – or any other operational records that may record issues concerning discrepancies or shortfalls or other problems at the branch that you were about to audit?
Helen Rose: Not that I can recall, no.
Mr Beer: So if a postmaster had been complaining for weeks and months beforehand about discrepancies and had been explaining problems with, for example, the operation of the Horizon System, you would be ignorant of that when you walked through the door?
Helen Rose: Until I got there. As far as I can remember, we didn’t do any pre-work for audits.
Mr Beer: So, in this case, does it follow that you weren’t briefed about this branch, nor the contact that had been made by Mr Castleton about the Marine Drive branch before your arrival?
Helen Rose: No, I wouldn’t have thought so.
Mr Beer: Did you speak to Cath Oglesby, Catherine Oglesby, before the start of the audit?
Helen Rose: Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know. Sorry –
Mr Beer: Would you typically speak to the subpostmaster’s line manager, area manager, before the start of the audit to find out – as had been the case here – that there had been extensive contact about discrepancies and shortfalls and the causes of them before you walked through the door?
Helen Rose: From memory, I don’t think so, unless Cath had asked for the audit, and I’d given any information but I can’t recall any.
Mr Beer: By this date – and we’re going to see that this is 23 March 2004 – that you conducted the audit, had you been made aware of any issues that subpostmasters had experienced and had complained of when using Horizon about the integrity of the data that it produced?
Helen Rose: Not I was aware of, no.
Mr Beer: We know that you went on to provide a witness statement in this case, in fact two witness statements in this case. Can you recall how many cases over time you provided witness statements in?
Helen Rose: As an auditor?
Mr Beer: Or as an investigator?
Helen Rose: Oh, no, I couldn’t put a figure on it. I don’t think it would be an awful lot but I couldn’t say.
Mr Beer: It was more than Mr Castleton’s case?
Helen Rose: I would say there was more than the one, yes.
Mr Beer: Were you provided with any advice from Post Office Legal or any other quarter in relation to the making of statements and the giving of evidence in court?
Helen Rose: I can’t recall any.
Mr Beer: Was this the first time that you made witness statements for an action brought against the subpostmaster?
Helen Rose: I can’t answer that. I don’t know. I’m sorry.
Mr Beer: When you came to give evidence in the claim against Mr Castleton, your evidence was based on the typed and handwritten record of the audit conducted on 23 March 2004 and you exhibited this to your first witness statement in the proceedings against Mr Castleton. Let’s just look at the witness statement first. It’s POL00082945, thank you.
We can see that this is your first witness statement. We can see it’s dated 11 January 2006 in the top right-hand corner, yes?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: If we go to the third page, we’ll see that you’ve signed it. It’s, in fact, obscured by the General Restriction Order redaction but your signature’s underneath where it says, “GRO”?
Helen Rose: Uh-huh.
Mr Beer: If we go back to the first page, please, at the foot of the page, you say:
“I make this Witness Statement from facts within my knowledge unless otherwise stated. I have had the benefit of reading through the audit papers. References to page numbers in this Witness Statement are to page numbers of exhibit ‘HR1’ to this Witness Statement.”
Helen Rose: Mm.
Mr Beer: In paragraph 5 you give us the date of the audit, 23 March 2004, and the fact that you attended with your colleague Chris Taylor.
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: You arrived at 8.00 am; can you see that?
Helen Rose: I can, yes.
Mr Beer: Then paragraph 8, please:
“The handwritten notes of the audit are at pages 1 to 47 [that’s of your exhibit HR1] and a typed copy of the audit is at pages 48 to 64. A copy of the conclusion of my report is at page 65.”
Can you see that?
Helen Rose: I can, yes.
Mr Beer: What you’re doing here, is this right, you’re referring to the record of the audit in your witness statement because it’s a contemporaneous or near contemporaneous record of what happened in the audit. It’s like an original note; is that right?
Helen Rose: Yes, that’s what it reads like, yes.
Mr Beer: Because when you were writing your witness statement here in January 2006, two years or just under two years had passed, you’d conduct hundreds of audits in the interim and presumably one blurs into the next?
Helen Rose: 100 per cent, yes.
Mr Beer: So what’s in the audit record is important; correct?
Helen Rose: Correct, yes.
Mr Beer: Can we look at the record of the audit, please. POL00082946. Thank you. This your exhibit HR1, on the first page. Then if we skip over, we can see the handwritten stuff. If we skip to the bottom, please, keep going, and a bit more, we can see a page number in the middle at the bottom, “1”; can you see that?
Helen Rose: I can, yes.
Mr Beer: As you said, pages 1 to 47 are the handwritten bit; 48 to 64 typewritten; and then an audit report at page 65 of this document.
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: So these parts of the audit record are handwritten by you or your colleague Mr Taylor; is that right?
Helen Rose: Correct, yes.
Mr Beer: Can we go to page 17, please. I should have started at page 16. No, 17 is correct. There’s a section of the notes called “Procedural Security Inspection”; can you see that?
Helen Rose: I can, yes.
Mr Beer: This and the following pages of the exhibit refer to a procedural security inspection that is carried out, contains a series of ticks and sometimes some text, and we can see the branch name of Marine Drive, Mr Castleton’s name, the date of the inspection, the manager, Cath Oglesby, and the inspection of C Taylor. Does it follow from that the procedural security inspection was carried out by your colleague, Mr Taylor?
Helen Rose: That looks like it, yes.
Mr Beer: Then if we go to page 18, please, and scroll down to “Cash and Stock”, under “Cash and Stock”, against the question “Is the safe kept locked when not in use with the key removed?”, “Yes” has been ticked; can you see that?
Helen Rose: I can, yes.
Mr Beer: Then can we turn to page 48, please. This is part of the typewritten section of the audit record and it’s for completion by you because you were the lead inspector; is that right?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: We can see the date on which the relevant issue was completed, initials, HH, that’s you – I think that’s your maiden name –
Helen Rose: That was my previous name, yes.
Mr Beer: – and then any remarks that were made. If you just look at “Travellers Cheques serial numbers verified on site”, can you see that, it’s about seven or eight down? Thank you.
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: You’ve said, “Not applicable”. “NA”, yes?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: Is that right?
Helen Rose: I remember the sheet, um –
Mr Beer: Does “NA” mean something else?
Helen Rose: No, no. I – you’re correct, it means “not applicable” but I am presuming he didn’t have travellers’ cheques, looking at that, but I can’t remember.
Mr Beer: Thank you. If we look at page 56, please. At the foot of the page the “Travellers Cheques Reconciliation”; can you see that?
Helen Rose: I can, yes.
Mr Beer: That’s all completely blank. Again, that would, particularly in conjunction with what you’ve written already, appear to suggest that there were no travellers’ cheques in the branch on the day of your audit?
Helen Rose: That’s what it would appear like, yes.
Mr Beer: Thank you. Then can we turn to page 63, please. That’s the entirety of that page displayed, and I just want to look at a couple of the things that are written on this page to see if they’re in keeping with what we’ve already noted. To start with, what is this document?
Helen Rose: I don’t know, it doesn’t look completed, it doesn’t look as though it’s been finished.
Mr Beer: No, just stopping there, when you came to give evidence subsequently, just cutting through things, you said to the High Court that this was incomplete and it was incomplete because Mr Castleton was suspended and, therefore, the procedural security inspection was itself not continued and that may explain why this document is incomplete?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: Can you tell, though, who would have completed this? Would it be you or Mr Taylor, you as the lead or him as the subordinate?
Helen Rose: I honestly can’t remember. I would – it would be completed following all the compliance pages completed but, as you say, if he was suspended at the time then this part wouldn’t have gone any further.
Mr Beer: It doesn’t disclose its author and it’s undated and it’s not addressed to anyone?
Helen Rose: No, I think it was a template that you would that have completed at the end of an audit, where the postmaster wasn’t suspended and you would delete or change or add anything you needed to do.
Mr Beer: Okay. So does it follow from that that the list of things here might not actually be referring to Mr Castleton at all?
Helen Rose: I think it would refer to any branch and you would delete or add where needed.
Mr Beer: Okay, and so the fact that this procedural security inspection was not completed means that this checklist here hasn’t been crossed through or added to?
Helen Rose: Correct.
Mr Beer: So would that explain why it says, for example, “Safe left open”, where we’d seen the tick previously saying that it was locked, yes?
Helen Rose: Yes, that does identify both gaps and I would believe that the ones that didn’t apply would have been removed had the audit gone to the end.
Mr Beer: Okay, and it says, “Travellers cheques not kept in safe” –
Helen Rose: (The witness nodded)
Mr Beer: – even though you’ve concluded, on the basis of two things that you had written, that there weren’t any travellers’ cheques on branch that day?
Helen Rose: No, this was just – I read this as being just a template that could apply to any branch.
Mr Beer: Okay. Can we go over to page 65, please. This is essentially the audit report, as you refer to it in your previous evidence to the High Court, or the conclusion of the audit report, and we can see that it’s written by you it, is that right, at the top there?
Helen Rose: Yes, it looks like it, yes.
Mr Beer: It’s dated 25 March 2004 and it says:
“An audit took place at the Marine Drive Post Office on 25 March 2004.”
That presumably is a mistake because it was 23 March, wasn’t it?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: Yes?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: You led the audit and in attendance was Chris Taylor:
“The audit commenced at 8.00 am and on our arrival the subpostmaster was very pleased to see us. He explained problems he had been having at the office regarding balancing. His problems … started in week 43 with a misbalance of [minus £4,030.97]. He was adamant that no members of staff could be committing theft and felt that the misbalances were due to a computer problem. He had been in contact with the Retail Line Manager Cath Oglesby and the Horizon helpline regularly since the problems began. The following table gives further weeks balance declarations on the cash account.”
Scroll down, please.
“In week 47, £8,243.10 was put into suspense. Although Horizon had been contacted and the Retail Line was aware of this figure, this was not authorised. In week 49, £3,509.68 was added to make the amount carried in the suspense account £11,752.78. This was also not authorised.
“On the completion of the audit the Retail Line Manager Cath Oglesby was contacted, along with the investigation team and the Audit Line Manager. The subpostmaster was suspended pending enquiries and an interim postmaster was put in charge at the office.”
So just picking out a few features of that, Mr Castleton was very pleased to see you, yes?
Helen Rose: That’s what I put, yes.
Mr Beer: Presumably that would be accurate if you wrote it?
Helen Rose: I presume so, yes.
Mr Beer: He clearly identified to you that he’d been having a problem with balancing?
Helen Rose: Yes, clearly, yes.
Mr Beer: He suggested to you that misbalances were due to a computer problem, yes?
Helen Rose: Yes, that’s what it said, yes.
Mr Beer: He told you that he’d been contact with the help line since right from the beginning and that had been in contact with his Retail Line Manager, Cath Oglesby?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: Am I right to think that there is no investigation of what he is saying before he is suspended and an interim postmaster is brought in to run his Post Office. Instead, he’s just suspended on the spot there and then?
Helen Rose: I – as an auditor, you would pass that over to the Retail Line Manager to make that decision.
Mr Beer: But it all happened quite quickly on the day, did it?
Helen Rose: I believe it did, yes.
Mr Beer: Is that typical of how things worked at this time? It didn’t matter if the subpostmaster had asked for the audit it didn’t matter if the subpostmaster had been making complaints for weeks and months to the helpline or to his manager of a computer problem; if there was a shortfall that was not authorised, he was suspended?
Helen Rose: That would have been the decision of the Retail Line Manager.
Mr Beer: No matter whose decision it was, that is what would have happened, is that right, they were just suspended?
Helen Rose: I don’t know whether that happened on every occasion, I guess it would depend on each case.
Mr Beer: Well, were you ever in, amongst the 1,400 audits that you conducted, a situation where a postmaster was saying, “It’s not me, it’s the computer system”, and the Line Manager says, “Well, hold on, this us a postmaster – I don’t know – that has been working for us honestly for 20 years. We need to credit what he or she is saying. We need to conduct an investigation into whether what he says or she says is correct. Let’s investigate whether or not what he or she says is accurate”, and they weren’t suspended, they were allowed to carry on working?
Helen Rose: I don’t recall any. I wouldn’t have thought a Retail Line Manager would discuss that with an auditor. I think an auditor just verified the things – you know, the cash and the stock are discrepancies and passed it over. So you wouldn’t particularly have been involved in that side.
Mr Beer: Did you ever hear, because you were standing there in branch, it coming back from the Line Manager, “Let’s not suspend them, let’s investigate the merits of what they say”?
Helen Rose: No, I can’t recall any.
Mr Beer: Thank you very much. I wonder whether we could take the morning break and perhaps 20 minutes, sir.
Sir Wyn Williams: By all means, Mr Beer. So that would bring us back at what time, please, by your –
Mr Beer: 10.40.
Sir Wyn Williams: 10.40. All right. We’ll break now for 20 minutes and come back at 10.40.
Mr Beer: Thank you very much, sir.
The Witness: Thank you.
(10.20 am)
(A short break)
(10.40 am)
Mr Beer: Good morning, sir, and Mrs Rose, can you both see and hear me?
Sir Wyn Williams: I can.
The Witness: Yes.
Mr Beer: Thank you very much, Mrs Rose. We just looked at the record of the audit conducted by you and your colleague Mr Taylor on 23 March 2004. I want to turn to consider the witness statements that you filed in the civil proceedings bought against Mr Castleton, what was included in them and what changed between the two witness statements. Can we go back to your first witness statement, please, POL00082945?
So you remember this is your first witness statement, dated 11 January 2006. We’ve been through the bits of it which say, “I rely on the audit record”, yes?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: We left off on page 2 at paragraph 8, where you refer us to the handwritten and typewritten sections of the audit report and the conclusion of the audit report, all of which we’ve looked at, and then at paragraph 9 you say:
“As part of an audit, we have to complete a procedural security inspection. This was carried out by my colleague Chris Taylor. A typed copy of the procedural and security inspection is at page 63 [remember, we looked at that before the break]. The inspection revealed that the safe was left open, the safe keys were left in the safe door and that it was not secured, that cash and stock were not secured during lunchtime if the subpostmaster was not on the premises, that Travellers Cheques were not kept in the safe and Foreign Currency was not held securely, that standard procedures for adjusting losses and gains were not adhered to (because the losses were unauthorised) and personal cheques on hand had been incorrectly treated.”
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: Those are the standard things on the checklist, aren’t they?
Helen Rose: They are, yes.
Mr Beer: Which didn’t necessarily apply to Mr Castleton, did they?
Helen Rose: On reading that, I would have said not. I can’t remember writing this, so …
Mr Beer: That’s what I want to ask about.
Helen Rose: Yeah.
Mr Beer: Given that you told us already that page 63 is a template and hadn’t been –
Helen Rose: From memory, yes, yes it was.
Mr Beer: – ticked or crossed or deleted or added to, why is it, in a witness statement to the court, you’re telling the court that all of those failures applied in the case of this audit?
Helen Rose: That’s what it looks like, yes.
Mr Beer: I’m sorry?
Helen Rose: I said that’s what it looks like, but I –
Mr Beer: I’m asking why.
Helen Rose: Why it’s in there?
Mr Beer: Yes.
Helen Rose: I can’t remember.
Mr Beer: Well, it’s not accurate, is it, according to what you’ve told us already?
Helen Rose: It doesn’t look to be, does it? No.
Mr Beer: So why is inaccurate evidence being given to the High Court?
Helen Rose: I can’t recall. I don’t know.
Mr Beer: You’re telling the court in this paragraph here, aren’t you, “This man, Mr Castleton, was sloppy and slapdash. There are things that we saw when we audited him that could well explain the missing money”. that’s what this paragraph is for, isn’t it?
Helen Rose: That’s what it kind of indicates, yes, but, as I say, I don’t know why that wasn’t picked up at the time of the hearing.
Mr Beer: Well, we’re going to see in a moment that you did something about it –
Helen Rose: Oh, right, okay.
Mr Beer: – between the first and second witness statement. But what I’m asking at the moment is can you recall how it is that this information was included in your first witness statement when it’s not accurate?
Helen Rose: I can’t recall that.
Mr Beer: Can we turn, please, to POL00081700_208, thank you. This is a record of an email exchange between you and Stephen Dilley, who is the Post Office’s solicitor, on 15 September, or 14 and 15 September 2006. So it’s about eight months after the first witness statement was filed, okay?
Helen Rose: Right.
Mr Beer: If we go to the foot of the page, please, can you see there’s an email, it’s slightly hard to read, but it’s from Stephen Dilley, to you and some other people?
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: It’s dated 14 September 2006, and the subject is “Second witness statement of Helen Rose: Post Office v Castleton”?
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: Mr Dilley says:
“I refer to our recent email exchange and attach a second witness statement for your approval, together with just those exhibits that you may not have seen previously.
“Please can you read the statement very carefully and make sure you are 100% happy with it, especially paragraph 12. Please could you also answer my question in bold italics in paragraph 12.
“Once I hear back from you, I’ll draw up a final version and send it back to you for signature.”
Then back to page 1, please. You say:
“Stephen,
“I have read the statement …”
Then if we go forwards to the fourth paragraph, you say:
“The security inspection was started but from what I can remember not completed. The reason for this being that normal audits would require many compliance tests completing, including the security compliance. However when a postmaster is suspended for whatever reason then compliance tests are not completed. This would have been started as a matter of routine until we were notified that Mr Castleton was to be suspended.”
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: Yes? So you’re telling him there that the stuff that’s in the witness statement about security inspection, it was a security inspection that was started but not completed, okay?
Helen Rose: Yeah.
Mr Beer: Then we follow that up with a call a couple of weeks later, can we look at POL00069514. This is a typewritten telephone attendance note, completed, I think, by Mr Dilley and you’ll see it’s dated 3 October 2006. He records:
“I had a telephone conversation with Helen Rose (her call) coming back to me on a voicemail I had left with her. She had read the latest version of the statement and thought that it was better in terms of the balanced snapshots.
“However she wanted to make a further change to paragraph 8. She said as soon as the subpostmaster was suspended, the compliance test then became irrelevant. Had it been a normal audit, ie had Castleton been carrying on, the test would have been complete and the postmaster would have been told to get his act together, but she wanted to emphasise that the compliance test failure weren’t themselves the reason he was dismissed. He was dismissed because of the loss of stock.”
Okay?
Helen Rose: (Unclear)
Mr Beer: That is building on what you had said in the email exchange essentially, yes?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: Then lastly can we look at POL00071196. You’ll see this is your second witness statement.
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: It’s dated 4 October 2006, so the day after that telephone call. If we look, please, at the second page, at paragraph 8, we can see that paragraph 7 was not dissimilar to your first witness statement about exhibiting the audit report, essentially, and then replacing the list of failures in the security audit, the check box on page 63, is a new paragraph 8:
“As part of a normal audit, we have to complete a procedural security inspection. This was initiated by my colleague Chris Taylor. When a postmaster is suspended then any remaining compliance tests are not completed, because of the large number of compliance tests … that have to be complete for each audit. Accordingly, although the procedural security inspection was started as a matter of routine, I do not recall it being completed because Mr Castleton was suspended prior to its completion and it then became irrelevant.”
Yes?
Helen Rose: Mm-hm, yeah.
Mr Beer: So it follows, does it, that everything that had been said in the first witness statement, in that paragraph 9, about failures in security that was, in fact, just a recitation of a standard list, is completely irrelevant to the case of Mr Lee Castleton –
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: – and wasn’t relevant to the reasons why he was suspended and wasn’t relevant in deciding whether or not there was a missing sum of money that was attributable to his conduct?
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: Can I look, please, at some other evidence that you gave or other aspects of it?
Sir Wyn Williams: Before you do that, Mr Beer, it may be that I’m being slow, but what about paragraph 9 in this statement?
Mr Beer: Yes, can you help us with that? Despite what you’ve said – and you’re not being slow – 9 remains. You’ll need to read over the page, too.
Helen Rose: I don’t have an explanation as to why that wasn’t taken out.
Sir Wyn Williams: Well, Mrs Rose, I am slightly concerned because your evidence to me is, in effect, that paragraph 9 in this statement and the previous version in the second statement should, in effect, never have been in those witness statements because they’re wrong?
Helen Rose: Mm.
Sir Wyn Williams: Given that you were the person who signed them, I would like you to try to remember why it is they are there?
Helen Rose: I have no recollection of it. I’m sorry.
Sir Wyn Williams: All right.
Mr Beer: Can we look at some other things that happened between the audit report and the evidence that you gave to the court, and I’d like to try to display two documents side by side, if I can. The first is POL00082946, at page 65. The second is POL00071196 at page 2. So 65 of the first document and 2 of the second. So on the left-hand side we’ve got your concluding report to Cath Oglesby, yes?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: On the right-hand side, we’ve got the second page of your final witness statement?
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: You can see that in paragraph 4 you say:
“On 23 March, I attended the branch [and you give the address] together with my colleague Chris Taylor. We arrived at approximately 8.00 am. [No] previous involvement …”
Yes?
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: You say:
“The process of carrying out the audit involves physically counting the cash and stock”, et cetera.
Yes?
Helen Rose: Correct.
Mr Beer: “Mr Castleton explained he had been having problems balancing the books …”
You see in the left-hand side document, four lines in, you say in that:
“He explained problems he had been having at the office regarding balancing. His problems with balancing started in week 43 with a misbalance of [minus] 4230.97.”
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: Can you see that you say that in paragraph 6, on the right-hand side?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: Then you continue on the left-hand side:
“He was adamant that no members of staff could be committing theft and felt the misbalances were due to a computer problem.”
Helen Rose: Uh-huh.
Mr Beer: Then on the right-hand side, second sentence of paragraph 6:
“Mr Castleton was adamant that the misbalances were due to a computer problem and that no members of his staff could be committing theft.”
Yes?
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: Does it follow that you were largely using the audit report as your basis for writing your witness statement?
Helen Rose: I would think I probably did, yes.
Mr Beer: You see, in your contemporaneous record, you say:
“… on our arrival the subpostmaster was very pleased to see us.”
Can you see that?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: Can you understand the potential relevance of that information?
Helen Rose: Sorry, what do you mean by that?
Mr Beer: Can you understand the potential relevance of you recording that the subpostmaster was very pleased to see the auditors?
Helen Rose: I probably was just stating the fact at the time that he just seemed pleased to see us.
Mr Beer: Why would you include it in your original note?
Helen Rose: Oh, I don’t know, just making notes at the time of what occurred.
Mr Beer: You don’t make a note of everything that occurred, do you?
Helen Rose: I wouldn’t have thought so, but –
Mr Beer: So why did you make a note of this?
Helen Rose: I obviously felt at the time the need to do that, back in 2004. I can’t say why I did it. I obviously thought that it was relevant at the time.
Mr Beer: You’ll see that it’s not in your witness statement, is it?
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: Why is that?
Helen Rose: (Unclear) later. I don’t know, I can’t answer that one.
Mr Beer: Do you know why it was omitted from your witness statement –
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: – given that the witness statement was seemingly based on what is said in the original note?
Helen Rose: No, I’ve no explanation for that, why it would be – I guess the report was more to Cath, whereas the witness statement was just a witness statement. So, no, I don’t know why it wouldn’t be in both.
Mr Beer: Let’s look at some other issues, then. You see in the contemporaneous note, after the bit that’s highlighted, it says:
“He had been in contact with the Retail Line Manager Cath Oglesby and the Horizon helpline regularly since the problems began.”
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: That’s not in your witness statement, is it?
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: You understand the potential relevance of that information, don’t you?
Helen Rose: But that would be him saying he’d done that, rather than me being a witness to him doing that.
Mr Beer: Why did you record that he had said it in your original note?
Helen Rose: Why?
Mr Beer: Yeah.
Helen Rose: I guess we just noted down things that happened, so, um, I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Why was it omitted from your witness statement, again, when the witness statement was seemingly based on what was said in the original note?
Helen Rose: I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Do you think these two pieces of information might assist Mr Castleton: he was very pleased or he was pleased to see the auditors and he told you “I’ve been in contact with the Retail Line Manager, Cath Oglesby, and the Horizon helpline regularly since these problems began”?
Helen Rose: I don’t know. I can’t answer for what I did back in 2004 but I can only presume that the audit report would have been part of the evidence and so it wasn’t duplicated.
Mr Beer: If that’s the case, there’s no point in making a witness statement, is there? You would say, “Please see my audit report, I’ve nothing more to say”.
Helen Rose: I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Can you see in the audit report on the left-hand side, there’s no reference to Mr Castleton coming back from lunch smelling of alcohol or having consumed alcohol, is there?
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: If we look on the right-hand side, if we go forward a page to page 3 please, you say:
“I do remember [paragraph 10] that Mr Castleton left the branch at lunchtime and returned in the afternoon smelling strongly of alcohol.”
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: So there’s no reference in the contemporaneous note of nearly two years previously to that issue and that’s found its way into the witness statement. How has that come about?
Helen Rose: I don’t know. It must have been a comment I felt necessary to mention but I can’t remember it.
Mr Beer: Wouldn’t that be a relevant matter to record at the time, rather than years later?
Helen Rose: Potentially, that’s – I think the audit report was just a report of what happened on the day of the audit. I don’t know why that wasn’t in or came later.
Mr Beer: So why is it that these two bits of information that might help Mr Castleton have been excluded from the witness statement but the paragraph 9 has been left in and paragraph 10 has been added?
Helen Rose: I honestly don’t know why other things have not been included at the time.
Mr Beer: Can we turn to what you said about this when you gave evidence at the trial, POL00070183. Thank you. This is a transcript of the evidence that you gave to His Honour Judge Havery QC on 11 December 2006.
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: If we can scroll down, please, we can see that Mr Morgan appeared on behalf of the Post Office and Mr Castleton appeared in person. If we can just go to page 11 of the transcript, please, at the top of the page you’re being asked by Mr Castleton some questions not dissimilar to the ones I’m asking, and you say:
“I was asked if there was anything specific I can remember, and [then some inaudible words], I could remember that I smelt alcohol on you.”
He says:
“No. I appreciate that so that is, in your opinion [inaudible words].”
Answer by you:
“It’s just a vague memory I had of the office.
“Question: Right, okay.
“Answer: It’s [presumably one and a half years ago, two-and-a-half years ago]. Yes.
“Question: And how, [a question].
“Answer: A lot.
“Question: Could we now go back to page 475. Can you tell me what [that] is, please?
“Answer: That’s the first page of the audit report.”
That’s the document that I’ve been showing you at page 65:
“Question: … No mention of alcohol on there?
“Answer: Because it wouldn’t be relevant.
“Question: But it is contracted [inaudible words].
“Answer: (Several inaudible words).”
Then the judge intervenes:
“Again, As it is an issue in the case, but you are putting to the witness that you did not smell of alcohol?
“Mr Castleton: I strongly did not, my Lord.”
You said:
“… I can only apologise. I can only go by what my memory was.”
He says:
“I appreciate that. But [inaudible words] just clarifying between what the audit report … and what your statement says.”
You said:
“I wouldn’t put it in the audit report because [something] had any relevance to whether or not the money was there … or whether the audit was, the office was short or [presumably ‘not’].”
Given the fact that you say there that it wasn’t in the audit report because it wouldn’t have any relevance to whether the money was there or not or whether the office was short or not, why was it included in the witness statement?
Helen Rose: I don’t know. Looking back on it, maybe it shouldn’t have been.
Mr Beer: Can we go, please, to POL00071231. This is a copy of one of the drafts of your second witness statement – sorry, your first witness statement. If we just scroll through it, please. You’ll see that – and it’s Mr Dilley who sent it to you – has included in square brackets after paragraphs some questions to you in bold and in italics, yes?
Helen Rose: Mm-hm, yeah.
Mr Beer: If we just go to the third page, please. We see that paragraph, paragraph 10, where you had written, it was in the first draft too:
“I do remember that Mr Castleton left the branch at lunchtime and returned in the afternoon smelling strongly of alcohol.”
He, the solicitor, asked you “Was he drunk?”
Yes?
Helen Rose: I can see that’s what he’s asked, yes.
Mr Beer: In the final version you don’t add to that, you don’t say that he was drunk or he wasn’t drunk, yes? We’ve seen the final version?
Helen Rose: Yeah.
Mr Beer: Standing back – that can come down now, please.
Standing back, looking at the two passages that were not included in the witness statement but were in the audit report, about Mr Castleton saying he was pleased to see you and that he’d reported matters to the Retail Line Manager and the helpline, and the inclusion of the paragraph 9 information, about failures in security measure sand the addition of “Mr Castleton smelt strongly of alcohol”, did you ever feel that you were being encouraged by your employer to include matters that were helpful to it, the employer, and exclude matters that were helpful or potentially helpful to Mr Castleton?
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: In those circumstances, how has the witness statement ended up as it is, with those two things that were in the audit report not in the witness statement, and the addition of the alcohol and the failures in security audit?
Helen Rose: Sorry, what do you mean by that?
Mr Beer: How, standing back, has this happened?
Helen Rose: I don’t know, I clearly did the witness statement to – some two years after the audit report and picked out the bits that I believed needed to go in it at the time.
Mr Beer: Why wouldn’t you just say, for example, it’s only a sentence “Mr Castleton was pleased to see us”?
Helen Rose: I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Okay, I’ll move on to a different topic, please.
Can you remember performing the role of disclosure officer?
Helen Rose: No, I can’t remember that being a role that I had.
Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at FUJ00155090. At the foot of the page, it’s not an email exchange that you are included in – if we just scroll up a little bit, sorry. It’s an email from Jarnail Singh, a Post Office solicitor, to Gareth Jenkins and some others of 1 October 2012.
Mr Singh says to Mr Jenkins:
“Welcome from your annual leave and your assistance advice in the past prosecution cases and I understand you are assisting my colleagues at present. I need your urgent [I think that’s supposed to say ‘assistance’]. Judge has this morning ordered the prosecution to have the following report ready to be served within seven days.
“On [I think that’s ‘advice’] Post Office Limited have appointed one of their investigators, Helen Rose, as disclosure officer dealing with Horizon challenges. She has prepared a document/spreadsheet detailing all such cases, past and present, approximately 20 in total, although none thus far successfully argued in court. Post Office have been advised to obtain an experts report from Fujitsu UK, the Horizon System developers, confirming the system is robust. Post Office maintain the system is robust, but in the light of adverse publicity, from legal viewpoint is that defence should be given opportunity to test the system, should they still wish to do so, on consideration of our report.”
You see that it says that the Post Office has appointed one of its investigators, you, as its disclosure officer dealing with Horizon challenges.
Helen Rose: Yes –
Mr Beer: Were you appointed as the disclosure officer?
Helen Rose: I’ve seen that report in the documentation that’s been sent to me but I don’t recall being appointed as a disclosure officer but, clearly, that’s what they called it.
Mr Beer: Did you ever receive any training in the role of a disclosure officer in a criminal investigation or prosecution?
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: At this time, you were seemingly aware of a number of cases where there had been challenges to the integrity of Horizon data. Was this the first time you were aware of Fujitsu being contacted to provide an expert report confirming that the system was robust?
Helen Rose: I can’t answer that. I don’t think I was in that email, was I?
Mr Beer: No.
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: But you, according to this, had prepared a document or spreadsheet detailing cases. Can you remember having been asked to do that?
Helen Rose: I’ve seen that report in the documents. I can’t actually remember producing it but I have actually seen a document in the evidence pack.
Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at FUJ00156648. This is a summary of information seemingly reviewed by you. It appears to be one iteration of the document summary circulated to Mr Jenkins in advance of a report that he wrote.
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: If we look at page 5, please, and scroll down – and a bit more, please – we can see that it’s authored by you, a member of the Post Office Security Team, on 30 August 2012?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: Is that how you would that have regarded yourself as at August 2012. Although you were performing analytical roles, you were part of the Security team?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: If we go back to the first page, please. You say, in “Overview”:
“Over the years some post offices under investigation for losses have claimed that the Horizon System is at fault. As the Post Office is dependent on the reliability of our system to be able to prosecute offenders; we have to be able to defend our system in the courts.”
Is that a reasonably accurate representation of your belief at the time?
Helen Rose: At the time, yes.
Mr Beer: What research did you undertake in order to compile this list of, in this instance, five cases?
Helen Rose: I actually don’t remember writing this report, but looking at it and reading it, I would summarise that I pulled reports up, audit reports or even investigation reports.
Mr Beer: Was that done in any systematic way?
Helen Rose: I couldn’t answer that.
Mr Beer: What was the purpose of writing the report?
Helen Rose: I presume somebody must have asked me to pull some things together. I honestly can’t remember. As I say, I can’t actually remember writing this report. Although my name is on it, I can’t remember writing it.
Mr Beer: You would want to know the purpose of the report and what was going to be done with it before writing it, presumably?
Helen Rose: I must have understood why it was wanted at the time, yes.
Mr Beer: Would you have understood that it was meant to be a complete and comprehensive list of challenges to the integrity of Horizon data?
Helen Rose: I couldn’t comment on that, without seeing what the request was before the report was written.
Mr Beer: At the time of writing this report, which is August 2012, were you were of any of the following bugs, errors or defects, that they had been attributed names that broadly described the problems, something called the receipts and payments mismatch bug?
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: The Callendar Square or Falkirk bug?
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: The suspense account bug?
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: The Dalmellington or branch outreach bug?
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: The remming in bug?
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: The remming out bug?
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: The local suspense account bug?
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: The reversals bug?
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: The data tree build bug?
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: The Girobank discrepancies bug?
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: So what did you do? Did you just search through some old case files and look for cases where Horizon had been called into question?
Helen Rose: I potentially did. As I say, I don’t remember writing this but that looks like what I’ve done.
Mr Beer: Just look at the brief summaries of some recent challenges, Yetminster, “Brief overview”:
“This case came … from a tip-off made by a holiday relief postmistress. It was established that Miss Tracey Merritt also operated the outreach Post Office at Chetnole. Both these offices were audited on Thursday 29 September 2011. At audit Yetminster was reported to be [£8,000-odd] short and Chetnole Outreach [£3,000-odd] short, giving a total overall shortage of [nearly £12,000].
“During interview, Miss Merritt produced a large document regarding an ongoing enquiry by Shoosmiths solicitors in respect of the Justice for SubPostmasters Alliance stating that she believed that the Post Office Horizon equipment was the actual cause of this loss.
“At the start of the interview, Miss Merritt blamed the Horizon System and stated she had problems with transferring cash from Yetminster to Chetnole outreach. Halfway through the first tape Miss Merritt states ‘because there are issues with your computers and I know the Post Office are not going to admit it but there is’.
“6 minutes into the second tape Miss Merritt says ‘I’m not trying to blame the Horizon System, I am saying that my office kept coming up with losses’. Towards the end of the second tape transcript Miss Merritt admitted that the losses had been accumulating since the end of July 2011 and she had not been putting money in for these losses, simply rolling the losses and inflating the cash.
“Mr Gary Thomas, lead Officer in this case commented at the end of his report that it should be noted that this case is likely to be a further challenge toward the integrity of [Horizon].”
Then “Outcome”, scrolling down:
“Recoveries …
“3 charges of False Accounting … Letter sent to Miss Merritt …”
Then there appears to be a cut and paste of the letter to her, can you see that in the last bullet point?
Then, over the page:
“Post Office Limited remains entirely satisfied as to the evidential strength of its case against you …”
Then at the end of the letter:
“Any such allegations will be robustly defended. Post Office continues to have absolute confidence in the text of the Horizon computer system and its branch accounting processes.”
Did you take any steps to satisfy yourself as to the accuracy of what was being set out here, ie yourself –
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: – to investigate or cause to be investigated whether the Horizon System and its branch accounting processes had integrity?
Helen Rose: No, I think this report looks like I’ve taken summaries from case files, so these would have been what had been documented in the case files.
Mr Beer: So in respect of all of the five branches there, all you’re doing is really transferring from a case file what is said there into a shorter document?
Helen Rose: For summary. That’s what it looks like, yes.
Mr Beer: Okay, in which case, I won’t ask you about the other four, save for the last one, Seema Misra, which is on page 4, please. “West Byfleet”:
“An audit took place on 14 January … which revealed a shortage of [£74,000].
“[Mrs Misra] informed the auditors that the account would be short by between £50,000 and £60,000. She completed a handwritten signed statement to the auditors blaming previous staff for the shortage.
“Summary.
“Mrs Misra admitted during the interview that she knew the office accounts would be short.
“[She] continued to blame old staff …
“Mrs Misra said the office had been running short of cash for about a year and she had been trying to reduce the loss by putting in money from her own shop business.
“At no point during the audit or interview was any Horizon integrity issue raised …
“Comment from legal [memorandum] from 25 March 2009: The Defence have also asked the question which I set out here verbatim: ‘When was it that the Post Office first became aware that there were irregularities with regard to the accounts? Was it when the final audit had been carried out or had there been concerns at an earlier stage?’
“This was the first time that the integrity of the Horizon System was mentioned.
“In May 2009, Mrs Misra’s defence team offered a plea to false accounting but not to theft.
“… Post Office prosecution team did not accept the reduced please.
“An expert witness was put forward by the defence to challenge the integrity of the Horizon System.”
Then “Outcome”, at the bottom of the page:
“After a lengthy trial at Guildford Crown Court … the jury came to a verdict … when they found the Defendant guilty of theft. The case turned from a relatively straightforward general deficiency case to an unprecedented attack on the Horizon System.”
Is that your language or are you cutting and pasting that from somewhere else?
Helen Rose: No, I would say that was cut and paste from the case file.
Mr Beer: “We were beset with [an unparallelled] degree of disclosure requests by the Defence. Through the hard work of everyone, Counsel Warwick Tatford, Investigation Officer Jon Longman and through the considerable expertise of Gareth Jenkins of Fujitsu we were able to refute all suggestions made by the Defence that the Horizon System was faulty.”
Again, is that cut and pasted or is that your judgement?
Helen Rose: I’d say that’s cut and pasted.
Mr Beer: “It is to be hoped the case will set a marker to dissuade other Defendants from jumping on the Horizon bashing bandwagon.”
Again, is that cut and pasted?
Helen Rose: I would say so, yes.
Mr Beer: “Mrs Misra was wound guilty of theft and sentenced to 15 months imprisonment.
“[And] also found guilty of false accounting and sentenced to 6 months imprisonment [concurrently].”
Then your conclusions. Presumably, this is your writing, rather than being cut and pasted?
Helen Rose: Like I say, I can’t remember writing this report but it does look as though – that I did.
Mr Beer: “Although there have been attempts to discredit the Horizon System via the courts, to date the Post Office have been able to defend the integrity of the Horizon System at all levels.”
Is that how you viewed this? Attempts to discredit the Horizon System in the courts, rather than people accused of crime defending themselves?
Helen Rose: I can only read what was put there. At the time –
Mr Beer: We can all read what’s put there?
Helen Rose: Absolutely.
Mr Beer: But I’m asking you, is that how you viewed it –
Helen Rose: At the time.
Mr Beer: – this wasn’t people trying to defend themselves, these were attempts to discredit Horizon?
Helen Rose: At the time, I was not aware of any Horizon Issues, and the bugs that you’ve mentioned, I was obviously not aware of them.
Mr Beer: “When questioning the integrity of the Horizon System the defence solicitors are making similar disclosure requests, indicating that disclosure requests in future challenges will be similar to those made in past Horizon integrity challenges.
“Depending on where the loss was identified this can sway the disclosure requests slightly into requiring further details and operating procedures around specific transactions including background processes, ie the processing of cheques once they have left the office and electronic funds transfer records.
“There have also been requests for information on training materials and training records, including call logs to NBSC. In the Misra case the defence questioned a lot of technical aspects of the data held at Fujitsu, these challenges were refuted by Gareth Jenkins.”
Then “Future actions”, were these your ideas here?
Helen Rose: I can’t answer, I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Well, it looks like –
Helen Rose: Whether –
Mr Beer: – it, doesn’t it?
Helen Rose: If looks like it but I don’t know whether that was in liaison with anybody else or just purely my comments.
Mr Beer: The first part of the process had already been put in place:
“… where there is any possible challenge [to Horizon, this] will be … reported in the 48-hour offender report.”
Was the purpose of this to alert the Post Office to, as you call them, attacks on Horizon’s integrity?
Helen Rose: No, I would have – I read that as it is trying to understand if there is any further questions on it.
Mr Beer: What was the process, then?
Helen Rose: Ooh, I can’t remember. I can’t remember what the process was back then.
Mr Beer: Your report continues:
“All operational personnel have been asked to report directly to me when at any point throughout the interviews/court process that the integrity of the Horizon System has been mentioned.
“This will be continually monitored/updated to ensure that we are aware of any Horizon integrity challenges at the earliest opportunity and are prepared for any future challenges at all stages of the investigation and prosecution process.”
In taking on this is role, other than looking at some past case files, did you take yourself any steps to satisfy yourself as to the integrity of the Horizon data?
Helen Rose: No, other than gathering information.
Mr Beer: Were you asked to commission any expert or independent review of Horizon integrity?
Helen Rose: Not that I can recall, no.
Mr Beer: Did you speak to any IT experts, whether within or outside the Post Office?
Helen Rose: Not that I can recall, no.
Mr Beer: Did you ask what Fujitsu knew about any bugs, errors or defects in Horizon?
Helen Rose: No, not that I can recall at this time.
Mr Beer: Did you ask what work had previously been done to test the integrity of the system?
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: Were you asked by the Post Office to take any steps to better understand any weaknesses in the system and consider –
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: – what ought to be disclosed in response to any defence disclosure request in your role as disclosure officer?
Helen Rose: Not that I can recall, no.
Mr Beer: Instead, were you willing to accept the stock line that Horizon was robust?
Helen Rose: At the time of writing this, yes.
Mr Beer: Can I turn to a report that you authored in June 2013. That document can come down, please – relating to transaction logs at the Lepton sub post office. Can we start by looking at FUJ00086811. Thank you.
You’ve been shown a copy of this report when you were making your witness statement earlier in the year, yes?
Helen Rose: I vaguely remember this report, yes.
Mr Beer: Yes. You’ll see that it’s said to be version 1 of the report –
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: – last edited by you on 12 June 2013. If we go to page 3, please, and look at the foot of the page, just a bit further down, please. We can see that it was authored by you on 12 June 2013.
Helen Rose: Yeah.
Mr Beer: You were still within the Security team but you were described as a Fraud Analyst by then?
Helen Rose: Yeah.
Mr Beer: This report explains a problem at the Lepton Branch that was an issue that was quoted again and again over the next decade or so, essentially, and I want to ask you about how you came to be commissioned to write this report. Something about the content of it and the consequences of you writing it. But just going back to that first page, please, we’ll see that it’s said to be “Draft”.
Helen Rose: Mm.
Mr Beer: Do you know whether it remained a draft?
Helen Rose: I don’t. I don’t know.
Mr Beer: If it wasn’t finalised, can you think of a reason for that?
Helen Rose: I can’t, no, no.
Mr Beer: You’ll see that it’s said to be “Confidential and legally privileged” at the top of that page and, indeed, all other pages. Did you include that, “Confidential and legally privileged”?
Helen Rose: I would have probably been advised to put that on but I couldn’t tell you who asked me to put it on.
Mr Beer: Do you know in what circumstances the legal privilege that you’re referring to there arose?
Helen Rose: I don’t, no.
Mr Beer: What type of person, performing what function, would have advised you to include the words “Confidential and legally privileged”?
Helen Rose: I have no recollection of who would have advised me to put that on.
Mr Beer: If we go over the page, please, to page 1. Looking at the “Executive Summary”:
“A transaction took place at Lepton [sub post office with the FAD code 19320] on 4 October at 10.42 am for a British Telecom bill payment for £76.09; this was paid for by a Lloyds TSB cash withdrawal for £80 and change given for £3.91.”
So two transactions there; is that right?
Helen Rose: That’s what it looks like, yes, yeah.
Mr Beer: A customer needing to pay their BT bill for £76-odd, taking £80 out of a cash account with Lloyds and being given change of £3.91, yes?
Helen Rose: Yeah.
Mr Beer: Then:
“At 10.37 on the same day the British Telecom bill payment was reversed out to cash settlement.”
Can you explain what “reversed out to cash settlement” means?
Helen Rose: From memory, it – the transaction would have been reversed out of the system.
Mr Beer: Yes, what does that mean?
Helen Rose: Taken back out of the system, cancelled, I guess, if that’s the right word to call it.
Mr Beer: So the BT element of the two transactions was reversed out, meaning – is this right – that the system showed that there was a reversal so that –
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: – the BT bill was not paid –
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: – and in fact £76.09p was withdrawn from the system –
Helen Rose: Yeah.
Mr Beer: – and paid out as cash?
Helen Rose: Yeah.
Mr Beer: So you’ve got an unpaid BT bill?
Helen Rose: (Unclear), yeah.
Mr Beer: Exactly:
“The branch was issued with a Transaction Correction for £76.09, which they duly settled; however the postmaster denied reversing this transaction and involved a Forensic Accountant as he believed his reputation was in doubt.”
Helen Rose: Mm.
Mr Beer: So, in short, this subpostmaster is saying “Although I paid the shortfall of £76.09, I am adamant that I didn’t make the reversal, I didn’t get the money back out”.
Helen Rose: Yeah.
Mr Beer: Is it right that the overall conclusion was that, although a reversal could appear in the Credence data as though it had been done by the subpostmaster, in fact it was the system and not the subpostmaster that had created the reversal?
Helen Rose: That’s what it turned out to be on this case, yes.
Mr Beer: Thank you. That gives the context for the issue.
Helen Rose: Yeah.
Mr Beer: Can you help us, in relation to the commissioning of the report, why were you tasked with producing this report?
Helen Rose: I can’t remember who asked me to do the report, I can’t actually remember who asked me to look into it but, clearly, somebody did, and I looked at the data, and –
Mr Beer: Irrespective of who asked, can you remember why would it fall to you, given your job as a Fraud Analyst in June 2013?
Helen Rose: I must have been asked to look at it, look into it, to see if I could understand what had happened.
Mr Beer: Did you, for example, hold particular expertise in the analysis of Horizon transactions?
Helen Rose: I did use to look at odd ones, yes.
Mr Beer: Had you previously had experience of investigating discrepancies shown on the Horizon System?
Helen Rose: At the time I used to look at a lot of the Horizon System data, yes.
Mr Beer: I’m thinking about discrepancies in particular, ie shortfalls.
Helen Rose: Some, yes.
Mr Beer: Can I turn to your methodology. Can you remember what your method was, how you went about investigating this issue?
Helen Rose: I can’t, no, other than what I can read in the report.
Mr Beer: On reading what’s in the report, does it appear that you essentially asked a series to of questions to Mr Gareth Jenkins in email form?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: He replied and you, essentially, cut and paste your questions and the substance of his answers into the report?
Helen Rose: I did, yes.
Mr Beer: Can we look at a couple of documents side by side. On the left side can we have FUJ00086811, at page 3. On the right-hand side, POL00097481, at page 3. Page 3 of each document, please. Thank you very much.
On page 3 of the report, that’s the left-hand side document, you say about halfway down the page:
“I can see where this transaction is and now understand the reason behind it. My main concern is that we use the basic ARQ logs for evidence in court and if we don’t know what extra reports to ask for then in some circumstances we would not be giving a true picture.”
Helen Rose: Mm.
Mr Beer: Then if we look at the right-hand side page, your email to Mr Jenkins, at the top of the page, ignoring the first four words:
“I can see where this transaction is now and understand the reason behind it. My main concern is that we use the basic ARQ logs for evidence in court”, et cetera.
Yes?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: We can see that you’ve cut and pasted the bold text in the report –
Helen Rose: I am –
Mr Beer: – from your question to Mr Jenkins, yes?
Helen Rose: Mm-hm, yeah.
Mr Beer: Then if we, on the left-hand document go back – sorry, on the right-hand document go back to page 2, you see Mr Jenkins’ reply:
“I understand your concerns.
“It would be relatively simple to add an extra column into the existing ARQ report”, et cetera.
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: Then on the left side, you can see:
“Answer – I understand your concerns”, et cetera, et cetera.
Can you see that?
Helen Rose: Yeah.
Mr Beer: So it appears that the way you’d gone about things is ask Mr Jenkins a series of questions, cut and paste the substance of what you’ve asked and the substance of his reply into the report, yes?
Helen Rose: Correct, yes.
Mr Beer: That’s aside from the recommendations part, which I’ll come back to in a moment. Can I ask you some questions about the substance of what you said to Mr Jenkins and his replies. Let’s start with the email that we’re looking at and just go back to page 3. You say at the top of the page:
“I can see where this transaction is …”
That’s the reversal transaction shown by some data that has been provided, some ARQ data?
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: “… and now understand the reason behind it.”
You say:
“My main concern is that we use the basic ARQ logs for evidence in court and if we don’t know what extra reports to ask for them in some circumstances we would not be giving a true picture.”
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: Would you agree that this suggests that you understood the significance of the data that Mr Jenkins had given you?
Helen Rose: Um, I would say that it made me realise there were – there was more data available than what came through in the basic logs.
Mr Beer: But it’s a bit more than that, isn’t it? Firstly, you realise the significance not only for the branch at Lepton but, more generally, for criminal actions being pursued by the Post Office, the criminal proceedings being pursued by the Post Office?
Helen Rose: Yeah.
Mr Beer: Because you say:
“… we use basic ARQ logs for evidence in court. If we don’t know what extra reports to ask for then in some circumstances we would not be giving a true picture.”
That means we may not be presenting a true picture in evidence to the court, doesn’t it?
Helen Rose: Yes. Either way, yes.
Mr Beer: That would obviously be a significant concern for you, that the Post Office is not presenting true evidence in court, wouldn’t it?
Helen Rose: Yes, which is probably why I put it in there, yeah.
Mr Beer: It would be a significant concern for the Post Office, wouldn’t it?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: Did you consider that if there was a discrepancy between what could be understood in the ARQ data that you received and in the raw data, there were likely to be cases where a prosecution had proceeded without a true picture being presented to the court?
Helen Rose: On the data I looked at here, it was just to do with reversals of transactions.
Mr Beer: This is raising a wider point though, isn’t?
Helen Rose: Potentially –
Mr Beer: “We get basic ARQ logs, if we don’t know what extra reports, ie the reps you’ve now shown me, Mr Jenkins, show, we may not be presenting true evidence to a court”; that’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?
Helen Rose: Yes, it’s just saying, “Make us aware of other things that we can ask for”.
Mr Beer: So that the Post Office can give true evidence to a court?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: You carry on in your email:
“I know you are aware of all of the Horizon integrity issues and I want to ensure that the ARQ logs are used and understood fully by our operational staff that have to work with this data both in interviews and in court.”
Does this suggest that by February 2013, you were aware of “all of the Horizon integrity issues”?
Helen Rose: No, not all of them. I would be aware that questions were being questioned on Horizon, which is probably why I needed to understand what had happened here.
Mr Beer: What were you referring to when you said, “I know that you are aware of all the Horizon integrity issues”?
Helen Rose: I believe I would have just been referring to the fact that we needed explanations on this particular case, rather than anything indicating bigger issues that I wasn’t aware of. I just needed to understand this one.
Mr Beer: Mrs Rose, that sentence is not talking at all about data in this case. It’s talking about a broader point, isn’t it? You’re saying to Mr Jenkins, “I know you are aware of all the Horizon integrity issues”. It’s not talking about different species of ARQ logs, is it?
Helen Rose: I think it was just meaning we needed to get an understanding of what had happened.
Mr Beer: It doesn’t say that, does it? It says, “I know you’re aware of all the Horizon integrity issues” and my questions are what Horizon integrity issues were you aware of and what Horizon integrity issues did you know that Mr Jenkins was aware of?
Helen Rose: I didn’t know that he knew of any and this was the first real difference that I’d come across.
Mr Beer: If you didn’t know that he was aware of any Horizon integrity issues, why did you email him and say, “I know you’re aware of all of the Horizon integrity issues”?
Helen Rose: Because there would probably be talk going around and I guessed he would have been aware of it.
Mr Beer: So it’s just referencing the rumour-mill, is it?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: Can we look at page 1 of the same chain, please. If we see here you’re referring the email string to Angela van den Bogerd and Elaine Spencer, and you say:
“For information.
“Email string may be of interest. I’m not really sure where to take this. Happy to try for a change request if you would like me too but at this moment in time I don’t want to tackle one small issue when we may need to challenge deeper issues with the way we see data from Fujitsu/Credence.”
You appear by this time to have understood how significant it was that there were – if it was the case, that there were things that could appear differently in the underlying audit data, as opposed to the ARQ logs that you were being given, correct?
Helen Rose: That’s what it looks like, yes.
Mr Beer: You were sufficiently concerned to escalate this to Angela van den Bogerd?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: Can you recall following up this to see whether or not the recommendations that you made in your report at the foot of the page, on the left-hand side, were followed?
Helen Rose: I don’t recall following that up.
Mr Beer: You say:
“I do believe the system has behaved as it should …”
I’m going to come back to that in a moment:
“… and I do not see this scenario occurring regularly and creating large losses [I’ll come back to that too]. However, my concerns are that we cannot clearly see what has happened on the data available to us and this in itself may be misinterpreted when giving evidence and using the same data for prosecutions.
“My recommendation is that a change request is submitted so that all system created reversals are clearly identifiable on both Fujitsu and Credence.”
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: Are you aware whether that change request was ever submitted?
Helen Rose: I’m not aware whether it was or wasn’t.
Mr Beer: In your mind, did this, what you had identified, call into question the consistent position of the Post Office by this time, that the Horizon System and the data it produced, was robust?
Helen Rose: I believe on this occasion, the system – the Horizon System behaved as it should have done. Reading that, my concerns were that we couldn’t actually see – we could see the reversal but it wasn’t – it didn’t indicate that it wasn’t done by the postmaster, as opposed to a system reversal.
Mr Beer: So just dealing with the “I do believe that the system behaved as it should”, what your report describes is that a transaction reversal was generated by Horizon without any input at all by the subpostmaster, correct?
Helen Rose: Correct.
Mr Beer: The transaction reversal was entirely a creation of Horizon, it was a transaction done by, generated by the system and nothing to do with him, correct?
Helen Rose: Correct.
Mr Beer: Yet the system appeared to suggest to the outside world that the subpostmaster himself had generated the reversal?
Helen Rose: The basic system did, yes, but, once Gareth provided the data, it proved that it had been some kind of a failure in the, I believe it was the Internet, the telecom link.
Mr Beer: How, in any possible world, is that the system behaving as it should?
Helen Rose: The – I believe that Horizon created – it should have reported that the reversal was a system reversal, not a – is it an existing reversal, I can’t remember – which was clearly identified in the Fujitsu data but not on the ARQ logs.
Mr Beer: There was no separate code –
Helen Rose: Yeah.
Mr Beer: – which identified that this was the system at work and not the subpostmaster at work, correct?
Helen Rose: That was a fault I found on this occasion, yes.
Mr Beer: Additionally, the Credence data was inadequate to show what had actually happened. Indeed, not only was the data inadequate, would you agree, it made it look as if the subpostmaster had done something –
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: – that he or she had not done –
Helen Rose: Correct.
Mr Beer: – and which the system had done?
Helen Rose: Correct.
Mr Beer: In what respect is that a system behaving as it should?
Helen Rose: Because when we got the underlying data, it actually showed what had happened.
Mr Beer: Yes, but that’s a question of: how visible is it if we pick away at it? My question is: how is it the system behaving as it should, that it created a transaction reversal of its own motion without any input by the subpostmaster?
Helen Rose: That was clearly my findings on the day.
Mr Beer: Yes, but why?
Helen Rose: I can’t see that – that’s what I believed at the time, that the system had done – how it should.
Mr Beer: But looking back, how could it be? A system had shown money paid back to the subpostmaster that was invisible to him. In what respect is that a system behaving as it should?
Helen Rose: That – well, I can only look at what – I put recommendations back in 2013, and that was obviously my belief at the time.
Mr Beer: You say you do not see this scenario occurring regularly. On what basis did you reach that judgement?
Helen Rose: I seem to remember vaguely that it was to do with a failure in the connections between the bill payments going through. So unless the bill payments failed all the time, then it wouldn’t happen.
Mr Beer: How did you know whether they did or they didn’t?
Helen Rose: Well, you wouldn’t, would you, unless someone like Lepton brought it up and said “I’m having losses and these are the reversals that I haven’t done”.
Mr Beer: And they commission a forensic accountant to back them up even though it was only a loss of just under £80? Did you make any recommendation that a backwards look take place considering –
Helen Rose: I –
Mr Beer: – integrity of any evidence that had been given in criminal prosecutions?
Helen Rose: I don’t recall doing on this occasion.
Mr Beer: Or the integrity of civil actions taken against individual subpostmasters for debt recovery?
Helen Rose: I wouldn’t have done, I don’t think, no.
Mr Beer: Sir, I wonder whether we could take the second break of the morning there. It’s 11.55 now, I wonder if we can break until 12.15?
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, we can.
But there’s – just that last sentence of that document, Mr Beer, sorry to interrupt again – or not interrupt, add again.
You’ve been asked questions, Mrs Rose, by Mr Beer about how this could be the system working properly and you sought to answer them. But I’m puzzled by your last sentence:
“My recommendation is that a change request is submitted so that all system created reversals are clearly identifiable on both Fujitsu and Credence.”
Now, my understanding of that language – and I hope I’m not being to linguistic about this – is that you are acknowledging that a system created request has occurred which should not have occurred and so you want some change made so that, if it happens again, it will be clearly and obviously visible to anybody who looks for it. Now, is that a fair interpretation of what you’ve written?
Helen Rose: I would say so, yes.
Sir Wyn Williams: Right. Fine. Thank you.
Now we can have our break, Mr Beer.
Mr Beer: In fact, we’re going to follow that up a little bit after the break too.
Sir Wyn Williams: I thought you might. But I couldn’t resist it. I’m sorry.
Mr Beer: Thank you very much, sir.
(11.55 am)
(A short break)
(12.15 pm)
Mr Beer: Good afternoon, sir, and Mrs Rose can you see and hear me?
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, thank you.
The Witness: Yes, thank you.
Mr Beer: You should still have on the screen two documents. Can you confirm that’s the case?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: Thank you. I just want to revisit on the left-hand side the conclusion of your report. To start with, just to go back and give you the opportunity to comment on this, the sentence that says, “I do believe that the system has behaved as it should”?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: By that, are you meaning that, because there was a power outage or an Internet failure or some communications difficulties, the transaction wasn’t completed –
Helen Rose: Exactly.
Mr Beer: – and the system generated a transaction reversal –
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: – and, in that respect, the system was behaving as it should?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: Overall, the system was not operating well, though, in two respects, would this be right: because firstly there shouldn’t be that kind of communication breakdown in which the need for a transaction reversal arises; and, secondly, there was a concern about the visibility of what had happened, and the implication that this was the postmaster’s actions that had done it?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: Is that yes to both parts of that question?
Helen Rose: Yes, I don’t think the issue was with the way the Horizon behaved considering what happened; the issue was with what the data presentation and what we could see in the basic logs.
Mr Beer: Now then, on the right-hand side of the page back in February, because you had already been emailing Mr Jenkins about this, you concluded this chain by telling senior managers, including Angela van den Bogerd, that firstly you “Look at this chain”, but you say:
“I don’t want to tackle one small issue when we may need to challenge deeper issues with the way we see data from Fujitsu/Credence”.
Helen Rose: Yeah.
Mr Beer: By that, were you meaning, “Look, on this occasion, this was a transaction correction that we couldn’t see that it was system generated but there may be other issues, deeper issues, that we are also not sighted on”?
Helen Rose: My understanding of that email – I can’t remember writing it but my understanding of that email is basically what you’ve just said. Yes, we can see that one but we’d need to understand were there other changes that needed to take place, so are there other reasons why the system does auto reversal so we could see everything all in one go?
Mr Beer: So, although this may have been a transaction reversal arising because of a communications glitch, or whatever, you were making a broader point that there’s a class of data that we’re not seeing here. That’s what the deeper issue is?
Helen Rose: I guess we just needed to understand was it an issue? Were there other things that we couldn’t see?
Mr Beer: You say that you’re happy to try for a change request?
Helen Rose: That’s what I put in there, yes.
Mr Beer: By that, you mean a formal contractual submission that would alter the relationship between Fujitsu and the Post Office, concerning the data that it was – Fujitsu was obliged to supply?
Helen Rose: That’s what I believed a change request would have done, yes. I don’t recall ever putting one in, to be honest, but I –
Mr Beer: No, we’re going hear evidence later in the Inquiry from Mr Jenkins that no change was ever submitted.
Helen Rose: Fine, fair enough, yes.
Mr Beer: But that’s in February you’re saying that?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: Then in June, your document on the left-hand side of the same year, in the last paragraph, as the Chairman has pointed out:
“My recommendation is that a change request is submitted so that all system created reversals are clearly identifiable on both Fujitsu and Credence.”
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: By “all system created reversals” is that the wider or deeper issue that you were referring to?
Helen Rose: I would only have referred to the issues that I was aware of, so I guess I would have only been referring to the system failure, you know, the system connection issues as opposed to anything else.
Mr Beer: Well, here, you say that your recommendation is that all system created reversals –
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: – are visible to you?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: This report is dated June 2013. At the time of writing, you were obviously aware that subpostmasters had been prosecuted on the basis of Horizon data for over a decade before this?
Helen Rose: Yes, potentially, yes.
Mr Beer: What do you mean, potentially?
Helen Rose: I can’t quote any that I was aware of, but I would think I probably would have been aware of some at that stage.
Mr Beer: You must have been aware that subpostmasters were being audited, including by you, 1,400 times, and sometimes that turned into a prosecution?
Helen Rose: It did but, at that time, I wouldn’t have known of any particular –
Mr Beer: I’m not asking for names, I’m just saying you would have been aware –
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: – that subpostmasters would have been prosecuted?
Helen Rose: That’s right.
Mr Beer: Yes?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: They had been prosecuted on the basis of Horizon data?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: You were aware that civil actions had been brought against subpostmasters also reliant on the integrity of Horizon data?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: The concern that you express here is about future prosecutions, isn’t it?
Helen Rose: It’s about being able to see the data –
Mr Beer: It’s about looking to the future, isn’t it?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: You didn’t make any recommendation to revisit cases in the past, did you?
Helen Rose: Not on this report, I didn’t, no.
Mr Beer: Did you, other than on this report, make any recommendations about revisiting past cases reliant on Horizon data?
Helen Rose: I can’t recall if I did.
Mr Beer: Do you know whether that issue was raised by Ms van den Bogerd or anyone else?
Helen Rose: I wouldn’t know.
Mr Beer: Was that raised with you?
Helen Rose: Not that I can recall, no.
Mr Beer: Did you remain involved in work about Horizon data integrity following the completion of this report?
Helen Rose: I’m not sure. I can’t recall if I did or not.
Mr Beer: Well, in the three years that you’d got left to serve until you left in 2016, what did you do?
Helen Rose: I think the final two-plus years I dealt with external crime reporting. So that would be robberies, burglaries, gas attacks. So completely away from this.
Mr Beer: Can we look, please – both those documents can come down, please – at POL00006357. Thank you. This is an advice written by a man called Simon Clarke, an in-house barrister employed by a firm of solicitors called Cartwright King, who the Post Office used at this time to prosecute many criminal charges against subpostmasters. If we just go to page 14, please, and look at the foot of the page, you’ll see that it’s dated 15 July 2013, so a month or so after your report that we’ve just looked at.
Helen Rose: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: If we just go back to paragraph 1, please. Mr Clarke says:
“I am asked to advise [the Post Office] on the use of expert evidence in support of prosecutions of allegedly criminal conduct committed by those involved in the delivery of Post Office services to the public through sub post office branches. By and large these allegations relate to misconduct said to have been committed by [subpostmasters] and/or their clerks.”
So that’s the purpose of the document. If we go to page 5, please, at paragraphs 14 and 15. Mr Clarke says:
“For many years both [Royal Mail Group] and latterly [the Post Office] has relied upon [he calls him Dr Gareth Jenkins] for the provision of expert evidence as to the operation and integrity of Horizon. Dr Jenkins describes himself as an employee of Fujitsu Services Limited and its predecessor company ICL since 1973. He holds a number of distinguished qualifications in relevant areas. He has worked on the Horizon project since 1996; he is accordingly a leading expert on the operation and integrity of Horizon.
“Dr Jenkins has provided many expert statements in support of [Post Office Limited and Royal Mail Group] prosecutions; he has negotiated with and arrived at joint conclusions and joint reports with defence experts and has attended court so as to give evidence on oath in criminal trials.”
Then page 18, please – sorry, page 8. My mistake it’s page 9. Starting with the heading, “Helen Rose draft report dated 12 June”, this your report that’s being referred to here:
“This report is based on a series of emails passing between Helen Rose, a [Post Office] Security Fraud Analyst. The emails appear to have been sent/received over the period of 30 January to 13 February 2013. The essence of the contact is a ‘question and answer’ process between Helen Rose [and then he calls him Dr Jennings – I think that’s reference to Mr Gareth Jenkins] in circumstances where Helen Rose is enquiring into a reversals issue at the Lepton [office]. I again extract a number of paragraphs …”
I’m not going to read those, we’ve looked at them already:
“27. Ms Rose’s ultimate conclusion is that this is not an issue which suggests a failing of Horizon itself; rather it is an issue of data presentation, ie the problem appears to be that the ARQ logs do not distinguish between system generated and manual reversals, the answer being to create a new column in the ARQ log to facilitate that distinction. The report however does allude to Horizon issues: the 30 January email is suggestive of the proposition that Dr Jennings does not know what went wrong; and the 13 February comment is suggestive of the fact that Dr Jenkins knows of other Horizon Issues.”
So your report featured as part of the material relied on to reach the conclusions that Mr Clarke did. If we go on to page 14, please – sorry 13, my mistake – and just look at “Conclusions”:
“What does all this mean? In short, it means that Dr Jennings has not complied with his duties to the court, the prosecution or the defence.”
Reading on, 38:
“The reasons as to why Dr Jenkins failed to comply with this duty are beyond the scope of this review. The effects of that failure however must be considered. I advise the following to be the position:
“Dr Jenkins failed to disclose material known to him but which undermines his expert opinion. This failure is in plain breach of his duties as an expert witness.
“Accordingly Dr Jenkins’ credibility as an expert witness is fatally undermined; he should not be asked to provide evidence in any current or future prosecution.
“Similarly, in those current and ongoing cases where Dr Jenkins has provided an expert witness statement, he should not be called upon to give that evidence. Rather, we should seek a different, independent expert to fulfil that role.
“Notwithstanding that the failure is that of Dr Jennings and, arguably, of Fujitsu, being his employer, this failure has a profound effect on [the Post Office] and [Post Office] prosecutions, not least because by reason of Dr Jenkins’ failure, material which should have been disclosed to defendants was not disclosed, thereby placing POL in breach of their duty as a prosecutor.
“By reason of that failure … there are now number of convicted defendants to whom the existence of bugs should have been disclosed but was not. Those defendants remain entitled to have disclosure of that material notwithstanding their convicted status.”
I’m not going to read the rest of it.
Were you informed that in July 2013, the Post Office had been advised that Mr Jenkins had not complied with his duties to the court to the prosecution or the defence?
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: Was that brought to your attention in the remaining three years of your service with the Post Office?
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: Was there discussion, after this date in July 2013, that the Post Office had been advised that Mr Jenkins was in breach of his duty as an expert witness –
Helen Rose: No, not that I can recall.
Mr Beer: – and that he couldn’t provide evidence in any current or future prosecutions?
Helen Rose: Not that I can recall, no.
Mr Beer: This must have been – or would you agree that this is quite significant news in the Security team, isn’t it?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Mr Beer: It was in part based on your June 2013 report?
Helen Rose: It appears to be, yes.
Mr Beer: Do you remember whether the contents of your report created quite a stir at the time in the Security department?
Helen Rose: Not – no, not really. I can remember sending it through line managers but I don’t know who saw it or what happened with it.
Mr Beer: Sorry, just picking you up on that last answer, you said you can remember sending it through line managers. Who would that be, the June ‘13 report?
Helen Rose: I’d have to go back over the emails to see who was line manager and who I sent it on to. I don’t know where it’s forwarded on after that, by anybody.
Mr Beer: Were you ever made aware, in the remaining three or so years that you were in the Post Office, that your report had had these consequences?
Helen Rose: No.
Mr Beer: Was the last thing that you therefore heard of in relation to your report the submission of it, and that was the end of the matter?
Helen Rose: From memory, yes.
Mr Beer: Thank you very much, Mrs Rose, they’re the only questions that I ask of you.
Sir, I know that at least one other Core Participant has some questions to ask. In fact, only one Core Participant has questions to ask.
Sir Wyn Williams: All right. Well, let those questions be put, then, please.
Mr Beer: Thank you. It’s the Hodge Jones & Allen team. I don’t know if it is Ms Page. It is Ms Page. Thank you.
Questioned by Ms Page
Ms Page: Thank you. I ask questions on behalf of Lee Castleton, amongst other subpostmasters in the Inquiry.
Now, we have understood from your witness statement that you moved to the Security team in 2004, so not long after the audit of the Marine Drive branch; is that right?
Helen Rose: Correct, yes.
Ms Page: By the time of the trial and preparing your witness statement, you had been there in the Security team for about two years?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Ms Page: Could we take a look, please, at POL00070763. This is a phone note by Stephen Dilley, the solicitor who acted for the Post Office in the trial of Lee Castleton. He has made this note having had a telephone conversation with you. We can see that there at the top:
“SJD3” –
Helen Rose: Yes.
Ms Page: – “having a conversation with Helen Rose (née Hollingworth) …”
Yes?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Ms Page: If we scroll down, we can see that he covers the content of your witness statement. He’s about to talk to you about your witness statement. He says in paragraph 1 that you’re an investigations manager, and so forth, and describes that you’ve moved. But if we go down a bit further and we go to the top of page 2, he says, summarising what you’ve obviously said to him:
“In layman’s terms her conclusions were that Mr Castleton was fiddling the books. She had never seen the Horizon System cause the problems that Mr Castleton said it was causing. She thought in her words that he was ‘shifty’.”
Do you recall saying those sorts of opinions to Mr Dilley?
Helen Rose: I can’t recall that conversation whatsoever.
Ms Page: If we go to the final paragraph as well:
“My impression of Helen is that understandably her memory has faded over time and that she will need to rely heavily upon her audit to refresh her memory of events. She doesn’t remember some details that we would like, for example, about how long the safe was left open for and why and what Mr Castleton said about it.”
Just pausing there, that suggests, doesn’t it, that he actually spoke to you about the safe being left open, and that was something which we’ve now agreed was simply irrelevant and wasn’t what had happened. Your colleague had ticked the box saying that the safe had been left as it should, hadn’t it?
Helen Rose: I can’t recall the audit at all. I’m sorry. I can see what you’re explaining but I don’t have any recollection of it.
Ms Page: Well, what we can see here is that the solicitor has actually asked you to consider the issue of the safe. You had the same paperwork that we’ve all seen and you knew that the safe had actually been left as it should. Why didn’t you tell the lawyer that?
Helen Rose: I can’t recall.
Ms Page: You appreciate, don’t you, that your witness statement, signed by you as true, said something that was incorrect about that, didn’t it?
Helen Rose: It obviously said what I thought at the time but I have no recollection of it at this moment in time.
Ms Page: All right. Well, the final sentence:
“However, she did come away with the strong impression that he was fiddling.”
Do you remember having that strong impression?
Helen Rose: I don’t recall saying that, no.
Ms Page: You, by then, were used to the way that the Security team worked, weren’t you?
Helen Rose: After two years, probably, yes.
Ms Page: You were used to assuming that subpostmasters were “shifty” and “fiddling”, weren’t you?
Helen Rose: Not all of them, no.
Ms Page: That was the mindset you’d become accustomed to in the Security team; is that right, Mrs Rose?
Helen Rose: No, not all of them, no.
Ms Page: It was a mindset of prejudice against the subpostmasters, wasn’t it?
Helen Rose: No.
Ms Page: And you were used to giving statements in accordance with that mindset. That’s why you included everything which went against the subpostmasters, even if it wasn’t in your notes, didn’t you?
Helen Rose: No.
Ms Page: That’s why you included things which weren’t in your notes which would hurt Mr Castleton, such as the supposed going out for having a drink at lunchtime?
Helen Rose: No.
Ms Page: It comes from a mindset of prejudice, doesn’t it, Mrs Rose?
Helen Rose: No.
Ms Page: And you don’t include anything in the statement which might support the subpostmaster’s case. That’s, again, the mindset of prejudice, isn’t it?
Helen Rose: No.
Ms Page: Let’s look at another document briefly which arises from your time in Security. If we could bring that one down and bring up POL00086843. This is a report following what was obviously a tragic and serious incident when a subpostmaster who was accused of fraud committed suicide, a Mr Michael Mann. Do you recall this?
Helen Rose: I’ve read the documentation which is refreshed but I don’t recall the investigation, no.
Ms Page: You don’t recall an investigation into a subpostmaster who killed himself?
Helen Rose: I can recall an incident; I can’t recall the details of the investigation.
Ms Page: This happened only 10 years ago; we’re not even talking 20 or 30 years ago. You say that you don’t recall this?
Helen Rose: No, I said I don’t recall the incident – the actual investigation.
Ms Page: Under the heading “Introduction and Terms of Reference”, we see that:
“This report details the findings from the series of fact-finding interviews I completed [this is Mr Colin Stretch] at the request of [an HR officer].”
It says in italics below that:
“The Head of Fraud letter contains direct allegations around the conduct of Mr Bradshaw and Mrs Rose.”
So you don’t recall there being an investigation into your conduct?
Helen Rose: No.
Ms Page: “These would appear proper to commit to an internal fact-finding that should, to offer maximum transparency, be conducted outside the line.”
Then we see below that, in the methodology, this gentleman who conducted the report says that he conducted interviews with you, Helen Rose, and Steve Bradshaw, in other words the two people who had been accused of misconduct.
Then we see further down in that first bullet point, that we can see at the moment – yes, there we are:
“All seven people interviewed were consistent in their responses that Bradshaw and Rose had behaved professionally. This includes the views of Bradshaw and Rose commenting on their own as each other’s behaviour. During my interview with Bradshaw he stated he would not have done anything differently, and that he considered Helen Rose and himself to have conducted themselves professionally.”
So do you recall these interviews at all? The interview between you and the man investigating your misconduct?
Helen Rose: I didn’t know it was a misconduct. I can remember there being an enquiry but I didn’t know it was a misconduct interview.
Ms Page: Is this a situation where you and Mr Bradshaw covered for each other?
Helen Rose: Absolutely not.
Ms Page: You gave interviews to this chap investigating the misconduct and you said that each of you had behaved in a perfectly professional manner, didn’t you?
Helen Rose: According to that, yes.
Ms Page: Is that really how you thought of Mr Bradshaw and the way that he conducted investigations?
Helen Rose: Yes.
Ms Page: Mrs Rose, just a couple more questions. Your 2013 report into the Lepton Branch – sorry, the document can come down – your 2013 report into the Lepton Branch, that was quoted again and again over the next decade in support of the subpostmasters, wasn’t it?
Helen Rose: I don’t know. I didn’t follow the case.
Ms Page: They used it repeatedly throughout the Group Litigation, didn’t they?
Helen Rose: I don’t know. I didn’t follow the case.
Ms Page: Do you say that you never became aware that your report was being used to help the subpostmasters’ cause?
Helen Rose: No, I didn’t follow the case at all.
Ms Page: You literally are unaware. When did you first become aware of this?
Helen Rose: I’d heard that it had been used but I didn’t know in what context it was used because I didn’t follow the case.
Ms Page: When did you hear it was being used in this way?
Helen Rose: I can’t remember. I remember it being mentioned but I didn’t know why it was being used. I didn’t follow the case at all.
Ms Page: Who was keeping you informed?
Helen Rose: Oh, I have no idea. No idea when it might have been mentioned in passing conversation. But I didn’t follow the case at all, so I don’t know. I didn’t know how it was being used.
Ms Page: Why didn’t you follow the case?
Helen Rose: Because I didn’t. I’d left Post Office. I didn’t follow the case.
Ms Page: Did you leave the Post Office because this report was a black mark against your name?
Helen Rose: No, I don’t believe it was a black mark and I didn’t leave for that reason.
Ms Page: Is it something that stalled your career?
Helen Rose: No.
Ms Page: Your memory failures throughout your evidence and throughout your witness statement have permitted you to avoid questions about your conduct over some 20 years. Are these memory failures really genuine, Mrs Rose?
Helen Rose: Absolutely. I left Post Office seven and a half years ago. I’ve no recollection of a lot of the things.
Ms Page: Is it really an unwillingness to face the unpleasant truth that your conduct has helped the Post Office to victimise many, many subpostmasters –
Helen Rose: Not at all.
Ms Page: – and Mr Castleton specifically?
Helen Rose: No.
Ms Page: Thank you.
Sir Wyn Williams: That’s it, is it, Ms Page?
Ms Page: It is. Thank you, sir.
Sir Wyn Williams: No one else wishes to ask Mrs Rose any questions?
Mr Beer: No, I don’t think so, sir, unless you have any questions.
Sir Wyn Williams: No, I have no further questions.
Thank you, Mrs Rose, for making your witness statement and for coming to give evidence.
I think that concludes today’s session, Mr Beer, yes?
Mr Beer: It does, sir. We’re back at 10.00 am tomorrow, sir.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes. All right, well, I’ll be present at 10.00 am tomorrow, in spirit if not in body. I’ll see you tomorrow.
Mr Beer: Thank you very much.
The Witness: Thank you.
(12.47 pm)
(The hearing adjourned until 10.00 am the following day)