Official hearing page

30 November 2023 – Jarnail Singh

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(10.30 am)

Mr Beer: Good morning, sir, can you see and hear us?

Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, I can.

Mr Beer: Thank you very much.

Sir Wyn Williams: Before you call Mr Singh to give evidence, Mr Beer, I’d like to say a few words.

Many of you will know from reports in the media that a former subpostmaster and Core Participant, Mr Thomas Brown, recently passed away. Mr Brown began his career as a subpostmaster in 1979 or 1980. He was based in the northeast of England and, over very nearly 30 years, he managed and owned Post Office branches in that area very successfully.

An audit in 2008 purported to show a very large shortfall. That alleged shortfall was based upon data produced by Horizon. Mr Brown was suspended and shortly thereafter his contract with the Post Office was terminated. In due course, Mr Brown was declared bankrupt.

The Post Office began criminal proceedings against Mr Brown which reached the Crown Court. However, my understanding is that the Post Office came to realise that there was no realistic prospect of successfully convicting Mr Brown of any criminal offence and, accordingly, before the trial date, no evidence was offered and Mr Brown was acquitted.

Mr Brown was a claimant in the Group Litigation. He received a modest amount of compensation as a consequence of that litigation and I understand that, much more recently, he received an interim payment under the Group Litigation compensation scheme. However, Mr Brown’s compensation award under that scheme had not been finalised prior to his death.

The Inquiry Team and I would like to extend our deepest sympathies to Mr Brown’s family and friends. From all I have read and heard about Mr Brown, he will be greatly missed.

Thank you, Mr Beer.

Mr Beer: Thank you sir, I know that Mr Brown’s family couldn’t be here today to hear you say that but they are watching, each of them, from the northeast, in Newcastle, and I think, in due course, they’re to apply to become Core Participants in the Inquiry.

Sir Wyn Williams: Well, one can never be certain of anything but I imagine that their grounds for becoming Core Participant are compelling, Mr Beer.

Mr Beer: Thank you, sir.

Can I call Jarnail Singh, please.

Jarnail Singh

JARNAIL SINGH (sworn).

Questioned by Mr Beer

Mr Beer: Please do take a seat, Mr Singh.

The Witness: Thank you very much.

Sir Wyn Williams: Before Mr Beer asks you any questions, Mr Singh, I think it appropriate to address you as follows. Under our law, a witness at a public Inquiry has the right to decline to answer a question put to him by Counsel to the Inquiry, by any recognised legal representative or by me, if there is a risk that the answer to that question would incriminate the witness. This legal principle is known in shorthand form as the privilege against self-incrimination.

Mr Singh, fairness demands that I remind you of that principle before you give your evidence. If at any stage you wish to rely on the privilege, it is for you to make that clear to me in respect of any question put to you, ie you must tell me that you wish to rely upon the privilege against self-incrimination.

If, therefore, any questions are put to you by any of the lawyers who ask you questions or by me which you do not wish to answer, on the grounds that to answer such questions might incriminate you, you must tell me immediately after any such question is put. At that point, I will consider your objection and, thereafter, rule upon whether your objection should be upheld.

I understand from Mr Beer that you are represented here today by a solicitor. No doubt, if the issue relating to self-incrimination arises, the solicitor will assist you and, if at any stage during the questioning, you wish to consult your lawyer about the privilege against self-incrimination, you must tell me so that I can consider whether that is appropriate.

Do you understand all that, Mr Singh?

The Witness: I do, sir. I’m very grateful. Thank you.

Sir Wyn Williams: Thank you very much.

Over to you, Mr Beer.

Mr Beer: Thank you, sir.

My name is Jason Beer and I ask questions on behalf of the Inquiry. Can you give us your full name, please?

Jarnail Singh: Jarnail Singh.

Mr Beer: Thank you very much for coming to give evidence to the Inquiry today and tomorrow and for previously providing a witness statement to us. You should have a copy of that witness statement –

Jarnail Singh: I’ve got it here, yes.

Mr Beer: – in front of you. Thank you. It’s 89 pages in length, excluding the indexes to the exhibits and it’s dated 6 October. For the transcript, the URN is WITN04750100.

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: If you turn to the 89th page, please, is that your signature?

Jarnail Singh: That is my signature but I think we discussed before, I need to amend a few paragraphs.

Mr Beer: Yes, before I ask you whether the contents are true to the best of your knowledge and belief, I think there are a series of corrections you’d like to make?

Jarnail Singh: Yes, please.

Mr Beer: If we go to page 19, please, and paragraph 51, if that could be brought up on the screen, please. Paragraph 51, the sentence which reads:

“When the matter was committed to the Crown Court, once instructed, Counsel were asked to draft the indictment and in doing so, look at the summons, and also provide advice on evidence. Essentially they would revisit and review the whole case.”

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: What’s the correction you’d like to make to that?

Jarnail Singh: Just to add a paragraph just to clarify, I think for you and anybody who wants to have a look at this statement, is that if we can add:

“After counsel has been instructed, the case papers are passed on or passed on to the legal executives to manage and progress the case in the Crown Court.”

That’s all.

Mr Beer: Thank you. Can we turn to page 25, please. On paragraph 70. This reads:

“[A document] references a meeting which I attended with Gareth Jenkins, Warwick Tatford and Jon Longman in October 2010. I do not recall this meeting or ever discussing Gareth Jenkins’ witness statement with him. As far as I recall, I had very limited involvement with Mr Jenkins. I cannot recall any discussions where he was informed of his duties to the Court, although I would have assumed Counsel would have informed him of the same.”

Which is the correction or clarification that you would like to make?

Jarnail Singh: The only word there is “very limited”, and that can go. That can be:

“I had more involvement with Mr Gareth Jenkins.”

Mr Beer: Sorry, so the sentence which says, “As far as I recall I had very limited involvement with Mr Jenkins” –

Jarnail Singh: I had more –

Mr Beer: Hold on. Mr Singh, if you let me ask the question first –

Jarnail Singh: Sorry.

Mr Beer: – then when I finish speaking, if you start speaking –

Jarnail Singh: Yes, let me know.

Mr Beer: So the sentence which says, “As far as I recall I had very limited involvement with Mr Jenkins”, what is the amendment you would like to make –

Jarnail Singh: Well –

Mr Beer: Hold on.

Jarnail Singh: I was looking at you –

Mr Beer: What is the amendment you would like to make to that?

Jarnail Singh: That should read:

“As far as I recall, I had more or greater involvement with Mr Jenkins.”

Mr Beer: So the opposite to what it says?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: Is that right?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: The third correction, please, page 26, paragraph 76, which is at the foot of the page. It reads:

“My understanding is that when a subpostmaster was found guilty, repayment directions were given by the Court. Counsel would forward these to [the Criminal Law Team] who would make sure they were complied with by the Defence. If enforcement proceedings were needed because the directions were not complied with, the Investigation and Security Team would approach us and we would make the appropriate application to the Court. To clarify, this was before the separation of the businesses. When the businesses separated, enforcement proceedings were dealt with by [Cartwright King].”

What’s the correction or clarification you’d like to make there?

Jarnail Singh: Just give me a second.

Yes, where it says, “Counsel would forward these to CLT”, if we delete – if we add there something to the effect of:

“… and these were copied on to the Investigation and Security Team.”

Mr Beer: Thank you.

Jarnail Singh: And I think if you delete – so it should read:

“My understanding is that where the subpostmaster is found guilty repayment directions were given by the Court. Counsel would put forward these to CLT who would in turn copy this to the Investigation and Security Team …”

And if we can then –

“… who would make sure they were complied with by the Defence …”

(The witness read to himself)

Jarnail Singh: I think that’s fine. That’s fine.

Mr Beer: So it was the enforcement team who would made they were complied the with by the defence –

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: – not the Criminal Law Team?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: Is that the effect of the amendment you want to make?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: So it should read:

“Counsel would forward these to the Criminal Law Team and the Enforcement Team, the latter of whom would make sure they were complied with by the defence.”

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: Thank you. Then lastly page 67, paragraph 200. Towards the bottom of the page –

Jarnail Singh: Oh.

Mr Beer: – it reads:

“I had limited contact with Mr Jenkins and am not in a position to comment on any views that he expressed in relation to the disclosure being sought by the Defence and the relevance of the material sought to the case. His main point of contact was Jon Longman.”

What’s the correction or clarification –

Jarnail Singh: Ah – I think that’s where –

Mr Beer: – hold on.

Jarnail Singh: Sorry, I should be looking at you. Sorry.

Mr Beer: What’s the correction or clarification that you would like to make to that, please?

Jarnail Singh: I think that should be:

“I had more contact with Mr Jenkins …”

Mr Beer: So it should read:

“I had more contact with Mr Jenkins” –

Jarnail Singh: I had, yeah, something –

Mr Beer: – and “am” or “am not” in a position to comment?

Jarnail Singh: Um … I think that’s – yeah, I think that’ll be fine, I think –

Mr Beer: That should stay. So it’s:

“I had more contact with Mr Jenkins …”

Jarnail Singh: Yeah.

Mr Beer: Okay. With those four corrections brought into account, are the contents of that witness statement true to the best of your knowledge and belief?

Jarnail Singh: Yes. Yes, it is.

Mr Beer: Thank you. A copy of that witness statement is going to be uploaded to the Inquiry’s website and I’m not going to ask you about every part of it; do you understand?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: That can come down, thank you. You’ve come today to assist the Inquiry with the issues arising in Phase 4 of the Inquiry, that is the investigation and prosecution of subpostmasters for criminal offences. We’re going to ask you to return kindly next year to give evidence about the issues in Phases 5 and 6 of the Inquiry, and that includes: your interactions with Simon Clarke; your interactions with Cartwright King more generally; the circumstances in which Mr Clarke’s shredding advice came to be written; your involvement with the Second Sight reviews; your communications with Susan Crichton and other senior members of the Post Office, Chris Aujard as well and Brian Altman KC.

I’m not going to ask you about those matters today although some of the documents I’m going to refer you to touch on Phase 4 issues, even though they were created in 2012, 2013 and 2014.

Can I start please with your professional background. In your witness statement, paragraphs 6, 7 and 8, which is on page 3 – no need to display it for the moment – you describe your roles within the Royal Mail Group and within Post Office Limited and you exhibit a copy of your CV, your curriculum vitae, setting out your qualifications and your career. Can I summarise it, those two sources – paragraphs 6, 7 and 8 and the CV – as follows, and tell me whether I get it right:

Firstly, is it right that between 1985 and 1989 you were a legal executive in private practice and that involved work in two firms. In the latter firm you worked in conveyancing, buying and selling houses.

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: You joined the Post Office as a legal executive in December 1989 and, again, you worked in conveyancing, specifically in the Post Office’s commercial conveyancing department?

Jarnail Singh: Yes, I did.

Mr Beer: Whilst you were working for the Post Office you were admitted as a solicitor in December 1992; is that right?

Jarnail Singh: That’s right, yes.

Mr Beer: Does that mean that you were studying for your Law Society finals whilst you were working in the Conveyancing Department?

Jarnail Singh: Yes, yes I was, yes.

Mr Beer: Then in September 1993 you transferred to the Post Office’s Litigation Department; is that right?

Jarnail Singh: That’s right, yes.

Mr Beer: That was handling civil work; is that correct?

Jarnail Singh: No, no, the – yeah, that was the Civil Litigation Department before I joined the Prosecution Department.

Mr Beer: So you transferred to the Litigation Department in September 1993 –

Jarnail Singh: ‘90 –

Mr Beer: – and worked on civil work –

Jarnail Singh: Civil work, yes.

Mr Beer: Then in August 1995 you transferred to the Prosecutions Department?

Jarnail Singh: That’s right, yes.

Mr Beer: You tell us in your CV that upon transfer to the Prosecutions Department, you were the senior lawyer in the Prosecutions Department; is that right?

Jarnail Singh: Yes, yes, I was, yes.

Mr Beer: Was there only one senior lawyer in the Prosecutions Department?

Jarnail Singh: When I joined? No, I think I – I think I – the structure of the team was, I think, there was the Head of Criminal Law Team –

Mr Beer: Sorry, say that again?

Jarnail Singh: There was – the structure of the Prosecutions Department when I joined, was that there were head – Head of the Criminal Law Team.

Mr Beer: Who was that?

Jarnail Singh: That was Mike Heath, and then you’d eight senior lawyers on the same position, I think they were, then you had three or four legal executives, three or four admin staff, and four or five secretaries.

Mr Beer: I see.

Jarnail Singh: So –

Mr Beer: It’s just in your CV, if we can have it up on the screen, WITN04750101, thank you. If we look at the second page, look at foot of the page, do you see the last paragraph where it says:

“In August 1995 I transferred to the Prosecution Division as the senior lawyer …”

Jarnail Singh: No, well, maybe “the” need to come out. I think we were all on the same grade, basically. Some more experienced than others but they were all known as senior lawyers and I think subsequently they changed the titles.

Mr Beer: So where it says, “the senior lawyer”, that’s a bit misleading, isn’t it?

Jarnail Singh: Possibly.

Mr Beer: So that should be “as one of eight senior lawyers and there wasn’t any other grade, we were all senior lawyers”?

Jarnail Singh: Yes, I think so. I think –

Mr Beer: Okay. Did that remain the case that you were one of the senior lawyers –

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: – until separation in 2012?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. Subsequently, there were various structures, there were various roles, name changes, to principal and principal lawyers and team leaders, and all sorts of things like that. But, generally, we were the same grade doing more or less the same work.

Mr Beer: Okay. That can come down. Thank you.

Did you manage other lawyers.

Jarnail Singh: No, no, I don’t think any of us did, apart from the team leader or the, you know, the Head of Criminal Law. I think they managed – I don’t think anybody actually managed anybody else, apart from the legal executive and they basically assisted you, they worked with you, rather than sort of managed them as such, because they were experienced.

Mr Beer: So when the name “senior lawyer” got changed to “Team Leader”, you weren’t in fact leading a team at all?

Jarnail Singh: I think it – I don’t think anything really changed apart from separation. On separation, obviously I was –

Mr Beer: We’re talking about before separation –

Jarnail Singh: No, I think there was a team leader – or not team leader, he was the Head of Criminal Law, I think that was one grade and I think he managed and supervised everybody else.

Mr Beer: Okay, it’s just a moment ago you said the name changed from senior lawyer to Principal Lawyer to Team Leader, referring to the role you were undertaking. Did that happen before separation in 2012?

Jarnail Singh: No, no. Sorry, it’s probably – I’m trying to sort of adjust to the Inquiry’s – yeah, there was the – the – yeah, sorry. Let me clarify. There was the Head of Criminal Law Team, he managed, basically, the senior lawyers, and I think the Principal –

Mr Beer: Sorry, he managed the senior lawyers?

Jarnail Singh: He managed all the team, basically, yeah the legal executives, the secretaries, the admin, and also the, you know, the lawyers. That’s basically it. He was the head of the team, and –

Mr Beer: So from August ‘95 until separation in 2012, you remained the same grade –

Jarnail Singh: Yeah –

Mr Beer: – senior lawyer –

Jarnail Singh: More or less, yes.

Mr Beer: More or less or, in fact, the same?

Jarnail Singh: Yeah, nothing changed for me, no.

Mr Beer: At the time you became the senior lawyer you were, I think, by my calculations, two years and eight months qualified; is that right?

Jarnail Singh: Yes, I think so.

Mr Beer: You hadn’t practised in criminal law whilst you’d worked at the Post Office; is that right?

Jarnail Singh: Not with the Post Office, no.

Mr Beer: Had you ever done any prosecution work before?

Jarnail Singh: In – when I first started, I was the personal representative under the duty scheme, you know, when it came in, 1984/85, whenever it was, when I worked very closely with one of the senior partners in the firm, the first firm I joined, and I did about three – three or four years with –

Mr Beer: That was defending though, presumably?

Jarnail Singh: It was defending but he did quite a bit of prosecution. I assisted with him – I assisted him. I don’t know whether it was Trading Standards, or something like that now, I mean years and years ago now, but he did something and I did a lot of preparation for him. Did all the research and everything else. But I have no – that’s right, I mean, you can say that. Certainly, that was the only experience I had of criminal law.

Mr Beer: As a legal exec?

Jarnail Singh: As a legal exec, yes.

Mr Beer: Had you done any private prosecution work?

Jarnail Singh: No.

Mr Beer: Had you ever had to give advice on the Full Code Test in the Code for Crown Prosecutors?

Jarnail Singh: Prior to –

Mr Beer: Prior to joining as a senior lawyer in August 1995?

Jarnail Singh: No.

Mr Beer: Had you ever had to determine questions of evidential sufficiency, whether to move to a charge or a summons before?

Jarnail Singh: Not as a – not on the prosecution side of it. I mean it’s not anything I’ve looked at the evidence, taken witness statements for the senior partner – well – most of the preparation work was done by me.

Mr Beer: Had you ever had to deal with whether a prosecution was in the public interest from the prosecution side?

Jarnail Singh: No.

Mr Beer: Did you always report to the head of the Criminal Law Team?

Jarnail Singh: Well, talking about now, the Post Office prosecution?

Mr Beer: Yes.

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: From August ‘95 –

Jarnail Singh: Yes –

Mr Beer: – to separation in 2012?

Jarnail Singh: – yes, well – well, I inherited a very small casework, but I worked very closely with the – two of the senior lawyers, very, very closely.

Mr Beer: Who were they?

Jarnail Singh: I worked very closely with a number – one or two senior lawyers.

Mr Beer: Yes, and who were they?

Jarnail Singh: There was Tony Brentnall and one other lady who – Debbie Stapel.

Mr Beer: Were you reporting, nonetheless, only to the Head of Criminal Law?

Jarnail Singh: I think – I think –

Mr Beer: Was he or she your line manager?

Jarnail Singh: I think – I suppose – yeah. Yes. I think so, yes.

Mr Beer: Did that remain constant until separation in 2012?

Jarnail Singh: I think it was Mike Heath originally and then when I think Rob Wilson took over, yes – he was – yeah.

Mr Beer: So they were your line managers?

Jarnail Singh: They were the line managers, yes.

Mr Beer: Where were you located?

Jarnail Singh: In, firstly, Impact House in Croydon. Then subsequently Victoria – Eccleston Street in Victoria.

Mr Beer: Were all of the lawyers located there?

Jarnail Singh: All of the prosecution team has always been together in – you know, either in Impact House or Victoria.

Mr Beer: Was this your full-time job?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: You didn’t have any other jobs?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I was – I had a consultancy type of thing going on but that’s more to do with working with somebody else to gain some other experience, but it wasn’t substantive, or anything like that. It was a bit like a hobby. It would be like being monitored, you know, in a business capacity type of thing.

I did a – it was a businessman I met and he wanted me to do some work for him and he was basically acting as my mentor, and I set up a consultancy in consultation with the Law Society, and it was properly registered under the legislation, the Law Society knew about it, the Post Office knew about it, but it didn’t have any impact on any other work I did for the Post Office at all.

Mr Beer: Can we just look at your CV please, WITN04750101. You set out your employment history here, if we scroll down, and then if we go over the page, please, December ‘89 to May ‘15, so 26 years at the Post Office in its various guises. Then if we go to the foot of the page, please, it says April 1996 to present, “J Singh Judge Solicitors, Crawley West Sussex”.

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: Then over the page, please:

“In relation to property law, experienced in both Commercial and Residential Property Law, including Have a detailed [I think that must mean ‘including having a detailed’] knowledge of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, the Housing Act 1996” –

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: – “the Leasehold Reform Housing and Urban Development Act 1993, the Land Registration Act 2002 and the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002.

“Acted on numerous residential conveyances in the local Crawley, Horsham and West Sussex areas, as well as lease and rental agreements for both Private and Council tenancies. Extensive experience in all property matters up to senior level dealing including the following buying and selling of residential and commercial properties [I think there are some words missing there], commercial and residential remortgage applications, transfer of equity, drafting leases, drafting commercial assignments, leases/licences, auction transactions and property litigation.

“Worked with a range of clients including large and small businesses [including] acquiring, selling, leasing or developing property of all types, limited companies and limited liability partnerships and private individuals with active portfolios [then I think a full stop] Freehold commercial property acquisition and funding including the introduction of commercial lenders where appropriate.

“We were an accredited Law Society Conveyancing Quality Scheme practice. Our accreditation provides [presumably that means ‘provided’] recognition of our adherence to good practice, management standards and commitment to providing efficient and high quality conveyancing procedures which also led to our introduction onto the panel for some major High Street Mortgage lenders.”

Is that all accurate, that from 1996 onwards you were doing that?

Jarnail Singh: Yes, it is, yes. At that time, the indemnity insurance was taken care of by the Law Society and it was practical. It worked. Yes, it did.

Mr Beer: So you had two jobs?

Jarnail Singh: I didn’t – there wasn’t that much work in that sense but what I did do was I worked very closely with the previous employers, referring work to them, so I – the firm I left beforehand, and the previous firm when first I started. A lot of the work was done for the local community, more or less. They came to see me and I referred them on.

It wasn’t sort of a full-time job, as such, it’s more or less doing the community service, like putting something back in the community, more then –

Mr Beer: It looks – I’m so sorry, I spoke over you.

Jarnail Singh: Sorry.

Mr Beer: It looks like quite a lot of work?

Jarnail Singh: Well, it looks like – on paper, it’s completely different to what the reality was. The reality was that it worked for me and, instead of collecting stamps, I was able to put something back in the community. A lot of people were grateful for it, for the referral for the recommendations I made, and the Law Society was happy with it, because I think it was the Law Society who recommended it and I said “Look, this what I’m doing, this is my full time job, the Post Office obviously doesn’t interfere, there’s no conflict, but this what I want to do”. And I think what they actually recommended very kindly, “Look, why don’t you set it up as a consultancy? You can do both”, and I think as and when the practice certificate was up for renewal –

The Stenographer: Sorry, can you slow down?

Jarnail Singh: As and when the practice certificate came up for renewal, it was done as a bulk renewal by the Post Office and they knew very well what I was doing, but it didn’t interfere because it was, like, you know, either collecting stamps or doing something like that, which is useful to the community it was useful to me and that was a reason why I did what I had to do.

Mr Beer: Is a summary of that, for the entirety of the period we were looking at, as well as being a senior lawyer in the Prosecutions Department of the Post Office, you were also in private practice?

Jarnail Singh: It was, yeah – yes, you could say that. But it didn’t interfere –

Mr Beer: Well, I am saying it and I’m asking you whether it’s true.

Jarnail Singh: It is true. Yes. But it’s – it was true up to about year 2000/2001, and I think after that, the indemnity insurance got so much, purely because it went – it went on the free market. Instead of £20, £30 a month, it went up to God knows what it did, and all I did then was restricted it to monitoring or mentoring – I think it is the expression – by this businessman. I did bits and pieces for him – a bit – you know, advised him, drafted letters and things for him because he was grateful for that.

Mr Beer: You said that it is true up until 2000. If we look at the foot of the previous page, it says April ‘96 to present.

Jarnail Singh: Yes, presently it’s true. Presently, as you know the work I’ve done, I’m acting as – I’m working as a consultant for one of the firms –

Mr Beer: Hold on, just stop. If we look at the next page, please, and scroll down, here, you detail what you do since you left the Post Office and I’m not going to ask you any questions about what you’ve done since you left the Post Office –

Jarnail Singh: Okay.

Mr Beer: – because that’s March ‘16 onwards and then August 2021 onwards.

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: I’m asking you about this period from April 1996 to the present day. You’ve just told us that, in fact, it was only until 2000 or 2001 that that carried on?

Jarnail Singh: Well, maybe that needs correcting or amending but, certainly, it’s in existence but I don’t do any work through it, purely because I don’t want to do it. But I – if I wanted to, I could do. It’s there. If I want to put it into practice now, the fact is that I can’t use it purely because I – I’m inundated from a lot of paperwork from the Inquiry.

So, you know, this a full-time job, dealing with the Inquiry, the questions and preparing statements and reading the documentation forwarded to me by the Inquiry. But it’s in existence, any time I want to work with it I can do. It always has been and I think the Law Society are quite happy for it to be there. I mean, there’s nothing untoward in that. I mean, I don’t know what’s the point you’re trying to make. It didn’t interfere with –

Mr Beer: I’m not making any point. I’m just letting you speak at the moment.

Jarnail Singh: Okay, well, you tell me what the upshot of it and I’ll explain it to you.

Mr Beer: I’ve asked you, is it correct that, for the entirety of the period that we’re looking at, as well as being a senior lawyer in the Prosecutions Department, you were also in private practice? I think you said yes.

Jarnail Singh: Yes. Yes, I suppose I was. Yes.

Mr Beer: If we scroll up this page, please. You were acting in on numerous residential conveyances in that period, correct?

Jarnail Singh: Correct.

Mr Beer: You were working with large and small businesses buying and selling or leasing properties; is that correct?

Jarnail Singh: That’s correct as well, yes.

Mr Beer: You say this is the equivalent to having a hobby of collecting stamps?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: Yes, we’ll move on, thank you.

In paragraph 7 of your witness statement, you say that when you transferred over to the Post Office in 2012, you were the only in-house criminal lawyer within the Criminal Law Team; is that right?

Jarnail Singh: That’s right.

Mr Beer: What was the reason for the Post Office reducing the number of in-house criminal lawyers?

Jarnail Singh: I think you’d need to ask somebody senior. I have no idea why they did that. All they did was separated the businesses and I think the – their plan, the business plan was to have one senior lawyer – senior criminal lawyer, one commercial lawyer to head those teams and to have – my understanding was to oversee and manage the work done by a private firm who’d done the – tendered the work out to the private firms.

I think that was their model and I fitted in with the, you know, the criminal – criminal law aspect of it or the prosecution side of it.

Mr Beer: So the model was to outsource the work to a firm, is that right, but to retain one lawyer in-house?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: From 2012 onwards, from the separation of the business onwards, did you manage any other criminal lawyers within the Post Office?

Jarnail Singh: No. There was no other criminal lawyers there.

Mr Beer: It was just you?

Jarnail Singh: Just me.

Mr Beer: From that time onwards, from separation onwards, was the Criminal Law Team sufficiently staffed –

Jarnail Singh: Well –

Mr Beer: – ie, by you and you alone?

Jarnail Singh: You mean this is Post Office Limited now, 1 April ‘12 onwards? No.

Mr Beer: It wasn’t sufficiently staffed?

Jarnail Singh: Well, the –

Mr Beer: In what respect wasn’t it sufficiently staffed?

Jarnail Singh: Well, firstly, I had no assistants. I had no – at CLT, the Criminal Law Team, before – prior to it, I had a secretary who basically did all the typing for me because I’m not very good at IT. I had a desktop but I dictated everything to her, she put everything together and then you had the legal executives putting the bundles together for the jury, for the advance information, for the Magistrates Court.

I didn’t have any of that. So I basically said “Look, I can’t do the job you’re trying to tell me to do”, so a lot of the work, basically all the work, literally from the beginning to the end of the case, went to Cartwright King. So that was the only way it worked. So the only thing I did was basically managed them and did the admin or the advice sought by the seniors within the Post Office.

Mr Beer: Thank you. Did you complain about this?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I – I don’t know what you mean by complaint? I mean –

Mr Beer: Raise a grumble, express your dissatisfaction, express annoyance or other cognate expressions?

Jarnail Singh: It was an open-plan office. We had the head of Legal, which was – I’ve forgotten his name now, Hugh Flemington, I think it was, and the director of – or counsel was Susan Crichton. She was a lovely lady, and Hugh, we got on really well. As and when we needed it, needed them to discuss matters, I did. I said, “Look, you know, I can’t deal with it the way it is, the way I want to do it”, because the whole point was it was a challenge and I have always been up for challenges.

And I think they understood, or they didn’t understand, I don’t know what they did or didn’t do about it now but, certainly, I did the best I could and I was glad that you had Cartwright King with the senior experienced expertise to work with, that’s the sort of thing I was looking for, basically, and I just fitted in with their team.

And that’s how it sort of worked out for me and I was able to have a direct communication with them, and I think every time I phoned, there was always somebody on the other side to discuss matters to help me with some of the advices internally, which the Post Office needed or wanted.

Mr Beer: You had a long career as a criminal lawyer within the Royal Mail Group and then the Post Office Limited?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: Given that long career within the Criminal Law Team, until you left the Post Office in 2015, it’s right, isn’t it, that you presided over a number of prosecutions which have subsequently been found by the Court of Appeal to involve miscarriages of justice; that’s right, isn’t it?

Jarnail Singh: That’s right, yes.

Mr Beer: Including a number where the Court of Appeal has found that the Post Office didn’t actually have any proof that loss had occurred to the organisation?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: In your witness statement, would you agree that you accept no personal responsible for any of the actions or admissions relating to the specific cases that you’re asked about?

Jarnail Singh: How do you mean? What like – what do you mean by that?

Mr Beer: You don’t accept any personal responsibility for any mistakes made in relation to the cases that we asked you about in your witness statement –

Jarnail Singh: Well, obviously, I – I’m very grieved –

Mr Beer: That’s a different issue.

Jarnail Singh: – and I’m embarrassed and sorry. I mean I think maybe we ought to start by me apologising directly to the subpostmasters.

Obviously, I do, you know, we’ll their pain and hurt and I can feel the same. And I don’t – I’ve never met any of them. My basically employment of job entailed, or my role entailed the paperwork I received, I assessed it in line with the law, the evidence, the public interest, and whether it was appropriate for charges to go before the courts.

So, in that respect, you know – I didn’t do the complete job, I didn’t do the investigations, I didn’t know anything about the Horizon in the sense about how it operated so we had a witness statement to actually explain it and then we had the barristers in turn to approve it, and then it went before the judge to deal with the enforcement side of things, if it needed.

So, in that respect, of course I feel very upset and aggrieved that it had gone so far, because the whole idea of becoming a lawyer wasn’t to do any wrong, and I certainly – the – I didn’t want to be here today. I wanted to enjoy a long legal career within the Post Office and whoever, and now to carry on doing the next stage of my life.

And certainly, in that respect, of course I take responsibility for the – what I’ve done and sometimes you wake up, sometimes you can’t sleep, and say “I wish I’d done more. Why did I accept the fact that Horizon was robust when it wasn’t?” But this has been going on since about the year 2000 when it first came into – into place and, after that – and I think I more or less started doing more of the subpostmaster work, purely because I think when Debbie Stapel went off and started doing the Royal Mail work and started working from home.

So you are relying on other people to tell you that, you know, the system is working, the investigation officers, again, should have been the ones who should have got the evidence from the operators and say, “No, you know, we need more evidence”, but then maybe it’s our fault as lawyers, and say, “No, where’s your proof? Prove the – prove where the shortfall is?”

But I think we’re a sort of – more of us are relying on the – well, we can only do what we’ve been given, that is the paperwork and we thought that was appropriate. And we, you know, we worked as a sort of team together and we formulated – I think I told you about the template which we followed it religious – well, I certainly did, religiously, so that we don’t overlook anything. On top of it, all our work was independently assessed and marked, if you like, by the independent Bar, independent barristers.

Mr Beer: What scores did they give you when they marked your work?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know that they actually gave us a mark but, certainly, if there was no proof or, you know, whether there was no proof or whatever it was, they would have turned it back and said, “No, it’s not good enough. We’re not going to proceed with it because there’s no evidence.”

Mr Beer: In the long answer you’ve given, you reflect the approach that you’ve taken in your witness statement, would you agree, generating an air of detachment of you personally from everything that was going on, blaming the individual investigators, the Fujitsu witnesses and Fujitsu the company, and the independent Bar for anything that had gone wrong. That’s your overall take, isn’t it?

Jarnail Singh: Absolutely not. I take full responsibility for the bits I was involved in.

Mr Beer: The bits –

Jarnail Singh: You know, you cannot work alone on these things, can you? I mean, you know, if you’re going to do something successful, I think no person can actually exist on his own. You’ve got to work it together. You’ve got to piece everything together. I’m not blaming the investigators; I’m not blaming the Bar, all I’m saying is that I take this – took this – I took this role very, very obviously. I take this – I – it really hurts me to actually prosecute anybody to – somebody to go to court and then lose their livelihood and also to lose, you know, on top of it, not only that, and then, you know, the damage to the reputation and credibility when there – when there shouldn’t have been any need for it.

Mr Beer: Overall, would you agree that the impression that you seek to create in your witness statement is one of acting with the utmost professionalism at all times, but of sorrow and being hurt after the event because, if only you had known about Horizon, everything would have been very different?

Jarnail Singh: Absolutely not. I am not that sort of person. It’s not the way – you made me come across wrong. I take full responsibility for the – you know, the hurt and the sorrow people (unclear) and I think – I was actually going to actually apologise to Julian Wilson’s family, seeing that he’s not here to see that his good name has been put intact and things have been put right.

They’re the ones who were telling everybody that the Horizon system is wrong and nobody believed them and they’ve been proved right now and I’m with them.

Mr Beer: I think in those answers you said that you take responsibility for any mistakes that you made?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I think we worked for the –

Mr Beer: Is that right?

Jarnail Singh: Yes. Well, I wish none of this has happened.

Mr Beer: What mistakes did you make?

Jarnail Singh: Well, the mistakes I made, presumably, are relying on other people to tell me how wonderful the system was. But then I wasn’t the only one working there. I mean, you had – we were – like I said, we had a team who worked on these cases. We had investigations throughout the country. Maybe it was just a big organisation and we couldn’t manage it all. Maybe we were just given too much work to deal with.

I don’t know what the answer is. But certainly I take responsibility for everything. But the last thing I wanted to do is have what I’ve got – what I’m faced with now – faced with, you know, the subpostmasters who I advised on, saying there’s sufficient evidence, being prosecuted and then being sentenced to something that they’ve been wrongly convicted of and then being punished when they shouldn’t have been. And I hope this Inquiry give them something they can actually get on with their lives.

Mr Beer: Have you identified any mistake that you made personally?

Jarnail Singh: Well, the mistake I made was the fact that I was, again, like everybody else, led to believe that this system was good when it wasn’t.

Mr Beer: So you didn’t make a mistake yourself personally in anything you did, other than placing reliance on other people?

Jarnail Singh: Well, no, I – you know, like anything else, I mean, I thought I was probably the one or – well, certainly I can tell you from what I did, all I did was I had a template, each and every time, I put in the tests and followed it through all the way to the actual matter going to the court, even the disclosure aspect of it. I mean, I took that very, very seriously, and I, in turn, read through it, went away, came back, made a few notes. So I – I don’t know what you’re asking me to say. Yes, of course I put my hand up. Of course, I made mistakes. Everybody does. But these were very, very serious mistakes and I wholeheartedly wish they had never happened.

And I sometimes wish, you know, if I had the opportunity to leave the Post Office, I wish I left before this, you know, mess basically. That’s all it is, isn’t it? Because it wasn’t – somebody senior should have said, “Well, no, where’s the evidence? Where’s the evidence?” Maybe the biggest mistake anybody made is not actually to say, “Well, look, this isn’t good. Where is the evidence? Where is the evidence the system is actually good?”

Mr Beer: You said in the course of one of the previous three answers that it hurt you to prosecute anyone?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: Can I see whether that’s true. Can we look please at paragraph 206 and 207 of your witness statement, please, which is on page 69. It’ll come up on the screen. You’re saying:

“I have considered my email dated 21 October 2010 and my memo to Post Office Security and others dated 16 November 2010.”

Jarnail Singh: Yeah.

Mr Beer: “At the time, I thought the outcome of the case was a success and I was relieved that the case was concluded.

“There is a comment in my email that ‘it is hoped the case will set a marker to dissuade other Defendants from jumping on the Horizon bashing bandwagon’. I was asked to report back to the team and in doing so, I commented on the outcome and the fact that the Defence’s criticisms of the Horizon IT system were dealt with and that the prosecution case was made out. I was aware that the case was of wider interest within the business and my comment in relation to other cases was made with this in mind.

“The wording of the email also had some input from Counsel.”

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at the email to which you’re referring there. POL00093686, page 5, please. If we can focus on the email on the bottom part of the page, please.

Can you see that there’s an email there sent – we can just see it on the right-hand side. It’s sort of squished in, Marilyn Benjamin, I think, on behalf of Jarnail Singh sent on 21 October 2010 at 2.58; can you see that?

Jarnail Singh: Yes. Yes, I can.

Mr Beer: The subject “Regina v Seema Misra at Guildford Crown Court – Trial – Attack on Horizon”. Can you see that this email does not appear to be part of a chain?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know what you mean by that.

Mr Beer: Do you know what a chain of emails is?

Jarnail Singh: Yes, yes I know. Yes.

Mr Beer: If you look, for example, at the following page, it’s blank.

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: No email there.

Jarnail Singh: Yeah.

Mr Beer: Then if we go back to page 5. If you look at the subject heading, can you see that, the subject heading? If that can just be highlighted.

Jarnail Singh: Oh, “Attack on Horizon”, yeah.

Mr Beer: It doesn’t say, “Re: Regina v Seema Misra” or “FW: Seema Misra”. When you a reply to an email or forward an email, the subject heading changes, doesn’t it?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I don’t know.

Mr Beer: You do not know that?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know.

Mr Beer: Would you agree that this looks like an originating email from you, you started off the conversation here?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I was asked – normally – I mean, if you’ve seen the previous reports, they’re basically done by legal executives. The case comes in and then we’ve got a format for it and they do it. And I think, in this case, I did ask Phil Taylor to do it and I was told that, “Jarnail, look, you need to do this because it’s going to a wider, you know, the wider audience within the business”.

That’s the reason why I did it, and then I did basically, you know – told the first bit, saying, “Look, this case was, you know, a lengthy trial at Guildford Crown Court after” –

Mr Beer: We can see what the email says. We’re going to come to that in a moment.

Jarnail Singh: Okay.

Mr Beer: Would you agree that you appear to have started the conversation off here by this email?

Jarnail Singh: Yes, yeah.

Mr Beer: So you picked both the title and the distribution list?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I was given the distribution list. I –

Mr Beer: Who gave you the description list?

Jarnail Singh: I think maybe Rob Wilson, maybe, I think, Mandy Talbot.

Mr Beer: So how would they give you the distribution list, Rob Wilson and Mandy Talbot?

Jarnail Singh: Well, they said “Look, these people are interested. This business, these units are interested in this case and you need to send it”. Even that Doug Evans. Doug Evans was the – I don’t know the Head of Legal, basically, of the whole business. I’ve never sent Doug Evans anything of that nature.

Mr Beer: So would they have emailed you a distribution list or would they have told you orally to whom you need to send the –

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I mean this is going back 12/13 years.

Mr Beer: Yes.

Jarnail Singh: But yeah, I –

Mr Beer: One way or another, they would have given you the distribution list?

Jarnail Singh: Yeah, I don’t know any of them. I mean, even Susan Crichton, I have probably met her. I didn’t know her. Certainly – any of them. I mean, Mandy Talbot I know because I think she was in the civil litigation in the same building and Impact House at Croydon. Hugh Flemington, I don’t know who he was. I mean, subsequently when I joined the – the Post Office Limited on 1 April ‘12, I’ve never met him. I don’t know who he was. Jacqueline, I don’t know. Jessica Madron, yes, I think she was at Impact House. John, and all the rest of them, I’ve never even met so I don’t know who they were. So certainly I wouldn’t have just plucked them out of the air and put them in.

Mr Beer: So you at least picked, if you didn’t pick the distribution list, you picked the subject title of the email?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know –

Mr Beer: You –

Jarnail Singh: Well –

Mr Beer: Or was that dictated to you?

Jarnail Singh: If there is – it was dictated to me. If you look at one of the enclosures the Inquiry sent me, it’s a cover, a brown cover on the file. I don’t know where it is now, and that’s what it was. You know, it said, “Jarnail, you ought to do it, you’re the senior lawyer, it’s your case”, that type of thing, and that’s when I did the first bit, then I was told that “You need to do a little bit more because it’s going to go to our communication team”. I didn’t even know we had a communication in existence.

So, basically, then that last bit about the jumping on the Horizon bashing –

Mr Beer: I haven’t asked you about that. All I’m asking you about at the moment is the –

Jarnail Singh: Well, let’s stick with that. It wasn’t my idea to put it the way it is. What I would have done is the Post Office Limited v Seema Misra, this was the result, the case was concluded after a lengthy trial and she was found guilty by the jury.

Mr Beer: Whose idea was it? Who dictated to you that the words “Attack on Horizon” needed to be included in the subject line?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I can’t –

Mr Beer: Help us.

Jarnail Singh: I honestly – this is such a long time ago. I wish I could. I mean, let me, you know, the – this thing, your papers the Inquiry has had forwarded to me, I’ve read them so many times you would not believe it because I do want to come and assist. And if – that heading was not something that would naturally come to me. Let me put it to you that way. What I –

Mr Beer: It was something that would come naturally to you because you viewed this case, didn’t you Mr Singh, as being about an attack on Horizon, didn’t you?

Jarnail Singh: Absolutely not. I had no –

Mr Beer: That’s why you’ve headed your email up that way.

Jarnail Singh: No. I can honestly say – let me put it this way: look, Mr Beer, no.

Mr Beer: Who viewed the case as an attack on Horizon?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I think after a period, I think it started off as a very simple case. I think Mrs Misra pleaded guilty –

Mr Beer: No, who viewed the case as an attack on Horizon?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I mean, I wish I could assist. I don’t know. I honestly do not know.

Mr Beer: But you didn’t?

Jarnail Singh: I did not.

Mr Beer: So you’re typing an email –

Jarnail Singh: I didn’t type it.

Mr Beer: Okay, you’re dictating it to your secretary –

Jarnail Singh: Yes, and I think, like I told you, if you look back at the cover of the file, I don’t know who I was talking to, and I – that was where I – I didn’t have a paper so I – I jotted the notes on the cover of the file. And I, you know, if you give me time at the break I will tell you where it is. But there is a cover where there are scribbles and whatever it is on it.

Mr Beer: I think I know the document you’re referring to.

Jarnail Singh: Yeah.

Mr Beer: But are you saying that somebody dictated –

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: – that you needed to use the words –

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: – “Attack on Horizon” –

Jarnail Singh: Absolutely –

Mr Beer: Hold on. You dictated an email, even though you didn’t believe it was a case about an attack on Horizon? Is that where we’ve got to?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know whether it’s an attack on Horizon, Horizon – I’ve got no stake in Horizon, I don’t even know how it operated or anything of that nature. Certainly, dealing with the Misra case it opened my eyes to all sorts of things, I mean, before I didn’t have. All I was trying to express to you originally was that my case was that you have the investigation file, you assess it, as appropriate, in line with evidence in the public interest test. And then, if there’s an appropriate charge, you put it before the court for the court to decide.

But, certainly, this thing doesn’t come naturally to me and my thing was to – I finished the job, the case is completed, the legal executives managed it and they would have done – concluded the case – they would have reported to the, you know, the Post Office support office, and cc’d in the officer. That would have been normal.

But because this case was the only case that actually had a lot of the – you know, actually, went to trial, I think, and obviously, all of a sudden, everybody was interested in it. You know, Susan Crichton. I mean, I don’t know what position she had at that time, but I’m sure it was a senior. And, certainly, the other people involved in it, presumably they had some sort of –

Mr Beer: Why was this case viewed by others as an attack on Horizon, rather than simply a lady in criminal proceedings saying that she was not guilty of stealing money, rather the operation of the system and errors within it were to blame for the losses?

Jarnail Singh: I think you’re asking the wrong person. I certainly wouldn’t –

Mr Beer: So the man that dictated the email that says, “Attack on Horizon”, is the wrong person to ask why the case was viewed as an attack on Horizon?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I –

Mr Beer: Is that where we’ve got to, Mr Singh?

Jarnail Singh: I think so I – honestly, this is – this sort of thing doesn’t come naturally to me and, certainly, my – I would have completed the case, I’m the lawyer in the case and I would have got one of the legal executives to – in a normal scheme of things, they would have reported, concluded the case, and that would have been it.

And, certainly, because of the importance of the other side – you know, the other aspect of the business, or the wider business, internally, that’s why it was dealt with in that way.

Mr Beer: Isn’t it the case that your use of these words is a fair description and it precisely represents how you saw things at the time. If someone said they weren’t responsible for losses but that Horizon had system errors, that was an attack on Horizon. That’s how you viewed matters, isn’t it?

Jarnail Singh: No, absolutely not. I – like I said, this system has been in existence. You had senior people to me with more experience who have been dealing with it and it just – somehow or other, this case landed on my desk and I dealt with it as I felt it ought to be done.

I was very careful and cautious and I think – maybe we will be coming on to it subsequently, I think – I put every single thing in it to make sure that it was very thorough. There should be no stones unturned to have this young – this lady being either put through it or certainly found guilty and went to prison for it. That is not the sort of thing I would want to get involved in.

Mr Beer: You say in your email:

“After a lengthy trial at Guildford Crown Court the above named was found guilty of theft. This case turned from a relatively straightforward general deficiency case to an unprecedented attack on the Horizon system. We were beset with [I think it should read ‘an unparalleled’] 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 destroy to the criminal standard of proof (beyond all reasonable doubt) every single suggestion made by the Defence.

“It is to be hoped that the case will set a marker to dissuade other defendants from jumping on the Horizon bashing bandwagon.”

Would you agree that the language that you used is quite breathless and rather emotive, in describing the outcome of Mrs Misra’s case.

Jarnail Singh: Yes, I –

Mr Beer: Why did you use breathless and emotive language?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I think the last bit is wrong completely, I accept that, the marker. But, like I said to you, it was not my language. I would not write anything of that nature. All I would have done, you’ve seen the other formats, Mrs Misra found guilty at Crown Court, the sentence, and that would have been it. But, obviously, because this is of interest to the wider internal Post Office community or the Royal Mail Group, as it was, I was put in a position to do – to actually put my name to it and that’s exactly what I did. It wasn’t –

Mr Beer: Did somebody else type an email which you cut and pasted into this one?

Jarnail Singh: No, no, no.

Mr Beer: No, okay, hold on –

Jarnail Singh: They dictated it.

Mr Beer: Who dictated it?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I mean I don’t know, there was probably various people over –

Mr Beer: So A collection of people?

Jarnail Singh: Probably, yes, and I think it was approved by –

Mr Beer: Who are the possible candidates for dictating your email?

Jarnail Singh: It was – this wording was approved by Robert Wilson, Rob Wilson, Head of the Criminal Law Team. I would not say anything of that nature. You need to ask him as and when but I can tell you now: this is not me. This is not the way I would have done it.

Mr Beer: So you said it was approved by him?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: Was he one of the dictators?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know whether he did or not. To be honest with you – to be honest, I – I’m not here to name names. I mean –

Mr Beer: I think you just did.

Jarnail Singh: I did, because –

Mr Beer: Because I asked you?

Jarnail Singh: Yes. You asked me and I am here to assist and help. I’m not here to, you know, deny everything. I mean, like I said, from the outset, what is the truth is the truth and I can’t get away from it.

Mr Beer: Can we move on from the platitudes, please, and answer my questions.

Jarnail Singh: Yes, go on.

Mr Beer: Who dictate this email to you?

Jarnail Singh: I think various people had input in it but I certainly dictated –

Mr Beer: Who dictated it?

Jarnail Singh: I dictated it for my typist to type out.

Mr Beer: Who dictated it to you?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I can’t –

Mr Beer: Who are the possible candidates?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I – like I said, to you it was approved by the, you know, the Head of Criminal Law Team. That’s all.

Mr Beer: So Rob Wilson?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: So he may have dictated this to you and then approved it when he’d seen it?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I don’t know whether he dictated it but he approved it, and certainly –

Mr Beer: Who are the other candidates for dictating it to you?

Jarnail Singh: I think the – I don’t know. I mean – I’m not getting away from it. Maybe it is my fault. Maybe I should have said “No, I’m not going to put my name to it, if you want to do it, do it yourself”. Maybe, you know, that’s in hindsight –

Mr Beer: Is “destroying” – the use of the word, “destroying to the criminal standard of proof”, appropriate language –

Jarnail Singh: No, no.

Mr Beer: – to have used, given the reality was that this was a woman going to prison?

Jarnail Singh: No, I mean, to hear that she was sentenced to prison sort of hurt me quite badly. I mean, for two or three days I think, you know, it shook me because that’s not –

Mr Beer: Do you now recognise that the language you used was unprofessional?

Jarnail Singh: Yeah, wholeheartedly. No, no, it shouldn’t – nothing like that should ever be –

Mr Beer: Would you agree that the language discloses to us, it’s indicative to us, of a degraded and debased prosecutorial culture within your office?

Jarnail Singh: No. No, I wouldn’t – look, Mr Beer it’s your job to ask that but it’s not, no. I think I worked with those people very closely and they are – I – we find ourselves with – here, and I agree with you, it’s inappropriate. It shouldn’t –

Mr Beer: The last paragraph where you say:

“It is to be hoped that the case will set a marker to dissuade from jumping on the Horizon bashing bandwagon”, who within the Post Office held that hope?

Jarnail Singh: Well, certainly not the Criminal Law Team. Certainly, I didn’t. I mean, I wish I –

Mr Beer: I’m not asking who didn’t hold it; I was asking you who did hold it?

Jarnail Singh: Well, whoever dealt with the case. You know, I didn’t even know that civil litigation had – had cases starting from the initiation of – or the introduction of the Horizon system and, presumably, the Civil Litigation Department certainly, maybe the Communication Team. You know, those are the people whoever dealt with the Horizon, whoever had any connections with the Horizon.

I mean, certainly the Criminal Law Team, I can put hand on heart, I wouldn’t have thought anybody had that. I mean, you’ve heard evidence from, you know, a couple of – a couple of the lawyers working there and they were quite badly shaken. I think one of the ladies – I’ve forgotten her name now, Teresa – Teresa – I mean, you saw her give evidence. I mean, she was in tears. She was really broken by that –

Mr Beer: So who did hope that the Seema Misra case would be a marker that would dissuade other defendants from jumping on the “Horizon bashing bandwagon”?

Jarnail Singh: Mr –

Mr Beer: It was you: you hoped it.

Jarnail Singh: No.

Mr Beer: That’s why you said “It is to be hoped” –

Jarnail Singh: No, absolutely not. You can ask me that ten times, the answer’s going to be no, no and no.

Mr Beer: Well, of course. That’s why you folded your arms and are giggling?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I’m not giggling, I’m sort of hurt inside. It’s giggling because it’s – it’s not true. I’m not giggling at all. I mean, the idea is that, you know, making – you know, making that sort of allegation to somebody who does not even believe in it – I mean, I – you know, the reason why I was there such a long time, I know if I had to go to court and actually physically see these people, then I wouldn’t be able to do the job. I think I would have left a long time ago.

At the end of the day, this was a paper exercise. You had the investigation file and you dealt with the paper. You basically weigh up where there’s evidence, sufficient evidence for getting a realistic prospect of conviction, public interest, and a lot of the time you’re trying to look for a reason for not – for them to deal with it in an alternative way out of court.

Mr Beer: Mr Singh, do you now accept that the aspiration that’s disclosed in this email, of dissuading subpostmasters who believed that there were system faults with Horizon from raising such system faults when they were accused of criminal offences, was entirely at odds with your professional duties?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I – well, look, in hindsight, you can say all sorts of things. The thing is –

Mr Beer: Well, I’m saying that and I’m asking you the question.

Jarnail Singh: Well, I don’t know what – are you asking me to – what are you asking me? Please ask me.

Mr Beer: Do you accept now that writing this aspiration, the hope that the outcome of the case will dissuade other subpostmasters who might think that Horizon is to blame for their losses from raising that when they’re accused of criminal offences, is at odds with your professional duties?

Jarnail Singh: Of course. Of course it is. I mean, I wish –

Mr Beer: How did you satisfy yourself that other subpostmasters would be jumping on the Horizon bashing bandwagon?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t – I can’t. I mean, like I said, this is the one and only case that’s gone to trial. I didn’t even realise that some of the cases have been started in more or less when the system was installed. So I don’t know. I mean, you know, in your position, you can write in to all sorts of things but certainly that’s not my thinking at all.

I wish – you know, the greater the wish I had was that wish this sort of case has been, you know, challenged, or in the courts a lot earlier. You know, the year 2001, the year 2002/3, so we wouldn’t have to face this. Certainly, it just landed on my desk and I dealt with it but, certainly, that’s not, you know, my intentions at all, and I’m not smiling. I am just sort of feeling so aggrieved that you’re asking me this because that’s not the idea of – you know, it was a challenge to qualify as a lawyer and I don’t – the last thing I wanted to finish this off was something like that.

Mr Beer: Well, let’s look at a new document and see whether you’re less aggrieved by the questions I ask you. POL00169170. This is a new document that’s recently become available to the Inquiry, as a result of recent disclosures. If we just look at the foot of page 1, please.

We can see – thank you, stop there – your email of 21 October 2010 at 2.58, the one we’ve just looked at, yes:

“After a lengthy trial the Guildford Crown Court the above named was found Guilty of theft.”

Yes?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: Yes?

Jarnail Singh: Yeah.

Mr Beer: Then if we go further up the page, just stopping there, we can see a reply or a forwarding or a cutting and pasting of your email to a new collection of people and, in part, a reply to Mr Ismay. It says:

“Rod

“Brilliant news. Well done. Please pass on my thanks to the team.

“Regards.

“Dave.”

That is David Y Smith there, that was the Managing Director of the entire company at that time; is that right?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I honestly don’t know who Dave Smith is.

Mr Beer: Do you not recall there were two Dave Smiths on the emails, David X Smith, who was head of IT, and David Y Smith, who was the MD of the company you worked for, no?

Jarnail Singh: No.

Mr Beer: Okay. In any event, we know that David Y Smith was the MD and he’s saying:

“Rod

“Brilliant news. Well done. Please pass on my thanks to the team.”

Then if we scroll up a little bit further, we can see that that email has been repurposed by Mr Ismay, and has been sent back to a distribution list that largely represents the distribution list of your email. Can you see that?

Jarnail Singh: Yes, and –

Mr Beer: He says:

“Dear all – please note Dave Smith’s thanks to you all for your work on this important case.

“Dave and the ET [the Executive Team] have been aware of the significance of these challenges and have been supportive of the excellent work going on in so many teams to justify the confidence that we have in Horizon and in our supporting processes.

“This is an excellent result and a big thanks to everyone.

“Rod Ismay

“Head of Product & Branch Accounting.”

So just to scroll down a little bit, we can see what happened, your email has been sent to some, would you agree, big figures within the organisation, including Rod Ismay; you knew who he was?

Jarnail Singh: No. I don’t think so.

Mr Beer: You didn’t? Presumably when you received the email back you did because, under his signature block, it’s got that he was head of Product and Branch Accounting?

Jarnail Singh: Well, that I knew but I’d never met the guy. I didn’t know – I didn’t even know what the head of Product and Branch Accounting was, to be honest.

Mr Beer: Mike Moores, did you know who he was?

Jarnail Singh: No.

Mr Beer: Mike Young?

Jarnail Singh: No.

Mr Beer: Paula Vennells?

Jarnail Singh: I – only when I joined the Post Office Limited.

Mr Beer: So that was a couple of years after this, or a year and a half after this, in April 2012?

Jarnail Singh: I mean, I probably heard the name but I’d never met her. I didn’t have any dealings with her. I don’t think I’ve directly emailed her or had any communications with her. I don’t think so, I don’t.

Mr Beer: But, anyway, the message coming back to you is that Dave, who I’ve told you was the MD of the company, and the Executive Team have been aware of the significance of these challenges.

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: Did you know about that, when you were litigating the prosecution of Seema Misra?

Jarnail Singh: No, I don’t think so.

Mr Beer: That the Executive Team were keeping an eye on what was going on?

Jarnail Singh: No. I honestly did not. I just dealt with it in the normal scheme of things. I mean, obviously, it was complicated and difficult but I didn’t know, you know, that there was a, you know, big interest. I mean, I assume it would be, but – because, you know, the Post Office are reliant on Horizon because, you know, it was their tailor-made for their business – you know, I don’t know, 12,000, 13,000, 14,000 units they had at the time.

But, even that aspect of it, any came to my knowledge purely because having dealt with the Misra case. The Misra case opened up everything and it educated me or advanced me in the whole, you know, the whole business, I suppose. I didn’t know anything about, you know, the way the system was put together.

Mr Beer: Is the way that Mr Ismay describes your work as “justifying the confidence we have in Horizon” accurate?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know – well, I don’t know what he thought but, I mean, certainly –

Mr Beer: Did you see it as you job to justify the confidence –

Jarnail Singh: No, no.

Mr Beer: – that the organisation had in Horizon?

Jarnail Singh: No, no, no, no.

Mr Beer: Was the prosecution an exercise in justifying an existing belief, an existing confidence, in the Horizon system?

Jarnail Singh: No. That is not the way I handled this case.

Mr Beer: You see that that’s how Mr Ismay seems to have viewed it?

Jarnail Singh: Yeah, but then I can’t, you know, control what he thinks or he doesn’t think.

Mr Beer: This more than a pat on the back, isn’t it, a congratulatory email about the outcome of one prosecution case, rather than any others, isn’t it?

Jarnail Singh: I just went – quietly went on with my business, I mean, went on and started dealing with the other case. This case was left –

Mr Beer: Presumably you didn’t receive emails from exalted company like this very often at the end of each successful prosecution case, did you?

Jarnail Singh: To be honest, I don’t really – I don’t know how to put it. I’m not really into all this sort of side of things. I’m not a public sort of person. I didn’t think anything of that. I mean, I don’t know whether I saw it, I even read it, once maybe when it came in, closed it, and I think a lot of the time I’m not really IT sort of person. I had a desktop on my desk but I don’t think I paid much attention to it.

I was a traditional, old school lawyer and I don’t think – this sort of thing is not for me. And, certainly, you can make whatever interpretations you like but that’s not what this was. I mean, the – I actually tried to assist Mrs Misra in every respect I could.

When she said she wasn’t, you know, good at IT, I actually for the first time, I think, got her HR record to hopefully, fingers crossed, prove that she wasn’t. But, obviously, it didn’t. But no, that –

Mr Beer: Sorry, you’re saying you sought out Mrs Misra’s HR record to hopefully, fingers crossed, help her out?

Jarnail Singh: Help – assist her in the sense that she was saying – whatever she was saying, that she wasn’t good with the – you know, with the IT side of it, or whatever it is.

Mr Beer: I’d ask you to remember that answer –

Jarnail Singh: I will, yeah.

Mr Beer: – that you were trying to help Mrs Misra out, with your fingers crossed?

Jarnail Singh: Well, not help her – well, yeah, that’s the wrong expression, because I probably, you know, the – I’m not comfortable with the questions you’re asking and I think because – purely because that doesn’t justify any of the interpretation you’re putting on it. Because that – that side of it didn’t really – wasn’t what it was. I didn’t even know any of the people, whatever they did or didn’t do, or, you know, Paula Vennells, Mike Young. I mean, I don’t know what positions they held until – even Mike Young, I don’t even know how he fitted into the business. Paula Vennells, I did, purely because she was the legal executive at the Post Office Limited and she was in the same office.

Mr Beer: Mr Singh, isn’t it right that the reason why this case was seen as significant and important, and the reason why you wrote your email that we’ve just seen is that the case was seen as essential to justify the continued confidence of the Post Office in Horizon –

Jarnail Singh: No.

Mr Beer: – isn’t it?

Sir, that’s an appropriate moment –

The Witness: Can I just add something?

Mr Beer: I’m so sorry, you’ve got another answer.

Jarnail Singh: Yeah, if that was the case, I certainly wouldn’t be dealing with it. It would be somebody like Rob Wilson or maybe Juliet McFarlane. Juliet McFarlane was a lead in this sort of case, in the – you know, the prosecution of subpostmasters. It wasn’t me. I was at – you know, just more or less dealt with the straightforward prosecutions of subpostmasters, as you would see from the case studies, you know, the cases you listed.

So it wouldn’t have been me, it was just by pure coincidence, accident or whatever it was, that was the reason why I – you know, I dealt with it.

Mr Beer: Thank you, Mr Singh.

Sir, if it’s convenient to you, might we take a break?

Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, and what time shall we resume?

Mr Beer: 12.10, please.

Sir Wyn Williams: Certainly.

Mr Beer: Thank you, sir.

(11.52 am)

(A short break)

(12.10 pm)

Mr Beer: Good afternoon, sir, can you see and hear me?

Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, I can.

Mr Beer: Thank you, sir.

Can we move forward, please, Mr Singh to December 2013. I’m still asking you questions about culture and mindset within the Post Office prosecution lawyers team.

Jarnail Singh: Certainly.

Mr Beer: POL00141653, please. Thank you. Can we turn to page 5, please. Just to give you some context to the questions I’m going to ask, we can see an email to you from Rodric Williams, a litigation lawyer:

“Jarnail – senior management has asked for the ‘current position on prosecutions – when paused/what do we have in train’.

“Can [we] put something together?”

If you go, please, to page 3 and scroll down, you say on 4 December:

“Please find attached a Current snapshot of position of [Post Office] prosecution cases. Let me Know if you need anything further.”

Then if we go to the bottom of page 2, please. An email from you to David Oliver – who was David Oliver?

Jarnail Singh: No idea, honest. I mean, at that time there were so company teams set up, so many people coming and going, so many QCs, senior lawyers, agents. I honestly don’t know how he fitted into anything.

Mr Beer: Okay. So at this time, December 2013, just to orientate ourselves, Second Sight was undertaking its work, yes?

Jarnail Singh: Yes, yes.

Mr Beer: This is after Simon Clarke from Cartwright King’s Advices, yes?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I mean –

Mr Beer: We know they’re July and August 2013?

Jarnail Singh: Yes, possibly.

Mr Beer: We’re going to come back to all of this next year, Mr Singh –

Jarnail Singh: Yeah, right.

Mr Beer: – ie the extent to which the Post Office continued to prosecute people, in the light of information revealed to it –

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: – and the advice that it received and whether there was an attempt to cover up information and documents that might have led to criminal convictions being overturned. But I’m looking at it for a different purpose at the moment.

You say to Mr Oliver:

“Following my discussions with you and Belinda …”

Can you remember who Belinda Crowe was?

Jarnail Singh: I think she was head of something, I mean, I don’t know what. Because it – it was difficult, because there’s so much going on, people dealing with mediation, people dealing with all sorts of aspect of, you know, the mediation, Chief Executive appearing before committees, and – you know, do you know what I mean?

And Belinda, I have met her. I don’t know what position. She was heading something or other but, you know, years on, I’ve forgotten, I don’t even know her surname. I think, probably –

Mr Beer: Crowe.

Jarnail Singh: Oh, there it is, there, yeah.

Mr Beer: You continue:

“… here is a quick note which may help with some of the answers to [I think that should be ‘the’] board’s questions.”

Looking at this, does it seem as if the board of the Post Office Limited had asked some questions; is that right?

Jarnail Singh: Yeah, that’s what it looks like.

Mr Beer: Then under the heading “Live Prosecution Matters”:

“1. It was regard acceptable to proceed with.

“2. Number of the prosecutions were in the pipeline and currently in Court.

“3. Looked at case by case … and decision made on them to continue.”

Then over the page:

“4. Certain cases terminated after review. Others were safe to continue with – Guilty plea. Admissions and not challenged the Horizon in Court, ie Defendant made full and frank admissions, pleaded guilty, substantial amount theft of money, breach of trust, it would have been [a] miscarriage of Justice to let them walk three. Therefore the prosecution continued.

“5. The cases were not stopped because it did not need to be.

“6. Have Post Office stopped every single …”

I think that should read “had”:

“[Had] Post Office stopped every single prosecution, what signal would/does that send out about confidence in the Horizon system.”

Now, I’m going to come back next year to ask you about what all of this means and what was being done in terms of deciding which cases to proceed with, which cases were proceeded with because an admission had been made, which cases were proceeded with because an admission had been made but no Horizon disclosure had been given, and the like. But then you continue:

“Advised On …

“Here former General Counsel [I think that should be ‘gave’] instructions that no further summons to be issued for the time being.

“1. Security Team wished to continue investigating and cases [I don’t know this means] were advice on and prepared for the following reasons:

“a) so that evidence was not lost/witnesses recollections deteriorated prior to any statements being taken.

“b) so that Investigation Team could continue to process the work and get the prosecution in ready condition thereby avoiding impossible workload, as and when prosecution is resumed.

“Hope this helps.”

So it seems like you’re explaining which cases are going to court and which cases have been advised on, yes, and why you’re continuing to work on cases and the Investigation Team are continuing to work on cases, even though General Counsel had given instructions that no further summonses were being issued, yes?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain this but it’s such a long, long time ago. There was, you know, there’s so much pressure and I think the – it’s very easy now, you’ve got the time to actually consider all that but that was on a – don’t forget the prosecution has been tendered out to a third party and that’s more or less what their position was, for me to advise in turn. So it wasn’t –

Mr Beer: At the moment I’m not asking you to justify what was done or asking you the substance – about the substance of what was done; this is just to give you some background to the email that we’re looking at, to see in what context it was sent.

Jarnail Singh: Yes, it’s an update.

Mr Beer: Can we go to page 1, please. At the bottom of the page, Mr Oliver replies to you:

“Jarnail,

“Thanks for this.

“I have a few questions now and will probably come back with a few more if okay …”

Then if we just go to the top of the page, you replied saying:

“Please see my reply in red below.”

Yes?

Jarnail Singh: Yeah.

Mr Beer: If we scroll down, there are four questions and if we can highlight those questions to start with, so we can see what they were, in yellow, please. So question 1 is:

“On the live prosecution cases can you give me a few paras with why you are proceeding with the POCA enforcement hearings?”

Yeah? Then there’s your reply, which would have been in red in the email, in the original; do you understand?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: Then over the page, please. Question 2 is under that bullet point:

“What is a PCMH stage?”

Yes?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: Then your reply, we can see it because it’s in a different font begins “The PCMH stage is”, yeah?

Then question 3 is:

“What is a mention before trial?”

Yeah?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: Then question 4 is:

“Of the 31 advised on cases how many are being worked on for further evidence, how many has there been advice to charge and how many are awaiting the expert witness?”

Can you see that?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: So they’re the four questions and everything else is your reply in red; can you see that?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: On that fourth question, that’s the one I want to ask you about, you reply to the question “How many have been worked on for further evidence, how many has there been advice to charge and how many are awaiting expert [evidence]”, you say:

“These are not mutually exclusive. As the landscape now stands in most of the cases it is better that we have the expert instructed as any case begun now will attract some type of Horizon issue because this is the passing bandwagon people are jumping on. When we have a few wins under our belt the Horizon challenges will melt away like midnight snow. In some cases, eg Redman, we do not need the expert as she has made full admissions but the cases where Horizon can be completely ruled out are few and far between even if it only goes to quantum (value of loss).

“Much of the work requested in our charging advices is dotting Is and crossing Ts. Most of the cases advised for charge will be sound prosecutions with comparatively little extra work when we either have an expert’s statement in the bundle or we can get one if the Horizon is raised in a case.

“If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to get back.”

You see in that answer – and this is December 2013, after Second Sight has started is work, after the Clarke Advices have revealed, in Mr Clarke’s view, that Mr Jenkins was a discredited prosecution witness and couldn’t be relied on in court, and that disclosures needed to be made which may undermine the safety of some criminal convictions – you’re saying that people raising Horizon Issues are doing so because there’s a “passing bandwagon”. Why did you form that view?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I had – it’s a sort of – this isn’t just one person, this – we worked as a team, because there was so much going on, it was a team effort team view. It wasn’t a decision made by me. It was a decision by people working on it, and not only internally but externally. They were people with a lot of experience in this type of work. So this is not a personal view. It was the view, the general view, put in that – put in that answer.

Mr Beer: This is your email?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: It’s no one else’s email?

Jarnail Singh: No, but we – we worked as a team. I don’t know, I can’t explain as to –

Mr Beer: Did somebody dictate this email to you?

Jarnail Singh: Possibly. I don’t know. I mean, certainly – I honestly can’t answer that. It’s such a long time ago. Certainly, when you’re – pressurised situation is completely different. Now, it’s completely different because now we’ve got the time to consider it, time to actually digest it all, but that’s what it was at that time.

But I can’t give you any explanation of why it was put in that way because there’s too many issues that came together.

Mr Beer: Why in December 2013 did you and the team still view the Horizon issue as a passing bandwagon that people were jumping on?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know, I’ve got no – I can’t explain it to you. I don’t know why that view was at that time. I don’t know.

Mr Beer: What evidence had you got by December 2013 that there were no issues with Horizon affecting the integrity of the data that it produced?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know.

Mr Beer: Why was it important to get some wins under your belt?

Jarnail Singh: Again, I don’t know.

Mr Beer: Why did you say, “When we’ve got some wins under our belt the Horizon challenges will melt away like midnight snow”?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know.

Mr Beer: Please help us.

Jarnail Singh: I wish I could. It’s such a long time ago.

Mr Beer: Are you struggling because you realise the crassness of what you wrote –

Jarnail Singh: No.

Mr Beer: – and you haven’t got a justification?

Jarnail Singh: Not at all. If I could, I would, but at the moment I’m struggling in the sense that I can’t explain to what happened in the year 2013, and we’re in the year 2023, on to ‘24. At that time, you know, the situation was what it was. Now, you know people had been wrongly done, and they’ve been complaining about something for such a long time and they’ve been proved right.

And I feel aggrieved about it as much as they do, probably not even more, because I was in a position to do something and I didn’t.

Mr Beer: Is this email further evidence that the mindset that you displayed in your evidence of October 2010, after the conclusion of the Seema Misra trial –

Jarnail Singh: No.

Mr Beer: – continued and was still your mindset in December 2013 –

Jarnail Singh: No.

Mr Beer: – “There’s nothing wrong with Horizon” –

Jarnail Singh: No.

Mr Beer: – “people who say there is are jumping on a bandwagon. We’re going to get some wins and the issue will melt away like the midnight snow”?

Jarnail Singh: No.

Mr Beer: Look at the last paragraph, you say:

“Much of the work requested in our charging advices is dotting Is and crossing Ts. Most of the cases advised for charge will be sound prosecutions with comparatively little extra work.”

Is that reflective of how you, in your time acting in the Criminal Law Division, worked, namely your role was just to dot Is and cross Ts?

Jarnail Singh: Where are we talking about, old Street or are you talking about Eccleston Street? Are you talking about the Criminal Law Team or are you talking about the Prosecution Support?

Mr Beer: Let’s divide them up, then –

Jarnail Singh: Yeah, please do that.

Mr Beer: – from August 1995, until separation in April 2012, was your role then, as a criminal lawyer, to dot Is and cross Ts on advice files?

Jarnail Singh: No.

Mr Beer: After April 2012 and before December 2013, was your role as a criminal lawyer, when advising on charge, to dot Is and cross Ts?

Jarnail Singh: No, because I didn’t do any of that work.

Mr Beer: Why did you say “most of the work is dotting Is and crossing Ts”?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I honestly can’t help you because, from what you’re suggesting, I didn’t advise of any of it. It was tendered out.

Mr Beer: Is that how you viewed matters? You didn’t take a serious look at the evidence. You didn’t evaluate its strengths and weaknesses, you didn’t apply a critical eye to the evidence in a case: you just dotted the Is and crossed the Ts?

Jarnail Singh: No.

Mr Beer: So why did you write this?

Jarnail Singh: As I tried to explain to you, CLT – this doesn’t refer to the Criminal Law Team in the sense that we’re in the year 2013. In the year 2013, I’m basically working with the agents. The agents are the ones who are doing all the work. They’re – presumably, that’s what their position was and I’m just highlighting to the – within the business as to where we are.

Mr Beer: Can we move on and look at a different summary of the outcome you gave of Mrs Misra’s case.

Sir Wyn Williams: Mr Beer, before that comes down, there is one thing that occurs to me. If you hadn’t asked the questions because you’re going to do it in a different context, I won’t ask any now but, otherwise, I’d be interested to know who the expert witness is referred to in the paragraph that’s highlighted.

Jarnail Singh: Sir, which one? Where are we?

Sir Wyn Williams: I’m asking Mr Beer first of all whether he wants to deal with it in a different way or whether I should ask you the question.

Mr Beer: Sir, can I answer it in two ways. Firstly, I hadn’t presently intended to look at that issue but it may help us in our investigatory work, on reflection, in readiness for next year. So I don’t think any harm will be done by asking now.

Sir Wyn Williams: Right.

Well, then, Mr Singh, do you see the paragraph which begins “Of the 31 advised on cases”, which is highlighted?

Jarnail Singh: Is it – at the top, isn’t there? I can’t see it, sir.

Sir Wyn Williams: It’s about halfway down the screen –

Jarnail Singh: Oh, yes, sorry, I’ve got that.

Sir Wyn Williams: – and it’s the fourth question that you were going to answer, all right, and it ends by saying – well, let me read the question:

“Of the 31 advised on cases, how many are being worked on for further evidence, how many has there been advice to charge and how many are awaiting the expert witness?”

It’s that last bit I want to ask you about, all right?

Jarnail Singh: Mm.

Sir Wyn Williams: Because I’d like you to tell me, if you could, the identity of the expert witness there being referred to.

Jarnail Singh: Sir, at that time, from – my understanding is that Cartwright King were looking for an expert and they couldn’t find any, because, as you – I think, you know, you’ve been hearing a lot of evidence, this system is very specialist, this Horizon system as relates to the Post Office.

Sir Wyn Williams: Yes.

Jarnail Singh: And I think one or two times I did attend with them, some at the university, some of the professors, they weren’t – you know, in Cartwright King’s view, they weren’t good enough to deal with it. So I don’t know – at that time, we didn’t find an expert.

Sir Wyn Williams: So when you reply “As the landscape now stands in most of the cases it is better that we have the expert instructed”, you are there indicating, are you, that there should be an expert instructed but you don’t know who that person is at that moment in time?

Jarnail Singh: Sir, the position there was that all – I didn’t do any of the work; it was tendered out exclusive to a third party, Cartwright King, and it’s basically they are telling me – I’ve asked for a progress report, how to reply to it, and it’s basically their answer. They say, “Look, this is the position”, and all I’m doing is relaying to the business, so I don’t – it’s not something that I have a personal knowledge of.

Sir Wyn Williams: As far as you can recall, Mr Singh, was an expert ever identified in late 2013 when this email being written, or subsequently?

Jarnail Singh: Sir, no. It wasn’t.

Sir Wyn Williams: Right. All right. Thank you.

Mr Beer: Thank you, sir, that can come down.

Can we look at a further summary of the outcome of Mrs Misra’s case, much later, please. POL00113015, and can we start at page 10, please.

We can see an email exchange between Lena Hameed and Sophie Bialaszewski – I’m sure I’ve mispronounced that – saying:

“Hi Sophie,

“We haven’t got that much information as there’s not CQR yet. But I imagine the legal team will have the criminal case files – so Jarnail will be able to provide a breakdown of the merits of the case. As far as the scheme is concerned, this is a summary of what we have:

“Seema Misra was given I post from [some dates are given].

“MP at the time of her application was Jonathan Lord.

“Incidents reportedly occurred in the summer of 2005.

“No specific references to Horizon Issues – cites lack of support as the main factor leading to the losses.

“Alleges that [Post Office] threatened her and used mental torture.

“Howe+Co represented – funding agreement signed in November.

“Still waiting on a CQR from the applicant – apparently SS [I think that’s Second Sight] have it for refinement.”

Go to page 9 and look at the bottom, please. We can see who Sophie was, a Public Affairs Manager in the Post Office. She now copies you in to this email on 11 June 2014:

“Thanks so much, Lena. Rodric/Jarnail would you be able to provide me with a bullet [point] or two on the legal position eg unanimous guilty verdict by jury or whatever it would be.”

Then up the page, please. You reply:

“Sophie

“Something along the lines of:

“Seema Misra was subpostmistress at West Byfleet. She was accused of stealing £74,000-odd between 2005 and 2008. On 21/10/10 after a seven-day trial, she was found guilty by the jury of the theft.”

Then bottom of page 8, please. Reply:

“Hi – the Comms Team might need a bit more to help them tell our side of the story

(Sophie – please correct me if I’m wrong!)

Mr Beer: “Is there any more detail you could provide, eg around:

“the trial being a fully contested adversarial proceeding, with X number of witnesses (including experts) being cross-examined;

“that no appeal was ever pursued against conviction or sentence or both (or if it was, how far it went);

“the implications of a jury advert (eg that it’s 12 people unanimously agreeing that all elements of the offences were proved beyond reasonable doubt etc)?”

Then if we continue to scroll up, please, Sophie says:

“Yes please! Thanks Rod.”

Then scroll up again. Then you reply:

“How about the following [in inverted commas]:

“‘After a lengthy trial Guildford Crown Court the above named was found Guilty of theft’.”

Is this looking familiar to you, Mr Singh?

Jarnail Singh: Well, yes.

Mr Beer: Why does it look familiar to you?

Jarnail Singh: Because it’s cut and paste from the previous one – previous – you know, the final result –

Mr Beer: The one from four years earlier?

Jarnail Singh: Yeah.

Mr Beer: “‘This case turned from a relatively straightforward general deficiency case to an unprecedented attack on the Horizon system’”, et cetera, et cetera.

Jarnail Singh: Yeah.

Mr Beer: Then you say, outside the inverted commas, albeit it is a quote from your original email of October 2010:

“It is to be hope that the case will set a marker to dissuade other Defendants from jumping on the Horizon bashing bandwagon.”

Those were sentiments that you still felt, in June 2013, weren’t they?

Jarnail Singh: No, I –

Mr Beer: Why did you write this, then?

Jarnail Singh: I didn’t feel them from the outset. I don’t feel it then. It was just basically reiterating what was said before. I mean, so, no, that is not true.

Mr Beer: Why did you write an email to media and PR people, who were asking you for something that would allow the Post Office to tell its side of the story to the public in June 2014, which you didn’t believe was true or to be the case?

Jarnail Singh: Well, look, sir, the position then and now is completely different. So I can only apologise to everybody, maybe it’s hurt their feelings or even hurt them deeply, but I can’t explain, sorry.

Mr Beer: Can we look at the response from Sophie in public affairs, at the top of the page:

“Thanks for this, would it be possible to get the bullets Rodric sent below with the correct numbers in?”

Then the three questions are repeated, and she says to you:

“Your para is too emotive for us to use and so a factual account would be best.”

Was it often the case that public affairs and PR people told you that your copy was too emotive for them?

Jarnail Singh: No. I had very little to do with them, to be honest. I wish I had even less.

Mr Beer: It’s normally the other way round, isn’t it? PR people are trying to get you to give good copy, say things that aren’t emotive?

Jarnail Singh: I’m sorry, sir, I can’t answer that. I don’t have much dealings with them. I don’t have much experience with them so that was the first experience and probably the last, and I’m happy with that.

Mr Beer: She was asking you just to give her the facts, not to overlay emotion onto it, wasn’t she?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know what she was asking. It’s such a long time ago, I have no idea. Hard to explain that to you but not – that was never my motive from the outset, up to now.

Mr Beer: By the time you wrote your email, in June 2014, where you cut and pasted your email of four years earlier, from the last day of the trial, that we looked at this morning, you knew about the Helen Rose report, didn’t you?

Jarnail Singh: I know it was set up. I know they wanted some help to help her to – needed some help. That’s about it. I don’t think I had much more to deal with it. I had, by that time, I think Cartwright King had taken care of the prosecution side of it because I didn’t have the capacity or know-how or support to deal with it, so they basically were dealing with the prosecution side of it. They were dealing with her directly.

Mr Beer: You knew by then that Simon Clarke had advised that Mr Jenkins was a discredited witness who had breached his obligations as an expert witness –

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: – and that the Post Office that breached its obligations of disclosure as a prosecutor, didn’t you?

Jarnail Singh: Yes, I did, yes.

Mr Beer: You knew that those points applied in Seema Misra’s case, didn’t you?

Jarnail Singh: I think it applied all over the board. I mean, I – you know, from the outset, of the installation of the actual system itself, yes.

Mr Beer: You knew the Post Office had stopped prosecuting because it had been unable to find an expert that would stand up in court and back the Horizon system, didn’t you?

Jarnail Singh: No, I wasn’t involved in the prosecution at that time.

Mr Beer: Had the Post Office been able to find an expert that would stand up in court and back the Horizon system by June 2014?

Jarnail Singh: I – again, it’s a matter for Cartwright King. It wasn’t a matter for me. They were physically and practically involved in finding it and finding it suitable for the Post Office to authorise and approve and pay for, to deal with it. But I didn’t have any dealings with it.

Mr Beer: You were overseeing their work, weren’t you?

Jarnail Singh: Only a matter – no, no, I wasn’t.

Mr Beer: What were you doing?

Jarnail Singh: I was helping the Post Office. As I tell you, there was too many other –

Mr Beer: Sorry?

Jarnail Singh: There was other pressing matters.

Mr Beer: What was more pressing than the possible wrongful conviction of dozens or even hundreds of subpostmasters?

Jarnail Singh: That side of it was taken over by the QC, at that time, Brian Altman. You had, you know, senior clerks – senior barristers, counsel from Cartwright King, and I think they had a few other people involved. They had the senior management involved. As you will probably see, a lot of this email I’m not cc’d in, so no.

Mr Beer: So, given that you knew that Simon Clarke had advised that Mr Jenkins was a discredited witness who had breached his obligations as an expert witness and that the Post Office had breached its disclosure obligations as a prosecutor, and that those two points applied in the Seema Misra case, why were you churning out the same old PR message?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I can’t answer that because I can’t explain it to you years – you know, years and years ago.

Mr Beer: That had previously been an internal message, hadn’t it?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: But you were now repurposing it for public, external consumption, weren’t you?

Jarnail Singh: Absolutely not. If I’d known that, then I wouldn’t have done. This is internal team and it’s not just for communication; it’s for other people as well. I mean, I wasn’t involved in it and I was cc’d in and I told them what the position was in the Misra case, that’s all – how the results came out and what results were, basically updating them to whatever the conclusion of the case was.

Mr Beer: Can we go to what your reply was to Sophie’s suggestion that your paragraph was too emotive to use and ask for a factual account instead. Page 1 of this email chain, then if we scroll down. Your email back to her, to Sophie, with other people copied in, including Chris Aujard, you say:

“Sophie

“Mrs Misra continues to protest her innocence via the media. The summary below shows that there was ample evidence to justify a conviction.”

Then if you just look at the document, paragraphs 1, 2 and 3, and then if you go over the page and then just scroll through it, please. Then you sign it off “Hope it helps”.

First of all, who actually drafted this email?

Jarnail Singh: Various people. I had a – there was various people involved in drafting. It’s not just – it was – err –

Mr Beer: It appears to contain no spelling mistakes or missing words, which, if you’ll forgive me for saying, is your normal way of writing, ie with spelling mistakes and missing words, and it doesn’t appear to be in your style of writing.

Jarnail Singh: I can’t help you on that. I don’t know, but there’s – it’s such a long time ago. I mean – I have no idea. But there are, you know, it’s a teamwork. It’s not one individual to put it all together and the other thing is I’m not a good typist, as you probably worked out. I’m used to dictating work, and I don’t – it probably had gone to somebody to have it typed for me to approve with a few others.

Mr Beer: Can we look at some of the other contents to see whether it helps you. Page 4, paragraph 18, please, the author says:

“The two criminal files I looked at are of some significance. Jo Hamilton and Noel Thomas have been prominent critics of Horizon in the media. Their cases were similar to Mrs Misra’s. Both were [subpostmasters] who chose to hide deficiencies by false accounting over a long period of time, rather than declare their losses”, et cetera.

Is that something that you did, look at the criminal files of Jo Hamilton and Noel Thomas?

Jarnail Singh: No, no. I –

Mr Beer: So this tends to suggest it is somebody else who is writing it?

Jarnail Singh: Possibly, yes. To be honest, I – now that you mention it, you keep – you know, you’ve got the time to analyse it, scrutinise it but, at that time, it was difficult, I mean, to do what did, for an individual, it was next to impossible. So you had people assisting, helping, putting stuff together.

You’re right on that but, certainly, Jo Hamilton case, Noel Thomas case, I’ve never dealt with them. I don’t know –

Mr Beer: Can we go to page 5, paragraph 20, please. Your email says:

“Horizon is a complicated computer system about which even eminent experts can make mistakes. There was no reason to doubt Professor McLachlan’s expertise and good faith but time and time again he had to be corrected by Mr Jenkins. Professor McLachlan is not the only expert to have misunderstood Horizon. I have spoken to colleagues who prosecute these cases and they have come across other experts who have also fallen into error. I can say that both sides in Misra were completely beholden to Gareth Jenkins and his deep knowledge of Horizon.”

Again, is that you speaking there? “I have spoken to colleagues”?

Jarnail Singh: Possibly not. Haha, I don’t know.

Mr Beer: Or is it somebody else?

Jarnail Singh: I have – my job was enjoyable because I was talking to a lot of people, I was gaining a lot out of it. It was stretching. It was complicated. But that’s the sort of thing I enjoy. So it was enjoyable in that sense but I can’t say to you – that certainly – you know, that more or less goes back to the fact that there was a number of people involved in assisting and advising and putting these sort of things together.

Mr Beer: So this might be you actually writing this?

Jarnail Singh: No. Maybe a contribution towards it. There’s a lot of people making contributions towards these things –

Mr Beer: At the moment, Mr Singh, I’m just trying to work out, by taking you to bits of this email, to help you to work out whether this is your work or whether you’ve cut and pasted something else that somebody else has said and repurposed it for yourself.

Jarnail Singh: Well, as you know, I mean when you do this work, you obviously do have help and, certainly, I had a lot of help over that period because it was –

Mr Beer: I’m asking about something different, which is cutting and pasting somebody else’s work –

Jarnail Singh: Yeah.

Mr Beer: – and passing it off as your own.

Jarnail Singh: Yeah, you will get a lot of that everywhere and certainly the work I deal with, that was the only way I could cope with it and deal with it and I did and that probably was a paragraph from somewhere or probably a lot more than a paragraph, might be quite a few from it, and maybe I asked somebody “Look, the Misra case, can you help me, can you highlight or bullet point the lessons we learnt from the Misra case?” Yes.

Mr Beer: Which other lawyers, other than you and Warwick Tatford, were involved in the Seema Misra case?

Jarnail Singh: I think Rob Wilson, Juliet McFarlane, maybe Debbie – I don’t know what was – she’s changed her name now, hasn’t she?

Mr Beer: Debbie Stapel?

Jarnail Singh: Staples (sic). I don’t know. Certainly maybe somebody else from Bell Yard. Certainly the two legal executives, the Investigation Officer. You name it, it was a big team because it was a big – it was just unmanageable. I mean, the Post Office is so vast, to deal with it as one individual, it’s –

Mr Beer: I’m looking at potential authors because the person –

Jarnail Singh: Ah, I’m giving you the – you know, given you basically, you know –

Mr Beer: You were happy to put your name to this and say you own this email and the contents of it, weren’t you?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I was happy to put my name to it, purely because a lot of it – you know, from again the Misra case, I didn’t go to court for seven days. I think I started it off, certainly I had a lot of counsel’s opinions and views and advises on it, as you know. But certainly –

Mr Beer: Mr Singh, you wouldn’t write an email with all of this content unless you were happy with the content, would you?

Jarnail Singh: Well, like I said to you, these things work purely because it’s not for one individual. Somebody has got to put their name to it and, if it wasn’t me, it probably would have been somebody else.

Mr Beer: But in that case, you would say at the beginning “This is a summary with multiple contributions. I, Jarnail Singh, can’t vouch for everything”?

Jarnail Singh: Sir, you would do because you’re such a wise and experienced practitioner. But when you come to my level –

Mr Beer: Did you lack experience and lack wisdom; is that what you’re saying?

Jarnail Singh: No, no, my level is different.

Mr Beer: Sorry?

Jarnail Singh: It’s a different level. It’s a different degree of work. Certainly, you know, if I was doing it now, then I probably would have done but, at that time, there is pressure of time, and there’s other matters to be dealt with. People wanted these sort of advices, these sort of prompters, yesterday, not today, not in seven days’ time, not in 14 days’ time. So what you do or what I did was to get help and put something together to pass it on.

Mr Beer: Can we go back to the beginning of the email then and look at the content. Page 1, please:

“Mrs Misra continues to protest her innocence in the media. The summary below shows there was ample evidence to justify a conviction.”

That was still your belief, was it, in June 2014?

Jarnail Singh: No.

Mr Beer: Why did you very it then?

Jarnail Singh: Because that was the job I was asked to do. I was asked to summarise it.

Mr Beer: It was your job to say things you didn’t believe?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I – I can’t answer that. I mean, you know, at that time I wrote it and now, I regret it, I suppose.

Mr Beer: I’m asking you why you wrote it. Not whether you regret it now?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. It was – I was asked to summarise it, and the – you know, with the help of other people, I summarised it. So you asked earlier why didn’t I put a summary. There it is, the summary below shows, and a lot of the people who made a contribution towards it obviously made a contribution to assist me at that time.

Mr Beer: But you’re adopting this as your work. There’s nothing on this that tells the reader that this isn’t you speaking here?

Jarnail Singh: No. When you do work, you have a lot of researchers, don’t you? Do you actually put their names to every single thing, that certain people made a contribution towards it? It’s a team effort. People know whose work it is because they worked with me at that time. It wasn’t an individual. I couldn’t sit down and churn that out within, I don’t know, two hours or three hours or a day, when I was asked to do it. So the only way I could get the work done, it was to, you know, seek a contributions from the people who could help, and they did and here we are.

Mr Beer: You say:

“The Misra case at Guildford Crown Court in 2009-2010 as far as I am aware, is the only criminal trial where a jury has been required to consider in detail the integrity of the Horizon system.”

Paragraph 2 is a cut and paste of your earlier email. 3:

“Mrs Misra claimed that, although she was guilty of false accounting, she had not stolen the money whose loss she had concealed. She suggested that one possible reason why the money appeared to be missing might be computer error. The jury heard from expert witnesses for the Crown and Defence. Their evidence was sufficiently detailed as to have lasted two full days. The jury’s verdict showed that it was sure that computer error played no role in the case. There has been no appeal against conviction.”

Then over the page, please:

“The Defence made very wide ranging requests for disclosure and the prosecution was asked to review material relating to a number of other offices where subpostmasters had made complaints about Horizon. That disclosure process was fraught with difficulties, mainly because the disclosure requests were unfocused and often irrelevant. If we had complied with every disclosure request, the Investigation Department would probably have been paralysed for six months, the investigators being unable to deal with any other work.

“I am aware that Mrs Misra continues to protest her innocence via the media and that she is one of number of vocal critics of Horizon. It is perhaps worthwhile setting out the facts of her case and what happened at trial because some of the critical reports of the case have not been accurate.”

You set out in paragraph 6 what happened in the audit.

In 7, a plea and case management hearing.

Then 8:

“When Mrs Misra’s case was listed for trial in June 2009 she brought to Court material from the Internet detailing number of complaints about the Horizon system made by former subpostmasters. The Post Office Limited agreed to an adjournment of the trial to allow the Defence to pursue this line of inquiry, even though it was likely that Ms Misra was jumping on a bandwagon now that she had realised her original defence didn’t work.”

So it was still your view in 2014 that Mrs Misra was a bandwagon jumper; is that right?

Jarnail Singh: I think hindsight is – if I’d known what I known now, then, obviously, no, but the thing is then – no, that was not the case, but it was, like I said, a teamwork or people who knew the – knew the case, made a contribution towards it, and I think it was decided to put it in.

But, certainly, you know, it wasn’t my decision to put it in. Let’s put it that way. I certainly wouldn’t have – wouldn’t have thought of that, originally, now or any time, because that’s not the way I write. I mean as you know – rightly say, I’m not that good at typing, I’m not very good at putting something like that together but that’s why I’m probably one of those that can’t work without a team.

I’m not a guy who can just come and work. I need – every time I did something in life, I would certainly – in the profession, I always had people around me. I mean, I can do certain things very well certain things not so well, and if I don’t, I have people who can. So I put it – put a sort of team together to do, to be able to exist and then certainly hopefully to do a job or do the work to a high standard, and that’s what I’ve done. It was a team effort.

Mr Beer: You continue in paragraph 9:

“Mrs Misra changed solicitors and there then followed a difficult period when [Post Office Limited] was subjected to an avalanche of disclosure requests. We were also served with a series of so-called ‘interim reports’ by a newly instructed defence expert called Professor Charles McLachlan. These reports raised theoretical possibilities of things that might go wrong with Horizon. The reports contained no evidence for the theories and no explanation as to why any of these theories might be relevant to the West Byfleet office. Our efforts to control these disclosure requests fell on deaf ears. We repeatedly made the point that the case was not about whether the Horizon system was perfect. No computer system can be in perfect and errors can arise on any system. The issue was whether anything had gone wrong at West Byfleet. The person who would know that was Mrs Misra. At the very least she should be able to identify what sort of problems she had encountered and where on the accounts the deficiencies were emerging. She would know this because she would have physically checked the stock against the computer records.”

I’m going to come back to that belief that you had that it’s the subpostmaster who would know most about the operation of Horizon, later:

“10. It emerged in the trial that in spite of our requests for a focused approach defence expert Professor McLachlan had never sought any information from Mrs Misra. His theories were simply his own. Mrs Misra had given him no guidance whatsoever as what might be going wrong at West Byfleet.

“[The Post Office Limited] instructed their own expert, Mr Jenkins, from Fujitsu. This was a turning point in the case. Professor McLachlan fairly conceded that Mr Jenkins had given him very great assistance in understanding Horizon. Mr Jenkins was able to explain to Professor McLachlan how many of his theories were not valid and based on a misunderstanding of Horizon. Mr Jenkins advised that the only way to assess any problems at West Byfleet was to obtain the transaction logs and to examine them for potential problems. Obtaining the logs was expensive and their analysis was time consuming. However, after both experts had completed their analysis, neither could find evidence of any computer error whatsoever that could have contributed to the deficiency.

“In his evidence to the jury Professor McLachlan conceded that all of the theoretical problems he had raised were now irrelevant. He abandoned most of his theories after being assisted to a better understanding by Mr Jenkins. Other theories he had checked against the transaction logs and found to be baseless. In a nutshell his final conclusion was this: he hadn’t found any problem but there might still have been a problem that he and Jenkins might have missed. The jury clearly rejected this as wishful thinking, after considering all of the evidence in the case.”

13, about three lines in:

“She [Mrs Misra] was on the scene to witness the symptoms of any computer problems while the experts could only trawl through the data long after the event. Any sensible [subpostmaster] would have hunted high and low to ascertain where in the accounts the losses were occurring. A [subpostmaster] should be able to find the location of the problem even if they could not solve it. Mrs Misra had not made any such rigorous checks. She had simply accepted each loss rather than declare the deficiency in the monthly balance, as she was required to do, she had hidden it by false accounting.”

Over the page. If we go to paragraph 17:

“It can be seen from this summary that there was ample evidence to justify a conviction. The jury was entitled to conclude that there was only one sensible reason for Mrs Misra to cook the books: to hide her own stealing. An honest [subpostmaster] would have reported the loss immediately. This is what they are required to do. It is also the obvious step out of self-interest. At the very least it would nip any problem in the bud and limit the amount of money the subpostmaster might have to repay. Also, if a genuine problem was found with the computer system, there would be no question of repayment. Mrs Misra claimed that she had not wanted to lose the Post Office and that is why she had been so secretive. This ignored the obvious fact that she had allowed the loss to grow to such a catastrophic amount that it would have been better to give the business away. The jury was entitled to reject her evidence as absurd and to conclude that her belated attack on Horizon was nothing but a desperate distraction [technique].”

Was that your view, in June 2014, that Mrs Misra’s questions as to the integrity of the Horizon data were nothing but a desperate distraction tactic?

Jarnail Singh: Well, no.

Mr Beer: So why did you write it?

Jarnail Singh: I didn’t. It was – as I say, it was a team effort as a unit. Somebody wanted a summary of what happened in year 2012 – year 2010, at the trial, and that’s basically bringing them up to date to what happened in the Misra case.

Mr Beer: So who in the team was responsible for this effort?

Jarnail Singh: It was joint effort, put together by number of people, I think. I more or less told you the people who were involved in it, who had a hand in it and that’s basically all I can help assist you with.

Mr Beer: Was it representative of an underlying assumption by that team, even in June 2014, that subpostmasters raising Horizon Issues during investigations were lying about the causes of losses at their branch and were doing so as part of a distraction technique?

Jarnail Singh: No.

Mr Beer: Can we move, please, to POL00108394.

Can we look, please, at page 4, please, and scroll down, please. Can we see this is an email to you of March 2014 from –

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: – a paralegal –

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: – Renata Prywerek?

Did Renata Prywerek work in Post Office Limited Legal, or Royal Mail Group.

Jarnail Singh: No, Legal. She assisted all of us in the team. I think those are the names of all the people in the team.

Mr Beer: She says:

“Hi all

“I have been asked by Piero …”

Who was Piero?

Jarnail Singh: I think – I don’t know – ‘12, ‘14, maybe – he may have been a joint team leader or head of legal when Hugh, I think, left by then. So I suppose he was a joint Head of the Legal Team at the Post Office Limited.

Mr Beer: “I have been asked by Piero to collect information about your matters.

“Could you please create a list of your top 5 matters including a short description of each matter.”

Yes.

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: Then can we go to page 2, please. Can we see your reply, to Renata and to Piero:

“Renata

“Please see below Top five matters in Criminal prosecutions.”

Yes?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: If we scroll down, please, number 1 is “Auditors Training”.

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: If we go over the page, at the bottom of the page, I don’t think it’s in bold, number 2 is “Scotland”.

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: Number 3 is “Expert”. One of the important issues has been to locate a suitable expert and instruct them, I translate that as.

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: “Identified an expert. Accompanied [Cartwright King] to a number of meetings with expert and it is hoped expert [will] be instructed shortly.

“In these meetings discussed important issues and assisted in briefing of the expert.

“By liaising with different areas of Post Office Limited gathering information on technical aspects and funding and Fujitsu as appropriate and liaising between external lawyers and internal Post Office Limited departments.

“Feeding information to experts, who then become better informed to be able to deal with Horizon issues/scope.

“Current and ongoing prosecutions cannot [recommence] until instruction [of] independent [Post Office Limited] computer expert is instructed and his report is [in] hand.”

Jarnail Singh: In hand, yes.

Mr Beer: Yeah? How many experts did you approach?

Jarnail Singh: I didn’t personally approach any.

Mr Beer: How many meetings did you attend of experts that were approached?

Jarnail Singh: That was left in the capable hands of Cartwright King and, I think, Simon Clarke was basically given the task but I don’t know what he did but, certainly, you know, that’s what it was.

Mr Beer: You say here that you accompanied Cartwright King to a number of meetings?

Jarnail Singh: I –

Mr Beer: How many experts did you attend upon?

Jarnail Singh: I personally – I think probably one or two, but a lot of it was their CVs, I think they passed it over to me. But it was tasked for Cartwright King because they had the experts there, they wanted to know what they were looking for. They’re the ones who will prosecute or not prosecute. They’re the ones who would advise on those things, so it was left in their capable hands.

So this is basically a one-to-one. I mean she wanted to know five matters I’m involved in and I gave her five matters.

Mr Beer: They’re all about Horizon, aren’t they?

Jarnail Singh: Well, yeah. I suppose, yes.

Mr Beer: “4. [Post Office] Mediation Scheme.”

Then:

“5. Revised Prosecution Policy and Future of [Post Office Limited] Prosecutions.”

You say:

“Post Office Limited has an in-house security and prosecution team. As part of its remit it undertakes investigations and where deemed appropriate will undertake criminal prosecutions in line with the business prosecution policy. If an incident is considered to have sufficient evidence to prosecute, it is passed to the Post Office Limited Legal team for review and consideration against the evidential and public interest tests. Legal teams recommendations are then passed to the Head of Security and if satisfied, he will then make a decision on prosecution.”

Then you say:

“a) There is no doubt that this year will be the most challenging in terms of number of key factors; the findings of the Second Sight review; the £20,000 threshold on anomalies for potential audit and prosecutions policy and significantly proposals have been submitted for Contract Advisers not to precautionary suspend as a matter of course, without first considering whether or not the subject [remains] in the Post Office.

“b) Following the Second Sight review and revised prosecution policy with the resultant cultural shift within the business, greater ever assist will be placed on fraud prevention and early intervention activities. It is envisaged that a number of fraud risk programmes will be initiated this year driven by emerging patterns … the success of these programs will only be achieved by collaborative approach with other Security strands and key stakeholders.”

You’re reflecting here that there was a fundamental shift in 2014 to the approach to prosecutions, aren’t you?

Jarnail Singh: That’s what I put – that’s what –

Mr Beer: That’s true, there was a fundamental shift, wasn’t there?

Jarnail Singh: That’s what the business decided. I mean, I think it was probably at other meetings, or whatever it is, but it’s not my decision, it’s what the business was going to do, or what going to do. I don’t know. I mean, I’m not part of the management. I’m not part of the board, the – maybe one of the meetings, I was part of, and that’s what they decided what – the way they were going to go.

So all I’m doing is putting down – putting down is one of the things I’m working or part of.

Mr Beer: Prior to that time, had the Post Office enjoyed a culture of prosecuting cases?

Jarnail Singh: Oh, was that a question, sorry?

Mr Beer: Yes.

Jarnail Singh: You have to ask –

Mr Beer: The senior lawyer within the Criminal Law Team?

Jarnail Singh: Maybe I’m a senior lawyer, maybe that’s just the title but I didn’t get involved in any of that. I don’t know what it is, I think it is probably somebody like Rob Wilson, maybe somebody – you had Mr Marsh, who was Head of Security, maybe somebody from the board, maybe – whatever it is. But I don’t – I can’t answer that question because I don’t know. I wasn’t part of it.

But all I can tell you is that the reason why it’s there, because obviously I was told that’s what they – they were going to do, going forward. You know, what the future looked like.

Mr Beer: Prior to this shift in prosecution policy, were criminal investigations and proceedings launched without a proper basis?

Jarnail Singh: Of course not. I wouldn’t – no, no.

Mr Beer: Why was a change necessary, then?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. As I said to you, I wasn’t involved in the first incident of what you’re describing as, I don’t recognise it. And the second bit is I’m highlighting what I’ve been told. You know, that’s what the Post Office wanted to do and I’m just saying “Well, that’s what the Post Office wanted to do in the future, or presently”, or – but I can’t answer that because I was not part of any decision making, wasn’t part of – in the management of. I’m just a little bit, more or less a case worker, in the sense I described in my statement.

Mr Beer: If we go over the page, please, to (c):

“Cases will only be raised for criminal investigation once all alternative avenues which may culminate in a successful outcome have been explored and dismissed. The decided course of action needs to be proportionate, justified and necessary. Cases raised for investigations will be limited to those likely to seriously damage the brand or reputation of the Post Office. Other cases will be considered where there’s a clear and obvious business need to conduct a criminal investigation.”

Who decided that cases raised for investigation would be limited to those likely seriously to damage the Post Office’s brand?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I mean, presumably the board, presumably the management. Maybe the head of the Legal – Legal, but certainly this is, again –

Mr Beer: But this time you were the Head of the Criminal Law Team, weren’t you?

Jarnail Singh: I wasn’t head of anything, to be honest with you. I just went in as a challenge, as an opportunity and I can reassure you I was not Head of Criminal Law.

I think the outside world did, probably did, because I was the only criminal lawyer and I think originally they wanted Rob Wilson to go in, and at the last minute he dropped out, and I was put forward and I think in the last minute, in the last – I think this post was on 1 April ‘12 and I think I was more or less told the end of March, probably the middle of March, “Do you want it?”

And I considered it, went to see Cartwright King, I liked it and I knew it would be tough, so I took that opportunity as a challenge and that’s what I did.

Mr Beer: Who at the Post Office was driving the message, then, that prosecutions would be launched if they damaged seriously the brand or reputation of the Post Office?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I think again, it’s not down to me. I don’t think I was part of it. I was probably told about it. It would be the Head of Legal, the board, maybe Head of Security. Certainly, you know, you probably have seen so much work, so much is emailed. I’m not probably copied into most of it. I mean, I’m copied in as and when they need some advice or assistance on the legal front but, even on the legal front, I’m passing it over to Cartwright King because they’re more handle because they’re actually dealing, physically dealing with the prosecution on our behalf.

Mr Beer: Why were decisions as to whether to launch criminal investigations and pursuing prosecutions clouded by concerns over the reputation of the Post Office?

Jarnail Singh: I can’t help you with that because I don’t know. I mean, I’m not part of the – the thing is that if they flash those words out, it may have some meaning but then a lot of the work at that time and even now is all bullet points and – you know, so you need some sort of content to it, some sort of background to understand what it always means. But I wasn’t part of any of that, as to why they decided to do what they did, decided to do.

Mr Beer: Can we turn please to POL00127280 and look at page 2, please, and scroll down, please. Can we see an email from you here to Angela van den Bogerd, of May 2014?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: In the second paragraph, you say:

“There will be cases in which it will be clear from the outset that [Post Office Limited] will need to conduct [a] criminal investigation with [a] view to potential prosecution to protect [the Post Office Limited] brand and reputation and for business purposes.”

Why would the protection of the Post Office brand and reputation be a relevant consideration in deciding whether to prosecute?

Jarnail Singh: I’ve told – you know, I’ve repeated it many times. I have been told that’s what they wanted to do. All I’m doing is highlighting it to the rest of the team, as to where they’re going. I mean, as to whys and hows and the purposes, I wasn’t the person to give you the answer to that. I don’t know who – where you would be able to get the answer now. I don’t know who else is coming to give evidence to the Inquiry but, certainly, I can’t assist you any more than what I have. All I’ve done is highlighted where – what the Post Office wanted to do and how they want to do it.

Mr Beer: What were the business purposes you referring to there when you say that “sometimes there will be cases where a criminal investigation with a view to potential prosecution needs to be commenced for business purposes?” What were the business purposes?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know.

Mr Beer: What business purposes could justify a criminal investigation?

Jarnail Singh: 7 May 2014 – I don’t know. I mean, I – you know, such a long time ago. I’ve been away from this sort area of work and, certainly, the Post Office, for a long time, and I’ve been involved in other matters, other legal work. I can’t, you know, say hand on heart, to tell you exactly what it was because I don’t – I don’t remember as to what the purposes were. I’ve forgotten about it. That’s the past. It’s been left there.

Mr Beer: Earlier in the piece, between, say, 2000 and 2012, were business purposes brought into account when deciding whether to prosecute or not?

Jarnail Singh: I think the – the – I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know. I mean I – you know, it’s such a long time ago. You know, to try to explain it all to you would be wrong of me to tell you because I can’t honestly answer that.

Mr Beer: Was one of the business purposes you’re referring to there the protection of the integrity of the Horizon system –

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. Only the person who –

Mr Beer: – ie we’ll prosecute –

Jarnail Singh: – who made the decision would know. I don’t know what they were thinking, or the reason for it being there.

Mr Beer: Was one of the business purposes debt recovery using criminal prosecution in order to recover debt from postmasters?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t – personally, no, but I don’t know what the other people thought or why they did what they did, but I certainly didn’t think of it that way. I mean, my thing was –

Mr Beer: If we’ve ruled out those two things, the business purpose of protecting the integrity of Horizon, and the business purpose of recovering debt from subpostmasters as a motivator or a relevant consideration for prosecution, what were the business purposes to which you’re referring?

Jarnail Singh: I’m not referring to anything. All I’m doing is repeating what I’ve been told to tell the rest of the team.

Mr Beer: So just following orders, really?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: Thank you very much.

It’s 1.20, sir. Might that be an appropriate moment to break? Could I ask that we come back at 2.10, please?

Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, fine.

Mr Beer: Thank you very much, sir.

(1.20pm)

(The Short Adjournment)

(2.10 pm)

Mr Beer: Good afternoon, sir, can you see and hear me?

Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, I can, thank you.

Mr Beer: Good afternoon, Mr Singh. Can we pick up, please, with POL00101851, please, and start by looking at pages 2 and 3.

Let’s start on 3, and scroll down, please. Can we see this is an email signed off by Nick Wallis, the journalist, and scroll up, please, and if we look at the date of the email it’s initially to Melanie Corfield, asking for an interview and he says:

“Thank you for your help with The One Show transmitted on Tuesday, 9 December. We’re now preparing a second film which is due to go out on The One Show on BBC One at around the same time next week. We would be most grateful if the Post Office would be prepared to offer an interview expressing its view in the continuing dispute with some subpostmasters over Horizon and associated issues.

“2) The film we’re broadcasting once again refers to concerns over Horizon. This time it features the story of Steve Phillips from Nelson in South Wales, as well as interviews from a group of former subpostmasters, including Noel Thomas, Jo Hamilton, Julian Wilson, who say they felt under pressure to sign off incorrect accounts even though they did not understand how sums could be missing.

“3) In our film former postmasters say it is difficult to investigate the causes of shortfalls for which they are held liable, because of the way Horizon and associated Post Office processes and policy function. They say in order to open for business the day after the close of a trading period they had to agree to pay back alleged shortfalls (either by settling to cash or settling centrally, which implies payment later). They say this put them in a very difficult position”, et cetera.

Then, if we scroll up the email, please, and just a little bit more. Thank you. You’ll see Melanie Corfield forwards it to Belinda Crowe, Mark Davies, Patrick Bourke, Rod Williams, Ruth Barker, Tom Wechsler, copied to Angela van den Bogerd:

“To see below. Can I suggest we have a meeting/call to discuss please.

“Copying Angela to see if we can get any knowledge about Steven Phillips – looks as though he is a serving subpostmaster. The other allegations and accusations are all themes we have robust lines about and also of course that we are preparing for Jo S.

“But I think we need to be extremely robust about opinion from specialists who have not been involved in this and are commenting from the sidelines.”

Then scroll up a little further, please. We can ignore that email. A little bit further. At the top, Rod Williams says to the copy list:

“Please copy Jarnail.”

Indeed, you are then added to the copy list, can you see that?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: Just going down to the top of page 2, please. The line “The other allegations are all themes we have robust lines about and we need to be extremely robust about opinion from specialists”, is it your recollection that, at this time, this is December 2014, that was still the Post Office’s position?

Jarnail Singh: To be honest, I can’t say “yes” or “no” to that. I don’t know. I don’t know what there was. As I said, at that time, I more or less was an observer. There were so many things going, so many people doing things. I wasn’t copied in, into – I can’t – I don’t know what the answer to that is.

Mr Beer: Who was leading on the development of robust lines within Post Office at this time?

Jarnail Singh: I was told the Communication Team, presumably, community – community – Communication Team, and presumably higher management or the board or Chief Executive, I presume. I certainly wasn’t. By that time, every time something happened, I just went through our external lawyers because they’re the ones who were actually prosecuting or deciding on issues to do with, you know, the way they were going to deal with the subpostmasters going forward or presently.

Mr Beer: This isn’t about prosecuting; this is about promulgating robust lines to a journalist who is about to broadcast a programme on the BBC, on BBC One.

Jarnail Singh: I can only assume, I mean I can’t assist you either way, presumably it was the Communication Team. That’s their job, isn’t it, or that’s what they’re employed for but, certainly –

Mr Beer: They’re employed to communicate and to develop communication strategies and they’re employed for media relations reasons. They’re not employed of their own volition to develop –

Jarnail Singh: No.

Mr Beer: – robust lines; they’ve got to come from somewhere, haven’t they?

Jarnail Singh: Yes, it’s not coming from me. It’s above my head. I mean, I don’t know how this thing works. That’s what I’m saying to you, sir, I don’t know.

Mr Beer: Why were you, at this stage, copied in on this chain, ie the development of robust lines ready for a BBC One broadcast?

Jarnail Singh: Presumably from a criminal aspect, criminal law aspect of it because the guy who said that I should be copied in presumably had been asked from a civil litigation point, this is the criminal litigation side of it. So that’s probably why he said, well, maybe we ought to get another person on board who can give you other aspect of the – you know, this side of it.

Mr Beer: Or is it because, at this time, December 2014, you would have continued to say what we’ve seen in all of the emails we’ve seen this morning: that subpostmasters are guilty?

Jarnail Singh: No.

Mr Beer: To the extent to which they raise questions about Horizon, they’re jumping on a bandwagon or acting to distract from their own guilt?

Jarnail Singh: No, I have never held that view. Maybe in the email that’s how it comes across but no, the answer is no, no, no.

Mr Beer: Every email that we’ve looked at shows that you wrote that. There isn’t a single email showing you held the opposite view.

Jarnail Singh: Do you think –

Mr Beer: Why is that?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. You know, that’s – my answer is no, that’s not the view I held from the outset. I never held that view. You’re bringing this up over and over again and my answer is no, no and no. I just –

Mr Beer: Can you try and engage with the question rather than just saying, “My answer is going to be no no and no”? If you genuinely –

Jarnail Singh: I am engaging but you’re repeating the same question about ten different times. The answer is going to be the same, isn’t it?

Mr Beer: If I’m doing anything wrong the Chairman will intervene, so kindly answer my question, Mr Singh?

Jarnail Singh: Okay.

Mr Beer: If you held the view – if you had an open mind about the integrity of Horizon, rather than the view we’ve seen expressed in countless emails now, why did you not reduce it to writing?

Jarnail Singh: How do you mean? What do you mean?

Mr Beer: Sorry?

Jarnail Singh: Why did I put it in writing?

Mr Beer: Why did you not put it in writing? If you had a genuinely open mind about Horizon, rather than “Everyone’s guilty, if they blame Horizon, they’re just jumping on a bandwagon, we’ll win a few cases and those people will melt away like the midnight snow”, why do we not see any emails to say, “Look, I’ve got an open mind about this, we need properly to investigate it”?

Jarnail Singh: Because I’m not involved in that level. That’s why, and I’ve never held that view. I will never hold that view. It’s just unfortunate that the – I was sort of dragged into prosecuting these sort of cases or this particular case –

Mr Beer: Who dragged you in?

Jarnail Singh: Well, just it was my case, straightforward case, and it turned out to be quite a complex and difficult case.

Mr Beer: How did they drag you?

Jarnail Singh: Well, they didn’t drag me, in that sense –

Mr Beer: Why did you just say they dragged you?

Jarnail Singh: Dragged, in the sense that I was unfortunate to have this case that had all sorts of complications in it. I mean, if it wasn’t a straightforward case, then you would have got somebody senior, like, you know, Juliet McFarlane who was the principal lawyer or the Head of Criminal Law. So, no, the answer is to that.

Mr Beer: Was there, in 2014, December 2014, still a siege mentality within the Post Office: “We need still to be defending the robustness of Horizon”?

Jarnail Singh: Not from me. I don’t know what the other people were thinking or whatever it was, but certainly I – by that time, I wasn’t prosecuting, and I think I was just assisting as and when was required, as you can see from the email. Somebody said, “Well, have you included Jarnail Singh in?” and, all of a sudden, they remember and copy me in.

Mr Beer: Can we move on, please, to POL00101857. Can we scroll down, please. Can we see an email of yours of 14 December 2014. You say:

“All

“My comments on Nick Wallis’ One Show email dated 12/12/14 to [Melanie Corfield] by numbered paragraphs as relevant to criminal law are as follows …”

So this is a response to the email that we looked at, yes?

Jarnail Singh: Yes, yes, yes.

Mr Beer: You pick up his paragraphs in each case, so his paragraph 3, and you say:

“Here there are more options for the [subpostmaster] …”

Then his paragraph 4. His paragraph 4 read:

“We asked one former subpostmaster why she pleaded guilty to false accounting in court when she believed herself to be innocent. She told us that she felt she couldn’t defend herself because she didn’t have proper records, that the Post Office had taken some potentially useful items and paperwork away during their investigation and she felt she would be prosecuted for theft as well as false accounting if she had not pleaded guilty to false accounting.”

Your reply is:

“[Post Office Limited] cannot comment on individual cases. We don’t know which case this is. Maybe it is someone who said one thing in interview under caution, which entailed admission of offence of dishonesty, but later chooses to misrepresent the facts purposely. Without knowing who it is and what she says we cannot respondent further. Maybe it is somebody, who we prosecuted recently, ie file still exists and if the BBC provides the information, we may then be able to verify this or otherwise.”

Why was your initial reaction, without knowing which case Mr Wallis was referring to, that the subpostmaster may have admitted dishonesty and then later purposely misrepresented the facts?

Jarnail Singh: It wasn’t my view. As I said previously, I’ve – I have no experience of any of these type of responses to the media. I obviously sought on the whole content of it from an expert – expert being a senior legal adviser or the criminal barrister – criminal specialist, and I said “Well, look, this is what I’m faced with. This is the advice I’m seeking. Please advise”.

And that’s – basically I’ve used that, that advice, to respond to it. It’s not a personal response because I didn’t have the expertise to deal with it. So what I’d done, like everything else I do, is to seek expert legal advice to pass on to the business.

Mr Beer: So where it says, “My comments”, these aren’t your comments?

Jarnail Singh: No. They’re not, they –

Mr Beer: It shouldn’t say, “My comments”. It should say –

Jarnail Singh: It should –

Mr Beer: – I don’t know anything about this”?

Jarnail Singh: Yes, I sought advice, yes, on Nick Wallis’ One Show thing. I might even have gone further. Now in hindsight, from experience and knowledge, I might have said “Look, I am not an expert, I will seek advice and will revert back to you” and the next email would have been “This is the advice I’ve had, this is a copy”.

That’s what I’d have done now, looking in hindsight, but, at that time, the pressure of the time – times – time where you are you haven’t got the time – and to focus on the particular aspect because, you know, you’ve got the tray full of other stuff to deal with. That’s what I did. So that’s what I’ve done on Sunday because Monday to Friday I haven’t had the energy or the time to deal with this. So that’s – where are we, 11.00 on Sunday morning? So this –

Mr Beer: So who was the legal expert that dictated this to you?

Jarnail Singh: I think over the time, I’ve used various people I’ve known or made contact through my workings with them. But I think this is probably more likely to be, you know, Cartwright King.

Mr Beer: So what, you get the email from Melanie Corfield saying the BBC is going to go to press, go to broadcast The One Show, can we have some comments please? That’s forwarded on to you. You don’t reply. You instead go off to Cartwright King and say, “What should I reply?” and Cartwright King dictate an email to you which says this, and then you send it out as if it’s your own work?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I think there is a – part of it would be. I mean, I would, like, any person – I mean, I’m not an expert at everything in the law, there are certain aspects I know, personally I can make a contribution towards, but this is advice which I’m seeking because I’m not a specialist in that area and I want the business to have the best advice there is.

Mr Beer: So it wasn’t your view that the person that the BBC were referring to, who they had interviewed, was somebody who may have said one thing in interview under caution, in which they admitted dishonesty, but then later chose to misrepresent the facts. That wasn’t your view at all?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I mean, this is going back years now. I mean, presumably, from past experience, knowledge, maybe, maybe not. But I can’t say, yes, or – I can – I can’t say “yes” or “no” to that, so I don’t know.

Mr Beer: So we should be able to find an email exchange, should we, on all of these things where you’re going back to Cartwright King and saying, “Look, I’ve received this. Although I’m a senior criminal lawyer, I’m not expert in the criminal law. Can you help me out as to what I should say?”

Then we should be able to find a reply from Cartwright King saying, “Jarnail, say this”?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know whether it would be email or just me chatting to them and they’d either dictating it and me making notes. I can’t – you know, it’s years later – tell you exactly what happened. But I presumably, if there is an email, you will be able to lay your hands on it because, you know, it’s there on the system, wherever you got this from.

Mr Beer: Well, that’s the problem: it’s not. What we’ve got is the email sent to you and then your reply saying, “My comments are as follows”.

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I don’t know what the answer to that, you know, this years on. You know, my thing is you just – I can’t – I can’t assist you further.

Mr Beer: But you wouldn’t associate yourself with this, would you? There’s a case of a subpostmaster blaming the Horizon system. Your response wouldn’t be “Well, hold on, there might be someone who said things under interview, under caution, in which they admitted dishonesty and they’re now misrepresenting the facts”; without knowing about a case you wouldn’t say that, would you?

Jarnail Singh: No, no –

Mr Beer: Because that’s just wild speculation, isn’t it?

Jarnail Singh: That’s what it would be but then it wouldn’t be speculation in the sense that there may be some – you know, if you come across a case, you might have formed that view, you kept it, and then subsequently used it. But without any knowledge or personal experience, I wouldn’t have just put it down to like that, or maybe the person who is helping and assisting in that case have come across it, and they highlighted it and – maybe rightly or wrongly, maybe I shouldn’t have used it. I don’t know.

Mr Beer: Is this emblematic of the Post Office’s attitude towards subpostmasters who challenged the Post Office’s approach to prosecutions, that we assume that they may themselves have done something wrong; we can’t countenance the idea that they might actually be right?

Jarnail Singh: That’s not my view. But, certainly, whether the Post Office has the view then I think the witnesses you had in the past and the future, you’ll have to ask them. I can’t say for the Post Office. I know certainly I would – it’s not my view, I didn’t – you know, I did what I had to do –

Mr Beer: Even though you’re the author of an email which rather discloses that state of mind?

Jarnail Singh: I may be the author of it but I – as I said to you, no individual person can do this. It’s got to be a team effort. It’s got to be a unit because, otherwise, it wouldn’t work.

Mr Beer: But you put your name to all of these emails?

Jarnail Singh: Because –

Mr Beer: You weren’t some naive ingénue, were you?

Jarnail Singh: Probably, looking in hindsight, maybe I was, you know, maybe I didn’t think it through, probably didn’t have the time to think it through. Thinking it through now, I probably wouldn’t have.

Mr Beer: Can we turn, please, to POL00060974. If we scroll down, please, if we just look at the whole email first, you can see it’s an email from you to Susan Crichton, heading “Second Sight and QC”, 28 July 2013. Then scroll on, please, so we can see the whole of the email and then scroll on, and scroll on. You can see you’ve signed it off, yeah?

(No audible response)

Mr Beer: If we just go back to page 1, please, and scroll down, please. So the context from the heading “Second Sight and QC” appears to be the review that was being undertaken at this time by Second Sight, and the involvement or possible involvement of a QC, and presumably that would be Brian Altman QC, at that time; is that right?

Jarnail Singh: That’s right, yes.

Mr Beer: You say:

“I was thinking about what we have been working on. Here are my thoughts.”

You say:

“I was the Prosecution lawyer in the case of R v Misra at Guildford Crown Court in 2009-2010. As far as I am aware, this is the only criminal trial where a jury has been required to consider in detail the integrity of the Horizon system. I can say generally about what lessons can be learned from the case, in the hope that this may be of some assistance to the business in response to the Second Sight Interim Report and proposed appointment of a QC.

“The lessons to be learned from the Misra case.”

Scroll down, please:

“There are a number of lessons that can be drawn from Misra. I’m aware of the independent nature of the inquiry and its expertise. I am seeking to merely set out some lessons and tentative suggestions I have derived from completion of a difficult case.”

Was this your own work?

Jarnail Singh: No. It’s not completely all my work. It’s – as I say, I first sought the help and assistance and advice from others who know – you know, who could assist with the –

Mr Beer: So when you say, “I am aware”, “I am seeking”, and you’re making “tentative suggestions”, and “I have derived” …

Jarnail Singh: Yeah, I mean, looking in hindsight, I mean that probably would have been wise to say “Look” – maybe even name – say “Look, I’ve sought advice from A, B, C and D, these are the thoughts of a number of people, and that will help you in appointing, you know, the QC, Brian Altman, or who else because this is the sort of area we’re looking at, the complexity of the Horizon system and you need to be aware of that”, basically.

I mean, I don’t think there was anything in it. I mean, that’s basically more or less what I done previously. So –

Mr Beer: You continue:

“Horizon is a complex computer system, about which even eminent experts can make mistakes.”

Can you see we’ve seen this before, haven’t we?

Jarnail Singh: Yes, it’s the same.

Mr Beer: This is a rehash –

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: – of another email?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: “There was no reason to doubt Professor McLachlan’s expertise and good faith but time again he had to be corrected by Mr Jenkins.”

Jarnail Singh: Yes. The same.

Mr Beer: “… not the only expert to have misunderstood … I have spoken to colleagues”, et cetera.

So here you’re passing off as your own thoughts a cut and paste on an email, which itself was passing off as your own thoughts something that was, in fact, written by somebody else? Is that where we’ve got to?

Jarnail Singh: It’s – yes, I suppose you could say that, yes.

Mr Beer: Well, I do say that and I’m asking you, that’s where we’ve got to, Mr Singh?

Jarnail Singh: I think – I mean, I was involved in it. I needed other people’s input to complete it and this is just assisting legal counsel in the Post Office to help her to appoint somebody.

Mr Beer: Can we scroll down, please. In the last paragraph on this page, you say:

“It is very easy for a dishonest [subpostmaster], as Mrs Misra was proved to be, to make vague accusations against Horizon where other lines of defence are closed. It is not difficult to attract sympathy for such false claims. A [subpostmaster] is likely to be viewed as a hard-working person of good character. Most [subpostmasters] who steal do so because they are in financial difficulties, often stealing simply to prop up their failing shop business. In such circumstances there will be no evidence of luxurious living. A dishonest [subpostmaster] can use these factors to create a false picture that he or she is the honest, hard-working victim of a complicated yet flawed computer system.”

Where did that description of the dishonest subpostmaster come from?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I don’t know where that came from, presumably a number of cases the Post Office –

Mr Beer: You’re talking about Mrs Misra here, aren’t you?

Jarnail Singh: Well, that’s the – well, I – the fact that Mrs Misra’s case has been the one that’s been more detailed, then that’s the reason why it’s been highlighted as the Misra case, but it would be – generally, it wouldn’t be just one case, you would assume, it would be a lot – you know, generally the picture has emerged. It wasn’t just my view; it was the view of the people who made a contribution towards this.

Mr Beer: Cartwright King hadn’t been involved in the prosecution of Seema Misra, had they?

Jarnail Singh: No, they hadn’t. No.

Mr Beer: So was it your view that you’re referring to here then?

Jarnail Singh: No, I didn’t deal with the whole of the case. As I said to you, that’s because it was one of those cases where it was difficult. I was away quite a bit in that year because it was a difficult year for me personally. So you had other people picking up the case on and off, and dealing with it.

Mr Beer: Whose view are you referring to here?

Jarnail Singh: Well, all the people in the – in our – in the Criminal Law Team.

Mr Beer: Is that the collective view of the Criminal Law Team that we see revealed there, then?

Jarnail Singh: No, I don’t think so. It just –

Mr Beer: Who within the Criminal Law Team did not hold that view?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t think any of us did. It’s just a –

Mr Beer: I thought you just said that –

Jarnail Singh: Well, I –

Mr Beer: – this is the view of the Criminal Law Team?

Jarnail Singh: It’s not the view, it’s – when you’re writing something, you just – it’s something that came about but I can’t give you – I can’t say that that’s the view we generally held or – in hindsight, it was silly, stupid thing to do, I suppose.

Mr Beer: Sorry, in hindsight?

Jarnail Singh: In hindsight, it wouldn’t be written like that, would it? I mean, maybe at that time.

Mr Beer: Not with you sitting here having to justify it, if that’s what you call hindsight?

Jarnail Singh: No, what I mean is, you know, when you had reviews, and so forth, then obviously you know there’s something wrong. But at that time, nobody was aware. Everybody was relying on it, I think, so we assumed that everything was fine. So at that particular moment in time, the year 2010, it was – the system was working perfectly as everybody was – as far as everybody was concerned.

Mr Beer: This is July 2013, when everyone knew that everything wasn’t fine?

Jarnail Singh: Well, it’s the background. Susan wanted the background or something, I think she mentioned something in a passing “Jarnail, can you help”, and that’s probably why I mentioned it.

Mr Beer: But you’re still running the line, aren’t you, that there’s a presumption of dishonesty with subpostmasters; they’re to blame, not Horizon?

Jarnail Singh: No, that’s not the case. I never held that presumption. I never assumed anything. It’s just the – what it was at that particular moment in – at that particular date or time.

Mr Beer: Can we move on, that can come down, please.

You refer in your witness statement to the supervision of prosecutions or investigations and charging decisions, undertaken by Cartwright King. You say in paragraph 7 that, in respect of criminal prosecutions, Cartwright King took over full responsibility for the lifetime of a case, and that you acted as a point of contact between the Post Office Limited and Cartwright King and would request or forward information as and when required. You made a correction to that part of your statement this morning, I think.

In paragraph 7, you give the impression that you were essentially a postbox between the Post Office and Cartwright King; would that be fair?

Jarnail Singh: Um –

Mr Beer: This is post-separation.

Jarnail Singh: I think at the beginning I wanted to do things in a certain way but I think, as soon as Second Sight came on board, it was different because I had other pressures internally. I didn’t have the resources. I didn’t have the support and I think I mentioned to you early this morning that I highlighted that to Susan and Hugh, and Cartwright King, basically, more or less sat in the seats of the Criminal Law Team, as they were before.

And yes, they – that’s right. I mean, as and when they needed me, I was there; as and when I needed them, they were there.

Mr Beer: What level of supervision and oversight did you perform post-separation when Cartwright King took over responsibility in the way that you describe?

Jarnail Singh: How do you mean – the Criminal Law Team, or –

Mr Beer: Post-separation, you’re the only criminal lawyer in Post Office Limited. Cartwright King, you say, take over responsibility and you acted as a point of contact between the Post Office and Cartwright King and I’m asking what level of supervision and oversight of Cartwright King’s work did you undertake?

Jarnail Singh: I didn’t. I don’t – I think you’re right, probably was more of a – I can’t remember, to be honest. It was – it just – I don’t know, I mean, is the answer to that. I certainly – it was more like I described to you, it’s a relationship where they basically knew I worked very well, and I think they came on board on the subpostmasters’ cases early 2011.

Mr Beer: That’s what I was going to ask you. When did Cartwright King take over full responsibility for the lifetime of a criminal case?

Jarnail Singh: I think more or less March, year 2011, something like that. Because we didn’t have the capacity in-house and I think, more or less, some of the cases where I did one or two initial advices, that is the year – March 2011 and I think I went up to Rob Wilson and said, “Look, how are we going to manage this?”

And I think he then – I think, soon after the decision was made to pass all the subpostmaster cases to Cartwright King. And I think they formalised the position even more after 1 April 2012. But they’d been dealing with our cases, or the subpostmaster cases – prosecution of subpostmaster cases the year before, March ‘11.

Mr Beer: So between March 2011 and April 2012, who in the Post Office was responsible for the supervision of the conduct of prosecutions undertaken by Cartwright King?

Jarnail Singh: Presumably the Head of Criminal Law Team.

Mr Beer: Did any of the criminal lawyers take part in search supervision of prosecutions conducted by Cartwright King?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know to that, I mean, I – I – honestly, I don’t know. I certainly – I think one of the problem was – the reasons being, I think the principal lawyer – I think she had some medical problem. I think she had to take six months or ten months off, and I said “Well, look, Rob, I can’t deal with this. There’s just too much”. I don’t know what number of cases were we’re involved with now but that’s when the decision is made to – the subpostmaster cases just went to Cartwright King, from then on.

Mr Beer: So you can’t help us as to who within the Post Office was responsible for the supervision of the conduct of prosecutions by Cartwright King between March 2011 and April 2012?

Jarnail Singh: It would be Rob Wilson, I would assume.

Mr Beer: Just Rob Wilson?

Jarnail Singh: Yeah, I would have thought.

Mr Beer: Okay.

Jarnail Singh: It certainly wasn’t me because – it wouldn’t have been on my sort of, you know, grade or whatever it is they call it, yeah.

Mr Beer: Okay. If all of the prosecutions were being undertaken and they undertook full responsibility for the lifetime of criminal cases, Cartwright King –

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: – between March 2011 and April 2012, what were you doing?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I – almost everything in-house. I mean, as you know, “Jarnail, can you help with it, can you help with that?” Because there’s a lot going on, you’ve got a Second Sight law, you’ve got the mediation, you’ve got all sorts of people reviewing it, shifting through the cases. The Chief Executive period –

Mr Beer: When you say “shift”, do you mean sifting through the cases?

Jarnail Singh: Sifting, sorry – shit, sorry about that. Yes.

So it was very exhausting, it was very extending but it was enjoyable in the sense of something new and the beauty – the good thing was that I had experts, Cartwright King, the barristers, in Bell Yard, assisting and helping, so, from a development point of view, it was quite good, but from –

Mr Beer: I’m less interested in your professional development and how fulfilled you felt –

Jarnail Singh: I’m filling in, purely because, you know, there were other things to do with in-house but I can’t list all of them because it was Susan, Hugh, other team members. You’ve got the civil litigation lawyers, again, dealing with the mediation side of it.

Mr Beer: So would this be right, between March 2011 and April 2012, you were engaged in work that concerned the fallout from the discovery of some problems or potential problems with Horizon and liaison with parts of the business the Second Sight review, the setting up of the Mediation Scheme, and other things like that, rather than the conduct of prosecutions?

Jarnail Singh: I mean, with mediation and the setting up other aspects, they’re just on the periphery of it or the outside. I wasn’t heavily involved in any of that because I wasn’t part of that. But any criminal aspect, getting data together, I think they – the board wanted some sort of sheet as to, you know, how many cases are being prosecuted, how many cases are not. The progress side of things.

And I think – I don’t know what the remit of Hugh – I think he used to email me “Jarnail, can you give me this? What does that mean?”, you know, from a criminal aspect. You know, generally that.

Mr Beer: After then, after April 2012, post-separation, where you were the only criminal lawyer within Post Office Limited –

Jarnail Singh: Yes, I was the only criminal lawyer there, yes.

Mr Beer: – who was responsible in the Post Office for supervising the conduct of prosecutions that were run by Cartwright King?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I suppose it would be Hugh. Hugh had quite an input into it. He always wanted to know what was going on, and I think –

Mr Beer: What was Hugh’s job then?

Jarnail Singh: He was Head of Legal.

Mr Beer: Civil?

Jarnail Singh: No, overall.

Mr Beer: So you, as the only criminal lawyer didn’t, have any role in the supervision of the conduct of criminal prosecutions run by Cartwright King?

Jarnail Singh: I think they kept me informed as to what was going on. I did ask a lot of the time, “Look, Hugh wants to know that”, “Susan wants to know that”, “Business wants to know that”, and they were very helpful, and they used to – and also I think I had quite a good relationship with their lawyers, four or five of them, and they all said, “Jarnail” – they used to flag things up for me, so I can, in turn, keep myself up to date and communicate that to, you know, Hugh and Susan.

Mr Beer: Was there a system for reviewing how Cartwright King or indeed any other external solicitors were conducting their prosecutions?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know whether there was official policy but I wasn’t aware of it. But that would have been – I wasn’t copied into anything like that. I’ve not seen any policy as to how they’ve been reviewed but I think they were sort of more or less – because Second Sight came in on board more or less June/July ‘12, I think it was, and I think, after that, I was – from a different position to where I wanted to be.

And I think then that, again, is something that Hugh and Susan would have monitored or had something in place to chat to them and work out, do their appraisal and –

Mr Beer: So it’s Hugh and Susan’s job, not yours?

Jarnail Singh: No, no.

Mr Beer: Was there any system in place to your knowledge to ensure that Cartwright King would be aware of any potential Horizon system issues or user issues relating to Horizon?

Jarnail Singh: I would assume so but I can’t say “yes” or “no” because I wasn’t part of it. I wasn’t told one way or the other.

Mr Beer: So as the only criminal lawyer, you were kept out of the loop, were you?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I think, as you can probably see from the emails, that yes, most of the time, I was a bit sort of – as and when there was advice to be sought, or some input, they included me in. But I think a lot of it is things that have been – they’ve been there – civil litigation has been part of the Post Office Limited or some of the people been there longer than have, I don’t – before even their separation, and it was business as usual.

The criminal lawyer side was something that was new to them and we had Cartwright King in place, we had the Bell Yard lawyers – barristers in place.

Mr Beer: What were the Bell Yard barristers doing?

Jarnail Singh: Well, they were prosecuting.

Mr Beer: Talking in April 2012 onwards?

Jarnail Singh: I think there was ongoing cases which they brought forward which they were already part of, and I think then, subsequently, Cartwright King either decided to keep in-house or to use them as and when there was London cases but I can’t help you with that.

Mr Beer: Can you just help us, I’ll ask one last time: as the person with the 15-year history of prosecuting cases, as the person who was the criminal lawyer, why after April 2012 did you have such a limited role, even though you were the only criminal lawyer in the Legal team?

Jarnail Singh: Well, yeah, that was what was required, it just fitted in with whatever the business wanted. I mean the – a lot of the – you know, well all of the prosecutions dealt with by outside, that’s the – their model or that’s the way they wanted to go forward, and that’s what the other areas of the law were. Same with the civil litigation, there was only Rodric, I think, there and the same as the company commercial, there was only one lawyer overseeing that, and that’s the model. Maybe they misunderstood how it was going to work but that’s how it worked and then subsequently other things took over.

Mr Beer: Can I turn to prosecution policies and charging decisions. In your witness statement, paragraphs 19 and 20, you say, during the period when the Post Office was still part of the Royal Mail Group, so this is up to April 2012, files would be prepared by Investigators and sent to the Criminal Law Team for advice as to prosecution and appropriate charges, correct?

Jarnail Singh: Where are we?

Mr Beer: 19 and 20.

Jarnail Singh: Okay. Do you know want to put it on the screen or can’t we put it on the screen, or there’s no need?

Mr Beer: Yes, we can put it on the screen if you want. Witness statement page 8., foot of the page. Do you want to read those to yourself?

Jarnail Singh: Where are we, number 20 or 19?

Mr Beer: Both.

Jarnail Singh: 19, okay.

Mr Beer: So my summary of that was: in paragraphs 19 and 20 of your witness statement, you describe that, during the period when the Post Office was still part of the Royal Mail Group, ie up to April 2012, files would be prepared by Investigators and sent to the Criminal Law Team for advice as to prosecution and charges; is that correct?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: Right. Good. That can come down, then.

In paragraph 3 of your witness statement you say:

“As a criminal prosecutor, I will always do my best with the knowledge and evidence that I have in front of me, and at the time of each subpostmaster case I followed the relevant codes, policies and procedures and genuinely thought I was doing the right thing.”

Is that right?

Jarnail Singh: Yes, yes.

Mr Beer: In paragraphs 12 to 15 of your witness statement, you refer to policies governing prosecution and charging decisions and the conduct of prosecutions, and you tell us that you were not involved in contributing to or developing any of the policies that you list correct?

Jarnail Singh: That’s CLT, isn’t it? Are we looking at Criminal Law Team now?

Mr Beer: Yes, we’ve always been looking at the Criminal Law Team in this set of questions.

Jarnail Singh: Yes, yes.

Mr Beer: I’m talking about before April 2012?

Jarnail Singh: Yes. Yes.

Mr Beer: So you were not involved in the development of any of the policies that you list in paragraph 14 –

Jarnail Singh: No, not –

Mr Beer: – sorry, in paragraph 12.

Jarnail Singh: Well, the Criminal Law Team, no.

Mr Beer: You were not involved in any of the development of those policies nor contributing to them?

Jarnail Singh: Not that I’m aware of, no.

Mr Beer: You tell us in paragraph 15 that, although you’re described as the owner of a policy, that simply means that you adopted the policy on behalf of the Post Office –

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: – on its separation from Royal Mail Group; is that right?

Jarnail Singh: That’s right, yes.

Mr Beer: So, if we saw policies with you listed as the owner, that does not mean that you contributed to the content nor approved of the content; is that right?

Jarnail Singh: Apart from 1 April, year 2012, I would have – no, I’d be very surprised if there is one.

Mr Beer: You tell us in paragraph 16 that the aim and rationale behind subpostmaster prosecutions was both to hold the offender to account and to deter potential offenders, yes?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: How was compliance with the policies monitored?

Jarnail Singh: How do you mean? Can you sort of elaborate a little bit so I can help you?

Mr Beer: There are a series of policies –

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: – that say when you’re conducting investigations and prosecutions you should do these things?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: How was compliance with those things assessed or monitored?

Jarnail Singh: When I advised – I think it was all to do with the prosecutor’s code, basically. I’ve obviously read them, when I joined the Criminal Law Team and subsequently, but, as far as the monitoring side of it is concerned, that wasn’t part of my remit. I didn’t get involved in it. Certainly, I made the results known of every of my cases as to how they were put together. Who put them together, it wasn’t part of my employment or part of my role.

Mr Beer: What about you not as the monitor but as somebody who was monitored?

Jarnail Singh: If I was – it would be appraisals. I think we had appraisals every three months or every two months and I think, certainly, the – when I was away, people might have looked at my files, the advices I gave, and I think some people who went to court on a certain case said it was on their case and my case was, you know, for a hearing on the same day or same time, they would review it. That type of thing is the only monitoring I can think of. I can’t think of any –

Mr Beer: By that, do you mean monitoring your advocacy?

Jarnail Singh: No, they would physically have my file in front of them and, certainly – Rob certainly looked at it because, I think, appraisal times, or subsequently, as and when he looked at it, he would advise on it, “You should have done this, you should have done that, be careful on that”, you know, and I think once or twice he might have even said, “Look, this is the way you should have done it, why didn’t you consider that?”

So that was the sort of way it was monitored. There was no set, you know, procedure or –

Mr Beer: So it was chats, essentially?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I don’t know what he did with it. I don’t know whether he in subsequently reported further down to his line managers, I don’t know. But certainly –

Mr Beer: I’m talking about between August 1995 and April 2012. So there’s a 17-year period as –

Jarnail Singh: Yeah, there’s –

Mr Beer: I’m asking you as a lawyer how you felt, that your adherence to policy was monitored and assessed?

Jarnail Singh: Well, certainly when the matter is before the courts, then you – we briefed council because they had the right of audience, we didn’t. They certainly came back, you know, with their own advice and opinions and then you had a lot of the time, maybe a lot even of the defence lawyers come up with all sorts of – I don’t know, in their defence statements –

Mr Beer: Are you saying that your performance was monitored by defence lawyers?

Jarnail Singh: Well, not monitored but then you could see, from the way they’re responding to it, you’re engaging with them in that way. But, certainly, internally, it would be appraisals by the Head of Criminal Law Team.

Mr Beer: Can I just get this right, Mr Singh. In answer to my question how, over a 17-year period as a prosecution lawyer, was your compliance with Post Office policy monitored, you’ve answered: by defence lawyers?

Jarnail Singh: No, that’s one of the things I mentioned and several others. You know, you learn from it don’t you, as and when somebody is, you know, reacting to it? But, certainly, it would be appraisals. I think every three months, every six months, I don’t know now and, certainly, you know, we had conferences with the barristers, and they did the advocacy, they would do the opinions.

But I don’t know what my line manager did or what he did with the others, or whatever, but certainly it would have been the line managers who would deal with it, or the team leaders – the Head of Criminal Law.

Mr Beer: What about from April 2012 onwards, when you were the sole criminal lawyer within Post Office Limited? Did you take on responsibility for the ongoing review of all Post Office policies relating to prosecutions and criminal law?

Jarnail Singh: That – I think that was Hugh or Susan, I think they were more hands on that.

Mr Beer: Hugh and Susan again?

Jarnail Singh: Susan Crichton and Hugh. They, in turn, dealt with all that. I didn’t get involved in that.

Mr Beer: Why not as the criminal lawyer?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I can’t honestly answer that. I can tell you that I wasn’t involved in it.

Mr Beer: Was it because people didn’t view you as having expertise?

Jarnail Singh: I can’t tell what the other people thought.

Mr Beer: Surely, as the only criminal lawyer in the business, there’s a suite of criminal law policies here, wouldn’t you put your hand up and say, “Hold on, that’s my job”?

Jarnail Singh: I didn’t. Well, maybe I should have done, in hindsight.

Mr Beer: You’re not involved in any prosecutions, you’ve told us; that’s Cartwright King.

Jarnail Singh: Yeah.

Mr Beer: You’re not involved in supervision of any prosecutions; that’s Susan and Hugh.

Jarnail Singh: Mm.

Mr Beer: You’re not involved in maintenance or review of the policies; that’s Susan and Hugh. What were you doing?

Jarnail Singh: Well, as you say, the – what I did do was the obviously picked up on various aspects of it, the training of the Investigation Officer, which I did with the Cartwright King. I was involved in getting Simon Clarke to look at the prosecution policy. I was also involved in getting advices on Auditors being – you know, how the Auditors ought to function, how they ought to deal with their role, within the criminal law.

There was so much there, you would not believe. I didn’t have – I mean, ideally, I would have – that’s what I would have done. I would have basically taken over and made it my own, but it didn’t sort of quite work out that way.

Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at POL00122123, please. If we scroll down, please. Sorry, keep scrolling, thank you.

An email of yours of 31 January 2013. So the period that I’m referring to, ie post-April 2012. You say:

“Hugh, Susan, John and Alwen

“Please find copies of the following papers for the above meeting.

“Current POL prosecution policy.

“Proposed … enforcement”, et cetera, et cetera.

So a series of criminal prosecution and investigation and enforcement policies, agreed?

Jarnail Singh: Yes, yes.

Mr Beer: This is seemingly for a prosecutions policy meeting on 4 February, looking at the title; can you see that?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: If you had no involvement, as you’ve told us, in investigation and prosecution policy formation or development, why were you sending on prosecution and investigation policies and enforcement policies for a meeting that you were going to attend?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I – that – I’ve collected everything together, sent it on to them, to – we will discuss it. I think they wanted that to be – because – on separation, they wanted the board to approve it. I mean, there was some sort of process or procedure they were going through and they asked me for those, so the – as I said to you, the Post Office Prosecution Policy was more or less adopted from the Royal Mail and the same as the other aspect of it, the Internal Protocol for Criminal Investigative Enforcement. That was adopted by the Investigation Team and all the people who had interested party in it, Susan or Hugh wanted it – wanted them to be copied in to it, so all I did was collected all of them and sent it on to the relevant people to get – have a meeting on 4 February and then, subsequently, you know, go through it and agree it, or not –

Mr Beer: You were just a postbox, really?

Jarnail Singh: Yeah, yeah.

Mr Beer: A collector together of pieces of paper and a postbox?

Jarnail Singh: Yeah, I mean postbox in that respect but there was other aspects I was involved in, as well, but yeah, I suppose in – in – realistically, maybe you’re right. I agree.

Mr Beer: Just a postbox?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I wouldn’t say “just a postbox” but if that’s – you say that, maybe yes.

Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at POL00125197. If we can go to the last email in the chain, please. If we scroll up from there, email from Bond Dickinson, and if we scroll up, from Gavin Matthews at Bond Dickinson, to Chris Aujard and you in May ‘14:

“… I understand from Brian that he is close to having a first draft of the POL prosecution policy document.

“He does have some questions.”

Then just looking at an example:

“What were the hierarchy of POL prosecution decision making be in the future? Ie who will be making the final decision on authorising prosecution – Jarnail or Chris (as General Counsel) or will the role be split …”

Then the answer comes back:

“Jarnail will be the decision maker for Post Office Limited prosecutions. We recommend the procedure be put in place to enable the Investigation Officer to appeal to Chris (as General Counsel) in the event that he/she disagrees with Jarnail’s decision.”

Then if we scroll up, please. Your reply:

“Please see in blue below Chris and my reply to [Brian Altman QC’s] two questions on the POL prosecution policy.”

That does show you, does it not, Mr Singh, involved in the formation of policies in at least 2014?

Jarnail Singh: No, what happened there was, I think, Brian Altman was advising on it, on instructions or brief from Gavin Matthews and I think he formulated some draft. I think he sent it to me to have a word with Chris, who was the interim General Counsel for the Post Office and I think I sent it to him. He wanted some sort of input from me and I advised, and that never came into fruition. It never came into being at all. For some reason or another, I don’t know where it landed, but, when I left, I have never made any decision on any prosecutions.

Mr Beer: I’m not asking about the substance at the moment whether you, in the event, became the decision maker –

Jarnail Singh: No.

Mr Beer: – on prosecutions?

Jarnail Singh: No, no.

Mr Beer: I’m just asking you the question, in the light of the evidence you have had given in your witness statements and today orally, that you had no role in the formulation or the development of policy, why we see in this email Brian Altman QC asking a question and you replying “Please see Chris and my reply”, which tends to suggest you had some role in the development of prosecution policy, doesn’t it?

Jarnail Singh: No, no. That – Brian Altman was asked to draft it by Bond Dickinson, and they – I don’t know, I wasn’t part of that briefing. It was sent to me as the only criminal lawyer. I passed it to Chris. Chris wanted to discuss it or go through it and various aspects of it.

I, in turn, advised him I think or we discussed it, and there was couple of points/questions he wanted to clarify or put forward to Brian. I passed it on to Gavin Matthews of Bond Dickinson and he passed it back. And I think then Brian came to have a meeting, and I think that’s where it was left. Nothing went forwards or backwards –

Mr Beer: Mr Singh, this does not say, “Please see below Chris’s reply to Brian Altman’s questions”. It says, “Please see below Chris and my reply”; it’s your reply, isn’t it?

Jarnail Singh: Well, it’s my email, I suppose, but –

Mr Beer: No, it’s not just your email because I wouldn’t be asking you questions if this email just said, “Please see below Chris’ reply”.

Jarnail Singh: Well, obviously –

Mr Beer: I’m asking you the questions because it says, “Chris and my reply”.

Jarnail Singh: Well, because we discussed it. I mean, I –

Mr Beer: Was it not your reply then?

Jarnail Singh: Well, it’s – I’m working for an organisation, it’s a joint sort of – I mean, he’s the General Counsel, he asked me to come and explain certain aspects of it, and I did. And I – and then he said “Well, Jarnail, I agree, I disagree. Jarnail, I don’t understand point – one or two of these questions, or can you pose those two questions for Brian to clarify?” That’s my involvement in it.

It wasn’t something that I put forward or didn’t put forward. I mean, it was not – you know, nothing sinister in that, maybe – that’s it, as far as I can help you with. I can’t help you any more than that.

Mr Beer: Well, you’ve been very helpful. Can we move on please to POL00104747. This is a Casework Management Policy and, if we look at the foot of the page, please – sorry, that’s it. That’s unfortunate, it doesn’t include the date. If we can just go to the end of the document, please, and scroll up. Thank you.

You can see that this is effective from March 2000, with a review date of January 2001, okay?

Jarnail Singh: Okay.

Mr Beer: If we go back to page 1, please. We can see the aim of the policy, its “Purpose” is described to be:

“… to ensure that adequate controls are in place to maintain standards throughout investigation processes.”

Would this have been a document with which you were familiar back in March 2000 onwards?

Jarnail Singh: It’s just too long ago. I mean, I – I probably read it at some stage but I can’t tell you one way or the other where it landed or what we did or didn’t do with it.

Mr Beer: Can we go forward to page 4, please. Scroll down, please. I’m so sorry, if we scroll up, please. I’m looking for paragraph 3.2, please. Thank you.

“Prosecution Casework”, this would have been a policy, whether you remember it now or not, that applied to you as a prosecutor from March 2000 onwards, agreed?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know whether this is a prosecution policy because I think all I relied on, most of the time, was the prosecutors code.

Mr Beer: By that, do you mean the Code for Crown Prosecutors?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: The CPS document?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: What about any internal Post Office policies?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I think in prominence was the – you know, was the prosecutors code. I don’t know the other side of it, to be honest. I mean it’s such a long time ago as to I padded out or I had any influence or input into it but that was the one we concentrated on.

Mr Beer: Sorry, you’re dropping your voice there, I couldn’t hear you?

Jarnail Singh: It had dried up.

Mr Beer: If you just take a drink, thank you.

So this isn’t something that you now remember as something you worked to when you were conducting prosecutions from March 2000 onwards?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t remember it now, just –

Mr Beer: Let’s have a look at it anyway to see whether any of it jogs your memory. It says:

“Details of evidential requirements and casework preparation and submission timescales are set out in the Prosecution Guidelines, issued to all Investigators.

“To maintain standards and ensure consistency, official form should always be used in preference to locally produced forms …”

Then scroll down, looking at the fourth bullet point:

“Enclosure envelope should be used to enclose the following supporting documents:

“Appendix A …

“Appendices B, C …”

You can say the list of documents that should be enclosed, I think, when a file was sent to Legal Services. Does that list of documents remind you of the type of documents that you got when a file was sent to Legal Services?

Jarnail Singh: At that time, maybe there’s more or less, but I – that seemed the standard, isn’t it? Everything is there, the search, the friend form, disclosure forms, confidential report, copy of a tape-recorded interview, that type of thing, yes?

Mr Beer: The reason for asking, can I make it plain, Mr Singh, is the Inquiry is interested in the nature and extent of the material that a lawyer got to see at the point on deciding evidential sufficiency and public interest. I am asking you: is that a list of the things that a lawyer would see when they made an evidential sufficiency decision and a public interest decision?

Jarnail Singh: I would have thought that would be the basic, maybe later more would be added on to it. I don’t know but, certainly, that seems, you know, more or less what every investigation file would have or should have.

Mr Beer: So it included at least this, but maybe more?

Jarnail Singh: I would have thought – assumed so, yes. I mean to be honest, I’ve been out of practice on the Post Office side of it for such a long time, I – and especially the date of the document, I don’t know whether they modified it, there’s more to it. I don’t know.

Mr Beer: When you got files, importantly, did they include Schedules of Unused Material?

Jarnail Singh: Yes. I would have – yes, they should do. I would hope so, yes.

Mr Beer: Hope is –

Jarnail Singh: Well, there should be.

Mr Beer: – is a great thing. I’m asking you whether they did?

Jarnail Singh: Yeah, well, I – yes.

Mr Beer: So you would be able, when you’re advising on evidential sufficiency and public interest, to see what unused material there was, at least by list?

Jarnail Singh: There should – I think – if you look at the – yeah, I – I didn’t do the training but I thought must – it’s a must, isn’t it? Yes.

Mr Beer: But never mind whether you did the training. You were receiving these things for 17 years?

Jarnail Singh: I – yes, I – I suppose, yes, but I don’t recall it now, as to each and every single file had it. I don’t know to that. But that looks like it should be in the file, yes.

Mr Beer: Which documents did you have regard to when making a decision on evidential sufficiency?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I – all of them. Well, I mean, disclosure forms, confidential report, interview, tape recorded interview, investigators report. I mean they’re all relevant, aren’t they? The search records, friend forms, they should all be there, shouldn’t they, because, if they’re not, then how can you advise without them?

Mr Beer: So you wouldn’t just read the investigation reports, you would read the underlying material; is that right?

Jarnail Singh: I think so. Well, yes. Yeah.

Mr Beer: Never mind the documents that you should receive, thinking about the approach that you should take or the test that you applied, you’ve told us, I think, that you had regard to the Code for Crown Prosecutors?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: Was there any Post Office Limited document that helped you on how to apply that test in the context of a private prosecution?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I don’t know, unless it was the – with the Inquiry papers, I can’t – I don’t know.

Mr Beer: Because the Code for Crown Prosecutors is written for Crown Prosecutors and it’s written at a level and aimed at an audience that is broad and diverse, because it involves shoplifting in Newcastle and murder in Bodmin.

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: Was there anything that applied that to private prosecutors in the context of the Post Office, carrying it into effect, in your business?

Jarnail Singh: Well, that’s the way I was trained, that’s the way the other lawyers I worked with, and we adopted the same. I mean, the evidential test, the public interest test and the disclosure.

And an alternative way of dealing with it, in view of the, you know, the public interest test. That’s what we applied. I don’t know what more you are asking me about. I don’t know any more than that.

Mr Beer: Can you recall any case in which you concluded that there was sufficient evidence to prosecute, to provide a realistic prospect of conviction, ie meeting limb 1 of the full code test but, nonetheless, you decided that prosecution wasn’t in the public interest under the second limb?

Jarnail Singh: I think so. I think a few, I think, in – well, quite – probably a few. I mean, I – I can’t give you the names, but I think I –

Mr Beer: Can you remember – sorry, this document can come down so the Chairman can see you.

What was the context, even if you can’t remember the names, full code limb 1 met, but it’s not in the public interest to prosecute?

Jarnail Singh: Well, there was the – I think there’s a figure of 5,000 somewhere, health –

Mr Beer: Sorry, just taking them in turn. There was the figure of some 5,000 somewhere?

Jarnail Singh: I think it was 5,000. I think – from the back of my mind, if there’s less than 5,000 or around about 5,000, was the figure, it’s not in the public interest of the Post Office –

Mr Beer: When did that criterion apply?

Jarnail Singh: I think – I can’t say whether it’s always been there but I can’t tell you the precise date. Certainly, the health –

Mr Beer: Hold on, so, on that one, the alleged loss was £5,000 or less?

Jarnail Singh: I think the – yeah, it’s about that – I think it was about 5,000, around about that time. I can’t tell you as and when but that figure, for some reason, comes to mind.

Mr Beer: Okay, and so health: that’s the health of the defendant?

Jarnail Singh: The health of the defendant, his family, the circumstances, the period of offending, was it a one-off offence? Whether they – I think part of it was the – whether they repaid the money back and, also, I think the cost of prosecution in light of the overall – you know, the overall case.

Mr Beer: Thank you.

Jarnail Singh: There’s about five or six of them, I think –

Mr Beer: In your time –

Jarnail Singh: Yeah.

Mr Beer: – in the 17 years before separation?

Jarnail Singh: Yeah, I think what I did have a template, I had a habit of actually, on the side of it, the public interest test about six or seven different bits I used to look at, and sometimes even go round chatting to people and saying, “Look, this is what I’ve got, it’s sort of marginal, what do you think? What else should I need to do to, you know, either prosecute or not?” That sort of thing, yeah.

There was various aspects. I mean, I’m sure there was number of cases – but, certainly, there has been where we’d not prosecuted because of the public interest test.

Mr Beer: Thank you.

Sir, I don’t know whether that is a convenient moment for you. It is in terms of the topics I’m addressing. Might we break for 15 minutes until 3.35?

Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, fine.

Mr Beer: Thank you very much, sir.

(3.20pm)

(A short break)

(3.35 pm)

Mr Beer: Sir, good afternoon, can you see and hear me?

Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, thank you.

Mr Beer: Thank you.

Mr Singh, if, as a Criminal Law Team lawyer reviewing a file, you took the view that the Full Code Test was not met, would you, nonetheless, refer the case to a nominated decision maker within the business for a charging decision or would your advice that the Full Code Test was not met have been decisive without the need for the case to then be referred to a decision maker within the business?

Jarnail Singh: No, it’d be closed. I wouldn’t take it further. It’s closed, there’s no evidence. Why would it go to a decision maker? There’s no decision to be made, is there? Well, that’s my view. I mean, I would say no.

Mr Beer: So, in that case, the lawyer was the decision maker?

Jarnail Singh: Well, the decision in the sense there is no evidence.

Mr Beer: Or no sufficient evidence?

Jarnail Singh: Yeah, there’s no sufficient evidence, there’s no realistic prospect of conviction, so what decision is there made? There is no decisions to be made is there?

Mr Beer: So an individual within the business, a non-lawyer, could not form the view that there was sufficient evidence, if the Criminal Law Team member had advised that there was not?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I – I would have assumed – well, I – well, I – yeah, that would have been my view. I would have just probably taken it to the Head of Criminal Law Team and say, “Look, this is where it is, we’re closing the file, what do you want to do with it?” But I don’t know how it padded out but, certainly, there’s no evidence, there’s no case, is there?

Mr Beer: If you, as the Criminal Law Team lawyer reviewing the file, decided that it was not in the public interest for there to be a prosecution, would your advice be determinative or would the case then need to be referred to a nominated decision maker within the business to actually decide the issue?

Jarnail Singh: Again, the test has not been met, so there would be – well, I don’t know physically where it lands but, certainly, as far as the prosecution team is or Criminal Law Team is concerned, it finishes where, I would have thought, yes.

Mr Beer: In your statement, you tell us that cases were kept continuously under review in accordance with the Code for Crown Prosecutors, by the lawyer with the conduct of the case and by counsel instructed in the case; is that right?

Jarnail Singh: Yes, where are we, have we got –

Mr Beer: I’m not taking you back every time.

Jarnail Singh: Oh, sorry, yes.

Mr Beer: If you can just trust me, for the moment, to summarise what you’re saying. It’s paragraph 21 of your witness statement.

Jarnail Singh: Sure, sure.

Mr Beer: Does that mean that, even after a decision was made to charge someone with an offence, the case was kept under review to ensure that the Full Code Test remained met?

Jarnail Singh: Yes, continuous. It’s an obligation, I think, and a duty, yes.

Mr Beer: Would such continued duty be discharged into both the evidential sufficiency part of the Full Code Test and the public interest element of the Full Code Test?

Jarnail Singh: Those two elements have got to be in existence, hasn’t it, for there to be a prosecution case?

Mr Beer: Was that formalised in any way, ie periodic review?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I mean, I can’t say one way or the other. I don’t know whether there was – I would have thought the only person, certainly within the Criminal Law Team, would be the Head of Criminal Law. I don’t know whether – what sort of – what he did with it or whether he had a file or paper trail or something, but certainly he did review the cases, I know for sure, because he did amend one or two of my advices and, also, it would be taken up at the appraisals.

Mr Beer: I’m talking about you as the criminal lawyer with conduct of the prosecution. Did you periodically review whether both elements of the code test were met, ie a set period of time, we’re three months in, we’re six months in, we’re nine months into the investigation or the prosecution, let’s conduct a review; let’s have a stocktake, let’s stand back and see where we are. It sounds not …

Jarnail Singh: No, it’s – it’s the way we were structured. Certainly, when the case was continuous, I – there was letters – there was physical letters coming in at that time, Rob will look at it, he’ll pass it to me. If it was already in the Crown Court, the file would be with the legal executives and I would pick it up and there was times when I would go through it really thoroughly.

There was a period – I can’t say every three months, every six months, I don’t know – but there was a period when I would look at every single file, you know, as to – I can’t say, you know, every three months, every March, every June or every September, I can’t say for sure – but there was a period when I would look through quite a few of the prosecution files.

Mr Beer: Was there any record kept of that, ie the continuous review at periodic stages in the life of a prosecution?

Jarnail Singh: I didn’t keep any records. I – to be honest, I didn’t. As to whether Rob did, as Head of Criminal Law Team, I don’t know.

Mr Beer: I think it’s right you conducted some of the advocacy, is that right, in the Magistrates Court?

Jarnail Singh: In the Magistrates Court, yes.

Mr Beer: Was that just for your own cases or did you conduct the advocacy on the behalf of the Post Office for other case holders?

Jarnail Singh: I think at the beginning, when I first started, the first two years, or maybe longer, I did advocacy and the KCs, and the conferences, Crown Court cases for the free case holders, and also mine, and depending on if there was my case listed or somebody else’s case listed at the same time, and it would be one of the guys – me or somebody else would deal with somebody else’s case as well.

Mr Beer: So when did you stop doing advocacy?

Jarnail Singh: I think towards the end because we didn’t have the bodies. We didn’t have the lawyers to do it.

Mr Beer: So towards the end, you mean by reference to April 2012; how close to that?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know, probably when I think – Debbie Stapel started working from home, then we had our local agents or the barrister from Bell Yard would do the advocacy. They would deal with it.

Mr Beer: To what extent were local agents or the barristers from Bell Yard told that they should conduct a review of the continuing merits in evidential terms of a prosecution?

Jarnail Singh: I think when they were briefed. Once the matter was committed for – committed to the Crown Court for trial or plea – you know, when the pleas have been entered, we had a committal bundle, where we sent everything to them and they were asked to advise on evidence and settle the indictment.

Then I think, you know, at that stage, they would – I would assume they would read all the papers and they would advise whether those two tests are met or not.

Mr Beer: Did you understand the advice on evidence to be: (a) an Advice on evidential sufficiency, pursuant to the Full Code Test of sustaining an allegation or allegations under the criminal law; or (b) an Advice on what evidence should be obtained?

Jarnail Singh: I think they would have contained both. I mean sometimes – well, it would be evidential, importantly only and, secondly, they would advise whether further evidence is required.

Mr Beer: So when you were sending instructions to counsel to advise on evidence, you expected them to advise on evidential sufficiency in maintaining the proposed allegations?

Jarnail Singh: I – yes.

Mr Beer: Did you expect them to advise in writing?

Jarnail Singh: I think most of the time they would do, but there was the odd occasion where they’d just phone up because they’re dealing with the case or long trial, two or three – but most of the time it would be an email or, I think when they settled the indictment, assume they’d read the papers, and they thought there was sufficient evidence for the case to be, you know, put forward to the – in the Crown Court, to progress in the Crown Court.

Mr Beer: That was my second question.

Jarnail Singh: Sorry, yes.

Mr Beer: We’re going to come on to what settling the indictment meant to you. Can we just stick with what the advice on evidence meant to you?

Jarnail Singh: Yes, yes.

Mr Beer: You took your instructions to counsel to settle an advice on evidence to be, “Please advise us whether the evidence meets the Full Code Test” –

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: – “in respect of the proposed allegations”?

Jarnail Singh: Yeah, I would enclose the draft indictment or the copy summons, yeah.

Mr Beer: Did you receive back advices on evidence saying, “Charge 1, I’ve read the witness statement of Mr A, the witness statement of Mrs B, and it seems to me that, if you take those two together, plus some exhibits, there’s a case disclosed that meets the Full Code Test”?

Jarnail Singh: Sorry, say that again, sorry?

Mr Beer: Did you actually receive advices back from barristers which said, “I’ve looked at the papers, I’ve read them, and this is the evidence that discloses that the Full Code Test is met”?

Jarnail Singh: We had opinions, we had advice. I mean, I can’t tell you exactly what that – you know, that’s what it said. Sometimes, you just had the indictment back. But there was occasions where they advised that, you know, further evidence is required for this –

Mr Beer: That’s a slightly different issue, that further evidence is required. I’m asking you what advice you got back from barristers that said, “I’ve looked at the papers, I’ve analysed them. In my view, there is a realistic prospect of a conviction”, or “In my view there is a realistic prospect of a conviction because”, A, B and C?

Jarnail Singh: I can’t recall, to be honest, if it was like that. But certainly – yes, I can’t recall. But there probably was occasion, such – you know, it’s a while ago.

Mr Beer: What about settling the indictment. You send instructions to a barrister to settle the indictment. You get back by email a hard copy, an indictment, did you infer or take from the sending back of an indictment anything as to evidential sufficiency?

Jarnail Singh: Two ways they could have done, they done the opinion plus they settled the indictment, saying “We agree with it but you need to do A, B, C or D”, or they say, “We’re happy with the paperwork, lodge the indictment, here is a copy”. So I’d assume from that that everything was in order. We got the – we complied with the witness statements and whatever the barristers were, they were happy with it. Yeah, yeah. I think that, you know –

Mr Beer: So you would infer from the act of sending back an indictment –

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: – that counsel believed that there was a realistic prospect of maintaining each of the counts in the indictment?

Jarnail Singh: Yes, because you – yes. That’s – yes, and the other thing is sometimes I would – well, most of the time I would draft the indictment for them and say “Counsel, here’s a draft indictment”, and they would say “Jarnail, your draft is fine, lodge it”. So there would be just one line in an email or they would even attach a copy or put a copy in the post depending on, you know, what period we’re talking about.

Mr Beer: When you were providing legal advice on prosecution decisions and evidential sufficiency, when you were assessing whether to recommend a prosecution or not, did you give any consideration to the accuracy of Horizon data?

Jarnail Singh: I think the way it was worked out was that we had a witness statement or I always asked for a witness statement to say that the Horizon system had been properly installed, it was working in order, how did it operate? That was the initial and then, I think subsequently, if there was, in the interview, they mentioned the fact that, you know, the – there was a – in the interview, the subpostmaster mentioned the fact that, you know – pointed to say the – you know, “It was the Horizon, it wasn’t me”, then certainly I would ask the Investigation Officers to, you know, actually find out what the problem is.

Mr Beer: So in the first of those instances where somebody had not raised an issue in interview, or otherwise in a defence case statement or the like, you nonetheless believed it was important or necessary to be able to prove that the data produced by Horizon was accurate and reliable?

Jarnail Singh: Yes, absolutely, yes.

Mr Beer: Why was that?

Jarnail Singh: Because it’s – it’s – it’s a machine, isn’t it? It’s a machine. So there was a standard line I certainly put in when I worked with the other people when I did the advocacy, or the barristers in conference used that line always and they always had someone come back to say that it’s properly working, it was properly – you know, how it operated and it was working. I think there was two or three things I always used to put in, because it’s a machine. It can go wrong. So we need somebody to say, “Look” – how it operated, whether it worked or it didn’t.

Mr Beer: So it was your view that it was a necessary element –

Jarnail Singh: I – absolutely.

Mr Beer: – of the prosecution case right from the beginning, irrespective of whether a prospective defendant had raised a Horizon integrity issue?

Jarnail Singh: Well, it was a standard one that everybody agreed with and I used. I didn’t look behind it, or maybe I should have done. That’s what we did. And then we had somebody, I don’t know who, actually had a witness statement to that effect. And then, you know, subsequently, if it was raised, like the Mrs Misra case, it would have been investigated and further enquiries made and further documents obtained. But that’s the way, you know, the – our advice was structured.

Mr Beer: How did you satisfy yourself that there was an actual loss in each case?

Jarnail Singh: Well, it would be the interview, then you had the –

Mr Beer: Sorry, the interview?

Jarnail Singh: Not – well, they – interview in the sense that, you know, what’s the subpostmaster’s explanation, what he’s saying. Then you firstly have the Auditors. The Auditors would go in and they would sort of audit the, you know, the branch and they find a shortage. Then there was the interview. Then it was the operation of the system itself. Then you had witness statements. The access, who actually, you know, put the figures on the system itself.

You know, that type of – that’s the sort of evidential side of it, I would have looked at, initially. Then as the matter progressed, you got more and more evidence that adds to it.

Mr Beer: Was audit data or were transaction logs sought as part of the initial investigation or only if the subpostmaster raised the Horizon integrity issue?

Jarnail Singh: Well, looking back on it now I think that was essentially done – that should have been done right from the outset, but it wasn’t. That was if the subpostmaster raised the issue or subsequently Section 8 application, or – you know, that’s when it was triggered off. But the – initially, that’s – those are the way the, you know, the case actually progresses from the outset.

And then, as and when the case progressed further, further evidence – the Horizon Issues, if they came about, that’s when the data transaction logs were requested but they weren’t requested by – I requested from the Investigation Officer and the Investigation Officer obtained it from whoever, and now we know there they – where they should have got it and maybe they should have got it from the outset, I don’t know. But we didn’t at that stage, at that time.

Mr Beer: Was it your view that it was a matter for the defence to raise an issue with the working of the Horizon system for the defence to ask for ARQ data?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know whether – it was not my view. I think that’s the way we operated. If it was raised in interview, it certainly would have – the officer should have done that from the outset. But, looking back on it now, I’m surprised that nobody picked it up that that should have been obtained, you know, initially from every single case.

Mr Beer: Can we look at a passage in your witness statement, please?

Jarnail Singh: Where are we.

Mr Beer: It’s page 34, paragraph 99 and 100.

Jarnail Singh: Sorry, say it again?

Mr Beer: It will come up on the screen, Mr Singh. Page 34, paragraphs 99 and 100.

Jarnail Singh: Okay.

Mr Beer: Thank you.

Jarnail Singh: 99, yeah.

Mr Beer: And 100. You’re here dealing with Mr Blakey’s case and it’s just something you say. You say:

“From my recollection and from reviewing the documents, the workings of the Horizon system were never raised as an issue and ARQ data was never requested by the defence. I cannot comment on any investigation as this would have been carried out by the Investigation and Security Team, prior to me receiving the file.

“Mr Blakey was represented by solicitors and Counsel who were entitled to request any evidence that they needed to support his defence. In addition, the Defence are able to make a Section 8 application for disclosure should his legal representatives have thought that evidence was being withheld from him. Mr Blakey pleaded guilty and no such request was made.”

The ratio, the essence of the Court of Appeal’s decision in Hamilton is that obtaining the evidence that the Post Office relied on to prove that it had sustained a loss was not something to be subcontracted to the defence to raise.

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: It was a necessary step for the prosecution to prove the case. I think you understand that now having read –

Jarnail Singh: Yes, of course, yes.

Mr Beer: – the Court of Appeal’s decision. Aren’t you here in these paragraphs throwing the obligation back on the defence? Isn’t that what you’re doing by these paragraphs?

Jarnail Singh: Well, obviously I’m wrong. I mean, it should have been done from the outset. I mean, yeah, I agree. It should have been done from the outset. That’s what we did. It was wrong and, I think, certainly counsel’s opinion/advice didn’t come – said that we should. Maybe one of us should have done, and, you know, sort of said, “No, we’re not having it, we need that”, and that is a sad reflection of where we are today, and we shouldn’t be.

Mr Beer: Is what you express here in these paragraphs, in 99 and 100, essentially the view that was operative throughout your time in the Post Office when you prosecuted, that the obligation was on the defence to raise Horizon integrity and proof of loss, ie essentially reversing the burden of proof?

Jarnail Singh: Well, otherwise, I wouldn’t have put it in, would I? I mean, that’s my witness statement, to the best of my – you know that’s the statement I made. That’s what we did. But as to the – your second bit, I’m not sure I would go as far as that. I mean, I don’t – I think we’re sort of – I mean certainly from my point of view, I’m a normal person, if I thought there was something wrong, we needed to obtain it, I would have done it. But, obviously, I didn’t and I was wrong.

Looking back on it, you know, it’s in black and white why the Court of Appeal have – and I accept that wholeheartedly, and I –

Mr Beer: It’s just that you were still saying it in your witness statement here, which is 6 October 2023.

Jarnail Singh: I’m saying it because that’s what we did. I mean, if I put it like that, how could I actually say that? I can’t say that, can I? This is how we worked. This is how we did things in the year – you know, from the year 2000 to 2012. I mean, if I put – you know, all that sort of stuff, you’d be taking me to the contrary view. You didn’t do it, why didn’t you do it? Mr Blakey, why didn’t –

You know, maybe I’m saying too much but I do feel it very strongly, I do feel really hurt that we didn’t, that we let 12 years go by and nobody picked that up and said “Where are the ARQ, how the hell are we proving this?” You know, but that’s the way we did and that’s why we are here today, and we shouldn’t be here.

Mr Beer: That can come down, thank you. I think it’s right, therefore, as you tell us – I’m not going to ask for these to be put up, but it’s paragraphs 89, 109, 123 and 146 – that audit data was not requested in a number of criminal proceedings which ended up in a conviction?

Jarnail Singh: Please explain to me, it’s late in the day, I’m not as young as I used to be. Say that again, slowly, please?

Mr Beer: You tell us passages in your witness statement when you’re referring to case studies that we’re looking at, and it’s paragraphs 89, 109, 123 and 146, so four cases –

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: – that audit data was not requested in criminal proceedings?

Jarnail Singh: Is that what I say? Where do I say that, audit data?

Mr Beer: Let’s have a look, if you want to look at it –

Jarnail Singh: Are you talking about whatever it is, AQ, whatever it is?

Mr Beer: ARQ data. Paragraph 89.

Jarnail Singh: Sorry, yeah, hang on.

Mr Beer: On page 30.

Jarnail Singh: 89. (The witness read to himself).

Yeah.

Mr Beer: There is no data –

Jarnail Singh: Yeah.

Mr Beer: So what I’ve done is I’ve looked at each of the passages in your statement, over four different cases, where you say, “We didn’t seek ARQ data in those cases”.

Jarnail Singh: We didn’t, no. Whether the officers did at the outset, but we didn’t get copies and, as I say, if I’m making this statement I wouldn’t be saying that, would I? Certainly in the Blakey case, you had Jayne Kaye explaining the system, the workings of the Horizon system and the operation of it, but as to the logs, they weren’t there.

Mr Beer: If we look forward to page 37, paragraph 100, that’s Suzanne Palmer’s case, yeah? No Horizon data was requested in this case, yes?

Jarnail Singh: Did you say page 37?

Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, I think Mr Beer means paragraph 109 –

Mr Beer: Oh, I’m so sorry.

Sir Wyn Williams: – on page 37.

Mr Beer: Thank you.

Jarnail Singh: Yeah, yeah sorry, yeah, yeah, well, that’s what it says. I mean, I looked at the paperwork you supplied, and it wasn’t there, so if it wasn’t there, we didn’t request it or the officers didn’t request it.

Mr Beer: Page 41, please, paragraph 123. This is dealing with Susan Rudkin’s case, no Horizon data was obtained in this case or requested in this case, correct?

Jarnail Singh: Yeah.

Mr Beer: Paragraph 146, on page 46, at the foot of the page on page 46.

Jarnail Singh: Yeah, well –

Mr Beer: Just scroll down, thank you:

“No Horizon data was requested from Fujitsu in this case. However in my advice note [it says] I have requested further witness statements, including a statement addressing the IT system?

Jarnail Singh: That’s the Julian Wilson case, isn’t it?

Mr Beer: It is?

Jarnail Singh: Yeah, I think that’s – I think he mentioned that there’s a problem with the Horizon. I think I did, in my advice, ask for it but subsequently counsel confirmed it. I did sort of send counsel’s advice and requested it but it’s – subsequently Mr Wilson/counsel, they pleaded guilty for the data was in hand. But I – that case was – I think there was advised, or whatever it is, subsequently, by Rob Wilson and I think he also amended the charges and I think also the basis of plea was agreed by him and maybe it’s something – I don’t know the ins and outs of it.

Mr Beer: So in these cases, and there are many, many more –

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: – the Post Office did not obtain audit data, correct?

Jarnail Singh: Yes, correct.

Mr Beer: Thank you. That can come down.

Why did the Post Office not routinely obtain audit data to inform investigative and prosecutorial decisions.

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I mean, I am not the part of the team to make that decision and, like I explained to you, the initial advice was formulated the way I explained to you.

Mr Beer: At the time, why did you think it was appropriate for the Post Office to launch criminal proceedings against branch staff without first confirming, through audit data, that there was proof of an actual loss?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I – in the whole business, including the lawyers – now, of course, we were wrong, should have been requested – we didn’t. We were led to believe that the system was perfect. We had training and I think even the trainer said it was a foolproof system. Firstly, I think when the system was first put in place, I went to training and then I think when I moved to Old Street on 1 April, I took a lot of our barristers from the southwest, I think it was, and the Midlands, for the training, and he explained it in such a way that he said “Well, it’s foolproof. You put in what you get out”, type of thing.

Mr Beer: Sorry, who told you the system was foolproof?

Jarnail Singh: The trainer. The trainers from – who trained everybody on the Horizon system, including the Legal team. And I – because I had been through the Misra case, I was conscious of the fact that every person who dealt with the – with any of the subpostmasters should go on that training.

I went on it, I took some of the barristers chambers, prosecutors, and we wouldn’t – nobody would prosecute unless they’d been on that training. So we were obviously misled, or whatever you like to call it, that the system worked very well.

Mr Beer: Was it the Post Office’s strategy to put the onus on subpostmasters to request audit data in prosecutions, rather than the Post Office obtaining it and disclosing it as a matter of practice?

Jarnail Singh: Not that I’m aware of but, certainly, what I explained to you, the way the initial advice was formulated to the Investigation Team, it should have done. They should have – I mean, it wouldn’t have taken very long to put in a paragraph instead of saying “Get in somebody to do a witness statement”, to actually say “No, get this data”. But nobody picked it up, and certainly people above me, who had more experience and knowledge of it didn’t, and I don’t know whether I was in a position to do it or not to do it, but certainly we didn’t.

Mr Beer: Can we look at the way you approach things by using Ms Misra’s case as an example, and look at POL00053746. We see this is a letter dated 11 January 2010 to Coomber Rich –

Jarnail Singh: Oh, yes.

Mr Beer: – foot of the page, written by you.

Jarnail Singh: Yeah, that’s me.

Mr Beer: Then if we scroll up, thank you. You say:

“I have now reviewed the papers in the above case, particularly your request for disclosure, and comment as follows.

“We will respond to all reasonable requests and seek material that may undermine the prosecution case and support your client’s defence. We understand in general terms that you are seeking to challenge the integrity of the Horizon system. We feel obliged to point out, however, that you have not as yet served a defence statement which raises any issue whatsoever with the Horizon system. If any apparent errors were occurring in the indictment period, your client should have a good knowledge of what they might be, simply because she would have regularly been checking the stock against the Horizon records. We take the view that a detailed defence statement is required in this case which fully particularises any problem with Horizon upon which your client would seek to rely at trial. The defence statement should obviously make clear what the issues in the case are. At the moment, we do not know whether your client still claims she was hiding thefts by members of staff and to what extent those alleged thefts contributed to the deficiency at the office. We are handicapped in fulfilling our disclosure obligations by the absence of an adequate defence statement. The credibility of your client may be also damaged at trial if no adequate defence statement is served.”

But was it the Post Office’s general strategy, looking at this document, to require subpostmasters to fully particularise the problems with the Horizon system in their defence?

Jarnail Singh: I can’t give you an answer that but, certainly, in this particular case, it’s the view we took, yeah – I mean, the view I took, and I think I took it on the advice of the – I think it’s gone to the Crown Court, hasn’t it? Where are we?

Mr Beer: By this time it had. It was in the Crown Court.

Jarnail Singh: In March, and what’s the date of this email, is it –

Mr Beer: It’s a letter and I think, if we scroll to the top, we’ll see it’s January 2010?

Jarnail Singh: That’s early – earlier in the year. I think – hmm. I don’t know the details of it, from what my recollection is, that it would help us to assist all parties if we knew where the starting point was, and I think the whole idea of a defence statement is exactly that: what is the issues? What is your client saying there about the Horizon system or the operation of the apparatus?

Mr Beer: But you were placing a burden here on the subpostmaster of particularising flaws in the Horizon system, weren’t you?

Jarnail Singh: No, I don’t think so. I think the – my approach, in any case I dealt with, is always incorporation, working together, and here, I think – I don’t know who – was it Issy Hogg? I used to have a long conversation with her, you know, and – you know, well, not longest conversations, but one or two long enough, and say “Look, you know, we need to – can you help with this? Can you help with that?” And I think, in turn, returned a lot of favours and said to her: “Look, I can do this, I can do that and then we can actually agree on certain aspects of it, so that I can start sort of moving or progressing this case forward”.

So I – the way this pads out was the defence statement was, if they particularised – is it not the – I mean I don’t know – I mean, I – going back now, I mean, trying to think on it, is it not that the idea of the defence statement is exactly that? What is your client’s defence? What are the issues? What are the – what are you saying that we did wrong or what’s – you know, that’s the way I understood it, and that’s where we were with it. I mean, it wasn’t –

Mr Beer: At this time, the Post Office hadn’t disclosed any audit data or call logs to Mrs Misra, correct?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I mean, I –

Mr Beer: Take it from me, the Post Office had not disclosed any call logs or audit data to Mrs Misra by 11 January 2010?

Jarnail Singh: Yeah –

Mr Beer: How was Mrs Misra to fully particularise the Horizon Issues experienced at West Byfleet without at least access to that information?

Jarnail Singh: It’s a while ago. I mean, I – I can only go by what I’ve read and what the paperwork you sent me – I think there was no ulterior motive in that. I think that the only way would be – is to try to assist and agree, you know, the starting point more than anything else. I mean, if it was up to me, I would have more or less said, “Look, from the moment she started work, or even the year before, here’s the data and even the year after”, but the thing is it wasn’t as simple as that, and that’s – probably my mistake in this case was that I thought it was straightforward.

You know, the Post Office would want to provide it but, then they had all sorts of contract and agreement with the third party. That’s where the problem laid. But that here, it wasn’t what you’re suggesting. I mean certainly not when I read that email. It was really a starting point with a view to progressing it and trying to assist the defence any which way I could.

Sorry, it’s a long answer, I shouldn’t really – no, that’s not what this is about.

Mr Beer: You tell us in your witness statement at paragraph 256 that you played a role in obtaining the audit data in the criminal proceedings against Mrs Misra because it was required by the Investigation and Security Team; okay?

Jarnail Singh: To – 156?

Mr Beer: Again, I’m sure your solicitor will say something if I missummarise?

Jarnail Singh: No, no, sorry, I take it. Sorry, about that. Of course.

Mr Beer: It slows it down if every time we have to go back and –

Jarnail Singh: No, no, no, sorry, of course.

Mr Beer: I’m just summarising, so we don’t have to get it up on the screen.

Jarnail Singh: No, perfect.

Mr Beer: You tell us that you played a role in obtaining the audit data in the proceedings against Mrs Misra because it was required by the Investigation and Security Team, okay?

Jarnail Singh: Yes.

Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at UKGI00014895, please. It’s an email from the defence solicitor, Issy Hogg, to you, saying:

“We refer to Judge Critchlow’s order …”

There’s a problem with their office system.

“We … enclose a request for disclosure.”

Third paragraph:

“We note that your response … makes a suggestion that our expert meets with your investigating officer and representatives of Fujitsu. Can we endorse that and emphasise that we have, since July last year, been requesting that our expert has access to data records, a request that has been repeatedly rebuffed on the grounds of cost and the work involved.”

Why was the Post Office refusing to provide Mrs Misra’s defence expert with access to audit data?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know now but I – certainly, it was out of my hands. I think I did as much as I could, but then there was that contractual commercial relationship that the Post Office had with Fujitsu, but it wasn’t something that I didn’t want, or obstructing. I mean, obviously I’m the lawyer in the case. I did all I could to progress it, help it along, but it was –

Mr Beer: You knew that the only way to test whether a problem had arisen at a particular office was for a detailed analysis to be undertaken of the relevant transaction logs, the audit data, at a particular branch, didn’t you?

Jarnail Singh: Yes. No, I accept that but, I mean, it was not lack of trying and not obtaining it. I wanted to obtain it. I mean, I think if you go back – you know, I don’t know, September, October, November, the first thing I did was to actually copy – copied in the investigation and said, “Look, this is what the defence want disclosed. This is their enquiries. Please deal with it”. Then I think subsequently matters transpired that it did.

Mr Beer: If we fast forward a couple of years, three years or so, to POL00060974, and look at page 3, please. Sorry, it’s the bottom of page 2. If we scroll down, please, four lines up from the bottom, you say:

“The only way to test whether a problem has arisen at a particular office is for a detailed analysis of the relevant transaction logs to be undertaken as happened in the Misra case.”

Then over the page:

“I imagine that the independent inquiry will be examining some, perhaps all, of the cases on Second Sight’s requested schedule. In none of these cases were the transaction logs ever examined? This is time consuming and expensive though it may be the only way to investigate the concerns raised by these former [subpostmasters].”

So you knew that the only way to test whether a problem had arisen at a branch was for a detailed analysis of the transaction logs, didn’t you?

Jarnail Singh: Yes. Well, I said so in black and white.

Mr Beer: So if that was the only way to test whether there were Horizon Issues at a branch, why wasn’t that obtained in each investigation and in each prosecution case?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I – you know, as you – as previous, we – that’s the way the Post Office operated. That’s the way they dealt with it, like I previously advised – as I previously told you.

Mr Beer: Do you accept that expense and time is not a sufficient reason to obtain the audit data if it was the only way to determine whether there were problems at a branch?

Jarnail Singh: That, the expense and the time consuming bit, didn’t affect me at all. I wanted it but it was –

Mr Beer: That’s an answer to a different question. Do you accept that time and expense is not a reason –

Jarnail Singh: No, it’s not a reason.

Mr Beer: – to not obtain the data?

Jarnail Singh: Not when somebody’s liberty is at stake and the other things that I read from the impact statements, no.

Mr Beer: Okay, we’ll go back to the story, then, back in February 2010. FUJ00122713. We’ve looked at the defence requests already for disclosure, from Issy Hogg, of audit data. Can we look now, please, at an email to you from David Jones, if we just scroll down a little bit further.

Thank you. You can see he’s the Head of Legal in Fujitsu.

Jarnail Singh: Yeah, yeah.

Mr Beer: If we scroll up we can see the date of this, February 2010.

“Jarnail,

“Thanks for your email …

“I met this morning with Gareth Jenkins who came back into the office briefly to meet with me. Gareth will help with this matter.”

Next paragraph:

“Attached is a first draft of a statement from Gareth …

“You will see that there are some areas where Fujitsu cannot deal with the Defendant’s expert’s criticisms as they are about POL’s procedures or requirements and it seems evident there will be a need for a POL internal ‘expert’ who can work with Gareth to deal with these areas.”

Then this:

“One concern is that the [Post Office Limited] have not apparently requested transaction data for West Byfleet for the period and transactions in question. This would normally be provided in previous cases and would include Fujitsu extracting log files from the system to enable us to provide details of transactions. Surprisingly, this has not been requested in this case. Perhaps you would consider the need for this.”

So it wasn’t just the defence that were saying to you that you need to obtain the audit data; it was the people who developed, operated and ran the system were telling you it too, weren’t they?

Jarnail Singh: Yes, yes. There’s no dispute about that. Yes, of course. You need them. It’s essential. It’s a must.

Mr Beer: Was audit data ever requested before a person was suspended or dismissed?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. That’s a question for the Investigation Team. I didn’t get involved in that.

Mr Beer: Did you ever see a case in which audit data was obtained before a person was suspended or dismissed?

Jarnail Singh: As I said to you, the Legal team saw the investigation file. We – what happened prior to it, it didn’t – I can’t say.

Mr Beer: Was audit data ever obtained before the file was submitted to you for advice?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know.

Mr Beer: Did you ever see an advice file that contained audit data where you were asked to advise on evidential sufficiency, ie before the lawyer was asked to advise?

Jarnail Singh: Not any of my files, no.

Mr Beer: Is the answer to the question, I was about to ask why, the same as before: “It’s just because we didn’t do it that way”?

Jarnail Singh: Yeah. Are you asking specifically about Mrs Misra here or are you asking generally?

Mr Beer: Generally.

Jarnail Singh: Yeah. Well, you’ve read the papers. That’s what it is.

Mr Beer: Can we move forwards, please, to FUJ00122735. This is the same day. Mr Jones, Head of Legal at Fujitsu, forwarding you an email from Mr Jenkins, saying:

“Please see attached and Gareth’s comments on the need for an examination of the underlying log files and timing of this.”

If we scroll down, please.

Mr Jenkins said:

“The simple answer is that without retrieving the logs everybody is speculating and as discussed this morning nobody has bothered to ask us for any logs. At this stage it is not at all clear what transactions are thought to be missing at what time or even in what time period. Analysing logs over a long period is very, very time consuming. This is not going to happen by Monday.”

So again, the defence solicitor was asking, the Head of Legal for the firm that developed and operated the system was asking, and Mr Jenkins, the proposed witness, was asking for the logs – the ARQ data – to be obtained. Why hadn’t it happened by now?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I think you’ve got the emails. I certainly requested it. It’s really an internal matter for the other departments. I think if you – from the emails you’ve provided me with, there’s a lot of emails which I’m not copied into, whereby the Head of Fujitsu Legal, David Jones, is having conversations about that with the Commercial and Contract Teams of the Post Office. And I think, at the same time, the Investigation Officer says all he can to get authority. And I think when we do obtain authority, we got Penny Thomas, who was the Prosecution Support Team, who – Fujitsu work with the Post Office, asking it’s got to be done in a certain way by a certain person within the Post Office.

So that’s where the answer is. It’s not because I don’t want it or didn’t request it; it’s the way the whole system operated.

Mr Beer: Can we see what you did when you were confronted with this three-pronged request: defence solicitor, Fujitsu and Mr Jenkins.

FUJ00152957, look at page 2, please. I should just look at page 1, so you can see the date of this, and scroll down. That’s it.

Yes, your email, your secretary, on behalf of you, to David Jones, 8 February. We’ve just been looking at email exchanges of 5 February, so we’re three days later now. Over the page, please, you say, fourth paragraph:

“We are keen that the defence are given suggestions as to how they can efficiently test their theories against the Horizon data. We don’t want them to say they will not have time before the trial. We anticipate that it would not be very difficult to test their theories against a short but …”

I think that’s supposed to be “representative”; is that right?

Jarnail Singh: Yeah, represented, yeah.

Mr Beer: “… but [representative] span of data [for] example from the months when Mrs Misra has admitted false accounting, (15 November to 14 December 2006, 16 May to 16 June 2007, 14 November 2007 to 15 December 2007 and 9 January 2008). It would be helpful if Mr Jenkins could consider practical and efficient ways in which the defence might be able to test their theories.”

So you said that the Post Office essentially was keen for a short but representative span of data. Where did you get these dates from?

Jarnail Singh: Well, I’m now working with the barrister in the case. I’m conscious of the fact of the complexity of the case. So what I’m doing is two things: firstly saying, “Look, this is where we are. What do we do?” and I think his advice has been, “Well, let them start with this”, and that’s more or less what I have asked.

Mr Beer: These dates seemed to be dates for the months in respect of which Mrs Misra admitted to false accounting.

Jarnail Singh: I think –

Mr Beer: What was the relevance of those months?

Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I mean, looking – the problem I have today is that – or generally has been, is – because I can’t go back in time. I mean, at that time, obviously I had more detail, a lot more information as to where we are. Today I can’t give an explanation as to where I got the dates.

But, certainly, you know, it would have been from advice and discussions with the trial, you know, the barrister who had been briefed or instructed on that, because that’s the way I worked. I have always – before I’m making these sort of decisions, I would always get a formulated, constructive advice before I move forward. And I was given those dates, “This would be helpful, and suggest that”. Then I did.

Mr Beer: So do you think you got those from Mr Tatford?

Jarnail Singh: Yes, I would have, yes.

Mr Beer: Thank you, sir.

Sir, that’s a convenient moment to break for the day.

Sir Wyn Williams: All right. Thank you very much.

I don’t suppose you will want to talk about this case overnight, Mr Singh, but if you do, please don’t. All right?

The Witness: Thank you, sir.

Sir Wyn Williams: We’ll resume again at 10.00 tomorrow morning.

Mr Beer: Thank you, sir.

(4.27 pm)

(The hearing adjourned until 10.00 the following day)