6 December 2023 – David Posnett
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(10.00 am)
David Posnett
DAVID POSNETT (continued).
Questioned by Mr Beer (continued)
Mr Beer: Good morning, sir, can you see and hear us?
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, thank you, yes.
Mr Beer: Good morning, Mr Posnett.
The Witness: Good morning.
Mr Beer: Yesterday we were looking at FUJ00152212. I wonder whether that can be displayed on the screen, please. It’s page 8, please. If we scroll down, please, and look at paragraph 7.2, you remember this was the Fujitsu policy document, essentially –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – concerning expert evidence as part of policy on the provision to the Post Office of litigation support?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: You remember we established that it drew a distinction between evidence of fact and expert evidence?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: I think you said yesterday that that wasn’t something of which you were particularly aware at the time?
David Posnett: That’s correct.
Mr Beer: Okay. You weren’t aware of the process that the document said needed to be undertaken, the change control procedure, if it was a request for expert evidence?
David Posnett: Yes, I don’t recall that.
Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at FUJ00002264. This is a similar policy document concerning security management or the Security Management Service. You’ll see that the distribution includes Sue Lowther at the Post Office?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Can we turn, please, to page 14, and look at the foot of the page, please, under “Litigation Support”:
“Where Post Office submits an ARQ in connection with litigation support, at the Post Office’s request Fujitsu shall, in addition to conducting that query …”
Then look at B:
“subject to the limits [above, which I’m not going to read] analyse:
“I. the appropriate Service Desk records for the date range in question …”
Yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: “II. in order to check the integrity of records of transactions extracted by that query;
“III. request and allow the relevant employees of Fujitsu Services to prepare witness statements of fact in relation to that query, to the extent that such statements are reasonably required for the purpose of verifying the integrity of records provided by ARQ and are based upon the analysis and documentation referred to in [another part of the document].
“IV. request and allow the relevant employees to attend court to give evidence in respect of the witness statements referred to in that paragraph III”, that I’ve just read.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Did you know about this policy?
David Posnett: I don’t recall this policy. On this particular one, as you say, on the circulation was Sue Lowther. I may have received it, I may not, but don’t recall it.
Mr Beer: You see the way that this treats requests for ARQ data. If we just scroll up a little bit, it says that, “in addition to conducting the query” at B1, analyse the appropriate records for the date range in question.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: When you were making ARQ requests, did you know that Fujitsu regarded itself as under an obligation, subject to the limits set out to analyse Service Desk records?
David Posnett: I don’t remember.
Mr Beer: You were the person responsible for obtaining material from Fujitsu by way of ARQ requests?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Can you try and help us as to what you understood Fujitsu’s obligations were in terms of when you were making an ARQ request, whether it was necessary for them to analyse Service Desk records?
David Posnett: The only thing I can recall is that Investigators would request Horizon data and myself or one of the Casework Team would submit that request via an ARQ to Fujitsu. I don’t recall all these specific details on this document.
Mr Beer: Do you remember receiving analysis of Service Desk records, as opposed to – sorry, analysis on the one hand versus a summary of, on the other, or the provision of the Service Desk records still further?
David Posnett: I don’t recall that. The only thing I do recall is receiving disks with transaction and – transaction logs and event logs.
Mr Beer: Yes, they’re from the system.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Here we’re talking about when an ARQ request is made, the facility or obligation, it doesn’t express what triggers it, to analyse Service Desk records. That’s something else. You remember the helpdesks?
David Posnett: The helpdesks, yes.
Mr Beer: So this is saying, when you ask for ARQ data, there was an add-on, essentially, of an analysis of Service Desk records?
David Posnett: Yeah, I don’t recall that.
Mr Beer: If we scroll down a little bit further, please, under III it reads “request and allow the relevant employees of Fujitsu to prepare witness statements of fact in relation to that query”, which seems to refer to transaction queries, rather than the helpdesk stuff.
David Posnett: Yeah.
Mr Beer: Can you recall any discussion or debate over a change in approach between witness statements that spoke to ARQ data being expert evidence, as against witness statements that spoke to ARQ data that were witness statements of fact?
David Posnett: No, I don’t recall.
Mr Beer: What did you expect the witness statements that Fujitsu supplied, which spoke to the ARQ data, to contain?
David Posnett: Exhibit the actual data that they’d provided, ie the disks with transaction and event logs, and I think there was a standard statement that they used that it was tailored to the relevant office and time frame, and commentary on whether the system at a particular branch at a particular time was working properly.
Mr Beer: Did you expect the witness statements to contain sufficient analysis to support a case that Horizon was functioning correctly and with integrity?
David Posnett: Sorry, can you repeat that?
Mr Beer: Yes. Did you expect the witness statements to contain sufficient analysis or material to support a case that Horizon was functioning correctly or with integrity?
David Posnett: I would have expected that but I don’t recall reading many of the witness statements anyway. I think they might have come in and just been transferred on to the Investigator.
Mr Beer: So you were postboxing them essentially?
David Posnett: Yes, and when I was the Casework Manager this process had been around since, well, 2000, I think, since Horizon came in. So it was, as far as I was aware, bedded in and business as usual. I didn’t go reinvent the wheel because I thought that’s what the process was.
Mr Beer: You’ll see the sentence continues there:
“to the extent that such statements are reasonably required for the purpose of verifying the integrity of records provided by ARQs …”
So it seems to suggest that the statement needed to, in some cases, speak to the integrity of the records produced as a result of the ARQ.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: What analysis did you understand had been done, if any, on the request to produce an ARQ or produce ARQ material by Fujitsu?
David Posnett: I don’t recall what analysis was done and I probably wouldn’t have understood it anyway.
Mr Beer: Did you expect some analysis to have been done?
David Posnett: I would expect some analysis to be done, if they’re commenting that the system was working fine at the time at a particular branch, and so on.
Mr Beer: So if I’m an Investigator and you’ve got a book, and I say to you “Mr Posnett, please produce the book”, you can write a witness statement, which says, “I, David Posnett, produce the book as my exhibit DP1”, yes? Or I can say to you “Mr Posnett, can you please produce the book and provide some analysis of what’s in it, the accuracy of what’s said and the truthfulness of it”?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: That would be a very different witness statement, wouldn’t it?
David Posnett: It would, yes.
Mr Beer: What variety of witness statement, when you were essentially the ARQ manager, were you expecting from Fujitsu? The former type, just producing the data, or the latter type containing some analysis of it?
David Posnett: Again, from recollection, I thought it was both, ie the production of the ARQ data and commentary on whether the system was working.
Mr Beer: I think you told us yesterday that you yourself wouldn’t have been able to identify whether in the data provided there was sufficient information to understand whether a transaction had or had not been completed by the system or by the subpostmaster themselves –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – and I think you said yesterday that you yourself thought that not many Investigators would be able to understand that distinction, and interrogate the data for themselves to see whether it applied?
David Posnett: That’s my personal opinion, yes.
Mr Beer: Thank you. That can come down, thank you. Now, where we stopped yesterday – that was just going back over some material that I’d thought it necessary to ask some additional questions.
Where we stopped yesterday was FUJ00155399, and if you scroll down, please, we looked at the bottom half of this page yesterday, which was an email from Wendy Warham to Sue Lowther and David X Gray about the security incident; do you remember?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: The December 2007 report of an occurrence that went back to May 2007. Then if we just scroll up, please, on the same day, 7 January, at 10.54, we can see that Penny Thomas sent you that email, yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: “Please find attached note sent by my senior management this morning. We need to discuss urgently.
“I attach a proposed witness statement.”
I don’t think we’ve actually got that note but it doesn’t matter for present purposes.
Then if you look at the handwritten notes, that’s not your writing, is it?
David Posnett: It’s not, no.
Mr Beer: We assume that it’s Penny Thomas’. It records, I think, two conversations with you –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – and you say in your witness statement you don’t recall the conversations?
David Posnett: I don’t remember the incident at all.
Mr Beer: No. At the first of them, on the same day, “Spoke to DP”, which we assume is you, and I think this reads:
“He will liaise with his legal team and advise requirements and comments for WS”, which might be witness statement.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Then a little later:
“Spoke to DP [at 2.30 on the same day]. He had liaised with Legal – they said [or they want] the checks for the 400,000 ARQs to be made and results returned. Their brief will need to contact counsel in the event that we find any abnormalities.
“Discussed [witness statement] – will review and talk again at a later date.”
Yes?
David Posnett: I think – yeah, I think that’s what it says.
Mr Beer: You’ve got no memory of this?
David Posnett: I’ve got no memory of that, no.
Mr Beer: Okay, but what it appears has happened is that Penny Thomas has drawn your attention to this – and I think you agreed yesterday – security incident that was serious. You’ve had a conversation saying, “I need to get back to my Legal team within Post Office” –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – and you call back or she calls back later in the day with three things: the 400,000 ARQs needed to be checked; if there are abnormalities, then their brief, which I assume means – I think that says “their brief”, their something – will need to contact counsel if there are abnormalities; and then the draft witness statement will be reviewed and talked about at a later date. Yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Then if we go to later in the day, what happened, FUJ00155400, and look at page 3, please. Just if we look at the bottom of page 2, thank you. So this is at 3.54 on the 7 January, same day, re the security incident. You contact Rob Wilson about the issue; yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: We looked at some of this yesterday, underneath paragraph 2, you cut in, starting with the words “In December 2007”, that which was in the Fujitsu email that we’ve just looked at, yes?
You say at paragraph 2:
“The following additional paragraphs have been inserted (page 7). I personally do not see the need for these if there are no problems identified with the data relating to the case in question. Why inform anyone about a problem we’ve had within the network, but possibly only at one branch, if it bears no relation or relevance.”
You essentially sought Mr Wilson’s advice; is that right?
David Posnett: Yes, so the last paragraph on there, “I’d be grateful if you could consider the above”, ie should they include the above in statements from now on.
Mr Beer: So should this additional language be included in the standard form witness statements –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – afterwards to alert people to this bug that has been found?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: If we go to page 2, please, and then scroll down, Mr Wilson replies a few minutes later:
“Dave,
“Thanks for both of your emails. So far as the addition is concerned my view is that if we are sure that there are no incidents then there is nothing undermining that will need to be flagged up by the defence. The incident will have no relevance to our cases and as such could only lead to fishing expeditions if we added anything into the standard statement.”
Then if we scroll up, please. You forward that chain on to Penny Thomas, and you say:
“To note the emails below.
“I would say Business As Usual re witness statements ie don’t include the two additional paragraphs on the last page.
“If any issues materialise in due course, we can address then – suggest the ARQs for these 4 cases are assessed first.”
Then page 1, please. Scroll down, please. Ms Thomas distributes that chain within Fujitsu, saying:
“[The Post Office] clearly do not want the specific details of this incident included in the witness statement.”
Yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: That’s a fair reflection of the exchange between you and Mr Wilson, isn’t it?
David Posnett: Yes, but I would say, subject to their looking into the problem and what came out of that.
Mr Beer: Do you actually say that? If we just go back to the chain, please, and look at page 3 first. You say:
“I personally do not see the need for these if there are no problems identified with the data.”
David Posnett: If there are no problems identified with the data.
Mr Beer: Do you say to Fujitsu “Please carry on trying to identify problems with the data”?
David Posnett: I thought somewhere within those documents they were going to look into the issue that they’ve outlined.
Mr Beer: What would you mean, if there are no problems identified with the data? What do you mean by that; what did you mean by that?
David Posnett: Well, I can only go by the documents I’m looking at now. I can’t remember. But once they’d done their examination or assessment, if it became evident that there were no discrepancies or impact on people’s balances, et cetera, then it wasn’t an issue.
Mr Beer: I see. I understand. So it’s whether it has an impact on a balance –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – that’s important?
David Posnett: That’s probably what I would have thought at the time.
Mr Beer: Why did you not consider that this revelation of a bug in the Horizon estate may be relevant to individual prosecutions simply because it revealed that a bug could exist within Horizon that went undetected by Fujitsu.
David Posnett: Because, as I mentioned yesterday, I think all systems have issues. That was my view at the time. I don’t remember it, and it seems as though Rob Wilson’s concurred with my view.
Mr Beer: But the information that had been reported to you showed, firstly, that there had been an unseen problem that meant that part of a balancing transaction had not been recorded in the local message store, agreed?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: It meant, secondly, that the system had not picked that up, that the system for finding faults and identifying faults had not picked that up –
David Posnett: Yeah.
Mr Beer: – and there had been some considerable delay?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: The issue had occurred from May 2007 onwards, I think. It was said to have been fixed in November 2008 and was not being addressed until this email exchange of January 2009?
David Posnett: Mm.
Mr Beer: Did that not suggest to you that there were problems with Horizon or may be problems with Horizon, which were not being adequately or promptly communicated to you?
David Posnett: When I read this now, yes. I mean, in a strange way I’m reassured that Fujitsu actually identified this and flagged it up. But I can’t remember it. I can only go by what I’m reading and it may well have been “We need to look at all of these ARQs that could have been impacted by this issue and then take it from there”.
Mr Beer: Was the existence of a bug, which could undermine the integrity of data, not in itself significant, more generally, to the integrity of data being produced by Horizon?
David Posnett: I would say, at the time, no would have been my thought, given the email I’ve written but I’ve forwarded it on for concurrence or a review by Rob Wilson.
Mr Beer: If we scroll back up to page 2, please, you say:
“If any issues materialise in due course” –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – “we can address then.”
What did you expect to be done, going forwards, to see whether any issues materialise in due course.
David Posnett: What did I do, sorry?
Mr Beer: What did you expect to be done –
David Posnett: Well –
Mr Beer: – to see whether any issues materialised in due course?
David Posnett: Okay, so on the first page of this document, with Penny Thomas’ handwritten notes, Wendy Warham, who is writing to Sue Lowther, we need to – it states, and I quote:
“We need to work with POL to recheck the ARQs and reconfirm the data integrity during the period of May ‘07 to November ‘08. Penny will do this.”
So that’s what I thought Fujitsu were going to be doing, rechecking the ARQs during that time period.
Mr Beer: So “if any issues materialised in due course” does not mean “if any further problems with this bug come out in the future”, it means “the checks that Fujitsu have already said they are going to undertake, if issues arise from those checks” –
David Posnett: That’s what –
Mr Beer: – “then we might need to do something”?
David Posnett: I don’t remember it but I agree with that summary.
Mr Beer: Did the Post Office conduct any, to your knowledge, independent analysis of the fix that Fujitsu said they had applied back in November 2008, to see whether it had worked?
David Posnett: I don’t remember but, again, the first email in this chain was from Wendy Warham to Sue Lowther, the Head of the Information Security at the Post Office and, underneath the paragraph that says, “Further action”, it’s mentioned “Education to ensure that this type of incident is raised as a major incident”.
I mean, I don’t know what that process was.
Mr Beer: That’s a slightly different thing, I think, Mr Posnett. That’s an internal Fujitsu point that people need to be educated not to sit on a problem and instead need to escalate it into a major incident, so there isn’t a delay between 2007 and 2009.
David Posnett: Yeah, but my view is the email went from Wendy to Sue Lowther, so I wasn’t even part of that initial email. I don’t know but I’m assuming that, because it went to Sue Lowther, she’s got her on processes to follow or to escalate things or notify people of this incident but I don’t know.
Mr Beer: But your view was we needn’t disclose this in a witness statement, that this has happened in our witness statements?
David Posnett: I don’t think that was my view at the time.
Mr Beer: Well, you say, “I would say Business As Usual re witness statements, ie don’t include the two additional paragraphs”.
David Posnett: So don’t include.
Mr Beer: Yeah, “we don’t need to mention this in our witness statements”?
David Posnett: Subject to what comes out of Fujitsu’s enquiries.
Mr Beer: Did you agree with Mr Wilson that, if you did include this, if we scroll down to see his actual language, it could only lead to fishing expeditions?
David Posnett: I would turn that around and say Rob Wilson seems to have agreed with my comments beforehand.
Mr Beer: How did you know at this time that the incident has no relevance to your cases?
David Posnett: We didn’t know at this time.
Mr Beer: So prosecutions were continuing?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: The standard witness statement was going out without the additional paragraphs alerting people?
David Posnett: Well, I think on here it said that there were four outstanding. I think they were paused, from what I’m reading, until they’d looked into this.
Mr Beer: The prosecutions were paused?
David Posnett: Not prosecutions; the submission of the witness statement.
Mr Beer: Oh, I see, so the prosecutions continued but the witness statement was not signed off?
David Posnett: That’s my understanding, from this.
Mr Beer: Can we go on, please. FUJ00155409. If we scroll down, please, this is five days later, 12 January 2009. This looks like an internal Fujitsu chain, and I don’t think you’re ever copied in to it but I just want to ask you some questions on what you knew about it. This the checking process that I think you envisaged, and Alan Holmes says to Penny Thomas:
“I have compared your ARQs with the event data constrained as follows:
“1. Only the specific Riposte timeout event.
“2. Events between 1 May ‘07 and 30 November ‘08.
“3. Events logged between 7.00 and 7.10.
“4. Events logged by Counter 1.”
Then if we scroll up, please, and a little further. Thank you.
Again, internally to Fujitsu conversation between Steve Denham and Penny Thomas on the email:
“To update you – Dave Posnett rang me yesterday to ask the status of this exercise (which he was including in hits internal reporting). I told him it was still [work in process] and that we were hoping for results later this week/early next week”, et cetera.
Were you aware that the checks that Fujitsu were carrying out were limited only to the specific incident and to a particular date range.
David Posnett: That was my assumption, yes.
Mr Beer: That they were, in the words of the email we just looked at, constrained to the specific timeout event and limited to a ten-minute window?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Where did you get that information from, that that was the nature of the checking that was being undertaken?
David Posnett: From the previous emails.
Mr Beer: Which email?
David Posnett: So the first email in those documents.
Mr Beer: FUJ00155399?
David Posnett: Yes. So the email –
Mr Beer: If that can just be brought up, please.
David Posnett: So underneath the paragraph headed “Impact”, again:
“We need to work with POL to recheck the ARQs and reconfirm the data integrity during the period of May ‘07 to November ‘08 – Penny will too this.”
Mr Beer: I was concentrating on the ten-minute time window between 7.00 and 7.10 that we just read about.
David Posnett: Again, I can’t remember this. I don’t understand what Riposte is or ringers that have been mentioned, that’s for Fujitsu. I looked at it quite simply: there was an issue identified and they were going to recheck the ARQs during that period and come back to me with their results that would hopefully be relayed in layman’s terms.
Mr Beer: You were part of a Casework Team at this time?
David Posnett: I’m not sure I was because, if you look at my email, the title on my email is “Dave Posnett, Fraud Risk Manager”. So, at this stage, I’d moved –
Mr Beer: You’d moved on?
David Posnett: – from Casework Manager into fraud risk but –
Mr Beer: Why were you dealing with it?
David Posnett: Well, that’s a good question. I think, because I’d been in Post Office for so long, I was quite often asked to carry on with this or get involved with that, “Dave, do you know people who can assist so and so?” Yeah, I wouldn’t say I was used and abused but I was given extra duties above my day job at that stage.
Mr Beer: Who took over from you as Casework Manager in the Casework Team?
David Posnett: So I think it was Jason Collins, he was one of the Assistant Casework Managers. I think he became –
Mr Beer: Got promoted?
David Posnett: Yeah.
Mr Beer: Okay.
David Posnett: Until it moved up to Salford in Manchester and it was a different team.
Mr Beer: But you’d moved department at this time?
David Posnett: I’d moved to be Fraud Risk Manager, yeah, and I think what has happened is I’ve still maintained an element of the relationship with Fujitsu.
Mr Beer: What technical expertise did you bring to bear to be able to apply a critical eye to what Fujitsu were telling you?
David Posnett: None.
Mr Beer: This says, “We need to work with POL to recheck the ARQs”.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: What did POL do to work with Fujitsu?
David Posnett: Again, I don’t remember it but I think it was purely Fujitsu looking at the ARQs and then relaying the results to the Post Office.
Mr Beer: In this kind of thing, was there a facility to bring in technical expertise within the Post Office to say, “Look, we’ve got a supplier who has identified this problem: Fujitsu. They may have been slow in telling us about it. It affects prosecutions, this is serious – or it potentially affects prosecutions, this is serious. We need to apply a critical eye to what they’ve done to solve the problem and to check the extent to which the data is afflicted by this problem in terms of financial reliability”.
Was there that kind of help available within the Post Office?
David Posnett: I don’t know, but I would say, yes, there probably were people who could have assisted in that respect. But there’s two key things you’ve mentioned there: one is somebody who is expert at IT that could look at this. Well, as I say, the initial emails went to Sue Lowther, who was the Head of Information Security. So either she would deal with it or know people who could look at it and the other element of that, you’ve mentioned prosecutions, I’ve relayed this to from, the Head of Criminal Law, so, in some ways, both of those areas are covered off.
Mr Beer: You thought that was covered off?
David Posnett: I – yeah, not from recollection, but from what I’m seeing, yes.
Mr Beer: Can we look at FUJ00155421 and look at the big email in the middle, Penny Thomas emails you:
“We are pleased to advise that our analysis of the data covering 1 May to 30 November has been completed.
“The event logs have been checked for all data provided to Post Office as a result of the 195 ARQs which fall within the time frame. 27 instances of concern were identified. All instances have been fully analysed and we can confirm that the locking was caused by contention between the end of day process and a Riposte checkpoint being written. No transactions or balancing activities carried out at the branches were affected.
“The standard witness statement has been reviewed and is attached. No reference has been made to the locking issue but minor revisions have been made.”
Yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Was it your understanding from this that Fujitsu had effectively checked all potentially affected cases and confirmed that this issue had not caused a transaction error in any case or an error in balancing in any case?
David Posnett: Yes, on reading these documents that, I think would have been my understanding.
Mr Beer: They say that no reference has been made to the locking issue in the witness statement, yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: So that’s Fujitsu deciding for themselves whether a bug in the system needed to be included by way of disclosure in a witness statement, correct?
David Posnett: That’s what it looks like, unless they’re looking back at myself and my –
Mr Beer: The exchange –
David Posnett: Yeah.
Mr Beer: – between you and the lawyer, saying, “We agree me don’t think this needs to be included”?
David Posnett: Yeah.
Mr Beer: But all three of you – you, Mr Wilson and Fujitsu – appear, would you agree, to have approached the issue on the basis of does it affect branches, rather than issues of whether it said something about the existence of a bug in the system and the ability of the system to identify the bug?
David Posnett: I would agree with that, yes.
Mr Beer: Not by reference to the time taken for disclosure of the issue to the Post Office by Fujitsu?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Thank you. That can come down.
When you’re considering this disclosure issue, what test do you apply in deciding whether this needs to be disclosed to a defendant or not?
David Posnett: Well, it’s not for me to decide whether that should have been disclosed or not. That’s why I referred it to Rob Wilson.
Mr Beer: You expressed a pretty clear view –
David Posnett: It was a –
Mr Beer: – “business as usual, let’s get on with things”?
David Posnett: Well, it wasn’t business as usual because – well, I don’t actually remember it but that, to me, is a specific problem that’s been flagged up. That was my view.
Mr Beer: What –
David Posnett: If it happened today and you asked me my view, I’d say, well, we need to declare that or disclose it.
Mr Beer: Why would your view be different?
David Posnett: Because, at the time, without remembering it, and I mentioned yesterday, that all systems, computer systems, have their glitches, issues, et cetera. That I thought was a localised one-off that had come to me, there’s been email exchanges, Fujitsu have looked at it.
I notice on – well, I think we’ve just gone through there, that I’ve chased them for a response so I knew that, potentially, it could be serious. I’ve – I would imagine, at the time, my major worry would be if they came back and said, “Oh, 30 or 40 of these ARQs are branches, it has caused a discrepancy in their balancing”. And alarm bells would have been ringing and we’d have had to look at those in-depth, you know, to see whether people had been prosecuted, et cetera.
As it was, they came back with there were no financial discrepancies, which was probably my focus at the time, but I understand now, given what we all know, that, in hindsight, yes, perhaps that should have been flagged up and raised as another bug.
Mr Beer: To take it away from the issue of a computer system, imagine a case involving, I don’t know, ID evidence. If you’re relying on an eyewitness in a criminal prosecution who says that the suspected offender was wearing a red bobble hat – yes – and you were in possession of material which suggested that the eyewitness on a previous occasion said that the offender was wearing a blue bobble hat, would you have to disclose that?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: That’s pretty obvious, isn’t it, because it’s directly about the issue concerned, yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: What about if, in those proceedings, unrelated to the witness’ identification of the suspect, he had misidentified somebody else on a previous occasion, had said that the suspect was wearing a green skirt on one occasion and then on a different occasion said she was wearing an orange skirt? It had nothing to do with the identification of the bobble hat wearing offender.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Would you have to disclose that?
David Posnett: Personally, I would. As I mentioned yesterday, the only criticism I ever received was disclosing too much information. I would say that, if that particular person has got a history of getting it wrong, then yes, its relevant to the case.
Mr Beer: Even though it’s got nothing directly to do with the identification of the suspect on this occasion?
David Posnett: Rightly or wrongly, I used disclose every little bit of paper, post note, et cetera, so no one could come to me and say, “You haven’t retained this”, or whatever.
Mr Beer: That’s because it goes to the liable of the piece of evidence that you’re relying on, in that case, the eyewitness?
David Posnett: Yes, I would retain and reveal any – anything I had in relation to a case. As I said, the lawyer who contacted me said you only need to disclose relevant things. I wasn’t talking about thousands of sheets of paper but that was the way I worked.
Mr Beer: Thinking back, do you think you applied that approach to evidence used by computers, ie something not directly relevant to the allegation that you’re making, but something which tends to suggest that the evidence that you might be relying on is less than reliable?
David Posnett: I don’t know – I can’t remember any instance like that where I was responsible for disclosure.
Mr Beer: Can we move on, please, to another aspect of requests for ARQ data. POL00107817, please. Can we start by looking at page 3, please. This is in the context of the Seema Misra case. We can see an email from Mr Longman, the Investigator, to the Fraud Team, of 14 July saying:
“Can you please assist with the following three points …”
Can you help with the generic Fraud Team email address. What was that?
David Posnett: So the Casework Team, myself, two assistant managers and admin staff, we had a team email address, namely the Fraud Team.
Mr Beer: Okay, so this refers to the part of the Casework Management Team?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Okay. Then 1:
“Andy Dunks of Fujitsu is requiring as a witness in this trial …
“2. The defence will be calling their own expert to analyse the Horizon data as the defendant is now claiming that some of the loss in this case is caused by errors with Horizon. Therefore, I will need transaction log that covering the period 30 June 2005 to 14 January 2008, together with a covering witness statement.”
David Posnett: So this is an example of when an Investigator requests a witness statement, not the Casework Team.
Mr Beer: Yes, and the investigator is requesting the Casework Team to get a witness statement?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Yes? Does that reflect the fact that Investigator shouldn’t be liaising directly with Fujitsu; it had to be routed through you?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Your team?
David Posnett: The team, yeah.
Mr Beer: The request there for a covering witness statement, in relation to data for that two-and-a-half-year period, what, reading this, would you expect if you were to pass that on to Fujitsu, the witness statement to contain? It’s rest to by the Investigator as a covering witness statement.
David Posnett: So it should cover transaction log data covering period 13 June ‘05 to 14 January ‘08, together with a covering witness statement.
Mr Beer: What cover should the witness statement provide?
David Posnett: I don’t understand that bit but it’s a witness statement that includes the production of the transaction log data during that time frame.
Mr Beer: Should it just produce them, a bit like earlier, if you remember my book example. It says “herewith book, my exhibit DB1”?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Or should it analyse them?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Which of those two?
David Posnett: Both. They should produce the logs and, if they’re verifying in the witness statement that the system was working correctly, that would have involved, I would imagine, some sort of analysis.
Mr Beer: Okay let’s see what happened to it, if we go to the top of the page, we can see that this is forwarded to you –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – by Tony Jeffery; was he one of your caseworkers?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: “Please see paragraph 2.”
That’s the one we’ve been concentrating on, the request for ARQ data?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: If we look at page 2, please, and scroll down. You reply directly to the Investigator and you say:
“Due to the size of the ARQ request I cannot authorise Fujitsu to proceed at this stage. This equates to approximately 31 ARQs. We have an annual allowance of 670 ARQs, so the defence request represents quite a chunk of our quota.”
Just stopping there, had the defence actually requested anything?
David Posnett: Can we –
Mr Beer: Go back to page 3?
David Posnett: Yes, please.
Mr Beer: Scroll down paragraph 2.
David Posnett: So –
Mr Beer: Isn’t it the Investigator saying, “I will need the data”?
David Posnett: Well, yes, the defence will be calling their own expert to –
Mr Beer: But they’re not asking for anything though, are they, according to this?
David Posnett: No, but it’s part of his paragraph “The defence will call in their own expert, as the defendant is now claiming that some of the loss in this case is caused by errors in Horizon, therefore, I will need” –
Mr Beer: So it’s the Investigator, the prosecution needs the data?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Why did you turn it into a defence request in your email? Go back to page 2.
David Posnett: I think because the defence will be getting an expert and it looks as though it’s now citing Horizon. So perhaps, at the time, I’ve assumed it was a defence request.
Mr Beer: “… so the defence request represents quite a chunk of our data. Also, we can only request 60 ARQs per month, so this Defence request could be detrimental to other Prosecution requests.
“We have a contract with Fujitsu to acquire ARQs for our prosecution cases, and we pay for these. We do assist where we can and where requests are reasonable in terms of our quota, eg police, other parts of the business, small defence requests, etc.
“For ‘lumpy’ defence requests, we can obtain a quote from Fujitsu for the work, which will then sit outside our quota. Defence can then 1) pay up, 2) seek legal aid and pay up, 3) cancel the request, or 4) seek authority from the court to insist that the request is carried out.
“Aside from the costs and our quota, another reason for this approach is because many cases plead guilty at the 11th hour and/or nothing is found by ‘experts’ to challenge the Fujitsu data – the usual attempts to muddying the waters.
“Can you consider and seek views/input from our criminal lawyer in the case. Happy to discuss if need be.”
Yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: You told us yesterday that you determined the parameters of ARQ requests by reference to what the Investigator wanted, didn’t you?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: This shows that you didn’t determine the parameters of ARQ requests by reference to what the Investigator wanted, doesn’t it?
David Posnett: So has he not requested logs for a date range?
Mr Beer: And you said no.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: You say in the second paragraph that you do assist with “small defence requests”. Small defence requests are okay. Where did that come from?
David Posnett: I don’t think it was a policy or anything. I think it’s –
Mr Beer: What’s a “small defence request”?
David Posnett: Something that is unlikely to impact on Investigation Managers making requests.
Mr Beer: You then say in the third paragraph that it’s essentially the defence’s job to pay for this data or get the court to order the Post Office to undertake the work. Agreed?
David Posnett: That’s what it says in that paragraph.
Mr Beer: Was that your view generally?
David Posnett: Um –
Mr Beer: If ARQ data is required and it doesn’t fit within our contractual arrangements with Fujitsu, the defence have got to pay for it?
David Posnett: I would say not, because of the very first line and the very last line of that email. “I cannot authorise Fujitsu to proceed at this stage”, is the first line, and the bottom line is “Can you consider and seek views/input from our criminal lawyer in the case.”
So whatever my thoughts or views are, the lawyer in the case would overwrite me, as it were.
Mr Beer: Would that be Mr Singh?
David Posnett: I think it was Mr Singh on this case.
Mr Beer: How did you find him as a lawyer?
David Posnett: Yeah, okay, as far as I’m aware.
Mr Beer: Competent and hard working?
David Posnett: Well, I didn’t sit with him, so I don’t know how hard working he was but I had no issues.
Mr Beer: So he was the decision maker, was he, on the extent of an ARQ request that went back to Fujitsu?
David Posnett: If he was the lawyer in the case, then yes.
Mr Beer: Did you not understand yourself that it was for the Investigator and the prosecutor in law to undertake all reasonable lines of inquiry and, if it was necessary, obtain data and information from a third party?
David Posnett: Yes. What I would say to that is, again, although I don’t remember this, it’s – I’m not aware of the full details of the case. I’m looking after the Casework Team and it’s up to the lawyer to say, “Tough, we need these” for whatever reason, and then we’d do our best to get it. I mean –
Mr Beer: You’re not doing your best to get it, are you? You’re being obstructive to the getting of it, aren’t you?
David Posnett: No, no, I said if the lawyer insists we need it, then we’d do our best to get it. On this particular incident, I don’t know whether – I’ve asked a Senior Manager, you know, and they’ve said get a quote, or, I don’t know whether I’ve spoken to the Casework Team to find out how many cases have been raised in the last week or so there was also a Credence issue.
So that was my view at that time, given a set of circumstances but it’s not my decision, ultimately, to say, yes, or no or to say no to the production of logs.
Mr Beer: If it’s not your decision –
David Posnett: Ultimately.
Mr Beer: – ultimately, why are you saying all of this? Why not just forward the email and say, “Jarnail, over to you”?
David Posnett: Because the Investigator has e-mailed me, I’ve responded to the Investigator –
Mr Beer: And I’m asking you why you’ve responded to the investigator saying, “Defence should pay up”?
David Posnett: Well, I don’t know why because I don’t remember this incident but –
Mr Beer: Why should the defence pay up for data that had led to the creation of the very records that the prosecution was relying on to prove its case?
David Posnett: Yeah. I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Well, can you try and help us? Was this the state of mind of you and your Casework Management Team, that if we’ve got to get data to prove the accuracy of the very records that we rely on to prove our case, ie the Horizon records, it’s for the defence to pay up?
David Posnett: I don’t think that was the mindset. I mean, the previous paragraph says we do assist where we can and where requests are reasonable, in terms of our quota, et cetera. So it’s not a case that the barriers have gone straight up. But it, you know, may well have been at that time that three years’ worth of data just seemed excessive, hence, can you seek the views or input from the criminal lawyer?
Mr Beer: Why would three years seem excessive?
David Posnett: Because if we’re only allowed 31 ARQs a month – sorry, 60 ARQs a month, and 31 of those are going to be used up in this case, it means that an Investigator who might want ARQs might have to wait until the next month to request. So –
Mr Beer: Does that reflect your mindset at the time, that the starting point is the contract we’ve agreed with Fujitsu, rather than the starting point is the indictment that we have preferred against Mrs Misra and the date range in that?
David Posnett: I think the ARQ, from the conception of Horizon, was more geared to the Investigators. As time went on, yes, it became important for defence, as well. But I – being honest, I think it was primarily for Investigation Team at the beginning.
Mr Beer: If we just scroll up, please, and again, please. We see that at 12.02 Mr Longman duly forwards that chain to Jarnail Singh.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: At the end of the first paragraph:
“I have tried to order the data for the time Mrs Misra was subpostmaster (3 years) but as you can see from the email from Dave Posnett there are a number of issues.
“Please could you advise counsel and inform what action to take.”
Yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: So that’s midday on the 4th?
David Posnett: Yes, so I’ve responded to Jon, to liaise with the lawyer, and Jon has responded to the lawyer asking him to get the view of counsel.
Mr Beer: Yes. Can we go, please, to FUJ00154846, thank you, and page 3, please. We were previously looking at midday on the 4th, we’re now at 11.00 in the morning on the 5th. You email Penny Thomas, saying:
“Request for information [in the Misra case].
“As discussed, please note the email below.”
If we scroll to page 3, please, and a bit further, we can see the original email from Mr Longman to you with paragraph 2 saying:
“… I need transaction data for that two-and-a-half-year period.”
Yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Back up to page 2, please – sorry, back up to page 3, my mistake.
“As discussed [Penny], please see the note below. In respect of paragraph 2, I have not authorised an ARQ – suggest the defence pay for this, either independently or via legal aid or they can challenge at court. As such, and as per our RFI process, could I ask for a quote from Fujitsu as to how much this would cost if it sat outside the ARQ contract. I would be grateful for a speedy response as I need to relay back to our Investigator and our criminal lawyer.”
So you hadn’t authorised the ARQ request, had you?
David Posnett: Um –
Mr Beer: Line 1.
David Posnett: Yes – no – well, you’re correct.
Mr Beer: So it was your decision, to not authorise or to authorise.
David Posnett: At this time, on this occasion, yes. Again, the bottom line of that paragraph “be grateful for a speedy response as I need to relay back to our investigator and our criminal lawyer”.
Mr Beer: So is the summary that you’d said no without knowing how much it would cost?
David Posnett: I would say yes, yeah.
Mr Beer: You’re saying that you would suggest that the dense pay for this, either from their own money or via legal aid, or it can be challenged in court. Where did that come from, that the defence had to pay?
David Posnett: I don’t know, other than, perhaps at the time, there were occasions where defence had paid or other parts of the business had paid because it was the Security Team’s budget. I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Do you understand that the data you were seeking was data that was necessary to prove the accuracy of the records relied on in the prosecution?
David Posnett: I know that now.
Mr Beer: What did you think this was at the time?
David Posnett: I can’t remember, I don’t remember the incident, so I don’t know what I thought at the time. I wouldn’t have known the ins and outs of the case. It may have been reading through documents that it’s – you know, it’s suddenly switched of staff members that stole the money and then it’s shifted to Horizon could be the problem.
Mr Beer: What’s the relevance of that?
David Posnett: Well, if it’s changed so quickly from staff thefts to Horizon, it just seems a very quick change, without knowing the ins and outs of the case, and an awful lot of ARQs have been requested.
Mr Beer: So you’d be suspicious. Well, they haven’t requested any. The defence at this moment haven’t requested any on the information you’ve got. Your Investigator has asked for it?
David Posnett: The investigator has asked for it, it would seem, based on what has happened in the case.
Mr Beer: Yes, but he’s not saying “the defence have requested”, he’s saying, “I’m requesting”?
David Posnett: Yeah, I mean, I don’t know whether I had conversations with him at the time, and his –
Mr Beer: What, that said that this is, in fact, a defence request, despite the terms of my email?
David Posnett: Well, the email implies to me that because defence experts are getting involved and it’s switched from staff thefts, that’s why Jon is making the request.
Mr Beer: Would that be something that operated on your mind, that this is a defendant just messing around, switching defences and, therefore, if they want to mess around and switch defences, they can pay for the privilege?
David Posnett: That – again, that possibly would have been on my mind. I don’t know. But the key thing for me there is liaise with the lawyer and, if the lawyer had come back and said, “Tough, we need this”, then we would have done our best to get it.
Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at page 2 to the reply, a letter on the same day from Penny Thomas, if we just scroll down a little bit further. Yeah, Penny Thomas to you:
“In response to your request [costs will be] £5,800.”
Yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Yes, so was that, in your view, a prohibitive cost?
David Posnett: Prohibitive?
Mr Beer: To proceeding with the request?
David Posnett: I don’t know what I thought at the time. I would imagine that would be relayed to the lawyer to factor in to his decision making.
Mr Beer: Let’s have a look. FUJ00154851. Look at page 3, please, letter of 14 August 2009 to Mr Longman:
“Here is a letter which I have written to the defence and copied to counsel for your information.”
If we go to page 4, please, to the solicitors, 14 August:
“I understand from Prosecuting Counsel on the last occasion Defence Counsel asked for Horizon data for the period during which your client was subpostmistress at West Byfleet sub post office. As you may be aware the Horizon system is a product of Fujitsu Limited and the Post Office has purchased this system from Fujitsu, in the same way as any other company would purchase goods or services for its business. Other than that, Fujitsu is not in any way an associated company of the Post Office.
“The request has been put to Fujitsu and a reply has been received by a person who liaises with this company.”
I think that’s a reference to you.
“The data will take some 6-8 weeks to produce. Additionally your client made 107 calls to the Horizon Helpdesk during her period of tenure which equates roughly to 2-3 calls per month.”
Then the next paragraph:
“The retrieval of data by Fujitsu is not a free service. It is very expensive and depends upon the amount of data which has been retrieved, which is why you are requested to be very precise. At that stage a firm quotation could be obtained and Counsel will be asked to give further advice as to disclosure and payment for the service. The Post Office will not underwrite the cost if counsel considers the data irrelevant. You will of course be aware that the same system operates throughout the country, and was not particular to your client’s sub post office.
“I have set out the matter above quite clearly because in the past many thousands of pounds have been spent on obtaining this type of data subsequent to which a late plea of guilty is entered tendered which means that the exercise has been a waste of time and money.”
Then if we go to page 1, please. You say to Mr Longman:
“Good letter – I like it.”
Yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: What did you like about the letter?
David Posnett: I think that, rather than saying, yes, we’ll arrange three years worth of data, the legal executive has gone back via this letter, asking them to explain exactly, you know, what and why it’s needed or why it’s been requested.
Mr Beer: Did you like the stuff about the waste of time and money for the late guilty pleas?
David Posnett: I wouldn’t say I liked it but I think there was an element of my recollection.
Mr Beer: In fact, you’d already got a quote, £5,800?
David Posnett: Right. That was before the letter went.
Mr Beer: Yeah.
David Posnett: Right.
Mr Beer: You’re pulling a face –
David Posnett: Well, I –
Mr Beer: – which the transcript doesn’t pick up.
David Posnett: Sorry. I don’t remember the incident.
Mr Beer: No.
David Posnett: So I haven’t got my head round dates –
Mr Beer: But do you see what’s happened here? Initially, the Investigator has said, “I need this data”.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: You have said the criminal lawyer needs to advise but there are these obstacles to giving it or getting the data.
David Posnett: Yeah.
Mr Beer: At the same time you’ve gone off to Fujitsu and said, “What’s the cost?” They’ve provided you with the cost, and then a letter has gone back putting the burden on the defence to justify the time period.
David Posnett: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: Why not just say, “We’ve obtained a quotation, the data is available. It would cost £5,800”?
David Posnett: I don’t know. Perhaps I didn’t forward that quotation to Phil Taylor who wrote the letter. I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Would you agree that the documents that we’ve just looked at make it difficult for this subpostmaster to seek to challenge Horizon data? They make their task harder?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: I think you’ve said that part of your reasoning would be because this defendant might plead guilty at the 11th hour?
David Posnett: Did I put this defendant.
Mr Beer: No.
David Posnett: No. Right. I think at the time there were instances where people, not just audit cases but many other types of cases, entered guilty pleas at the 11th hour.
Mr Beer: Thank you, sir. It’s 11.15 now. That might be an appropriate moment to break until 11.30.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yeah, of course. Can I just clarify, by the time of the exchange of this email, these emails, am I right in thinking that Mrs Misra had, in fact, pleaded guilty to false accounting?
Mr Beer: Yes.
Sir Wyn Williams: So it was clear that the issue was a contest about theft? It was in that context that this debate was going on?
Mr Beer: Correct.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yeah. All right, thank you.
11.30, yes.
Mr Beer: 11.30, yes. Thank you.
(11.16 am)
(A short break)
(11.32 am)
Mr Beer: Sir, good morning, can you see and hear us?
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes. Thanks.
Mr Beer: Mr Posnett, can we turn to look, please, at a document that was prepared at about the same time as the exchanges that we were just looking at in Ms Misra’s case, POL00141142, and look at page 2, please, and scroll down. We can see an email there from you to David X Smith of 5 October 2009, “Horizon Integrity – Prosecution Case Studies”. You say:
“Dave,
“As requested.
“In order address the concerns about the integrity of Horizon, I have prepared two case studies.”
What do you recall as to the reasons why you were corresponding with Mr Smith in October 2009 over concerns about the integrity of Horizon?
David Posnett: I don’t recall this at all.
Mr Beer: You were, we see from the sign-off block here, a Fraud Risk Manager at the time. Why would you have been liaising with Mr Smith over Horizon integrity issues?
David Posnett: I would imagine someone’s tasked me with undertaking these two case studies.
Mr Beer: You say:
“It should be noted that these cases were prosecuted whereby the burden of proof is measured beyond the reasonable. This differs to suspension and termination of contracts, where the burden of proof is measured as a balance of probability.”
Then, moving on:
“Prosecutions [at the foot of the page] are then subject [over the page] to strict rules and regulations within the legal system so the entire process is both thorough and fair.”
Then you deal with Case Study 1, the theft of £200,000 at Orford Road sub post office, and you conclude at “Summary/Points of Interest”, if we scroll down, you say:
“In my opinion, some Post Office prosecutions where Horizon analysis is requested, are merely an attempt to muddy the waters or hope that the case is dropped. This particular case involved £7,100 of taxpayers’ money being spent on analysis, yet the results of that analysis were not disputed (or possibly even referred to) at the trial. There was also no attempt to call Fujitsu individuals as witnesses and give live evidence. The Investigator in the case also recollects that the Horizon kit wasn’t removed – it was used by the incoming subpostmaster with no problems reported.”
Then Case Study 2, if we scroll down:
“Again, this suggests [at the foot of the page] an attempt to muddy the waters or hope that the case is dropped. There is no real concern about the Horizon system, as demonstrated by the defendant pleading guilty.”
Then the conclusion of your email under “General”:
“Where Horizon data is used as evidence in a prosecution case, Fujitsu are contracted to provide a witness statement and give live evidence if requested. A significant amount of data is provided by Fujitsu, with only a few witness statements (not necessary when defendants plead guilty) and rare attendance at court to give evidence. Defendants have a right to question the integrity and data of the Horizon system, yet this avenue is not really pursued – one would think that if someone is innocent, then they would pull out all the stops to disprove the allegations against them. Post Office prosecutions have a high success rate (approximately 95%), suggesting that cases are as watertight as they can be.”
So can you help us here, why were you writing this memo?
David Posnett: I don’t know, other than someone has tasked me with providing two case studies.
Mr Beer: You told us yesterday that it was management, the top of the organisation, telling you, lower down, that everything was fine with Horizon. This is the other way round, isn’t it? This is you telling management that everything is fine with Horizon and it was a reliable basis for successful prosecutions, wasn’t it?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: The message was coming up here from you to them, not down?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Why would the provision of ARQ data in prosecutions muddy the waters?
David Posnett: As mentioned before, I believe there were cases where ARQ data was obtained and experts couldn’t disprove or counter that there were things with Horizon and –
Mr Beer: Can you remember the cases in which experts were instructed?
David Posnett: I can’t, no. Then people pleaded guilty. You know, obviously we know –
Mr Beer: Pleaded guilty to what?
David Posnett: To whatever charges they were charged with.
Mr Beer: Did you understand the difference between a theft allegation and a false accounting allegation?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Did you understand that some people pleaded guilty, often at the door of the court, to false accounting?
David Posnett: Some people pleaded guilty to false accounting –
Mr Beer: Yes, often at the door of the court?
David Posnett: I didn’t catch that last bit?
Mr Beer: Often at the door of the court?
David Posnett: So what does that mean?
Mr Beer: At the last minute. On the day of the trial, yes?
David Posnett: Yeah, yeah.
Mr Beer: Did you understand which was the more serious, did you have a view as to which was the more serious allegation: theft or false accounting?
David Posnett: I think people viewed theft as more serious but, from recollection, and I may be wrong, I think the sentencing for false accounting was similar to theft. And when I was –
Mr Beer: The maximum permissible sentence of imprisonment was, I think, the same.
David Posnett: Yeah.
Mr Beer: That may have been a different issue, I’m not going to go into that with you. Were you aware that, within the Post Office, it was known that some people pleaded guilty at the last minute to false accounting, in circumstances where the Post Office would offer no evidence, not proceed with the allegation of theft?
David Posnett: Yes, I think that was the case.
Mr Beer: Was there a view that those people were doing so in order to seek to secure a more lenient sentence?
David Posnett: Possibly, yes.
Mr Beer: You say that, if you were innocent, you would pull out all of the stops to disprove the allegations –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – and that people requesting ARQ data, or some of them, were doing so to muddy the waters?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Did that colour your view of the extent to which the Post Office should cooperate in the provision of ARQ data?
David Posnett: Yes, if it was an excessive amount.
Mr Beer: Who was the judge of whether it was excessive or not?
David Posnett: Ultimately, it would have been the lawyers.
Mr Beer: You mean the criminal lawyer –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – for the prosecution?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Thank you. That can come down. We’ll come back to that later.
I think it’s right that you assisted in the obtaining of witness statements from Fujitsu in proceedings against subpostmasters.
David Posnett: When you say “assisted” –
Mr Beer: Yes.
David Posnett: – I don’t think I assisted.
Mr Beer: Did you participate in any way in the obtaining of witness statements from Fujitsu?
David Posnett: No, I don’t think so, other than requesting witness statements.
Mr Beer: Okay, so you requested them?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: A number of emails from Fujitsu employees that the Inquiry has got, including from Penny Thomas and Andy Dunks, show that they sent the witness statements to you.
David Posnett: Yes, in the Seema Misra case Andy Dunks has sent me a witness statement “Can you read this and tell me what you think?” And I think I’ve said, “It seems okay to me but I’ll pass it on to the Investigator”, because he was the officer in the case.
Mr Beer: I’m not going to go through all of them now; I’m just going to list them for anyone looking at this in the future. Cases in which Ms Thomas and Mr Dunks shared draft witness statements with you can be found at FUJ00122454, FUJ00122457, FUJ00122470, FUJ00122474, FUJ00122476, FUJ00122478, FUJ00122487, FUJ00122489, FUJ00122513, FUJ00122563 and FUJ00122540. Was it part of your role to comment on the substance of the witness statements provided by Fujitsu?
David Posnett: I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t recall getting involved in that way, although we’ve obviously looked at that security incident and the witness statement. But I don’t think I got involved in their witness statements.
Mr Beer: Did you see it as your role to guide or advise Fujitsu employees in relation to what should be included or excluded from their witness statements?
David Posnett: No, because, as I say, when I was Casework Manager, the process had been in place for seven or eight years. So, as far as I was concerned, that was the process, it had been long bedded in.
Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at POL00052222 and can we look, please, at page 4 at the bottom. Can we see an email of 22 June from Andy Dunks to you, with the subject “Witness statement for West Byfleet, Horizon Helpdesk calls”, and he says:
“Hi Dave,
“Please have a look at the attached [witness statement] for West Byfleet [Horizon Helpdesk] calls logged. Can you let me know if this is okay and I will print … and post it to you.”
Yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: What was the purpose of Mr Dunks seeking approval from you on whether his witness statement from Fujitsu, relating to the Helpdesk calls in the Misra case, was okay?
David Posnett: I don’t know.
Mr Beer: But what role were you performing here?
David Posnett: Well, my role should have been he’d send the statement to me and then I would send it on to Jon Longman as the Investigator. He’s put “Dave, please have a look at the attached, can you let me know if it’s okay”. I don’t recollect this or being asked about any witness statements, but I think, in my response above, I’m – I’ve given a view but it’s ultimately up to the Investigator to comment on the witness statement.
Mr Beer: Let’s look at how this developed, if we scroll up, please. You reply to Andy Dunks at Fujitsu, now copying the Investigator, Mr Longman, in.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: “Andy,
“Statement looks fine to me, though I’ve copied Jon Longman for his info. My only query would be that the log of 107 calls …”
That’s a reference to Mrs Misra calling the Helpdesk 107 times:
“… may need to be produced as evidence or be disclosed as unused material. If produced as evidence then it could be incorporated in your statement now or produced in a ‘further to’ statement later. I’ll let Jon comment on this to, as the court may be happy as it is?
“Jon,
“Can you give Andy the green light and/or comment on my thoughts above.”
Then page 3, please, foot of the page:
“Andy,
“The statement is fine but the mention of 107 calls will no doubt interest the defence barrister. If possible could you include in the statement a breakdown of the calls to cover time/date/nature of call. If we don’t include it now the defence will only request this later.”
Reply:
“107 calls may seem a lot but it only equates to approximately 3-4 calls a month over the time frame. To add the information you want is going to take 1 to 2 days of uninterrupted work to complete. So to get it completed by the 26 June is not impossible it would be cutting it fine …
“If you need the extra detail I will enquire about when we can get this.”
Then scroll up:
“Let’s run with the statement as it is [says Mr Longman]. If the defence do want details of the 107 calls then a further statement will be needed at a later stage. Maybe you could add in your statement that the total calls only work out at 3-4 a month over the time period and that this is not a high amount for a post office.”
Then scroll up.
“Okay …
“Will add this to the statement and get it posted to Dave ASAP.”
Was this usual for the prosecutor and the Investigator to influence the content of the Fujitsu statements?
David Posnett: I don’t recall but, in that string of emails you’ve just read out, can you – is there an example specifically that you can cite?
Mr Beer: Well, the suggestion, firstly, that to add in the detail of the 107 calls and then the suggestion “Well, if it’s going to take too long, let’s not”.
David Posnett: Okay, so the 107 calls that I think was mentioned by Andy Dunks, I think Mr Longman has asked him to include that in the witness statement.
Mr Beer: Then he’s come back and said, “That’s going to take a while”, and he’s said, “Well, all right, well, don’t then”?
David Posnett: Can we go to that paragraph?
Mr Beer: Sure, if we scroll down, there:
“Andy,
“Let’s run with the statement as it is. If the defence do want details of the 107 calls …”
David Posnett: Right. So –
Mr Beer: So Mr Dunks has prepared a statement that mentions 107 calls, the emails have come through you and Mr Longman, and the suggestion has been “We need to set out what those 107 calls relate to, what they’re about”.
David Posnett: Yeah.
Mr Beer: Mr Dunks has come back and said, “Well, that’s going to take a while”.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Then Mr Longman has said, “Well, let’s just go with the mention of them. If the defence want more, they can ask for it”.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: So my question is: was it usual to influence the content of prosecution witness statements like this?
David Posnett: I don’t think it was usual but I can’t remember. I’m surprised I’ve been copied into all of these details between the Investigator and Andy Dunks.
Mr Beer: Why are you surprised?
David Posnett: Because I wasn’t the Investigator, albeit I did –
Mr Beer: Didn’t you say earlier that it was necessary that you were the point of contact for things to be routed through you?
David Posnett: Albeit I mentioned earlier exactly what you’ve just said. So I was the liaison point, but Jon was the officer in the case. I mean, from my perspective, he’s saying it there “Let’s run with it as it is but, if the defence do want details of the calls”, so they would be informed, in one way, shape or form, that there are 107 calls, “then a further statement will be needed at a later stage”. Yeah.
Mr Beer: Would you expect this kind of material to go on a schedule of unused?
David Posnett: Yes, if it hasn’t been disclosed in another way.
Mr Beer: What other way might it have been disclosed?
David Posnett: Full details within the witness statement –
Mr Beer: No, what I meant was correspondence with the witness.
David Posnett: Well, personally, I would say yes.
Mr Beer: Thank you, that can come down.
What were the processes within the Post Office to ensure that the fundamental disclosure principle of retain, record and reveal were applied to information held by the Post Office.
David Posnett: Could you repeat the first part of that?
Mr Beer: Yes. There’s a principle in the law of disclosure called retain, record and reveal.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Were you aware of that?
David Posnett: It rings a bell, yes.
Mr Beer: What processes existed within the Post Office to ensure that that principle was carried into effect in Post Office prosecutions?
David Posnett: I’m not aware of any process.
Mr Beer: Was there any process that you were aware of that existed in the Security Team to ensure that there was correlation of information held by the Post Office that went to the operation of Horizon, that was relevant to the operation of Horizon –
David Posnett: Not that I recall, no.
Mr Beer: – ie when a defendant challenged the figures produced by Horizon, rather than going to Fujitsu, the enquiry started at home and said, “What do we, the prosecutor, the organisation, already hold about Horizon integrity issues”?
David Posnett: Not that I recall, no.
Mr Beer: Was there a central repository, that you are aware of, of information from whatever source concerning the integrity of Horizon or the lack of it?
David Posnett: The only thing I can think of was in the last year or two of when I was in the Security Team there were Horizon integrity meetings with various people around the business, sat around the table every week.
Mr Beer: This is the weekly Wednesday hub meeting?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: I’m talking about for the period between 2000 and, say, up to July 2013.
David Posnett: Right. I’m not aware of a central repository or I don’t recall a central repository.
Mr Beer: So, so far as you were aware, there wasn’t a data room or a file, or somewhere on a server, or even in hard copy, a central repository in which Post Office’s knowledge of errors, bugs and defects within Horizon could be stored –
David Posnett: Not that I recall, no.
Mr Beer: – and that could be disclosed in any prosecution?
David Posnett: Not that I recall.
Mr Beer: Was there any system for informing Investigators about any problems with Horizon?
David Posnett: I don’t think there was a system in place that I can recall.
Mr Beer: Overall, would you agree that there was not a formal coherent approach across prosecutions as to the investigative approach that should be taken where a subpostmaster sought to rely on errors in Horizon as explaining the losses alleged against them?
David Posnett: I would agree.
Mr Beer: Can we turn to your understanding of the Post Office’s disclosure obligations. You tell us in paragraph 53 of your statement that the training provided to Investigators on issues including disclosure was adequate, yes?
David Posnett: Sorry, 53?
Mr Beer: Yes.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Is that a fair summary of it?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: On what basis do you make the assessment that training was adequate?
David Posnett: At the time, the training, I believe I understood it, which is a good start, and I thought it covered what we needed to know at the time.
Mr Beer: Did it include training on the importance or how fundamental disclosure was to the fairness of criminal investigations and criminal prosecutions?
David Posnett: I’ve got a vague memory that the Criminal Law Team did a training session on disclosure but I can’t remember the details of that training.
Mr Beer: Can you remember whether it included training on the nature of the statutory and common law duties owed by an Investigator and a prosecutor?
David Posnett: I don’t recall.
Mr Beer: Can you remember whether it included any training on the extent to which the duties could not be delegated to a third party, that the prosecutor owed the duties rather, than a third party like Fujitsu?
David Posnett: I don’t recollect that, but that would make absolute sense to me. It’s the prosecutor’s duty.
Mr Beer: Was the training theoretical, in the sense of telling you about the CPIA and the common law, and things like that?
David Posnett: I think it was, yes.
Mr Beer: Was it ever translated into how the principles of law and the legal obligations translated into information held by the Post Office across its own estate –
David Posnett: I don’t recall that.
Mr Beer: – ie how the obligation was to be discharged in fact by the Post Office across all aspects of its business?
David Posnett: I don’t recall.
Mr Beer: Did the training include training on the obligation placed upon an Investigator to pursue all reasonable lines of inquiry, whether they pointed towards or away from the suspect?
David Posnett: I believe that was part of the training, yes.
Mr Beer: Again, was that translated or applied to prosecutions of subpostmasters for theft or false accounting, ie how do we translate that obligation on the ground in a shortfall case?
David Posnett: Yeah. I don’t recollect the training. I mean, for example, in the Seema Misra case, the only thing I remember about that was doing Mr Longman a favour by knocking at addresses because there was an allegation that staff members had stole. So he was pursuing a line of inquiry that the subpostmistress had raised. That sort of ties in with what you were saying?
Mr Beer: Well, I was thinking more in a case where a subpostmaster said “It’s Horizon that’s causing the discrepancy”, how the principle of the pursuit of reasonable lines of inquiry was going to be translated on the ground into some action.
David Posnett: I don’t remember that being part of the training.
Mr Beer: What about outside of training, something more general in a discussion amongst the team, one-to-ones, group meetings, “Look we’ve got some subpostmasters”, as they did, “saying ‘I’m not to blame, I think it’s the system’. What do we do? Let’s approach a standard approach across the piece”.
David Posnett: I don’t recollect meetings of that nature. I also think I was probably too low down the pecking order to come up with those sort of ideas.
Mr Beer: Did you see the fruits of any such ideas, something like a side of A4, or maybe even stretching to two sides of A4, saying, “Look, subpostmasters are starting to blame Horizon here. This is what we need to do when they do so”?
David Posnett: I mean, I can remember “Subpostmasters are starting to raise Horizon”, I don’t remember “This is what we should do”.
Mr Beer: Can you remember whether the training in included any guidance on what the law required and whether the law’s requirements could be abrogated or watered down on cost grounds –
David Posnett: I don’t recall, no.
Mr Beer: – or the extent to which the contract that the prosecutor had already made with a third party could be used as a relevant consideration in deciding whether to seek information or not?
David Posnett: I don’t recall that either.
Mr Beer: Did you think that the contract could be used in that way: “We’ve already made a contract with this person, this organisation, which limits the amount of material we can get from them a month and a year”, there was of course a facility to get material outside of that, but “we want to try to stay within the contractual limits, are we really allowed to use that as a limitation on the disclosure that we seek from them?”
David Posnett: I would say no.
Mr Beer: I think if we turn to page 68 of your witness statement, which is on page 20, that will just come up on the screen for you, at the foot of the page:
“The request [that’s the Rule 9 Request we sent you] also asked me about the role played by Gareth Jenkins in criminal prosecutions. I recall Gareth Jenkins provided witness statements to Investigators, including exhibits containing Horizon data that Fujitsu had supplied in response to ARQs. My understanding of the role of Gareth Jenkins was that he provided his knowledge and experience concerning Horizon. I recall I viewed him as an expert witness, since he was known to have expertise …”
Then this:
“… but I did not know the rules governing independent expert evidence.”
Yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: That can come down, thank you.
Does it follow from what you said in that last line there, in paragraph 68, that you had not been trained and you had no knowledge or understanding of the law on the responsibilities of a prosecutor when they instructed an expert?
David Posnett: I had no training on that. That is correct.
Mr Beer: What about knowledge or understanding?
David Posnett: Well, my knowledge and understanding in that scenario is that Gareth Jenkins was – how can I say this – expert with a small “e” because he knew about Horizon, he had the knowledge and experience to do his witness statements. It was pointed out to me that an “expert witness”, perhaps with a capital “E” is somebody who should be independent in coming up with a statement, whether it falls to the benefit of the Post Office or the defence, or it does or it doesn’t.
Mr Beer: Who pointed that out to you?
David Posnett: My solicitor.
Mr Beer: You mean in the context of these proceedings?
David Posnett: No, as a general. But because I didn’t know, that’s why I put that in my witness statement.
Mr Beer: I see. When you say your solicitor told you, you mean your Inquiry solicitor?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Right. I don’t want to know anything more about that.
David Posnett: That’s fine.
Mr Beer: At the time, did you understand the distinction that you just made?
David Posnett: At the time?
Mr Beer: Yes, back in 2009/10?
David Posnett: As I say, I thought Gareth Jenkins was an expert because of his knowledge and experience of Horizon.
Mr Beer: I think it follows from the answers that you gave that you didn’t know that instructing an expert gave rise to some specific disclosure obligations on an Investigator and a prosecutor; is that right?
David Posnett: Sorry, engaging an expert?
Mr Beer: Yes, instructing an expert gave rise to some quite specific disclosure obligations on a prosecutor?
David Posnett: Yes, I guess.
Mr Beer: Did you know that?
David Posnett: Well, I didn’t know that, no.
Mr Beer: Okay. So, for example, the prosecutor was required to bring to the attention of the defence and to the court any material which it was in possession of that was reasonably capable of undermining the expert’s opinion?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: You didn’t know that at the time?
David Posnett: I can remember that phrase, anything that undermines the prosecution or assists the defence, yes.
Mr Beer: Specifically, that was a general understanding you had –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – for disclosure obligations –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – rather than being in the context of the instruction of an expert?
David Posnett: Yes, correct.
Mr Beer: What about the existence of a duty, did you know this, that communications between the investigator/prosecutor and the expert, for the purposes of preparing the report of the expert, fell to be considered for disclosure?
David Posnett: No, I don’t recollect that.
Mr Beer: Did you understand that there would be a duty to record the existence of such communications on a Schedule of Unused Material?
David Posnett: Well, I can only go back to when I was an Investigator and I would disclose everything I had –
Mr Beer: Okay.
David Posnett: – which would have included something like that, if that was the case for me.
Mr Beer: You told us in paragraph 53 of your witness statement that you considered that training on issues including taking witness statements and evidence gathering was adequate and you told us in paragraph 68 that you didn’t know the rules governing the obtaining of expert evidence?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Those two things don’t seem to sit very well with each other.
David Posnett: Well, I think my comment on adequacy was based on the training at the time. Back then, yeah, I thought it was adequate. Now, sitting here, perhaps it wasn’t so adequate.
Mr Beer: I see. Can I turn to the prosecution’s approach to disclosure in Mrs Misra’s case and start by looking at FUJ00122794. Start by looking at page 2, please. Scroll down, please, thank you.
This is correspondence that you’re not copied into at this moment, between Jarnail Singh, who you know, and David Jones, who was Head of Legal in Fujitsu. Do you remember that name, David Jones?
David Posnett: I don’t but that – David Jones has cropped up on another document.
Mr Beer: Yes, it has. If we look, this is 5 February 2010 and the email from Mr Singh to Fujitsu – Gareth Jenkins and Penny Thomas are also copied in – at paragraph 3, where it says in the introduction:
“On first glance, points 2-4 have not been answered which I reproduce below.”
Then 3:
“When Gareth completes his statement could he also mention whether there are any known problems with the Horizon system that Fujitsu are aware of. If none could this be clarified in the statement.”
So to put this in context what had been requested was a witness statement from Gareth Jenkins that included “mention of whether there were any known problems with the Horizon system that Fujitsu are aware of”, and that that hadn’t been addressed –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – in the draft statement.
Then if we scroll up, please, the reply from Mr Jenkins, in relation to 3 – the introduction is “Brief response [is below] but not sure I should put them in a Witness Statement” – to 3, this is “Are there any known problems with Horizon” was:
“This is where I’m reluctant to make a clear statement.”
Just stopping there, would you think that met the test for disclosure on an unused material schedule?
David Posnett: What, this particular email?
Mr Beer: Yes, this exchange.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Why would you think it would meet the test for disclosure?
David Posnett: Well, again, if I was an Investigator, I would disclose everything and anything. I mean, if I look at the specifics, bearing in mind I don’t think I’ve seen this string of emails, it’s –
Mr Beer: When you say that – you’ve seen them now for these purposes – you mean at the time?
David Posnett: Yeah. To me, especially here and now, it’s relevant to the case and many other cases.
Mr Beer: Ie that the distinguished engineer at Fujitsu, in some senses a person regarded as possessing the greatest expertise to speak to the operation of the Horizon system, was reluctant to make a clear statement that there are any known problems with the Horizon system.
David Posnett: Yes, so –
Mr Beer: That’s pretty significant, isn’t it?
David Posnett: Yes, so – well, keeping it simple, the lawyer has asked simple were there any issues, and Mr Jenkins has responded he’s reluctant to get into that, by the sounds of it.
Mr Beer: So I think, in the answer before last, you said that this ought to have been disclosed not only in this prosecution but all prosecutions, certainly after the exchange occurred?
David Posnett: I would think so, yes.
Mr Beer: Going back up to the reply, please. Mr Jenkins continues:
“I am aware of one problem where transactions have been lost, in particular circumstances due to locking issues. When this happens, we have events in the eventing logs to indicate that there was an issue and whenever we provide transaction logs to the Post Office we check for any such events. In the case of West Byfleet we have not provided any transaction logs and so have not made these checks.”
Again, would you say that that part of the exchange met the test of for disclosure that Fujitsu knew of a known problem of lost transactions?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Again, in other prosecutions too?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Can you recall ever being shown this exchange?
David Posnett: I don’t recall it, no.
Mr Beer: If we scroll up, please, and again, we can see that the exchange went within the Post Office to Mr Singh alone; can you see that?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: You don’t recall Mr Singh passing this back on to you?
David Posnett: I don’t recall it, no.
Mr Beer: Thank you. Can we move on to a similar topic in Mrs Misra’s case. POL00055059.
Can you see this is an exchange between Issy Hogg, who is Mrs Misra’s defence solicitor, and Mr Singh in July 2010, and she says:
“As a result of a meeting that took place between Charles McLachlan and Gareth Jenkins … we need to have …”
Then it’s the third bullet point:
“… access to system change requests, Known Error Log and new release documentation …”
Would you have expected a defence request for such disclosure to have been routed through you, given that it relates to material held by Fujitsu?
David Posnett: Not at this stage. Not only was I not the Casework Manager, I may well have moved on from being the Fraud Risk Manager into my next role, which was Accredited Financial Investigator, unless – and this goes back to what I said earlier – I seem to be involved in a lot of projects and tasks relating to all sorts of things.
Mr Beer: In your time, and I’m talking about before 2013, had you ever heard of something called a “Known Error Log”?
David Posnett: Not that I recall, no.
Mr Beer: Did you know of the existence of a species of document created by Fujitsu that recorded known errors with Horizon?
David Posnett: Not to my recollection, no.
Mr Beer: If you had have known of a series of documents written by Fujitsu, which recorded known errors with Horizon, would that have been something which you had wished to consider for disclosure?
David Posnett: Now, yes. Then, I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Why do you think you might not have wanted to look at the material if it was a series of documents concerned with known errors with Horizon?
David Posnett: Because back then, I – I don’t know whether I would have understood the magnitude of something like that: is it relevant to cases, and so on and so forth. Yeah, I just don’t know, back then.
Mr Beer: Can we turn to POL00055113. If we scroll down, please, this is an email exchange between Mr Longman and Mr Singh:
“This is the response I have [got back] from Penny following [the defence solicitor’s] email.
“I’ve had a discussion with Gareth.
“It was agreed … that Charles would provide notes reflecting the discussion …
“His [Gareth’s] views on the email string are …”
Then if we look at 3:
“System Change Requests: Basically, he [Professor McLachlan] was asking to look at all the system faults. I suggested that as we kept all testing and live faults in the same system and that there were around 200,000 of them, then this wasn’t going to get him far. He then suggested looking at the system changes and would like to know all changes that had happened to the system. I don’t think this will help. I don’t know how practical it is for Fujitsu’s release management to provide that. I think all we can do is ask the question.”
You see the mention there of 200,000 or around 200,000 live faults in the system.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Was that a figure which was ever revealed to you?
David Posnett: I don’t recollect that at all. I mean, reading that, it sounds as though Mr Singh knows more about Horizon and the relationship with Fujitsu than I did.
Mr Beer: Would you consider that this material might fall for disclosure?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Thank you. That can come down.
Can we turn to the topic of unfolding knowledge of bugs, errors and defects in Horizon. Can I start, please, by looking at POL00139733. This is a document which I think is written by you.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: You say:
“I conducted Torch visits to a number of branches on 11/04/13 …”
Can you tell us what a Torch visit was, please?
David Posnett: Yes, so I think we discussed yesterday, the last job I had in Post Office Security was a combination of investigation and security. Torch visits were so named because we would visit branches to shine a light on their secure procedures, ie did they let us in without ID, was the safe door flapping in wind, and stuff like that.
Mr Beer: So was it primarily aimed at physical security?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: You say:
“… Whilst at Westerham, the manager just happened to show me a real time anomaly. He had a customer in front of him who wanted to post a small standard letter by recorded delivery. [The manager] explained it should be £1.70 [you checked that was correct]. I associate 3 photos which show …”
Unfortunately on the copies we’ve got it doesn’t actually show it, we can’t see it, but:
“1. The Horizon [system] – 11 April – screen clearly shows the weight of 25 grams in the top right-hand corner. However, there are no options displayed concerning a first class signed for letter at £1.70. Instead, the signed for options start at £3.70 for a second class for a small parcel, to £6.75 for a first class signed for medium parcel. The manager said he has had problems in relation to this for the past few days and has to reboot the terminal to rectify, which takes a number of minutes to perform. He has retained letters and asked customers to pop back for their receipts”, et cetera.
Scroll down. Again, please:
“[The manager] has written ‘Horizon terminal shows a high value in Recorded Delivery. Rebooted’.”
Then scroll down:
“… on 9 April, the manager has written a similar entry … ‘called helpline’, yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: So this wasn’t really about physical security that you were writing the note?
David Posnett: No, physical security was the reason for the visit.
Mr Beer: No, but whilst you were there you happened to see a Horizon anomaly?
David Posnett: Yes, and around this time I attended the weekly Horizon integrity meetings and, to put it bluntly, if we came across anything Horizon related that’s a potential issue, we were to bring it back to the table, which is why I captured all these photographs.
Mr Beer: I see, you’ve anticipated my next question: why was it that you were reporting back? It was because you were attending the Wednesday hub meetings at this time?
David Posnett: Yes, yes.
Mr Beer: So anything to do with Horizon problems, you scooped up and reported back?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: But this was something observed by you in front of your very eyes?
David Posnett: Indeed, yes.
Mr Beer: What impact, if any, did this have on your impression of the reliability or integrity of Horizon?
David Posnett: I thought it was another glitch, which, as I mentioned yesterday, I think all computer systems have from time to time. In terms of financials, I think put on here somewhere that, if the icon is not there, you can’t – it won’t affect the balance because you just can’t choose the option because there’s no icon. But it is a glitch and that’s why I captured it.
Mr Beer: Can we go back in time, then. FUJ00154859. Thank you. This is one of a series of notes of bimonthly meetings with Fujitsu. This one you’ll see that the date is 3 November 2009, covering the period of September and October 2009, yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Can you remember what the purpose of these bimonthly reviews was?
David Posnett: Yeah, they weren’t always bimonthly. There could be a few months but it was basically a catch-up meeting between Post Office casework and Fujitsu, just to sense check where we were with ARQs, notify them of prosecutions, where their data had been used.
Mr Beer: So it was specifically about the interface between Post Office on the one hand, Fujitsu on the other, in relation to investigations and prosecutions?
David Posnett: Pretty much, yeah.
Mr Beer: Who led the meetings?
David Posnett: I don’t think either of us led the meetings. Normally, it was myself or my predecessor and Penny and/or Pete Sewell. On this particular occasion there are more attendees because, thankfully, I’m handing over the responsibility of the relationship to other people.
Mr Beer: Can we look at page 2, please. Can you see the heading “Horizon integrity”?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: “Dave [I think that’s you in context] explained that there had been recent press coverage which questioned the integrity of Horizon data. This had been founded by Lee Castleton and articles had been seen in Computer Weekly and The Grocer and had featured on the Welsh BBC News. A team had been formed to review these accusations.”
Yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: So this is at the time when Computer Weekly was generating, would this be right, significant publicity for the claims that Horizon lacked integrity?
David Posnett: I believe so, yes.
Mr Beer: That had been repeated, as you say here, on BBC Wales –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – and in The Grocer magazine?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: So would this be right: by this time, in the autumn of 2009, both sides of the house, both the Post Office and Fujitsu, insofar as they were engaged in the prosecution process, would have been aware of the publicity about Horizon integrity coming from these three sources?
David Posnett: I would say so, yes.
Mr Beer: You say that there was a team formed to deal with the allegations or accusations?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Was that a team at the Post Office, at Fujitsu or did it involve both organisations?
David Posnett: I don’t remember it but I would imagine it was a team from the Post Office.
Mr Beer: Can you help identify the members of the Post Office team that had been formed by autumn 2009 to deal with or review the accusations?
David Posnett: I can’t recall the team in 2009.
Mr Beer: Can you assist whether Mr Scott was involved in it?
David Posnett: I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Mandy Talbot?
David Posnett: I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Rob Wilson?
David Posnett: Yeah, I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Jarnail Singh?
David Posnett: I don’t remember this, so I can’t say who was in this particular team.
Mr Beer: Okay. This records you as saying that the team had been formed to review allegations. Can you recall what the review was to look like, what it was to consist of?
David Posnett: No, unless it concerns, I think, what we discussed earlier, where – or yesterday rather, where I made sure that Rob Wilson was kept in the loop on those particular meetings. I don’t know whether this team is that sort of team or the same team.
Mr Beer: Was there any discussion, to your knowledge, of whether an independent review was necessary and should take place in the light of the allegations or accusations?
David Posnett: Not to my knowledge then.
Mr Beer: Now, at this time, out of the people concerned, at least you and Mr Wilson would have been aware of the correspondence earlier in 2009 which referred to errors impacting the ARQ data –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – and that that had involved what was described as an unseen error by Fujitsu?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: How did that knowledge inform your reaction to these accusations that were being made in these three sources?
David Posnett: I don’t know whether that security incident would have been factored into my thinking in relation to these articles.
Mr Beer: You had essentially been assured by Fujitsu at that time?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Did anyone at this time, later in the year, query whether the Post Office should continue to have confidence in assurances that Fujitsu gave as to the integrity of Horizon data?
David Posnett: Not that I recall, no.
Mr Beer: Did it at least cause anyone, to your knowledge, to pause and think “To what extent can we continue to rely on assurances from Fujitsu of the type we got in relation to the security incident”?
David Posnett: Not to my knowledge, no.
Mr Beer: To your knowledge, did anyone think “We should reflect and pause, potentially pause, prosecutions”?
David Posnett: I don’t believe that was ever communicated to me, no.
Mr Beer: Do you think it was ever considered, to your knowledge, by anyone?
David Posnett: To my knowledge, I don’t know, whether it was considered by anyone.
Mr Beer: Did you, for your part, consult with anyone else about these accusations that were being made?
David Posnett: Not that I recall.
Mr Beer: I mean, if we look at the cast list at the top on page 1, who’s the senior Post Office individual there?
David Posnett: Mark Dinsdale.
Mr Beer: There’s a lot of managers there, why is he the most senior?
David Posnett: So I’m relinquishing the role of the Casework Manager or, more specifically, the Fujitsu relationship element of the Casework Manager. Mark Dinsdale was, in effect, I believe, going to be the new Casework Manager and Jane Owen reported to him, so I think the pair of them were going to take over the relationship.
Mr Beer: This discussion was occurring right at the same time as the development of Horizon Online was working at pace, wasn’t it?
David Posnett: I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Were you aware of the development of Horizon Online in autumn 2009?
David Posnett: I can remember Horizon, I can remember Horizon Online and I can remember Horizon Next Generation. I don’t know what the differences are between them, other than that they were updated versions of Horizon. I don’t know the dates or the specifics of them.
Mr Beer: Was there ever any discussion that you were a party to or that you heard about concerning whether revelation of bugs, errors and defects in the existing Horizon, Legacy Horizon, would have or might have implications for the development of Horizon Online?
David Posnett: I don’t recall and that’s something I think I would have remembered.
Mr Beer: Where you later aware of something called the Ismay report?
David Posnett: Only through watching these proceedings, yes.
Mr Beer: Going back to page 2, please, and looking at the Horizon integrity section, a team had been formed to review these accusations. What did you later learn about what that team did, if anything?
David Posnett: I don’t recall.
Mr Beer: Were you told about the Ismay report at the time, that it reports in August 2010?
David Posnett: I don’t believe I was, because when I saw Mr Ismay giving his evidence, I think that was the first I knew about – and from what I can gather, it was the Chief Executive who asked him, who was a Senior Manager, to do the report and, again, I’m probably a bit too far down the pecking order to have had sight of it.
Mr Beer: Is what you are referring to here – a team being formed to review the accusations – in your view, what ended up being the Ismay report?
David Posnett: I don’t know.
Mr Beer: What happened to that team that you’re referring to here?
David Posnett: I don’t know. I don’t know what the team is.
Mr Beer: Were you interested in the work of the team and what it made of the accusations?
David Posnett: Interested? Um, I’ll be brutally honest with you, I probably wasn’t interested because I couldn’t wait to get out of that job.
Mr Beer: Why couldn’t you wait to get out?
David Posnett: Because it’s a job I didn’t want to go into, didn’t like it from day one and was pleased when I did get out.
Mr Beer: There’s a reference to an article in The Grocer here. Can we look please at POL00167138. If we just scroll down, please, can you see an email here from you on 1 February 2010 to Michele Graves, Mandy Talbot, Jon Longman, Jane Owen, Andy Haywood, “re another article from The Grocer re Horizon”.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: You say:
“Michele/Mandy,
“This ties in with previous correspondence I’ve submitted – in that Defence teams can and do challenge Horizon in prosecution cases.
“Jon Longman is the Investigation Manager in this case.
“I have been assured previously (Dave Smith), that our Criminal Law Team are being kept updated regarding questions surrounding Horizon integrity.
“They are obviously aware of this case, but can you confirm that they continue to be updated on the wider issues.”
If we can look at The Grocer article, POL00053935. I think it’s right-hand side, halfway down, “A question mark”. Yes, “A question mark over Horizon’s IT”:
“There is just room here to report that Computer Weekly, which has been closely following the problems subpostmasters claim to be suffering over their Horizon accounting system, says that ‘a subpostmistress accused of theft from the Post Office has had her case postponed to allow experts time to investigate the accounting IT system at her branch’.
“The report adds: ‘Seema Misra, subpostmistress at the West Byfleet Post Office in Surrey, is accused of one count of £74,000. She claims the IT system may have caused the account deficit’.”
If we go back to the email, please, POL00167138, and scroll down, please. You say:
“This ties in with previous correspondence …
“Jon Longman is the Investigation Manager …
“I have been assured previously [by Dave Smith] that our Criminal Law Team is being kept updated.”
Why, in February 2010, were you involving yourself in this?
David Posnett: Is mine the first email in that chain?
Mr Beer: If we scroll down, keep going. There’s an email from Michele, who is from the Executive Team correspondence team, to Mandy Talbot and Martin Humphreys.
Then if we scroll up, it’s not completely clear – if we just scroll down in between – how you got that. Can you see? There’s no forwarding or reply to you.
David Posnett: No. I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Anyway, looking at the substance, if we scroll, please. You say:
“I’ve been assured previously … that our Criminal Law Team are being kept updated …”
That assurance had been given by Dave Smith.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: In what circumstances had Dave Smith given you that assurance?
David Posnett: I don’t know what circumstances.
Mr Beer: Was Mr Smith, that you’re referring to there, the Head of IT?
David Posnett: I think he was – yes, the Head of IT and Change, maybe.
Mr Beer: How frequently did you discuss allegations concerning Horizon integrity with the Head of IT and Change?
David Posnett: I don’t recall discussing with him at all but, clearly, if I’ve been assured by him previously, there must have been some engagement. And I think the thrust of this goes back similar to what I said yesterday, that “Please keep Rob Wilson in the loop”, and on this particular occasion I’ve been assured by Dave Smith that our Criminal Law Team are being kept updated or in the loop.
Mr Beer: Can we scroll up, please. It’s forwarded on to counsel in the case, Mr Tatford, and the solicitor, Mr Singh.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Again, can you just help us why you were involved in this, if you had moved on and, in fact, were anxious to move on?
David Posnett: Can we just scroll down one?
Mr Beer: Yeah, and again, and again.
David Posnett: No, so my first email, it says, “Re another article” – I don’t know, because I don’t seem to have been copied in on Michele Graves’s email.
Mr Beer: She sent it to two people?
David Posnett: Yes, Mandy Talbot and Martin Humphreys.
Mr Beer: Then if we go back up –
David Posnett: If we go back up –
Mr Beer: – suddenly you’re replying to her and lots of other people too.
David Posnett: Yes, I mean – but I didn’t get the email or I wasn’t copied in on the email. I mean, I’ve sent it to Michele Graves and Mandy Talbot; Jon Longman who is the officer in case, which seems logical; Jane Owen because she was the new Casework Manager; Andy Haywood was my senior manager. So I think I’ve copied in the relevant people but I don’t understand that because I wasn’t on the circulation in the previous email.
Mr Beer: No. Can we turn, please, to POL00141142. If we just scroll down, please, and again. Can we see the email that we looked at earlier from – sorry, if we keep scrolling, and again. Can we see the email that you sent to Mr Smith –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – on the two case studies, yes? I’m just going to pick that back up. If we go back to the top, please, to page 1, at the top of page 1. Can we see an email there from you to Sue Lowther and Dave King concerning Horizon integrity?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: You say:
“Sue/Dave,
“Below details individuals that were invited to the conference calls – not all participated. There have been 2 conference calls … it was envisaged that another would occur 16 October [2009], but that didn’t materialise. Dave Smith phoned me last week – asked me a few questions and indicated that Alan Cook is asking for more robust defence of Horizon. I believe the Press Office are drafting a response to the challenges we have had, based on the responses by conference call participants.
“I also associate two emails that were sent by [some other people].
“[and] I associate the case studies requested by Dave Smith which concern 2 prosecution cases.”
Yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: This records you having a conversation with Dave Smith, yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: “Dave Smith phoned me last week”?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Again, is that David X Smith, the Head of IT –
David Posnett: I think so.
Mr Beer: – rather than the Managing Director of the company?
David Posnett: I don’t recall a managing director of the company Dave Smith.
Mr Beer: No. You, in this email, say that:
“[Dave Smith] asked me a few questions and indicated that Alan Cook is asking for a more robust defence of Horizon.”
Can you remember who Alan Cook was at this time?
David Posnett: I think he was the Managing Director of the Post Office.
Mr Beer: Correct. So you were being told by the Head of IT that the Managing Director of the company wanted a more robust defence of Horizon?
David Posnett: It looks like it, yes.
Mr Beer: Why was Dave Smith telling you about it?
David Posnett: I’ve got no idea.
Mr Beer: Was it because you were a person who was going to be carrying that request into effect?
David Posnett: What, a robust defence of Horizon?
Mr Beer: Yes.
David Posnett: I don’t think so but I don’t remember this.
Mr Beer: Can you help us here? I mean, presumably it’s not every day of the week that you get a very senior member of the organisation, the Head of IT, a member of the Executive Team, telling you the Managing Director’s views?
David Posnett: No, it’s not a – it’s a rare occurrence but –
Mr Beer: Yes, you don’t hear every day or very often –
David Posnett: No.
Mr Beer: – from the MD of the whole of the Post Office?
David Posnett: Correct, but I can’t remember it.
Mr Beer: What was going to be done more robustly to defend Horizon?
David Posnett: “[Dave Smith] asked me a few questions and indicated that Alan Cook is asking for more robust defence of Horizon. I believe the Press Office are drafting a response to the challenges we have had, based on responses by conference call participants.”
I don’t know what he was going to do or how he was going to go about it.
Mr Beer: Do you know why the Managing Director of the Post Office was asking for a more robust defence of Horizon, as opposed for seeking neutrally an explanation of the issues and their impact on, amongst other things, prosecution cases?
David Posnett: I don’t know but that sounds similar, from my perspective, to the Rod Ismay report and the circumstances about him drafting that report.
Mr Beer: But, again, why were you being told this? Were you one of the lieutenants that were being asked to be called into action to make that more robust defence?
David Posnett: I don’t know, all I can do is repeat what I said earlier, is that I seem to be a go-to person to assist with this or help out with that or point people out in the right direction here and do many, many other tasks. But, I mean, I was nowhere near the pay level of these sort of people.
Mr Beer: The long email that we read, that’s on pages 2 and 3 of this chain, the “muddying the waters” email, I am going to call it. Was the provision of that kind of information by you to more senior members of the Post Office part of an exercise in being more robust about the Horizon?
David Posnett: I don’t know and I don’t think so.
Mr Beer: Why were you providing information that subpostmasters who seek to blame Horizon for their losses were just “muddying the waters”?
David Posnett: I think that was my honestly held view at the time.
Mr Beer: Yes, but why were you being asked to regurgitate it?
David Posnett: I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Well, isn’t it so that it could be deployed as part of a more robust defence of Horizon?
David Posnett: That could be an element of it but it – yeah, I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Was, essentially, what was happening here you being tasked to produce essentially rebuttal evidence, by way of these case studies, in response to the adverse publicity in Computer Weekly, BBC Wales and The Grocer in autumn 2009?
David Posnett: The case studies could be relevant to that but I don’t recall them.
Mr Beer: Were you asked ever to conduct a substantive investigation or review of the integrity of Horizon?
David Posnett: I don’t believe so. I don’t think I’d know where to start.
Mr Beer: You produced some material saying that, in some prosecution cases, the raising of Horizon was done to muddy the waters or in the hope that the case is dropped. What evidence did you examine to satisfy yourself that that was, in fact, the case?
David Posnett: I don’t recall. I think it was a general view that a number of branches requested Horizon data, nothing was found to be wrong with that data and guilty pleas were entered.
Mr Beer: Can we look at page 2 of the email, please – sorry, just look at the top of page 1 so we can see Michele Graves to David X Smith and a group of other people – yes –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – and including Rod Ismay. It says:
“Following on from Friday’s conference call, I was asked to look into who the subpostmaster was behind the postofficevictims website.
“I understand this to be Alan Bates whose contract was terminated in 2003.
“Mr Bates also features in Rebecca Thomson’s article from Computer Weekly (you may recall from our past communications she raised a challenge to the system earlier this year via Brian Binley).
“If you’ve not already done so, I would draw your attention to www.computerweekly.com and enter ‘Post Office Horizon’ into the search facility, this will take you through to articles on the Horizon and most notably the two latest of 10 and 28 September. The former is from David Jones MP saying he is considering a commons debate and the latter around the potential setting up of a subpostmaster action group. Subpostmasters are invited to email Rebecca or Mr Bates.
“Potential interest from BBC Watchdog is also mentioned.”
So this was Ms Graves, for the Executive Team – she is the Executive Team’s Correspondence Manager – circulating information about Mr Bates and his website, by the reporting by Computer Weekly and by potential interest from the BBC, yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Some investigation, it seems, had gone on into identifying Mr Bates as being behind the Post Office Victims website, yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: This was circulated to a number of people and, if we scroll up, some of whom are familiar to us. Can you help us with those that aren’t: Alana Renner?
David Posnett: No idea.
Mr Beer: Bob Booth?
David Posnett: No.
Mr Beer: Hayley Fowell?
David Posnett: No.
Mr Beer: Jeremy Worrell?
David Posnett: No.
Mr Beer: Peter Johnson?
David Posnett: The name rings a bell but I can’t say what it was.
Mr Beer: Richard Stephenson?
David Posnett: No.
Mr Beer: Adam Martin?
David Posnett: No.
Mr Beer: And Philippa Wright?
David Posnett: No.
Mr Beer: You’re included in this distribution list here, yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Why were you included amongst this company here?
David Posnett: I don’t know because I don’t recall it.
Mr Beer: Did you participate in Friday’s conference call that’s referred to?
David Posnett: I don’t know.
Mr Beer: If we scroll up, please. A further email:
“Here is the website URL … I have a hard copy of articles …”
Then up again, please.
David Posnett: Sorry, was I included on that one?
Mr Beer: If we scroll down. I don’t think you were but you seem to have got it because, if we scroll up, you forwarded it.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: So, presumably, there is some separate email somewhere of this being sent to you and you’ve cut it into this email chain. You say in the body of the email “I associate” it.
David Posnett: Yeah.
Mr Beer: You say that there had been two conference calls. Can you recall whether Fujitsu were ever invited into those conference calls?
David Posnett: I can’t remember this incident so I certainly couldn’t say whether Fujitsu were part of the calls.
Mr Beer: Can you recall whether there was any discussion of the need for an independent investigation in the light of this publicity involving Computer Weekly, BBC Wales, potentially BBC Watchdog, The Grocer magazine and an MP?
David Posnett: Not that I recall, no.
Mr Beer: Can you recall what was done to satisfy the Managing Director’s request that there should be a more robust defence of Horizon?
David Posnett: I don’t recall, no.
Sir Wyn Williams: Sorry Mr Beer, it’s a very minor point but, just so I’m not missing what’s happening here, the email that Mr Posnett forwarded, he does appear, does he not, next to Mr Hulbert as a recipient?
Mr Beer: Oh, quite right. I’d completely missed that. We had both missed it. Thank you, sir.
Yes, so mystery solved. You forwarded it because you received it.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Sir, that is an appropriate moment because I was moving on from this correspondence to a new topic. I wonder whether if we might break until 1.55.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes.
Mr Beer: Thank you very much, sir. 1.55.
(12.57 pm)
(The Short Adjournment)
(1.55 pm)
Mr Beer: Good afternoon, sir, can you see and hear us?
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, thank you.
Mr Beer: Mr Posnett, good afternoon. Can we look, please at a document we looked at this morning, just for one additional point. POL00167138, please. If we can look at the bottom of page 1 and the top of page 2, please. You remember this email from you to that collection of people we see on the right –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – and we were asking how it was that you got the article from The Grocer in Michele Graves’ email below?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Do you remember?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: If we scroll down, please, and again, please, we can see that, on the face of it, she’s not sending you the article from The Grocer. Your email address isn’t one of the three listed there, is it?
David Posnett: Oh, yes. Correct, yes.
Mr Beer: But can you see the first of the three email addresses is the POL Horizon Integrity Group?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: The second one is Mandy Talbot and the third is Martin Humphreys.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: What was the POL Horizon Integrity Group?
David Posnett: I don’t know, perhaps other than a team that was gathered to look at Horizon issues.
Mr Beer: If we scroll up, please, and again, it looks like you reply to Michele Graves and then expand what was the POL Horizon Integrity Group group email address by responding to individuals. You’re aware you can do that?
David Posnett: Am I aware I can do that?
Mr Beer: Yes. If you have group email address, which has got five people in it, you can simply reply to that email address and all five people get it?
David Posnett: Right.
Mr Beer: You can click on it, it will expand the group, there will be five emails from that group?
David Posnett: Right. Yes.
Mr Beer: You could either add to it, you could subcontract from it or just reply to all five of them?
David Posnett: Okay.
Mr Beer: Does it look like you’ve replied to the people in the POL Horizon Integrity Group?
David Posnett: I – if this was a general Horizon group I wouldn’t have thought Jon Longman was part of that. He was more case related – specific case related, and Jane Owen I wouldn’t imagine was part of that group.
Mr Beer: Jon Longman gets the email twice, doesn’t he?
David Posnett: He does, yes.
Mr Beer: Going back down, then, to this POL Horizon Integrity Group, does it follow that by at least February 2010, the Post Office had set up an email group or a group of email addressees with the collective name POL Horizon Integrity Group?
David Posnett: It looks like that, yes.
Mr Beer: Do you remember being a part of the POL Horizon Integrity Group?
David Posnett: I don’t remember that. The only one I do remember is the weekly Horizon integrity meetings.
Mr Beer: Which is much later?
David Posnett: I believe so, yes.
Mr Beer: Can you help us as to why you may have been a member of the POL Horizon Integrity Group?
David Posnett: As previously mentioned, I was utilised quite often to get involved in this or that or help people with this or that, because of my longevity in the Security Team and also possibly because of my role as Casework Manager.
Mr Beer: Can you recall what work the POL Horizon Integrity Group did?
David Posnett: Other than what these documents show, for example I was asked to do two case studies, I don’t remember.
Mr Beer: Do you know how long it lasted for?
David Posnett: I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Do you know whether there were any terms of reference for it?
David Posnett: Not that I recall.
Mr Beer: Is that noise putting you off?
David Posnett: It’s fine.
Sir Wyn Williams: It’s putting me off!
Sir, I don’t know whether you can hear it sounds like the noise of a leaf blower or a chain.
Sir Wyn Williams: No, I’m immune from that, I’m pleased to say.
Mr Beer: I wonder if we could just take a pause whilst that’s investigated.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes. I’ll stay in my position. I won’t go anywhere, okay, Mr Beer.
Mr Beer: If we turn your camera off, sir, and all stay in our own positions and sit down.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yeah, fine.
(Pause)
Mr Beer: Sir, can you see and hear us?
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, thank you.
Mr Beer: We haven’t found out what the noise was but it’s stopped, so I’m going to take a punt and carry on.
Sir Wyn Williams: Fine.
Mr Beer: Is the short point then, Mr Posnett, that you can’t remember being a part of the Post Office Limited Horizon Integrity Group of in February 2010?
David Posnett: Correct, not in this context.
Mr Beer: When years later, from 2013 onwards, you became a member of the Horizon integrity weekly group meetings, did you think to yourself “Hold on, I’ve done this before”?
David Posnett: I don’t remember –
Mr Beer: “I’ve been part of an integrity group three years previously”?
David Posnett: I don’t remember thinking that. I do remember thinking “Here we go again, another thing I’ve been roped into”, and it seemed to be me, from Security, and pretty much Senior Managers or heads of from other departments.
Mr Beer: Let’s look at that, then, the integrity meetings that you do remember. You address this in paragraph 147 of your statement, and it’s page 43, please. Page 43 at the bottom, paragraph 147. You say, third line:
“In my last couple of years working within the Security Team, I participated in these meetings …”
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: “… (I refer to them as ‘Horizon integrity meetings’). These were weekly conference calls meetings attended by different people representing different teams within the Post Office. Any issues or claims or information which had come to the attention of teams across the business, relating primarily to Horizon, were raised at these meetings. These issues were collated and any actions identified. I recall notifying Security Managers that if Horizon was mentioned during the course of the investigation, then details should be flagged to me to be raised at these Horizon integrity meetings.”
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at POL00126735. I think this is part of your appraisal; is that right?
David Posnett: I believe so, yes.
Mr Beer: You say:
“I instigated a meeting with Cartwright King Solicitors as they had been contracted to deal with prosecutions concerning Post Office Limited cases.”
Yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: “I also invited the Head of Criminal Law as he had been appointed following the split from Royal Mail Group.”
Who are you referring to there?
David Posnett: That would be Jarnail Singh.
Mr Beer: “However, on discussing the proposed content of the meeting, he did not think that most of it was relevant.”
Just help us there. Why did Jarnail Singh think that meetings about Horizon integrity were not relevant?
David Posnett: I don’t think this was about Horizon integrity. This was Cartwright King were appointed the solicitors for the Post Office following the split from Royal Mail Group. I was asked to instigate a meeting with Cartwright King and it was purely an introductory meeting, meet and greet, and we did a presentation to them, and I can remember …
Would you like me to continue?
Mr Beer: Sir, I’m afraid noise has started once again. I think we’ll have to have a break in the Inquiry until it goes away permanently. I’d probably ask you to turn off and occupy yourself otherwise and we will contact you by email when the Inquiry room is in a fit state to hear evidence.
Sir Wyn Williams: All right, that’s fine.
Mr Beer: Thank you, sir.
Sorry, Mr Posnett.
(2.10 pm)
(A short break)
(2.17 pm)
Mr Beer: Sir, can you see and hear us?
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, thank you.
Mr Beer: We’ve been told that it’s some gardening work being carried out on the third floor of the London School of Economics, an outdoor garden. It involves some cutting and trimming, they need to do it whilst it’s still daylight, they’re going to return and do it in about 15 minutes from now and that will last two or three minutes. So in about 15 minutes’ time it’s going to start up again for two to three minutes.
I’d suggest we all just sit tight, see that through, and then carry on.
Sir Wyn Williams: All the years that I’ve visited London and, in particular, this part of London, I had no idea that such a garden existed, Mr Beer.
Mr Beer: No.
Can we look, please, at POL00126735. You were telling us, I think, that this first box is not referring related to the Horizon integrity meetings; it’s about something else?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Nonetheless, however, you were proposing to Jarnail Singh that he attended and he said he didn’t think that most of the content of the meeting was relevant?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Cartwright King was the Post Office’s customer, we simply had to tell them what the Post Office wanted and how it should be delivered?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: You challenged that view because it involved relationship building with a new service provider.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: What was the meeting between Cartwright King and the Head of Criminal Law to be about?
David Posnett: It was a meeting between Cartwright King and the Post Office Security/Investigations. They were brand new service provider and, as I said, it was literally a meet and greet meeting, introductions made, presentations given, describe the teams set up, and so on and so forth.
Mr Singh was invited because he was the Head of Criminal Law but I recall that his stance was “We need to tell them that we want this, that and the other, we want it quickly because it costs money”, et cetera, et cetera. He had a point to some of what he said but my view was that this wasn’t the purpose for this meeting, it was a meet and greet meeting.
Mr Beer: I think you said you transferred your challenge to a Senior Security Manager and he ensured that the Head of Criminal Law didn’t attend the meeting?
David Posnett: That’s correct. I spoke to Dave Pardoe, who was the strand leader and I think he arranged it that Mr Singh wasn’t going to attend.
Mr Beer: That was what Mr Singh wanted, he didn’t want to attend?
David Posnett: No, I think Mr Pardoe informed Mr Singh that he wasn’t going to attend but I wasn’t privy to that conversation so I’m not quite sure.
Mr Beer: What was the difficulty here, then? Mr Singh didn’t want to attend and Mr Pardoe said, “I’m going to ensure that he doesn’t”.
David Posnett: I don’t think he worded it like that but Mr Pardoe agreed with me that the point of this meeting was to introduce ourselves to a new firm of solicitors who we were going to work with in the future. He didn’t think the gung ho approach of laying down the law in terms of costs and speed of work, et cetera, et cetera, was appropriate for that particular meeting.
Mr Beer: I see. Can we move on, please, to POL00128293.
David Posnett: May I just say, I don’t think Mr Singh was aware of that, that particular behaviour was – you had to demonstrate when you challenge.
Mr Beer: Yes.
David Posnett: So that was an example of mine where I challenged somebody.
Mr Beer: So that was like a competence or behaviour related –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – metric –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – where you had to evidence certain behaviours –
David Posnett: Indeed, yeah.
Mr Beer: – and the behaviour there was challenging?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: This is, I think, your performance review for the 2013 to 2014 period. It’s dated, somewhere else in the document, 23 May 2014. If we go to page 4, please, about halfway through that box, you say:
“I have also subsequently formed part of the Horizon Integrity Working Group, bringing potential Horizon Issues to weekly ongoing conference calls …”
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: “… and I have demonstrate leadership qualities in other areas.”
Yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Can you recall who attended the weekly Horizon integrity meetings?
David Posnett: There was myself, from Security, I – again, from documents I’ve seen, I think Rob King from Security attended; Andy Haywood, I think, would generally attend in my absence. You had people from retail network, such as Gayle Peacock or Gayle Laverick, Anne Allaker; we had somebody from the Network Business Support Centre; Martin Smith from Cartwright King; Jarnail Singh as the POL lawyer; somebody from Product and Branch Accounting, Andy Winn, I believe; I think the Press Office were invited, I’m not sure they were always in attendance.
Mr Beer: What was the trigger for the setting up of the Horizon integrity meetings?
David Posnett: I can’t remember but, having seen the documents I believe there was an email from Susan Crichton, the General Counsel at the time, basically informing stakeholders that she wanted a weekly conference call related to Horizon to capture all issues that are raised or known about, so it was in a sort of central place each week.
Mr Beer: What was the purpose of the Horizon integrity meeting?
David Posnett: I think, (1) to collate all the information in one place.
Mr Beer: Information about what?
David Posnett: Horizon, so any issues, glitches, problems or anything cited in interviews – in my view, it was anything Horizon related – so collated into one place, and actions, where applicable, to try to address those things that were raised. And if I could just expand that, my reflections on this Inquiry were that I think you had sort of Mandy Talbot doing this there, Sue Lowther doing this there, myself doing this there, Helen Rose doing a report there, Rod Ismay doing that there. This was a good idea to me because it brought everything into one place rather than people working in silos.
Mr Beer: So to get away from siloed working, to bring all knowledge of Horizon integrity issues together in one place –
David Posnett: That was my understanding.
Mr Beer: – and presumably consider whether any of it needed to be disclosed in current criminal proceedings?
David Posnett: Yes. But, on that particular point, Cartwright King and Jarnail Singh were in attendance and I think it was Bond Dickinson Who subsequently ran the meeting, so there were legal people involved.
Mr Beer: And presumably to consider whether any of it needed to be disclosed in relation to past criminal proceedings?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Can we look at POL00139730. This is a meeting on 19 July 2013 and we can see that you’re present –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – alongside some of the people you mentioned?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Yes. If we scroll down, please, Rob King:
“Outlined the purpose of the meeting; to identify any issues around the integrity of Horizon from a technical perspective and take any necessary action.”
Would that accurately summarise to you the purpose of the meeting.
David Posnett: Yeah, I think that repeats what I said a little while ago.
Mr Beer: “A process needs to be set up within each directorate where each representative proactively seeks out any technically with Horizon.”
Do you know what that’s meant to say?
David Posnett: Technicality?
Mr Beer: Did that happen, that each Directorate set up a process in which a representative of that Directorate sought out information concerning technical problems – I’ll call them – with Horizon?
David Posnett: I can’t speak for all the people at that meeting but I would imagine so. The only thing I can tell you is what I did, which was communicate to all Security Investigation Managers, and I can remember on my email saying “Anything relating to Horizon that comes across – comes to your attention or is referred to in an interview must be flagged up to me to bring to this particular meeting each week”.
Mr Beer: Just going back up to the cast list, from Security, is it right that only you and Rob King were represented?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Was Rob King senior to you?
David Posnett: He was at that stage the Senior Security Manager for the team that I was in, yes. So Dave Pardoe was and Rob King subsequently became him.
Mr Beer: So if we scroll back down, please, it says:
“No minutes circulated, but we will be taking notes.”
Were you notetaker?
David Posnett: I was the notetaker –
Mr Beer: Sorry, did you say you were?
David Posnett: I did take notes. I don’t know whether – is this the first meeting –
Mr Beer: Yes.
David Posnett: Okay. Well, I can tell you my recollection, which doesn’t necessarily correspond to a document or a blog that I’ve seen, so I can only tell you what my recollection was. I thought it was the first meeting and I typed up the minutes and actions and sent them out. I had my own –
Mr Beer: Sorry, you typed up the minutes and actions?
David Posnett: Yes, which may be this but I’m not quite so sure. But I typed up the minutes and actions, sent them out, and then I can remember John Scott coming to me and I think he was enquiring how it went, which suggested to me that it was the first meeting. And, obviously, I’m just dealing with the minutes and recommendations, and I can remember him saying to me “No, we don’t want any minutes being circulated”, and I don’t know if I’d got my wires crossed but I was not to keep my handwritten notes: simple as that.
He went away. I was concerned for two reasons and I relayed those reasons to Jarnail Singh, the lawyer. I told Jarnail what had happened and I said to him “I’ve got two concerns: number 1, I’m very uncomfortable with being told to not keep notes”, and I don’t know whether the word “shredded” was used, but I think that was the implication.
I was not comfortable with that and I was not comfortable with not sending out minutes because, if there’s no minutes or actions being sent out and there were no notes to have, then what was the point of the meetings? It would just be a chat every week and then we all go our merry way.
So two concerns. One was shredding and disclosure, et cetera, but the other one was the practicalities of the meeting.
Mr Beer: Can we break all of that down, then, that document can come down for the moment.
So you attended the first meeting.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Before the meeting, was there any discussion between you and any other person over whether a record of the meeting was to be kept?
David Posnett: Not that I can recall.
Mr Beer: Did you, in fact, take a handwritten note of the meeting?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: In what, an Investigator’s notebook or something like that?
David Posnett: No, it was a big yellow A4 pad that I used to use.
Mr Beer: Why did you take the note of the meeting?
David Posnett: The email from Susan Crichton explained what this meeting was going to be, “Could you all provide names of attendees to Dave Posnett from Security”. So, yet again, it was myself. I don’t know whether I was told or I took it to mean that I’m running this meeting, as it were.
Mr Beer: So just going back to the minute that we have got, POL00139730.
David Posnett: Yeah, can I just raise a query?
Mr Beer: Yes.
David Posnett: If this is the first meeting, given what I’ve just said to you, I don’t understand it’s got here “No minutes circulated”. Well, I’m not sure I would have put there’s no minutes to be circulated and then I’d have sent the –
Mr Beer: That’s what I’m going to ask you about?
David Posnett: That’s why I’m –
Mr Beer: It says, “We will be taking notes”. Do you think that’s a reference, given that it’s attributed to Rob King, to the Security Department taking notes?
David Posnett: Yes. But if I prepared these, I wouldn’t be – I don’t think I would have been writing “No minutes will be circulated, here’s the minutes”. So this is where I’m a bit confused.
Mr Beer: There were only two of you from the Security Department?
David Posnett: At that particular meeting, yes.
Mr Beer: Mr King, of the Security Department, is recorded as saying, “No minutes will be circulated but we will be taking notes”?
David Posnett: That’s what he said.
Mr Beer: Does that reflect the fact that you were taking notes from the Security Department, hence the “we”?
David Posnett: Possibly, but I can’t remember.
Mr Beer: So anyway you took a handwritten note?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: You told us that, subsequently, you were in the process of writing up a note of the meeting and, by that, do you mean typing up?
David Posnett: Yes, I think I’d actually sent the minutes and then I was told “Don’t send the minutes” and, again, I can remember, “God, what have I done? I’ve sent something that I’m now being told shouldn’t have been sent”.
Mr Beer: So John Scott approached you, did he?
David Posnett: Sorry?
Mr Beer: Mr Scott approached you, did he?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: You told us that he said two things: one was about distribution of minutes, correct?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: And one was about making or keeping a handwritten note?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: What did he say about making or keeping a handwritten not?
David Posnett: Again, I can’t remember the exact words because it was so long ago. A document I’ve seen says that the word “shredded” was conveyed to me, so I may well have conveyed the word “shredded” to Mr Singh. It may have been other words but, in my head, it was pretty much: if it ain’t written down it didn’t happen. That’s the sort of gist I was getting.
Mr Beer: So no matter the precise words used, the essence of what Mr Scott was saying to you was that there shouldn’t be a record of the meeting retained?
David Posnett: That’s what I understood it to be, yes.
Mr Beer: Did he explain why?
David Posnett: I don’t recall, other than that I – as I’ve said, it was a case of: if it’s written down, it didn’t happen.
Mr Beer: You said you were uncomfortable with this –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – and you went to see or spoke to Jarnail Singh –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – and you told him you were uncomfortable?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Did you tell him that the implication of what you had been told by the Head of Security was that you should shred or destroy your existing handwritten notes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: What did Mr Singh advise you?
David Posnett: He said keep the notes, don’t destroy them, don’t get rid of them, or whatever, which I did. Then I think at some stage, within a week or – well, within a week, I think, the next thing I knew is that I wasn’t leading the meeting or taking notes, Bond Dickinson were now doing it. And I can remember at that time thinking “Well, that’s fine by me, it’s now something that I don’t need to worry about because somebody else is running it”.
Mr Beer: Was it explained why Bond Dickinson were taking over the note taking?
David Posnett: It may have been but I can’t remember the reason. I was just pleased that it wasn’t me.
Mr Beer: Was privilege mentioned, legal professional privilege?
David Posnett: Not that I recall.
Mr Beer: Do you know what legal professional privilege is?
David Posnett: Legal – is it the same as legal privilege, that it’s confidential between client and –
Mr Beer: Yes.
David Posnett: I know that but I don’t recall that being mentioned.
Mr Beer: Was that mentioned at all as a reason for them taking over the note taking, that it might be protected by legal privilege.
David Posnett: I don’t recall.
Mr Beer: What did you do with the notes that you had made?
David Posnett: I kept them for weeks, months, years. I moved into a different role in the Post Office then ultimately I left the Post Office. I don’t know what happened to them, to be honest, but –
Mr Beer: They were likely disposed of at that time?
David Posnett: I remember when I left the Post Office trying to find them, even then. But whatever it was on the notes, I’d incorporated into the minutes that I’d sent. So, again, going back to this blog that I remember, I think it was Simon Clarke or somebody had said nothing was destroyed because it was – well, nothing was destroyed and it was included in the minutes.
Mr Beer: Can we go back to this note, please, POL00139730. If we just scroll through the document, please, and again, please. Thank you.
Does that look like the typed note that you distributed?
David Posnett: It could be. I –
Mr Beer: Go back to the first page, please.
David Posnett: I think when Bond Dickinson took over, the minutes had their logo at the top.
Mr Beer: Yes, in the top right, yeah.
David Posnett: Yeah.
Mr Beer: So you think this is the typed minute that you distributed?
David Posnett: Possibly. I think it was the first meeting but, again, in that blog, I think it says three meetings in, so I’m not quite sure. But there was certainly a meeting where I have sent the minutes.
Mr Beer: What was Mr Ismay’s role in these meetings?
David Posnett: He was from Product and Branch Accounting. I don’t recall him being at many of the meetings because I think it was mainly Andy Winn from the same team but, obviously, Product and Branch Accounting, either received information about Horizon or were a point of contact to look at certain things in relation to Horizon.
Mr Beer: If we can scroll through, please. Next page, please. Thank you. Your entry there, or your record of you speaking, you’re recorded as saying:
“Reporting of issues by current or former subpostmasters would be through publicised channels, (Focusonline issue 164 and Intranet for current subpostmasters, Branch Support Team, [at an email address] for former subpostmasters, contract team [at an email address]).”
What’s that mean? What’s being recorded there?
David Posnett: So I think these are the points where subpostmasters or ex-subpostmasters or whatever would feed in issues and I think they were the channels where we would capture the information. But now I don’t know what a “Focusonline” is.
Mr Beer: So this is recording you saying that if subpostmasters want to report an issue, if they are a current subpostmaster they should use this email address; if they’re a former subpostmaster, they should use this email address. Is that right?
David Posnett: I can’t remember. I don’t think I would have said they should do. I think these were channels that were already there, although I may be wrong.
Mr Beer: If we scroll to Mr Ismay’s entry at the foot of the page there. He says:
“Brought this topic to the Operating Board regarding consequences and impact on the [Financial Services Centre] Security, etc. One area of concern was briefing/guidance/training on hazardous goods …”
The line “Brought this topic to the Operating Board”, what did you understand the Operating Board to be?
David Posnett: I don’t remember. I mean, it sounds like a senior group of managers type board.
Mr Beer: Did you know what link there was between this Horizon group meeting and the board or a board of the Post Office –
David Posnett: No.
Mr Beer: – ie whether its work was to be reported back to the board and, if so, how?
David Posnett: I don’t recall that, no.
Mr Beer: Moving on a paragraph, Mr Ismay is reported to have said, “Internet chatrooms – noted that chatrooms and forums have sprung up. Origin of one was Yahoo mail. Local groups/others have instigated chatrooms re giving advice (perhaps in good faith). Question – what can we do about this? Currently no evidence of forums being used to give malicious advice to defend accusations of impropriety.”
Can you recall what that was about? What the concern was?
David Posnett: I don’t recall but that would suggest to me that – it’s probably not the right word, obviously, but I’ll use the word “noise” again, that perhaps there was more discussions about Horizon in these particular chatrooms or forums that have sprung up.
Mr Beer: Can we move to page 3, please, and look at your entry, which is just at the foot of the page that we can see there. Thank you. You’re recorded as saying that you:
“Confirmed that security did not have a master list of all of the issues, unclear if anyone can respond to potential query … appears there is currently no central point of contact for queries.”
So this is mid-2013. Was it still the case that there was no central point of contact within Security for Horizon-related questions?
David Posnett: Again, I don’t recall but, judging by that, yes. I wouldn’t know how that would have been confirmed.
Mr Beer: Was it still the case by mid-2013 that the Security Department of the Post Office still did not have a list of all issues concerning Horizon?
David Posnett: I don’t recall.
Mr Beer: What about the Horizon integrity group that had been operating in 2009, we saw from that email earlier?
David Posnett: Yeah.
Mr Beer: Had that not been a group that had been set up to deal with the challenges to Horizon?
David Posnett: It looks as though it was but whether – I mean, I don’t know if it was just a case study or to – I don’t know whether it was all Horizon issues.
Mr Beer: What about the team that you mentioned as having been convened or set up in 2009 to deal with Horizon challenges? Do you remember that email from before lunch?
David Posnett: I remember the email but I don’t remember the forming of the group or the work that was done.
Mr Beer: Put another way, this wasn’t new in 2013, was it?
David Posnett: No.
Mr Beer: There were a collection of challenges to Horizon?
David Posnett: Yes, and I think it was 2013 where Cartwright King were doing their sift of cases, assessing cases.
Mr Beer: Were you aware of Mandy Talbot, in 2005, recommending to a range of senior Post Office figures that a coordinated approach to any Horizon challenges should be maintained, that expert input sought and an independent review be conducted of Horizon?
David Posnett: I don’t recall that. If I wasn’t aware of that at the time, then that’s another example where I’ve mentioned that people seem to work in silos’s.
Mr Beer: She was recommending an anti-silo measure –
David Posnett: Right.
Mr Beer: – in 2005 – we’ve explored this in the evidence with her already –
David Posnett: Right.
Mr Beer: – that there be a coordinated approach that seeks to draw together all of the challenges that there were to Horizon, even in 2005.
David Posnett: In 2005, I was an Investigation Team Manager, so, in all likelihood, I’m not sure I would have been made aware of that.
Mr Beer: What mechanism was put in place for the disclosure of information discussed that went to Horizon integrity issues at these meetings?
David Posnett: I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Was there a mechanism?
David Posnett: I don’t know. If there was, I would imagine it was Cartwright King or Jarnail Singh or Bond Dickinson, which were the three sort of groups of legal people.
Mr Beer: Was there any discussion at the meetings that you attended of whether these very documents needed to be disclosed on unused material schedules?
David Posnett: Not that I recall but would imagine, if those discussions were held, they would be on some of the minutes for some of the meetings.
Mr Beer: Thank you. Can we move on to a different topic, please. Can we look, please, at POL00118096. Can you see an email at the top of the page from Mr Wise to Mr Stanway and then, if we scroll down, please, to foot of the page, an email from you to lots of people in May 2011.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Just looking generally at that group of people as at that date, May 2011, who are those people?
David Posnett: They are Dave Pardoe, the Head of the –
Mr Beer: Without going through them individually?
David Posnett: Sorry, investigation-related people.
Mr Beer: So they’re Investigation Managers or managers of Investigators?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: The function that you were performing in May 2011 was?
David Posnett: Accredited Financial Investigator.
Mr Beer: Why were you sending an email out about casework compliance?
David Posnett: I think it was because we had a North team and a South team and the whole of the South team left. So we were getting a whole new South team from outside the business.
Mr Beer: A team of whats, Accredited Financial Investigators?
David Posnett: No, Security/Investigation Managers.
Mr Beer: But what had that got to do with you? You were an AFI at this time?
David Posnett: Yeah, it’s another example of: can we get involved in this? The idea was the new people who came in, the compliance would be for them to ensure consistency in the work they did.
Mr Beer: You write:
“Most of you are aware that case files submitted for legal advice will become subject to compliance checks. This process is due to commence in June and is designed to raise standards of files submitted (including their contents reports, taped summaries, appendix enclosures, recovery stakeholders, etc) and ensure there is a consistent approach across the team. It is probably an opportune time, given we have recently recruited new people to the team.
“I’ve associated relevant documents that feed into compliance. Please familiarise yourself with these documents.
“Myself and Paul will be attending each …”
“Security Operations Team”, is that?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: “… meeting [North, Central and South, and the dates are given].
“Happy to discuss …”
We can see from the top of the page, if we scroll up, that that included a zip file, your email –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – as an attachment, the zip.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: We know what’s in the zip file. Can you start by telling us what the purpose of you sending out this suite of case compliance documents was?
David Posnett: Yes, so if we were reintroducing compliance, I was sending out the compliance documents that were in force some years previously, so that all the Investigation Managers knew what was going to be assessed in terms of the compliance.
Mr Beer: Can we look at POL00118104, please. One of the attachments to the email within the zip file was this document.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Do you recognise this document?
David Posnett: I don’t recognise the document.
Mr Beer: You sent an instruction out to a large number of members of the Security Team telling them to familiarise themselves with, amongst other things, this document?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Presumably, at the time, in 2013, you were familiar with this document. You wouldn’t be asking 20-odd members of the Security Department to familiarise themselves with it if you yourself weren’t familiar with it?
David Posnett: Well, I don’t remember this document. I don’t remember sending it out and I don’t remember any responses.
Mr Beer: I’ve asked a slightly different question, which is: given that you did send it out and given that you did instruct people to familiarise themselves with it, presumably you would have been familiar with it?
David Posnett: I would – when I was an Investigator, which goes back to 2000/2004, I would have been familiar with the identification codes. If I was attaching a document to send to them, I wouldn’t necessarily have opened it up because the identification codes are the identification codes.
Mr Beer: Why? You said in your email that you’d be happy to discuss the contents with them?
David Posnett: And if they want to discuss the contents, I would have discussed them.
Mr Beer: So, what, you would have sent blind some attachments to an email saying “Familiarise yourselves with these, your compliance with them is going to be checked. I’m happy to discuss the contents with you”, without looking what was in the contents?
I mean, just ignoring the content for the moment, and don’t let that colour your answers, do you really think that’s so?
David Posnett: I’ve wracked my brains over this document. I think I either didn’t read it or I skim read it and didn’t take on board what was in it or I thought this was the up-to-date version of that form but, on reflection, it’s not an official form. So that would be why there wasn’t a more up-to-date version of it. I hope it’s not the third of that scenario.
Mr Beer: Sorry, I missed the second of those possibilities.
David Posnett: Either didn’t read it, or I read it quickly just to make sure it was codes, or I thought this was the latest version. But it’s not an official Post Office form because it hasn’t got number at the bottom. So, I mean, at the end of the day, I can’t remember the form. I may have used this form but it was so long ago.
Mr Beer: Looking at it now, what do you think the purpose of the form was?
David Posnett: I think I put in my statement that it was used to complete an NPA1 form.
Mr Beer: Cutting through it, what do you think the NPA1 form was for?
David Posnett: I think that was to notify the police in the event that somebody pleaded guilty or was convicted, to update their records.
Mr Beer: Sir. Apologies, if we just pause there, I think the two to three minutes of noise has just started.
Sir Wyn Williams: All right. Well, I’ll remain in my chair but I’ll take myself off screen.
Ms Scott: In fact, sir, what we could probably do is, if we broke until 3.10, we could probably take are afternoon break early.
Sir Wyn Williams: All right that’s fine. 3.10.
Mr Beer: Thank you, sir.
(2.55 pm)
(A short break)
(3.10 pm)
Mr Beer: Sir, good afternoon, can you see and hear us?
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, thank you.
Mr Beer: Thank you.
Mr Posnett, I’d shown you an email of May 2011, with you distributing to a wide range of people within the Security Department the Identity Codes document, amongst others, yes?
You said that you don’t remember sending the email and you don’t remember looking at the contents of the document –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – but that you think that you were either distributing the contents without looking at any of them or, insofar as you looked at them, you assumed that this ID codes document was an updated version of something that went previously; have I got that right?
David Posnett: One of the possibilities I thought was it’s the most up-to-date version or that there hasn’t been another one, so that’s what it is. But I also don’t remember any of the other forms, other than the score sheet one that I’ve seen.
Mr Beer: The Excel spreadsheet –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – which contains a score out of 100 –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – with a series of columns and rows –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – marking you on things, ranging from the font that you use, to an adequate summary of the interview that you conducted?
David Posnett: That’s correct, and I think that was an old compliance set of documents, I think I’ve just – I don’t know whether someone has emailed to me or they’ve been on an old team drive or SharePoint site, or they were on my computer. But I think I’ve lifted them from wherever and sent them out to the people on the email.
Mr Beer: So would you just put this down to being sort of a single email that you distributed that you sent out, containing a document that you didn’t pay much attention to, and that’s why you didn’t pick up what might be described as grossly offensive racial profiling within it?
David Posnett: That’s one possibility.
Mr Beer: We’re in possession of a – I’m not going to take you to them in the interests of time, I’ll list them for the transcript – but we’re in possession of a series of emails of you redistributing that document –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – time and again?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: On 29 March 2012, POL00115665; on 27 April 2012, POL00121810; on 1 May 2012, POL00121816; on 31 May 2012, POL00121843; on 16 June 2012, POL00120956; and on 21 September 2012, POL00121913.
So, by my count, you distributed it seven times in 2011 and 2012.
David Posnett: I thought I’d sent it three times, but …
Mr Beer: Okay, well, let’s not go into that for the moment. No doubt, if any of my references or dates are wrong, that can be picked up in due course. Is it really the case that, on every occasion you were sending out to different members of the Security Team a document telling them that they needed to comply with its contents, that you didn’t know what you were sending out because you didn’t look at it?
David Posnett: Yes, because – well, if the first time I sent the email I didn’t look at it, I would have thought the second and third time – if it is three – I wouldn’t have looked at it because I’d have thought “Well, I’m just sending out the same email that I sent before”.
Mr Beer: Wouldn’t you have wanted to check what you were sending out was appropriate for all of these people to have to comply with its terms?
David Posnett: I would say yes but, again, this – my day job was Accredited Financial Investigator. I don’t know the details but I would imagine myself and Paul were asked to reintroduce compliance checks. So, again, it wasn’t my day job. I think I would have just picked up the documents and sent them out.
Mr Beer: Looking at the document now, what do you understand its purpose to be?
David Posnett: For use when completing the NPA1. That’s the only reason I can think as to why we had identification codes and I think identification codes existed on the offender report templates from when I first started investigations.
Mr Beer: So the NPA1 – we can go through a lot of documents to work out that, in fact, I think it was the NPA3 that was the report but it doesn’t matter – a form that was used to report matters to the police service; is that right?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: It’s essentially what you’re –
David Posnett: I think so, yes.
Mr Beer: – referring to. What was the purpose of reporting some information to the police?
David Posnett: Well, the Post Office conducted, in effect, private prosecutions. So we had to notify the police, so that they could put it on their national system, any convictions.
Mr Beer: Was it at the point of conviction you understood that the notification was to occur?
David Posnett: I believe so, yes.
Mr Beer: When you say on their national system, do you mean the Police National Computer?
David Posnett: I think so, yes.
Mr Beer: So to summarise what your belief was, it was necessary to set out on a form that was sent to the police, at the point of conviction; is that right?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: The identity code of a convicted person to include on the Police National Computer?
David Posnett: I believe so, and if it wasn’t that NPA form then I don’t know why we –
Mr Beer: We’ll go through those forms in a moment. Does it follow that the codes that needed to be used, if they were to be notified to the police service, needed to be the police service’s codes.
David Posnett: That would make sense, but …
Mr Beer: Do you believe, then, that these were the police service’s codes in 2011 and 2012?
David Posnett: I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Before we look at that series of NPA forms, can we look at POL00126594. There’s a no on that.
I’ll try an alternative reference, if you just give me a moment. POL00126735. If we go to page 3, please, at the top, do you remember we looked at this earlier, it’s your appraisal document, I think, for 2012. You say in box 13 at the top:
“Due to the agreement that a colleague would conduct all compliance checks on case file submissions, I met with him and handed over all operate documentation and explained the process and recording/monitoring mechanisms associated with the compliance process. I also checked the first few compliances undertaken, to ensure consistency and understanding and thus enable a smooth transition of the process to this colleague.”
Is the colleague there Andrew Wise?
David Posnett: I don’t know.
Mr Beer: We see in other emails that your case compliance check email, including the ID codes document, is subsequently, after the end of September 2012, distributed by Andrew Wise and not by you.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Do you think this handover you were talking to here was with him?
David Posnett: I don’t know but it could be because I think Andrew was a temporary team leader, which would make sense, because he would do the compliance checks on the Investigators.
Mr Beer: But here you’re talking about a meeting with that person, handing over all appropriate documentation to them and explaining the process. Presumably you looked at the suite of documents, I think there are only eight of them, in the case compliance material –
David Posnett: Yeah.
Mr Beer: – on this occasion?
David Posnett: Again, I don’t remember it, but if I’d have emailed it to him, as we’ve seen, I don’t see why I would have had a meeting with him and handed over all the documentation.
Mr Beer: You’re claiming as part of your appraisal that you did?
David Posnett: Yes, if he’s the colleague.
Mr Beer: Sorry?
David Posnett: If he’s the colleague.
Mr Beer: Yes. Well, whoever the colleague is – we’ll call him Mr X – you met with Mr X and handed over all the documentation for case compliance, explained the process to them, explained the recording and monitoring mechanisms associated with them and then checked the first few compliances undertaken. You must have looked at the ID codes document then?
David Posnett: Well, all I can say is that I don’t remember.
Mr Beer: But looking at these words that you were claiming credit for in your personal appraisal, you agree that you must have done?
David Posnett: Well, it says I’ve handed over appropriate documents. I can’t say what –
Mr Beer: Well, not just that you’ve handed over the document. You’ve explained the process to him, Mr X, you’ve explained the recording and monitoring mechanisms associated with compliance –
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: – and you checked the first few compliances undertaken?
David Posnett: Yeah.
Mr Beer: You must have looked at the ID codes document then, mustn’t you?
David Posnett: Not necessarily. I’ve handed over the documentation, explained the process and recorded monitoring mechanisms, and also checked the first few compliances undertaken, so it doesn’t necessarily mean I’ve rechecked that form. I may have done but I can’t remember.
Mr Beer: You’ve got eight documents in front of you. You’re sitting with a colleague who is going to take over this job from you?
David Posnett: Yeah.
Mr Beer: You’re handing over the documentation to them. You’re explaining the process to them.
David Posnett: I don’t know if I am sat with them, it might have been online or on the telephone, I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Or it might have been a Teams meeting?
David Posnett: We didn’t have Teams meetings then.
Mr Beer: Okay, so when it says, “I met with him”, does that mean “I didn’t meet with him; I spoke with him on the phone”?
David Posnett: I don’t know what it means; it’s 10 years ago.
Mr Beer: Put aside the content, Mr Posnett – I realise why you might find the content of the ID codes difficult – and just focus on what you said in your personal appraisal here.
David Posnett: Yeah, I genuinely cannot remember it. I don’t remember who the colleague was, how the meeting went. If I do, I would say so.
Mr Beer: Looking at these words, do you think it’s likely that you went through the documentation with him, Mr X? Put aside whether it was Andrew Wise or not.
David Posnett: I don’t know.
Mr Beer: And you think you might have sent it out seven times, the ID codes document, if my calculations are correct, without looking at the contents?
David Posnett: It’s possible but I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at POL00038495. If we just look at the foot of the page, the policy title is “Reporting of Criminal Offences to Police” and, if we go to the top, please, it’s part of an investigation policy and it seems that it’s appendix 15 to it.
If we look at paragraph 3.1, the policy on reporting of criminal offences to the police says:
“The development of the Phoenix National Criminal Justice Record Service has enabled the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) Disclosure Group to design national standardised forms for the reporting of offences and the results of prosecutions/cautions to Police Authorities.
“These standard forms, which are designed for use by all Non-Police Prosecuting Agencies (NPAs) have been provided to all Security Managers.
“Form NPA1 – source Input Document for Phoenix.
“NPA2 – continuation Sheet for additional offences.
“NPA3 – Notification of result of case (PSO use only).”
Do you know what PSO was?
David Posnett: Prosecution Support Office, maybe?
Mr Beer: So the NPA1 form is the Source Input Document for Phoenix. Do you remember what Phoenix was?
David Posnett: No.
Mr Beer: Do you remember an intelligence system that was different from the Police National Computer?
David Posnett: No.
Mr Beer: But NPA3 is the notification of the result form, yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: If we go down to 3.2.
“During the course of a suspect interview, investigators should complete the offender details on side 1 of form NPA1 …”
Can you see that?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: “… and all of side 2, which deals with the identification details of the [case].”
So the Investigator was required to fill out the NPA1 form at the point of interview; is that right?
David Posnett: That’s what it says, yes.
Mr Beer: So, although you recalled that the form to which the ID code is document related was about reporting convictions, that doesn’t seem right, according to this, does it? Convictions is the NPA3 form; NPA1 form is at the point of interview?
David Posnett: Agreed, yeah.
Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at POL00121116. Do you remember this, a case progression map?
David Posnett: I don’t recall that, no.
Mr Beer: Can we go to the last page of the document and, under “Acquiring AS Number” – do you remember what an AS number was?
David Posnett: Was that something to do with the summons?
Mr Beer: It may be, an arrest summons or a summons for arrest?
David Posnett: Right.
Mr Beer: Anyway, “Acquiring the AS number”, the instruction is to:
“Update the front of the NPA1 form with the date of the court hearing and details of the court.
“Complete the offence and the method used in the offence section …
“Email the updated NPA1 … to the Casework Team.”
Do you agree that it seems that an NPA1 form was required for a Magistrates Court to issue a summons?
David Posnett: It looks that way, yes.
Mr Beer: Who would be responsible for generating these NPA1 forms, the Criminal Law Team or the Investigator?
David Posnett: I thought it was the Investigator.
Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at POL00062566. Can we see that this is an NPA1 form, if we just scroll up a little bit, in the top right-hand side, top right-hand corner. Thank you. Yes?
This is an example of an NPA1 form, yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: Does this ring any bells?
David Posnett: It rings a bell.
Mr Beer: Can we look at page 2, please. Can you see that at the top of the page – no, they’ve been redacted. At the top of the page there’s a box entitled “Ethnic Appearance”?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: There were, I can tell you, underneath that box, seven boxes, one which said, “White European”; the second, which said, “Dark European”; the third is “Afro-Caribbean”; the fourth is “Asian”; the fifth is “Oriental”; the sixth is “Arab”; and the seventh is “Unknown”, yes?
David Posnett: Okay.
Mr Beer: Was the intention that an Investigator completed the ethnic appearance part of this form by reference to the ID codes document that we looked at?
David Posnett: I thought that’s what would be used to complete this form. However, if you scroll to the top of this NPA1, it’s got there “Form NPA1, 1/97”, so if this form goes back to 1997, even then what you’ve read out doesn’t correlate to the form that I sent out.
Mr Beer: Do you know why that is?
David Posnett: Why?
Mr Beer: Why the Post Office was circulating – why you were circulating a form that didn’t correlate to at least the 1997 edition of the NPA1 form?
David Posnett: I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Would Investigators have to refer back to the ID codes document in order to complete this document or the bit of it that concerns ethnic appearance?
David Posnett: Not necessarily.
Mr Beer: Why so?
David Posnett: Well, I think when I became an Investigator, I had to go as a second officer on jobs with experienced people and they’d send me their reports so you’d see the codes on the reports, and I think, over time, you get used to the codes and know what they were without having to refer to a form.
Mr Beer: So what was the purpose of the circulation of the ID codes document, then?
David Posnett: Because, on the compliance, when you did a suspect offender report, one of the sections on the template was the identification code so that was a point of reference if they needed to find out the code or they could ask someone, or Google it or whatever.
Mr Beer: When you say “or Google it”, what would they Google?
David Posnett: Identification code.
Mr Beer: What would they find if they Googled identification code?
David Posnett: I don’t know because I haven’t Googled it.
Mr Beer: Would they find the Post Office Identity Codes document?
David Posnett: I doubt it very much.
Mr Beer: They would find some other organisation’s identity codes, Police Scotland or –
David Posnett: Possibly, yes.
Mr Beer: – the ACPO Identity Codes document, or the National Crime Agency, if they even put those online?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Beer: That wouldn’t be very helpful, would it, if they were willing out a Post Office form – ie, the jacket to the – or the front page, the frontispiece of the offender report, looking up somebody else’s ID codes to fill it in wouldn’t be that helpful, would it?
David Posnett: No, but I’m not aware as to all those different companies you’ve mentioned have different codings. I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Do you think they were the same as the ID codes document we’ve looked at?
David Posnett: I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Are you suggesting that we can really put this ID codes document to one side because Investigators would just go online and Google “ID codes” in filling out forms?
David Posnett: If they Googled it, I imagine it would be police ID codes.
Mr Beer: Yes, and why would they want to use police ID codes in filling in the part of the offender report that asks them to identify somebody’s ethnic appearance?
David Posnett: Because I think, as I said, this form is police linked. It goes to the police.
Mr Beer: That can come down thank you.
Were statistics kept on the identities of the racial and ethnic identities of people investigated by the Post Office?
David Posnett: Not that I recall.
Mr Beer: Was there any central repository where any information was stored and any analysis undertaken of it?
David Posnett: Not that I recall.
Mr Beer: So why was the Post Office maintaining its own list of ID codes, which didn’t match that of the police?
David Posnett: I don’t know.
Mr Beer: You were distributing it and telling people that their compliance with it would be marked. Why were you doing that?
David Posnett: Because that was part of the compliance forms that I would have picked up from whatever year it was.
Mr Beer: Sir, those are the only questions that I ask Mr Posnett. I think there are some questions from the Howe+Co team.
The Witness: Can I just say one thing on that?
Mr Beer: Yes.
The Witness: That form is the form that’s given me most grief in relation to this Inquiry and it’s not even Horizon related. I don’t remember the form. I think it’s a very old form but, clearly, I’ve sent it out and, on reflection, I shouldn’t have. And I can only apologise. I certainly didn’t mean to cause any offence.
Mr Beer: Thank you.
Sir, there were some questions from Howe+Co.
Questioned by Mr Stein
Mr Stein: Mr Posnett, my name is Sam Stein. I’m just going to ask you a few questions on behalf of the Howe+Co clients. Howe+Co represent a very large number of subpostmasters and mistresses.
I’m going to take you directly, please, to a document that we’ve asked the Inquiry to put up on the screen and be available and it is POL00098520.
If we can go to the second-to-last page, please, of that document – yes, we have it – and scroll down a little bit underneath the “We now have a Spot Review – SR022”.
Mr Posnett, let’s orientate ourselves around this document, just to familiarise yourself with it, because no doubt it’s been a little bit of time since you’ve seen this: 9 June 2013. Okay?
David Posnett: Yeah.
Mr Stein: So this is in the same period of time where you’ve been asked questions by Mr Beer, who has asked you questions today so far, and you are dealing with the Integrity Group at that stage; okay?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Stein: This from Simon Baker, dated 9 June to Andrew Parsons, Andrew Winn, Craig Tuthill, and then yourself and, after that, Gareth Jenkins and others. You’ll see there it says:
“We now have a Spot Review – SR022.”
Going on to say:
“Please can you come to the dial-in on Wednesday having reviewed and your comments on how to approach this one.”
Going to on to say:
“Pete, it would be good if you could join us so we can get the request in to Fujitsu for the XML data, so it is ready for when Gareth when he gets back.”
All right? Can you just try and help us a little bit with what was going on at this stage. When it says, “We now have a Spot Review”, then a number is given, the number appears to relate to a document we’ll see in a minute, but then it goes on to say:
“Please can you come to the dial-in on Wednesday having reviewed and your comments on how to approach this one.”
What was that about? What was this Spot Review about?
David Posnett: Okay, I was asked on the Royal Mail questions whether I had any involvement with Second Sight, and I think my response was I don’t recall being involved with Second Sight, and then I received further documentation that’s spoke about these Spot Reviews, which were in relation to Second Sight. So I completely forgot about those and I don’t remember.
I think my recollection now of the Spot Reviews were there were a selected number of post offices that this group of people were going to review and I think what I did in relation to the cases was obtain the suspect offender report and perhaps the interview summary, so I could speak from a Security perspective at these meetings. I may have cascaded those documents to the people on the call but I can’t remember.
Mr Stein: Okay. If we scroll up, please, to the top of this document, we’ll see then the way that this was dealt with, and you’ll see, Mr Posnett, that you’re at the top.
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Stein: So this is 12 June 2013 and you’ll see then the reference under “Subject” to the documents SR021 and 022, and they’re referred to as attachments. Helping us a little bit in relation to this, from your perspective, who was Simon Baker, Andrew Winn – who was Simon Baker?
David Posnett: Simon Baker, I can’t remember, other than he was a senior manager. Andy Winn worked, I believe, in Product and Branch Accounting and I think his boss was Rod Ismay.
Mr Stein: Then going down we see your title, Accredited Financial Investigator, at the Security Team?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Stein: Your boss being Mr Scott; is that right?
David Posnett: Not my direct boss but he was the Head of Security, yes.
Mr Stein: Head of?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Stein: From your perspective, your most senior boss?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Stein: Right. Just staying for a moment with this, if we go down a little bit further, we’ll see that the reference is, further down that page, from Dave Posnett, sent 10 June to Simon Baker, you’re then referring to, it seems, the documents, and this is – these were issues with scratchcards and problems that related to the use of scratchcards within particular branches. That seems to be what the documents were about?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Stein: Okay. If you go to the second – well, yes, the second main paragraph that starts “I ran a number of intervention/education initiatives”, and then go to the end of that paragraph, which finishes with “There were many out shortages and scratchcard holding concerns that seemed to highlight other problems at branches.”
Do you see that?
David Posnett: Sorry, which paragraph?
Mr Stein: Certainly. So the second page, please, of the document. Go a bit further down, go back up. Right, thank you. If you read down from what you have in front of you, you have three paragraphs there and you’ll see the third paragraph:
“Also in the file is my (then) monthly holdings overview spreadsheet.”
Yes?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Stein: At the end of that paragraph, it says:
“There were many audit shortages and scratchcard holding concerns seemed to relied other problems at branches.”
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Stein: Now, this, therefore, goes back, it seems, to around 2010 period of time, so that’s when you’ll see that this document and your investigation into this area, the problems with scratchcards, seemed to take place. Starting first of all in 2010, when you came across issues such as this, people having problems with the use of scratchcards, that causing – it seems to highlight other problems at branches, what was the system at that stage, 2010? Was there a central place to go and look to see whether other people were having these sorts of problems, was there a central place to report this into so you could see the volume of problems across the system? So 2010, to start off with.
David Posnett: I don’t recall there was a central place to record those sort of problems.
Mr Stein: From your perspective, at this particular time in 2010, can you help us understand why there wasn’t something? Why there wasn’t a library or some way you could establish what was going across the system?
David Posnett: Right.
Mr Stein: Did that not exist?
David Posnett: I don’t believe so. In relation to scratchcards they were an anomaly because I think they were the only stock item that had to be activated on a Lottery terminal before they became value stock and they had to be remmed in. Every other item of stock, from recollection, was just remmed in and it was already there as value stock.
So it was different and I think some subpostmasters struggled to understand that. So, for example, if a branch received £10,000 worth of scratchcards, the idea would be that you activate one pack, £200, to sell, or two packs, £400 to sell. But a subpostmaster might activate the lot, so it’s all of a sudden £10,000 worth of value scratchcards and, if they got stolen, they’re worth a lot of money, whereas, if they weren’t activated, they’re worthless.
Mr Stein: The question I’m asking you – I understand, we can see, in fact, from this document why it is there’s an issue in relation to scratchcards. But when you’re finding problems in the course of your work, my question is: was there a way of establishing a bank of these issues? There must have been some system, is what we’re trying to find out, Mr Posnett.
David Posnett: I don’t know, but the sentence there said “There were many audit shortages and scratchcard holding concerns seemed to highlight other problems at branches”. If there was such a database, it sounds to me like it would be the Audit Team who may have it. But I don’t know, is my answer.
Mr Stein: In relation to such issues as this, when you’re doing the investigation, did you routinely contact the different Area Branch Managers and similar and say “Well, actually this something we’ve encountered”? Was there a way of spreading information amongst the branches, in that sense, within the management of the branches?
David Posnett: Not from my perspective because the Fraud Risk programme that I was running in this case related to scratchcards. The other problems noted came out of audits. So the Audit Team would be aware of these other issues.
Mr Stein: Right. So to the extent that you’re able to help us with that at the moment there’s an issue here of being siloed into different parts of the system?
David Posnett: Yes.
Mr Stein: Okay. Then in 2013, when this is being looked at, you think as part of Second Sight and their investigations –
David Posnett: The Spot Reviews?
Mr Stein: Yeah, the Spot Reviews.
David Posnett: From what I’ve seen and read, yes.
Mr Stein: Had things changed by that point? Had there been a system then established to establish a bank of problems/issues that were uncovered?
David Posnett: I don’t know but, obviously, we’ve seen there was this Horizon Integrity Group here and that one there and that one there. So I don’t know.
Mr Stein: Lastly, as regards Mr Scott, you referred to him earlier in your evidence as being the individual who suggested that notes shouldn’t be kept. You, in fact, discussed this with Mr Singh, saying that – using the word “shred” in relation to getting rid of documentation. Did you take this up with Mr Scott? Did you say, “Mr Scott, sorry, but I think this is not really something that I can possibly do”? Did you challenge him on this?
David Posnett: I didn’t. Number 1, I didn’t find him very engaging; number 2 he didn’t like to be challenged; and number 3 I think there was a sort of culture of fear, hence I opted to tell Mr Singh.
Mr Stein: When you say “a culture of fear”, are you talking about, on the one hand, being directly threatened, or are you talking about another type of fear?
David Posnett: Not directly threatened, but you didn’t want to get on the wrong side of him.
Mr Stein: What would he do to you?
David Posnett: Well, my last year in Security was a nightmare. I thought I was being bullied and harassed. I think I know where that was coming from but I could never prove it, and I think I was – a number of people over the years who left Security, or who were, in effect, forced to leave Security.
Mr Stein: Not exactly a way to manage security concerns so that people feel that they can raise concerns or difficulties, or challenge authority or, indeed, ensure that there’s an honest and competent response by the Post Office, agreed?
David Posnett: I agree but that is my take on it.
Mr Stein: One moment, please.
Thank you, Mr Posnett.
David Posnett: Thank you.
Sir Wyn Williams: Anyone else?
Mr Beer: No, sir.
Sir Wyn Williams: Well, thank you, Mr Posnett, for giving evidence to me over two days. Admittedly, yesterday was a bit shorter but it was still a fairly hefty session. So thank you very much for answering so many questions and thank you also for your detailed witness statement, which provoked so many questions.
The Witness: Thank you, sir.
Sir Wyn Williams: We will adjourn now and start again at 10.00, yes?
Mr Beer: Yes, that’s right, sir.
Sir Wyn Williams: Thank you.
Mr Beer: Thank you very much, sir.
(3.50 pm)
(The hearing adjourned until 10.00 am the following day)