20 December 2023 – Lisa Allen
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(10.00 am)
Ms Price: Good morning, sir. Can you see and hear us?
Sir Wyn Williams: I can. Thank you very much.
Ms Price: May we please call Ms Allen.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes.
Lisa Allen
LISA JANE ALLEN (affirmed).
Questioned by Ms Price
Ms Price: Could you confirm your full name, please, Ms Allen.
Lisa Allen: Lisa Jane Allen.
Ms Price: You should have in front of you a hard copy of a witness statement in your name dated 27 October 2023. If you could turn to page 33 of that, please.
Lisa Allen: Yes, that’s it.
Ms Price: Do you have a copy with a visible signature?
Lisa Allen: I do.
Ms Price: Is that your signature?
Lisa Allen: Yes, it is.
Ms Price: At the time you made your statement, there were three documents which were referenced in the request for a statement sent to you by the Inquiry, but had not been provided to you. They are the three document references marked in red in your statement. I understand these three documents have since been provided to you; is that right?
Lisa Allen: That’s correct.
Ms Price: Are there any corrections you wish to make to your statement, having had sight of those documents?
Lisa Allen: No.
Ms Price: Are there any corrections you wish to make to your statement in light of your consideration of other documents provided by the Inquiry since the making of your statement?
Lisa Allen: No.
Ms Price: Are the contents of your statement true to the best of your knowledge and belief?
Lisa Allen: They are.
Ms Price: For the purposes of the transcript, the document reference for the statement is WITN08920100.
Thank you for coming to the Inquiry to assist it in its work and for providing the witness statement that you have. As you know, I will be asking questions on behalf of the Inquiry.
You joined the Post Office in 1986 as a Postal Officer working within the Crown Office Network; is that right?
Lisa Allen: That’s correct.
Ms Price: In April 1995 you became an Assistant Branch Manager?
Lisa Allen: That’s correct.
Ms Price: With the exception of a short secondment providing administrative support to Retail Line Managers, you stayed in that role until July 2000; is that right?
Lisa Allen: That’s correct.
Ms Price: At which point you joined the Security Team as an Investigation Manager?
Lisa Allen: I did.
Ms Price: Is it right that that role involved investigating criminal offences against the business and its assets?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: You explain that your role was at one point a multi-skilled role, whereby you did some physical security work.
Lisa Allen: That’s right.
Ms Price: Physical security work related to advising on external crime risk from threats such as burglary and robbery; is that right?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: But the role went back to being a purely investigative one by the time you left the Post Office in April 2012?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: In April 2012, you transferred to the Royal Mail Investigation Team where you remain employed; is that right?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: You say in your statement at paragraph 4 that, when you were first working on the counter in Post Office branches, balancing of stock units was done on a weekly basis and was completed manually by producing a balance sheet of summarised daily and weekly transactions, but in August 1992 you transferred to a branch where a computerised system had already been implemented; is that right?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: What were the systems that you used between August 1992 and July 2000 when you became an Investigation Manager?
Lisa Allen: Sorry, what systems I used?
Ms Price: You talked about computerised systems that you were using from 1992 –
Lisa Allen: Oh, sorry –
Ms Price: – in your statement. What were those computerised systems?
Lisa Allen: There was ECCO and ALPS, which I think stood for “All London Post Offices”.
Ms Price: How did the use of those computer systems change the process for balancing?
Lisa Allen: It was basically – it was computerised, so where you would manually write down deposits and things on manual sheets, the computer would print them all out for you, so you would enter it onto the computer and, at the end of the day, you would run off a summary, as opposed to manually add a summary up.
Ms Price: Did you ever work on the counter in a branch where the Horizon system was being rolled out?
Lisa Allen: No.
Ms Price: When you were working on the counter, did you know anyone who worked in a branch where Horizon was being rolled out?
Lisa Allen: I was – I had friends in the post offices that worked with the Horizon system.
Ms Price: But at the stage in 2000, before you became an Investigation Manager, did you know anyone who was in a branch where the Horizon system was being rolled out?
Lisa Allen: I wasn’t aware of anyone, no.
Ms Price: Were you aware of any Post Office staff or subpostmasters experiencing difficulties in using the Horizon system when it was first introduced?
Lisa Allen: I wasn’t, no.
Ms Price: Were you aware of any Post Office staff or subpostmasters feeling that their training on the Horizon system was insufficient?
Lisa Allen: I don’t recall, no.
Ms Price: Were you made aware of any such issues when you were an Investigation Manager, about the rollout period?
Lisa Allen: I don’t recall the rollout period, so I’d have to say no.
Ms Price: When you became an Investigation Manager, did you have any prior experience in criminal investigation or criminal law?
Lisa Allen: No, I never.
Ms Price: In terms of process, you applied for an Investigator role within the Royal Mail business and when you were successful in your application you were allocated to Post Office Limited, based on your experience on post office counters; is that right?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: You say in your statement at paragraph 11 that when you began your role as an Investigation Manager, you completed a three-week residential training course?
Lisa Allen: I did.
Ms Price: Was that for both Post Office and Royal Mail Investigators?
Lisa Allen: Yes, it was a joint course run for new recruits at that time.
Ms Price: You describe the people who delivered the training in your statement as being members of the Royal Mail training team. Michael Matthews is one of those people. Was the training team made up of Royal Mail, as opposed to Post Office, Investigators?
Lisa Allen: The training was delivered by Royal Mail trainers, yes.
Ms Price: You recall sitting an exam at the end of the course; is that right?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: You set out a non-exhaustive list of the topics that training covered at paragraph 13 of your statement. That list includes: commencement of an investigation; approaching suspects; interviewing; searches; statement taking; the completion of Royal Mail forms; the Police and Criminal Evidence Act; definition of offences; report writing; and notebook entries. Have you listed those topics because you recall them featuring on the course?
Lisa Allen: Yes, I think so.
Ms Price: Do you recall the topic of disclosure in criminal prosecutions being covered on that initial three-week course?
Lisa Allen: No, I don’t.
Ms Price: You do recall covering the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. Do you recall covering the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 on that initial course?
Lisa Allen: I don’t, no.
Ms Price: Do you recall covering the Code of Practice to that Act?
Lisa Allen: No.
Ms Price: You say at paragraph 14 of your statement that you undertook a court workshop in March 2002 to understand the legal proceedings and guidance on giving evidence at court?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: You also recall human rights training?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: You also refer at paragraph 15 of your statement to a financial investigation course you did in March 2011?
Lisa Allen: That’s correct.
Ms Price: Did you receive any refresher training on the conduct of criminal investigations between doing your initial training in 2000 and moving to Royal Mail in 2012?
Lisa Allen: I don’t recall any but that doesn’t mean that we didn’t have it. But I don’t recall it.
Ms Price: Were you given any training on the Horizon system when you became an Investigation Manager?
Lisa Allen: I was. I don’t actually remember the training myself. I believe it would have been probably just one day, more for – because I was obviously counter trained, I had the knowledge of performing transactions, which probably didn’t vary very much from one computer system to the other, but obviously for – maybe for balancing or other – printing off other reports that I might not be aware of, I think I was given one day’s training.
Ms Price: Were you ever given any training on Horizon from the point of view of an Investigator, looking at Horizon data in the course of an investigation?
Lisa Allen: No.
Ms Price: When you became an Investigation Manager in 2000, you recall that Tony Marsh was Head of Security for Post Office Limited; is that right?
Lisa Allen: He was.
Ms Price: You recall that he was replaced by John Scott after a short period when Tony Utting was temporary Head of Security?
Lisa Allen: Yes. Can I also add, in between Tony Marsh and Tony Utting there was also Phil Gerrish.
Ms Price: You identify at paragraph 27 of your statement five strands within the Security Team, which were Physical Security, Information Security, Commercial Security, Fraud risk and Security Operations.
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: Dealing first with the Information Security strand, you say at paragraph 27 that this team, headed up by Richard Barber, managed IT issues relating to systems in place at the Post Office and their compliance. You give an example of ensuring the systems were payment card industry compliant.
Lisa Allen: Yeah.
Ms Price: Did you understand the Information Security strand to have knowledge of the Horizon system and any issues relating to it?
Lisa Allen: I did not, no.
Ms Price: Did that team ever provide the Security Operations strand with any updates relating to the Horizon system?
Lisa Allen: Not to my knowledge.
Ms Price: Did you have regular tact with anyone in the Information Security Team?
Lisa Allen: We was all based within the same office, a big, large, open-planned office but we didn’t really interact, as such, with them, no.
Ms Price: Who did you ask if you wanted information relating to the working of the Horizon system?
Lisa Allen: We would go to the Casework Manager, who was a single point of contact, I suppose, for Fujitsu and I think they would approach Fujitsu requesting whatever information it was we was after.
Ms Price: You address the Security Operations strand at paragraph 28 of your statement. Could we have that on screen, please. It is page 10 of WITN08920100. You say at paragraph 28:
“When I joined the Security Team around July 2000, I believe there were 7 teams within this strand which I think was known as the Investigation Team. I believe the name changed to Security Operations upon John Scott heading up the Security Team. Each team consisted of around 6 Investigators and one team leader. Between 2000 and 2012 when I left the business, there had been numerous headcount reduction exercises. This reduced the teams over the years eventually to 3 teams with 3 team leaders and around 18 Investigators.”
Could we have on screen, please, document reference POL00166566. This is an email from Tony Marsh, the Head of Security at the time. It is dated 17 October 2003. It goes to a long list of recipients, including you, if we can scroll down a little, please. We see, three lines up from the bottom, your name there as a recipient.
Lisa Allen: Yeah.
Ms Price: Going over the page, please. The body of the email starts towards the bottom of the page. It says this:
“Dear Colleague
“As you will be aware from recent communications from both the Chief Executive, David Mills and the personnel director, Ian Anderson, Post Office Ltd must make further headcount reductions to support Royal Mail Group in its drive back to sustainable profitability.
“As part of this exercise the Security Team was asked to review its structure and to establish what further savings it could make and what the impact of these would be on its key customers and stakeholders.
“The Security Lead Team and I examined a number of options and came to the conclusion that the structure could be further streamlined in the following ways …”
The first two points are:
“Collapsing the Risk and Commercial Security function into the Internal and External Crime functions, thus saving a Senior Manager post.
“Removing the Training and Support Manager role, formerly within the Risk and Commercial Security area, with the remaining functions taking direct responsibility for provision of professional training and liaison with communications, thus saving a CM1 post.”
Then there are two further cuts affecting non-Internal Crime functions and, the fifth bullet point, the following cut is identified, “Removing the following support jobs”, and among those is Internal Crime two of the five – apologies, two of the four, thus saving four Post Office posts.
The remaining bullet points address the collapsing of the Risk and Commercial Security functions and, further down the page, some changes affecting the Audit function are discussed.
Over the page, please. The first paragraph says this:
“There is no suggestion that any of the jobs that have been removed were superfluous. Each job added value to the team in its own way and for each one the team will need to be open to exploring different ways of working to absorb the loss. We have calculated however that with the removal of these jobs we can make savings which will not immediately impact on the service that we provide to our customers, primarily the Retail and Cash Logistics frontline, Sales and Marketing teams, subpostmasters and branch staff.”
Is this one example of one of the numerous headcount reduction exercises to which you refer in your statement?
Lisa Allen: Yes, it is.
Ms Price: What impact did the numerous headcount reduction exercises have on the workload of Security Operations Investigators?
Lisa Allen: I suppose there was less staff to do the same amount of work. Maybe the trigger points may have changed to reduce the amount of cases that we would investigate but, obviously, we were quite busy because the headcount was reducing.
Ms Price: What impact, if any, did the numerous headcount reduction exercises have on the quality of security operations and investigations?
Lisa Allen: I’m not sure it would have had an effect on the quality. Casework – the cases should have been going through a compliance check, so they should have still met the standard. It was just we were probably having more cases to deal with than normally, possibly.
Ms Price: Did your own workload ever prevent you from following further lines of inquiry or gathering further evidence in an investigation you were conducting?
Lisa Allen: Not that I’m aware of.
Ms Price: Do you recall there being any time frame within which you were expected to produce your legal report for the Criminal Law Team after a case was allocated to you?
Lisa Allen: There probably was timescales but I don’t recall what those were.
Ms Price: You say at paragraph 29 of your statement that the Financial Investigation Team also sat within the Security Operations strand; is that right?
Lisa Allen: They did, yes.
Ms Price: Then at paragraph 30 of your statement, you address the work of the Casework Team. Could we have that on screen, please. That’s page 10 of the statement. You say, starting at paragraph 30:
“Also within this strand was the Casework Team, originally based in London. I can recall Brian Sharkey, Graham Ward, Dave Posnett and Jason Collins working within this unit at various times, until it was relocated to Manchester and Jane Owens became the manager (date unknown).
“The London Casework Team managed the case papers between the Investigator and the Legal Services. They were also responsible for amongst other things for compliance checks on the files, requesting Fujitsu data, dealing with Post Office Card Account enquiries and raising cases. This may be as a result of an audit shortage or if information had been received where suspected criminal offences had taken place.
“I cannot recall the responsibilities of Jane Owen once the Casework Team transferred other than being the Fujitsu liaison point and Post Office Card Account enquiries. I do not think she had the relevant experience to compliance check the case papers.”
You refer here to the Casework Team being the Fujitsu liaison point. Is it right therefore that any request you made for Horizon data from Fujitsu went through this team?
Lisa Allen: That’s correct, yes.
Ms Price: You address the process which was followed after an audit identified an apparent shortfall, starting at paragraph 40 of your statement. Could we have that on screen, please. It is page 12. Do you say at paragraph 40:
“After an audit shortage had been reported to the Security Casework Team it would be assessed as to whether a case should be raised. If a case was raised then it was allocated to the Team Leader for that area. The Team Leader would then assess what response was required and if necessary allocate it to an Investigator. An Investigator would attend the office and try to establish the facts and identify if a suspected criminal offence had or had not taken place. They would identify persons of interest to the investigation. If a suspect was identified they would be cautioned and depending on the circumstances request voluntary searches and attendance at interview.”
You deal with the steps which would be taken once a case had been raised at paragraph 44 of the statement, which is on page 14. You say:
“Once a case had been raised and assigned to an Investigator the stakeholder (Contracts Manager) would be informed that the investigation had been assigned to them for further enquiries to be made. Contact made with the informant to establish the facts and consideration given to obtaining a witness statement. Intelligence gathered on the subject and a risk assessment performed should searches be required. Evidence collected to support/undermine the investigation by attending the office and retaining documentation. Consideration given to advising the Financial Investigators of the loss. Contact made with the subject either in person or on the phone seeking an explanation. Arrange interview under caution if suspected criminal offence.”
When you refer here to attending the office and attaining documentation, are you referring to the Horizon reports which could be printed from the counter in the branch?
Lisa Allen: Yes, documents that are on hand that have already been printed or provided by the – if it was an audit shortage, the Audit Team.
Ms Price: S you were looking at the record of the cash and stock which the counter-printed Horizon reports said should be in the branch, against the record of what the Auditors had actually found to be held in the branch; is that right?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: Where there was a difference between these two records, an apparent shortfall, did you consider that this alone was sufficient evidence of a criminal offence to proceed to an interview under caution of a subpostmaster or branch staff member?
Lisa Allen: I think it would depend on the circumstances on what the subpostmaster has said to us. So each case was on its own merits, really. So it may be that there might be an explanation for it, in which case there wouldn’t be an interview; or it may be that they’ve admitted to something, in which case there would be an interview under caution.
Ms Price: What about where someone hadn’t admitted something and had given an explanation that you didn’t, on face value, accept? Would there still be an interview in those circumstances?
Lisa Allen: Possibly, taking into – other factors that might have been evidence of false accounting or something along those lines.
Ms Price: Could we have the next page on screen, please, paragraph 45. Here you say this:
“Case papers were submitted to Legal Services for advice as to whether a case was suitable for a prosecution. The Lawyer allocated the case would decide if there was sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction. If Legal Services recommended a prosecution then the case papers were sent to the Designated Prosecution Authority to decide if a prosecution proceeded. On authority from the DPA the legal process would commence.”
Who acted as the Designated Prosecution Authority?
Lisa Allen: It was a senior manager within the Investigation Team.
Ms Price: Did an Investigator conducting the relevant investigation have any input into the decision as to whether someone should be prosecuted?
Lisa Allen: No.
Ms Price: Could we have on screen, please, paragraph 42 of Ms Allen’s statement, that is page 13. Here you say this:
“The contracts investigation would run independent of the investigation case. However, if the Contracts Manager decided that they would accept a repayment of a loss and not suspended the subpostmaster, then a criminal investigation would not ensue.”
Was a subpostmaster having made good an apparent shortfall therefore a material factor in decisions about whether that subpostmaster should be criminally investigated?
Lisa Allen: No, I don’t believe it was.
Ms Price: How does your answer fit with that paragraph in your statement, that if the Contracts Manager decided that they would accept a repayment of a loss and not suspend the subpostmaster, then a criminal investigation would not ensue?
Lisa Allen: Well, I don’t think it would be right to prosecute somebody who we was employing.
Ms Price: So is it the fact of not suspending them, rather than the repayment, that you’re referring to there as to why a criminal investigation would not ensue?
Lisa Allen: Yes, if the Contract Manager thought they were fit to still serve as a subpostmaster and be employed, then we would not obviously prosecute. It wouldn’t be right to prosecute somebody who we was employing.
Ms Price: As far as you were aware, was repayment of an apparent shortfall a material factor in decisions about whether that subpostmaster or branch subpostmaster, should be prosecuted?
Lisa Allen: I don’t think so because people were still prosecuted who had made full repayment.
Ms Price: Going over two pages, please, to paragraph 46. You say here:
“I do not recall the Contracts Manager having any input into the decision.”
This is decision making about prosecution, in terms of the context of the question you’re answering:
“However, if the Contracts Manager decided to reinstate the subpostmaster then a prosecution would not be deemed appropriate and would not proceed.”
Why would a prosecution not be deemed appropriate and not proceed in these circumstances?
Lisa Allen: Well, it’s the same answer as before, really. If – I don’t think we could prosecute somebody who we was employing. If it was that serious, then I think the Contracts Manager would have at least suspended, if not dismissed, and then we would have proceeded with a prosecution.
Ms Price: Do you ever recall a Contract Manager reinstating a subpostmaster and a prosecution decision being changed as a result of that?
Lisa Allen: I don’t, no.
Ms Price: In principle, who would reassess the position in relation to the prosecution in these circumstances?
Lisa Allen: Well, I think if an investigation was raised and the Contract Manager reinstated the subpostmaster, then that – the case wouldn’t go no further. It would just be no further action. So I would imagine that possibly the Team Leader.
Ms Price: What about in circumstances where the Criminal Law Team had already provided advice, for example, to proceed with the prosecution?
Lisa Allen: I don’t ever recall a case getting that far.
Ms Price: To the extent that you can say, where no further action was taken on a criminal investigation, would a subpostmaster or branch staff member who had been suspended be reinstated in those circumstances?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: Could we have on screen, please, paragraph 34 of Ms Allen’s statement. It is page 11. In paragraph 34, you say:
“We adhered to PACE 1984, Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996, Human Rights Act 2000, Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, Data Protection Act 1998.”
You go on at paragraph 35 to say:
“There were also a number of RMG policies within our databases that we adhered to.”
The databases you refer to here, were they Royal Mail Group databases or a Post Office database or databases?
Lisa Allen: They was all held by Royal Mail Group.
Ms Price: How would an Investigator access this database or databases?
Lisa Allen: I believe we had a Corporate Security database on the intranet, so everything was listed on there: communications, the policies, et cetera.
Ms Price: The legislation you refer to at paragraph 34, where would an Investigator find copies of that legislation if they wished to refer to any of the legislation referred to?
Lisa Allen: On the Corporate Security database. We were provided with PACE books and the CPIA books. But the majority of the stuff we could find, it was on the Royal Mail Group Corporate Security database.
Ms Price: Could we have on screen, please, paragraph 22 of Ms Allen’s statement. That is page 5. Under the heading of “Disclosure in criminal or civil proceedings”, you say:
“In all cases where I was Officer in the Case, I was also the Disclosure Officer. My role as the Disclosure Officer was to retain, record and reveal any material that may assist the defence or undermine the prosecution case. I was responsible for completing the disclosure schedules and for conducting all reasonable lines of inquiry.”
At the time you were an Investigator with the Post Office, did you understand that the Disclosure Officer role was a distinct role which you held over and above your role as an Investigator?
Lisa Allen: I knew I was signing the documentation as the Disclosure Officer because that’s what it says on the form. Whether or not I’ve properly understood, I’m not 100 per cent sure.
Ms Price: Did you understand that holding that role imposed upon you additional and distinct duties?
Lisa Allen: I knew I had to obviously record, retain and reveal information, and I had a duty to do that, and it was an ongoing duty. That was my understanding, probably at that time.
Ms Price: At the point of submitting your report to Legal Services for advice on charge and prosecution, what documentation would you provide to the Legal Team?
Lisa Allen: Sorry, when I sent my report –
Ms Price: When you produced your legal report for the Criminal Law Team, having done your initial investigation – and we’ll come to an example of one of those reports later – at that stage, what documentation would you provide to the Legal Team, apart from that report itself?
Lisa Allen: Taped summary, any witness statements that had been taken, any evidence from those witness statements, the disclosure documents, NPA forms, antecedents, I believe.
Ms Price: When you say “disclosure documents”, do you mean that disclosure schedules were provided –
Lisa Allen: Yes, sorry.
Ms Price: – at that stage?
Lisa Allen: Yeah. Yes. I think – yeah, they would have been put in the jacket at that time.
Ms Price: Was it at that stage, as opposed to at the point of doing the committal bundle?
Lisa Allen: It may have been at the committal, actually. When we – I think it was when I would have done the committal bundle, actually.
Ms Price: You refer at paragraph 22 of your statement to conducting all reasonable lines of inquiry. You also address lines of inquiry at paragraph 55 of your statement. Could we have that on screen, please. It’s page 17. You say at 55:
“An Investigator should take steps to make all reasonable lines of inquiry under CPIA that points to or away from the suspect.”
The question you were responding to here relates to instructions, guidance and/or training on the duty to investigate a case fully. You don’t, in your answer there, identify any instructions, guidance or training. When you were a Post Office Investigator, were you ever given any instruction, guidance or training about what following a line of inquiry, pointing away from a suspect, might mean in practice?
Lisa Allen: I don’t recall any specific training given to it, but I can give an example of a case where I think the subpostmistress may have been arrested in relation to a big giro, a green giro fraud. Having interviewed her and her giving the explanation, I obviously went away and made some enquiries to from what she’d said interview and identified that she’d been actually targeted by an organised crime group.
She was subsequently reinstated but, obviously, given further training on how to identify manipulated green Giro cheques. So yes, I think we did – or I did investigate to the best of my ability.
Ms Price: My question related to instructions, guidance and training. You’ve given an example of what you did in practice, but just going back to the question: you don’t recall being given any instruction, guidance or training on that?
Lisa Allen: I don’t, no.
Ms Price: Would you accept that fully investigating a suspected theft required an Investigator to be satisfied that an apparent shortfall represented an actual financial loss to the Post Office?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: When you were an Investigator, were you aware that the obligation to pursue lines of inquiry pointing away from a suspect extended to material in the hands of a third party, for example Fujitsu?
Lisa Allen: Yes, I think so.
Ms Price: Could we have on screen, please, page 21 of Ms Allen’s statement. In response to a question about whether ARQ data was requested from Fujitsu – if we can scroll down a little further, please.
So paragraph 74 is your response to a question about whether ARQ data was requested from Fujitsu, as a matter of course, in cases where subpostmasters were attributing a shortfall to problems with Horizon. You say in response:
“I cannot recall if it was requested as a matter of course.”
Exploring that a bit further, please, do you accept, having seen the papers which have been provided to you by the Inquiry, that you were involved in a number of cases where subpostmasters were attributing shortfalls to problems with the Horizon system?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: In such cases, would you accept that it was a reasonable line of inquiry to seek more detailed audit data from Fujitsu to explore whether further data might support what the subpostmaster was saying?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: Going over the page, please, to paragraph 75. When you were asked whether ARQ data obtained from Fujitsu was provided to a subpostmaster as a matter of course, you say:
“ARQ data obtained was not provided as a matter of course but was retained for providing to the defence upon request.”
Taking this in stages, would any ARQ data which had been obtained as part of the initial investigation be provided to the Criminal Law Team at the point that they were advising on charge and prosecution?
Lisa Allen: I don’t know. Sometimes maybe but not all the time, I wouldn’t have thought.
Ms Price: Why not, in cases where it wasn’t?
Lisa Allen: Maybe it wasn’t obtained at that time, it was –
Ms Price: But where it had been obtained by an Investigator, why would it not have been provided to the Criminal Law Team at the point they were advising on charging and prosecution?
Lisa Allen: I don’t know.
Ms Price: On the question of what was provided to the Criminal Law Team, we’ve touched on whether disclosure schedules themselves were provided at the point of charge and prosecution and I think you were saying it may well have been at the committal bundle stage. But in terms of material that you had collected in the course of your investigation, quite apart from the any ARQ data, how much of the material were you providing to the Criminal Law Team? Was it everything? Was it select documents?
Lisa Allen: It was probably documents that had been potentially exhibited within the statements, or documents that were going to be relied upon if a prosecution was authorised.
Ms Price: Could we have on screen, please, document reference POL00141170. Starting about halfway down the page, please, there is an email from Juliet McFarlane – apologies, from you to Juliet McFarlane, and it relates to the Jerry Hosi case. It is dated 21 January 2010 and it appears, on the face of this, that you are providing comment on a number of disclosure requests made by the defence in this case.
I know this is one of a number of documents provided to you quite recently. Have you had a chance to have a look thorough this document?
Lisa Allen: Briefly.
Ms Price: Focusing, please, just on point 4, to start with, you say:
“The full Fujitsu Data can be provided but who would pick up the cost? I am not sure what the benefit would be for obtaining the full data. We could provide a sample of a time specified by the defence to allow the Accountant to gain understanding of the system etc.”
Picking up, first of all, on the second and third sentences here, you seem to be expressing some doubt about the utility of obtaining the full Fujitsu data, as you describe it. Was your understanding at the time that the sole purpose further Fujitsu data might serve was that it could help an accountant to gain an understanding of the system?
Lisa Allen: I mean, obviously they wanted to do their own analysis on the documents – on the data, but yes, it looks like that. It is for the accountant to gain understanding of the system. That’s how that reads.
Ms Price: Were you ever given any training or instruction on the differences between Horizon data available from the counter in a branch, and later, Credence data, on the one hand, and the data held by Fujitsu as part of the audit trail, on the other?
Lisa Allen: I was aware of both Credence and data from Fujitsu. It varied. It was slightly different.
Ms Price: How did you understand it to be different?
Lisa Allen: The layout of how it was laid out was different. I think on the Credence data it gave you the explanation or the – instead of the product look-up number, PLU number of an item, it gave you a description, where number 1 would be cash it would say, “Cash”, so it’s easier to understand.
I think it only went back 90 days. I think it was just the same data presented in a different way.
Ms Price: Were you aware that there was a difference between the standard ARQ request and the full data held by Fujitsu?
Lisa Allen: I wasn’t aware there was a difference but I was aware that you could – I requested some data for an office, and I needed the Special Delivery numbers, and the address that was entered into the system at the time of posting. The data came back, and it came back without that information. So I had to resubmit it to get this data. So I did know that there was extra data you could get but I didn’t know, obviously, to what extent.
Ms Price: Did you know that more information could be gleaned from the data held by Fujitsu than could be from the counter printouts or the Credence data?
Lisa Allen: No.
Ms Price: Did you know that there was more information in an enhanced request than the standard ARQ request I’ve just referred to?
Lisa Allen: I didn’t know there was an enhanced data request.
Ms Price: Does it follow that you didn’t know that an enhanced interrogation of the audit trail could show when a transaction or event had been performed by the system, when Credence could show it had been performed by a subpostmaster or branch staff member?
Lisa Allen: No.
Ms Price: Do you think you would have benefited from being trained in the types of Fujitsu data which were available and what they could show?
Lisa Allen: I do, yes.
Ms Price: Could we have back on screen, please, POL00141170 – ah, it’s still there.
Picking up the first sentence in point 4:
“The full Fujitsu data can be provided but who would pick up the cost?”
Did you consider at the time that the cost of obtaining data from Fujitsu was a relevant factor when deciding whether it should be obtained and disclosed?
Lisa Allen: The problem with Fujitsu data was that we was limited to a number of requests, so if I had put in a request for the full data, it would have been refused. So I was limited to picking a particular period to be able to provide that data.
Ms Price: You refer in your witness statement at paragraph 78 to a quota of requests for ARQ data; is that what you’re referring to?
Lisa Allen: It is, yeah.
Ms Price: That was a quota placed on ARQ data requests made of Fujitsu which would be met without additional cost; is that right?
Lisa Allen: That’s right, yes.
Ms Price: Was this something you were conscious of when deciding whether to seek ARQ data from Fujitsu as part of an investigation you were conducting?
Lisa Allen: Yes, probably, because if I’d have submitted the request for the full lot, I know it would have been refused because every 30 days would have taken up one request. So even if you wanted a full month, 31 days, that would have been two requests. So, yes, I suppose we was conscious of the requests we were putting in.
Ms Price: Was the quota widely known about within the Investigation Team?
Lisa Allen: I believe it was, yes.
Ms Price: Who was responsible for deciding whether to retrieve Horizon data from Fujitsu and does the answer to that depend on the stage that the case had reached?
Lisa Allen: Quite possibly, yes.
Ms Price: So at the initial investigation stage, was it the Investigator conducting the investigation who decided?
Lisa Allen: It was, yes.
Ms Price: Once the decision had been made to prosecute, whose decision was it then?
Lisa Allen: If a direction had been given from counsel maybe, or the solicitor, or from the defence, if they’d requested some particular period, then, obviously, that would have been applied for.
Ms Price: In general terms, is it right that ARQ data was only obtained as a last resort?
Lisa Allen: I wouldn’t say as a last resort. I think it was in most cases some form of data was requested, but obviously due to the amount of requests we had, we were limited to what we could ask for.
Ms Price: Before we move on from this document, looking at point 7 at the bottom, please, you say this:
“We do not have the facility to make any adjustment to the cash balance. We can only send a TC …”
Transaction correction; is that right?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: “… which when accepted will affect the cash figure.”
Lisa Allen: Yeah.
Ms Price: Were you aware at the time, or any other time when you were an Investigator for the Post Office, that there was facility for Fujitsu to alter a branch value at the counter of the branch without the branch knowing?
Lisa Allen: Absolutely not.
Ms Price: Thank you. That document can come down.
Sir Wyn Williams: Can I just ask you, Ms Allen, I think on two occasions in answer to Ms Price’s questions, you said that, if you had asked for a full set of ARQ data – they may not be the precise words but you know what I mean – it would have been refused. Who would have refused you? Do you mean by that, Fujitsu wouldn’t have supplied it or do you mean by that that the person responsible in the Post Office for asking for the data, would have refused to ask for it?
Lisa Allen: The person who I would have submitted the request to, who was dealing with that – the Fujitsu contract at the time, they would have refused it and sent it back and said, “Can you ask for – we’ve only got so many quotas left this month, can you either hold on until next month or can a just submit less requests?”
Sir Wyn Williams: Remind me again, what was the job title of that person who’d be making that decision?
Lisa Allen: That would have been the Casework Manager, I believe.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, that’s it. Thank you.
Yes, thank you very much.
Ms Price: Thank you, sir.
Where someone was attributing shortfalls to a problem with the Horizon system, did you, as a matter of course, check if there was any history of problems with the Horizon system being reported by the relevant branch?
Lisa Allen: We would have obtained the call logs from the National Business – NBSC and from the Horizon Service Helpdesk.
Ms Price: Would you have done that as a matter of course in every case?
Lisa Allen: I believe so.
Ms Price: Even at the stage of an initial investigation?
Lisa Allen: Possibly not at the initial investigation, obviously depending on the circumstances.
Ms Price: Was there any one team within the Post Office of which an enquiry could be made about whether there was a history of reporting of problems with the Horizon system, bearing in mind that there were different relevant helplines?
Lisa Allen: The subpostmaster should always have reported any issues into the NBSC. So any issues they’d identified should have been recorded at that point.
Ms Price: I’d like to turn, please, to your involvement in the criminal investigation and prosecution of Suzanne Palmer. You deal with your involvement in the case from paragraph 84 of your statement.
Is it right that you first became involved following an audit of Mrs Palmer’s branch on 3 February 2006, which recorded an apparent shortage in the branch of £14,700?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: You say you would have attended the branch that day and spoken to Mrs Palmer –
Lisa Allen: I believe so, yes.
Ms Price: – and made arrangements for an interview under caution to take place on 6 February 2006?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: Is it right that Lester Chine acted as Second Officer in the case for the purposes of that interview?
Lisa Allen: He did.
Ms Price: Could we have on screen, please, paragraph 90 of Ms Allen’s statement. That is page 26. You say here:
“I do not recall specifically any issues relating to the reliability of the Horizon system. I have considered doc (POL00053009) [which is the record of tape recorded interview] and Mrs Palmer does comment within the interview (tape 1) on the system going down and causing a loss in which she repaid and some other issues where the system is offline. I do not recall whether this issue was recorded on any Helpdesk logs and I am unable to recall if further enquiries were made.”
So, although you do not now recall Horizon issues being raised by Mrs Palmer, you accept, do you, that, looking at the record of taped interview, she did raise Horizon issues interview with you?
Lisa Allen: I think she raised one issue in relation to the system going down in August 2005, and she referred in another part of the interview to the losses being £100 up or £100 down, which I took to mean that one week she was £100 over and the next week she was £100 short, which could have been the result maybe as not counting the cash properly. As an ex-counter clerk, it happened to me, so that was my understanding of it.
Ms Price: If we could look, please, at the transcript of that first tape from the interview, which took place on 6 February 2006. The document reference is POL00069058.
Mrs Palmer declined to have a solicitor or a friend present; is that right?
Lisa Allen: That’s correct.
Ms Price: Could we go, please, to page 7 of this document. About two-thirds of the way down the page, Moderator 1, is that you, where we see “Moderator 1” in the transcript? We have Moderator 1 and Moderator 2?
Lisa Allen: Yes, I think that’s me, yes.
Ms Price: You refer to some sheets which Mrs Palmer had given you on Friday –
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: – that was the day of the audit, was it?
Lisa Allen: I believe so.
Ms Price: Mrs Palmer says:
“Okay, so, the cash is this.”
You say:
“Right, if I could just, for the purpose of the tape, explain, these are A4 sheets of paper, they’re listed from Thursday to Wednesday and then we’ve got a breakdown of all the notes and coin. It’s written in pencil and there are – “
Suzanne Palmer says:
“They’re just, as we do them every evening. The top here is scratchcards.”
You say:
“You’re putting ‘S’ and ‘M’. Scratchcards?
Mrs Palmer says:
“Because that was, they sent me bundles of error notices that they asked me to go through and they said they needed them put – and I never agreed with them. I phoned several hundred, million times. Well, no … eight.
You say:
“So, on this particular sheet which, it’s not data or anything, you’re pointing to –
“That is scratchcards”, Mrs Palmer says.
You say:
“Scratchcards and it says £2,500?
“Yes, and that was an error note and they told me I had to put them through. I didn’t agree with them but she said they had to go through the system. So, I just wrote them as ‘odds’ because I wanted somebody to come and sort it out with me, but that’s been going on a little while.”
Just pausing there, Mrs Palmer was telling you that she had noted at the time on the records that she disagreed with the error notices she was receiving and she wanted someone to come and sort it out for her, wasn’t she?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: Then you ask:
“How long has that been going on?”
She says:
“I can’t think. Because I haven’t been in the post office, I can’t think how far long it went back.
“Has it gone months or weeks?
“Yes, months.
“Months?”
Mrs Palmer says:
“What they were, they were error notices. They said they had been activated. Then they sent me reams of paper and I tried add to sort it at. I tried to I think them several times but, obviously, they’re only there 9.00 until 5.00 and I’m in the post office. I mean, I’ve got all … Sorry.”
She says:
“I just can’t believe this. Sorry. So, I just wrote it like “Oh, well, it’s written every time. It’s all’ –
“So, have you brought the error notices to account, is that what you’ve done?”, is your question.
The reply:
“I’ve brought them to account because they’ve told me to. There’s no question. So, I just put them through but there is nobody to contact now. When Nick Kerr came, he’s the guy. I used to speak to Deirdre South, she was there, but then they said that she doesn’t deal with that any more. There is actually nobody. You have to dial through to the – “
Moderator 2, is that Mr Chine?
Lisa Allen: Yeah.
Ms Price: “Helpline?”
You said:
“Helpline at the FBC?”
What does “FBC” stand for?
Lisa Allen: I think that should be NBSC.
Ms Price: The response:
“Yes, then they couldn’t help me. Then when the office was closed for a week, we had no online, no anything and I kept saying to them, you know, ‘I need some help here’. Nobody did anything. I couldn’t get anybody down to come and see me. I mean, there is a loss that week which, obviously, I put in, but they’ve never explained to me what happened there. You know, I feel a bit – that’s why it’s there. The £2,500 is cash that I put in.
“Right, so this is £2,500. This is scratchcards that, you’ve talked to account and you’re basically carrying that as a cash figure because you’ve not put the £2,500 cash in to account for the error notice?”
Suzanne Palmer says, “No”.
So Mrs Palmer was reporting to you, wasn’t she, that she was experiencing unexplained losses and that she had sought help from the helpline at the time.
Lisa Allen: She’d been sent transaction corrections for scratchcards that she couldn’t understand and didn’t accept.
Ms Price: Could we go, please, to page 34 of this document. About halfway down, Mr Chine asks this:
“In terms of the £2,500 which, you’ve explained, relates to error notices that you brought to account, how long have you been holding – “
The response is: “A few months”.
Mr Chine:
“A few months. What, we’re talking about, sort of, November? October, November time, maybe?”
The response is:
“It might’ve been before that. What happened was, they sent me loads of error notices over scratchcards and I’ve got reels of paper that they just sent me things through and the lady, I tried to ring her and I said to her, ‘I don’t agree. I can’t make out what is here. I can’t understand it’. I tried to sort it out and I rang her, like, several times trying to sort it out and she said, ‘You know, you have to bring them to account’. But I’ve never been able to – so, yes, I just put them through. Then I thought I’d be able to sort it out at some point. Not quite in this way.”
Your question:
“So, you were holding them in the hope something would come back?”
The response is:
“Yes, I mean, I know it’s a larger amount but it’s like the £253. Like, they said to me I could take that out because it’s – “
You say:
“It was a surplus for the week?”
She says:
“Yes, I mean, I just never touched it. I know it isn’t mine. I know that something is going to come back somewhere. It’s like, that’s what I said, when we had the week where the whole system went down, it took them a week to fix it. I had no online, but they still said that I had to keep the post office open. I was still taking in giros, couldn’t put them through the system, couldn’t do anything. I was holding a whole week and I kept ringing up and saying, ‘I’ve got over £100,000-odd here’. You know, when it noted that this is what – that’s what I said, I’ve never had any back-up here.”
You say:
“When was it this happened then? Do you remember?”
Mrs Palmer says, “That was August.
“… and is it Mick Clerk?
“Mick Clerk, yes.”
Lisa Allen: I think that should be maybe Nick Kerr.
Ms Price: Nick Kerr, the name we saw earlier.
Lisa Allen: Yeah.
Ms Price: Suzanne Palmer says at the bottom:
“He even sent emails to them but, you know, lots of them because there was a shortage that week and they just said ‘Oh, you know, you’ve got to put that in’. Which obviously I just did. I mean, I just said, ‘Surely these errors will come back?’ I mean, the system went wrong on the Saturday, I rang the helpline straight away. They said they’d get somebody out on Monday. They sent somebody Monday who didn’t have the right box part. He went away and came back with the wrong part. Then I rang and said, ‘What do we do?’ They said, “Well, just carry on taking’. I said, ‘But Swallow Aquatics and all the businessmen’, I’ve got no online banking. I can’t do any off-reports, I can’t do anything’. I had to carry on for a week and then on Wednesday, they finally brought the right box for the computer but didn’t bring a printer that was compatible with it. So, I couldn’t even do the office balance. So, they made me shut on the Thursday. Then he came with the printer on the Thursday they said, they’re not allowed to carry ink …”
She goes on:
“… I kept ringing people to say to them, you know, ‘I need help here. Somebody’s got to – I’ve got all this money, I’ve got all of these giros not going through the accounts. Everything is a mess’ … it might have been after – hang on, forgotten where I was going there, badgering on, but that’s what I’m saying. Here, that’s what I said, when, I’m not sure if it’s £500 or £600 that was in error that week. I kept thinking, ‘Well, the errors are going to come back’. You know, like, they send you an error notice? Like with these, I thought, ‘They’ve sent me an error but it will come [back].”
You say:
“You think you’d get a compensating one?”
Suzanne Palmer says, “Yes”.
Moderator 2 goes on to ask about error notices and whether they’re sent usually because you’ve made mistakes in previous weeks, and there’s discussion down that page about the time frame for error notices, about eight weeks being suggested by Mrs Palmer.
At the bottom of the page, Suzanne Palmer says:
“So, when I’m thinking, that’s what I said, like, with the surplus. They said to me, ‘Well, you’ve taken it out’. I said ‘Well, I know it’s not mine. It’s not my money. I know that’.”
So she’s saying here that there’s been a surplus, she’s been told she can take it out of the till but she doesn’t want to because she thinks it’s not right and it’s an error; is that right?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: Then Moderator 2, so Mr Chine:
“For that £2,500, had you had £2,500 worth of surpluses in the, sort of, months prior to receiving those error notices?”
She says: “No.
“You haven’t?
“That’s what I said to you. I mean, I still have, you’ve seen, I’ve got it all in the post office, I’ve still got everything that relates to that period. I’ve just got pages and pages of why.”
Then you ask:
“What are the losses like at the office, generally?”
She says.
“Well, it goes from £100 over to £100 under.”
I think this is what you were referring to earlier when you were recalling –
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: – what you were being told about. You say:
“A bit up and down, are they?”
At the bottom, Mrs Palmer says:
“Yes, they’re a bit erratic, but it seems to – like three weeks ago we balanced and all week, I haven’t got the figures here, but we were, like, running £100 wrong and I said to Mo, ‘Look, we’ll count all of the money again, we’ll unbag all of the money that we’ve done up to run out, we’ll count it all again’. Then, just on the Wednesday, I suppose it could could’ve been in the stamps, couldn’t it? But it then comes back, are you with me? It’s, sort of, like, one overtakes the other. So, like, where I was £250 over and they said to me, I should’ve taken that out to make my balance correct – “
Moderator 1: “Yes”.
Moderator 2:
“Yes, that’s what you should do.”
So Mrs Palmer was giving a detailed account here, wasn’t she, of the technical problems she was experiencing with the Horizon system, and the difficulty she was having balancing over a period of months?
Lisa Allen: She had indicated she had had issues, yes.
Ms Price: She gave you a particular month when she kept ringing up the helpline and that was August of the previous year, wasn’t it?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: Did you think at the time that the technical difficulties and balancing problems Mrs Palmer was experiencing with the Horizon system were relevant to your investigation?
Lisa Allen: I was not aware of any issues with the Horizon system.
Ms Price: But you were being told, weren’t you, that she was having issues with the Horizon system, and particularly that she’d been having balancing issues?
Lisa Allen: At one point in August she had an issue, yes.
Ms Price: Well, there are a number of references in the transcript we’ve just looked at to things being out, being up or down.
Lisa Allen: Yes, there were but, as I explained, that, quite often, when you’re balancing yourself, as I’ve experienced myself as a counter clerk, when you’re counting your cash and you’re entering it into the system, you can’t see your own mistakes. So I could keep entering the same mistake every time, the following week, obviously, it will get rectified, which is where I think I understood her balancing £100 up, £100 down would have come into it.
Ms Price: Could we have on screen, please, document reference POL00053007. This is the report that you completed for Legal Services in Mrs Palmer’s case. Going, please, to page 6 of this document, towards the bottom we see your name and the date of the report, 20 February 2006.
Lisa Allen: Yeah.
Ms Price: Going back, please, to the first page and scrolling down a little, please, you set out, first of all, some of the background to the interview conducted. Going over of the page, please, and about halfway down you start to address the interview of 6 February 2006.
You say in that paragraph that you are enclosing a transcript of the interview. So is it right that you provided the Criminal Law Team with a transcript of the interview that we’ve just looked at?
Lisa Allen: I did, yes.
Ms Price: Going over the page, please, the last paragraph:
“Mrs Palmer was asked to explain the entries made on the daily record sheets. She claimed that the £2,500 entry that there is each day is related to scratchcard error notices. Some months ago now she received a number of error notices related to scratchcards. She was unsure of why she had received them and requested assistance from the Post Office for dealing with this problem. Nobody visited the office and she was informed that they had to be brought to account immediately. As instructed Mrs Palmer processed the error notices. In order to do so as she did not have sufficient funds to pay for the error notices, she was carrying the amount of £2,500 in her daily cash on hand. She claimed that she believed a further error notice would be received and that it would compensate for the loss. To date this has not been the case.”
Then going over the page, please, to the last paragraph. Scrolling down, please:
“At the present time it is not known when the error notices were processed so I am unable to identify the date at which Mrs Palmer inflated her cash-on-hand figure by £2,500. Again she did not have the funds to cover this and continually accounted for this in the cash hoping for a compensating error notice. However, she admitted that error notices were usually received within 8 weeks and she has been holding this amount for many months.”
You have had a chance to read this report for the purposes of preparing your statement. Would you agree that there is no reference in this report to the wider technical problems and balancing issues which Mrs Palmer raised in her interview with you?
Lisa Allen: Not within the report there aren’t but there are – obviously, the taped transcript was provided for the Legal Team and the Designated Prosecution Authority to consider when making the decision.
Ms Price: Why didn’t you include them in the report, knowing that this would be the key document considered by the Criminal Law Team when they advised on charge and prosecution?
Lisa Allen: Because, at the time, I didn’t believe there was an issue with the Horizon system. I believed that the one-off incident in August – the incident in August was a one-off and the issues, as explained with the balancing up and down, were compensating errors, mistakes with counting cash or stock.
Ms Price: You say in your statement at paragraph 90 that you do not recall whether system issues reported by Mrs Palmer were recorded on any Helpdesk logs. There is no reference in this report to you having made any enquiries of any helplines by this stage?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: We’ll come on to what happened later. Why didn’t you contact the helplines, specifically the NBSC and Horizon Helpdesk, following your interview with Mrs Palmer and before submitting your report to the Criminal Law Team?
Lisa Allen: Obviously, this was almost 18 years ago now, so it’s quite hard to recall back then. But I believe the audit shortage itself was explained, as in the £9,000-odd of non-accounting for sales of scratchcards, money used to put into the personal ATM machine and, obviously, the transaction correction notices. So, as far as the way I viewed it, the loss was accounted for, if that makes sense.
Ms Price: Did you consider seeking ARQ data from Fujitsu following your interview with Mrs Palmer and before submitting your report to the Criminal Law Team?
Lisa Allen: I don’t think I obtained the logs before but I do think I’ve obtained them after.
Ms Price: We’ll come on to what was obtained for the trial in due course but, just in terms of this stage, before submitting your report to the Criminal Law Team, did it occur to you or did you consider whether you should be asking Fujitsu for ARQ data?
Lisa Allen: I don’t recall what I was thinking at that time.
Ms Price: Given what Mrs Palmer was telling you about the technical difficulties she was experiencing and the balancing problems she was having, did you consider raising with anyone the question of whether there should be any investigation into the operation of the Horizon system in Mrs Palmer’s branch?
Lisa Allen: No.
Ms Price: Sir, I wonder if that’s a convenient moment for the morning break?
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes. Are we on a reasonable time schedule?
Ms Price: Yes, sir, we are.
Sir Wyn Williams: Very good. Do you want 15 minutes?
Ms Price: Just 15 minutes, please, sir.
Sir Wyn Williams: So what time will that be please?
Ms Price: I think that takes us to 11.35.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, fine. 11.35 then please.
(11.22 am)
(A short break)
(11.35 am)
Ms Price: Hello, sir, can you see and hear us?
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, thank you very much.
Ms Price: Could we have on screen, please, document reference POL00052990. Going to the second page, please, we can see this is from Jarnail Singh, senior lawyer with the Criminal Law Team.
Going back to page 1, please. We can see it is dated 10 March 2006. It is sent to the Investigation Team and copied to you. Mr Singh says this:
“Noted thank you.
“I am of the opinion that there is sufficient evidence to afford a realistic prospect of conviction of Miss Palmer for the offences of false accounting.
“This case is in my opinion more suitable for trial in the Crown Court in view of the deficiency in the account of £14,712.11. Once the decision has been made please proceed to obtain summonses.
“No further statements need to be obtained at this stage.”
Mr Singh then goes on to deal with evidence which would be needed in the event that the matter were to proceed to trial. He lists:
“1. Statement from the Auditors.
“2. Statement dealing with Mrs Palmer’s appointment at the office as the subpostmistress producing a copy of the relevant extract of Mrs Palmer’s contract showing it is not permitted to use Post Office Limited funds.
“3. Statement from Lisa Allen and Chester [sic] Chine outlining their total involvement in the matter and producing the relevant exhibits for the weeks charged.
“4. Any other statements the Officers consider relevant.”
So Mr Singh did not ask you to make any enquiries of the helplines or to obtain any audit data from Fujitsu at this stage, did he?
Lisa Allen: Not at that stage, no.
Ms Price: Could we have on screen, please, POL00053003. This is a memo dated 26 July 2006. Scrolling down, please, it is from Ms Andrews, from the Criminal Law Team. It is again sent to the Investigation Team, scrolling up please a little, and copied to you. It reads, as follows:
“The Brief for the Prosecution has been sent to Mr Stephen John of Counsel. A copy of the Indictment is enclosed herewith the for your information.
“A copy of Counsel’s Advice on Evidence is also attached. I would be grateful if you could deal with the matters raised at paragraphs 3 and 4.”
Could we have on screen, please, counsel’s advice referred into this memo. The reference is POL00053008. Going, please, down to paragraph 3, “Further Inquiries”:
“There are a few issues arising from the papers which I would be grateful to have answering by the Investigation Manager, and appropriate statements made and served to confirm:
“a) To whom would the Defendant report scratchcard errors? Are any records kept? If so, they should be made available.
“b) When were the error notices to which the defendant refers in interview processed? The IM could not supply this answer when her report was submitted.
“c) Is there any record of the Defendant’s training? Experience has shown that statement to the effect that ‘training would have been given’ are of no value …”
Then “Further Evidence” at 4:
“The following matters of evidence should, please, be attended to:
“a) Does the Counter Operations Manual contain a section which deals with specifically how scratchcard sales should be dealt with (on Horizon)? If so, the relevant portion needs to be copied and served with a supporting statement.
“b) The SPM contract signed by the Defendant should be obtained, copied and served as above.
“c) A statement should be obtained from Nick Kerr to deal with the matters raised in interview at [the relevant page references].”
At this stage, counsel advises that further evidence needs to be obtained. Would it have been you who actioned his requests?
Lisa Allen: Yes, it would.
Ms Price: Mrs Palmer’s case proceeded to trial. You don’t mention in your statement having any involvement in the trial but further material relating to Mrs Palmer’s case has been made available to you since completing your statement.
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: Do you now recall that you made two statements for the purposes of the trial and attended court to give evidence?
Lisa Allen: I do.
Ms Price: Is it right that you were present for the whole of Mrs Palmer’s trial?
Lisa Allen: I would imagine I would be but I don’t recall that, but I should have been there, yes, throughout the whole trial.
Ms Price: Do you recall the trial at all?
Lisa Allen: Not specifically, no.
Ms Price: Could we have on screen, please, the second of the statements you made for the trial. The reference is RMG00000254. This statement is an unsigned draft, dated 11 September 2006. We have been unable to locate the final signed version. Have you had a chance to read this statement recently?
Lisa Allen: Can I have a look at it?
Ms Price: Of course. If we can just scroll down. I’ll take you through what it covers.
Lisa Allen: Okay.
Ms Price: Just to refresh your memory as to which one it is, there was an earlier statement from June 2006, which was in the papers you’ve now been provided with –
Lisa Allen: Okay.
Ms Price: – and this was a further statement from September 2006.
(Pause)
Ms Price: If I take you through the relevant sections and you just say if you need more time to look at it.
Lisa Allen: Okay, yeah.
Ms Price: You deal, first of all, in this statement with the procedure applying to Camelot Scratchcards. You set out there that you produce as an item LJA/10, which is the Counter Operations Manual relating to Camelot Scratchcards, and then you explain which sections there are in that extract.
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: Going over the page, please. You say:
“I have now obtained a Fujitsu log for The Grange SPSO from 15 to 21 September 2005 that I produce as item LJA/11.”
It says:
“This log shows all the transactions entered into the Horizon computer system during these dates.”
You produce a further extract from the log.
So the log you obtained covers the period of one week, is that right, from 15 to 21 September 2005?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: It appears from what follows, and please do take the time to – we can go through this, but do cast an eye down, and going over the page, please. It appears from what follows that the purpose of obtaining the log for this week was to show the entry of six error notices on to the system; is that right?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: “From item LJA/12, it can be seen that there are six charge error notices entered by user SPA004 on 20 September … These six charge error notices amount to £2,520 and are the liability of the subpostmistress to pay.”
You say, having described what the log shows:
“Therefore it was the responsibility of Mrs Palmer to pay this amount to Post Office Limited at the time of entering the error notices on 20 September 2005. It would appear that Mrs Palmer has taken cash out of the Post Office relating to the claim error notice but has not paid the £2,520 that she owed to Post Office Limited for the charge error notice.”
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: Is it right that you only ever requested from Fujitsu a log covering the period of the entry of the error notices covered in this statement and not for any wider period?
Lisa Allen: I don’t recall what logs were requested at the time but that log was obviously only for one week, so that was one request, but I don’t recall if there was any other requests made.
Ms Price: Given the wider issues being raised by Mrs Palmer about the Horizon system and being mindful that August 2005, for example, was a month that was raised as a point when she was calling for help, why was ARQ data not requested for a longer period?
Lisa Allen: Given the time, I don’t recall why.
Ms Price: In the final paragraph of the statement, you say this:
“I have contacted Security at Camelot and there are no records of Mrs Palmer contacting them querying any error notices. Likewise I have contacted both Chesterfield who raise the error notices and the Post Office National Business Service Centre (NBSC), and there are no records of any calls made relating to Camelot Scratchcard or error notices relating to scratchcards.”
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: Did you read through the NBSC logs which were obtained for the purposes of the trial by Julie Edgely who exhibited them?
Lisa Allen: Sorry, did I read thorough?
Ms Price: Did you read through the NBSC logs, which were obtained for the trial and exhibited by Julie Edgely?
Lisa Allen: I would have thought so, yes.
Ms Price: Have you had a chance to read through the log of NBSC calls which has been disclosed since you made your statement, as part of the more recent documentation?
Lisa Allen: I have.
Ms Price: You are specific here in saying there were no records of calls relating to scratchcards. There were calls made reporting issues with the Horizon system and with balancing though, weren’t there? We’ll have a look at those.
So could we have on screen, please, document reference RMG00000223. There are 57 log entries relating to Mrs Palmer’s branch on this log, by my count.
Going, please, to the month of August 2005 the month that was raised interview, the first entry is at line 29, 10 August 2005.
That’s is, line 29.
So the detailed description column, which is column E, for the 10 August first entry there, says:
“How do we redeem a rem shortage out of suspense.”
Then the entry below says this:
“Incorrect stock descrep return form office have remmed out stock.”
Then in the resolution column, which is column G:
“Advised office to check to see if she had a minus figure advised to adjust the stock to correct amount then go to trial balance.”
Are scratchcards counted as stock?
Lisa Allen: They are once they’ve been activated.
Ms Price: So although the very few words used by the maker of this log do not use the word “scratchcard” why do you assume this call did not relate to scratchcards?
Lisa Allen: I don’t know.
Ms Price: The 17 entries which follow are all dated August 2005. They set out the technical problems which Mrs Palmer was encountering with the system, don’t they? We don’t need to go through them line by line but if you just cast an eye down?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: Just scrolling down, please, if we can, you’ll see a reference on 18 August there to the trouble with the printer that she was talking about.
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: Then 19 August:
“Horizon system down stopped collection. Unable to rem out. Too much cash now in the office.”
19th:
“PM says she will hold the money in the office as no one has called back from service support.
“… system failure is in cap …”
“… printer problems.”
23 August:
“PM reported fault on system … Engineer brought printer but not accessories.”
Going down again, another issue with trying to have printer fixed.
So those are, aren’t they, the technical problems which Mrs Palmer was describing in the interview; that log directly supports what she was saying about what she was reporting in August 2005.
Lisa Allen: Some of the issues on that log are related to Horizon, yes.
Ms Price: Had you requested the NBSC call logs when Mrs Palmer first raised this issue in the interview, they would have corroborated the account she gave interview, wouldn’t they, of the problems she was experiencing and the attempts she made in August 2005 to resolve them?
Lisa Allen: There was an issue in 2005, which, obviously, you can see that she has tried to resolve, yes.
Ms Price: Do you think this might have put a different complexion on the case, if the logs had been obtained and looked at alongside her account from the outset?
Lisa Allen: I think the transaction corrections were in relation to transactions prior to August 2005, if I believe. They were something like end of April, maybe May time. So before the issue that she’s reported in August.
Ms Price: In circumstances where Mrs Palmer was giving you an account of having difficulties and saying there were technical problems and she was experiencing balancing issues, there was an entry about stock and a discrepancy in stock. The fact that there was a log supporting what she was saying to you, would that have made any difference to your assessment of the case?
Lisa Allen: Given the time, I wouldn’t be able to answer that now.
Ms Price: Contacting the helplines was a reasonable line of inquiry which you should have pursued at the outset of the case, wasn’t it?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: It was also a reasonable line of inquiry to request audit data from Fujitsu in this case, wasn’t it?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: Do you accept that it was a failing in your investigation that you did not pursue those lines of inquiry?
Lisa Allen: I’m not sure if having obtained them would have assisted any further but, obviously, having the data would have been, I suppose, making, I suppose, all reasonable lines of inquiry.
Ms Price: You’ve said that you don’t specifically recall Mrs Palmer’s trial. But on one specific point, Mrs Palmer remembers there being a question from the jury which was read out on the morning of the third day, in which the jury asked what Mrs Palmer was supposed to do if she didn’t agree the figure that Horizon had produced. Do you recall that?
Lisa Allen: I don’t, no.
Ms Price: Mrs Palmer recalls that neither the prosecuting barrister nor anyone from the Post Office had an answer to that question. Again, do you recall any discussion of that at court?
Lisa Allen: I don’t, no.
Ms Price: Mrs Palmer was found not guilty on all three counts of false accounting by the jury. The case closure report, which has been provided to you quite recently, records that the jury returned their verdict after 35 minutes. Mrs Palmer recalls it being less time than that.
Is that something you recall, the speed with which the jury returned the not guilty verdict?
Lisa Allen: I don’t recall that, no.
Ms Price: We have heard evidence from Rob Wilson who was the Head of the Criminal Law Team, that there would usually be a review done by the Post Office where an acquittal was reported in a case it had prosecuted. First of all, do you recall that being right, that where there was an acquittal, there was a review done by the Post Office?
Lisa Allen: I don’t recall.
Ms Price: Do you recall there being any such review following the outcome in Mrs Palmer’s case?
Lisa Allen: I don’t, no.
Ms Price: I’d like to turn, please, to the events in 2010 and 2011. Ms Allen, you were sent a document by the Inquiry for the purposes of making your statement, which relates to the duplication of transaction records in ARQ returns, and you commented on that document at paragraph 76 of your statement and said that you didn’t recall the issue.
More recently, the Inquiry has provided you with two further documents relating to that issue. Could we have one of those on screen, please. The document reference is POL00169416. The top email here is an email from Jon Longman to you, dated 15 July 2010. It is entitled:
“[Forward]: Duplication of Transaction Records in ARQ Returns.”
Would you agree it is forwarding on to you the email chain which follows further down the page?
Lisa Allen: It would appear so, yes.
Ms Price: The email below is dated 2 July 2010. It is from Jane Owen to Jon Longman, forwarding to Jon Longman the chain beneath that.
Over the page, please, we have an email from Jane Owen, also dated 2 July 2010 to Jason Collins and Andrew Daley, copied to Mark Dinsdale. It reads:
“Dear Both
“Please see email below from Penny Thomas.
“Mark, Alan Simpson and myself have had a conference call today to look at potential problems that this is likely to cause. Firstly the suggested workaround will need to be put to our Legal Team and until that has been agreed, any further ARQ requests, including those which have already been submitted, will be suspended.
“There are 2 cases currently with the court – West Byfleet and Porters Avenue, and I will speak to Lisa and Jon about these as we need to know what in the way of ARQs and the corresponding statements have been presented to court. In addition, I have identified the following offices as ones that could potentially have already had information presented to the court.”
Has sight of this email chain helped at all with your recollection of this issue?
Lisa Allen: I don’t recall this at all.
Ms Price: The issue was described in the emails which follow this one. Have you had a chance to read through the email chain?
Lisa Allen: I believe I have, if you can scroll up and have a look at it.
Ms Price: If you can just scroll down so we can see. Just scrolling down through, so that Ms Allen can see which email chain this is.
If we just stop there, please, going a little further up, would it be a fair summary to say that the issue being reported by Penny Thomas was a number of recent ARQ returns for use in prosecutions contained duplicated transaction records?
Lisa Allen: I believe so, yes.
Ms Price: What was your understanding, if you can say, of why you were being informed of the issue directly by Jon Longman; was it because of your involvement in either the West Byfleet or the Porters Avenue case?
If it assists, West Byfleet was the Seema Misra case and Porters Avenue was the Jerry Hosi case.
Lisa Allen: I would imagine it was because of the Jerry Hosi case because I wasn’t actually involved in the Seema Misra case. I obviously did attend for the purposes of searching but I had no involvement after that point. So I would imagine it was in relation to the Hosi case.
Ms Price: Can you recall how the question of what data had been presented to the court in those two cases and whether it was accurate was resolved?
Lisa Allen: I don’t recall.
Ms Price: If entries were being duplicated, that would affect the integrity of the audit data, wouldn’t it?
Lisa Allen: Potentially, although I think from reading the emails, I think maybe Penny Thomas has said that it didn’t affect – it was just – didn’t affect the balances or anything, it was just duplicate transactions put into the log, or something along those lines.
Ms Price: The data being produced to the court was incorrect, wasn’t it, because it contained duplicate entries?
Lisa Allen: It was duplicated, yes.
Ms Price: Did that concern you at the time, that incorrect data might have been provided to the court in support of prosecutions by the Post Office?
Lisa Allen: I don’t recall this.
Ms Price: You just can’t recall?
Lisa Allen: No, I don’t recall it at all.
Ms Price: Thank you. That document can come down now.
You say in your statement that your involvement in the Seema Misra case was limited to assisting Jon Longman, the Officer in the Case, with searches of Ms Misra’s home address. I’d just like to ask you about one document which has been provided to you recently by the Inquiry.
Could we have that on screen, please. It’s document reference POL00169419. This is an email dated 1 October 2010, from Jon Longman to Steve Bradshaw and to you. It is forwarding on an email chain about the Seema Misra case.
Do you know why you were being sent a copy of the defence expert’s report in the case? That appears to be what is happening here.
We can go to it if we need to but the attachment to this email was one of the reports from the expert on behalf of the defence.
Lisa Allen: I don’t know.
Ms Price: Having seen the emails in this email chain, do you recall being aware that Ms Misra was challenging the integrity of the Horizon system and attributing shortfalls to it?
Lisa Allen: I was aware of that, yes.
Ms Price: Could we have on screen, please, document reference POL00169422. This is an email from Jane Owen to you and a number of others. It is dated 18 January 2011. The subject line is “Urgent update required”, and Ms Owen’s email reads:
“Dear All
“Can I please ask for your help urgently. I have been asked to provide an update on the attached cases where Horizon integrity has come into question and need the information by tomorrow.
“I have checked against the spreadsheet but am unable to cover off the ‘gaps’ which are namely
“Court case details.
“Result
“Accused’s defence (exactly).
“Could you either add into the spreadsheet using bright pink font as I have done in the recoveries column or just pop updates on an email and I will collate.”
Ms Owen attached a spreadsheet. Could we have that on screen, please, it’s POL00169423. If we can just scroll down, so we can see at a glance the entries on here.
On my count, this spreadsheet lists 20 cases where Horizon integrity has come into question, as Ms Owen described it. Ms Misra’s case is one of these. So it would appear that, by January 2011, you and a number of others were being made aware there were at least 20 cases where Horizon integrity had come into question; is that right?
Lisa Allen: I don’t recall this document but, yes, looking at it, I would have been aware.
Ms Price: Do you recall receiving information about the number of cases where Horizon integrity was being challenged?
Lisa Allen: I don’t, no.
Ms Price: Could we have on screen, please, document reference POL00167369. This is an email from Graham Ward to a list of recipients including you. It is dated 14 April 2011. The subject line is “Credence versus Fujitsu”.
Mr Ward says this in his email:
“All
“If anyone has any evidence of disparities between Fujitsu and Credence transaction data, please get in touch (eg timing issues … session numbers not matching for postage label transactions etc).”
What was your understanding of why this enquiry was being made of you?
Lisa Allen: I don’t recall this request.
Ms Price: Do you recall being aware of any issue about a discrepancy or disparity between Fujitsu and Credence transaction data?
Lisa Allen: I don’t, no.
Ms Price: This would potentially be a significant issue, would it not, where Investigators were relying on Credence data, rather than having obtained ARQ data?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: You don’t recall it now but do you think you would have been concerned at the time about this issue?
Lisa Allen: Potentially, yes.
Ms Price: Because it would make you question, wouldn’t it, the reliability of the Credence data you were looking at to prove a loss and might make you more inclined to request further data?
Lisa Allen: Possibly, yes.
Ms Price: Could we have on screen, please, paragraph 108 of Ms Allen’s statement. That’s page 32. You say here:
“I believed the Horizon system to be robust as documented in the relevant Fujitsu statements provided.”
You did not have a Fujitsu statement in every case you were involved in where shortfalls were being attributed to problems with the Horizon system, did you?
Lisa Allen: Probably not, no.
Ms Price: Were you aware of a general message coming from within the Post Office, to the effect that the Horizon system was robust?
Lisa Allen: I don’t know where the information came from, but we was led to believe that there was no issues with the Horizon system.
Ms Price: When you say you were led to believe, who by?
Lisa Allen: I don’t know.
Ms Price: Was it within the Security Team or wider than that?
Lisa Allen: I don’t believe anybody in the Security Team thought there was an issue with the Horizon system and, obviously, when we had statements from Fujitsu saying that the system was robust, we never challenged it.
Ms Price: You say you never challenged it but, given the mounting number of cases in which Horizon integrity was being raised and thinking back to that January 2011 email with the 20 cases, do you think that you should have questioned it or challenged it, the party line that Horizon was robust?
Lisa Allen: Possibly, but I don’t know how we would have gone about challenging that, as, obviously, we was getting the information from what we believed was an expert within Fujitsu, so I would have had no understanding of the Fujitsu – of the workings of the Horizon system.
Ms Price: Regardless of what you were being led to believe about whether the Horizon system was robust, do you accept that you were under a duty as an Investigator to pursue reasonable lines of inquiry?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Ms Price: What was a reasonable line of inquiry was your call, wasn’t it, nobody else’s?
Lisa Allen: It was.
Ms Price: So would you accept that reassurance from the business about Horizon could not have justified a decision not to pursue an otherwise reasonable line of inquiry?
Lisa Allen: Well, I think the problem was we went to the expert to get the statement. The statement said the system was robust and we had no reason to disbelieve them. So I don’t think we would have challenged it because we believed what they were saying.
Ms Price: What about the cases where no further data was sought from Fujitsu, and certainly no statement was obtained, where that line of inquiry simply wasn’t pursued because you assumed the Horizon system was robust?
If a subpostmaster raised with you interview problems with Horizon, and attributed shortfalls to it, how do you justify not pursuing the line of inquiry – we went over this earlier – in terms of going to the helpline or obtaining data?
Lisa Allen: Yeah.
Ms Price: What I’m saying is: a business message that Horizon was robust, that simply couldn’t have justified a decision not to pursue otherwise reasonable lines of inquiry, could it?
Lisa Allen: Maybe in hindsight we should have requested Fujitsu logs in all cases to assist.
Ms Price: Sir, those are all the questions I have for Ms Allen. Do you have any questions before I turn to Core Participants?
Sir Wyn Williams: No, thank you. No.
Ms Price: I think Mr Jacobs has questions, sir.
Questioned by Mr Jacobs
Mr Jacobs: Ms Allen, I appear for 156 subpostmasters, all of whom have fallen foul of the Post Office in relation to the Horizon system and one of whom is Suzanne Palmer, who sits to my left, who you investigated, and we have been dealing with that in your evidence this morning.
Now, this morning you accepted four things: you accepted where subpostmasters allege that shortfalls are due to problems with Horizon, a reasonable line of inquiry would be to seek audit data to explore whether that data might support what the subpostmaster says, and you agreed that was right.
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Mr Jacobs: You also accepted and acknowledged, when Ms Price took you through the interview, that Ms Palmer raised Horizon integrity issues at her interview.
Lisa Allen: Yes, she raised issues with the Horizon system.
Mr Jacobs: You requested no data from Fujitsu, you requested no data to check the integrity of the Horizon terminal at her branch; that’s right, isn’t it?
Lisa Allen: Yes.
Mr Jacobs: You omitted to mention the matter in your investigation report?
Lisa Allen: It wasn’t in the report but it was in the taped transcript that was provided.
Mr Jacobs: Yes, but it wasn’t in your report?
Lisa Allen: No, it wasn’t in my report.
Mr Jacobs: Your investigation was inadequate, wasn’t it? Do you accept that now?
Lisa Allen: It was inadequate?
Mr Jacobs: Yes.
Lisa Allen: No. I don’t accept that.
Mr Jacobs: Well, it was inadequate because you failed to act in accordance with your duty as an Investigator to conduct reasonable lines of inquiry. Surely you must accept that?
Lisa Allen: There probably were more reasonable lines of inquiry I could have made but I think I made the reasonable lines of inquiry for the case at that time. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Mr Jacobs: I don’t want to go round in circles but you’ve accepted that, where a subpostmaster or mistress alleges shortfalls in the Horizon system, it is a reasonable line of inquiry to request data to support what the subpostmaster is saying and you didn’t do that and you didn’t refer to it in your report: so you didn’t carry who reasonable lines of inquiry in this investigation, those enquiries you did not undertake?
Lisa Allen: In this investigation, it wasn’t a cash loss. This investigation was related to scratchcards, error notices and money placed into a private ATM machine.
Mr Jacobs: The jury didn’t accept that, did they?
Lisa Allen: They didn’t, no.
Mr Jacobs: To be frank, my client finds it extraordinary that you do not remember attending her trial. You were there for three days. You gave evidence at her trial. You were there, as Ms Price has said, when the jury asked a question “What is Mrs Palmer supposed to do if she doesn’t agree with the Horizon system?” You and the Legal Team were floundering, you couldn’t answer that question, and the jury acquitted my client between 10 and 35 minutes. Surely you must remember that?
Lisa Allen: I remember going to Southend Crown Court but I don’t actually remember the trial.
Mr Jacobs: Do you remember that there was a petition with 600 signatures attesting to Mrs Palmer’s good character presented at the hearing?
Lisa Allen: I’ve read about it in documents.
Mr Jacobs: Are you aware that Post Office put pressure on Mrs Palmer’s assistant not to give evidence to support her case because they said they might investigate her? Are you aware of anything surrounding that?
Lisa Allen: I’ve seen that in a document but I am not aware of that at all, no.
Mr Jacobs: Do you remember, between the audit and Mrs Palmer’s interview with you, going to her shop, having an interview with her in her stock room, because she wasn’t allowed into her post office, having a meeting with her and telling her that, if she paid the money back, the Post Office probably wouldn’t prosecute?
Lisa Allen: No, I don’t, but I believe at that time she’d already written a cheque and gave it to the Auditors, possibly. But I wouldn’t have said that because that’s not a decision that I make.
Mr Jacobs: Well, you said, in your view, you believed that if she paid the money back, the Post Office probably wouldn’t prosecute?
Lisa Allen: I wouldn’t say that because it’s not my decision to make.
Mr Jacobs: She was worried that her cheque might bounce and so she came to the interview with you and Mr Chine with £9,000 in a bag, do you remember that?
Lisa Allen: I do recall her having some money with her, yes.
Mr Jacobs: Do you remember, three months after the interview, phoning her up and saying, “Oh, Mrs Palmer, not good news for you. They’re going to prosecute you”; do you recall using those words?
Lisa Allen: I don’t, no.
Mr Jacobs: Mrs Palmer recalls that very well. Do you accept that that would not have been an appropriate for professional way to behave?
Lisa Allen: I don’t think I would have said it the way you’ve put it, no.
Mr Jacobs: Do you accept an Investigator saying those words would not have been appropriate and would not have been professional?
Lisa Allen: No, it wouldn’t have been professional.
Mr Jacobs: Mrs Palmer was acquitted, she was completely vindicated. We understand that there was no review into her case, notwithstanding that the Post Office position of Horizon being robust was thoroughly disbelieved by the jury. She wasn’t reinstated. She was bankrupt until 2016. This effectively has ruined her life.
Do you accept, as the Investigator, that you have some role to play in what happened to her and some responsibility?
Lisa Allen: I didn’t make any decisions regarding prosecution. I presented the case and the decision to prosecute was on the legal advice and the Designated Prosecution Authority.
Mr Jacobs: So no regret whatsoever from you? No –
Lisa Allen: I’m sorry that Mrs Palmer found herself in that position, yes, but the decision to prosecute was not mine.
Mr Jacobs: Do you think the decision to prosecute might have been a different decision if you had pursued the appropriate lines of inquiry and mentioned the issues that Mrs Palmer raised with the Horizon system in your report?
Lisa Allen: I don’t –
Sir Wyn Williams: We allow hypotheticals but I think that’s putting it a bit too far, Mr Jacobs.
Mr Jacobs: Sir, yes. I’ll ask if I have any more questions.
I don’t have anything else to add. Thank you.
Sir Wyn Williams: Thank you. Anyone else?
Ms Price: Sir, that appears to be all the further questions that there are.
Sir Wyn Williams: Thank you.
Well, first of all, I hope that Mrs Palmer has found this morning’s session informative.
Secondly, I’d like to thank you, Ms Allen, for making a witness statement and answering all the questions put to you this morning.
You will all be glad to hear that I don’t propose to deliver an end of term report, so to speak, but there are two things that I’d like to say publicly before we break for the holiday.
The first is that I would like to pay tribute to all members of the Inquiry Team, that is barristers, solicitors, paralegals, trainee solicitors and anyone else who is not encompassed by those four categories, for the huge amount of work they have done over the last year to facilitate the smooth running of the Inquiry. That public admiration applies with equal force to every member of the Secretariat, in whatever role they have played. No Chairman could be more satisfied with the support he receives from his Inquiry Team. So that’s a public tribute to you all.
I would also like to thank all the Core Participants and their representatives. To say that there has not been the occasional hiccup, for example in relation to disclosure, would be to go too far but I do wish to thank all the Core Participants and their representatives for the efficient way in which they conduct their part in this Inquiry.
For various reasons, there has been a need for a great deal of flexibility and all the Core Participants and their representatives have demonstrated willingness to act flexibly to help me. For the help that I received from you all, I give you considerable thanks.
It also remains for me to wish you a happy holiday, and I hope you celebrate this period in the way in which you all feel most appropriate. I know that I’m going to celebrate it in the way that I feel appropriate but I’m not going to declare publicly how that is.
So thank you all very much and I’ll see you on 11 January; is that correct, Ms Price?
Ms Price: Yes, sir, it is. Steve Bradshaw on 11 January.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes. All right then.
(12.22 pm)
(The hearing adjourned until Thursday, 11th January 2024)