3 May 2024 – Jarnail Singh
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(9.44 am)
Mr Beer: Good morning, sir. Can you see and hear us?
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, thank you very much.
Mr Beer: Can I recall Jarnail Singh, please.
Sir Wyn Williams: Two things, Mr Beer. Does Mr Singh need to be resworn? I take it that he does.
Mr Beer: Yes, I think so because I think last time you released him, essentially, from the prohibition and, therefore, it would be better that he be resworn.
Sir Wyn Williams: All right, well, let’s deal with that first then, please.
Jarnail Singh
JARNAIL SINGH (resworn).
Questioned by Mr Beer
Mr Beer: Please do take a seat, Mr Singh.
Sir Wyn Williams: I take it there’s one other matter that I should deal with, Mr Beer.
Mr Singh, on the last occasion, I hope you will remember that I gave you what’s called the warning about self-incrimination.
Jarnail Singh: Yes, sir, yes.
Sir Wyn Williams: I fully expect that you understand the legal significance of that. Would you like me to repeat that warning to you or are you content that the warning I gave you last time gives you sufficient information?
Jarnail Singh: I’m entirely in your hands. If you want to give it I don’t mind, or if you don’t want to, that’s fine as well.
Sir Wyn Williams: All right. Well, I think out of an excess of caution I will repeat it, since it’s some months since you gave evidence.
As you probably know, Mr Singh, under our law, a witness at public inquiry has the right to decline to answer a question put to him by any of the lawyers, or, for that matter me, who are asking questions. This legal principle is known in shorthand form as the privilege against self-incrimination. I consider, Mr Singh, that fairness demands that I remind you of that principle before you resume your evidence. However, I should make it clear that it is for you to tell me, in respect of any question put to you, if it is your wish to rely upon the privilege.
If, therefore, any questions are put to you by any of the lawyers who ask you questions, or by me, which you do not understand wish to answer on the grounds that to answer might incriminate you, you must tell me immediately after such question is put. At that point, I will consider your objection to answering the question and, thereafter, rule upon whether your objection should be upheld.
Am I right in thinking that you’re represented here either by counsel or a solicitor?
Jarnail Singh: Yes, sir.
Sir Wyn Williams: Then, if the issue relating to self-incrimination arises, they will assist you, if you wish and, if, at any stage, during the questioning you wish to consult your lawyer about the privilege, you must tell me so that I can consider whether that is appropriate.
Jarnail Singh: Thank you, sir.
Sir Wyn Williams: Thank you very much, Mr Singh.
Over to you, Mr Beer.
Mr Beer: Thank you, sir. Before I begin to ask questions can I apologise for the state of my voice and if it breaks at any stage. I’ve got the flu and so if I become inaudible at any time or go into a sneezing fit, that’s the reason.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes. Pay some attention to the state of your health as well, Mr Beer.
Mr Beer: Will do, sir.
Mr Singh, thank you very much for returning to give evidence to the Inquiry today. You’ve kindly, in the interim, made an additional witness statement. Can we turn that up, please. It’s WITN04750200 and you should have the hard copy in front of you.
It’s 42 pages long. If you turn to the 42nd page, is that your signature?
Jarnail Singh: Oh, sorry, is – oh, statement 2, sorry.
Mr Beer: Yeah.
Jarnail Singh: Yes, yes, it is.
Mr Beer: Are the contents of that true to the best of your knowledge and belief?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: Thank you. You can put that to one side, the witness statement can come down. There’s one aspect of your professional background that I didn’t address on the last occasion and I should now and it concerns your knowledge and experience of Scottish law. Can you confirm that you’re not qualified in Scots Law?
Jarnail Singh: No, I’m not, sir.
Mr Beer: So far as you’re aware, was anyone else in the Royal Mail Group Legal Team or, when it became Post Office Legal team, Post Office Legal Team, qualified in Scots Law?
Jarnail Singh: I’m not sure.
Mr Beer: Thank you very much. Can I turn, then, to the substance of the questions I want to ask you today. The first concerns whether there was cover-up by the Post Office.
Were you, Mr Singh, involved, from July 2013 onwards, in a cover-up of your own prior knowledge and the Post Office’s prior knowledge of the existence of bugs, errors and defects in Horizon?
Jarnail Singh: No, sir.
Mr Beer: Specifically, did you, in fact, have knowledge before July 2013 of the existence of bugs, errors and defects in Horizon?
Jarnail Singh: Not to my knowledge, no.
Mr Beer: But you sought to cover up that knowledge because you knew that it ought to have been disclosed in criminal proceedings but had not been disclosed?
Jarnail Singh: No, sir.
Mr Beer: Specifically, did you know that others in the Post Office knew about the existence of bugs, errors and defects before July 2013 but sought to cover up that knowledge because you knew that that knowledge ought to have been disclosed into criminal proceedings but had not?
Jarnail Singh: Not to my knowledge, sir.
Mr Beer: Did you specifically pretend that the first you and the Post Office knew about such bugs, errors and defects was when they were revealed by the Second Sight Report of 8 July 2013?
Jarnail Singh: No, not to my knowledge, no.
Mr Beer: I’m going to begin this topic by looking at what you have said over time about your knowledge of bugs, errors and defects and then I’m going to turn to what I suggest the documents show as to your real knowledge. Can we start, please, with POL00029744. This the Second Sight Interim Report of 8 July 2013 and you’re familiar with this, you tell us in your witness statement that you received a copy of this report and you read it, yes?
Jarnail Singh: Can you go right to the bottom of the page, please?
Mr Beer: Yes, of course. If we scroll down. You want to go to the end of the document?
Jarnail Singh: Yes, please. It’s sometime ago since I’ve seen it.
Mr Beer: The end of the document is page 18.
I was hoping to take this quite quickly, Mr Singh. You tell us in your witness statement that you received a copy of this document, you read it, and you were concerned by the contents of it.
Jarnail Singh: Yes, yes.
Mr Beer: Right, good. Let’s go back, then, to page 6. If we look, please, in paragraph 6.5 down to 6.10, the Second Sight Report reveals the existence of, or speaks to the existence of, three defects as they’re called. In paragraph 6.5, the first defect referred to as the receipts and payments mismatch problem affecting 62 branches discovered in September 2010; in 6.6 the second defect referred to the local suspense account problem and affected 14 branches; 6.7, unaware of the defect until a year after its first occurrence in 2011. Then 6.10:
“POL has informed us that it has disclosed, in witness statements to English courts, information about one other subsequently-corrected defect or ‘bug’ in the Horizon software.”
That’s a reference to the Callendar Square or Falkirk bug.
Can we look at your witness statement, please, page 15, paragraph 37. It’ll come up on the screen for you. Page 15, paragraph 37. You say:
“I do not recall exactly when I received the Second Sight Interim Report but upon reading it remember being concerned, both in relation to its findings around bugs but also the comments about training”, et cetera.
So you remember receiving it, reading it and being concerned around it’s findings around bugs, yes?
Jarnail Singh: Yes, I read it.
Mr Beer: Thank you. Can we turn to POL00006375. It’ll come up on the screen. This is Simon Clarke’s Advice of 15 July, so it’s a week later, seven days later, okay? This is the one concerning Gareth Jenkins. Can we turn, please, to page 10 and look at paragraph 28. In this part of his advice, Mr Clarke says, having set out the law in relation to duties of disclosure and expert evidence, he then cites some paragraphs from the Second Sight Report that we’ve just looked at; can you see that?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: He doesn’t, in fact, cite the Callendar Square bug in paragraph 6.10 but that doesn’t matter for present purposes. So he’s saying, “I’ve now been told about, I’ve now got the Second Sight Interim Report and these are the bugs it’s talking about”.
If we go down, please, to paragraph 29, he says that as well as having got the Second Sight Report, there’s some other information, other sources of information:
“On … 27 June Martin Smith of Cartwright King was telephoned by [the Post Office]. There then ensued a number of conferences between Martin Smith and senior Post Office executives. The import of what Martin Smith was being told may be summarised thus: he was informed by [the Post Office] that a report commissioned from Second Sight by Post Office Limited and as yet unpublished, indicated that Horizon may not be ‘bug’ free. There was much speculation as to the content of the Second Sight Report. It appeared to [the Post Office] that some within the organisation had been aware of bugs affecting up to 30 offices, including some Crown Office branches.”
Then this:
“Jarnail Singh, Head of Criminal Litigation had been unaware and did not know how long [the Post Office] had known of the existence of the bugs nor indeed who at [Post Office] had known.”
Two things. Firstly, is what is said there in that highlighted sentence accurate?
Jarnail Singh: As far as I’m aware, sir, yes.
Mr Beer: Secondly, can you help us as to the context in which Simon Clarke would have been made aware of it, ie your state of knowledge and you saying that you had been unaware of the existence of bugs?
Jarnail Singh: The only bugs that I was aware of, the ones that were mentioned in the case of Misra. I wasn’t aware of any other bugs to my knowledge.
Mr Beer: That’s a very different thing to say, Mr Singh. You just said that you were aware of a bug being raised in the case of Misra?
Jarnail Singh: Those two bugs that Mr Jenkins dealt with in his witness statement, that’s the only ones I’m aware of. I wasn’t aware of any other. My understanding was very limited in the sense that I – but apart from those two, I wasn’t aware of any –
Mr Beer: Which two bugs are you talking about?
Jarnail Singh: The one mentioned in the – the Falkirk one.
Mr Beer: The Falkirk/Callendar Square one, yes?
Jarnail Singh: And the – is it Castleton?
Mr Beer: Sorry?
Jarnail Singh: Castleton, the civil case?
Mr Beer: That’s the same one that was mentioned –
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know, sir, but those are the only ones.
Mr Beer: Okay, we’ll call it for a single for the moment because Callendar Square/Falkirk was mentioned in Castleton.
Jarnail Singh: Okay, yeah.
Mr Beer: So the only one you knew about was the one that was mentioned in the Castleton case and which was the Callendar Square/Falkirk bug?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: So this is accurate here, then: you had been unaware of bugs which were summarised above there in the paragraphs 6.5 to 6.8?
Jarnail Singh: Yes. Certainly in the Misra case, there was different names, issues, all sorts of things. I mean, I first – first experience I had of this was in the Misra case. I’m not aware of something that happened before or after.
Mr Beer: Presumably, when you read this advice at the time, you thought, yes, that does accurately summarise my state of knowledge –
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: – that sentence there?
Jarnail Singh: Well, yeah.
Mr Beer: Thank you. Can we move forward, please, POL00040194. This is a document prepared by Cartwright King on 5 December 2013 and it summarises the process that had then be undertaken by Cartwright King to review some previous convictions. Can we look, please, at paragraph 4 on page 1, at the foot of the page, please. It says:
“The Second Sight Interim Report revealed that there had been two known defects in the Horizon system since the rolling out of the Horizon Online system from January 2010. These defects impacted on 76 branches and created both positive and negative discrepancies.”
Then paragraph 5 on page 2:
“As a result of the Second Sight Interim Report it became apparent that some of the matters raised in the report might have been disclosable in criminal prosecutions mounted by the Royal Mail Group and Post Office, had these been known about by those considering disclosure in such cases.”
So consistently with the Simon Clarke Advice of 15 July 2013, this is recording the fact that it was the Second Sight Interim Report that revealed the existence of the two bugs, and these had not been known about by those considering disclosure in criminal cases.
Jarnail Singh: I don’t recollect being made aware of them.
Mr Beer: This is all accurate, if what you’re saying is correct, that you didn’t know about the two other bugs, the receipts and payments mismatch bug –
Jarnail Singh: No.
Mr Beer: – the local suspense account bug?
Jarnail Singh: Not –
Mr Beer: They’d been –
Jarnail Singh: I don’t remember. I don’t remember them at all.
Mr Beer: They’d been revealed by the Second Sight Report, yes?
Jarnail Singh: These – these matters, Second Sight Report or the dealings with them, was dealt with by the working groups. It wasn’t something I was involved in. But, certainly, from the Royal Mail prosecutions, apart from the Misra case, there was no case that I dealt with or I was made aware of by the Head of Criminal Law of any other. Certainly even the disclosure was dealt with by the Head of Criminal Law and I wasn’t made aware of that.
Mr Beer: So this is accurate, the two bugs were not known about by you and you were a person considering disclosure in some of the previous cases; you had conduct of them?
Jarnail Singh: Well, I think my evidence from last time was that the disclosure was dealt with by the Head of Criminal Law at that time because I was away for September, September 2010.
Mr Beer: I’m not going to go over that particular old ground again.
Jarnail Singh: No, but that – yes, okay. Fine.
Mr Beer: Can we move forwards, then, to POL00169386. This is an email exchange of 8 January 2015 between you and a number of senior individuals within Post Office about a request for an interview for the purposes of the upcoming BBC Inside Out programme, okay? If we just scroll down, please, we can see your email there. If we just look at the foot of the page, we can see you sign it off “Jarnail”, yes?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: If we go back up to the top of this email, so the BBC have asked for an interview for their Inside Out programme and you say to Mr Davies:
“I had a look at this and I am concerned that [the Post Office] is entering dangerous territory. This situation is not straightforward and cannot be easily simplified in a couple of lines.
“Whilst Post Office wish to say that there are no systemic faults, the Second Sight … Report which has been disclosed to the defendants and their legal representatives does mention two defects/bugs which rise to 76 branches being affected by incorrect balances or transactions. The fact that the bugs manifested in more than one location could be described as systemic but not system wide. Accordingly there are arguments over terminology used by Second Sight and it is important from [a] criminal law perspective that [the Post Office] does not misrepresent the content of the Second Sight Report.
“Not only have Second Sight’s use of terminology [given rise] to potential [arguments] in relation to terms used by Second Sight. It also raises questions as to whether [the Post Office] knew of the existence of those bugs. If so, to whom at [the Post Office] Fujitsu communicated them. These were certainly not known to me at [Post Office] Legal until day or so prior to the publication of the Second Sight Interim Report. The difficulty here is made worse by the fact that Gareth Jenkins, an employee of Fujitsu has been making statements for use in criminal proceedings which made no reference to the very bugs which he it is understood he told Second Sight about. People were prosecuted and pleaded guilty following the receipt of his statement which implied no bugs had been found. Of course it would be highly embarrassing for [the Post Office] were it to be suggested that Fujitsu had informed some part of [the Post Office] and that information never reached the Security Team. Equally it is embarrassing were it to be suggested [that the Post Office] were kept in the dark by such an important supplier such as Fujitsu. It follows [that] these are very difficult topics from a criminal law perspective.”
We can stop reading there.
Do you agree that, in this email, you were suggesting that you were not aware of the two bugs, errors and defects mentioned by Second Sight until the day or so before the publication of the Second Sight Interim Report?
Jarnail Singh: Once I was at Post Office Limited, my involvement was very limited, as I said to you before. A lot of these matters were dealt with by Head of Legal, General Counsel and working groups. A lot of this information is obtained from the advices and also discussions with the expert criminal agents, Cartwright King. This isn’t something I formulated myself because I wouldn’t have the experience or the knowledge of dealing with it. Even my experience at the Royal Mail Group Criminal Law Team was very, very limited.
The only case I dealt with, Misra, which dealt with these matters. I wasn’t even sure as to what they were, bugs, defects, issues, and, apart from those two, I’m not aware of anything else, and that’s – here I’m highlighting, of course, something that I found out subsequently or relied on somebody else.
Mr Beer: I’ll try again. Can we, in the second paragraph, highlight the second sentence “It also raises questions”, and then, the third line:
“Those were certainly not known to me at [Post Office] Legal until a day or so prior to the publication of the Second Sight Interim Report.”
My question was: you were saying to senior individuals, senior management within the Post Office, in this email, that you were not aware of the bugs, errors and defects identified by Second Sight in their Interim Report until a day or so before the publication of that report, weren’t you?
Jarnail Singh: To the best of my knowledge, the only issues were those ones mentioned in the case of Misra. Apart from that, I wasn’t aware of anything else. The only information I have in this email is not from person involvement in anything I dealt with; it was dealt with by Working Group and Head of Legal and the General Counsel. I mean, this –
Mr Beer: Mr Singh, sorry to speak over you but if you can please focus on the question. I think the answer is yes, you were saying in this email, because, according to you, it was the truth, that you were not aware of the bugs, errors and defects identified by Second Sight until a day or so before their publication of their report; and so this is true.
Jarnail Singh: If you put it that way, sir, to – from memory, yes.
Mr Beer: Right. So what you’re saying here to POL senior management is that the two bugs, the receipts and payments mismatch bug and the local suspense account bug, were not known to you until a day or so before the publication of the report?
Jarnail Singh: Well, it’s now such a time ago, I’m not really sure what the ins and out about is but I think certainly my involvement or response to it was very late in the day because I think there’s a long email, I came to at the last minute, and I am just responding from the information that’s highlighted to me.
Mr Beer: The second thing you’re saying is that Mr Jenkins had been making statements that contained no mention of the bugs and yet he had told Second Sight about the bugs. You make that point, don’t you?
Jarnail Singh: Yes, in light of the Clarke Advice, yes.
Mr Beer: So you’re pointing the spotlight here towards Mr Jenkins, aren’t you?
Jarnail Singh: I’m summarising the position as it was in the year 2015.
Mr Beer: You say it would be embarrassing if it emerged that the Post Office had been informed of bugs by Fujitsu but that information had not reached the Security Team. Why would it be embarrassing if it emerged that the Post Office had passed on information about the bugs to the Post Office but that information hadn’t reached the Security Team?
Jarnail Singh: I can’t remember what I was thinking when I prepared that but it certainly wasn’t – my discussions with Head of Legal and the General Counsel, and also Cartwright King, and then them discussing it with me as to the facts, because I wouldn’t have the firsthand knowledge and certainly I wouldn’t have the firsthand knowledge in how to deal with these matters.
Mr Beer: Think about it now, Mr Singh. Wouldn’t it be highly embarrassing because it was the Security Team that were bound up in the prosecutions? They were the ones that essentially investigated and then brought the prosecutions, weren’t they?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know what I was saying at that time, so –
Mr Beer: Think about it now, then. That’s why it would be highly embarrassing, wouldn’t it? The people who were bringing the prosecutions, if the information didn’t reach them, but had been passed to someone within the Post Office, that would be embarrassing, wouldn’t it?
Jarnail Singh: I’m not really sure what you’re asking of me, sir, but I’m not sure what you’re asking from me, but I can’t recollect –
Mr Beer: You said in an email that it would be highly embarrassing for the Post Office if it was suggested that Fujitsu had informed some bits of the Post Office of the two bugs but that information had never reached the Security Team, and I asked you why would it be highly embarrassing?
Jarnail Singh: Um –
Mr Beer: You said, “I can’t recall what I was thinking now or back then”, and I said, “Well, tell us now”.
Jarnail Singh: So I wasn’t part of any breaching, either at Royal Mail Group or even when I joined – when I transferred to Post Office Limited. I am going by what my Head of Legal and General Counsel and the advice from Cartwright King, who were the – who the work was outsourced to. I didn’t keep any files, I wasn’t part from any Working Group. So I’m not sure what I am actually saying there.
Mr Beer: Would it be even more embarrassing if it emerged that Fujitsu had in fact passed on information about the bugs to the Post Office’s Legal Team?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. As I said to you, I wasn’t part of any breaching.
Mr Beer: Just focus on the question. Do you agree it would be even more embarrassing if it emerged that Fujitsu had, in fact, passed on information about the two bugs to the Post Office’s Legal Team?
Jarnail Singh: Sir, I can’t answer that because I –
Mr Beer: Why can’t you answer it?
Jarnail Singh: Because I don’t know. I mean, I wasn’t privy to that sort of information. I didn’t have any contact within the wider business, as the Head of Criminal Law Team had.
Mr Beer: All of the things you’re saying, Mr Singh, don’t bear on the question I’m asking. Do you agree it would have been highly embarrassing if it emerged that Fujitsu had, in fact, passed on information about the two bugs that were said to have been revealed by Second Sight, and that information had been passed to the Legal team, but the Legal team hadn’t disclosed them?
Jarnail Singh: Well, it shouldn’t have been done that way. I mean, I don’t know about –
Mr Beer: Therefore it would have been embarrassing?
Jarnail Singh: Well, it’s embarrassing being here. But the – all I’m saying to you, I wasn’t privy to that sort of information because at the Criminal Law Team – you that the Head of Criminal Law Team who dealt with these matters and there was – they weren’t passed down to my grade, which was a junior grade and, certainly, at Post Office Limited it was likewise. I wasn’t part of any of – the working group, or I – the only information I had is what was passed down to me by the General Counsel or Head of Legal, who was my line manager.
Mr Beer: Do you agree it would be more than embarrassing, a lot more serious than just embarrassing, if it emerged that the Post Office’s Legal Team had made decisions not to give disclosure of bugs to the defence and to the courts?
Jarnail Singh: Well, I wasn’t in a decision making capacity, certainly –
Mr Beer: That’s the answer to a different question, Mr Singh. I’m asking you: do you agree if it would be a lot more than just embarrassing if it emerged that Fujitsu had given information to the Post Office, to the Legal team in the Post Office, and the Post Office Legal team had made decisions not to give disclosure of that information to the defence and to the courts?
Jarnail Singh: I wasn’t in that position to make – I wasn’t aware of it. It certainly didn’t come to me.
Mr Beer: That’s a separate question, I’m just asking you: do you agree that it would be a lot more than embarrassing if what I’ve described was to be the case?
Jarnail Singh: Well, I would hope it didn’t happen that way. I certainly don’t know anything about that.
Mr Beer: Mr Singh, please focus on my questions. Do you agree it would be a lot more than embarrassing –
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: – if that state of affairs emerged?
Jarnail Singh: Well, I hope it didn’t happen but, certainly, I wasn’t aware of any of that, no. But, certainly, yes, I mean, I’m relaying what the information I’d been given.
Mr Beer: At the top of the email, you say you’re concerned that the Post Office is entering “dangerous territory”. Why was the Post Office entering dangerous territory?
Jarnail Singh: Well, from what – I mean, this is quite some time ago since I considered it. Certainly, the information I’ve been given from a legal point of view is to draft it in such a way because this is – if you’re going public, you’ve got to have your facts. It’s got to be accurate and, basically, what I’m saying to them is, “Look, I’m not expert in this area, I have got limited knowledge. You need to go to the criminal specialist”, you know, which is Cartwright King.
I think I refer them to it, right at the bottom, because I’m concerned that that is a proper avenue. It’s not somebody like myself who can actually advise them. I relayed what information I had and I think somewhere along the line or, subsequently, I say no, I can’t deal with it because you really need somebody who was on the ball on this matter.
Mr Beer: Did you investigate whether the Post Office knew of the existence of the two bugs before the Second Sight Report?
Jarnail Singh: The way it – from memory – I mean, from what I can recall, and certainly the papers sent to me by the Inquiry, the way these things came about, there were Working Group who worked very closely with somebody like Second Sight, the Mediation Scheme, which I wasn’t part of, they had meetings which I wasn’t part of. I had limited information. So I always used to get the information from the Head of Legal and I think, on these circumstances, it was a lot of work being done, a lot of working group involved, and I was told that “Look, we’ve got people on to it already”. And I was told to task with two things, one to keep Cartwright King updated by means of the Company Secretary, who was heavily involved in this, and also to help the Head of Legal to find the information.
So I did that, and relayed it to him and, hopefully, it get into the system or the people who were dealing with it. Certainly, I got the information with regard to the two bugs, which I was aware of, or issues with the Misra case by supplying them with, you know, the cut and paste of the legal advice by the barrister in the case, Mr Tatford, and, also, I think I phoned Fujitsu to find out whether they knew anything else and relayed that to the Head of Legal.
Apart from that, that’s the only investigation I had. That’s the only thing I could do at that time.
Mr Beer: Did you not investigate too deeply the issue of whether individuals within Post Office were aware of the existence of bugs before the Second Sight Report because you knew that issue didn’t need investigating because you knew that you were aware of bugs?
Jarnail Singh: Certainly not, sir, that’s not the case, to my knowledge. My involvement was basically liaison with Cartwright King, keeping – well, any input or specific advice, which the – my Head of Legal, who was my line manager, or – had requested or any information he wanted or any specific advices he wanted, or the General Counsel. That was the only role I had, and that is what I was told, “Let’s have a look, Jarnail, what you need to do is we’ve got people who have got a lot of information who are involved in it who are dealing with it and, as and when we need you to do something, you provide that”, and that is to update Cartwright King via the Company Secretary and also to provide information with regard to the Misra case, which I did.
Mr Beer: Just while we are on this email, in the second paragraph, it says in the third line:
“The fact that the bugs manifested in more than one location could be described as systemic but not system wide. Accordingly there were arguments over terminology used by Second Sight”.
Were you aware that the Post Office kept relying on the word “systemic” in its public pronouncements for many years after the Second Sight Report.
Jarnail Singh: Sir, I’m not aware of that because I wasn’t involved to that high level. I mean, I – certainly a Criminal Law Team, it was the Head of Criminal Law in the Post Office as the working groups and you had General Counsel and the Head of Legal dealing with it.
Mr Beer: You draw a distinction here between “systemic” and “system wide”, which may be a fair distinction. Was anything done about your drawing of that distinction here, to your knowledge? Was it followed up at all with you?
Jarnail Singh: That came up because that was the information I was given by Cartwright King. A lot of this was in discussion with Cartwright King because they had the information. I wouldn’t have that sort of information. Or – yeah, Cartwright King and probably the advices I read. But it was that, the sort of information I had from Cartwright King. It wasn’t something I personally had firsthand.
Mr Beer: I’m asking a different question, which is not “Where did you get the knowledge from to write that sentence”. The question I’m asking is: after you wrote this, was anything done about it?
Jarnail Singh: Well, as I said to you, that was highlighted to the Head of Legal and everything I did was in line with what – the input he’d requested or he wanted. I didn’t have any other task; I didn’t have any – anything more than that because I was told that working groups –
Mr Beer: Mr Singh, I’m sorry to –
Jarnail Singh: Sorry.
Mr Beer: – be persistent. Would you kindly answer my question: was anything done, to your knowledge, about the distinction that you drew here?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know, sir.
Mr Beer: Okay, I’ll move on. Can I turn, then, to your true state of knowledge in relation to the two bugs mentioned by Second Sight in the early parts of their report and, firstly, look at your prior knowledge of the receipts and payments mismatch bug. I’m going to ask you some simple questions first before we go into the detail.
First, do you accept that, in fact, shortly before Seema Misra’s trial began in October 2010, you were made aware of the receipts and payments mismatch bug?
Jarnail Singh: I can’t recall. I don’t remember anything around that at all because I’ve read the Inquiry’s papers over and over again and I can’t make head nor tail of what was going on there.
Mr Beer: Secondly, do you accept that no disclosure was made by you to the defence or to the court, in Seema Misra’s case, of the existence of the receipts and payments mismatch bug?
Jarnail Singh: I went aware of that – can you put it up what the receipts and payments information you’re talking about please?
Mr Beer: Sorry?
Jarnail Singh: Can you put that up?
Mr Beer: We’re going to come to the detail in a moment. What happens when I show you a document is you tend to get distracted perhaps, in terms of looking at the document. So I’m just standing back at the moment and looking at some general questions, you having had lots of time to prepare today and have been given all the relevant documents in advance of today.
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: I’m asking you: do you accept that the receipts and payments mismatch bug, the existence of it, was not disclosed to the defence or to the court in the course of or before Seema Misra’s trial?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t recall anything of that –
Mr Beer: Surely, Mr Singh, you know about this. This case went off to the Court of Appeal. You must have read the Court of Appeal’s judgment, which says it was an error not to have disclosed it, but the Post Office conceded that there should have been disclosure, and this is one of your cases that you prosecuted.
Jarnail Singh: Well –
Mr Beer: You must know –
Jarnail Singh: The –
Mr Beer: – there was no disclosure.
Jarnail Singh: Well, as I said to you, the – my knowledge in this area is very limited. Apart from the Misra case, I’ve not come across any other case where I was – I mean, even as to what they were, was the only time I came across it. And that’s why, when I dealt with the Misra case, I had experienced counsel and experienced Investigation Officer working alongside me. I have – the disclosure was dealt with, in this case, by Head of Criminal Law, like I told you on the last occasion.
Mr Beer: Let’s just go back to the question: do you accept that there was no disclosure of the existence of the receipts and payments mismatch bug in Seema Misra’s case?
Jarnail Singh: From what the Inquiry has paper sent me, I wasn’t aware of that and I, obviously, couldn’t deal with because I wasn’t aware of it, no.
Mr Beer: Do you accept that your claims made in the 2013 documents that we’ve just looked at and the 2015 email that we’ve just looked at, that the first you became aware of the receipts and payments mismatch bug, upon production of the Second Sight Report, were false?
Jarnail Singh: No. That’s not true.
Mr Beer: You’d known about the bug all along, hadn’t you, Mr Singh?
Jarnail Singh: No, that’s not true.
Mr Beer: You had known about the bug all along, Mr Singh.
Jarnail Singh: No.
Mr Beer: You were covering it up in 2013 and 2015, weren’t you?
Jarnail Singh: No, I wasn’t covering it up.
Mr Beer: You were covering up your own guilty knowledge?
Jarnail Singh: No, I wasn’t.
Mr Beer: Did you not recognise in 2013, ‘14 and ‘15 that this wasn’t the time to dig in, to double down; it was, on the contrary, time to open up your mind to the reality that you had known about the receipts and payments mismatch bug and you had failed to disclose it?
Jarnail Singh: I wasn’t aware. If I had known, I would have disclosed it. In the Misra case, any other case, I had limited – I had no knowledge of those, at that time, or even when I transferred over to the Post Office Limited and I, as I said to you, as far as the Second Sight’s inquiry – the review is concerned, anything related to it, I was not involved in it. We had working groups, so everything you said is not true.
Mr Beer: You were part of a group of people that doubled down on their position, not only having failed to give disclosure of the receipts and payments mismatch bug in 2010 but then you sought to cover up that fact from 2013 onwards, and it would take another seven years, until 2020, for Mrs Misra, who’d been sent to prison whilst pregnant –
Jarnail Singh: Not true. That is absolutely not true.
Mr Beer: – to have her conviction overturned?
Jarnail Singh: Well, that’s the Court of Appeal. I mean, I – there were problems with this cases but there is no way I would have cover up anything of that magnitude. I wasn’t aware, I wasn’t made aware, I don’t recall any of the information, and it was very difficult to put the Inquiry papers together because they came in separate bundles, or – that’s why it’s not dealt with in the witness statement because I think the – quite a lot of the – a lot of it relating it to came subsequently, and there certainly was no cover-up on my part.
Mr Beer: Can we look then at your actual knowledge of the receipts and payments mismatch bug?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: POL00028838. Page 6, please. This is a report entitled “Correcting Accounts for ‘lost’ Discrepancies” written by Gareth Jenkins, you understand?
Jarnail Singh: Yes, yes.
Mr Beer: You can see the author there is Gareth Idris Jenkins. Can you see the reference that’s given, just above his name there?
Jarnail Singh: Yes, yes.
Mr Beer: The character string notes “lost discrepancies”, yes?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: If we just look at the introduction to see what it’s about, this is a note about the receipts and payments mismatch bug. This note relates to some PEAKs and then, moving under the box, one of the PEAKs describes a problem with stock unit balancing that will result in a receipts payments mismatch. A fix is available for this PEAK which needs to be scheduled, however any branch encountering the problem will have corrupt accounts.
Then if we go to page 7, it sets out the consequences of the bug:
“There will be [first bullet point] a receipts and payments mismatch corresponding to the value of discrepancies that were ‘lost’.
“… if the user doesn’t check their final balance report carefully they may be unaware of the issue since there is no explicit message when a receipts and payments mismatch is found …
“Local suspense will have no knowledge of the discrepancy.”
So it’s saying that there is a bug that gives a misbalance between receipts and payments, ie a mismatch, and that it will be unknown to the user; okay?
Jarnail Singh: Okay.
Mr Beer: That is what I’m going to call Mr Jenkins’ report. We should have just looked at the date of it on the first page, so back a page, please, 29 September 2020 (sic), okay?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at –
Sir Wyn Williams: 2010, Mr Beer.
Mr Beer: Did I say ‘20? I’m so sorry.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, let’s get that accurately on the record.
Mr Beer: Thank you sir, I blame that on the flu.
Can we go forwards, please, to POL00055410. Can we look down, thank you – in fact, if we just look at the top, first, so we can see who this is sent to. It’s from Mr Wilson to Juliet McFarlane and to you, yes?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: Then let’s look down on the email. From Mr Simpson in Post Office Security Team, and we’re now on 8 October, and he says to Mr Wilson first:
“I am forwarding you the attachments above in relation to a series of incidents identified by Fujitsu this week, whereby it appears that when posting discrepancies to the local suspense, these amounts simply disappear at branch level and a balance is shown.
The above includes Fujitsu’s initial analysis and proposed solution/s, whilst the other documents the outputs from various meetings held this week. My concern is around the proposed solution/s, one or more of which may have repercussions in any future prosecution cases and on the integrity of the Horizon Online system.
“There is a further dial-in meeting …”
Yes?
Jarnail Singh: Yes, yes.
Mr Beer: If we go up the page, please, Mr Wilson forwards this to you at 4.29 pm on 8 October, yes?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: Can you see that?
Jarnail Singh: Yes, I can.
Mr Beer: Would you agree that, for someone who was prosecuting subpostmasters at the time, this email ought to ring alarm bells?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: Because it’s showing, isn’t it, Mr Singh, that money is disappearing at branch level and balances are shown that are incorrect?
Jarnail Singh: I’ve looked at the Inquiry bundle, I don’t recall reading this email and I don’t remember printing, where – printing anything – you know, there’s a bit from my – I don’t know what you call it – account, at all.
Mr Beer: Your drive, your system? Is that what you’re talking about?
Jarnail Singh: Yeah, I –
Mr Beer: You’re a couple of questions ahead, Mr Singh. You know I’m going to turn next –
Jarnail Singh: No –
Mr Beer: – aren’t you –
Jarnail Singh: – because I’m telling you that is why it’s not in my witness statement because I didn’t understand it. If I even received it, I wouldn’t understand it, to be honest, it would be something I would expect somebody with knowledge and expertise, like Mr Wilson, who is the contact within the business, to not send it the way he has, “FYI”, because it doesn’t mean anything to me because he knew my knowledge about these things was very limited. I –
Mr Beer: Just go down the page, please. In the first paragraph:
“It appears that when posting discrepancies to the local suspense, these amounts simply disappear at branch level and a balance is shown.”
Then rang on:
“Solutions may have repercussions in any future prosecution cases and on the integrity of the Horizon system.”
That would ring alarm bells for you, wouldn’t it?
Jarnail Singh: It certainly would but I –
Mr Beer: Thank you. Because it mentions, on its face, repercussions for prosecutions and on the integrity of Horizon Online?
Jarnail Singh: Yeah, but what my evidence is that I don’t remember receiving it, don’t remember printing it and that is not – I didn’t – I don’t know anything about this.
Mr Beer: Okay. If we just go back up, please. You’ll see that the email that was sent to you had two attachments. Can you see that, under “Attachments”?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: The first of which was called “ReceiptsPayments notes[version 5.doc”?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: The second was called “Lost Discrepancies 290910.doc”, yes?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: Remember what Mr Jenkins document was called, “Lost Discrepancies”, yes?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: Remember its date, 29 September 2010, yes?
Jarnail Singh: Oh, yes, absolutely.
Mr Beer: Let’s display POL00028838, please. Then scroll down, please, to page 6, please. Thank you. You’ll see that in the reference again this document was called “Noteslost discrepancies”, and it’s dated 29 September 2010, yes?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: If we look at the footer of the page, please, the character string at the bottom C:documents and settingsjarnail.a.singhlocal Settingstemporary internet files”, et cetera. This was saved in your drive, wasn’t it?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know, sir. As I said to you, I don’t recall seeing it, don’t recall printing it.
Mr Beer: This was saved in your drive, wasn’t it?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I don’t know how to do – these things worked.
Mr Beer: You don’t know how to save a document?
Jarnail Singh: No, I didn’t know at the time in year 2010.
Mr Beer: For the decades you worked in the Post Office you didn’t save a document?
Jarnail Singh: Certainly not when I was at the Royal Mail Group.
Mr Beer: You never saved a document?
Jarnail Singh: Not on – no, because I didn’t know how to do it.
Mr Beer: You know, don’t you, that you got this email. You got Mr Jenkins’ documents and, not only was it saved in your drive, you printed it, didn’t you?
Jarnail Singh: No, that’s not the case.
Mr Beer: How can you recall whether you printed a document or not?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t recall. That was the reason why it was difficult to remember it, otherwise I would have – would certainly try to find out what this means, because the document in that – at that time, the year 2010, I didn’t have the knowledge, certainly didn’t have the technical knowledge, or what it meant, I needed somebody to explain it to me, and then deal with it accordingly. But I do not remember this document at all or the email.
Mr Beer: Can we display at the same time POL00055410. We can see the email sending this document to you is timed at 4.29 pm; can you see that on the left-hand side?
Jarnail Singh: Yes, I can, yes.
Mr Beer: We can see that it was printed nine minutes later at 4.38.
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: Can you see that at the bottom?
Jarnail Singh: No, it’s there, yes.
Mr Beer: You printed this document out, didn’t you?
Jarnail Singh: No.
Mr Beer: You did so because you’d read the email from Messrs Simpson and Wilson and you printed the document out, didn’t you, the attachment out?
Jarnail Singh: That’s not true. I don’t remember seeing the email from Rob Wilson, the attachments to it, at all. From memory, I don’t recall the document.
Mr Beer: What you’re engaged in now is closing your mind to the possibility that you saw this, blind denial, because you know that this is evidence of your own guilty knowledge?
Jarnail Singh: That is not true and I don’t feel guilty because I haven’t received it. If I did, I would have dealt with it by understanding what it meant, and I –
Mr Beer: You just said, “If I had received it”?
Jarnail Singh: If I had seen it. I don’t recall receiving it, or reading it, or printing it. That is my evidence on oath.
Mr Beer: This is the Tuesday, the week before Seema Misra’s trial started on the Monday – Friday, I’m so sorry. You didn’t disclose the existence of this bug in the trial, did you?
Jarnail Singh: I didn’t – if – I don’t have any recollection of receiving it or seeing it.
Mr Beer: You know now that the Post Office conceded before the Court of Appeal that there ought to have been such disclosure, don’t you?
Jarnail Singh: Well, this ought to have been dealt with by the Head of Criminal Law Team. It doesn’t make any sense to me. He’s an expert, he has a wider knowledge of these things as to why he just sent it as “FYI”. He’s a man of experience and knowledge and expertise. I’ve never known anything received from him without any detailed knowledge as to what to do with it. He gives very detailed instructions, and he just sent it as “FYI”. I can’t understand that at all and I can’t recall receiving it, or reading it or printing it at that time, and the only time I have read it is when the Inquiry sent me the papers.
Mr Beer: You had a meeting with Mr Wilson about it, didn’t you?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t recall that meeting.
Mr Beer: That’s referred to in the second line of the email on the left.
Jarnail Singh: That is – I think must be a team meeting but I know certainly me and the legal executive and my secretary were dealing with the Misra trial with the exhibits, from memory, exhibits, and the jury bundles. I don’t know –
Mr Beer: You were the solicitor with conduct of Misra, weren’t you?
Jarnail Singh: Yes, I was, yes.
Mr Beer: It fell to you to give disclosure of this bug, didn’t it?
Jarnail Singh: If I received it and understood it, but don’t remember receiving that email with those attachments.
Mr Beer: So what we’ve got is an email addressed to you attaching details of the bug, we’ve got a copy of the document saved in your drive and we’ve got it printed nine minutes after the email was received by you; and you say you didn’t get any of this?
Jarnail Singh: No, as I said to you, I do not recall this document at all. The email and the attachments. I even – when I got the papers from the Inquiry, I didn’t understand it at all what it meant because this is not an area where I was that comfortable with in understanding. So I needed somebody who did and I don’t firstly remember receiving any of this –
Mr Beer: It follows, doesn’t it, that when you were saying in 2013 and 2015 that the first you had heard about the receipts and payments mismatch bug was when Second Sight “revealed it”, in inverted commas, in their report, that was false, wasn’t it?
Jarnail Singh: No, that is not the case.
Mr Beer: It was false in 2013 and it was false in 2015, wasn’t it?
Jarnail Singh: No, that’s not the case. That’s not true.
Mr Beer: You knew you’d been told about this bug looking 2010, just before the trial –
Jarnail Singh: No.
Mr Beer: – and you were covering it up in 2013 and 2015, weren’t you?
Jarnail Singh: No, there has been no cover-up on my part and never will be and never can be.
Mr Beer: Can we take that down, please, and you look at your witness statement, please, page 68, paragraph 204.
Sorry, I think it was your first witness statement –
Sir Wyn Williams: I was just about to ask you, Mr Beer. It’s the first one?
Mr Beer: – which is WITN04750100, page 68, please.
So page 68, please. Thank you. Foot of the page, paragraph 204, you say:
“I have considered the document entitled ‘Correcting Accounts for “lost” Discrepancies’ …”
That’s the Gareth Jenkins document of 29 September 2010. You say:
“I do not recall having seen this document before the Inquiry provided it to me. If I had known about this document, I would have provided it to the Investigation and Security Team to try and understand what it meant, the implications of it and whether the problem was being resolved. Once it had been assessed, I would have considered the disclosure test and disclosed it.”
In this witness statement, you’re seeking to carry on the pretence, aren’t you, that you hadn’t seen the document in 2010, weren’t you?
Jarnail Singh: No, sir, that’s not the case.
Mr Beer: You’re here running the same line as you had run in 2013 and 2015, aren’t you –
Jarnail Singh: No.
Mr Beer: – giving false evidence to the Inquiry?
Jarnail Singh: No, I do not give false evidence. I’m here to assist and that’s what I’m doing.
Mr Beer: When you wrote this, you didn’t know that we would discover an email sending the document to you of 5 October, did you?
Jarnail Singh: No, that’s not the case. I don’t remember any of these documents at all –
Mr Beer: Sorry, 8 October –
Jarnail Singh: – preceding to the Inquiry.
Mr Beer: You didn’t know that we would get hold of the document, the email, dated 8 October, showing that this had, in fact, been sent to you.
Jarnail Singh: No, that’s not the case.
Mr Beer: You didn’t pay this much attention when you were writing this witness statement by looking at the character string at the bottom of the document, to see that it, in fact, had been saved in your drive, did you?
Jarnail Singh: That’s not the case. That’s not true.
Mr Beer: You’re not really a details man, are you?
Jarnail Singh: Well, I don’t know what you mean, but …
Mr Beer: You weren’t paying the attention that it deserved to the details when you were writing this, were you? You didn’t see that you’d printed the document, did you?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know what you mean, sir, but I can tell you, I did not see that document until – before the Inquiry sent it to me.
Mr Beer: Sir, that might be an appropriate moment for the morning break. Can we break from now until 11.00, please.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes.
(10.50 am)
(A short break)
( 11.00 am)
Mr Beer: Good morning, sir, can you see and hear us?
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, thank you, yes.
Mr Beer: Mr Singh, did you maintain a hard copy file for each case that you prosecuted?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: Did you print documents and add them to the file?
Jarnail Singh: I didn’t personally. What used to happen, it was the – we had a desktop and my secretary did – I did the dictation, my secretary did the typing and she did the printing.
Mr Beer: So would you say, “Please print a document and add it to the file”?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know how the system was set up but, certainly, I dictated and she did the – you know, for example, if the letter came in, I would dictate it with the physical file, and put – and gave it to her and she would do the –
Mr Beer: I’m not talking about letters out at the moment; I’m talking about documents in. If you received an email and you wanted it added to the file, you would say, “Please print this email”, “Please print this document”?
Jarnail Singh: She would – yes, yes.
Mr Beer: How would she have access to your system?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know, sir, to be honest.
Mr Beer: Did she have access to your system?
Jarnail Singh: She had access to the system, yes.
Mr Beer: You didn’t have to forward her the email?
Jarnail Singh: No, I don’t think so.
Mr Beer: So if we were to find a copy of Mr Jenkins’ report on the Seema Misra hard copy file, that would mean that you had given an instruction for it to be printed, would it?
Jarnail Singh: I can’t recall how it works out now but, certainly, I wasn’t very good at the IT side of things, the printing, and all I did is dictated stuff and she did the rest, and she made up the file and she printed, you know, the emails. I very rarely – I don’t think I remember printing very much at all because I didn’t know how to.
Mr Beer: You knew the high importance of the Seema Misra case to the Post Office, didn’t you?
Jarnail Singh: Yes, it’s still very important to me now, sir.
Mr Beer: Back in the day –
Jarnail Singh: Yes, yes.
Mr Beer: – back in October 2010, you knew it was of critical importance to the Post Office?
Jarnail Singh: It was important to me because it’s the very first one I’ve been able to take it all the way with the documents. They were – every single document in that case was new to me and I was very careful and very cautious. I had Mr Longman, Mr Tatford, even Mr Jenkins onto it, Mr Wilson, because I didn’t feel comfortable. I think there was a number of occasions when I said to Mr Wilson, “Rob, you need to take this case on. I just can’t cope with it”, because, you know, it was – everything was so new and I was so careful and methodical with it because I knew, you know, that somebody’s – somebody’s – you know, I didn’t want to get anything wrong on it.
Mr Beer: So being careful and methodical you would have received this email and read it carefully, wouldn’t you?
Jarnail Singh: As I said to you, if I’d received it, if I’d even seen it, the first thing I would have done is probably send it to Mr Tatford and Mr Longman because we were working very closely together on this and, certainly, Mr Tatford – and probably, because of the nature of it I didn’t understand it, and you’ve got the Misra case on Monday, we’ve been very close-knit team. He would have received it and he would have probably rang me or I would have rang him and said, “Look, Mr Tatford, what does it mean? What do we do, please?” That’s how it worked.
And the same as Mr Longman. Mr Longman was wonderful all the way through because he was very helpful to me because he was an expert at dealing it Fujitsu and all side of things so that’s the first thing I’d’ve done. If read it, that would have been what I’ve done with it – would have done with it.
Mr Beer: All of this, “If I received it, if I read it”, is a big fat lie, isn’t it?
Jarnail Singh: No, sir –
Mr Beer: And you know it, Mr Singh.
Jarnail Singh: Sir, I didn’t come here to lie. I’m at an age where I’ve come to assist the Inquiry and that’s all. And if I had seen it at that time, that is what I would have done. I’m not one of those – I – the – you’ve seen it. You called me a letterbox. That’s a compliment to me because that’s the way I work. If I don’t understand anything, I don’t understand a thing, I will find somebody who does. Here Mr Tatford was my guy and so was Mr Longman. So that’s the way we worked.
The first thing would have been, it would have been forwarded to him, we would have discussed it and we would have dealt with it.
Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at POL00055418. This is an email half an hour earlier, on Friday, 8 October, to you from Ms Talbot, copying in Mike Granville and Rod Ismay. They were Senior Managers in the business, weren’t they?
Jarnail Singh: I know Mandy Talbot. I’ve never heard of Mike Granville. I don’t know who Rod Ismay was either. She was a bit of a nuisance and I don’t think I’ve actually responded to her very much.
Mr Beer: Sorry, who was a nuisance?
Jarnail Singh: Mandy Talbot because I think she kept on asking all sort of weird and wonderful questions and I just referred her to Mr Wilson because I just didn’t understand what – where – you know, what information – what inferences, she was asking for. So everything I highlighted, and I just referred her to Mr Wilson, and Mr Wilson being of the same rank – or they probably had a lot of discussions but I had very little to do with her.
Mr Beer: Anyway, just before you received the email containing the details of the receipts and payments mismatch bug, Ms Talbot is writing to you saying:
“Mike and Rod are also very interested in any developments …”
Did you think at the time, “I don’t even know who Mike and Rod are”?
Jarnail Singh: Probably. I mean –
Mr Beer: “Dear Mandy, please explain who Mike and Rod are”?
Jarnail Singh: I didn’t do that. I didn’t even respond to her, I don’t think because I was so focused on that particular case. I knew her from the old days when she was in the Civil Litigation Department, when we were in the same building, but I didn’t really speak to her very much. All of a sudden, in this case, she appeared from nowhere and I think the only other involvement we had is when Mrs Misra highlighted the computer magazines and the list of cases, and I think Warwick Tatford went to meet her to review those cases. But I don’t think I’ve ever head very much to do with her. I don’t think I’ve met her since our days when we were in the same building, Impact House in Croydon.
Mr Beer: Anyway, these two men that you don’t know are:
“… very interested in any developments at the trial next week which impact on Horizon. You promised to let me know if anything unfortunate occurred in respect of Horizon.”
That’s written as if Ms Talbot had had a conversation with you or a communication with you in which you had said, if something unfortunate happens you would let her know; is that right?
Jarnail Singh: Don’t – I probably had a very glancing conversation. There wasn’t anything about “unfortunate”. I don’t know what she was talking about there, as to what she mentioned, but it was – I don’t even recall the conversation. As I said, the only conversation she had was with Rob Wilson, Head of Criminal Law Team, because they probably meet the same people, they had the same briefing, and they were, you know, a contact within the business.
I had no contact within the business, the only people I knew was Rob Wilson and, probably, you know, Juliet McFarlane, Mrs Debbie Stapel and the two legal executives, who I worked with.
Mr Beer: “Please can you copy Rod and Mike into any messages.”
You didn’t reply and say, “Well, why should I do that? I don’t know who these men are”.
Jarnail Singh: I don’t recall, to be honest.
Mr Beer: “Incidentally I assume you have briefed external relations.”
Had you briefed external relations?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t even know who external relations she was referring to. At that time, I mean, certainly when I moved to Post Office Limited, you know, they had a big department, big, big room like this, with a lot of cameras and videos and all sorts of things, but certainly, at that time, I don’t know what she was talking about, communications.
Mr Beer: Did you reply and say, “I don’t know what you mean by external relations”?
Jarnail Singh: No, I don’t think I replied in those terms, I probably could not –
Mr Beer: “Can you let us know who you have briefed because Mike and Rod may wish to have input into any story relating to Horizon. They may give you a call … for an update. Incidentally Postmasters for Justice met with the Minister this week and were accompanied by Issy Hogg [the defence solicitor] and the lady from Shoosmiths.”
This email left you in no doubt as to how important the trial was to the business, didn’t it?
Jarnail Singh: No, sir, that didn’t even occur to me. Mrs Misra was the most important person because I was focused on dealing with her case, in the best – best of my ability. Certainly, I don’t think I replied to it, but if I did replied it, I would have left it to Rob Wilson to deal with her.
Mr Beer: You didn’t reply to this because you understood that this was conveying the message, “The Horizon system is on trial next week, you need to tell us if anything goes wrong”?
Jarnail Singh: No, Mrs Misra was on trial, not Horizon. Horizon didn’t occur to me at all. I don’t even understand the Horizon. I was dealing with the trial, as the trial would do. Horizon is something that Jon Longman and Mr Jenkins dealt with.
Mr Beer: This would have put in your mind, wouldn’t it, when you received the receipts and payments mismatch documentation, the high importance of it, wouldn’t it?
Jarnail Singh: No, no, that was – I didn’t receive that document, as I said to you. If I did, my team, or Mr Tatford and Mr Longman would have been the first people who were copied in. Like we always did, you’ve seen how we went through the Misra case, in a very methodical, careful way, and I admit mistakes were made and I’m sorry that Mrs Misra suffered, and I am ever so embarrassed to be here that we made those mistakes and put somebody’s liberty at stake and the loss she suffered, and the damage we caused, which is not what this was about.
This email doesn’t mean anything to me. I don’t even remember receiving –
Mr Beer: This tells you that there is a lot riding on the trial, doesn’t it?
Jarnail Singh: No, sir, it did not.
Mr Beer: External relations need to be briefed, input needs to be made in relation to a story relating to Horizon, JFSA have met with a minister. It’s all ramping it up for you, isn’t it, how important the trial is, because it’s really about Horizon, this trial, isn’t it?
Jarnail Singh: Absolutely not, and I don’t know anything about the, you know, the Masters for Justice (sic), ministers and Shoosmiths. Issy Hogg, yes, because she was the defence solicitor, but the others don’t mean anything to me and, certainly – I don’t know, you can read what you like into that content, I didn’t see it in that way. She wrote, I ignored it, and it was something that Rob Wilson dealt with. I did not deal with her in any shape or form before the case, after the case.
Mr Beer: Thank you. That can come down.
Can I turn to your knowledge of the local suspense account bug, please, and have up on the screen POL00144919. If we can go to page 3, please, this is an email chain we’re going to see later was forwarded to you. It’s an email exchange between Lesley Sewell, who was the Chief Information Officer at the Post Office, to Paula Vennells and others, of the 28 June 2013. It’s about the local suspense account bug, so it’s an exchange amongst senior individuals within the organisation. If we look at the timeline, just a little bit further up, please:
“First raised to NBSC at 4.51 pm on 25 February …
“Problem diagnosed 28 February.”
Then under “Root Cause”:
“When calculating the office balances of gains and losses of stock units for a branch after pulled together into one place (this is called the Local Suspense). This is temporary data which is held in the system until the end of the Trading Period and the branch balances. After each trading period this should be cleared so the opening balance is zero at the start of the next trading period.
“For the 14 branches this temporary data was not cleared which resulted in it reappearing in the same trading period the following year. This only affected two trading periods [9 and 10]. This would have affected the subpostmaster balance as his opening figure would have been incorrect for that period.”
If we go to page 1, please. At the foot of the page, please. This is forwarded to you from Hugh Flemington on 28 June, so later that day, saying:
“Rob [Wilson] – have we more detail from Rod Ismay as to when we spotted this?”
Then at the top of the page, please:
“The effects of the 14 bug on branch accounting were notified to [Post Office] by a few [subpostmasters] in around January 2012. However, [Post Office] did not identify Horizon as the root cause until January 2013.”
So, at this time, in June 2013, you’re being told that there’s a separate bug called the local suspense account bug, the affects of which have been felt from January 2012, but Horizon had been identified as the root cause in January 2013, yes?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: Was there a rush within the Post Office to find out, in the weeks before the publication of the Second Sight Report on 8 July 2013, when the Post Office was aware of the bugs referred to in the report?
Jarnail Singh: I, as far as local suspense accounts are concerned, I have no knowledge, I don’t know what they mean. Secondly, these things was copied in by my line manager, Hugh Flemington. I spoke to him and he said we’d got a working group looking into it. I don’t know whether he actually named who was involved in it and he said, “Look, I want to” – he had some sort of plan of action. So there were various people doing various things and he asked me to do one or two things as part of it, and he said “Well, when I need you, when I want you to – to just keep an eye on things, and when I need you, when I want you, to provide me with the information, do that”.
And on – here, you’ve got Working Group involved in it and you’ve got, I think, a few other people involved in it, you know, Bond Dickinson and maybe Cartwright King. But my role, as far as my line manager was concerned, was to keep an eye on things and, as and when he required any information, input or specific advice, he will come to me. So …
Mr Beer: My question, Mr Singh, was: was there something of a scrabbling around, in the weeks before in the Second Sight Report, when it emerged they’re going to talk about these two bugs – receipts and payments and local suspense – to find out when within the organisation we knew about them?
Jarnail Singh: I wasn’t involved in it. I wasn’t aware of it. There was probably a certain amount of work that was carried on. As I say, there was working groups who deal with it, there were specific people on to those working groups, and they probably did. They probably had meetings with the Second Sight. I had no meeting with Second Sight. I don’t think I ever met Second Sight. I can’t say to you –
Mr Beer: Mr Singh, you’re answering questions that haven’t been asked. The things you’ve just said would be an answer to a question “Did you ever meet Second Sight?” and you’d say, “No, I didn’t meet Second Sight”. But I’ve not asked that.
Jarnail Singh: I apologise. I apologise. I’m trying to – okay, ask me again and then I’ll give you a straight answer.
Mr Beer: Was there something of an internal scrabbling around in the period before 8 July 2013 in the Post Office –
Jarnail Singh: I don’t recall, I don’t –
Mr Beer: – to find out “When did we know about these two bugs”?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t recall specifically that was happening in the background but it was not to my knowledge.
Mr Beer: Do you agree that’s what this email chain seems to be about: a timeline of Post Office knowledge of the local suspense account bug?
Jarnail Singh: I can’t say to you one way or the other. I don’t know but, certainly, there is some sort of activity going on, yes.
Mr Beer: Would this not prompt you to reveal “Hold on, I may not know about this bug, the local suspense account bug, but I did know about the receipts and payments mismatch bug”?
Jarnail Singh: No, sir, because I – like I said to you before the break, I wasn’t aware of that.
Mr Beer: “I’ve known about that bug for three years and I didn’t disclose it in criminal proceedings”?
Jarnail Singh: No, sir, that’s not how it was. I told you I wasn’t aware of it, and that is the way my evidence is. No, I was not aware of that.
Mr Beer: Can we turn to your knowledge of the Callendar Square or Falkirk bug, by looking at FUJ00122794. Start by looking at page 2, please. Can we see an email dated 5 February at 2010, from you – in fact, it’s your secretary, Marilyn Benjamin, yes –
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: – to David Jones, Gareth Jenkins and Penny Thomas, with the heading, “West Byfleet issues – Seema Misra – Legally Privileged”.
So David Jones, he was a lawyer, right?
Jarnail Singh: Yeah, I believe at Fujitsu, yes.
Mr Beer: A Fujitsu lawyer. You say:
“Dear David and Penny,
“On first glance, points 2-4 have not been answered which I reproduce below.”
Then point 3:
“When Gareth Jenkins completes his statement …”
Sorry, I should have read point 2:
“My barrister telephoned me yesterday evening and requested that I find out any information that Fujitsu may hold in relation to an office called Callendar Square in Falkirk. Apparently, Anne Chambers a systems specialist employed by Fujitsu was cross-examined and it is said that she had full knowledge of an error in the Horizon system at this Post Office. Our barrister would like Gareth to deal with this matter and expand upon whichever issue Anne Chambers raised at court within his statement.
“3) When Gareth completes his statement could he also mention whether there are any known problems with the Horizon system that Fujitsu are aware of. If none could this be classed in the statement.”
Then, if we scroll up, please, we then see Mr Jenkins’ reply and so, looking at this generally, this puts your knowledge of the Callendar Square bug at February 2010, correct?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: Mr Jenkins’ reply, which I think I can skip over, go to page 1, please. Bit further up, thank you.
Mr Jones’ reply to you:
“This is an email that I received earlier from Gareth. You will see that he is clear that in order to answer counsel’s questions [Warwick Tatford’s questions] about any issues he needs to be able to check the underlying transaction logs to be able to say whether there were any issues. On the specific issues you raise Gareth’s view is:
“2. [This is about Falkirk] He needs if and time to research the background to this case before providing any response;
“3. He is not currently in a position to make a clear statement. It is possible for there to be problems where transactions have been ‘lost’ in particular circumstances due to locking issues. When this happens then we have events in the underlying logs to indicate that there was an issue. Whenever we provide transaction logs to [the Post Office] we check for such events. In the case of West Byfleet, we have not been asked to provide any transaction logs and so have not made these checks.”
So this is telling you about the Callendar Square problem. Whilst we’re here, did it cause you concern that Mr Jenkins felt unable to make a statement as to – if you read, “He is not currently in a position to make a clear statement” and, if we scroll down, please – and again, and again, and again, thank you:
“He is not in a position to make a clear statement as to whether there are any known problems with the Horizon system.”
Did that cause alarm bells to ring for you?
Jarnail Singh: He’s not able to deal with it because he can’t examine the logs. Secondly, I think here he’s dealing directly with the defence expert and I think it’s in response to that. So, in that sense, there’s an issue but it’s being dealt with. It will be dealt with once he gets the information he needs to examine it.
Mr Beer: Are you saying it didn’t ring any alarm bells that your expert witness felt unable to make a statement whether there were any known problems with Horizon?
Jarnail Singh: This man is a man of – I think if you look at the documents, two things. Firstly, he – it wasn’t that he’s an expert, he’s an experienced person who knows the system. Secondly, I think we put the defence on notice even at the Crown Court on 1 February ‘10 that he – we’re not going to rely on an expert; we’re relying on a Fujitsu employee who has got the experience and the knowledge to deal with it, and he’s dealing with it.
He’s dealing with it in the sense that he needs information to be able to address it and, secondly, I think these dealing directly with the defence expert. He’s assisting him. So, in that sense – and, thirdly, I do not – I didn’t have the knowledge to understand what the locking issue was at that time.
Sorry, maybe that’s a long answer but, just a comprehensive thing as to my understanding from the Inquiry papers when I read them and that’s why I’m highlighting to you what I’m highlighting to you now, that I didn’t understand what the locking meant. I probably need somebody like Mr Gareth Jenkins or Warwick or Mr Longman to explain that to me, and it he didn’t have any alarm bells because he’s dealing with it. He will deal with it when he’s received the logs.
Mr Beer: I’m not going to pursue that further. That can come down. Do you remember just before the publication of the Second Sight Report in July 2013, you sought out some of the papers concerning your knowledge of the Callendar Square bug?
Jarnail Singh: Yes, my line manager, Hugh Flemington, asked for them because the Company Secretary wanted them.
Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at FUJ00154228, and turn, please, to page 4. Can you see that there’s an email here, seemingly out of nowhere from Mr Jenkins to you on 1 July 2013, attaching his witness statement for the Misra case?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t think it came out from nowhere. I think I emailed him and the Company Secretary, I think, also, in the background, had been in touch with him to find out whether there was any other problems apart from the – you know, the Falkirk issue.
Mr Beer: What was the context for you asking for a copy of his witness statement for three years previously in July ‘13?
Jarnail Singh: Because my line manager, Hugh Flemington, asked for it because he’d been asked by the Company Secretary to obtain it.
Mr Beer: But Mrs Misra had been found guilty. She’d served her sentence of imprisonment, the case had been concluded. Why did you need to see the witness statement?
Jarnail Singh: As I said to you, Working Group is working on it. I’d been told, when I request input from you or what I request from you, you provide it, and I did. And he asked and I think he said there’s an email chain from the information the Inquiry – or the papers the Inquiry supplied to me, that she wanted the Head of Legal, Hugh Flemington, and he copied me in and said, “Jarnail can you provide the Castleton issue or Falkirk”, and I did the best I could and provided that.
Mr Beer: Was this part of the scrabbling around within the Post Office in the run-up to the publication of the Second Sight Report, to find out what had and had not been disclosed because you knew that Second Sight were going to mention the existence of bugs in Horizon in their report?
Jarnail Singh: No, sir, you’re further from the facts. Facts were, there’s a working group involved. My line manager asked me, “As and when I needed input from you, or the information I need and you need to be ready to provide it”. Company Secretary has asked him to forward certain information, he has asked me to get it, and that’s all there is. That is my total involvement in obtaining that. It was nothing untowards on my part. I don’t know what he was – they were looking for, what they wanted. I was asked for certain information, I found it, provided it.
Mr Beer: If we go to the bottom of page 3, please. You reply to him:
“What ‘Bugs’ were referred to or considered in Misra or Castleton or any other case. Are able to help.”
Then further up the page, please. His reply:
“Jarnail,
“The bug that was discussed in both cases related to a problem found in Callendar Square, Falkirk around 2004 as covered in my witness statement in response to it having been raised by the defence expert Professor McLachlan. He was aware of it as it had also been raised by Mr Castleton … in 2006. I don’t know how Mr Castleton was aware of it.”
So that’s all accurate. He rightly says that a single bug was disclosed in Misra, only the Callendar Square bug, correct?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: Here we’re a week before the publication of the Interim Report and a fortnight before the writing of the Simon Clarke Advice. Then if we go up further, please, you reply:
“Good afternoon and Thanks.
“Are they the two referred to presently. Are you able to pinpoint it in your statement.”
Then keep scrolling, please:
“Please see page 14 …”
That will take you to the Callendar Square bug:
“Also attached is the summary from Castleton which refers to the problem in point 23”, which is also about Callendar Square.
Then further up please, and you say:
“[Thank you].
“Gareth you said ‘The Falkirk bug was first raised in the Castleton civil case and was then picked up on for a number of subsequent criminal cases even [though] it was irrelevant to those environments’.
“Apart from the Misra case, can you give us the names for the other ‘subsequent … cases’ he refers to …”
Why were you, at this stage, not revealing your knowledge of the receipts and payments mismatch bug when there’s this detailed investigation into the revelation of the Falkirk bug.
Jarnail Singh: Because I didn’t know about them. Like I told you before, that was the only issue I knew about and that’s what this is about. The person who would know would have been Fujitsu and the contact we had was Gareth Jenkins, and that’s why we referred to him for information, and that’s what I’d been asked to do; that’s what I’ve done.
Mr Beer: Can we go forwards to POL00031352 and turn to page 3 at the bottom, please. This starts off with an email chain that ends up with you but, to start with, doesn’t include you.
Jarnail Singh: No.
Mr Beer: Mr Baker to Gareth Jenkins, the Chief Information Officer and the Company Secretary:
“Gareth
“You mention discussing the Falkirk bug in the Misra case today, are there any other examples where bugs have been discussed in court.”
I should say that the heading of that email is, “Discuss of defect in Horizon in court”, yes?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: Then if we scroll up, please, Mr Jenkins replies:
“I’m not aware of any other specific bugs being discussed in court (either related to [Legacy] Horizon or [Horizon Online]).
“The Falkirk bug was first raised in the Castleton civil case and was then picked up on for a number of subsequent criminal cases even though it was irrelevant to those environments. Dense experts were using it as an example that Horizon has had bugs.”
Then, further up, please. Alwen Lyons – sorry, just go back.
Alwen Lyons said:
“The question was really about whether the defect had been spoken about in open court other than in the Misra case as it helps that it was in the public domain and not ‘covered up’ in any way.”
Then scroll up, please. Mr Jenkins says:
“I understand the bug was spoken about in the Castleton case (I wasn’t personally involved). It was definitely spoken about in the Misra case where it was interrogated about at length. Other cases where it was mentioned were settled out of court as far as I know.”
Then scroll up more, please, and stop there. I think here Alwen Lyons says:
“Thanks Gareth can we get the witness statement for Castleton please Hugh Thanks Alwen.”
Then Hugh Flemington says:
“… can you get the … case details please as Alwen has asked for.”
Is that what led to you sending that email or speaking to Mr Jenkins, asking for a copy of his witness statement?
Jarnail Singh: I think – yeah –
Mr Beer: So –
Jarnail Singh: Yeah, I – I’m trying to think. Yes. Yes.
Mr Beer: Okay. So Ms Lyons is saying, “Can we get the witness statement for Castleton please”, yes?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: You can see the heading of the email is still called, “Discuss [ie discussion] of defects in Horizon in court”, yes?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: Then go to page 1, please. This is your reply, if we scroll down to the foot of the page: Jarnail Singh, Criminal Lawyer, yes?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: Then go to the top of the page, please, and then keep going, still dated 1 July 2013. You see you’ve changed the heading to the email.
Jarnail Singh: Because it’s a post and paste, I think from –
Mr Beer: Sorry?
Jarnail Singh: It’s post and paste. Post and paste from counsel’s advice pinning or write up on the Castleton and the, you know, the issues in Misra, I think.
Mr Beer: You’d been asked to provide a copy of the witness statement of Mr Jenkins, hadn’t you?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know –
Mr Beer: Sorry, the witness statement in the Castleton case.
Jarnail Singh: Castleton, I think we – I got Bond Dickinson to deal with it because is it civil case? I don’t know whether I had anything. The only thing I had in relation to Castleton was the – him being mentioned and discussed and dealt with.
Mr Beer: Sorry, let’s go back to page 2, then:
“Thanks Gareth can we get the witness statement for Castleton please Hugh …”
Then to you:
“Jarnail – can you get Castleton case details please.”
Yes? This all about Castleton, isn’t it?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: Then we go to page 1. Suddenly you’re talking about Seema Misra?
Jarnail Singh: Because the only case I know of where Castleton has been mentioned and discussed and dealt with is the Misra case. I don’t know anything about it. I don’t know anything about the Castleton case because I think it was a civil matter, from my recollection, and I think it’s Mr Tatford I think who did the review because of the whatever he was dealing – we were dealing with at that time.
But the only information I had is, as far as the Castleton is concerned, is here and I think I asked Bond Dickinson for statement to provide them, whether they did or not I don’t know, but then that’s the only thing I had and I provided it.
Mr Beer: So you were asked to provide the witness statement in Lee Castleton’s case, and you say:
“In criminal trials both the prosecution and defence put their case to the jury. Who make a decision ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ on finding the defendant guilty, jury do not give reasons for their verdict and it is not possible to ask the jury the basis and details on which they make their decision. On occasion particular point can be inferred.
“This is the only criminal trial where a jury has been required to consider in detail the integrity of the Horizon System.
“1. Seema Misra was subpostmistress at West Byfleet. She was accused of stealing £74,000-odd between 2005 and 2008. On 21/10/10, after a 7 day trial, she was found guilty of the jury of the theft.
“2. Mrs Misra claimed that, although she was guilty of false accounting, she had not stolen the money whose loss she had concealed. She suggested that one possible reason why the money appeared to be missing might be computer error. The jury heard from expert witnesses for the Crown and the defence. Their evidence was sufficiently detailed as to have lasted two full days. The jury’s verdict showed that it was sure that computer error played no [part] in the case. There has been no appeal against conviction.
“3. We instructed our own expert, Gareth Jenkins, from Fujitsu. This was a turning point in the case.”
Skipping to 4:
“In his evidence to the jury Professor McLachlan conceded that all of the theoretical problems he had raised were now irrelevant …
“5. The most significant case reviewed was that of Lee Castleton (civil case only). He brought a civil action alleging deficiencies in the Horizon system. He, unlike any other subpostmaster, was prepared to be specific about some of the problems he claimed to have encountered. His claims were utterly refuted in the written judgment of the case. The judgment explains in detail why Mr Castleton’s allegations were rejected. It provides a rigorous analysis that is woefully absent from the vague and illogical complaints about Horizon that are reported in some sections of the media. The judgment referred briefly to a real computer problem that emerged at Callendar Square office in Falkirk. Gareth Jenkins to investigate this problem. He provided a detailed summary of the problem in his witness statement [page 14, of 9 March 2010]. He also explained in that statement why he concluded it was irrelevant to Mrs Misra’s case.”
You took it upon yourself here to provide an explanation to a wide readership which sought to justify the jury’s verdict in Misra, didn’t you?
Jarnail Singh: No, that wasn’t the case. I think I discussed it with Hugh Flemington, Head of Legal, and I explained to him: look, I don’t know where to get the statement but the only thing I have got of any relevance is this”, and I showed it to him and I said, “Well, what do you want me to do?”, and he said, “Well, send it to me and I’ll get it sorted or I’ll get” – I don’t know, somebody called Parsons at Bond Dickinson – “to provide it if they – they may have it”. I said, “Well, look, I certainly haven’t. I don’t even know where to get it from”.
And he said, “Well, just sent me that and see what I can – maybe, you know, you can discuss it and forward it on”. But there wasn’t, there was nothing like what you’re suggesting at all. There –
Mr Beer: You were seeking to justify –
Jarnail Singh: No, no.
Mr Beer: – why the jury’s verdict was a vindication of Horizon, weren’t you?
Jarnail Singh: No, not at all. That’s the only information I had with regard to Castleton civil case. As I say, clearly, it’s a civil case only, and I’ve discussed it with him, and said, “Hugh, look, that’s all have. What did you want me to do?”, and he said, “Well look, send what you have”, and I have.
Mr Beer: You have been asked to provide a copy of a witness statement in the Castleton case and you provided a detailed narrative about the Misra case, didn’t you?
Jarnail Singh: No, because that’s the only information I had and I asked him “Was it relevant? Do you want me to send it or what do you want me to do?” And he said “Just send it as it is”, and I did.
Mr Beer: You started to understand, didn’t you, that the Misra case was going to be a problem for you, didn’t you?
Jarnail Singh: It wasn’t a problem for me because I wasn’t dealing with it. The problem was in the – as I say, the way we find ourselves where we are, obviously, you know, I’m grieved that she had to suffer the pain that her and the family had to suffer, and it was doubly – I’m grieved, in the sense that there was mistakes being made and she had to go through it.
That is what I’m feeling today and I always felt when the Court of Appeal decided, rightly, what they did, the mistakes were made, I made the mistakes. We didn’t have the systems and procedures and, certainly, on various stages, I wanted to drop the case and it was a decision made by Head of Criminal Law, Rob Wilson, to proceed with it. That is what it is. It is not what you are suggesting.
Mr Beer: You knew, Mr Singh –
Jarnail Singh: No.
Mr Beer: – didn’t you, that your knowledge of the receipts and payments mismatch bug was going to come under scrutiny and what you were doing here, having been asked to provide a copy of the witness statement in Castleton, was to try to stand up to show why the result in the Seema Misra case was a good one?
Jarnail Singh: Absolutely not. Not true.
Mr Beer: Can we move on, please, to POL00297710. This is, essentially, a state of play email sent to you on 13 July 2013. So this is between Second Sight Interim Report and Simon Clarke Advice. If we scroll down, please – in fact, just read it to yourself as we scroll down. So go back to the top, please. So it’s an overview of where we are, sent by Rob Wilson. “Criminal Law”, these are the people dealing with the criminal law; “Civil Law”, these are the people dealing with civil law; “Media Law”, these are the people dealing with the media law aspects of the case; “Issues”:
“Current and Historic Criminal Case Review – Cartwright King
“Review is now considering pre-separation cases.”
“[Cartwright King] notifying [Post Office] of cases where further disclosure is required as they are identified.
“Next conference call [on Wednesday, the 17th]
“Bond Dickinson to attend talk to facilitate co-ordination …
“Second Sight Review – Bond Dickinson.”
Then over the page:
“Fujitsu – Bond Dickinson/Cartwright King
“[Cartwright King] has raised an issue concerning Horizon evidence presented by Fujitsu during the criminal trials.”
So you knew, by this time, that Cartwright King had focused on and were centring upon the issue of the evidence provided by Fujitsu in the course of criminal trials, didn’t you?
Jarnail Singh: No.
Mr Beer: What did you understand that sentence to mean?
Jarnail Singh: As I say, I don’t remember coming across this, just – was that with my Inquiry’s bundle papers? I don’t remember that.
Mr Beer: You agree that that’s what it suggests on its face, that Cartwright King are raising issues about the evidence presented by Fujitsu in the course of criminal trials?
Jarnail Singh: Well, that’s what it says but, at that time, that didn’t occur to me purely because whatever you’re suggesting is not true. I didn’t know about that –
Mr Beer: I haven’t suggested anything yet –
Jarnail Singh: Well, suggesting –
Mr Beer: – but it’s nice to know that you think it would be not true.
Jarnail Singh: Well, you know, okay, fine.
Mr Beer: Is that your default position, when coming to give evidence in answer to the questions from Counsel to the Inquiry: if he suggests things, they’re not true?
Jarnail Singh: Well, no, I’m trying to listen to you, trying to understand where you’re going but I –
Mr Beer: So why did you say “What you’re suggesting is not true”, when I hadn’t made a suggestion?
Jarnail Singh: Well, okay, make the suggestion then.
Mr Beer: Thank you, Mr Singh. If we move on to the next paragraph, “New Horizon Expert”:
“Hugh emailed new Fujitsu contact – Torstein Godeseth …
“[Cartwright King] to arrange to meet [Torstein Godeseth]
“Andy Parsons, [Bond Dickinson] progressing new independent expert.”
You were aware, at least by the date of this email, weren’t you, of the key consequence arising from it, the need to find a new expert witness?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know what you’re – I don’t understand what you’re telling me or asking me.
Mr Beer: On reading this email, you would have been aware of the need to find a new Horizon expert, wouldn’t you?
Jarnail Singh: What’s the – I don’t – I don’t know. I mean, I’m not involved in – I’m not a decision maker. I don’t make the decisions as to what goes on. I don’t know what you’re suggesting or what you want me to answer. What is your question? I mean, I don’t understand it.
Mr Beer: By the time of this email, you would have been aware of the need to find a new expert on Horizon, wouldn’t you?
Jarnail Singh: What’s the – as I said to you, I don’t – wasn’t involved in this. The only time I think a new independent expert had been suggested was subsequently by counsel, legal counsel – Post Office’s counsel Susan, I think, some later stage, but I’m not aware of the independency of the expert or anything of that nature at that stage. I don’t – I wasn’t involved in it. No.
Mr Beer: Can we move forward to Mr Clarke’s Advice of 15 July, please. POL00006357. This is Mr Clarke’s Advice of 15 July and, if we can go forwards, please, to paragraph 38 – sorry, I haven’t got a note of the page number. Sorry, if we just stop there.
This is where he sets out “Discussion”, and if we just scroll slowly down, please. Then keep going, please. Stop there:
“By reason of the matters stated … it may reasonably be suggested that the conclusions set out immediately below are established:
“Since September 2010 Horizon Online had suffered at least two defects, or bugs. One appears to have been resolved in early 2011; the other remained extant until at least January 2013 and, on one account, will not be remedied until October 2013.
“Dr Jenkins informed the Second Sight committee of the existence of the two bugs within the 12 months preceding publication of their Interim Report. Accordingly, Dr Jenkins knew of the bugs, their history and resolution during the period 5 October and 3 April.”
If we scroll down – in fact, no need to read this, just keep going, please, and over the page, and over the page:
“Conclusions
“What does all this mean? … it means that Dr Jennings has not complied with his duties to the court, the prosecution or the defence.”
Then 38:
“The reasons why Dr Jenkins failed to comply with this duty are beyond the scope of this review.”
However this is the position:
“[1] Dr Jenkins failed to disclose material known to him but which undermines his expert opinion. This failure is in plain breach of his duty as an expert witness.
“Accordingly his credibility as an expert witness is fatally undermined. He shouldn’t be asked to provide expert evidence in any current or future prosecution.
“Similarly, in those current and ongoing cases where Dr Jenkins has provided an expert witness statement, he should not be called upon to give that evidence … we should seek a different independent expert to fulfil that role.
“Notwithstanding the failure is that of Dr Jennings and, arguably, of Fujitsu. This failure has a profound effect upon [Post Office and its prosecutions], not least by reason of Dr Jenkins’ failure, material which should have been disclosed to defendants was not disclosed, thereby placing [the Post Office] in breach of their duty as a prosecutor.
“By reason of that failure to disclose, there are now a number of convicted defendants to whom the existence of bugs should have been disclosed and was not.”
Then reading on:
“… there are also a number of current cases where there has been no disclosure where there ought to have been.”
Just stopping there, in your witness statement to the Inquiry, you say that you read this advice and you agreed with it. You say:
“I believe I agreed with Simon Clarke’s Advice on these matters.”
Jarnail Singh: Well, he – he’s a senior, knowledgeable, experienced practitioner. He’s the reviewed the papers, he’s got the papers, more information than anybody, he’s advised on it. Why would I disagree with it?
Mr Beer: But you say in your witness statement you agreed with the advice?
Jarnail Singh: Agreed?
Mr Beer: Yes.
Jarnail Singh: Yes. Well, I’ve read it. I mean, agreed in the sense that it’s right. I mean, if he’s a discredited witness who’s not given true evidence to the court, how can you actually use him?
Mr Beer: So if we just go back up to paragraph 38, then:
“The reasons as to why [Gareth Jenkins] failed to comply with his duty are beyond the scope of this review.”
Do you agree that you were one of the very people capable of addressing the reasons why Gareth Jenkins may not have discharged his duties of disclosure?
Jarnail Singh: No. I – no, that wasn’t the case.
Mr Beer: Do you agree you were one of the very people capable of addressing the reasons why Mr Jenkins may not have discharged his duties of disclosure because you had not told him about those duties?
Jarnail Singh: That is true but, like I tried to explain to you in the last time I gave evidence, he came in as an experienced person who came to assist the defence expert. We’d notified the court and the defence, who accepted that we weren’t going to rely on expert but a Fujitsu employee. There was no person within the Post Office that we had – you know, as to how to instruct an expert. We probably made mistakes and there was – somewhere along the line somebody should have realised, and probably me, Rob Wilson and Mr Tatford, that he is an expert now, we should have notified him of his obligations, and we failed in that. I agree on that, yes.
Mr Beer: Before saying to yourself, “I agree with this man’s advice”, did you think you should explain to anyone that you never gave Mr Jenkins any compliant written expert instructions?
Jarnail Singh: It didn’t come to light. Like I said to you, it was one of those cases where nobody picked it up. I mean, you’ve got somebody like Mr Tatford, who is –
Mr Beer: Mr Singh, sorry to speak over you. We’ve moved on now and somebody has picked it up, and I’m asking what was done in response to somebody picking it up?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I mean, I don’t recall. I mean, I don’t recall – I know there was – obviously Mr – the Cartwright King picked it up but it didn’t occur to me. I don’t know what happened because, at that time, I think the reviews were taking place and I was told, because of the matters I’d been involved in, previous prosecution while part of the Criminal Law Team, they want to keep an independency of it, I should keep away from the reviews or anything that’s happening surrounding it, and I did.
Mr Beer: Before simply saying, “I agree with this advice”, did you think that you ought to say to somebody, whether Cartwright King or otherwise, “I hadn’t explained to Mr Jenkins his duty as an expert to give disclosure”?
Jarnail Singh: I mean, I probably didn’t get the training, supervision or whatever you like to call it. Maybe I wasn’t well versed with what the expert witness obligations were or how we were meant to deal with it. Certainly, it is a failing or mistake on my part, I accept, but we didn’t have the systems and procedures in place to deal with it, and that’s why we, as a team, fell on.
We should have been explained, maybe it’s something that we should have dealt with appropriately right from the outset. Nobody picked it up and, certainly, here, I would have thought that somebody at Cartwright King, who are the criminal law specialist, would be able to highlight it to the people that are dealing with it, because these advices are now for the senior people, you’ve got Mr Flemington and Ms Crichton. This is for them.
I mean, I think we just get it secondhand or they pass it on, the advice. I don’t know when I got it or when I looked at it and, certainly –
Mr Beer: Mr Singh, this advice is criticising, in very strong terms, Gareth Jenkins for not giving disclosure of, amongst other things, the receipts and payments mismatch bug, yes?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know what – well, certainly criticising in the sense that he wasn’t told of his obligations because we didn’t understand the obligations ourselves.
Mr Beer: I’m not going to go over it again. What Mr Clarke does is he highlights the passages from the Second Sight Report, which disclose the two bugs, one of which is receipts and payments mismatch.
Jarnail Singh: Mm-hm.
Mr Beer: He then says, “It’s clear that Gareth Jenkins knew about those and he failed to give disclosure of them”, yes?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t –
Mr Beer: Then it comes to this part. It says:
“The reasons [why he] failed to comply with these duties are beyond the scope”, but the consequences are as follows, yes?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: Did you not think, “Hold on, Mr Jenkins did tell us about the receipts and payments mismatch bug. I got sent an email containing his report about it on the Friday before trial and I sat on it”?
Jarnail Singh: I did not receive it, I didn’t read it. I didn’t print it. Like I told you, that’s my evidence, and it didn’t occur to me because it was the senior team dealing with it and I was told to keep away from it, purely because of the cases being reviewed were the old Royal Mail Group cases.
Mr Beer: We see lots of investigation about what did we know about Falkirk, we see lots of investigation about what did we know about the local suspense account, why is there not a similar inward-looking approach about “What did we, in particular, what did Jarnail Singh, know about the receipts and payments mismatch bug”?
Jarnail Singh: I think that’s a question for the senior Legal Team and Cartwright King because they’re dealing with it. Because, at that stage, my role was completely different. My role was basically in between the Post Office Limited and Cartwright King and, as and when my line manager, Hugh Flemington, needed input or specific advice. That’s –
Mr Beer: On the last occasion we addressed your refusal of defence requests for information about system faults in the course of the Seema Misra prosecution, yes?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know which specific bit –
Mr Beer: They wrote to you, Issy Hogg wrote to you and said, “Can we have details of known system faults?”
Jarnail Singh: I don’t recall.
Mr Beer: I’m not going to go back over the transcript of the last occasion.
Jarnail Singh: No –
Mr Beer: You’d refused disclosure of the Known Error Log, hadn’t you?
Jarnail Singh: I didn’t refuse anything. I mean, the way it was dealt, they came in, and it was looked at by Mr Tatford, Mr Longman, Rob Wilson and it was just the logs, I think we had problem with, because the relationship – commercial relationship or the contractual relationship between the Post Office and Fujitsu. I mean, that’s nothing within my control. If it was within my – I first experience I’ve had of obtaining those logs were in the Misra case, because I’ve not dealt with any other cases. I didn’t understand any of the other issues or problems regarding the problems with dealing with here, because I had no experience. That was the first time I came in to a lot of these documents. So I don’t really quite understand what you’re asking of me or what you want me to reply to you.
Mr Beer: You knew that Mr Jenkins wasn’t a professional expert witness, didn’t you?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: You knew –
Jarnail Singh: Experienced person –
Mr Beer: – that he had very little experience of giving evidence in court?
Jarnail Singh: I didn’t know that because he was actually dealing with a lot of the interim reports from the defence expert, plus, I think, Rob Wilson, I think, had dealt with him on a number of occasions, not in court but certainly as far as obtaining information or witness statements, because he was the one who actually somewhere said, well, look, you know – who suggested him, I think, somewhere along the line. But I – it was my first experience of dealing with an expert and, as I say, the first time I’d dealt with anything of that nature – last time I dealt with anything of that nature was probably about 20-odd years ago, in 1989/90, when I was working in private practice.
But it obviously is a mistake on my part that I should have been more aware as to what the expert duties are. He came in as an experienced person, as you can see from the email from 5 February ‘10, from Mr Jones, the Head of – Fujitsu, and Issy Hogg. I mean, she was only glad that you had somebody like that to explain the unique Horizon system to their expert. So –
Mr Beer: Mr Singh, did you adopt a strategy of lumping this all on to Mr Jenkins?
Jarnail Singh: No, absolutely not. I mean, I didn’t lump anything on anybody. I mean, my thought was that – mistake was that I did not pass this case on to somebody more experienced like Rob Wilson but Rob Wilson reassured me “I’m there in the background as and when you need me, I’m the decision maker, as and when you need something, come to me and I will deal with it”. And you had somebody experienced like Mr Tatford, who was an experienced independent barrister, who dealt with these cases for the Post Office and Royal Mail Group, on a number of years – for a number of years.
You’ve got Mr Longman, who has dealt with Fujitsu as to obtaining those information, but it’s my, you know, my – I’m a lawyer in the case. I should have been able to instruct him in a proper way at some stage when I found out that it should have been done, but I – it was overlooked because nobody picked it up. And I think even it went to court –
Mr Beer: Mr Singh, all I’m asking is: this is somebody picking it up and what you didn’t do was say, “Hold on, Post Office is at fault here too. I’m at fault here too”. What you did is you covered up your own knowledge of the receipts and payments mismatch bug and let the false narrative continue that Mr Jenkins had not given disclosure of it, didn’t you?
Jarnail Singh: No. No, no, that’s further from the truth. That’s not – that’s not the case.
Mr Beer: Sir, can we take the second break until 12.15, please?
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, we can.
Mr Beer: Thank you, sir.
(12.04 pm)
(A short break)
(12.15 pm)
Mr Beer: Good afternoon, sir, can you see and hear us?
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, thank you, yes.
Mr Beer: Thank you.
Mr Singh, can we start by looking at POL00155555. These are notes of Rodric Williams, dated 2 September 2013, you can see the date on the right-hand side.
Jarnail Singh: Yes, I can.
Mr Beer: Mr Williams has told us that these are his notes in which he recorded a conversation with Martin Smith of Cartwright King, of that date, okay?
Jarnail Singh: Yes, yes.
Mr Beer: Can we look at the bottom left-hand side, please, and keep going, please. On the left-hand side, it says “M Smith”, and then, under the first arrow:
“Don’t think he’s ever been advised of his duties.”
Then, on the right-hand side, in the box, second line in:
“What were we doing to instruct GJ”, which Mr Williams told us meant Gareth Jenkins.
So on the left-hand side, Mr Williams told us that this was a reference to Gareth Jenkins, “Don’t think he’s ever been advised of his duties”.
Did Mr Smith ever discuss with you whether Mr Jenkins had been properly advised of his duties?
Jarnail Singh: Sorry, can you repeat that again?
Mr Beer: Did Mr Smith ever discuss with you whether Mr Jenkins had been properly advised of his duties?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t recollect him – having that discussion. I don’t think he told me, no.
Mr Beer: Did Mr Williams raise the matter with you?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t think so. I don’t recall but I don’t think so.
Mr Beer: Did either of them suggest to you that Mr Jenkins had not been ever advised of his duties?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t recall. No, I don’t think so but I don’t recall. I mean –
Mr Beer: Was it relayed back to you that Cartwright King appeared to have taken the view that Mr Jenkins had never been advised of his expert duties?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t recall having that conversations with them.
Mr Beer: Was that a matter not more widely discussed within the Post Office, to your knowledge?
Jarnail Singh: Not to my knowledge.
Mr Beer: Was it a matter raised with or discussed with Mr Altman, King’s Counsel?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t recall. I mean, I don’t remember it. I mean, he may have done but I didn’t brief Mr Altman. Bond Dickinson always did, and they provided the papers.
Mr Beer: You were present at a conference with him, weren’t you?
Jarnail Singh: Yeah, in September, yeah.
Mr Beer: On 9 September, I think –
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: – 2013?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: What we’ve seen so far is Mr Clarke saying that Mr Jenkins is at fault for all of these things. We’ve got a note here on 2 September 2013, with Cartwright King seemingly saying, “We don’t think Gareth Jenkins has ever been advised of his duties”, and Mr Williams writing an internal rhetorical question:
“What were we doing to instruct Gareth Jenkins?”
Jarnail Singh: Sorry, what’s the date of this?
Mr Beer: 2 September, so a week before the conference. Was this never raised with you? You’re the solicitor in the case –
Jarnail Singh: I don’t think so –
Mr Beer: – in the Misra case, at which Mr Jenkins gave evidence in court?
Jarnail Singh: Yeah, well, I mean, the only thing I heard was that was he was – this is the only trial where he’s actually given evidence. I know Cartwright King –
Mr Beer: It was unique for that reason, wasn’t it?
Jarnail Singh: I know Cartwright King were using him but I had lost contact then, because they, you know, they – all the work was outsourced to them and, certainly, Mr Williams was busy doing his thing. I don’t recall anybody coming up to me and saying, “Look, you didn’t instruct him properly”, or, “You didn’t explain his obligations to him”. I don’t recall that, no.
Mr Beer: Was it the case that this was the truth that dare not be spoken, that “We, the Post Office, are implicated in this too”?
Jarnail Singh: Maybe the Post Office is but – I mean, I don’t know about the Post Office but certainly I wasn’t thinking like that. No.
Mr Beer: Why weren’t you thinking like that?
Jarnail Singh: Well, as I said to you, it is – it was a strange sort of set up. My role was basically, as you said, a postbox. I relayed information from one place to another. I wasn’t really involved in this heavyweight litigation: Cartwright King on the one side and you had Bond Dickinson on the other, and you had the Post Office in the middle instructing one or the other. So I – nobody raised it with me. Nobody. Even my line manager never mentioned it, to my knowledge, to – but certainly I don’t recall anybody discussing it, no.
Mr Beer: Thank you. That can come down.
Can I move to my second topic, then, which is the shredding of documents. We’ve heard a significant amount of evidence in relation to the circumstances in which Mr Simon Clarke came to write his so-called shredding advice on 2 August 2013, and so I’m going to be targeted in my questions to you.
Can I start, please, with the conversation that began this and can we look at paragraph 55 of your second witness statement, please.
Jarnail Singh: Sorry, Mr Beer, can I just have five minutes? My eyes are – sir, can I – I’ve got a problem with my eyes.
Sir Wyn Williams: If you want a five-minute break, Mr Singh, please have one.
The Witness: Yeah, please.
Sorry about that, Mr Beer, sorry.
Sir Wyn Williams: I think the best thing is if you leave the hearing room, Mr Singh. Everybody else should wait in the hearing room for five minutes and, if that doesn’t prove to be enough, then we’ll take it from there but, for the moment, you leave and have a short break and then Mr Beer will reconnect with me in five minutes and tell me what’s –
The Witness: Thank you.
Mr Beer: Thank you, sir.
(12.22 pm)
(A short break)
(12.28 pm)
Mr Beer: Sir, can you see and hear us?
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, thank you.
Mr Beer: Thank you very much.
Mr Singh, we were going to look at paragraph 55 of your second witness statement, which is on page 20. It’s up on the screen for you. Just the context is there had been the Wednesday weekly hub meetings set up. I think you say earlier that you weren’t involved in setting them up, you weren’t present on the first one, on 19 July, you did attend on 24 July 2013 and, paragraph 55, the third meeting, you say:
“I recall after the weekly meeting on 31 July, which [you] believe took place in the morning, Dave Posnett came to see me. [He] was seeking my guidance because he said that John Scott had instructed him that typed minutes of the weekly calls should be scrapped and/or shredded. I immediately felt very uncomfortable and I told Dave Posnett very clearly that he must not do that and he should tell John Scott the same. I recognised that this was a serious issue and I called Martin Smith at [Cartwright King]. I think I might have even have done this when Dave Posnett was print so that he could talk to Martin Smith if needed, but I am not certain of this. In any event I relayed word for word what Dave Posnett had told me and I believe Martin Smith’s recorded is an accurate note. I believe I also spoke with Hugh Flemington about this but this might not have been on the same day.”
So that’s your recollection of the conversation with Mr Posnett and what you did as a result, yes?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: So what Mr Posnett told you, we can see from the fourth line, is that Mr Scott had instructed that:
“… minutes of the weekly calls should be scrapped and/or shredded.”
What was the context of that, that, for the past, the minutes should be shredded and, for the future, they should be scrapped?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know, all I know is that he came, he was a bit upset and said sort of, “Can I speak to you?” I said, “Certainly, David, not a problem”.
Then he said, “Look, we’ve been told by John Scott to shred” – sorry, “scrap and shred minutes”.
Mr Beer: Were both of those things mentioned? One, you’ll appreciate, is backwards looking, ie “shred what we’ve got” –
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: – and the other is forward looking, that “We’re going to scrap”, ie not do, “the minute taking in the future”?
Jarnail Singh: I think so. I mean, I can’t tell you, you know, I don’t know, 10 years on, but I certainly got Martin Smith – basically I quoted Mr Posnett to him, and said “Look, Martin, do you want to speak” –
Mr Beer: I’m going to come in a moment to what happened later –
Jarnail Singh: Sorry, yeah.
Mr Beer: – when you spoke to Martin Smith.
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: I’m just trying to understand from this evidence whether it’s two things: one looking backwards and one looking forwards?
Jarnail Singh: Yeah, he mentioned both, yes.
Mr Beer: Thank you. Presumably that suggestion was deeply concerning to you?
Jarnail Singh: Yes, of course. I was really uncomfortable –
Mr Beer: Probably more than uncomfortable because, I mean, if I can help you, the context, would this be right, would be the discussions concerned Horizon faults, and touched upon possible non-disclosure of Horizon faults in past criminal proceedings, and the instruction was being given by the Head of Security, whose department had led on prosecution of subpostmasters?
Jarnail Singh: Yes. Certainly, yes.
Mr Beer: You could add a third thing, another context, that this time it was still the Head of Security, John Scott, making decisions on prosecutions, wasn’t it?
Jarnail Singh: From what I recall, yes. Yes, he was.
Mr Beer: So those three things – we’re looking at past non-disclosure in criminal proceedings; the instructions being given by the Head of Security, who’s responsible for criminal proceedings; and he’s the current decision maker – that would make this kind of instruction very serious, wouldn’t it?
Jarnail Singh: That’s the reason why I told David, “You must not do it.” I don’t know, I probably swore at him, to be honest with you and said, “What are you doing and what are you thinking?” But I didn’t – you know, I didn’t quote him on that. But, yes, I mean it was serious. I mean, there’s all sorts of things come off it, you know, there could have been all sorts of consequences. And that’s probably why it prompted me to phone Martin there and then, so he could speak to David straight – you know, there and then.
Mr Beer: You say three to four lines from the end:
“In any event I relayed word for word what Dave Posnett had told me and I believe Martin Smith’s record is an accurate note.”
I’m just going to see which record you’re referring to there, where you say, “I believe Martin Smith’s record is an accurate note”. POL00139745.
This is his note of that call at 6.00pm on 31 July. Is this the note you were referring to as being an accurate record?
Jarnail Singh: I think more of Simon Clarke’s Advice, I think.
Mr Beer: It’s just in your witness statement, you said that Martin Smith’s record is an accurate one?
Jarnail Singh: I think that’s not really – that just says scrapped, but I think the conversation is a little bit more than that, there was certainly shredding, and probably –
Mr Beer: You see this, under the detail, says:
“Discussing disclosure issues: J Scott has instructed that type minutes be scrapped.”
That only mentions what I’ve described as the future, ie what’s going to happen from hereon in. Are you sure you were additionally told that past minutes were to be shredded?
Jarnail Singh: Certainly David Posnett mentioned shredding, yes.
Mr Beer: Thank you. Can we move on, please, to POL00325474. This is the following day, 1 August 2013, at 8.10 in the morning. It’s your email to Martin Smith with the subject “Disclosure in Criminal cases”:
“Martin
“I know Simon is advising on disclosure. As discussed can he look into the common myth that emails, written communications, etc, meetings. If it’s produced its then available for disclosure. If it’s not then technically it isn’t? Possible true of civil case NOT CRIMINAL CASES?”
By this time, Mr Clarke had been coming to write an advice, yes?
Jarnail Singh: Yes, I think he told me that he was and, if I wanted him to deal with this, as well, he’ll, you know, he’ll place it before him.
Mr Beer: Is this something else that was said in the conversation that you had with Dave Posnett, that had emanated from Mr Scott, namely if something is written down, then it’s available for disclosure, if you don’t write it down, then it isn’t?
Jarnail Singh: I think I said, “Where’s that coming from?” or something like that and he said “Oh, Bond Dickinson are suggesting or advising on that”.
Mr Beer: That’s slightly different. My question is exactly what you just asked of yourself there, where is this coming from? Is this coming from Mr Scott through Mr Posnett or, is it, as you just suggested, coming from Bond Dickinson?
Jarnail Singh: I think – I said, well, look why is this – why is this occurring? Why is – is he asking to do that? And he said “It’s – Bond Dickinson are advising”, and then I think he – I can’t 100 per cent be sure but he either had the minutes with him of the first Horizon weekly call or he subsequently forwarded it to me, or something or other, and then I think there’s mention of that in there, about the, you know – if it’s – you know, more or less what it says here. If it’s minuted, it’s disclosable, if it isn’t, then it isn’t. You know, that type of thing. I can’t remember 100 per cent what it was but –
Mr Beer: So to be clear, Mr Singh, what you’re asking Mr Clarke to advise on here is something that didn’t emanate from John Scott, it instead, on your understanding, came from Bond Dickinson?
Jarnail Singh: The second bit is from Bond Dickinson. The first bit I think – well, those matters are highlighted to me by Mr Posnett, you know, the minutes and also the advice by Bond Dickinson.
Mr Beer: Mr Singh, can I be very clear about this, what are regard as the first bit and the second bit. We’ve talked about the shredding and the scrapping –
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: – which you relayed, you say, in your conversation to Mr Smith.
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: Then this is an add-on. You’re saying, the following morning, “Can Mr Clarke also address this, please?” I’m asking: where did this come from? Did this come from Mr Scott or did this, on your understanding, come from Bond Dickinson?
Jarnail Singh: No, Dave Posnett pointed it out to me and I said, “Well, where’s that coming from?” and he said Bond Dickinson is advising, you know, in respect of disclosure.
Mr Beer: Did he say who within Bond Dickinson was saying this?
Jarnail Singh: I think Mr Parsons.
Mr Beer: Andrew Parsons?
Jarnail Singh: Yeah.
Mr Beer: Thank you. Can we move on, please, to POL00006799, and look at page 2. This Mr Clarke’s advice of 2 August, the so-called shredding advice. In paragraph 5, if we scroll down a little bit, he sets out, as is good practice, the information upon which he is acting in order properly to advise. He says:
“At some point following the conclusion of the third conference call … it became unclear as to whether and to what extent material was either being retained centrally or disseminated. The following information has been relayed to me:
“The minutes of a previous conference call had been typed at emailed to a number of [people]. An instruction was then given that those emails and minutes should be and have been, destroyed: the word ‘shredded’ was conveyed to me.”
The second part of that would be accurate. You would have conveyed that to Martin Smith, wouldn’t you?
Jarnail Singh: I think, yes.
Mr Beer: What about the part which says, “The minutes have been destroyed”? Had you conveyed that to Martin Smith?
Jarnail Singh: Certainly, I don’t know about destroyed. I think shredded definitely, but I’m not sure about “destroyed”.
Mr Beer: I’m asking a slightly different question, Mr Singh.
Jarnail Singh: Sorry.
Mr Beer: One is about an instruction having been given, whether using the language of “destroyed” or “shredded”, and then the second issue is, in fact, whether that’s been carried into effect. Did you tell Mr Smith that the instruction had been carried into effect?
Jarnail Singh: I can’t remember that. I mean, all I said was – a memory, David was there and I think within minutes of – I phoned Martin Smith, I relayed it – I mean, I don’t know, to be honest – to be honest with you, whether, you know – the shredding or destroying has been carried out or not but –
Mr Beer: Okay, move on to the second point, (ii). The information relayed to Mr Clarke was:
“Handwritten minutes were not to be typed and should be forwarded to [Post Office] Head of Security.”
Was that something you told Mr Smith about?
Jarnail Singh: Certainly, I think David Posnett did say, you know, that Mr Scott wants them, or something like that but, I mean – but I – he needs them or he wants them, or it needs to be forwarded to him, but I don’t know. But certainly, if that’s what I said, that’s more or less – David Posnett’s there, and I just relayed it to him and I said, “Look, do you want to speak to David yourself?”
Mr Beer: So you think this is something that you would have passed on to Martin Smith?
Jarnail Singh: Probably, yes.
Mr Beer: “iii. Advice had been given to Post Office Limited …”
That would tend to suggest that perhaps it was legal advice, which would be consistent with you saying that you had been told that this had come from Bond Dickinson, correct?
Jarnail Singh: That’s – I think David Posnett pointed that out to me. It was one of the – you know, it was – in one of the minutes – weekly calls, when I wasn’t asked to attend.
Mr Beer: Okay:
“Advice had been given to Post Office …
“‘If it’s not minuted it’s not in the public domain and therefore not disclosable.
“‘If it’s produced it’s available for disclosure – if not minuted then technically it’s not’.”
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: You agree you did pass that on –
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: – in effect, via your email of 1 –
Jarnail Singh: Yes, it’s in there, yes.
Mr Beer: Then scroll down to iv, please:
“some at [the Post Office] do not wish to minute the weekly conference calls.”
Is that something that you passed on?
Jarnail Singh: No, I don’t think – I don’t know about – I don’t think I passed that on but I certainly the first. The last bit I’m not sure about.
Mr Beer: In terms of the consequences of all of this, what was done to ask Mr Scott what he had said and why he was saying it?
Jarnail Singh: It was difficult for me because I think he was senior to me and I think, also, I think he – you know, he reported to Susan. But my first concern was to document it and put it, you know, put it out to independent person to make a record and to enforce it on the – within the Legal Team or the Post Office or – you know, how important disclosure is, to get it right. I don’t know whether I – I spoke to Hugh or even Rodric, I don’t recall now. But that’s all I done. I mean, I didn’t, you know, follow it up with anything more than that.
Mr Beer: To your knowledge, what was done to confront Mr Scott with these issues?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know whether Mr Scott was confronted but, certainly, I think I probably was more confronted than he was because I was told “Why didn’t you come to us first?” I think Susan subsequently – I don’t know when that conversation took place.
Mr Beer: Can you keep your head up and therefore your voice up, please?
Jarnail Singh: Yeah, I don’t know when it was. I think some time after, I think, Susan spoke to me and said, “Well, look why didn’t you come to us first, rather than going to Cartwright King”?
Mr Beer: What was the context of that, “Why didn’t you come to us first, rather than Cartwright King”?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I don’t know to be honest what that was but, certainly, the way I saw it, that it had to be dealt with, because saw it as a very serious, serious matter.
Mr Beer: What was done to treat it as a very serious matter, then?
Jarnail Singh: Well, on my part –
Mr Beer: Other than passing the information to Simon Clarke and him saying it’s a bad thing?
Jarnail Singh: Well, the thing is it’s beyond my grade, in that sense, but certainly I’ve highlighted it. I don’t know who else I could have gone to.
Mr Beer: Never mind you yourself. To your knowledge, was anything done at all, as a result of this?
Jarnail Singh: Not to my knowledge, no.
Mr Beer: This indicated that the Head of Security, responsible for prosecutions, had a fundamental misunderstanding of the rules of disclosure. He’d been the Prosecution Authority and the Head of Security for years. Why was nothing done?
Jarnail Singh: Well, it was scary, really, because I think he was an ex-police officer as well, I think. So I don’t know, to be honest, years go by, and – but, certainly, at that time, maybe I should have had done more. I –
Mr Beer: This was a matter of post-conviction disclosure as well, wasn’t it?
Jarnail Singh: Yes, it was very, very serious and certainly, on my part, I think, after speaking to David and Martin, I went outside and walked around the block a few times because it was just – I just felt really, really, you know, really annoyed with myself, and I think it was that point I was thinking about leaving, it was that serious.
I don’t know, it was scary that anything like that can happen and there’s – you know, especially when you’ve been advised on it and we got all sorts of issues and problems within.
Mr Beer: Was it so scary that, to your knowledge, the CCRC were told about it?
Jarnail Singh: I think they were involved in it. I don’t know whether they were told about it because it wasn’t something that I got involved in, certainly there was a lot of advices being sought, whether about this matter or other issues Post Office found themselves involved in at that stage. But it wasn’t something that I was copied into or, you know, involved in any discussions or conversations.
Mr Beer: So, to your knowledge, this issue was not raised with the CCRC?
Jarnail Singh: I – not to my knowledge, no.
Mr Beer: You’ve told us that you sought advice from Martin Smith and Simon Clarke of Cartwright King in relation to the Post Office’s criminal litigation disclosure obligations, following the suggestion that Mr Scott had instructed minutes be shredded and scrapped. Did you seek any equivalent advice from the Procurator Fiscal’s office in Scotland?
Jarnail Singh: Not – no. I can categorically say, no, I did not, sir, no.
Mr Beer: Did you seek any equivalent advice from your Scottish agents, BTO?
Jarnail Singh: No, no, I didn’t.
Mr Beer: Was Mr Clarke’s advice, this advice of 2 August 2013, disclosed to either the Procurator Fiscal or your agents in Scotland, BTO, to your knowledge?
Jarnail Singh: I certainly didn’t. I don’t know whether Cartwright King did or not.
Mr Beer: To your knowledge, was there any discussion between the Post Office and those in Scotland in relation to this issue?
Jarnail Singh: Not to my knowledge, no.
Mr Beer: Thank you. Can I turn to my third topic, please, which is the Post Office’s prosecution strategy. Do you agree there came a time in mid-2012 when decisions were being made as to whether the Post Office should keep prosecuting cases?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know what – can you say what you’re specifically referring to?
Mr Beer: Okay, I’ll take you to a document, POL00180229. If we look at the foot of the page, thank you, an email to you of June 2012 from Susan Crichton, in the case of Yetminster:
“Jarnail – if we decide not to go ahead with criminal prosecution are there any risks for [Post Office]?”
Yes? Your reply at the top:
“Susan …”
I’m going to read this as it’s written:
“As a prosecutor Post Office prosecution limited must be seen to exercise its judgement in all cases which give rise to potential criminal proceeding to promote effective consistent and fair decision making. If not a third party examination of our cases by say Director of Public Prosecution may result in withdrawal of our ability to prosecute.
“Decision not to prosecute cannot be kept secret ‘everybody will find out what we are doing’ this may open Post Office to criticism and undermine faith in Horizon. This U-turn will be exploited by potential third party subpostmasters’ alliance. It may send a green light for defendants to get hold of their Member of Parliament and result in copulation.
We need to send a message that ‘Post offices cannot be used as a bank’. We hold a robust stance, any wrongdoing will be investigated, prosecuted and money recovered.”
Was it the Post Office’s policy to bring prosecutions against subpostmasters to “maintain faith in Horizon”?
Jarnail Singh: No, I don’t think so, sir.
Mr Beer: Why were you concerned that, if a decision not to prosecute was taken, it may undermine faith in Horizon?
Jarnail Singh: I think Susan Crichton asked me for a general advice.
Mr Beer: Well, no, she didn’t. She said “If we decide not to go ahead with criminal prosecution are there any risks”?
Jarnail Singh: Well, those are the two risks. I was asked “Look, as far as the criminal aspect of the prosecution are concerned, we’re getting advice from Cartwright King. But you need to have broadened your advice to look through the business lens”. So that’s why I divided into two bits. Firstly, you know, the legal risk that, you know, when you’re making a decision it’s got to be a consistent, fair decision.
Mr Beer: I’m not asking you about that at the moment.
Jarnail Singh: Oh, sorry.
Mr Beer: I’m asking you about the second paragraph, which says:
“Decision not to prosecute … may open Post Office to criticism and undermine faith in Horizon.”
Jarnail Singh: Um –
Sir Wyn Williams: Sorry to interrupt, Mr Beer, but I just want to understand the context. My reading of the email from Ms Crichton is that it is confined to a question as to whether the prosecution relating to the Yetminster branch should go ahead.
Jarnail Singh: Just one, yeah.
Sir Wyn Williams: Am I right in thinking that because, obviously, that may impact upon Mr Singh’s reply.
Mr Beer: Sir, that’s my understanding but Mr Singh should give the evidence.
Sir Wyn Williams: Fine.
Mr Beer: Was it your understanding that the question was asked and, therefore, fell to be answered by reference to not prosecuting the subpostmaster at the Yetminster branch?
Jarnail Singh: I think so. I think she – yes. I think it was just – yeah, Ms – I can’t remember the lady’s name, yeah.
Mr Beer: Okay, so looking at that second paragraph, then, you say:
“[A] Decision not to prosecute … may open Post Office to criticism and undermine faith in Horizon.”
Did you see prosecutions as a way of maintaining faith in Horizon?
Jarnail Singh: No, no, I –
Mr Beer: Why did you write that?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know, this is – “cannot be kept secret”. I don’t recall exactly what was – I was thinking – all I was thinking about, you can’t – you’ve got to have a consistent approach. You can’t, you know, have one case and decide not to prosecute – not – you know, and not to go ahead and –
Mr Beer: You deal with consistency in your first paragraph?
Jarnail Singh: Yeah.
Mr Beer: Here you’re dealing with a separate issue, Mr Singh, which is “If we don’t prosecute it may undermine faith in Horizon”.
Jarnail Singh: Um –
Mr Beer: I’m asking: did you see prosecutions as a way of maintaining faith in Horizon?
Jarnail Singh: No. I think this case was one of those MP cases that’s referred to, you know, the Post Office and I don’t know what discussions I had with her. She mentioned that we need to, you know, draft a letter mentioning the Horizon system. So I’m trying to give a comprehensive reply, I suppose, dealing with each individual bit of what questions she’s posed to me.
Mr Beer: Did the Post Office regard it as important to maintain faith in Horizon?
Jarnail Singh: Well, if they’re going to – if they didn’t have faith in Horizon, they couldn’t really prosecute, could they?
Mr Beer: Did you regard it as important to maintain faith in Horizon?
Jarnail Singh: Well, it’s critical, isn’t it? I mean, the – all our Post Office prosecutions are aligned on Horizon but, as to what I had or not had, wasn’t relevant.
Mr Beer: Did you receive instructions from managers, including Senior Managers, about the importance of protecting the Post Office brand or the reputation of Post Office or the reputation of Horizon?
Jarnail Singh: No, sir. I didn’t have very much contact within the senior management. I think the only –
Mr Beer: Or from any other person?
Jarnail Singh: No, I think the only persons I dealt with in the Post Office Limited was Susan and Hugh. I didn’t have any wider contact within the business, no.
Mr Beer: Why was a decision whether to continue with the prosecution being taken by reference to issues such as the undermining of faith in Horizon, the potential exploitation of it by JFSA and the sending of a green light to defendants to get hold of their Member of Parliament, rather than the evidential strength of a case against the subpostmaster?
Jarnail Singh: No, I think it always is the evidential test. I mean, whereas a prosecutor has got to apply that, and the two-tier test, as you know. But, here, I think we’re dealing with one case and I’ve been asked to address it. It wasn’t anything more than that.
Mr Beer: Why was it important to send a message to subpostmasters that post offices cannot be used as a bank?
Jarnail Singh: That is – from my recollection, is – I think is a reference to speaking to somebody within the business, or I’ve been referred to something within the business, where, you know – I don’t know, it’s some sort of statement I think somebody referred me to, and I think that’s why, you know, it’s put in quotes. You know, because I’d been told –
Mr Beer: Who said the Post Office can’t be used as a bank?
Jarnail Singh: Sorry?
Mr Beer: Who said the Post Office can’t be used as a bank?
Jarnail Singh: I think it’s either somebody referred me to some literature, because I’m – the thing is, I’d been asked, “Look, your advices need to be a bit more broad. You’ve got to look at it, the business, you know, from a business lens”, and I think it’s – what’s the advice? It’s 7 June, so it’s earlier on, and I’ve gone and spoken to somebody and I think they referred to me some literature where I’ve taken that out, and that’s –
Mr Beer: This is somebody else speaking here, not you, then?
Jarnail Singh: It’s actually a literature somebody has referred me to. That’s why it’s in quotes. It’s probably I’ve taken it out from some, you know –
Mr Beer: Was this a commonly held view within the Post Office at this time –
Jarnail Singh: No –
Mr Beer: – that subpostmasters used the Post Office as a bank?
Jarnail Singh: No. I mean, as I say, it was may be naive of me to put it in but –
Mr Beer: Why did you put it in? Why did you ally yourself to this sentiment, which you say was in some literature?
Jarnail Singh: Because I wanted her to advise to me, is this is the legal side of things and this is the business. It’s just at that time, I decided to split it in that way, it’s easier for me to explain it, and it was a way of doing it. I mean, it was nothing more than – neither more – it wasn’t more than that.
Mr Beer: At the end of the sentence above:
“It may send a green light for defendants to get hold of their Member of Parliament and result in copulation.”
Presumably you meant “capitulation”?
Jarnail Singh: Yeah, sorry. Yes, probably yes. Of course.
Mr Beer: Why did you think that stopping one case might result in capitulation?
Jarnail Singh: I didn’t – I don’t know why I thought that, but –
Mr Beer: Who would be capitulating?
Jarnail Singh: I can’t think. I can’t explain it to you now but, certainly, at that time, I thought about the advice and I think I even spoke to one or two people, maybe Hugh, Hugh Flemington, I think I said, “Look, Hugh, you said you wanted me to look at it from the business lens, what do you think? Is it okay for me to send that on?” and he said, “Well, yes. I mean that’s the way you need to sort of think of it, not just from the legal side of it because that bit we can get from Cartwright King”. So there, it’s more of a splitting it –
Mr Beer: Would it be the Post Office capitulating?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know, sir.
Mr Beer: Who else could it be?
Jarnail Singh: I can’t –
Mr Beer: Try and help us, Mr Singh?
Jarnail Singh: I can’t help you on that yet.
Mr Beer: Try again, please. Who else could it be capitulating?
Jarnail Singh: It’s advice earlier on in my, you know, transfer to the Post Office Limited, maybe I was wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t have considered it and just left it at the – you know, the first bit saying, “Look, this is from the legal point of view, if we’re going to prosecute that, you know, you’ve got to be open, you’ve got to be fair and you’ve got to be consistent. You can’t just take one case and discontinue it. There has got to be justification for it”.
Mr Beer: You don’t stop there, do you?
Jarnail Singh: Sorry?
Mr Beer: You don’t stop there and say, “It’s important that we adopt a consistent approach, that there’s uniformity of decision making across our cases. We can’t take into account extraneous factors”? What you go on to do is list a series of factors that you say would be in play, if the prosecution in the Yetminster branch was discontinued, don’t you?
Jarnail Singh: Sir, are we looking at 7 June 2012?
Mr Beer: You were the only criminal lawyer in Post Office Limited then, weren’t you?
Jarnail Singh: Well, we got Cartwright King on the sidelines as well.
Mr Beer: In the Post Office, you were – I think you’d been – you were now called Head of Criminal Law, weren’t you?
Jarnail Singh: Well, everybody is now at the moment but they weren’t at that time.
Mr Beer: Sorry?
Jarnail Singh: They are now but they weren’t calling me Head of Criminal Law at that time. But, yeah, I mean, yes, I was the only criminal lawyer there, yes.
Mr Beer: Is this how you felt about prosecution of subpostmasters –
Jarnail Singh: No.
Mr Beer: – in June 2012?
Jarnail Singh: No, sir, no, that’s not –
Mr Beer: Is this a window into your mind in June 2012?
Jarnail Singh: That’s not – no. As I said to you, she’s asked for me a very general advice, the risks to the Post Office, and as I said to you, that I’d been asked by Head of Legal, Hugh Flemington, “Look, you know, you need to – your advices need to be a bit more broad, you’ve got to not only do the legal side of it but also to look at it from a business lens”, and that is the business lens, and as I said to you, that is, you know – what I’ve quoted is from within the business.
Mr Beer: More generally, was it important to the Post Office, as you understood it, that there should be no public blaming of the Horizon system?
Jarnail Singh: No. No. That was a one-off advice. I mean, advice is standalone, I mean, on what I’d been asked to do.
Mr Beer: Can we look at POL00325434. Scroll down, please. Email from Martin Smith to Rachael Panter, in the case of Post Office v Dixon:
“Please see attached letter from [defence solicitors].
“Seems that case capable of resolution without trial?”
Scroll up, please, keep going. Rachael Panter sends that on to you:
“Please see attached letter …
“Mr Dixon is currently facing a single count of fraud, a copy of the indictment is attached.
“Counsel Will Saunders from 3 Temple Garden Chambers is instructed in this case which is listed for trial [in Exeter] on 12 August. Steve Bradshaw is the [Officer in the Case].
“How would you like me to respond to the defence solicitors’ letter? Would false accounting be acceptable on the condition that the [14,000] is repaid in full? Please respond accordingly.”
Then up, please, your reply:
“Rachael
“The guilty plea to false accounting offered by the defence is acceptable to [the Post Office] provided defendant accepts as part of his guilty plea in writing that he does not challenge the integrity or blame or criticise the Horizon system and all losses and costs are paid.”
Why was it a necessary part of the guilty plea that the defendant should accept, as part of that guilty plea, in writing, that he doesn’t challenge the integrity of Horizon or blame or criticise Horizon?
Jarnail Singh: That’s been the established position of the Post Office, or – you know, the position from Royal Mail Group Limited – I think that position had been established by Rob Wilson as Head of Criminal Law, and that’s a continuation of that and, also, as far as having it in writing, is the facts are agreed between the defendant and the prosecution, so that you don’t have a dispute on the facts. Then there’d be another hearing within the hearing, a Newton hearing, I think it’s called, so that’s just to clarify both parties’ position. It’s beneficial to the defence as well because –
Mr Beer: How is ruling out the possibility of Horizon being to blame for false accounting beneficial to the defendant?
Jarnail Singh: That – I’m just recreating or emphasising the position as it is. That’s what – the established position has been for number of years and, here, it’s been carried on to the Post Office Limited. I mean, the position hasn’t changed. It’s just all I’m doing is, “Look, this is the way we’ve been dealing with it”, but it’s certainly, from the factual or evidential side of it, I think I have – you know, in the future, I have said to them, “look, you’re the solicitors in the case. You’ve got the papers, you review it, and you make a decision in light of your instructions from the Investigation Team and the decision maker”.
I think that’s within of the first ones that’s come to me and I’ve reiterated the position of the Post Office Limited.
Mr Beer: Who told you about the Royal Mail Group and then Post Office policy that a defendant must accept, as part of their guilty plea, that they do not challenge the integrity of or blame or criticise Horizon?
Jarnail Singh: I think that’s Rob Wilson. I think he’s – there’s emails –
Mr Beer: By this time, wasn’t it the case that a number of defendants had previously tried to make a plea on the basis of Horizon being at fault?
Jarnail Singh: I’m not – I don’t – I can’t recall now, to be honest.
Mr Beer: If they had, would that not have caused you or anyone at Post Office to think, “Well, hold on, maybe the system isn’t as robust as we’ve been told”?
Jarnail Singh: Well, certainly now, I didn’t realise that, you know from what the Inquiry’s evidence is, and I’ve seen, that it is quite painful to hear that people have been forced into accepting false accounting offences as a lesser offence, yes. I mean, now, in hindsight, or looking back now, it was wrong, and maybe we shouldn’t have, you know, that shouldn’t have been the policy, we shouldn’t of done it that way. But that is what it was at that time.
Mr Beer: Weren’t you instrumental in deploying that wrongful conduct?
Jarnail Singh: I’m not the decision maker. I think I’ve emphasised to you before. I’m the only criminal lawyer there. They refer the matters to me – but it’s a matter, if there is something that needs a decision, I refer it to Hugh Flemington, who is my line manager, who –
Mr Beer: You don’t do that here, do you?
Jarnail Singh: Sorry?
Mr Beer: You are the decision maker here, aren’t you?
Jarnail Singh: No.
Mr Beer: You don’t refer it on to anyone else; your agents come to you for instructions and you give instructions?
Jarnail Singh: They’re not my agents; they’re agents for the Post Office Limited. I don’t know what their remit is but, certainly here, the young lady is not a solicitor. I think Martin Smith is the solicitor in the case and she would obviously refer it to me and I think, at some stage, I would have had discussion with Martin or he should have come back to me or even the – Steve Bradshaw, and I would say, look –
Mr Beer: Where’s the record of any of that, as opposed to this email exchange, which really clearly and simply sets out your approach?
Jarnail Singh: This is not a decision, this is the emphasis of what – what the stance or the established position is for the Post Office, since years and years.
Mr Beer: Why don’t you say to Mr Bradshaw, “Steve, instructions on this, please, before I revert to Cartwright King”?
Jarnail Singh: I think, if you look at another email, where I’ve actually said that, I’ve said to – Andy Cash, I think, comes to me somewhere, I think, and, you know, you’ve enclosed with the Inquiry papers, on that, and he said – and I’ve gone back and said, “What’s your views on it?”
Mr Beer: There are definitely emails in which you do go back to your client and say, “Can I have instructions?” I’m asking you on this occasion why you didn’t?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I mean, I don’t recall, maybe it’s earlier on, maybe we’re embedding the – you know, the – embedding a different sort of way of dealing with things but, certainly, Andy Cash and I think –
Mr Beer: This is nearly a year after separation?
Jarnail Singh: Yes. But maybe it’s one of the first ones that come through the system or through the process, but there is – you know, over a period of time, I have said to them, “You’re the lawyers, you’ve got the papers. I haven’t got the papers. You need to make a decision in discussing it with the Investigation Officer or the decision maker”. But, at that time, all I’ve done is highlighted this is what we need to do if the plea is acceptable, it’s got to be in writing and that’s what we normally endorse. We have that in writing so the facts are clear, that both parties agree to.
Mr Beer: Thank you, Mr Singh.
Sir, would that be an appropriate moment to break until 2.00, please?
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, certainly.
Mr Beer: Thank you very much, sir.
(1.10 pm)
(The Short Adjournment)
(2.00 pm)
Mr Beer: Good afternoon, sir, can you see and hear us?
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, thank you.
Mr Beer: Thank you, good afternoon, Mr Singh.
Can we just finish off the topic which we were on, which was the purposes of prosecution and whether it included the protection of the Post Office brand. Can we look, please, at POL00148137.
This is an email exchange between you and Gavin Matthews in the run-up to a conference to be held with Mr Altman KC on 25 April 2014, understand?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: At the foot of the page, Mr Matthews says “here is the draft agenda”, and it’s all about the Post Office’s prosecution policy, okay?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: If we go up to the top of the page, please, you make a comment on it and you say:
“[Re the] Business Improvement Programme, et cetera – Whilst there’s a suggestion that other avenues should always be considered and rejected before a criminal investigation is commenced, there will always be cases where it is immediately apparent that a criminal investigation should be commenced with a view to prosecution to protect [the Post Office] brand and reputation and in the interests of the business, etc.”
Was it the case that some prosecutions were to be commenced in order to protect the Post Office brand and reputation?
Jarnail Singh: I suppose, in that sense, it is a business. I don’t recollect what this is but, certainly, it’s a consideration in any business.
Mr Beer: Was it a message that you were keen to emphasise?
Jarnail Singh: Not me personally, no.
Mr Beer: Can we go on please to POL00148242. This is after the conference with Mr Altman on 25 April 2014, and it’s an email from you to Ms van den Bogerd, and you say:
“During the [recent Altman meeting] when the attached was mentioned you indicated that there would be cases where immediate intervention and suspension would be justified.”
Then, I think:
“[An obvious] starting point [for] example in case of shortage of [between £20,000 and £30,000].”
Then you say:
“There will be cases in which it will be clear from the outset that [the Post Office] will need to conduct a criminal investigation with a view to potential prosecution to protect [the Post Office] brand and reputation and for business purposes.”
So you’re making the same point again, aren’t you?
Jarnail Singh: Yes. It’s discussion paper. I don’t think it’s any more than that. I think you’ve got various people around the table and I’m just highlighting various aspect of it, you know, that’s all. I mean, I don’t know – I’m just – there are people putting their side of the argument. I’m putting the other things to be balanced with a view to coming to a solution, I suppose.
Mr Beer: Was it your aim to emphasise the prioritisation of the Post Office’s reputational and business interests?
Jarnail Singh: Possible – no, maybe not.
Mr Beer: Why do we see this appearing twice in very similar phrases, both before and after the meeting with Mr Altman?
Jarnail Singh: I think it’s probably discussion with my line manager, or – I mean, I’m just – because I think I – I’m not there just for myself. It’s sort of emphasis on various aspects I’ve been advised on to do, to get advice on and relay back. I don’t think it’s a personal view.
Mr Beer: Okay, thank you. That can come down.
Can I turn to my fourth topic, please, which is Second Sight, their appointment, the announcement of their appointment, and the need to give an account, tell a story, about their appointment. Did you think it was important to create a message, a story, that could be told or broadcast in response to the appointment of Second Sight?
Jarnail Singh: Not personally, no.
Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at POL00143374. If we look at page 2, please. This is an email from you of 11 July 2012 – so when Second Sight’s proposed appointment was an issue – to Susan Crichton, Hugh Flemington and Alwen Lyons. You say:
“I need to address and to prepare counterarguments to issues which are being raised and will be raised by defence lawyers, after [the Post Office] announced that Second Sight … will conduct a review of the Horizon system even though [the Post Office] says Horizon is robust. When challenged has always successfully defended the system in high profile criminal trials in crown courts. Defence lawyers will say ‘Why appoint forensic auditor to examine the system’.
“Can you please help me with the following in order to put ‘flesh on the bones’.
“Reasons for the appointment of forensic auditor to examine the system.
“What is Second Sight’s remit.
“What they will look at or are asked to review. Or what is being undertaken or not.
“Are they reviewing, few, several or some isolated cases only.
“Are they [really] looking and examining the Horizon system or in reality looking or examining certain branch accounting procedures and processes.
“Anything you may consider useful.
“It may be considered useful at some stage to have a press release to reconfirm the integrity and robustness of the system but in [addition] including the remit of the Second Sight?
“Sorry for the twenty questions …”
So you know that defence lawyers may ask questions in extant criminal proceedings, along the lines that you set out, and you were seeking instructions, correct?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: At this time, Second Sight, the forensic accountants, their appointment was contemplated and you were considering what affect there might be on ongoing proceedings, correct?
Jarnail Singh: No, I wasn’t personally. I didn’t even know they were on board. I think it’s something that Cartwright King, who are prosecuting, are getting letters from the defence.
Mr Beer: Whether you were dealing with this personally for cases in which you were a prosecutor or whether Cartwright King were prosecuting those cases, you were seeking instructions, either on behalf of yourself or for Cartwright King, in order to be able to meet any defence challenges, correct?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t think – I wouldn’t put it like that. Something referred to me I think by Cartwright King saying, you know, what – “We’ve got to respond to the defence, we need to know the reason why or remit, or why is Second Sight engaged”. They didn’t a response, I think, to be able to respond to whatever the defence – you know, respond to the request from the defence saying “Well, why Second Sight? What are they reviewing? What are they there to do?”
Mr Beer: Yes, so you’re asking a series of not unreasonable questions about “What’s this all about?”
Jarnail Singh: What’s it all about, yes.
Mr Beer: Can we see what happened as a result. POL00058155. Go to page 3, please. Can you see in the middle of the page – we’ve got it up now – the text of an email sent by you to Hugh Flemington?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: Yes? The one beginning “After a number of meetings”, yes?
Jarnail Singh: Yes, yes.
Mr Beer: Is this the proposed draft of what is to be said?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t recall, to be honest. I can’t remember where we are. I know it took a long while.
Mr Beer: We’d seen before that you’d been asking for some instructions about what’s this Second Sight review all about?
Jarnail Singh: Yeah.
Mr Beer: What work is it undertaking? We need to put out a message, essentially, when asked questions by the defence in criminal proceedings. It seems there’s been a meeting, if you look at the top of the page:
“This is the story text which [Jarnail] put together following our meeting last week.”
Jarnail Singh: Yeah. Yes.
Mr Beer: So if we read it:
“After a number of meetings between Post Office Management and [MPs] in relation to the court cases, it was agreed that Post Office would undertake a review of the cases which had been raised by the Members’ constituents.
“In order to provide assurance to the interested parties, Post Office Management proposed the use of independent auditors, Second Sight. The review to be undertaken will be specifically restricted to the cases raised by the MPs as well as reviewing the accounting procedures, processes and reconciliations … Before formal instructions are given to the independent auditors, agreements will be sought from all interested parties, namely [MPs] and [JFSA]. The subpostmasters have requested a forensic accountant of their choice to be appointed to oversee the cases being reviewed by Second Sight.
“All of the above is accepted based on the terms of the review being carried out, but it must be stressed that this is not an acknowledgement by the Post Office that there is an issue with Horizon. The Horizon system is working properly, robust and is being used up and down the country, when the system has been challenged in criminal courts it has been successfully defended.”
So was this your attempt, your first attempt, at a draft of what to say in response to questions that were raised as to why Second Sight had been appointed?
Jarnail Singh: I know there was – it was difficult to formulate it, because I didn’t really have much information on it. I know I had to go to Rob Wilson at the Head of Criminal Law because I think he’d been dealing with this –
Mr Beer: Mr Singh, just putting to one side for the moment who you went to in order to draft it.
Jarnail Singh: Yeah, that was the first draft, yes.
Mr Beer: This is the first draft?
Jarnail Singh: Yeah.
Mr Beer: Okay, thank you. Then if we go to page 2, please, and scroll down. We can see that Alwen Lyons, the Company Secretary, passes this to Simon Baker and others:
“Simon, can you go to Alana with this request for the ‘story ‘ as they are the experts.”
Then up the page, please, and stop there. Simon Baker sends it on to Alana:
“Please help us craft our message around the Second Sight review. We need to combat the assertion that the review is acknowledgement there’s a problem with Horizon.
“Jarnail has drafted some words below. Do they strike the right tone?”
Then up the page, please. Then Ronan Kelleher – if just scroll down, we can see who he is, the Head of PR and Media; did you know Mr Kelleher?
Jarnail Singh: No, no.
Mr Beer: But, anyway, up the page:
“Simon
“As this message will probably find its way into the media, we do need to get the message across from the start that we continue to have full confidence in the robustness of the Horizon system and then reinforce it so I suggest the following tweaking to the proposed wording from Jarnail …”
Then it’s set out. I’m not going to go through a line-by-line comparison of the changes that have been made. Do you know why the Head of PR and Media at the Post Office was being involved in the creation of a story that would be given to, or told to, defence solicitors?
Jarnail Singh: No. I didn’t know they were going to be involved I think it was the Company Secretary, Alwen Lyons, said they’re the experts, referred it to them. I didn’t even know – all I wanted was to – Hugh and Susan, you know, the General Counsel and Head of Legal, to help me with it, and give me instructions and make a decision. But I didn’t know she’d referred it because she said they were the experts. That’s the way they did things. I mean, I –
Mr Beer: Okay, if we scroll then, please, we’ll see Simon Baker says, “That works”, and then it’s forwarded to – you’re included on that chain, the “That works” chain, and you reply to Hugh, Susan and Alwen:
“You have seen the final draft of ‘our story’ can this now be released to our agents and counsel for consistent approach and submissions where there is challenges to the Horizon [system].”
So did you understand the message or “our story”, as you’ve called it, to be essentially the text that solicitor agents and counsel should use in submissions when an issue was raised as to the appointment of Second Sight in court?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know the – that. But I can certainly say it was something that the – Cartwright King wanted to know the reasons why, and all I’ve done is copy that into Susan and Hugh for a decision on assist me on doing it, and I think that what I’ve done is I’ve managed to get a lot of information from Rob Wilson at Royal Mail Group, who’d been – know the system from the beginning, and he assisted and helped me with it, and Hugh and Susan took it forward.
Mr Beer: But you would agree that your understanding of the purpose of this is for release to lawyers to ensure a consistent approach to submissions they might make?
Jarnail Singh: It was going to Cartwright King. I don’t know to what degree they would use it but, certainly, they wanted a decision and I’ve managed to half pass it to Head of Legal and Susan, to consider it in line with what they normally do, put it through the process, whatever they do, and they proved it, I think.
Mr Beer: So does it come to this: a story that was drafted initially by you has been amended by the Head of PR and Media in the Post Office and is to be sent out to agents and counsel to ensure a consistent approach to the submissions they make?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know whether that was –
Mr Beer: I’m just reading various words on a email chain.
Jarnail Singh: Yeah, I appreciate.
Mr Beer: If you add them all together that seems to be what they suggest.
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know, I don’t recall exactly what happened after that. But that’s the start of it, I think, and maybe it was – I don’t know. I don’t recall what happened after that. Was there not more than that? I thought – I know it took a long time to get it –
Mr Beer: Let’s go to what happened next, then. POL00120723, and page 5, please. Can you see this is a witness statement from Mr Bradshaw of 20 November 2012?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: If we scroll down, can you see it says:
“After a number of meetings with Post Office Management and Members of Parliament”, et cetera.
Yes?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: If we go over to the second page, it finishes off:
“When the system has been challenged in criminal courts it has been successfully defended.”
That’s the same wording and your story, as amended and improved by Head of PR and Media in the Post Office?
Jarnail Singh: I wouldn’t go with my story; that’s the Post Office story. That’s what –
Mr Beer: You called it “our story”, and you were part of the Post Office?
Jarnail Singh: Well, that’s what’s it’s added but, I mean, I think you have got the decision makers confirming –
Mr Beer: Okay, I’ll put it more neutrally then. It’s based on text that you wrote, which had been amended by the Head of Media and PR in the Post Office, isn’t it?
Jarnail Singh: Well, that’s the process they followed and I –
Mr Beer: And it’s ended up as a witness statement?
Jarnail Singh: Well, it shouldn’t have done.
Mr Beer: Sorry?
Jarnail Singh: It shouldn’t have done.
Mr Beer: Yes, well, I’m going to ask you how it has happened?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I don’t know how it’s happened because all I’ve done is prepared it in line with my instructions from, you know, the decision makers.
Mr Beer: If we go back to the previous page, please, this is word for word the same as the draft of the Head of PR and Media.
Jarnail Singh: Well, I can’t answer that. It shouldn’t have done. I don’t know who put it in because that’s not the purpose for it.
Mr Beer: Did you provide this to Mr Bradshaw to put in a witness statement?
Jarnail Singh: Absolutely not, no.
Mr Beer: How did what started off as a message, a “story”, for agents and counsels to work to when, perhaps, resisting application for a stay, resisting applications for adjournments or disclosure arguments, get turned into a witness statement which contains a statutory declaration at the top?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I don’t recall, and I certainly didn’t have any part to play. I’ve done – you know, in line with instructions and – from the decision makers. That’s – I don’t think I’ve ever – not seen that before.
Mr Beer: If we go back to page 1, please, and we scroll down we can see that this example of Mr Bradshaw’s witness statement is disclosed as a notice of additional evidence in the case against Kim Wylie at Newcastle Crown Court. There are a number of others, I can point to many other witness statements where Mr Bradshaw –
Jarnail Singh: Yeah, sure.
Mr Beer: – has made the same statement?
Jarnail Singh: Yeah.
Mr Beer: Can you help us with “our story” got turned into an account with a statutory declaration on it?
Jarnail Singh: I can’t help you because I prepared it in – as per instructions and I got to Rob Wilson to look through it to make sure everything was okay, and then I referred it back to Hugh, Susan, and the Company Secretary. They took it up with the media. I have never come across, you know – that’s what they were going to do but, certainly, that’s not my intentions. That wasn’t me. Doing it. I just did whatever I was instructed to do and it certainly shouldn’t have finished up in a witness statement.
Mr Beer: You said earlier words to the effect that “This was bad” or “It was poor” or “It shouldn’t have happened”. Why was it bad, poor or shouldn’t have happened?
Jarnail Singh: Well, it’s the – the witness statement is personal to whoever is making it. It should be factual, shouldn’t it? It should be Stephen Bradshaw’s recollection of his evidence.
Mr Beer: All of this went on without your knowledge; is that what you’re telling us?
Jarnail Singh: Yes, I – I don’t recall. I mean, I don’t recall that’s where it ended up, no.
Mr Beer: Okay, thank you. That can come down. Were you concerned about the disclosure of Investigating Officers’ reports because they might contain in them information that was of assistance to the defence?
Jarnail Singh: No. I think what that was a view – are you talking about mediation disclosure or are you talking about generally –
Mr Beer: Yes.
Jarnail Singh: Mediation? The – I was not part of the mediation. I think it’s an established group. They had their own remit, own way – they had their own decision maker. I was asked for a view and I provided a view, saying that the officer’s report was a working document and it was updated periodically, so you need to look at it as a whole, rather than, you know, as a standalone document, because it wasn’t.
So I think it was something that I put forward because I was asked for a view but it was – I wasn’t the decision maker and it was just something that I provided for them to consider.
Mr Beer: Can we look at an email discussion of this topic. POL00346092. Look at the second page, please. This is in the context of case M029, and you say:
“Andy [Andrew Parsons]
“I anticipate Chris [Chris Aujard] is the best person to make a decision on this point on behalf of [the Post Office].
“Our allegations [that Post Office] has NOT properly investigated being made generally or in specific cases? One of the dangers of investigation officers report being disclosed is that it will always be easy for the applicant to think of something not specifically referred to in the report and allege that [the Post Office] investigation has not been sufficiently [thorough] or adequate. Of course it is highly unlikely the investigation will have been deficient, but in the absence of a full set of papers it may become impossible for [the Post Office] to rebut such new allegations.”
Then up, please, at the foot of the page, Rod replies:
“Having discussed [it], the protocol for the use of ‘officer’s reports’ … by Project Sparrow Investigators when responding to individual complaints is:
“The report is NOT to be exhibited OR expressly [referred to] in Post Office’s formal response to a complaint.
“It can be used by the Investigator to help them understand what happened in a particular case …
“If the report is the ONLY source document still available, the Investigator can repeat material from the report …
“Any challenge received about the source of a [statement] must be referred to Chris.”
So this is about what material Investigators constructing investigation reports can refer to in the context of the mediation, okay?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: If we go up to the top of the page, please. You reply to that:
“Having looked at the papers. I have no doubt this is the correct decision not to [disclose] ‘Officer Reports’. If in the case of Hamilton [Jo Hamilton] officers reports had been disclosured …”
I don’t know what you’re saying here but I think it means that, if in the case of Jo Hamilton, had officers’ reports been disclosed, this would have been extremely dangerous or it would have been an extremely dangerous approach; is that right?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: “In the [Jo Hamilton] case, in the officer’s report, the investigation officer said ‘Having analysed the Horizon printout and accounting documentation, I was unable to find any evidence of theft or cash in hand figures being deliberately inflated’.
“In the absence of a file to demonstrate how the case developed, as it was further investigated, this would give the applicant and Second Sight every opportunity to ask why in fact [Jo] Hamilton was prosecuted. In the absence of paperwork to deal with this, this would in turn cause [the Post Office] difficulties.”
So, by this time, you had read the investigation report into the investigations against Mrs Hamilton, hadn’t you?
Jarnail Singh: No, this was – I think there was different views on to disclose it or not to close it. I’m just basically highlighting to Chris and Jessica, my line manager, Jessica Madron – oh, Hugh Flemington has left and Chris has replaced Ms Crichton. All, I’m doing is highlighting different points of view and this is an illustration as why, you know, you’ve got to weigh these things up and ask them to make a decision, that’s all.
Mr Beer: You’d read the report because you quote from it.
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know how that came about but I don’t recall exactly how that came about, but that wasn’t the intention.
Mr Beer: Okay, I’ll put it different way: you knew that the investigation report contained the sentence “Having analysed the Horizon printout, and accounting documentation, I was unable to find any evidence of theft”, didn’t you?
Jarnail Singh: No, that was not the case. This is basically –
Mr Beer: Mr Singh, it’s in black and white, or blue and red?
Jarnail Singh: Yes, maybe but I’m trying to illustrate the point that sometimes illustrating by example. That’s all.
Mr Beer: Yes, and you plucked that example by either reading the report or somebody telling you what was in the report?
Jarnail Singh: No, I think the intention is basically here to illustrate, now, look, Chris, Jessica, you’re the decision maker. You’ve got to weigh these things up. One’s saying to do it, one’s saying not. I’m not part of the mediation, I’m not the decision maker –
Mr Beer: Mr Singh, you’re talking about different things now, whether you’re part of the mediation and other issues, all I’m doing is showing you your email, which has a sentence in it, which is accurately quoted from the Investigating Officer’s report, and all I’m saying is: by this date, 9 May 2014, you knew that Investigating Officer’s report contained that sentence, didn’t you?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t recall. I mean that’s just basically illustrating a point, as helping Chris or Jessica to make a decision. No more than that.
Sir Wyn Williams: Mr Singh you couldn’t have written that unless you knew about it, could you?
Jarnail Singh: Oh, no, I knew about it –
Sir Wyn Williams: I think that’s all Mr Beer was asking you to confirm –
Jarnail Singh: But I –
Sir Wyn Williams: – that, in order to write that, you either had to have read it yourself or been told verbatim what was included in the officer’s report. That’s all he was asking you.
Jarnail Singh: Sorry, sir. Yes. I’ve not read the report but, I mean, I’ve – it’s there for a reason, yes.
Mr Beer: You’re giving that as a reason not to disclose Investigating Officer’s reports, aren’t you? That’s the way you’re deploying that.
Jarnail Singh: I think what I’m saying is you’ve got to have the paperwork to go with I. You can’t just close it by itself, and it’s at the end of the day Chris and Jess to make the decision.
Mr Beer: You’re saying “We can’t close these reports, if we did, Jo Hamilton might ask, ‘Why was I prosecuted?’”
Jarnail Singh: Not at all. No, I disagree. That’s not the case.
Mr Beer: What about the sentence “This would give the applicant every opportunity to ask why, in fact, Hamilton was prosecuted”?
Jarnail Singh: No, I – No. That wasn’t the intention no.
Mr Beer: Why did you type those words?
Jarnail Singh: I can’t explain that now but, certainly, it was getting a decision from Chris and Jessica to make, because there was a counterargument put forward for civil and criminal lawyers, I think.
Mr Beer: That’s a reason to give disclosure to Jo Hamilton, isn’t it? Not a reason not to give disclosure to Jo Hamilton.
Jarnail Singh: Well, the – well, I – I wasn’t the decision maker. I was not part of the scheme.
Mr Beer: If you just listen to the question: the fact that the Investigating Officer’s report recorded that they were unable to find any evidence of theft is a reason to give disclosure to Mrs Hamilton, not a reason not to give it to her?
Jarnail Singh: Okay, I accept, maybe my mistake, I shouldn’t have gone in there but that wasn’t what this is about.
Mr Beer: This is part of a cover-up –
Jarnail Singh: No.
Mr Beer: – isn’t it?
Jarnail Singh: There is no cover-up. On this email, one of, this is an email for them, decision maker, to weigh things up. As far as the disclosure is concerned, I had no problem with any of it, because –
Mr Beer: You say at the end, “In the absence of proper paperwork, this report will cause Post Office difficulties.”
Jarnail Singh: No. That is a complete file. What I’m saying is you need to have a complete file to have a true picture of what’s going on.
Sir Wyn Williams: Well, I’m sorry to join, so to speak, but I had forgotten momentarily how you begin this email, which is “Having looked at the papers”. So does that not make clear (a) there was a file, and, (b) you had read it?
Jarnail Singh: It’s not the full file. I think, as you see from the bottom of the chain of emails, there’s certain paperwork. I wasn’t privy to the whole file. There’s certain paperworks, and I’ve been asked – I’ve been brought in to refer it to the decision makers, Jessica and Chris, to make a decision.
Sir Wyn Williams: Carry on, Mr Beer.
Mr Beer: I’m not sure I can carry on any further with Mr Singh on this point.
Sir Wyn Williams: Fine.
Mr Beer: Can we move forwards, please, to the Cartwright King review process and can we start, please, with paragraph 71 of your witness statement. It’s on page 26 of your witness statement.
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: You say:
“I am aware that at this time [that’s mid-2013] Simon Clarke at [Cartwright King] was advising [the Post Office] on a number of matters, including disclosure and expert evidence issues … I agreed with Simon Clarke’s advice on these matters … I can’t recall whether I received that advice but if I did, I … would have agreed it was an appropriate starting point based on what was known at the time around the Horizon issues. I noted this was to be kept under review. I note that Simon Clarke advised on 19 July 2013 in relation to … miscarriages of justice. Again, I do not recall whether I received that advice but for the avoidance of doubt I had no experience in relation to that issue and wouldn’t have been in a position to agree or disagree with his advice.”
You say that you note that the advice suggested that the 1 January 2010 be the start date for the review process, and you either agreed with it at the time or, if you had read it, you would have agreed with it, correct?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t … ooh. It was what was suggested, yeah.
Mr Beer: We’re looking here at the issue of how far back the Cartwright King look should go. How far back in time should it go –
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: – and the start date of 1 January 2010 that was selected; yes?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: You say that you either agreed with it at the time or you would have agreed it was an appropriate starting point, based on what was known at that time around the Horizon issues, yes?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: So, by this time, there was the Second Sight Interim Report of 8 July 2013, which made reference to the receipts and payments mismatch bug, the suspense account bug and the Callendar Square or Falkirk bug, yes?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: I’ve suggested to you that you had become aware of the receipts and payments mismatch bug about two-and-a-half years earlier on 8 October 2010, and you’ve, I think, essentially denied that, yes?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: We know that you were aware of the suspense account bug by at least 27 July 2013 – we looked at an email exchange earlier and you agreed that – and that you were aware of the Callendar Square bug about two and a half years earlier, at the time of the Misra trial in October 2010, where it was actually raised in court, yes?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: So you were aware that one of the bugs affected branches before 1 January 2010, correct; the Callendar Square bug?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: Do you agree that selecting the start date of 1 January 2010 would do nothing to address potentially unsafe convictions that had occurred before that date?
Jarnail Singh: I wasn’t part of the review. I wasn’t the decision maker. It’s something General Counsel and the Head of Legal were getting advice from and progressing it. I wasn’t part of the review because of the independency element of it. So I’m just an observer as to what date they decided to do, and wasn’t part of that.
Mr Beer: But do you agree, as a matter of fact, as a matter of logic, that selecting the start date of 1 January 2010 would do nothing to address any potentially unsafe convictions –
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: – that had occurred before that date?
Jarnail Singh: But I wasn’t the decision maker. I didn’t make the decision that it’s going to be 1 January 2010 because I wasn’t part of the review and it was for the decision maker to make a decision in light of what advice they’d been given.
Mr Beer: Did you pipe up and say, “Hold on, I’ve got knowledge of a bug that occurred and could have afflicted subpostmasters before 1 January 2010”?
Jarnail Singh: I didn’t have any knowledge of it. I said to you that whatever I knew, they knew.
Mr Beer: The Callendar Square, the Falkirk bug, from at least 2006?
Jarnail Singh: I think everybody is aware of it because, I think by then, that was common knowledge that that was coming up over and over again, everywhere.
Mr Beer: What about this then: you had seen the advice which that said that, in summary, Mr Jenkins was a witness upon whom reliance could not be placed, he was a tainted witness, yes?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: You knew that he had given witness statements in cases before 1 January 2010, didn’t you?
Jarnail Singh: Yes. Yes, I did.
Mr Beer: Did you put these two pieces of knowledge together?
Jarnail Singh: I didn’t consider it. I wasn’t part of any of this. That wasn’t my role. As I said to you, I was not part of the mediation, all this advice is taken –
Mr Beer: This isn’t about the mediation, this is about the Cartwright King review –
Jarnail Singh: No, I wasn’t –
Mr Beer: – of potentially unsafe convictions?
Jarnail Singh: Yes, but, as I said, this is a matter which the General Counsel and the Head of Legal are seeking directly from Cartwright King and taking their advice on. I don’t think I was privy to any of it and, as to what and what not they were deciding. It was a matter for these decision makers.
Mr Beer: Was there a belief in the Post Office, of which you were aware, that very great difficulties might be caused for the Post Office if there was an examination of the existence of bugs before 1 January 2010 and that the disclosure that the Post Office had given or not given about such bugs?
Jarnail Singh: I wasn’t part of any of this. This is outside of my role, outside my remit. It was something that, if you like, the senior members of the Legal Team were dealing with. I don’t think I knew anything about any of this.
Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at POL00148714. Can we start by looking at page 4, please. If we scroll down, please. It’s an email – sorry, can we just look a bit below, and again. Okay, just up to the email, please.
An email from Mr Parsons in July 2014 to you and others:
“My thoughts …”
This is on the instruction of a new expert:
“A key question appears to be whether ICL …”
In this context, that’s Imperial College London, yes?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: “… look at old Horizon as well as Horizon Online. My guess is that [the Post Office] won’t be looking to prosecute any old Horizon cases so we can focus on [Horizon Online]. Martin/Jarnail?
“As to access to [Second Sight] material, I can’t see in principle any issue with this. Material going to [Second Sight] has been largely vetted already. However, Martin/Jarnail – could you confirm whether an expert under criminal law has to disclose all material instructions or source material in their report. In the civil process the general rule is that the expert must disclose to the court and the other side pretty much everything they have considered in forming their opinion. If this applies equally to criminal procedure, then [Cartwright King]/[the Post Office] may wish to vet material before sending it to [Imperial College London].
“We may want to explore what [Imperial College London] intend to investigate under the ‘fitness for purpose’ heading. This could be as simple as ‘does Horizon provide the necessary functionality?’. Or it could go wider into ‘does Horizon provide a good user experience?’. From handling IT disputes in the past I know that determining the quality of user experience can be a very subjective question, that is difficult to answer.”
If we scroll up, please. Mr Smith advises:
“I would not advise that the experts be instructed to look at the old Horizon system.”
You’re in copy on this.
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: “If the experts were to considered old system, depending on their findings, disclosure issues could arise in historic cases.”
Just stopping there, were you concerned at this point, mid-2014, that, if the new experts, proposed experts, were to look at old Horizon, disclosure issues might arise?
Jarnail Singh: No, all I was concerned with the independency of it, that they get full access from the Post Office and Fujitsu to make sure that they carry out independent review of it. I mean, that’s the whole point of the independency. I don’t think I put my mind to whether they looked at the old system or the new system. Obviously, the new system because I think the Post Office wanted to consider the investigation and prosecution side of things. I don’t think I set my mind on it. I think it’s Martin mentioned it because they’re reviewing the cases and they are prosecuting them. I was completely hands off. I’m here to progress the, you know, the report; nothing more than that.
Mr Beer: What do you think Mr Smith is referring to here, “disclosure issues in relation to historic cases”?
Jarnail Singh: I think you need to ask Mr Smith. I honestly don’t know.
Mr Beer: We had a go at that earlier in the week but I’m asking you?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know because I know my – from Jessica and Chris was, “Look, Jarnail, you need to progress this”. I think Susan started it and it’s just taken a long, long time to get here. So all I was concerned with was getting ICL and getting the budgetary sorted out in line with the instructions from Chris and Jessica. I wasn’t considering as to any more than that.
Mr Beer: He continues:
“In criminal law instructions and material provided to an expert must be listed”, et cetera.
“[Cartwright King] would not wish to vet information prior to sending it to [Imperial College London]; it would be counterproductive to withhold information. The experts may well refer to such attempts and missing information in the report. This would devalue the report and make it easier for defendants to challenge.”
Then scroll up, please. You reply:
“I agree with Martin. [The Post Office] cannot be seen to [I think you mean ‘cherrypick’] to be [cherrypicking] the information provided to the experts or withholding the information. Experts are independent and [the Post Office] cannot be seen to be trying to influence the experts.”
Jarnail Singh: Yes, well, there you go. Mm.
Mr Beer: Was there a nervousness that there were bugs that were operative in Horizon before 1 January 2010?
Jarnail Singh: Certainly not. It had just taken such a long time for them to make a decision to get an expert in or find an expert and it’s just helping to progress it.
Mr Beer: Was there a nervousness that, if we get the experts to look back too far, they may discover bugs that will cause us disclosure problems?
Jarnail Singh: Certainly not on my part, no.
Mr Beer: Therefore, the Post Office shouldn’t look too hard at that question now unless they needed to do so in order to prosecute new claims or prosecute in the criminal courts new cases based on old Horizon?
Jarnail Singh: No, no.
Mr Beer: If we go up, please, and then keep going, to page 1. Sorry, it’s the email at the foot of the page. You say:
“Let us not lose sight of the fact Cartwright King are specialist criminal lawyers. They are in a far better position to advise [the Post Office] with regards to expert instructions. They are acting in best interests of their clients ie [the Post Office] and the way in which the report is being commissioned preserves the independence and integrity of the experts.
“It is intended to instruct the expert to prepare the report in accordance with the scope but with the proviso that they immediately notify Cartwright King of anything which may cause [concern].”
Scrolling down, please, paragraph 8:
“Let us not lose sight of the fact it is in [the Post Office’s] wider interest to get the report (and Fujitsu) which gives the Horizon a clean bill of health.”
In paragraph 6, you said, if there are any concerns – sorry, in paragraph – scroll up a little bit further. Paragraph 2, you say:
“It is intended to instruct the expert to prepare the report in accordance with the scope … with the proviso that they immediately notify [Cartwright King] of anything which will cause [the Post Office] concern. It will enable the process to be terminated without full costs being incurred.”
Was it your intention that, if the expert discovered something of concern, about Horizon, their appointment would be terminated?
Jarnail Singh: No, no, no. I think there was a concern about cost and scope, and –
Mr Beer: This isn’t about scope.
Jarnail Singh: Well, that’s my understanding of it. I think there was some discussions and I’m trying to recap or summarise what’s going on. No, that wasn’t – it was just, basically, the independency of it, and that, you know, the Post Office is kept away from it and it’s a matter of Cartwright King dealing directly with the experts.
Mr Beer: Paragraph 2 says that, if the expert finds anything which may cause the Post Office concern, they’re to tell the prosecution solicitors, which will enable the process to be terminated.
Jarnail Singh: Well, that’s wrong. That’s not what the intention was. Obviously –
Mr Beer: Tell us in which way the words need to be rearranged in order to give them a different meaning?
Jarnail Singh: I can’t – I don’t know what it – in that – I’m trying to get the independency of it – POL away from it and you’ve got independency of a third party dealing with them directly rather than POL. That’s all.
Mr Beer: Your concern was that, if the expert told the Post Office something uncomfortable, they’d either be told to stop looking or their appointment would be terminated?
Jarnail Singh: No, absolutely not. I don’t think that was the intention –
Mr Beer: What does that paragraph mean, then?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know what it means but it was that – that –
Mr Beer: Who wrote it?
Jarnail Singh: Well, certainly, I did. But that’s the – that’s not – what it means is keep the independency of it, keep it away from the Post Office, and the integrity of the report and the independency and, if there is something they need, they need to go to Cartwright King to progress it. No more than that.
Mr Beer: If that’s what it meant, why didn’t it just use the words that you have described?
Jarnail Singh: I wish I had.
Mr Beer: Yes, but high, didn’t you?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I can’t recall. It’s a while ago.
Mr Beer: Is the true answer to that because the words that you used disclosed your true approach at the time, namely the Post Office does not wish to discover anything wrong with Horizon?
Jarnail Singh: No, no.
Mr Beer: If anyone starts to find things wrong with Horizon we’ll terminate their appointment?
Jarnail Singh: No.
Mr Beer: You tell us, in your witness statement, it’s paragraphs 94 onwards, which is on page 34, whilst that’s being turned up, sir, I should have told you at the outset that none of the Core Participants wish to ask questions of Mr Singh.
Sorry, I’ve been given some new information.
Update on that: one Core Participant has asked to ask some questions, which I can’t imagine will take that long and, therefore, I propose to go straight through and then we’ll finish well before 3.30.
Sir Wyn Williams: Right. Fine. Obviously, I will hold everyone to that, not least in the interests of the transcriber.
Mr Beer: Yes, thank you, sir.
From paragraph 94 onwards, you deal with the issue of the appointment of an expert. In 94 you refer to the documents that you have considered. In 95, you say:
“I recall that I had some involvement in seeking a new expert to opine on the integrity of [Horizon].”
You didn’t draft a document but you were asked by Susan Crichton or Hugh Flemington to seek Board approval. That was something you hadn’t done before.
Then a little further on, in 96, you say:
“… I can see there is reference to arrangements for a meeting”, you can’t recall attending.
It took a long time to get new experts:
“I can see that I was involved in seeking approval from Chris Aujard, General Counsel …”
97:
“I have been asked to what extent, if at all, did I agree with [Martin Smith’s] advice not to investigate … Horizon cases due to concerns that ‘disclosures issues could arise in historic cases’.”
You say:
“I recall that I was primarily concerned that the experts would have access to [all] the information they felt they needed … That was the reason for my email …”
98:
“My recollection was that the experts were being instructed in respect of the integrity of the current system.”
Can we look, please, at POL00147068, page 2 to start with, please, and an email from you to Mr Flemington, if we scroll up a little bit, so we can see the top bit. From you to Mr Flemington, in December 2013:
“We have identified two experts, as the ideal candidates for the role.
“[I think they will] Provide a validated opinion as to the present integrity of the system so as to lay to rest the present concerns relating to the integrity of Horizon Online …”
Why did you say that the potential expert would speak to the present integrity of the system so as to lay to rest the present concerns?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t honestly –
Mr Beer: In framing it that way, do you accept that you were effectively foreshadowing the opinion?
Jarnail Singh: No, I don’t –
Mr Beer: Setting out what you were looking for?
Jarnail Singh: I wasn’t looking at anything. I wish I knew to explain that to you very clearly. Certainly, all I was concerned with is trying to get an expert, because it’s just taken a long time to get anything off the ground. I mean, in the end of the day, I think we just basically gave up because the Post Office didn’t want – they wanted it, they didn’t want it. So those are the matters. You really need to have Mr Flemington, or Susan Crichton, or Chris here, because I can’t help you with that. All I’ve done is they asked me to get the expert – independency expert as to the integrity of the system, that’s all I’m doing.
I’m not doing anything more than that. Maybe it is wrong here but that’s not what it is. What you’re suggesting is not true.
Mr Beer: Did you disclose, to the putative new experts, the expert evidence that had been given by Mr Jenkins previously?
Jarnail Singh: It didn’t even get that far. I mean, I – I mean, it didn’t even get very far. I mean, it used to – it’s stop/start, stop/start, sort of system. Post Office wanted it, they didn’t want it, and I’m just going by whatever I’ve been told by Hugh Flemington to do or not to do. It’s more – nothing more than that.
Mr Beer: Can I look at it from a different angle, then. Can we look at POL00139879. Do you see this is an attendance note of a meeting in Scotland, firstly, with BTO solicitors and then, secondly, with the Procurator Fiscal in Edinburgh?
Jarnail Singh: Yes, yes, I – yes.
Mr Beer: Were you present at this?
Jarnail Singh: I was present on the 5th not the 4th.
Mr Beer: You were present on the 5th but not the 4th?
Jarnail Singh: Yeah, I don’t think I was – I think they had – Cartwright King and BTO probably met the day before, I think.
Mr Beer: Can we go, then, to page 3, please.
Jarnail Singh: Yeah, there we go.
Mr Beer: This is the record of that meeting on the 5th –
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: – and we can see that you’re present.
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: We can see who else is present: two from Cartwright King; two from BTO; one from Post Office, you; and two from the Procurator Fiscal.
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Mr Beer: Was this meeting, looking at it broadly, in response to the Procurator Fiscal’s initial view that all Post Office cases should be terminated because they couldn’t prove Horizon was wholly reliable?
Jarnail Singh: Yes, yes.
Mr Beer: Can we go forward to paragraph 12 of the meeting note, please. Thank you. In the second sentence it says:
“[Simon Clarke] provided the meeting with a broad overview of the [Horizon Online] difficulties (absent any direct or indirect reference to the role of [Gareth Jenkins] or Fujitsu).”
Can you see that?
Jarnail Singh: Yes, yes.
Mr Beer: Then paragraph 13, over the page, please.
“[Simon Clarke] then outlined the proposed instruction of independent expert witnesses and the scope and depth of [these] experts’ [reports]. PM …”
I’ve forgotten who that is. If we scroll back. Paul Miele, thank you, from the Procurator Fiscal. Back to 13, please:
“[Mr Miele] indicated surprise at the seriousness and depth to which [the Post Office] was prepared to go in dealing with the [Horizon Online] issues and was clearly appreciative of the approach being taken. He suggested that the matters outlined went a long way towards meeting the [Procurator Fiscal’s] concerns as to both present and future prosecutions.”
At this meeting, why did you not disclose to the Procurator Fiscal and to BTO that there had been a problem with Gareth Jenkins’ evidence in past prosecutions?
Jarnail Singh: I was asked by Susan to go along with it – go along for the meeting but I didn’t know the ins and outs, as to how the review was going or I had any – I wasn’t privy to any information further than that. I mean, Simon Clarke’s, a senior barrister, and I went long and I think – I don’t think I said very much. I just introduced them to them, who they were, and just left it – him to explain everything.
Mr Beer: So if we go back to paragraph 12, please. You’ll see in the brackets there –
Jarnail Singh: Yes, I can see that.
Mr Beer: – a note is made that Horizon Online difficulties were referred to absent any direct or indirect reference Gareth Jenkins or Fujitsu. Was there a desire to keep that secret?
Jarnail Singh: Not on my part. I don’t know anything about this. You probably need to ask Simon when he comes to talk to you but I don’t –
Mr Beer: Did you tell the Procurator Fiscal why the Post Office needed to instruct new experts, ie what was wrong with the old one?
Jarnail Singh: I – as I said, I don’t think I said very much here apart from the introductions.
Mr Beer: Did anyone say what was wrong with the old expert and why new experts needed to be instructed?
Jarnail Singh: I can’t recall, but it was basically Simon and Martin I think, they were leading it.
Mr Beer: Did anyone disclose the Simon Clarke Advices, the whole string of them?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t know. I’m not – I don’t recall but I mean I – they might have done. They had a meeting prior to me going there. I just went along because Susan asked me to, you know, attend and, I mean, that’s what I basically did. I didn’t take any part. I wasn’t privy to much information. I mean, if they asked any point or Post Office view, I probably – I don’t know what more I could have given but, certainly, I don’t even know what discussions Susan and Cartwright King had, or BTO had, and I was just an attendee, observer. I mean, I don’t know any more than that. I can’t help you with that any more.
Mr Beer: To your knowledge, did anyone draw to the Post Office Board’s attention the Simon Clarke Advice of 15 July 2013 concerning Mr Jenkins’ reliability?
Jarnail Singh: I had no dealings with the Board, very little dealing – I don’t think I had any dealing with the Board. I don’t think I even met any Board members. I mean, obviously Chris used to report – or, you know, the – you know, the senior legal teams.
Mr Beer: Was there any discussion between you that –
Jarnail Singh: No.
Mr Beer: – “This is so serious” –
Jarnail Singh: It is serious, I agree.
Mr Beer: – “the Post Office board need to know about this”?
Jarnail Singh: I’m – as I said, I’m a criminal lawyer and my job is, as you described it, is a postbox, which I agree with. And, you know, that’s all it is. But I wasn’t privy to any of it. These are high level discussions as to what was disclosed and who it was disclosed to, who knew what, when. I have no idea. I can honestly say that. I’m on oath and I’m telling you that. I’m staggered as to hear what you’re telling me.
Mr Beer: Was it thought of as a dirty secret?
Jarnail Singh: Not on my part. I didn’t know any dirty secrets.
Mr Beer: It shouldn’t be revealed to the board nor should it be revealed to the Scots?
Jarnail Singh: Well, I think you’ve been talking to senior members of the team. They’re the ones that are privy to it, I think you need to maybe call them in and discuss that with them again because, certainly, I can’t help you with that.
Mr Beer: Many of the prosecutions had occurred on your watch, hadn’t they?
Jarnail Singh: How do you mean?
Mr Beer: Well, whilst you had been a criminal lawyer at Royal Mail Group and then at the Post Office, a number of subpostmasters had been prosecuted?
Jarnail Singh: I dealt with my cases but, as I said to you, the Head of Criminal Law, Rob Wilson, wasn’t very good at declaring information and I think he was the contact within the greater business and I – as I said to you, apart from him, I don’t know any members of the Board, I don’t know any – anybody within the business that much because I didn’t have that much contact –
Mr Beer: In all of your time was there no discussion, “Aren’t the Board interested in this?”, or, “Why haven’t I been asked to contribute towards a Board paper which sets out what’s gone on here?”
Jarnail Singh: What, do you mean in the Royal Mail Group?
Mr Beer: Yes.
Jarnail Singh: No, there was Rob Wilson, I said he was the contact within the business. I don’t know who the Board members were.
Mr Beer: I’m not asking you whether you knew who the Board members were; I’m asking you, as a person –
Jarnail Singh: Well, if I don’t know them, I can’t have a discussion with them, can I? But no –
Mr Beer: I wasn’t asking you whether you had a discussion. I was asking you were you not querulous, were you not wondering to yourself, “Hold on, some things have been discovered here that have gone badly wrong? Does our Board know about this? Why haven’t I been asked to contribute to a Board paper or some briefing of some very senior people who want to know what’s gone on here”?
Jarnail Singh: I wasn’t asked and I don’t think I thought very much about it because I didn’t know much about any of it, what was going on. I mean, I basically was a criminal lawyer dealing with the cases, as and when they were allocated to me, mostly with direction as to, you know, what to do on them. No more than that.
Mr Beer: Mr Singh, on that note, they’re all the questions I have to got to ask you. Thank you.
Sir, I think it’s the Hudgells team and up to ten minutes, sir.
Sir Wyn Williams: Rightio.
Questioned by Ms Patrick
Ms Patrick: Good afternoon, Mr Singh. My name is Angela Patrick and I represent, together with Tim Moloney KC, a number of subpostmasters who were prosecuted and have since had their convictions quashed, including Mrs Hamilton, who I’m sure you can see sitting next to me today.
Jarnail Singh: Yes, I can. Yes.
Ms Patrick: We only want to ask you about one issue and it’s about the handling of criminal prosecutions which were live at the time of the publication of the Second Sight review, the first Interim Report. Did you see the evidence of Mr Martin Smith yesterday?
Jarnail Singh: I heard, yes.
Ms Patrick: You remember we were talking then yesterday, in questions to him, about how, in July 2013, immediately before the publication of the Second Sight Report and at a time when it was known to the Post Office that it would identify at least some bugs in Horizon, do you remember then that there was a case of Samra that was due to come on for a hearing?
Jarnail Singh: Yes.
Ms Patrick: Do you remember agreeing with Mr Smith and Mr Clarke that they would contact Gareth Jenkins before that hearing came on?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t think I – no, no.
Ms Patrick: If Mr Clarke had made a note of your agreement that they should do that, a contemporaneous note, would you accept it was likely to be correct?
Jarnail Singh: All I can remember about that case was dealt with by the Head of Legal, Hugh Flemington. I had very, very little to do with it because I don’t know the ins and outs of it, as to the reason for it, but I can’t really help you or assist you more than that.
Sir Wyn Williams: I don’t think Ms Patrick is asking you about the case. She’s just using that as a point of reference to ask you about a discussion you may have had.
Jarnail Singh: I can’t recall, to be honest. I don’t know –
Ms Patrick: I’m very grateful to the Chair but I think it’s even simpler.
Jarnail Singh: Okay.
Ms Patrick: You knew Mr Clarke and you’d worked with him for a long time?
Jarnail Singh: Yes, I did. Yes.
Ms Patrick: If he made an attendance note at the time that said you agreed to something that he and Mr Smith had suggested, would you expect that to be correct?
Jarnail Singh: Of course, yes.
Ms Patrick: Thank you. So 1 July, Samra is coming on for trial. Do you recall agreeing that there would be an application for a public interest immunity certificate to prevent disclosure to the defence of the fact that the Second Sight Report was to be presented to Parliament, and that that report contained references to bugs in Horizon?
Jarnail Singh: That was a matter for my line manager, Hugh Flemington, who had made the decision. I didn’t make any decisions.
Ms Patrick: Again, if Mr Clarke had made a note of your agreement that they, Mr Clarke and Mr Smith, should make just such an application, would you accept that it would be likely to be correct?
Jarnail Singh: Well, it’s correct in the sense that I didn’t make the decision. He advised the Post Office. The decision maker, the Head of Legal, Hugh Flemington, did that. But, I mean, I wasn’t privy to the advice.
Ms Patrick: Can we just look at the note. It may be helpful.
Jarnail Singh: Okay.
Ms Patrick: It’s POL00172804. It may help your memory, Mr Singh. We’re looking at page 7, paragraph 16, please. This is Mr Clarke writing.
“In this case I took the view that such an approach [an application for public interest immunity] to the problem might be appropriate. Accordingly Martin Smith and I, in conjunction with Jarnail Singh, decided that the best forward was to: 1) seek a ruling (ie the grant of a PII [public interest immunity] certificate) from the trial judge that we need not disclose to the defence the fact that the Second Sight Report was to be presented to Parliament today; and that the report contained references to the existence of bugs in Horizon both past and present; and 2) to adjourn the trial”, and so on.
You see there that Mr Clarke has made a note that the decision is made with him, Mr Smith, and “in conjunction with Jarnail Singh”; do you see that there, Mr Singh?
Jarnail Singh: Yes, I do. It’s very clear, yes.
Ms Patrick: There’s no reference to Hugh Flemington, is there?
Jarnail Singh: Well, I’m not the decision maker. I don’t know how I came about. Certainly, Hugh Flemington is the decision maker. I don’t know how that fits into it. I don’t even know what that certificate is because I’m not that well knowledgeable about these things and, obviously, the Post Office and the decision maker have decided to instruct Mr Clarke to make such an application.
Ms Patrick: You’ve accepted that you knew Mr Clarke. If he made a note at the time, it’s likely that that would be done correctly?
Jarnail Singh: Yes, yeah. But it wasn’t –
Ms Patrick: Just to explore your recollection, it might be able to help your memory, but can you recall, looking at this, what the basis for the application for public interest immunity was to be?
Jarnail Singh: I don’t recall. I don’t know.
Ms Patrick: You, at this point, are a very experienced solicitor. An application for public interest immunity in criminal proceedings is a very serious step, isn’t it?
Jarnail Singh: It probably is but my understanding was limited. It’s something that senior counsel is leading on instructions from the Post Office Senior Legal Team, like Hugh Flemington and, probably, you know, the General Counsel.
Ms Patrick: Now, if I suggest to you that the basis for such an application is very limited and it must engage very serious matters of public interest, in order to withhold material from the defence and from the public eye, serious things such as national security, would you accept that’s a rough explanation for what a public interest immunity application might be about?
Jarnail Singh: Well, certainly, yes. But, I mean, I wasn’t privy to the case. It’s not one of my cases I’m dealing with. It’s something – the decision has been made and Mr Clarke and Mr Smith are dealing with it. I’m more or less – I don’t know what my involvement in it was because I don’t know any details as to the application.
Ms Patrick: Well, we can talk to Mr Clarke about his note and he here records that the decision was made in conjunction with you. So can we just look at the reasons for the application, just to see if it prompts your memory, Mr Singh.
If we could look at page 9, at paragraph 24, please. Thank you very much. Here we see Mr Clarke records his reasons:
“Finally, it is worth commenting on the reasoning behind my advice that we seek a PII [public interest immunity] certificate in this case. POL were, rightly in my opinion, very concerned at the potential adverse publicity which would inevitably have been generated by the revelation of the existence of a (draft) Second Sight Report into Horizon. To permit this information to enter the public domain at such an early stage would have been to encourage extremely unhealthy and likely virulent speculation as to the content of any report, most probably in the national press. Such speculation would have seriously damaged the reputation of [Post Office] and would have greatly undermined public confidence in both [Post Office] and [Post Office] systems. Our objective was to avoid such consequences: that objective we achieved.”
“Our objective was to avoid such consequences”; was that a proper basis for an application for public interest immunity, Mr Singh?
Jarnail Singh: I’ve got no knowledge about these things. I’m probably like an article clerk sitting behind senior counsel who is on top of his game but that’s a decision made by the Post Office on advice, and I’ve been – as a criminal lawyer, I’ve been advised to assist but I don’t know the ins and outs of this particular case because it’s not something I advised on or dealt with.
Ms Patrick: Mr Singh?
Jarnail Singh: Yeah?
Ms Patrick: Mr Singh, we have this note. We have Mr Clarke recording it’s a decision made in conjunction with you. Was this is an example of you seeking to cover up things if you could?
Jarnail Singh: I’m not seeking to cover up anything. I don’t know the ins and out of this and, in all seriousness, this is a matter you need to discuss with Mr Clarke and the senior Legal Team. I am purely there on instruction – on whatever I’ve been asked by my line manager, Hugh Flemington or – whoever it is, Jessica or Hugh Flemington – to have an input in whatever they decide to do. I mean, I couldn’t say, “Look, I disagree with that, I’m not going to do this”. So I …
Ms Patrick: Mr Singh, can I stop you there for a moment.
Jarnail Singh: Yeah.
Ms Patrick: At this point, 2013, you’re the sole criminal specialist at Post Office, aren’t you?
Jarnail Singh: I’m a criminal lawyer but I wouldn’t say I’m a specialist with experts particularly.
Ms Patrick: Thank you. I don’t have any more questions for you, Mr Singh. Thank you very much.
Sir Wyn Williams: Thank you, Ms Patrick.
That’s it, Mr Beer?
Mr Beer: Yes, sir, it is.
Sir Wyn Williams: Thank you for making two witness statements, Mr Singh, and for making yourself available on two separate occasions to be questioned. I am grateful to you for your participation in the Inquiry.
The Witness: Thank you, sir. Thank you.
Sir Wyn Williams: So we’ll adjourn now until Tuesday at 9.45, Mr Beer?
Mr Beer: Yes, that’s right, sir.
Sir Wyn Williams: Fine. All right, then.
Mr Beer: Thank you very much, sir.
(3.17 pm)
(The hearing adjourned until 9.45 am on Tuesday, 7 May 2024)