26 June 2024 – Gareth Jenkins
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Gareth Jenkins
GARETH IDRIS JENKINS (continued).
Questioned by Mr Beer (continued)
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, Mr Beer.
Mr Beer: Thank you. Good morning, Mr Jenkins.
Gareth Jenkins: Good morning, sir.
Mr Beer: Before we carry on looking at bugs errors and defects, which is where we left off yesterday, I’d like, if I may, to go back over an issue that we addressed yesterday which is whether you saw the Bond Pearce letter of 18 November 2005.
Gareth Jenkins: Okay.
Mr Beer: You remember that letter from –
Gareth Jenkins: I remember discussing it yesterday, yes.
Mr Beer: Yes, from Bond Pearce to Fujitsu. It was the one that asked Fujitsu to prepare an expert report, which asked Fujitsu to address in the report the issues raised by Lee Castleton in his defence and which explained an expert’s duties and the necessary inclusions in an expert report; do you remember?
Gareth Jenkins: I remember discussing it yesterday, yes.
Mr Beer: I showed you a copy of that letter yesterday. Can we have that on screen, please, FUJ00152573. If we scroll through, please, you remember the way this pack of documents was constructed and, if we carry on scrolling – and keep scrolling – to the letter of 18 November 2005 from Bond Pearce to Fujitsu. I showed you a copy of this letter yesterday; do you remember?
Gareth Jenkins: I remember that, yes.
Mr Beer: Thank you. When I asked you about the letter and if it was sent to you, you said no, you had got no recollection of that. You remember that?
Gareth Jenkins: I certainly – that is certainly what I said yesterday.
Mr Beer: Yes. You said yesterday that, if the letter had been sent to you, then you would have remembered it because it clearly sets out what duties there are, and you weren’t aware of them until the end of 2020?
Gareth Jenkins: I believe I must have been mistaken in what I said yesterday, in that respect.
Mr Beer: Before we come to whether you were mistaken or not, I’m just going to recap what you said.
Gareth Jenkins: I accept that that is what I said yesterday.
Mr Beer: So you said that you would have clearly remembered it because it sets out the duties of an expert and you weren’t aware of them until the end of 2020, yes?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: You said yesterday that you did not see the letter because, if you had seen it, then you would have learned about the existence of an expert witness’s duties?
Gareth Jenkins: That is what I said yesterday, yes.
Mr Beer: You agreed yesterday that Bond Pearce had set out in this letter very clearly, and in an easy-to-understand way, the duties of an expert witness?
Gareth Jenkins: I accept that’s what I said, yes.
Mr Beer: Lastly, you said that you were sure that the letter never made its way to you because you would, and I quote here:
“… have done things differently, not necessarily in this case [the Lee Castleton case] but certainly in later cases, if I’d been aware of those responsibilities.”
You remember saying that?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: I also asked you yesterday about your attendance a conference with lawyers at Fujitsu’s headquarters on 6 June 2006; do you remember?
Gareth Jenkins: I do.
Mr Beer: You said, in summary, that there was no discussion about giving expert evidence or the duties of an expert at that conference?
Gareth Jenkins: And I’ve no recollection of that, no.
Mr Beer: Indeed, that’s reflected in the attendance note of that conference: there appears to have been no such discussion?
Gareth Jenkins: I agree.
Mr Beer: Can we turn to your witness statement, please. Your third witness statement, at paragraphs 251 and 252, which is page 86. I’m going to read those in full:
“251. The Inquiry’s Rule 9(2) Request has asked me how I first came to be involved in Mr Castleton’s case. It has also asked what I understood Stephen Dilley to be asking … to provide by way of his letter dated 18 November 2005.”
Then you give that URN that we’ve just looked at, okay?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: “I don’t believe that I had ever seen this letter until it was shown to me for the purposes of preparing this witness statement. It appears that at some point Brian Pinder emailed me and asked me to address a single question about human error (which I can now see came from the list of questions asked in the letter) and that my response to this single question seems to have been my first involvement in Mr Castleton’s case.”
We looked over all of that yesterday.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: “252. I don’t think that I had any further involvement until, over six months later, I was invited to attend a meeting with [the Post Office’s] solicitors on 6 June 2006. My lawyers have shown me an email from Brian Pinder to me dated 5 June 2006”, and you give the reference number ending in 601.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: “This email attached an agenda for the next day’s meeting and a scanned extract from a document”, and you give a reference number 602.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: “… which recorded issues Mr Castleton had experienced with Horizon. I probably read both attachments in advance of the next day’s meeting although I don’t recall doing so. Brian Pinder’s email stated that he was ‘not sure how this affects ourselves but reading the scanned document attached (his queries re Horizon) we may well require [your] expertise in this’. Looking back at this email, I cannot recall what my understanding of the purpose of the next day’s meeting was but I would probably have assumed that I would be asked to respond to the Horizon issues identified by Mr Castleton. However, I don’t think I knew at this stage that [the Post Office] intended me to become a witness in any legal proceedings.”
Now, you say, if we go back to 252, at the foot of the page, “My lawyers have shown me an email”, can you see that in the second line into the third line?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: “Dated 5 June”, and you give that the number ending 601. So that’s the day before the conference.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: If we look at that, please, FUJ00152601.
Look at the bottom part of the email first. 3.49 from Mr Dilley to Brian Pinder and Graham Ward and others, not you at this stage:
“Dear Brian and Graham,
“I attach a suggested agenda for tomorrow’s 11.30 am meeting, just for discussion purposes. I also attach an extract from Mr Castleton’s Part 18 Replies setting out his allegations about Horizon. I think Mared may also add in a few issues.”
So that suggests that the things attached were an agenda and an extract from some part 18 replies. Okay.
Gareth Jenkins: And that was the assumption I made when making my witness statement.
Mr Beer: So ie you read what was in this email and effectively translated it into your witness statement?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: Thank you. Then if we go up, please, that’s forwarded to you. There must be a time difference because the time given is 40 minutes before the earlier email is sent.
Gareth Jenkins: It says UTC time, so that’s June, summertime.
Mr Beer: So that would have been 4.19?
Gareth Jenkins: Yeah.
Mr Beer: “Please be advised in the email below [this is directly to you] and the attachments.”
Just stopping there, we can see the attachments, one is called “letter_doc” and the second attachment is an eCopy of a scanned copy document.pdf; can you see that?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I see that.
Mr Beer: “Not sure how this affects ourselves”, and then there’s the sentence that you set out in your witness statement; can you see that?
So, again, essentially two documents, it is suggested are attached, an agenda and a scanned copy of Mr Castleton’s Part 18 replies.
Now, in you witness statement you said that the email attached an agenda and a scanned extract from a document, and you gave that the reference number 602. Can we look at that, please. FUJ00152602. You’ll see these are statements of case, so legal documents which used to be called pleadings, in which the parties exchanged information about their case.
Gareth Jenkins: I didn’t understand that at the time but I understood that it was asking technical questions that I thought I would need to address.
Mr Beer: Okay, so that’s not relevant to us at the moment but in your witness statement that’s the only document you refer to as being attached –
Gareth Jenkins: I agree.
Mr Beer: – and that’s not relevant. Now, it’s true to say that there was an agenda for that meeting, for 6 June 2006, but it wasn’t attached to this email. The reference number, we needn’t turn it up, for the agenda is POL00071418.
Now, can we please switch to the native version of the email, FUJ00152601, and it will be necessary to drop the YouTube feed for this. You understand, this is the original version, essentially, of the email that I showed you yesterday in an imaged form.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I understand that.
Mr Beer: So you’ll see it’s exactly the same email, the text is exactly the same in it, but the difference is we can see, actually, what the two attachments were?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I understand that.
Mr Beer: If we look at the second attachment first, if we can just open that on the screen. We’ll see that’s the Part 18 replies.
Gareth Jenkins: I understand, yes.
Mr Beer: So that can be closed, thank you. Then if we open the first attachment, we can see that, in fact, the first attachment of the email to you was the letter of 18 November 2005; can you see that?
Gareth Jenkins: I can see that and I now understand that to be the case.
Mr Beer: Now, when you made your witness statement, you would not have been able to refer to this document, the 18 November 2005, as being an attachment to the email because it hadn’t been disclosed by the Inquiry on its eDisclosure platform in a way that associated it with the covering email; do you understand that?
Gareth Jenkins: I accept that, yes.
Mr Beer: Thank you. The association between the email and this attachment, the letter, was only realised yesterday. So I’m obviously not going to ask you why you said what you did in your witness statement about the other attachment being an agenda, when it in fact wasn’t.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Okay? Nor am I going to ask you why you didn’t refer to this letter of 18 November 2005 in your witness statement as being provided as an attachment to the email because you didn’t have the evidence then before you to make that connection?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: Understood?
Gareth Jenkins: Yeah.
Mr Beer: Can we go back, please, to the imaged version of this letter, FUJ00152573. I think it was page 8 or 9 – maybe 10. Just scroll on, please. Thank you. I’m just going to use this imaged version rather than that native version. The text is exactly the same. So I’m not going to ask you about why your witness statement was written in the way that it was. The plain facts are, I think you’ll agree, however, that we can now see that the letter of 18 November 2005 was sent to you?
Gareth Jenkins: I understand that and I accept that, and I apologise for any mistake I made yesterday.
Mr Beer: It was sent directly to you and, therefore, I’ve got ask to ask you some questions about that, okay?
Gareth Jenkins: I understand that, yes.
Mr Beer: So you accept, firstly, the simple fact that, in the light of the evidence as it now stands, this Bond Pearce letter was sent directly to you?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, clearly.
Mr Beer: Do you remain of the view that you expressed yesterday that, if the letter had been sent to you, you would have read all of it and not just half of it?
Gareth Jenkins: I would probably have skimmed through it but, clearly, it hadn’t stuck in my mind beyond the time that I read it because, at the time, I was concentrating of the fact I was being invited to a meeting the following day and the substance of what I needed to look at for the following day was the other attachment, not this one. So, yes, I would probably have opened it up and read it but I have no recollection of doing that.
Mr Beer: Why do you think your focus of attention would have been the Part 18 replies and not this letter?
Gareth Jenkins: Because what I was being asked to do was answer questions. If we go back to the covering email from –
Mr Beer: FUJ00152601. Is it the second paragraph there you’re referring to?
Gareth Jenkins: “Not sure how this affects ourselves but reading the scanned document attached (his queries re Horizon) we may well require you’re [sic] expertise on this.”
Are you saying that, because of that sentence, you would have focused only on the scanned document and not on the letter?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Really?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes. That was the one that actually had technical information that I felt I could contribute towards.
Mr Beer: Why did you tell me yesterday that, if you had been sent this letter, you would have read all of it and not half of it?
Gareth Jenkins: I probably would have read all of it but I probably didn’t read it in detail and having – and, obviously, it didn’t stick in my mind, and sorry if I misled you yesterday to suggest that it would have stuck. I think it’s a problem of understanding the difference between it clearly strikes me, reading it now, as being important, whilst at the time, it probably didn’t strike me as being important.
What I was being asked to do was to go to a meeting to talk about technical issues with Horizon and so I would have concentrated on the technical scanned document, not the letter talking about putting together the report and, at that stage, I didn’t think I was being asked to put together a report and, in fact, I don’t believe I was ever asked to produce a report in that sort of form, for this case.
Mr Beer: Or is it that you said yesterday that, if you’d received the letter, you would have read all of it and not just half of it, because it was acceptable to say that when you didn’t think you’d been sent the letter?
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t know. As I say, I would probably have read the whole thing. I’m not suggesting I didn’t read the whole thing but, clearly, it didn’t stick in my mind.
Mr Beer: Okay, thank you. Can we go back to the letter, please. FUJ00152573, and I think page 11 – 12 – 13, thank you.
Do you remain of the view that you expressed yesterday that the letter sets out, in a detailed but easy-to-understand way, the duties that would need to be complied with in the case of a Fujitsu employee providing evidence in at least the Lee Castleton case about the matters raised in the letter?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I have to accept that.
Mr Beer: Do you accept now, in the light of the evidence, that you were sent a copy of this letter, that you were therefore informed, in a detailed but easy-to-understand way, the duties that would need to be complied with in the event that you provided evidence in the Lee Castleton case in answer to this letter?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, but I don’t believe I was actually asked to provide that sort of report in the Lee Castleton case.
Mr Beer: Well, I’ll come to that a little later.
Gareth Jenkins: But yes.
Mr Beer: If we scan through the letter just slowly – I think you will have read it carefully overnight – the letter doesn’t refer, would you accept, to the provider of a report from Fujitsu as being an expert witness?
Gareth Jenkins: I’m not sure that I’d have spotted that in terms of – I was concentrating more at looking at what else happened in the case, rather than the contents of this letter, last night.
Mr Beer: Look at it carefully now. If we just go back to the top, thank you. If you just read it to yourself slowly, and just indicate when you’ve read that which is on the screen.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I’ve read what’s on the screen.
Mr Beer: Thank you. If we go down, please.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I’ve read that page.
Mr Beer: Thank you. Over the page, thank you.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I accept that it doesn’t say that the expert’s report is a formal report.
Mr Beer: Thank you. Maybe you can just read the first two paragraphs under (4), and then go over the page, and then read after 14 the next three paragraphs.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I’ve read those three paragraphs.
Mr Beer: Then just read under (5).
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I’ve read that.
Mr Beer: So the letter does not refer to the provider of the report that was being sought by the letter by Fujitsu, at once, as being an expert witness, does it?
Gareth Jenkins: No, it doesn’t.
Mr Beer: Instead, the letter, would you agree, works on the basis that any person providing evidence from Fujitsu about the matters mentioned in the letter needs to comply with the duties set out in the letter?
Gareth Jenkins: I understand that now but I almost certainly would not have realised that at the time.
Mr Beer: You said yesterday that you were sure that the letter never made its way to you, because:
“[You] would have done things differently, not necessarily in this case, [the Lee Castleton case] but certainly in later cases.”
Gareth Jenkins: If I’d understood what that was all about. Now, I clearly had no recollection that I’d received it at this point. You’ve now shown that I did receive it at this point but I still have no recollection of remembering anything about that at any later stage.
Mr Beer: But you said yesterday that, had you received the letter, you would have done things differently, certainly in later cases, if you’d been aware of the responsibilities set out in this letter.
Gareth Jenkins: Maybe I need to qualify that to say, if I’d received and understood the detail of the letter.
Mr Beer: Well, that’s not what you said.
Gareth Jenkins: I accept that and I was mistaken.
Mr Beer: Why were you mistaken that you think that yesterday you thought, had you received the letter, you would have certainly done things differently in later cases; today you don’t think, now you know you received the letter, that you would have done things differently in later cases?
Gareth Jenkins: I think the difference is in terms of understanding what it was all about. What I was thinking of yesterday was, with my knowledge now, of what – of the implications of what it actually says in that letter, then I would have done things differently. If I’d just skimmed through it and not taken too much – made too much attention of what it actually said and it had then gone from my mind when I was busy concentrating on the other attachment, then clearly I had not remembered anything about it much beyond those couple of days.
Mr Beer: What were the later cases that you had in mind yesterday when you told us that, if you’d seen this letter, if you’d received this letter, you would have done things differently?
Gareth Jenkins: If I’d understood my duties as an expert, and I accept they’re laid out here, and understood at the time, then I would clearly have approached the reports that I produced for Seema Misra’s case in a different way. And, as I’ve said before, I had no recollection of having been briefed in this way and, after all, that was about three or four years later and I’d clearly forgotten all about having seen this letter briefly at that time.
Mr Beer: So when you said yesterday, had you seen this letter, you would have done things differently in later cases, you had in mind Seema Misra?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I think so that was – and, clearly, there was a later case as well but that was the next one that came along.
Mr Beer: What about the Hughie Thomas case?
Gareth Jenkins: I think that had happened letter.
Mr Beer: You’d made a witness statement earlier in the year in March or April?
Gareth Jenkins: But I didn’t think that that was an expert report at all. That was just looking at one specific question of fact, which was whether – what was the reason for zero value transactions. I didn’t – I had no concept of the fact that that was an expert report in any sort of way.
Mr Beer: I should just say, whilst it’s on the screen there, just look under (5), can you see that?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: The words “expert witnesses” is included; can you see that?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, yes.
Mr Beer: “In performing all your duties …”
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: So it’s not quite right what I suggested to you earlier that “expert witness” or “expert witnesses” are not mentioned in the letter.
Gareth Jenkins: No.
Mr Beer: They are in that paragraph there. But do you still agree that, reading the letter now, the requirements imposed by or suggested by Bond Pearce don’t depend upon the person giving the report or making the report being classified as an expert witness?
Gareth Jenkins: I’d not really taken that into account. So I think it’s very difficult to talk about hypotheticals in that sort of way.
Mr Beer: So you were told about these responsibilities because you’d been provided with this letter. What’s the explanation now, then, for not doing things differently in later cases?
Gareth Jenkins: Because I’d clearly not remembered about the fact that I’d seen this letter in 2006.
Mr Beer: Your evidence in your witness statement and in your oral evidence yesterday was founded on the suggestion that you didn’t need to comply with all of the duties set out at length by, for example, Professor McLachlan in his report, nor Mark Turner in his report because they were independent experts and you were from Fujitsu.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, and I stand by that.
Mr Beer: Doesn’t you receiving this letter rather undermine that point?
Gareth Jenkins: It could do if I’d remembered that I’d received this letter. But I – I– where I’m coming from is that I know that I acted honestly at all times and, therefore, I’m – the only way that I can explain that is by the fact that I just had no recollection of this letter.
Mr Beer: If we go to the top of the previous page, please. There. Thank you. The six topics set out there are just asking questions about Horizon, aren’t they?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: The advice from Bond Pearce was that the person that answers them in a report needs to comply with everything that follows in the letter?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, but I don’t think I was being asked to produce a report at that time.
Mr Beer: Can we look at then what happened subsequently, in fairness to you, at FUJ00122283. It might be that’s an errant reference – ah no, perfect.
Can we just look at the email at the foot of the page, please, and then go up, please. You say in this email, and we’re now in the beginning part of August 2006, so a couple of months after the conference at Fujitsu?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: “I’ve had a go through this. It isn’t a complete statement and I won’t have time to sort out the outstanding bits for a while …
“I’m happy for you to send it as it is to Stephen …”
Who was the Stephen you had in mind?
Gareth Jenkins: Stephen Dilley.
Mr Beer: “… you may decide it isn’t complete enough for that … I may be able to research some of the areas (such as Auditing) that I’m claiming ignorance of if that is required.”
You will see there is an attachment, which is a statement?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Can we look at that statement, same reference, but ending 84 [FUJ00122284]. This was the attachment to your email and was a draft witness statement, is this right, that you compiled?
Gareth Jenkins: The draft witness statement was compiled by Stephen Dilley and he’d left various questions in it and, as I explain on that first page, I made various annotations and we’re back to the problem about being able to tell the difference between colours in a black and white document.
Mr Beer: I see. So the format of the witness statement was compiled by Mr Dilley and some of the formal parts of it were compiled by Mr Dilley. He included some text in it and he asked you some questions that you were to responding to and fill in?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: And you did that in this version of it?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: If we just scroll down, please, and look at paragraphs 1 and 2, and then scroll on, you address the Horizon system which you’ll remember is question 1 in the letter of 18 November 2005:
“What’s the Horizon system? We need to explain to a judge how it works.”
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t think I would have been thinking of it in the context of that letter, at the time I saw this, because this was clearly a couple of months later.
Mr Beer: Right, okay. Then, if we just scroll on, we can scan it. The detail is not important for the moment. If we scroll on, and keep scrolling, you can see some examples there of him asking questions and you replying?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Carry on.
Gareth Jenkins: And there’s also examples of him asking questions and me saying I don’t think I’m able to reply.
Mr Beer: Yes. If we scroll on, and then stop there. You’ll see that it was proposed that you signed off with a standard declaration:
“I believe that the facts stated in this witness statement are true.”
Can you see that?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: So this draft provided by him and further expanded by you didn’t contain any of the declarations or the matters mentioned by Mr Dilley in his letter of 18 November 2005 as an expert witness?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: Did you give any thought to that at the time?
Gareth Jenkins: No, is the simple answer. I was given this document, which was supposedly a draft of something that I should be saying, and what I did was I commented on that as to whether I could truthfully say what was in that draft or not and corrected any factual errors that I saw within there. I gave no thought to what format it was in.
Mr Beer: So, by that time, had the letter of 18 November been lost by you in your memory?
Gareth Jenkins: I believe so, yes.
Mr Beer: Was there any suggestion by Mr Dilley that you needed to comply with the duties set out in his letter of 18 November, or say that you had complied with the duties set out in his letter of 18 November, for the purposes of giving this evidence?
Gareth Jenkins: Not that I’m aware of and I don’t believe there is anything in the covering email that – I’m not sure if we went to there now. And I’m also aware of some emails which I’ve seen as part of the Inquiry where he was saying that I was to be treated as a witness of fact and not an expert evidence but, obviously, I didn’t see those at the time.
Mr Beer: Thank you very much.
Sir Wyn Williams: Mr Beer, can I take it, because I’ve only seen this as we’re going along, that, in fact, it contains a mixture of factual content and opinion?
Mr Beer: Very much.
Sir Wyn Williams: So there would have been a need for all the necessary declarations?
Mr Beer: Correct.
Sir Wyn Williams: Fine.
Mr Beer: It’s not a witness statement of fact alone. You can see that, for example –
Sir Wyn Williams: That’s no reflection on you, Mr Jenkins.
Gareth Jenkins: I –
Sir Wyn Williams: I’m just trying to ascertain the true legal status –
Gareth Jenkins: I understand.
Sir Wyn Williams: – of what this would be. That’s all.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: To round this topic off, Mr Jenkins, you didn’t, in fact, sign this witness statement and you weren’t required to give evidence in court?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct. And, in fact, I don’t believe that this version of it ever went back to Mr Dilley, and he decided he didn’t want a statement from me at all, but – and I think we worked through yesterday the communication I had from Brian Pinder as to the fact that it was no longer required.
Mr Beer: Thank you, that can go back down.
Right, can we go back to where we were?
Sir Wyn Williams: Before we do, Mr Beer, I want to say this openly, since obviously it is unfortunate that this series of documents or these documents you’ve shown Mr Jenkins this morning had not been disclosed earlier.
I want the Inquiry to make a further investigation, just so I can be satisfied about what exactly occurred. The letter of 18 November, as originally sent, as I understand it, attached experts’ reports obtained by Mr Castleton.
Mr Beer: Yes.
Sir Wyn Williams: So I would like us to bottom out whether those reports made their way, in some way or another, to Mr Jenkins and/or were discussed at the conference which he attended.
Mr Beer: Thank you, sir. We can pursue that.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes.
Mr Beer: Can we go back to bugs, errors and defects, please, and turn to the Callendar Square bug, please.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: You addressed this at significant length in your second witness statement, it’s paragraphs 53 to 82, where you recount your knowledge of the Callendar Square bug. Can we just look at a couple of parts of that, please. Second witness statement at page 16, please, and paragraph 54. You say:
“In the Technical Appendix to the Horizon Issues judgment, Mr Justice Fraser grouped together number of problems under a single heading called ‘Callendar Square/Falkirk’. I understand why the court and now the Inquiry has taken this approach but it risks creating the erroneous impression that the bug was homogeneous in the sense that it was caused by the same factors, and manifested itself in the same way, in every branch it affected. This was not the case. As I explain below, what happened at [the] Callendar Square branch in Falkirk in 2005 was caused by an underlying bug in the Riposte software that manifested itself when a combination of unpredictable factors, including (in that particular case) steps taken by the [subpostmaster] to rectify the issue, came together. In other words, there was an underlying software bug, but how it manifested itself and whether it caused harm was contingent on the presence of other circumstances. These circumstances were not fixed. That is why the problem was hard to reproduce.”
Then page 28, please, and paragraph 80b, which is beyond the there. You say:
“While many incidences of the locking errors were not associated with any discrepancies in [branches] (eg they resulted in operational problems such as screen freeze), I became aware that it was not just the Callendar Square branch that had suffered from discrepancies but other branches where there were counter occurrences of the timeout waiting for lock problem.”
Can we start with –
Gareth Jenkins: Can we qualify that last thing because at the top of the page it says that this comment arose from the work I did in 2018/2019, and not at the time.
Mr Beer: Yes, sorry, this is later-discovered information.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, yes.
Mr Beer: In what respect was the Callendar Square bug not homogeneous?
Gareth Jenkins: I think it comes down to understanding exactly what people mean by the Callendar Square bug. If we’re talking about the circumstances that actually occurred in Callendar Square, then that was a storm of events which came regularly at every ten seconds for a period of time until the particular PC or server was rebooted. But there were other cases where there was a single event saying time-out waiting for lock, and what I was getting at, in the first paragraph that you read to me, is that, as far as the civil case, they were all considered as being basically the same problem, and I didn’t feel that that was a correct representation of how it should be taken.
Mr Beer: What was the nature of the other circumstances that were required when interacting with the underlying Riposte bug that produced lock errors?
Gareth Jenkins: The simple answer is I don’t know.
Mr Beer: The reason why you don’t know is?
Gareth Jenkins: It was in the Escher software and it was their propriety software, they as I understand it, fixed the problem in 2006 and, certainly, the storm of events, which was what was seen at Callendar Square, did not reoccur, as far as I’m aware.
Mr Beer: But you didn’t know then, and you don’t know now – and even in 2018/19 didn’t know – what circumstances were required in order, essentially, to trigger the existence of the bug?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at POL00081928 and can we go down the page, please, to Ms Chambers’ email. Scroll down, please. Hmm. Just scroll back up, please – and again – and again. That’s obviously an erroneous reference. I’ll come back to that maybe later this morning.
Can we turn instead to FUJ00083712. Thank you. This is an email thread, if we scroll down, please, and if we keep going, we can see an email from you there. If we go to the end, thank you, and then scroll up from the bottom. We can see the start of an email chain. If we scroll up and keep going, you’re not included at the moment. You come in here, and just in what context would you be sent an email like this?
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t recognise this specific email but I recognise the background to it as being part of the investigation we were doing for an issue that I believe occurred in Craigpark and one other branch, which I think is Tonbridge. So, as a result of that, we then did a retrospective search of NT events associated that were related to ARQ data that had previously been supplied to Post Office.
Mr Beer: Why were you doing that?
Gareth Jenkins: To make sure that there weren’t any problems that we’d not spotted that could cause any – there weren’t problems that were occurring at the branch at the time that the ARQ data was being extracted for.
Mr Beer: Was this a hangover, essentially, from the supposed resolution of the Callendar Square bug in 2006?
Gareth Jenkins: No, this was a separate issue, that was – as I say, it’s – I’ve referred to it in my witness statement as the Craigpark issue. In fact, having re-read them over the last few weeks, I’m now aware that, actually, the first occurrence of it was at a different branch called Tonbridge but it was Craigpark that was what caused Post Office to investigate things further, when I actually got involved in this, in I think it was August 2008.
Mr Beer: I see. So if we carry on scrolling up, please – and keep scrolling – and again – and stop there. Are you essentially saying that this chain is about another kind of Riposte lock issue that’s separate from the Callendar Square issue in 2006?
Gareth Jenkins: I’m not 100 per cent sure about that as to whether this was a storm of events or just individual events. If it’s just individual events then it was a separate issue and it was important, as was done here, to check to see if anyone was actually logged on to the system at the time. And that was the sort of check that was being done when those events were being detected in our checking of NT events associated with ARQ data.
Mr Beer: But I shouldn’t see this, I shouldn’t read this, as essentially a continuation of the Callendar Square issue discovered in 2006?
Gareth Jenkins: Not if it’s an isolated, a Riposte lock issue, no.
Mr Beer: How would you know whether it’s an isolated Riposte lock issue or a continuing manifestation of the Callendar Square bug?
Gareth Jenkins: If it was a Callendar Square issue there would be hundreds of thousands of events occurring.
Mr Beer: Why?
Gareth Jenkins: Because the problem was continuing. So a lock was being – there was an attempt get a lock, and then Riposte was continually to do the same thing, process every ten seconds, and it was failing every ten seconds, and will carry on doing that until the Riposte service on that box was restarted.
Mr Beer: So you said earlier that you didn’t know the full circumstances that would cause –
Gareth Jenkins: What I don’t understand is why the lock was being held all that time. The symptoms of it I do understand, in that it would be showing all these events, but why the thing was being locked and not able to process things is what I don’t understand.
Mr Beer: Was it possible that the Riposte lock problem had continued and was impacting on a branch in a way that was previously unknown to Fujitsu?
Gareth Jenkins: I think what we were – what we’d decided was the safest thing to do was to check, if we saw the Riposte lock problem, to see if anyone was actually using the terminal at the time and, if no one was using the terminal at the time, then it was deemed to be safe and that – nothing to worry about.
Mr Beer: We know you were asked some questions about Callendar Square in 2010 for the purposes of the Seema Misra case, yes?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: And that you in turn asked Anne Chambers for information about the problem?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: Did you make any connection with your previous involvement in Riposte lock issues such as this?
Gareth Jenkins: No, I think is the simple answer to that.
Mr Beer: Why would that be?
Gareth Jenkins: Well, at that stage, I didn’t know, actually, what the root cause in Callendar Square. I’d just been told “Please can you look into what the Callendar Square issue was”. When I asked Anne for the information about it, she passed me references to a PEAK and I think she – some old emails from the time that it had occurred, and said that, if I remember rightly, that the main cause of the issue was these what she called “event storms”, which was repeated events, which is separate from these isolated events that we’re looking at here.
Mr Beer: But would, in 2010, all of the earlier Riposte lock matters – I’m going to call them – have been available to you on PinICLs, PEAKs and KELs, if you had searched for relevant key terms?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I guess they were but, again, in what we were looking at, in terms of what had happened in West Byfleet, we did actually extract all the NT events from 2005 to 2008, and we checked all the events, including lock issues, and I believe there were some found. I believe there is an email from Anne where she actually summarises what she had actually found there, and there were some further checks that Penny Thomas made to see whether anyone was logged on at the times that these events had occurred.
Mr Beer: I’m just thinking more broadly at the moment, without getting into the detail of the individual cases, what you would do if you were preparing a witness statement in a case, or preparing to give evidence in a case: would you go back and look at PinICLs, PEAKs and KELs in order to conduct research about what was known about an issue, or would you, as I think you just described, just email or talked to Anne Chambers?
Gareth Jenkins: I would probably have asked the SSC because I wasn’t particularly adapt at being able to do searches on PinICLs and KELs. I’d probably rely more on PinICLs than KELs because I found those were useful in terms of giving me the information I wanted.
Mr Beer: But if you were to give evidence about a bug, your primary source of reference would have been to speak to people in SSC; is that right?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: Can we go forwards, please, to 2015 to FUJ00083775 and look at page 2, please. In 2015, Anne Chambers was asked to provide a description of the Callendar Square problem, for the purposes, I think, of some litigation. We can see here she says to Pete Newsome – do you remember him?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: What function did he perform?
Gareth Jenkins: He was a – I’m trying to think exactly what his job title was. He was a liaison between Fujitsu and Post Office, at a fairly senior level.
Mr Beer: “I have found a summary of the problem that Gareth produced when preparing evidence for a court case in 2010.”
That’s a reference to the Seema Misra case, I think.
Gareth Jenkins: I assume so.
Mr Beer: Yes:
“I have made a few amendments to make it more generally applicable.
“1. The problem occurred when transferring cash or stock between stock units.
“2. It manifested itself by the receiving stock unit not being able to ‘see’ the transfer made by the ‘sending’ stock unit and could be compounded by attempting to make a further transfer. Note that such transactions usually reappeared the next day.
“3. It was clearly visible to the user as a ‘Receipts and Payments mismatch’ at the time that one of the stock units was balanced.
“4. The problem was also visible when looking at the system events associated with the branch.
“5. The problem was fixed in S90 release which went live in March 2006.
“Receipts and payments mismatches normally showed up on one of the reconciliation reports and would have been investigated and reported to Post Office at the time (though of course we don’t know what action they took).”
Does that summary by Anne Chambers match your understanding?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, and I’ve certainly deferred to her to have a clearer understanding of the detail than I did.
Mr Beer: You’ll see in the last paragraph, after the numbered paragraph, she says that receipts and payments mismatches normally showed up. Is it the case that that’s essentially a reflection: that neither you nor Ms Chambers would be able to categorically to state that every incident or error would be caught by the reconciliation process and directed to the Post Office to take action?
Gareth Jenkins: I can’t remember now exactly what the reconciliation report said so I’m afraid I’m unable to help you.
Mr Beer: Could you tell, if a problem which led to a discrepancy was referred to the Post Office, whether it was, in fact, actioned through the issue of a correction, a transaction correction?
Gareth Jenkins: That was up to the Post Office. There was an organisation called Management Support Unit, I think it was, MSU, and they raised things called BIMS reports, and I can’t remember what “BIMS” stands for. But if a reconciliation error or something unusual was found they would produce reports for Post Office describing what had gone on, and what Post Office did with those reports, in terms of how they affected the branches, would be something for Post Office to answer.
Mr Beer: If we scroll up, please. A further email from Ms Chambers, you’re not copied in.
Gareth Jenkins: I’d retired by then.
Mr Beer: Yes. In the third paragraph, you’ll see that she says:
“I’ve found a long email chain … which I’ve attached …”
She says:
“Having looked at these, I slightly disagree with Gareth’s description of the problem below. My wording would be:
“2. It manifested itself by the receiving stock unit not being able to ‘see’ that the transfer made by the ‘sending’ stock unit had already been accepted in, and compounded by accepting it again. Other transactions might have been omitted from the balance but would have been included in the following week’s balance instead.
“But this is all a very long time ago and it is hard to be entirely accurate.”
What do you understand her to be saying is the difference between you and her?
Gareth Jenkins: I’m not quite sure, actually. It would be useful to be able to see the two statements side by side, I don’t know if that’s possible –
Mr Beer: I don’t think –
Gareth Jenkins: Or if we find out what the URN is, maybe I can have a look at it during a break.
Mr Beer: Well, let’s have look at the lower email. Keep going, and you’ll see how 2 is written there and, if we go up, how she rephrases it.
Gareth Jenkins: I think it’s the extra “has already been accepted in and compounded by accepting it again”, is from – what I think is the change, but I can’t be 100 per cent sure of that.
Mr Beer: What’s the relevance of that?
Gareth Jenkins: That’s why there’s the receipts and payments mismatch, that you have to actually repeat the transfer for the problem to occur and, clearly, I’d missed that out of the description that she was quoting below, but I accept that that is a – an important difference to the issue, and – in terms of describing what actually happened in the Callendar Square/Falkirk branch at the time.
Mr Beer: Okay. If we scroll up, please. Thank you. I think that’s the end of the chain. Would you agree that this was a problem, looking at it from the subpostmaster’s perspective, that they would be faced with different figures on different counters as a result of the bug?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I accept that would be a way it would show up, yes.
Mr Beer: And that would be a situation which would rightly cause them considerable difficulties and confusion?
Gareth Jenkins: I accept that, yes.
Mr Beer: This wasn’t a problem that could be explained away by user error?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: Were you ever party to the explanations given by the Service Support Centre or the lines of support below them?
Gareth Jenkins: I’m not quite sure what you mean by that.
Mr Beer: Yes. In your work, did you see the kinds of things that the Helpdesks or the SSC on occasions said directly to subpostmasters?
Gareth Jenkins: Occasionally but, in general, no because what – when I saw PEAKs and PinICLs, they were being passed on to me, or the teams that I was involved in, by the SSC looking for an explanation, and what was being responded back by the SSC to the Helpdesk, and also to the branches, would be based on the information that had come from the developers or the designers as to what they had seen and gone on. So we wouldn’t necessarily see what – the comments they made.
Mr Beer: Was there a formalised process for providing the Post Office with information about bugs, errors and defects and their effects on their live estate?
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t know. There were a number of meetings that were held between the Customer Services team and their equivalents in Post Office but the scope of what those discussed, and so on, I’m afraid I don’t know. I wasn’t involved in them, usually.
Mr Beer: So you, on each bug, error or defect, weren’t in a position to know precisely what information was provided to the Post Office –
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: – as to the existence of the bug, the extent of the problem or the fixes proposed?
Gareth Jenkins: In general. There were a few cases where I was involved in the detail because I was called in to actually help explain the problem to Post Office but, in general, no.
Mr Beer: Where did responsibility for that lay within Fujitsu?
Gareth Jenkins: There was a team called Problem Management, which was part of the Customer Services Team, and I think those have been referred to in some of the – well, in my witness statements.
Mr Beer: Were you responsible for liaison with the Problem Management Teams?
Gareth Jenkins: No. I was occasionally contacted by the Problem Management Team or by the SSC to get involved in discussions with things but, on a regular basis, no.
Mr Beer: Thank you. Thank you. Can we turn, please, to the topic of remote access.
Gareth Jenkins: Okay.
Mr Beer: Can we look at your third witness statement, please, at paragraph 473, which page is 164. You are here dealing with your understanding of remote access at the time of Seema Misra’s case, ie in about, I think, the autumn of October 2010. If we read it, having set out an extract from a document you had created, you say:
“In this paragraph, I addressed Professor McLachlan’s hypothesis about transaction corrections (which were the most common means by which [Post Office] could, externally, impact the accounts of a branch). I noted this could only happen with the consent of the [subpostmaster] or an authorised supervisor or manager. I was not addressing the issue of remote access as it has been considered in the Group Litigation and [the] Inquiry. I understand that remote access by Fujitsu is now regard as an issue of some significance. But at that time, remote access by Fujitsu didn’t occur to me in the context of responding to Professor McLachlan’s hypothesis, which related to [the Post Office’s] ability to impact branch accounts through transaction corrections. Aside from the fact that I was responding to his hypothesis, I understood then that remote access by Fujitsu was an exceptional and regulated course. There was nothing in Mrs Misra’s case to [suggest] that a need for remote access that ever arisen or that it could in any way explain ongoing losses in the region of £70,000. It was just not something that I had considered.”
So at that time, in the autumn of 2010, was it your understanding that remote access was, firstly, controlled?
Gareth Jenkins: It depends exactly what you mean. I believed that there were processes that the SSC had by which they recorded when they did carry out remote access to insert messages into the message store.
Mr Beer: That it was recorded and auditable?
Gareth Jenkins: I understood that they had a process whereby it was recorded. I didn’t know the details of what that process was. I believe it involved things called OCPs or OCRs, and I don’t know that I ever knew the difference between them, but I have seen both phrases used and I believe they were different mechanisms.
Mr Beer: Was it your understanding that remote access was visible and identifiable by a subpostmaster who could, for example, tell that there had been remotely inserted balancing transaction?
Gareth Jenkins: That was my view at the time, though I’ve since come to realise, as part of the Group Litigation, that it wasn’t always done in quite the way that I thought it was done.
Mr Beer: That was what I wanted to ask you about. It was your understanding at the time –
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: – in autumn 2010 that the remote access you’re speaking about here was controlled, recorded, auditable and visible by the subpostmaster?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct. That was my view then.
Mr Beer: What was your understanding based on?
Gareth Jenkins: Informal conversations with SSC staff.
Mr Beer: Anyone in particular?
Gareth Jenkins: People like John Simpkins and Anne Chambers. And I believe they have both given evidence to the Inquiry about their understanding of how those processes worked and how frequently they occurred.
Mr Beer: Was that understanding, that any incidences of remote access would be visible to a subpostmaster, a reason why you did not the address the issue of remote access in any of your reports or witness statements as a possible cause of shortfalls?
Gareth Jenkins: It didn’t occur to me that that was relevant. With hindsight, I realise that perhaps it was but it was something that I didn’t think of as being relevant at the time.
Mr Beer: Did you give thought to it and dismiss it or did you not give thought to it?
Gareth Jenkins: I just didn’t give thought to it, I’m afraid.
Mr Beer: Thank you. Can we turn, please, to INQ00001079. This is a transcript of Anne Chambers’ evidence. There’s a disclosure issue at the start of the transcript. If we go to page 17, please, and internal page 65. Perfect.
Then if we just scroll down to page 67. So if we just go back up to 65. I should read this, just to put it in context. Line 5, page 68, I said:
“Back when you gave evidence on 3 May, you described an occasion when the Post Office had wanted to insert transactions without the branch being aware. I’ll just read back the [Q&A]. The question was:
“‘Was there any method to alert others that corrective action had been taken to insert data or extra messages into a branch’s account?’
“You said:
“‘The ARQ data would contain both the original transaction and the corrective transaction, at the point at which they were done. If the full, unfiltered data was retrieved and inspected, then that would show the comment, for example. Certainly, sometimes, for counter corrections – and it wasn’t done consistently – but we often might use a counter number that didn’t exist to make it clear that it was something out of the ordinary or a username, including SSC, again to show that it was something out of the ordinary.
“‘That wasn’t done on this specific one and I cannot remember whether that was because I was specifically asked not to or I was just producing a transaction that was absolutely a mirror of the one that shouldn’t have been there in the first place and all I did was change the signs of the values, effectively, and … I left all the other data as it was.’
“So remembering back to what you were saying and judges to synthesise it, you were saying, sometimes a fictitious counter number was used to mark out the transaction correction?
“Answer: As I recall, yes.
“Question: Secondly, you were saying [that] that wasn’t done consistently, ie the use of a fictitious counter number to mark out the fact that the SSC had made a correction?
“Answer: Yes.
“Question: Thirdly, you were doing that, or the SSC was doing that, deliberately, ie using the fictitious counter number, because you would want to show that an SSC member had been making the correction?
“Answer: Yes.”
Then page 67:
“Question: But, fourthly, there might be occasions when you were specifically asked not to use the fictitious one?
“Answer: I don’t think we were ever asked not to use the fictitious one.
“Question: It was just passage of your evidence where you said ‘That wasn’t done on this occasion and I can’t remember whether that was because I was specifically asked not to’, which tended to indicate that you may have been asked not to use the fictitious number?
“Answer: I don’t recall ever being asked not to do that and I can’t remember which specific instance we’re talking about here. Sorry.
“Question: Overall, does it mean that it was possible for members of the SSC to insert transactions using the branch user ID?
“Answer: Right, you’re talking about user ID here now, rather than counter number, but, yes, it was – I mean, the messages that we inserted could have contained the branch user ID.
“Question: Would it follow that standard filtered ARQ data would not distinguish those insertions from those that were, in fact, carried out in the branch?
“Answer: The standard ARQ data, yes. You might not be able to see the difference.
“Question: So transactions which appeared in the standard filtered ARQ data, for example, in Mr Castleton’s case, with his ID user number next to them, would not necessarily mean that they were carried out by him?
“Answer: It would have been possible, yes, for SSC to put transactions in that –
“Question: Using his ID?
“Answer: Using his ID.
“Question: Without leaving a fingerprint on the standard, filtered ARQ data that that had been done?
“Answer: Yes, I think that would have been possible.
“Question: It shouldn’t have been done but it could have been done?
“Answer: Yes, I don’t think there’s anything that would have prevented that. I don’t believe that was done but I can’t say it’s an impossibility.”
Then we moved on.
When did you become aware that the SSC were able to insert transactions into branch accounts in the way Ms Chambers describes here?
Gareth Jenkins: I was aware that technically they could but my understanding was that they always injected the transactions at the correspondence server, rather than the counter. In 2018, as part of the Group Litigation Order, it was explained to me by John Simpkins, I think, that, in some circumstances, they actually did it directly at the counter, rather than at the correspondence server and that was different from the understanding I had as to how they operated up until that time.
Mr Beer: Do you know why you hadn’t been told that previously?
Gareth Jenkins: No, is the simple answer.
Mr Beer: You said that you’d had conversations with people in the SSC but they hadn’t revealed that to you in previous conversations?
Gareth Jenkins: As I understand it, and from what John Simpkins explained to me in 2018, normally, they would insert transactions at the correspondence server in the way that I was expecting, but there were a few specific cases where they were doing it at the counter, instead, in the way that Anne is describing in this exchange.
Mr Beer: Did you learn about this practice of generally using an SSC ID in order to mark them out but that not being a consistent practice?
Gareth Jenkins: When things were inserted in the correspondence server, I would have expected the details of the SSC user and why they were doing it to be inserted as part of that, even though it was also very obvious that it was being done at a strange counter.
Mr Beer: But what about what Ms Chambers has described here?
Gareth Jenkins: I – it was only when I realised that they were actually really doing things at the counter in 2018 that I was aware that that was a possibility –
Mr Beer: In –
Gareth Jenkins: – or something that was actually done in practice, as opposed to in theory.
Mr Beer: In 2018, did you also learn not only that they were doing it at the counter, which is what is described here, but they were doing it in a way that might attribute a change to the subpostmaster, rather than a change being made by the SSC?
Gareth Jenkins: If it was done at a counter and a postmaster was logged on at the time, then the way Riposte worked, it would always be attributed to whoever was logged on at the time. So it all comes down to whether they – when they were inserting the transaction, whether they were doing it when someone was logged on or not. If there was no one logged on at the counter where they inserted it, or they were using a fictitious counter, then there would be no use for ID associated with it.
Mr Beer: But if they were doing it in the hours of business when the subpostmaster was logged on, their work might be attributed to him or her?
Gareth Jenkins: I accept that, yes.
Mr Beer: When did you come to learn of that?
Gareth Jenkins: As I say, I always knew it was theoretically possible but it wasn’t until 2018 that I realised that SSC on some occasions actually did that.
Mr Beer: Were actually doing it?
Gareth Jenkins: Yeah.
Mr Beer: Thank you.
Gareth Jenkins: I think I cover that more in my fourth witness statement.
Mr Beer: You do.
Sir, that might be an appropriate moment for the morning break.
Sir Wyn Williams: By all means. What time shall we resume?
Mr Beer: If we can have a longer break and do one break, if that’s possible. So maybe 20 minutes until 11.40.
Sir Wyn Williams: Fine.
Mr Beer: Thank you, sir.
(11.20 am)
(A short break)
(11.40 am)
Mr Beer: Thank you.
Mr Jenkins, can we look, please, at INQ00001058.
This is a transcript of the evidence of Richard Roll. Can we look at page 21, please, and then internal pagination page 81, which is the top left, from line 11 onwards, which I think is a question by me. I say:
“… can we go back to you witness statement to page 6, and look at (c) …
“‘We could go directly through the communication servers to the [Post Office] gateway and then the counter – if the [postmaster] wasn’t logged in then there would be no ID attached to the database entries, which sometimes caused the batch processing to fail overnight; if the [postmaster] was logged on then any changes we made would have their ID attached – so as far as the system (and any auditing) was concerned the [subpostmaster] would have been responsible for the transactions.’
“Answer: That’s what I was trying to say. I think that’s what I was trying to say in the Post Office transcript we just looked at.
“Question: Thank you. Was this a method that you used frequently …
“Answer: We were all pretty adept at it, yeah.
“Question: Whether you were adept at it –
“Answer: Fairly frequently, yes.
“Question: Fairly frequently?
“Answer: Yes.
“Question: … Why did you use that method?
“Answer: It was the only way to rebuild the counters to get the data off the counters.
“Question: The footprint that was left would have been the subpostmaster’s footprint and not yours?
“Answer: Yes.
“Question: Was there any visibility that you or somebody else in the SSC had done this as opposed to the subpostmaster themselves having done it?
“Answer: Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
“Question: What would distinguish?
“Answer: We would – sometimes it would be recorded. I’m a bit rusty on this now, I’m afraid, but sometimes we told the postmaster we were going to do it. While we were doing this, the postmaster couldn’t use the counter. It was very important that nobody used it. At other times, especially if maybe the postmaster – I’m just thinking. I’m just trying to remember something else … if the postmaster had gone to lunch, [for example], we could have gone in and done things without him knowing.”
Just stopping there. I think you accept now that the SSC staff could not only effectively hijack branch user IDs in this way to insert transactions into branch accounts but did so?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I accept that now. In fact, it was as a result of seeing Mr Roll’s witness statement for the Group Litigation that then I enquired further of the SSC to understand more as to exactly how they’d done the injections.
Mr Beer: Did they tell you for how long they had been doing it?
Gareth Jenkins: It was something that was always possible within Legacy Horizon. What I was told was that it wasn’t done very frequently but I don’t think that figure was quantified. I believe John Simpkins may actually have tried to quantify it at some stage but I can’t remember the details.
Mr Beer: What about the duration of it, rather than the frequency? Was it throughout the use of Legacy Horizon, ie from about 2000 to 2010?
Gareth Jenkins: It was certainly possible throughout that period, yes.
Mr Beer: Did they tell you anything as to whether it had been done throughout that period?
Gareth Jenkins: I can’t remember whether I asked that question or not.
Mr Beer: That, as I’ve described it – hijacking a branch user ID to insert a transaction into a branch account – would that make the entries in the standard, filtered ARQ data impossible to distinguish from the transactions that were, in fact, entered by the subpostmaster in the branch?
Gareth Jenkins: In the standard ARQ data, yes, if it was done on a real counter. Though, again, as Anne Chambers was saying, they often did it using false counters –
Mr Beer: Yes, and –
Gareth Jenkins: – and then it would be obvious that it wasn’t done on a real counter.
Mr Beer: When did you discover that this could be done, was being done and, therefore, when it was done, the entries in the standard ARQ data were impossible to distinguish from transactions in fact carried out by the subpostmaster in branch?
Gareth Jenkins: As I say, I always knew it could be done but I didn’t realise it was being done until 2018.
Mr Beer: Okay, so you always realised that it could be done –
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: – right from the year 2000?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: How did you know that it could be done?
Gareth Jenkins: Because I knew what functionality the Riposte provided and the sort of interfaces it provided to allow it to be done.
Mr Beer: But nobody had told you, from that time onwards, that they were in fact doing it?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: You discovered that in 2018/19?
Gareth Jenkins: That is my belief, yes.
Mr Beer: So you knew that the SSC had the facility to tamper with branch accounts?
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t think I’d call it tampering but, yes, I understand what you’re saying.
Mr Beer: Well, it would be tampering, wouldn’t it? I know that carries pejorative overtones –
Gareth Jenkins: That’s why I didn’t like the term. I believe that the SSC would have been using that facility responsibly and doing it when they needed to, to correct errors that had occurred in the branches.
Mr Beer: The standard filtered ARQ data used in court proceedings wouldn’t be able to distinguish between those occasions when a transaction had been made by the subpostmaster and when it had been made by the SSC?
Gareth Jenkins: Not if it had been done at the counter.
Mr Beer: Therefore, the standard ARQ data used in cost proceedings couldn’t, of itself, prove that the branch accounts had not been, in my words, tampered with?
Gareth Jenkins: I accept that now but I hadn’t thought of it that way at the time.
Mr Beer: When you prepared your witness statements, both the case-specific witness statements and the generic witness statements, you didn’t mention the facility that the SSC had to undertake this function, did you?
Gareth Jenkins: No, because I didn’t think it was relevant. Again, with hindsight, I realise that perhaps I should have done but, at the time, it was – my understanding was, and still is, that it was a very rare thing for the SSC to actually do.
Mr Beer: Did you not realise that, whether the SSC told you that it was being done rarely, wasn’t the real issue; it was the extent to which there was a tamper-proof evidential chain being presented to a court?
Gareth Jenkins: I’d not thought it through in that way at the time, I’m afraid.
Mr Beer: Can I turn to your own knowledge of remote access by turning up WITN00420100. This is Ian Henderson’s witness statement. Do you remember him from Second Sight?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Can we turn to page 13, please, and look at paragraph 43 at the bottom. He says:
“In September 2012, I met with Gareth Jenkins, the lead engineer for Post Office Horizon, at the Head Office of Fujitsu in Bracknell. He told me that approximately 10 members of staff from Post Office were permanently based in Bracknell, dealing with various issues including bugs, errors and defects.
“44. Gareth Jenkins told me that Fujitsu routinely used remote access to branch terminals for various purposes. This was often without the knowledge or specific consent of individual subpostmasters. He also told me that members of his team could connect remotely to branch terminals and generate keystrokes that were indistinguishable from a subpostmaster accessing the terminal directly. They did this for various purposes, including collecting log files directly from branch terminals.”
Is what Mr Henderson says there accurate?
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t think so. I don’t think that is how I would have explained things. I mean, particularly the last bit about collecting log files directly. That’s nothing to do with adding – changing transactions into the accounts.
Mr Beer: Do you agree that in September 2012 you met Ian Henderson?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I agree.
Mr Beer: Do you agree that was at the Head Office in Bracknell?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Did you tell him that members of staff from Post Office were based in Bracknell permanently, dealing with issues including bugs, errors and defects.
Gareth Jenkins: I was referring to some of the testers, not people – those Post Office staff members did not have access to the live system.
Mr Beer: You weren’t, in your conversation, referring to the SSC then?
Gareth Jenkins: No. Not in terms of paragraph 43.
Mr Beer: Did you tell him that Fujitsu routinely used branch access to branch terminals for various purposes?
Gareth Jenkins: I probably said that SSC had access to the branches for pulling back things like diagnostic logs, and things like that, and I may well have suggested that it was possible for SSC members to inject correcting transactions. But I would have seen that as being done through the correspondence server at the time –
Mr Beer: Did you –
Gareth Jenkins: – but whether I spelt that out in detail at the time, I just can’t recollect the details of the conversations.
Mr Beer: Did you tell him that such remote access was often without the knowledge or specific consent of individual subpostmasters?
Gareth Jenkins: Well, if it’s referring to actually pulling back log files, there would be no need for the knowledge or consent of the subpostmasters.
Mr Beer: Did you tell him that members of your team could connect remotely to branch terminals and generate keystrokes that were indistinguishable from a subpostmaster accessing the terminal directly?
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t think I would have said those because the only people who had that sort of access were the SSC, and they weren’t part of my team.
Mr Beer: Did you tell him that anyone in Fujitsu could connect remotely to branch terminals and generate keystrokes that were indistinguishable from a subpostmaster accessing the terminal directly?
Gareth Jenkins: I wouldn’t be generating keystrokes, so any injection of data wasn’t done by generating keystrokes.
Mr Beer: Did you tell him that Fujitsu staff could connect remotely to branch terminals and alter branch accounts in a way that made it indistinguishable from the subpostmaster doing so?
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t think I would have said that because my understanding was it was actually done at the correspondence server at the time.
Mr Beer: In general terms, you say you wouldn’t have said this because you didn’t know it at the time: you only discovered this in 2018/2019?
Gareth Jenkins: That’s my understanding, yes.
Mr Beer: What is he’s attributing to you, in September 2012, never mind the precise details, but generally speaking, is accurate, isn’t it?
Gareth Jenkins: That there was remote access, yes, but not in terms of the gory details of it.
Mr Beer: Well, not only that there was remote access, there was remote access of a kind which made it indistinguishable from the subpostmasters’ activities?
Gareth Jenkins: Well, I’m not sure that would be the case because what I was thinking of was remote access to the correspondence server, which would be distinguishable.
Mr Beer: He was, it seems, told, that there was a form of remote access that made what had happened indistinguishable from the subpostmaster carrying out the relevant functions. That, you say, you didn’t know at the time was happening but you subsequently found to be true in 2018/2019?
Gareth Jenkins: Again, I knew it was possible but I didn’t know that it was being regularly done.
Mr Beer: What was the context of your conversation with him in September 2012; why were you talking about remote access at all?
Gareth Jenkins: I can’t remember. My recollection was that we had a meeting when I was talking to him about how he could actually interpret and analyse the logs.
Mr Beer: Do you think you would have spoken about remote access in that connection, ie what the logs did or didn’t show?
Gareth Jenkins: I can’t remember, I’m afraid.
Mr Beer: Can we go back in time a little to 2002 by looking at FUJ00088036. Can you see that this is a Fujitsu document, a design document, version 1 of which is dated 2 August 2002?
Gareth Jenkins: I can see that, yes.
Mr Beer: It’s described as 2Secure Support System Outline Design”?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: You’re neither an originator nor a contributor?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: You’ll see the abstract:
“[It] describes the requirements and outline design for secure operational support access to counters and servers.”
Then if we scroll down, please, look at the approval authorities on that page, and then over the page – and scroll down – you’re not included in any of those?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: Is this a document you would have seen at the time?
Gareth Jenkins: Probably not.
Mr Beer: If you can tell us in general terms why not?
Gareth Jenkins: It wasn’t an area that I was particularly involved in.
Mr Beer: Because it’s about the functions of the SSC; is that right?
Gareth Jenkins: It was to do with some tooling that was being provided for the SSC is what I understand from it from reading it now.
Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at page 15, and look at 4.3.2. This is describing the position in 2002:
“… support access to the Horizon system is from physically secure areas.”
You would know that to be the case: the SSC was, as you’ve told us –
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: – was in a physically secure area?
“Individuals involved in support processes undergo more frequent security vetting checks.”
Were you were of that?
Gareth Jenkins: I wasn’t aware of that but I’m not surprised that they were.
Mr Beer: “Other than the above[,] controls are vested in manual procedures, requiring managerial sign-off controlling access to Post Office Counters where update of data is required. Otherwise third line support has:
“Unrestricted and unaudited privileged access (system admin) to all systems including post office counter PCs …”
Did you know that was the position in 2002?
Gareth Jenkins: I can’t remember. I wasn’t involved in the detail.
Mr Beer: Did you ever come to learn that they, in the SSC, had unrestricted and unaudited privileged access to all systems including counters?
Gareth Jenkins: I know that later on it was audited. I didn’t realise that this was something that had not been introduced at day 1.
Mr Beer: When did you find out it was controlled in some way or audited in some way?
Gareth Jenkins: Well, what this outline design is to do with the mechanisms that were introduced to give that control. What I didn’t realise was that that hadn’t been there from the very beginning, until I saw this document as part of my preparation for the Inquiry.
Mr Beer: Okay, so it wasn’t until 2021 –
Gareth Jenkins: Maybe later, yeah.
Mr Beer: – or even later –
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: – that you realised that the SSC had unrestricted and unaudited privileged access to counters?
Gareth Jenkins: As far as I can remember, yes.
Mr Beer: It says, secondly, third line support has:
“The ability to distribute diagnostic information outside of the secure environment; this information can include personal data”, et cetera.
The document continues:
“The current support practices were developed on a needs must basis; third line support diagnosticians had no alternative other than to adopt the approach taken given the need to support the deployed Horizon …
“There are … no automatic controls in place to audit and restrict user access. This exposes Fujitsu … to the following potential risks:
“Opportunity for financial fraud;
“Operational risk – errors as a result of manual actions causing loss of service to outlets;
“Infringements of the Data Protection Act.”
When you were giving evidence about the operation of Horizon in your witness statements, is this the kind of information that you ought to have known about?
Gareth Jenkins: With hindsight, probably, yes.
Mr Beer: When you wrote your witness statements and when you gave evidence in the Seema Misra case, did you make any efforts to find out about issues such as this?
Gareth Jenkins: My understanding was that, at that time, things were all being audited and there were processes in place but I didn’t understand the details of the processes and what auditing was taking place.
Mr Beer: When did you gain an understanding that everything was being audited and processes were taking place?
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t – I can’t remember, is the simple answer.
Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at FUJ00089535. If we just look at the date of this by scrolling down – over the page. There, the foot of the page – sorry, just at the top. 24 August 2016; do you see that?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: If we go back up to the first page, “Remote Support Secure Access Server High Level Design”. Is this speaking about a similar thing than as in the previous document we looked at?
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t know. I don’t recognise that. I see that what looks like my name is there but that is the other Gareth Jenkins working on Post Office because I had retired at that point.
Mr Beer: I was about to ask you, if we scroll down, please. The “HDCR Solution Owner”, that’s not you?
Gareth Jenkins: No, I had retired by that time and I was aware that there was another Gareth Jenkins working on the account, which did cause some confusion.
Mr Beer: So you didn’t see this document at the time?
Gareth Jenkins: No.
Mr Beer: So the references that I would find in it backed the 2002 document that we looked at, it’s a reference document and there are some extracts from it cited in the body, you wouldn’t have seen at the time in 2016?
Gareth Jenkins: No.
Mr Beer: Thank you. Can we turn, please, to POL00097217. If we scroll down, please, if we go to the foot of the document – and scroll up, keep going so we get that first email. Thank you.
An email from Rachael Panter to you of 26 November 2012, copied to others, asking for an expert report. This is in the case of Kim Wylie, yes?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: She says:
“Dear Gareth
“Request for an urgent expert report
“Further to my previous email, I am writing as a matter of urgency to request a signed and dated copy of your report in the case of Kim Wylie …
“I have attached a copy of [defence solicitors’] request for further disclosure …
“I have also attached some documents …
“All of which set out the background to this case. Please can you consider [this] and include this paragraph at the beginning of your report:
“‘I have been asked to prove statement in the case of Kim Wylie. I understand that the integrity of the system has been questioned and I can say the following.’
“As there have been no specific criticisms of [Horizon] raised by the defence, your previous report can be used with the addition of the opening line referred to above. Please see the Defence Case Statement which contains the nature of the defendant’s case.”
If we scroll up, please, to see your reply:
“I have been advised that I can try to help you [you say], if it isn’t too late.
“I’ve had a read through the info you sent me yesterday and I have also taken my previous witness statement which I produced in early October and amended it …”
You’re there, I think, referring to your generic witness statement of 5 October 2012.
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: We’re going to come back to that generic witness statement later:
“Reading through the Defence Statement I see it does make some specific points which my statement doesn’t currently address. Specifically the challenges regarding Robustness and Remote Access to the system. Do you want me to try and address these specifics?”
Then scroll down. Then some admin. Then if we go up, she replies:
“[Thank you]. If you feel you are able to deal with the issues of robustness and the Remote Access system fairly swiftly then I would like you to address [these] points that have been raised, so that we can deal with every area that they have criticised.”
Then scroll up, you say:
“What I propose is [adding] the following:
“I have been asked to provide a statement in the case of Kim Wylie.”
Just stopping there, this was going to be a bolt-on to your generic statement of 5 October?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: “I understand the integrity of the Horizon system has been questioned and this report provides some general information regarding the integrity of Horizon.”
Then if we skip a paragraph and look at:
“I also note a comment has been made about it being possible to remotely access the system. It is true that such access is possible; however in an analysis of data audited by the system, it is possible to identify any data that has not been input direct by staff in the branch. Any such change to data is very rare and would be authorised by [the Post Office]. As I have not had an opportunity to examine data related to this Branch, I cannot categorically say this has not happened in this case, but would suggest this is highly unlikely.”
Dealing with that proposed insertion into the Kim Wiley statement, which I’m not going to deal with it now, you in fact entered into the Kim Wiley statement?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: You say:
“It is true that [remote access to the system] is possible …”
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: You say that:
“… in an analysis of data audited by the system, it is possible to identify any data that has not been input directly by staff in the branch.”
That’s not accurate, is it?
Gareth Jenkins: It was as I understood things at the time but it isn’t in my understanding of things now. Well, sorry, when I say that, if the SSC had been following their processes, then it would be – even if they’d been doing it at the branch, it should have been visible in the raw data but not in the ARQ extracts.
Mr Beer: What data were you referring to there? You say:
“… however in an analysis of data audited by the system …”
Gareth Jenkins: Whatever data was there. So when I was looking at data I tended to have the raw data as well as the ARQ data and I appreciate, and I say here, that I’d not had the opportunity to examine any data from the branch.
Mr Beer: On what basis did you understand, here in 2012, that any change to data was very rare?
Gareth Jenkins: From informal conversations that I’d had with the SSC as I mentioned earlier.
Mr Beer: So the people –
Gareth Jenkins: Not saying I’d had a conversation as part of this but just from what I’d picked up over the years.
Mr Beer: So informal chats?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Where did you get the understanding that any such change would be authorised by the Post Office?
Gareth Jenkins: I thought that was part of the process. As I understood it, then any changes – when they inserted data, then there would be a mechanism whereby Post Office would sign it off and I believe that both Anne Chambers and John Simpkins indicated that as part of their testimony.
Mr Beer: You knew, when you were making this addition to the statement, though, that there was a form of remote access that could occur that would not be shown in the data?
Gareth Jenkins: I knew that it was theoretically possible. I didn’t think it was something that was routinely done.
Mr Beer: Why didn’t you say so?
Gareth Jenkins: Because I didn’t think of it. I was assuming that things were done in the normal way at that time.
Mr Beer: Do you think that that was the right basis to approach statements made to criminal courts: on the basis of assumptions, of propriety?
Gareth Jenkins: I realise now that that is the wrong basis for doing it but that is what I felt at the time.
Mr Beer: You do say you cannot categorically say this hasn’t happened in the case but suggest it was highly unlikely. On what basis were you saying it was highly unlikely?
Gareth Jenkins: Because I knew that – well, I understood that remote – that inserting transactions by the SSC was a very rare thing and I believe that has been established, as well.
Mr Beer: Can we turn on to POL00098724. This is an email to you from Simon Baker of June 2013, so the following year. If we just scroll down, he cites from an email that you had sent, where he says:
“… the key message in your response is as follows:
“‘The [Post Office] Bracknell Team had no access to the live system therefore could not conduct any of these transactions’.”
Is that something that you told him?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I think so. The Post Office did not have access to the live system. Yes.
Mr Beer: Then – well, hold on. The Post Office Bracknell team?
Gareth Jenkins: Did not have access to the live system. They only had access to test systems.
Mr Beer: If you said that, would you be referring to Post Office personnel –
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: – stationed –
Gareth Jenkins: That’s what I meant by “POL”.
Mr Beer: – at Bracknell –
Gareth Jenkins: I would have said “POA”, if I was referring to the Fujitsu team.
Mr Beer: Then he continues:
“… the previously supplied email suggests that the Bracknell Team could access, possibly on an overnight basis, transactions on the live system.
“Please see the following extracts …
“‘Although it is rarely done it is possible to journal from branch accounts. There are possible P&BA concerns about how this would be perceived and how disputes would be resolved’.”
Then scroll down, please, and over the page.
“At the moment your response is inconsistent with what is being said in emails sent between Bracknell Team members.
“Can you look into this urgently and address this apparent inconsistency in an updated response?”
So you’re being asked, essentially, to comment on questions from Second Sight about staff at Bracknell having access to the live system?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Did you reply to this?
Gareth Jenkins: I can’t remember. I may well have done, yes.
Mr Beer: If we scroll to the top, I’m not sure that I found a reply.
Did you have a conversation with Mr Baker about it?
Gareth Jenkins: I can’t remember. This is part of what I think was SR05, one of the spot reviews, and there were emails about things, but this particular bit of it was talking about the Post Office team and it was very clear to me, from the context, that it was referring to the Post Office team in the basement. I notice there was a reference to journalling and I think that was referring to what Post Office could do in their back-end systems in Chesterfield, which would have no impact on the actual branch accounts.
Mr Beer: I see. So the context of this exchange or these requests is Post Office staff at Bracknell, rather than Fujitsu staff?
Gareth Jenkins: That is how I understand it from looking through this now. I can’t remember the details of this specific email off the top of my head but it is one that I recognise as having looked at as part of my preparation for the Inquiry.
Mr Beer: Thank you. Moving on, can we turn to FUJ00087100. If we scroll down, please, a little further – thank you. Just scroll up, thank you, we can see an email from Michael Harvey to you and James Davidson, and he says:
“With respect to inserted data – can you provide a little more detail as to the audit trail that addition of data leaves. So notwithstanding that we haven’t used it, if we were to use, would the subpostmaster or Post Office be able to see it in the audit record. I assume [that] this is the case and so can we make it explicit. We need to be cognisant of the point that these two individuals are attempting to make – they are trying to say that [Fujitsu] have changed data and so in answers Post Office’s explicit questions the underlying answer must be:
“1. When we have and why (ie the 2010 incident); and
“2. If we had, the following audit trail would be left demonstrating we had done it – no audit trail means we could not have changed the data.”
Scroll up, please. Your reply:
“The answer is slightly different depending on whether we are talking about the old Horizon (2010 or earlier) or new Horizon Online (2010 onwards).
“However in both cases the injected transactions would be visible in any local reports the postmaster may view and also in the audit extract.”
I think you now realise that to be wrong, don’t you?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I do.
Mr Beer: On what basis were you saying it?
Gareth Jenkins: Because my understanding was that, whenever the SSC were injecting transactions, they did so at the correspondence server and not at the counter.
Mr Beer: Was that based on informal conversations as well?
Gareth Jenkins: I can’t remember on what basis it was. It was probably informal conversations and also the fact that it’s actually a lot easier to inject transactions at the correspondence server than the counter in terms of their processes.
Mr Beer: The context in which you were being asked this, I think James Davidson was the lawyer, wasn’t he?
Gareth Jenkins: No, James Davidson was – at that stage, I think he was – he had been employed by Fujitsu as head of Customer Services.
Mr Beer: Okay.
Gareth Jenkins: He’d then left and gone freelance and was primarily involved in liaison along – for Second Sight between Fujitsu and Post Office. Michael Harvey was a lawyer, I believe.
Mr Beer: Thank you. You were being asked by a lawyer for quite precise information, if we go back to his email.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, and that was my belief at the time. I accept now that I had misunderstood things.
Mr Beer: Well, it wasn’t misunderstood. What enquiries had you made in order to provide the answer that you did?
Gareth Jenkins: At the time, none. I was relying on what I thought I knew.
Mr Beer: Is that reflective of a general approach when involved in threatened or possible court proceedings, or court proceedings themselves: you work on the basis of what you had understood from conversations and what you thought you knew, rather than properly researching an issue?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I guess that has to be the case.
Mr Beer: If we scroll back up to your reply. Yes, sorry, we’re there. You say:
“In both cases the audit extract would show (perhaps not obviously and in different ways depending on the version of Horizon) that these transactions had been inserted in the data centre and not taken place on a normal counter.
That’s not correct in relation to standard ARQ data, is it?
Gareth Jenkins: It would be in the ARQ data because one of the bits of information in the standard ARQ data is the node ID or the counter position and anything injected at the data centre would have a node ID that reflected that it was being done at the data centre.
Mr Beer: You say:
“Our processes should ensure that [Post Office] have signed off on any occasion when such data was inserted.”
What enquiries did you make as to the nature of the processes?
Gareth Jenkins: At the time, none but my understanding had been that there were standard processes, which I didn’t know the details of, that the SSC followed, which involved getting things signed off by Post Office.
Mr Beer: Again, you say that was based on your understanding. Was that just through general chat?
Gareth Jenkins: Probably, yes.
Mr Beer: Can we move forward, then, to the Horizon Issues judgment, please. RLIT0000005. Page 87, please, and pick up at paragraph 316:
“He [that’s Mr Godeseth] had given information in his first witness statement, namely that in Legacy Horizon, any transactions injected by [the] SSC would have used the computer server address as the counter position which would be a number greater than 32, so it would be clear that a transaction had been injected in this way by someone other than the [subpostmaster]. This is important because it would be consistent with the case originally advanced by the Post Office that any such injections would be entirely visible as having been done externally (ie, not within the branch) due to the counter number used.
“317. However, this important incorrect, and was corrected by both Mr Godeseth and Mr Parker in subsequent statements before they were called and as a direct result of Mr Roll’s evidence. The information that was incorrect, and therefore had to be corrected, had come directly from Mr Jenkins. This shows that Mr Jenkins did, in at least one very important respect, give Mr Godeseth directly incorrect information about the visibility of injected transactions, which not only could have an effect on branch accounts, and whether this would show (or rather, not show) that the impact on those accounts had come from the injections made outside the branch. Mr Godeseth only found out the true position when Mr Parker was preparing his subsequent witness statement in the weeks prior to the commencement of the Horizon Issues trial, in other words in 2019. He had not known that before. His explanation” –
Gareth Jenkins: Sorry. I don’t think that is quite an accurate representation of what actually happened in the –
Mr Beer: Just let me get to the end of the paragraph?
Gareth Jenkins: Sorry:
“He had known that before. His explanation was as follows”, and then he sets out an explanation.
Firstly, is it right that you told Mr Godeseth that any transactions injected by the SSC would have used the computer server address at the counter position using a number greater than 32?
Gareth Jenkins: That was my understanding when I was having a conversation with him – I can’t remember the exact month now, I think it was probably August or September in 2018, something like that – when he was preparing his first statement.
Mr Beer: Why were you having that conversation with him?
Gareth Jenkins: To explain my understanding of remote access at that time.
Mr Beer: Why were you having to explain to him your understanding of remote access?
Gareth Jenkins: I think I was commenting on a witness statement that he was putting together for the GLO.
Mr Beer: So is this right: as a result of informal chat, you told Mr Godeseth something that turned out not to be true, he included it in a witness statement in the High Court?
Gareth Jenkins: I realised my mistake soon after he’d actually put his witness statement in and I then attempted to correct my mistake shortly after that. And I sent a – I produced a document about two or three weeks after his final draft of his first witness statement, pointing out that I’d realised that that was actually incorrect, and I sent that to the various lawyers and to Torstein and also, probably, to Steve Parker.
Mr Beer: Did your change in approach come about because of you reading Richard Roll’s witness statement?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, and as a result of that, I had a conversation with John Simpkins, which pointed out the error in my previous understanding.
Mr Beer: We’ve seen Mr Henderson say that you said to him in 2012 that Fujitsu could remotely access branch terminals and insert transactions which would be indistinguishable for those in the branch?
Gareth Jenkins: And we’ve seen him say that, yes.
Mr Beer: You subsequently claimed otherwise in your emails that we’ve looked at?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: It appears when you gave your initial account to Mr Godeseth, for the purposes of him writing a witness statement, you maintained that position?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, it was a genuine mistake.
Mr Beer: So is it the case that it turns out that what Mr Henderson says you admitted to him in 2012 was, in fact, in general terms true all along?
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t believe that I would have said that at the time, but I just can’t remember the conversations that we had. It was my genuine belief that injections of transactions were done at the correspondence server, rather than at the counter.
Mr Beer: Thank you. Can we turn to a new topic, please: the use and reliability of ARQ data. You deal in various points in your third witness statement with ARQ data. Can we turn those up, please. Paragraph 127, which is on page 41. 127, you say:
“The evidence before the Inquiry has shown that issues sometimes arose in respect of the audit data.”
You deal with the issues in greater detail below:
“… however, there is a distinction I think it is important to be clear about at the outset. This is the distinction that exists between (a) data which actually gets committed to the audit server (which becomes the audit data), and (b) data being affected by a problem before it is committed to the audit server (which, at that stage is not audit data).”
Then paragraph 128, you say:
“… overall the issues which have been considered by the Inquiry do not change my mind that the audit data
(including the raw audit trail and the NT events logs)
Mr Beer: was a highly reliable and effective means of diagnosing system issues. I would still agree with Mr Justice Fraser’s judgment that audit data (once the true scope of that term is understood) was a gold standard for this purpose. The relevance of audit data not including information generated by POLSAP or Credence … is not clear to me, since neither system was used by [subpostmasters] in balancing their accounts.”
Some general questions to start with then, please. Did you, in general terms, consider that the ARQ data that you were provided with, in each case that you were asked to provide a witness statement, was sufficient to enable you to reach conclusions about whether a particular branch had or had not experienced issues with Horizon?
Gareth Jenkins: It’s not just the ARQ data; it’s looking at the associated NT event logs that come with it.
Mr Beer: Yes, so ARQ data plus NT event logs?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Did you consider that both species of data were sufficient for you to reach reliable conclusions about whether a particular branch had or had not experienced issues with Horizon?
Gareth Jenkins: I was looking – right. I think, with the use of the NT events, then, yes, the ARQ data would be reflecting what had actually been recorded at the branch and, if there was a problem in recording it, then that would have been visible in the NT events, so yes.
Mr Beer: So is the answer to my question “yes” then?
Gareth Jenkins: I think so yes.
Mr Beer: Has your view about adequacy of any such data in any way changed, in the light of any of the evidence given to the Inquiry by any of the Fujitsu witnesses?
Gareth Jenkins: I believe that it is also useful to be able to look at the raw NT event logs as well, and I usually had access to those raw event logs.
Mr Beer: Did you look at them?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes. At least when I was given evidence – I mean, there was clearly some cases in 2012 where it was decided that there was no need to look at the ARQ data at all.
Mr Beer: In some cases, in your witness statement, I think you made clear that you hadn’t seen the ARQ data and, therefore, couldn’t comment on the cause of the shortfall?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: In other cases in which you provided a witness statement, you didn’t explicitly point that out?
Gareth Jenkins: That is correct. I was expecting that, if there were some specifics to be looked at, then I would be shown the ARQ data. But, clearly, I – that didn’t happen in –
Mr Beer: In those other cases, in which you provided a witness statement but didn’t state that you were unable to comment on the cause of the shortfalls without having seen the ARQ data and NT event logs, should we take it, nonetheless, that you felt able to offer definitive views on the causes of shortfalls, without having seen such data?
Gareth Jenkins: I think I was giving a general view of how I thought – how the system should be operating. I was expecting to have some sort of comeback in terms of specifics, if that was appropriate, and clearly in some of those cases it didn’t happen.
Mr Beer: Who were you expecting to give some sort of comeback?
Gareth Jenkins: The Post Office Investigators.
Mr Beer: Why did you make it clear, in some witness statements, for example the Grant Allen one, that you were unable to offer a view as to the cause of specific shortfalls in that case, without having seen the ARQ data but not in others?
Gareth Jenkins: Because I’d actually been given some specific information there as to something that might be the cause and I was agreeing that that could be a cause, and that was something that I would have needed to investigate.
Mr Beer: Did it ever occur to you to refuse to provide a view, unless and until you were provided with all of the data that you considered necessary in order to answer the questions which you have been asked to address?
Gareth Jenkins: Well, taking that specific case of Grant Allen, I was certainly concerned about that, and not only did I check with the lawyers from Post Office that it was okay to sign that statement, I also checked it with the lawyer within Fujitsu that it was okay to sign that statement before I did so.
Mr Beer: Did you assume that those at the Post Office responsible for pursuing the criminal cases, ie investigating or prosecuting them, who were asking you to provide reports and witness statements, were aware of the fact that you didn’t automatically have access to ARQ data and NT event logs in every case?
Gareth Jenkins: I had understood that it was the normal thing to actually have ARQ data. It wasn’t until later that I realised that they didn’t always provide it. I thought that was the whole purpose of ARQ data, was to have some sort of information to support any sort of prosecution or investigation.
Mr Beer: Dealing with the distinction that you make in paragraph 127 – if we just scroll up – between data which is committed to the audit server and that which isn’t –
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: – if data is affected by a problem before it is committed to the audit server, would that mean that there is a risk that, once the data is committed to the server, it’s unreliable?
Gareth Jenkins: If taken into account with the NT events, then that would make it clear that that has actually happened. So, as long as you look at the NT events as well as the ARQ data, then I felt it would be reliable.
Mr Beer: I don’t think you addressed that point in any of your reports or witness statements or any of your advices or explanations to the Post Office?
Gareth Jenkins: I was expecting to be asked to look at the – at the audit data, which therefore would have been doing the checks against the NT event data, but I accept that that didn’t happen.
Mr Beer: So again, the reason for not mentioning it is you were expecting somebody to come back to you about it?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: When you were looking at audit data which had been committed to the server, how could you be confident that that data hadn’t been affected by a problem before it got to the server?
Gareth Jenkins: Because I know – I was aware that the process for generating – for generating the ARQ data would include checking for unexpected NT events at the same time, which should therefore have detected any such failure.
Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at POL00097480, and go to page 3, please, and scroll down. This is quite a complicated email chain between you and Helen Rose about the Lepton report and the logs produced as a result. If you can try and and help us distinguish or understand what’s being said to start with. You refer to some files and you say:
“[They] are part of the standard ARQ returned.”
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Then in the third paragraph you say:
“If that [which is what you described in paragraph 2] is sufficient for your purposes, then you do have all you need in the standard ARQ.
“However what I was able to confirm from my look at Live data a couple of weeks ago and is also held in the underlying raw logs is confirmation that the reversal was generated by the system (and not manually by the user). What might also be available in underlying logs is whether or not the system was rebooted – I suspect it was but have no evidence one way or the other … I can confirm that the [other] user did log on again …
“Do you need anything further from me …”
To summarise, you were explaining here, the limitations of what was included in standard ARQ data; is that right?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: You were explaining some additional data that you were able to find by looking at what you call Live data –
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: – which in fact revealed that the relevant transaction was one not undertaken by the subpostmaster but was one generated wrongly by Horizon itself?
Gareth Jenkins: No, it wasn’t generated wrongly by Horizon itself; it was one that was generated by Horizon itself as part of the recovery process following a failure of the system, and the whole purpose of that reversal being undertaken by the system was to reflect what the postmaster would have understood to have occurred at the time of the failure.
Mr Beer: I see. So it was an automated process where the system generated the reversal?
Gareth Jenkins: To reflect what should have been understood by the subpostmaster in the branch at that particular time.
Mr Beer: Okay. Then if we scroll up, please, we see Helen Rose replies:
“I can see where this transaction is and now understand the reason behind it. My main concern is that we use the basic ARQ logs for evidence in court and if we don’t know what extra reports to ask for then in some circumstances we would not be giving a true picture.”
That’s right, isn’t it: that if they were using, in court cases the basic ARQ logs, in some cases a true picture would not be given to the court?
Gareth Jenkins: I would dispute that because, in fact, that reversal was part of providing the true picture. The reason that reversal had actually taken place was to reflect what the subpostmaster would have seen in the branch at the time.
Mr Beer: Well, hold on, if we go up to your – well, hold on. We should read the second paragraph first?
“I know you are aware of all the Horizon integrity issues. I want to ensure that the ARQ logs are used and understood fully by our operational staff that [we] have to work with this data both interviews and in court.”
What did you understand her to mean by saying to you that you were aware of all of the Horizon integrity issues?
Gareth Jenkins: She – I’d been sent, a few months earlier, a report that she’d produced of branches that were challenging the integrity of Horizon. So I assumed that she was referring to that report of hers, which – which I’d been sent a copy of.
Mr Beer: So not meaning you’re aware of all of the integrity issues with Horizon that in fact exist but, instead, meaning all of the allegations made by subpostmasters about Horizon integrity issues?
Gareth Jenkins: That is how I would have understood that statement to have been made.
Mr Beer: She says:
“… I want to ensure that the ARQ logs are used and understood by operational staff that have to [use them] in interviews and in court.”
If we go back up to your reply, please. You say you:
“… understand your concerns.
“It would be relatively simple to add an extra column into the existing ARQ report spreadsheet, that would make it clear whether the Reversal Basket was generated by Recovery or not. I think this would address your concern.”
So was it the case that the existing ARQ data being relied on by investigators and prosecutors did not give a full picture; you were less thing a solution to that?
Gareth Jenkins: It was giving a full picture of what had occurred. There were some – these system recoveries were purely to actually put the branch accounts back into the state that they should have been in following a failure. It’s a fairly complicated scenario to try to describe. I don’t know if you want me to get into the technicalities, I suspect not, but it was all to do with what could happen when a comms failure occurs at the wrong time.
Mr Beer: You don’t say in reply “Hold on, Helen [or Ms Rose], you’re wrong, the data you have does present a full picture”. You say there needs to be a change in order for it to do so?
Gareth Jenkins: What I was saying was that, if she wanted to be aware of those things specifically, then that could be added into the ARQ – into the standard ARQ extract.
Mr Beer: Was that done –
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t –
Mr Beer: – to your knowledge?
Gareth Jenkins: Not as far as I’m aware.
Mr Beer: Why wasn’t it done, to your knowledge?
Gareth Jenkins: Because it required Post Office to request a change on Fujitsu to do that and I don’t believe they pursued it.
Mr Beer: So it was a Post Office decision?
Gareth Jenkins: That – yes.
Mr Beer: Do you know why the Post Office did not pursue it?
Gareth Jenkins: No.
Mr Beer: Thank you. Can we move on, please, to your integrity reports.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Thank you. That can come down. Just looking at it generally, to start with, you authored two reports addressing the integrity of data on Horizon?
Gareth Jenkins: I think they were narrower than that, in terms of what their scope was. But I know the reports you’re referring to.
Mr Beer: The first – excuse me. I’ve got a frog in my throat. It’s hayfever.
Sir Wyn Williams: Take your time, Mr Beer.
Mr Beer: You authored two reports, the first, 2 October 2009; do you remember?
Gareth Jenkins: I remember that report, yes.
Mr Beer: The title of that was “Horizon Data Integrity”?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: That was about Legacy Horizon?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Sir Wyn Williams: Would you prefer an early lunch? It’s a 12.45?
Mr Beer: That’s most generous, sir.
Sir Wyn Williams: Right. What time shall we resume?
Mr Beer: Can we say 1.35, please.
Sir Wyn Williams: Right. Fine.
(12.44 pm)
(The Short Adjournment)
(1.35 pm)
Mr Beer: Thank you, sir. I think I’m back up to full operating speed.
Sir Wyn Williams: Good.
Mr Beer: Mr Jenkins, we were going to look at the two Horizon data integrity reports that you wrote and I was summarising that you authored two reports, the first of which was dated 2 October 2009, and the title of which was “Horizon Data Integrity” –
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: – and that was about Legacy Horizon?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: The second of which was dated 25 November 2011 and was called “Horizon Online Data Integrity”, and that was obviously about Horizon Online?
Gareth Jenkins: There were various versions of it with different dates, but, yes, that was the date of one of them.
Mr Beer: The last version, I think, that we’ve got is version 4 and is dated 25 November 2011?
Gareth Jenkins: There was a variant on that that I used later on in 2012 but, yes.
Mr Beer: Can I ask you some general questions about those reports, then, before looking at the contents in detail. Firstly, at the time that you prepared the first report, the one about Legacy Horizon, called “Horizon Data Integrity”, what did you understand the purpose of the report was?
Gareth Jenkins: I was asked to provide a report on some specific failure scenarios that occurred on Legacy Horizon. I couldn’t remember initially what it was that had caused that but when Dave Smith gave his evidence to the Inquiry, he says that he phoned me up and instructed me to do that, and I was happy to accept that. I’ve since seen some emails saying that I was asked by people in Fujitsu on his behalf to write that report but I don’t think that really contradicts what I said before.
Mr Beer: Did you therefore understand that you were being asked to produce a report that was narrow in scope about very specific issues?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: In relation to the Horizon Online data integrity report, at the time that you prepared that, what did you understand its purpose was?
Gareth Jenkins: Initially, it was supposed to be a companion document to that. It then got subsumed into documents to support a proposed investigation that Fujitsu were having with KPMG into the integrity of the audit trail.
Mr Beer: So originally it was a companion document to the –
Gareth Jenkins: But with a similar sort of scope, in other words looking at primarily at what – the integrity of the audit trail.
Mr Beer: Why did the reports not cover all bugs, errors and defects known to Fujitsu at the time that they were written?
Gareth Jenkins: Because that wasn’t what I was asked to produce at the time.
Mr Beer: Do you know why you weren’t asked to produce a report that was addressing all known bugs at the time?
Gareth Jenkins: No, I was asked to produce a report covering the scope that the report actually covered.
Mr Beer: Were you aware, whilst employed by Fujitsu, that the Legacy Horizon report was relied on by Mr Ismay of the Post Office in preparing his report in August 2010 about the general robustness of Horizon?
Gareth Jenkins: No, I was not.
Mr Beer: You didn’t know it was going to be appropriated and used for a different purpose than you had prepared it for?
Gareth Jenkins: No, I didn’t.
Mr Beer: Have you seen now, in fact, how it was used by –
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I have seen Mr Ismay’s report, as part of the documentation I’ve been provided for the Inquiry.
Mr Beer: Do you agree that it has been used for a purpose different from that which you intended?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, it has been.
Mr Beer: Were you aware at the time that you wrote the Online report that the Post Office may intend to use that report as a basis for briefing or addressing concerns raised by MPs?
Gareth Jenkins: When I wrote the Online report, I don’t think it was prepared for the purpose of the Post Office, that the KPMG audit was not something that Post Office was necessarily aware of at the time. When I produced the cutdown version of it in 2012, I saw that purely as being a description of the integrity of the audit trail, and I wasn’t – I think there was an email exchange wanting a report, effectively the equivalent of the Legacy Horizon one, and I thought it was actually to do with prosecutions, rather than anything to do with briefing of MPs, or anything like that.
Mr Beer: Were you told at any time that the Post Office intended to use your report as a basis to address concerns raised by MPs?
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t think I was even aware of that now!
Mr Beer: Can we look at the detail, then, of each of the two reports. Can we start, please, with the Legacy Horizon integrity report, data integrity report. FUJ00080526. Thank you. We can see the document’s title is “Horizon Data Integrity”, and we can see on this page here that you are the author of it?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: Correct. If we just go over to page 2, please, and scroll down – and over the page, and scroll down – after the index we can see the document history. Can you see the version that we’re working from here is version 1.0, dated 2 October 2009?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: If we just look at the foot of the page, we can see that. That’s on every page, bottom right; can you see that?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Just go back up to the top of the page. Just out of interest, version 0.1b, which appears before version 1 is described as a first informal draft that is dated a year after the final version for release?
Gareth Jenkins: I think that must be a typo.
Mr Beer: Should that be –
Gareth Jenkins: That should be 2009. I’d not noticed that until now.
Mr Beer: Okay. So does that reflect that you created the report and finalised the report all on one day?
Gareth Jenkins: I think I – I think the version 0.1a may have been produced a day or two before that but, yes, the whole report was produced in a fairly short timescale.
Mr Beer: We can see who is required to review it, “Mandatory Review: Suzie Kirkham and Jeremy Worrell”, both Fujitsu?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Then “Optional Review”, are the first three of those Fujitsu?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: The fourth them is Mr Smith from the Post Office; is that right?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: Do you know whether he in fact reviewed it?
Gareth Jenkins: I can’t remember now.
Mr Beer: It’s not marked up with the asterisk, if you look at the bottom of the page, which indicates that the reviewer actually returned comments.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes. I’m not sure whether it had been sent to him but the thing was – I was asked to actually get it signed off and reviewed quickly. So whether he’d actually seen it or not, I’m not absolutely certain.
Mr Beer: If we go to the top of the page, and this appears on every page, “Commercial in Confidence and Without Prejudice”. Why was it marked up “Without Prejudice”?
Gareth Jenkins: Someone asked me to put that there. I’ve no idea what that actually means. I believe it’s some sort of legal thing but I don’t understand what it means.
Mr Beer: Who asked you to put that there?
Gareth Jenkins: I can’t remember now.
Mr Beer: Were you told that this was being prepared in the contemplation of any litigation?
Gareth Jenkins: No, I don’t believe so.
Mr Beer: Were you told that this was prepared for the purposes of obtaining legal advice?
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t believe so.
Mr Beer: Did anyone mention to you before, or as you were preparing the document, that it was to be used or might be used in litigation that was reasonably in contemplation or for the purposes of obtaining legal advice?
Gareth Jenkins: Not that I’m aware of.
Mr Beer: Can we go forward to page 5, please. We can see the purpose of the document, it is:
“… submitted to the Post Office for information purposes only and without prejudice.”
You put that?
Gareth Jenkins: Again, I don’t understand what “without prejudice” means so someone must have said I needed to add that in but I can’t remember who.
Mr Beer: Would that be a lawyer?
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t know.
Mr Beer: “In the event that the Post Office requires information in support of a legal case, Fujitsu will issue a formal statement.”
Again, you wrote that?
Gareth Jenkins: And I think someone must have told me that I needed to include that in the document.
Mr Beer: Do you know why: that this report couldn’t be relied on in support of a legal case; if there was a legal case, then Fujitsu would issue a formal statement?
Gareth Jenkins: No, I’m not aware of why I was asked to include that in the document.
Mr Beer: “This document is a technical description of measures that are built into Horizon to ensure data integrity, including a description of several failure scenarios, and descriptions as to how those measures apply in each case.
“[The] document only covers Horizon. It does not cover [Horizon Online].”
Was that dictated to you or was that you writing?
Gareth Jenkins: That was me.
Mr Beer: So it describes measures that are built into Horizon Online to ensure data integrity?
Gareth Jenkins: I think you mean Legacy Horizon.
Mr Beer: Sorry?
Gareth Jenkins: I said I think you mean Legacy Horizon.
Mr Beer: Did I say Horizon Online?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: I’m so sorry, Legacy Horizon.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: To ensure data integrity; is that right?
Then if we go over the page, please, there is, under the heading, “Horizon Data Integrity” a description in summary terms of data processing within Horizon; is that fair?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Then, if we scroll down, please, after that summary, you set out scenarios –
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: – and you say:
“It should be noted that these scenarios are all to do with equipment failures and these will always be visible to Fujitsu through event logs which are retained.”
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: The possible failure scenarios that you then discuss in the report deal, essentially, would you agree, with equipment failures –
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: – and not software failures?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: So, for example, the Callendar Square bug is not mentioned, is it?
Gareth Jenkins: No, it isn’t.
Mr Beer: Nor the remming out bug?
Gareth Jenkins: No.
Mr Beer: Would you agree that, if this document was taken as providing a picture of Horizon’s good health, it only gave a partial picture because it only dealt with equipment failure?
Gareth Jenkins: That was only what I was actually asked to produce a report on, so the scope was given to me and I believe those scenarios were actually provided to me by Post Office.
Mr Beer: Would you agree that a full and complete explanation of Horizon data integrity would not only focus on equipment failures?
Gareth Jenkins: I can see that now but, as I say, that wasn’t the scope that I was asked to produce this document for.
Mr Beer: Did you say, “Well, hold on, if I’m writing a report about Horizon data integrity, it should be more than about pieces of equipment that may fail”?
Gareth Jenkins: My – I’d understood that that was what the report was required to cover.
Mr Beer: Do you know why a narrow focus was selected?
Gareth Jenkins: No, I don’t.
Mr Beer: Did you get any sense that a narrow focus was selected to provide a commercially acceptable reality that Fujitsu could present to the Post Office, which only discussed equipment issues, without referring to bugs, which, if mentioned officially in a report in a long series, might lead to a reappraisal of the contract between the parties?
Gareth Jenkins: That hadn’t occurred to me at the time. As I say, I was just asked to produce a document with this particular focus, which is what I did.
Mr Beer: The information in the report, therefore, didn’t reflect a full picture of what you knew of concerns arising over data integrity in Horizon. It’s only about equipment failures?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Can we go to POL00088935. Thank you. If we just look at the top of the page, this is the Ismay Report of 2 August 2010. You’re not on the distribution list –
Gareth Jenkins: No.
Mr Beer: – because it was a Post Office document?
Gareth Jenkins: Yeah.
Mr Beer: When did you first see it?
Gareth Jenkins: I think I first saw it as part of the preparation for this Inquiry.
Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at page 7, under the heading “Horizon”:
“Horizon was developed as an Electronic Point of Sale to replace archaic paper based accounting processes. It utilised hardware in branches which had strong security features and interfaces to a central data centre with high security. Data was replicated between units in the branch and once it reached the data centres it was replicated between those.
“This gave three strengths which are important in terms of allegations being made:
“1. Horizon infrastructure was robust from a security and access perspective
“2. It was resilient in terms of being able to continue customer service and hold data in a queue in the event of incidents, and
“3. It had strong back up and integrity features with data backed up in branch and centrally.
“This provided a strong audit trail. Further narrative from Fujitsu is included at Appendix 3.”
Then if we go to Appendix 3, which is page 17, can we there see – it is printed in a different way than the document we just looked at – but your Horizon data integrity report for Legacy Horizon.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Is the entirety of the report set out there by Mr Ismay as his Appendix 3?
Gareth Jenkins: I’ve not checked that it is entirety but I’m happy to believe that it is.
Mr Beer: How did your report come to be included in the Ismay Report?
Gareth Jenkins: I’ve no idea.
Mr Beer: Were you asked for your consent or permission for it to be reused in this way?
Gareth Jenkins: No.
Mr Beer: To your knowledge, was anyone in Fujitsu asked if it could be repurposed in this way?
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Were you consulted on any of the wider contents of the Ismay Report?
Gareth Jenkins: No.
Mr Beer: To your knowledge, was anyone else in Fujitsu consulted on the wider content of the Ismay Report to –
Gareth Jenkins: Not to my knowledge, no.
Mr Beer: When he gave evidence to the Inquiry, Mr Ismay said that he relied on your Legacy Horizon data integrity report in drafting his own report and he accepted that, at the time, he did not think that the Legacy Horizon data integrity report had any limitations at all, and he accepted that that was a failing. To your knowledge, was anyone in Fujitsu, including yourself, involved in any way in the use or the misuse of your report in the Ismay Report?
Gareth Jenkins: Not to my knowledge, no.
Mr Beer: Thank you. Can we look, please, at FUJ00156064 and look at page 3, please – thank you, if we scroll up, please – from Suzie Kirkham; do you remember who she was?
Gareth Jenkins: She was an account manager or something – I think that was the title that’s given on the report. I have a vague recollection of her but I didn’t have very much to do with her. I think my main interaction with her was to do with this report.
Mr Beer: Who was Gavin Bounds?
Gareth Jenkins: He was also an account manager at some stage. How they related to each other I just don’t remember, I’m afraid, but they were both sort of fairly high up compared with me.
Mr Beer: She says:
“Gavin
“I have detailed below a brief summary of the subpostmaster claim that Horizon fails to maintain the integrity of branch accounts if the branch experiences technical issues.
“Horizon has been running for around 10 years, during which time Post Office has had to handle a number of legal cases surrounding system integrity, mostly from apparently disgruntled or fraudulent subpostmasters. Fujitsu has twice appeared in court to support Post Office. Only once has Post Office conceded its case, and this was at a time when the audit trails were too short to provide sufficient evidence to refute a subpostmaster’s claim.
“Recently a number of subpostmasters are again querying the data integrity of Horizon and are claiming that they are owed money by the Post Office due to inaccurate branch accounts. These subpostmasters are talking to the press and are trying to gain some momentum to support their case – it is even rumoured that the BBC is considering a Watchdog programme on the subject. Post Office is trying to head off this possible escalation of interest by preparing a stock of simple responses to possible questions from the media or interest groups. I have summarised below the timeline that details when Post Office asked Fujitsu for assistance in compiling this information.
“The initial request from Post Office (Dave Smith and David Gray – POL) was made on 24 September asking us to join a conference call … hosted by Dave Smith where Dave would outline his understanding of the situation and outline his response. Fujitsu would only comment if he made any factual errors on how Horizon works.
“I [that’s Suzie] spoke to Mike Wood, Dave Roberts and our Press Office as soon as the request was made. [Fujitsu] Press Office confirmed with [Post Office] Press Office that the journalist would not be present at this conference call and that it was only internal [Post Office] attendees. They also confirmed that they did not want [Fujitsu] responding to any questions from the press or external organisations. This was a Post Office issue as the solution has been formally handed over to Post Office. They only need Fujitsu for ‘expert’ advice if required.”
Were you involved in any of those first two paragraphs?
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t believe so.
Mr Beer: Friday, the 25th, the conference call was completed; Fujitsu’s attendees, are set out, not including you?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: Then over the page:
“During the conference call [the Post Office] requested from Fujitsu a short paper to describe how Horizon maintains the integrity of branch accounts when certain issues affect the branch, eg blue screen, hardware failure. Report requested to be given to Dave Smith by 2 October.”
That’s, in fact, the date of your report?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: “Gareth Jenkins … spent the best part of one day completing the report.”
Is that right: you spent a day writing it?
Gareth Jenkins: It was something like that because there was fairly short timescales for actually putting that together, yes.
Mr Beer: “The finished report was passed to Amanda Craib (Commercial – at David Roberts’ request) before being sent to Dave Smith. Report was sent to Dave Smith on Friday, 2 October late morning just prior to a second conference call.
“Friday, 2 October – second conference call – Dave thanked Fujitsu for the document – no further actions …
“[She] spoke to Andy McLean on 5 October – he didn’t expect any further activity for at least a couple of weeks.
“[She] spoke with Dave Smith on 3 December and he mentioned that the data integrity issue had reappeared. It has been taken up by a Welsh MP who also happens to be a barrister. He is threatening to bring an Early Day Motion in the House. Dave is meeting him in Parliament on 10 December but at this stage [he] didn’t feel he needed any [assistance]. However, he was alerting us to the fact that this has reappeared.
“… our body of evidence is mature, so we’re well placed to help Post Office today. But when ‘Horizon Online’ is installed in 2010, much of our existing material will become irrelevant”, et cetera.
You were copied in on this, weren’t you?
Gareth Jenkins: I was.
Mr Beer: So I think you knew due that the data integrity issue had not gone away as a result of your paper and there was a possibility that it was going to be raised with an MP in the future?
Gareth Jenkins: I must have read that in the report. I can’t remember that now but, yes, I accept that I was copied on this ale.
Mr Beer: Yes, and then if we scroll up, please – and up the page, just stop there – some internal emails not including you. Then scroll up, please, keep going, and keep going, and then stop there. Ann Sinclair forwards that chain to Gavin Bounds. What did Ann Sinclair do?
Gareth Jenkins: I’ve no idea. I’ve not come across the name before.
Mr Beer: Ann says:
“… following discussions with our press folks and Suzie on Monday [night] we have agreed that:
“We need to downplay [the issue] as much as, possible, we don’t want to guilty drawn into the debate as we are only a supplier.
“There is a document that addresses all the technical questions that was produced for [Post Office] for a meeting with MPs last week …”
Is it right that there was a list of hardware issues that was produced that you were required to address?
Gareth Jenkins: That is my understanding and that is, effectively, what section 3 of the document was all about. Someone gave me that list.
Mr Beer: So that reference there, there is a document that addresses all the technical questions. That’s a reference back to your report of 2 October?
Gareth Jenkins: I’m assuming so but I don’t know for a definite fact.
Mr Beer: I mean, it says that it was “produced for [Post Office] for a meeting with MPs last week”; do you think that was a different document?
Gareth Jenkins: It could be. As I say, I produced on it 2 October and I think now we’re in December, so it could be something different. I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Did you prepare a second or supplemental document –
Gareth Jenkins: No.
Mr Beer: – for the purposes of a meeting with MPs?
Gareth Jenkins: No.
Mr Beer: Thank you. That can come down.
In short, then, you say that your paper was not a report about or a survey of all issues with Legacy Horizon.
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: Again, did anyone explain to you why, if questions were being raised about the integrity of data produced by Horizon, you were not asked to produce a report, which was a survey of all of the issues which had affected Legacy Horizon?
Gareth Jenkins: I was asked to produce a report on the fairly narrow basis of those hardware type issues and, as I say, I believe that someone actually gave me a list of the ones to cover and those were the ones that I covered in section 3.
Mr Beer: So it was sought for a limited purpose, its contents fulfil that limited purpose and it shouldn’t be used for any other purpose?
Gareth Jenkins: That was the situation at the time, yes.
Mr Beer: Can we turn to the data integrity report for Horizon Online, please. FUJ00080534. We see the title again, “Horizon Online Data Integrity”. We see again you’re the author?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: If we go to the foot of the page, we can see the date of this version, 25 November 2011, version 4.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: If we go over the page, please, and, again, past the index, sorry, to “Document History”, we can see that the first draft was created on 18 January that year and then if we scroll down – I’m not going to go through the summary of changes – version 4, which I think is the one approved for distribution is 25 November 2011.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Did the purpose of the report change in those ten months or so?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, it got – one of the versions, I can’t remember which of the versions, was – there was talk about having a formal review of the integrity of the audit trail of Horizon Online by an external firm of consultants.
Mr Beer: KPMG?
Gareth Jenkins: KPMG, and the report was amended to actually effectively be a scoping document for what they were being asked to provide.
Mr Beer: What was its original purpose?
Gareth Jenkins: I think its original purpose was to be a companion document with a similar sort of scope to the Legacy Horizon version.
Mr Beer: Why did you need a companion document about hardware failures in relation to Horizon Online?
Gareth Jenkins: Well, it wasn’t just the hardware failures; it was also talking about the way that the audit trail worked and so this was talking about how the audit trail worked on Horizon Online because that was very different from Legacy Horizon.
Mr Beer: Why did you need a companion document about how the audit trail worked?
Gareth Jenkins: I –
Mr Beer: Why did Fujitsu need one?
Gareth Jenkins: I can’t remember exactly why I was asked to write this at the time now.
Mr Beer: I was about to ask: who asked you to write it and why?
Gareth Jenkins: I can’t remember, I’m sorry. There maybe emails about it but I’ve not seen them as part of the Inquiry.
Mr Beer: Can we go to page 7, please, terms of reference in bold at the top:
“Fujitsu would like to instigate an independent audit of the [Horizon Online] environment currently delivered to Post Office to provide confidence that the solution has intrinsic security controls commensurate with the requirement for legal admissibility. This would enable a legal review of contract compliance.”
Just trying to decode what that says, is that saying that this report will show that Horizon Online has intrinsic security commensurate with the requirement for legal admissibility or the report that’s going to be prepared by KPMG.
Gareth Jenkins: The latter. So this was effectively the terms of reference for KPMG to produce their report, which never actually happened.
Mr Beer: Whilst you’ve said that, why didn’t it happen, to your knowledge?
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t know why it didn’t happen. I think I’ve understood since then that the Second Sight review subsumed it but I think the scope of the Second Sight review was actually very different from what this was intended to be.
Mr Beer: Who gave you to understand that the Second Sight piece of work was the surrogate for a Fujitsu commissioned review that would provide confidence that Horizon Online had security controls commensurate with the requirement for legal admissibility?
Gareth Jenkins: It probably – I’m not sure if I was told explicitly, it could well be an assumption on my part, that this all seemed to go away at the same time that the Second Sight review started up.
Mr Beer: What about the suggestion that this will enable a legal review of contract compliance? To your understanding, did Fujitsu engage in that process at all, a legal review of contract compliance?
Gareth Jenkins: My understanding is that that was what KPMG were being asked to do but that never happened.
Mr Beer: Did you get told at the time that neither of those things happened because of Second Sight?
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t think I was told that explicitly but I can’t remember.
Mr Beer: All you knew is that they didn’t happen?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: At paragraph 1.1 “Objective”:
“Now that Horizon Online has been operational for 12 months, Fujitsu is undertaking a legal review of its compliance with its contract obligations and in order to enable that, would like to undertake an independent assessment to demonstrate the adequacy of the security controls that have been designed into the system to provide assurance in the robustness of the audit of the transactional data that may be used as evidence in court.”
So, just stopping there, did you understand that the review to be undertaken by the third party, I’m going to call them KPMG –
Gareth Jenkins: Yeah.
Mr Beer: – to be undertaken by KPMG, had as its focus assurance in the robustness of data used as evidence in court?
Gareth Jenkins: That is what I understood was the purpose of that. So there were a number of people involved in the discussions with KPMG, and this document was just something that I was the author of but a lot of the input was from the team who were working on the discussions with KPMG. I remember going to two or three briefing meetings with KPMG with other people within Fujitsu as well.
Mr Beer: Would you agree that the purpose of providing assurance in the robustness of the audit of transactional data that that may be used as evidence in court, is quite a broad Statement of Purpose?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I’ve probably not really thought that through particularly but, as I say, those are not necessarily my words but I accept that they’re included in my document.
Mr Beer: “The purpose of this document [ie the one you were writing, to continue] is to define the terms of reference for the project and to provide a technical description of measures that are built into Horizon Online to ensure data integrity.”
Those are your words; is that right?
Gareth Jenkins: Those are my words, yes.
Mr Beer: Would you agree that that purpose, as described, is a broad Statement of Purpose?
Gareth Jenkins: It is a fairly broad statement, yes.
Mr Beer: Would you agree that the existence of bugs, errors and defects in Horizon may affect data integrity?
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t think – at the time, I wasn’t aware of outstanding bugs, errors and defects in Horizon Online.
Mr Beer: That’s a different issue.
Gareth Jenkins: Right.
Mr Beer: Would you accept that the existence of bugs, errors and defects in Horizon Online may affect data integrity?
Gareth Jenkins: I think what we were trying to show here was the integrity of the audit trail, therefore, if there were any bugs, errors or defects in the – in how the system operated, then it could all go back to looking at the integrity of the audit trail from which any reports produced by the system could then be traced back.
Mr Beer: I will try a third time: would you agree that the existence of bugs, errors and defects in Horizon Online may affect data integrity?
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t think they did affect the data integrity in terms of the integrity of the audit trail, which was the focus of this document.
Mr Beer: Is that why the document does not address whether or not there are bugs, errors or defects in Horizon Online?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, because it was thought that by actually showing the integrity of the audit trail, then that bypassed the need to consider bugs, errors and defects in the other parts of the system because everything goes back to the data that’s in the audit trail.
Mr Beer: Was explicit thought and consideration given to that, that, if we focus on the audit trail, we can bypass the existence of bugs, errors and defects?
Gareth Jenkins: “Bypass” might be a bad choice of words. The point was that, having the limited focus of showing that the audit trail had integrity was something that was practical to actually be able to prove, as was – which is what we were effectively asking KPMG to do.
Mr Beer: Is that reflected on page 9, if we go forwards, please, under “Purpose”? In the last paragraph there under “Purpose”:
“The scope of this paper is restricted to showing the integrity of the audit trail and that it accurately reflects the transactions entered at the counter.”
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, that’s effectively what I was trying to say before.
Mr Beer: You tell us in your witness statement, no need to turn it up it’s paragraphs 164 and 165, that:
“My report was intended to be included in briefing materials for KPMG so that they had a high-level technical overview as to how data was recorded in the audit trail.”
Is that right?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: This report didn’t consider when and how the audit information was interrogated, did it?
Gareth Jenkins: No.
Mr Beer: It provided only a description of security controls?
Gareth Jenkins: I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you mean by “security controls”.
Mr Beer: Well, were you asked to conduct any research into the operation of the controls that are mentioned in the report, and whether they were in fact functioning adequately on the ground?
Gareth Jenkins: This is what KPMG were being asked to look into.
Mr Beer: I see. So you didn’t do that. You were describing how the system was supposed to work –
Gareth Jenkins: So that they could then prove that it did.
Mr Beer: It was down to them to prove or disprove, presumably, whether, in fact, it was fit for purpose?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: But that never happened?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: So, again, nobody should take your report as being the description of Horizon Online’s overall integrity?
Gareth Jenkins: It was showing our belief of how the audit trail was a way of showing that the system had integrity, yes.
Mr Beer: How it’s supposed to work, in theory?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: So the scope of the report was limited by those commissioning it, correct?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I guess so, yeah.
Mr Beer: In the light of your knowledge of the system by this time – it’s two years or so in, so November 2011 –
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: – and the bugs that had arisen in particular in the course of development, did you ever question the limited scope of the commission?
Gareth Jenkins: No, because I felt that, once the pilot – I accept the fact that there were some issues during the pilot phase of Horizon Online but, once the pilot was over, I believed that the audit trail of Horizon Online did indeed the integrity that I was saying should be proved as part of this report.
Mr Beer: But you had no evidence for that because that was what KPMG were going to find out?
Gareth Jenkins: I had no independent evidence but we had found empirically that it had the right – that it had the information there – there for doing so. That we hadn’t had – we hadn’t found any outstanding problems in the way that the audit trail operated and the audit trail was seen to be accurately recording what had actually happened within the branches, and we had no evidence to the contrary. So, no, we hadn’t proved it positively, but we had nothing to actually say that it wasn’t correct.
Mr Beer: Why was it necessary for KPMG to investigate at all, then?
Gareth Jenkins: I think the senior management within Fujitsu at the time felt that it would be helpful to be able to show – have an independent proof, not just an internal assessment of what was happening.
Mr Beer: If we go back to page 7, please, the top line of the terms of reference includes the fact that the independent report would seek to provide confidence that Horizon Online has intrinsic security controls commensurate with the requirement for legal admissibility.
By this stage, you were aware that the data being produced by Horizon, both in fact Legacy Horizon and Horizon Online, was being used to support criminal prosecutions?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: You were, I suspect, in any event, aware that the data being produced by both systems formed the core accounting information for any subpostmaster’s business –
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: – and, indeed, the business of the Post Office itself?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: So integrity of the data was absolutely critical, for all three reasons, or all three purposes?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: From their titles, these reports address Horizon integrity in the Legacy system and Horizon Online data integrity, but did not address everything that you knew about Horizon data integrity either in the online system or on – in Legacy, did they?
Gareth Jenkins: I think they were trying to show that the audit information did indeed have integrity and I believed at the time and I still believe now that it does.
Mr Beer: For example, in relation to Legacy Horizon, they didn’t address faults in development or in the operation of the Riposte system?
Gareth Jenkins: No, but I didn’t think that was relevant in terms of the integrity of the actual audit trail, which is what was the basic subject that it was about.
Mr Beer: They didn’t address any detail of the Riposte lock problem, for example?
Gareth Jenkins: It doesn’t do that. That wasn’t the scope of the document at the time.
Mr Beer: It didn’t address all of the circumstances in which a discrepancy might result and require reconciliation?
Gareth Jenkins: I’m not quite sure what you mean by that.
Mr Beer: Well, the raising of the issue by a subpostmaster, reporting it, the issue of a transaction correction by Fujitsu and the Post Office, it didn’t address all of that process?
Gareth Jenkins: I didn’t see that as being the purpose of the documents. The purposes of the documents were quite narrow, as we’ve already discussed.
Mr Beer: If the work that KPMG was supposed to undertake was to be presented to a court, would you agree that the purpose would have been to satisfy the court as to both the integrity and reliability of the Horizon system and therefore the data that was being produced in the case before it?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I think so.
Mr Beer: An inadequate substitute would be to produce to a court your two reports?
Gareth Jenkins: I believe that that was covering the integrity of the audit trail and it was based on information in the audit trail that was the data that was being presented to the courts.
Mr Beer: So you disagree with my suggestion. You think that an adequate and proper substitute was to present only your limited, constrained and narrow reports to a court, as showing Horizon integrity?
Gareth Jenkins: That was how I understood things at the time.
Mr Beer: And now?
Gareth Jenkins: I think – I think they still show the integrity of the overall audit trail, which is the data that’s being presented to the courts. But I accept now that I don’t understand all the legal niceties, which – and I clearly didn’t at the time either. But I wasn’t aware of my ignorance then.
Mr Beer: Can we, on that note, turn to the second part of my questions to you, which concerns some of the case studies –
Gareth Jenkins: Okay.
Mr Beer: – and can we start with the case brought against Hughie Thomas, who ran a Post Office in Wales. You explain in a witness statement to us your involvement in the case was some months after the Post Office had concluded its investigation of Mr Thomas and, in fact, he’d been charged. Correct?
Gareth Jenkins: That is what I now understand, yes. I didn’t at the time, necessarily.
Mr Beer: Can we start by tracing your earliest involvement in the case, that I can see, by looking at FUJ00122203. If we look at page 6, please. I think we can see Mr Ward, at 12.43 on 10 March 2006 emailing a generic Fujitsu email address; can you see that? It just says, “To Fujitsu” on the right?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I see that. I’ve no idea what email address that would have gone to.
Mr Beer: No. The subject is “ARQs, statement request and assistance”. Then if we scroll down, please. He says:
“… sorry for the length of this email …”
I’m going to ignore the next two paragraphs, the ones starting “Both of the above” and “Brian”. Then if we scroll down over the page, the third main paragraph, the one starting “On a separate matter”?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I see that.
Mr Beer: He says:
“On a separate matter, I also require a witness statement in respect of the following ARQs …”
For some reason, they’ve been redacted. We know the numbers –
Gareth Jenkins: Yeah.
Mr Beer: – and they appear in other emails:
“… all of which relate to [Mr Thomas’ Post Office]. We need the usual (leave out paragraphs H(b) and J, but do need para K (call logs) covering an analysis over the period 01/11/04 to 30/11/05. Penny – you may recall this one which relates to nil transactions, my previous emails … refer. Can you add an extra paragraph in your statement explaining how online banking transactions are processed and the data downloaded and how nil transactions can occur.”
I think that’s all that there is about Mr Thomas’ sub post office. Okay?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: So a request to either Penny Thomas or Neneh Lowther for a request for a witness statement that addresses some ARQs about Mr Thomas’ Post Office and explains how nil transactions can occur.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Can we go to FUJ00152582, page 2, please, and scroll down a little bit. Mr Pinder emails you on 21 March, so that’s 11 days after the email we’ve just looked at –
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: – and says:
“Gareth
“Re Tel-con
“As discussed, please see extract from a recent email below in italics from Graham Ward … regarding providing a statement about nil transactions and online banking. If you are able to put something together for us I would be very grateful. If you send it back I will arrange for Neneh or Penny to write a statement for your signature.”
Then the part of the email we’ve just read out, which does include the three ARQ numbers, is set out. The last part of which is in italics.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: “Can you add an extra paragraph in your statement explaining how online banking transactions are processed and the data downloaded and the nil transactions can occur.”
So you are asked to “put something together for us.”
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Addressing nil transactions and online banking?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: His email seems to refer to a conversation with you. It says, “Re Tel-con”, at the top?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I see that.
Mr Beer: I don’t suppose you remember what Mr Pinder told you of Post Office’s requests?
Gareth Jenkins: No, I mean, clearly I can understand what he’s saying in the email but what he actually said on the phone I’ve no idea, I’m afraid.
Mr Beer: Did you have anything explained to you, by Mr Pinder or otherwise, as to what was expected of you when creating a witness statement or other document in response to this request?
Gareth Jenkins: I can’t remember. What I believe, from looking at the documentation, I was asked to do was purely look at zero value banking transactions and see why they came up as being zero value banking transactions and that is what I actually provided a report about.
Mr Beer: You’ll see that this seems to ask you to provide a witness statement about those things, doesn’t it?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, it does, and I think what I actually did was provided a report to say “Is this what you want the scope to be?”
Mr Beer: In fact, I think we’re going to see that you reply by email, not providing a witness statement, providing an answer?
Gareth Jenkins: That is my recollection from the emails I’ve seen lately, yes.
Mr Beer: So he’s asking you for a witness statement, addressing those two things. If we go up, please, to page 1, thank you, same day, 21 March, you reply:
“I’ve had a look at the ARQs and I think there is sufficient info there to explain in most cases why there are zero value transactions. I suggest the following as a brief explanation:
“There are three main reasons why a zero value transaction may be generated as part of the banking system:
“1 the transaction has no financial effect …
“2. The transaction has been declined by the Bank
“3. There has been some sort of System Failure.”
Then you explain response codes. The third explanation is that a response code with a value greater than 10 implies some sort of system failure. You say:
“Does that supply you with enough detail? Identifying exactly why a given response code was generated in each case and the exact circumstances under which each one can be generated is much harder, but I suspect that is unnecessary …”
Then scroll down, you give some examples of some response codes. So you respond not by providing a witness statement: you say, “Here is a brief explanation”?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Were you clearing with Mr Pinder what you said in advance of committing it to a witness statement?
Gareth Jenkins: I was just providing the information. I don’t think at that stage I even knew what a witness statement was, though I – oh, I might have –
Mr Beer: I think you’d already provide a draft –
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I’m trying to think but I don’t think I’d actually drafted one myself. It had been drafted for me by Mr Pinder’s team, in terms of getting the formatting sorted out and –
Mr Beer: That was in another case, in the Teja case?
Gareth Jenkins: That’s the one, yes.
Mr Beer: So you did know what a witness statement was by then?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I must have done.
Mr Beer: Just scroll down to the top of the page and, sorry, just scroll down to the email. You say:
“I suggest the following as a brief explanation …”
Again, were you clearing with Mr Pinder what to say in a witness statement before you made a witness statement?
Gareth Jenkins: I’m not sure if it – I think it was a case of: this is the basic information, how do you want it presented? I don’t think I was sort of clearing – I was happy that technically that was a reasonable description of what was happening and what the circumstances were, and that was the basis of the information that I felt that he needed for whatever witness statement was to be produced.
Mr Beer: By somebody else?
Gareth Jenkins: For someone else to actually produce the statement, though, it may be one that I would need to own and sign up to at some point.
Mr Beer: What do you mean, you might need to own and sign up to a witness statement?
Gareth Jenkins: That it would – that it would need to be my witness statement but, basically, at this stage, I was trying to make sure that we had the scope correct.
Mr Beer: So you were clearing the scope for a proposed witness statement by you?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, okay. Yeah.
Mr Beer: If we scroll up to the top of the page. He’s grateful for your speedy response, he will ask Neneh to put if it into statement form today for your perusal and signature on Thursday if that’s okay.
Can we go back then, please, to – sorry, before we do, was that a usual or an unusual approach in your dealings with Fujitsu’s litigation or Prosecution Support Team, that you would draft your own witness statements or somebody else would draft them for you?
Gareth Jenkins: I’m not sure that we can actually talk about the term “usual”, but this was, it was the first case that I remember being involved in but, clearly, the case of Teja has been drawn to my attention as part of the Inquiry, which I had no recollection of whatsoever. But – so, in that way, this was the second time that I’d been involved in doing anything with prosecution support, so it was a bit difficult to find what is usual.
Mr Beer: So too early to say what is usual?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Can we go back to FUJ00122203, which was the chain that we were in before, and go to page 4, please. We can see that at 1.01, Neneh Lowther sends Graham Ward a draft witness statement “for the above re ‘Nil Transactions’”, and asks him, Mr Ward, whether it meets his requirements. Now, you tell us in your witness statement – no need to turn it up, it’s paragraph 294 at page 98 of your third witness statement – that you cannot find a copy of the witness statement that was attached to this email, and you’re in good company: nor can we. But that may not matter for the moment.
Can we go up to page 3, please. Thank you. We can see that Mr Ward replies to Ms Lowther and Mr Pinder and says, in relation to that witness statement that was sent:
“The layout presumably is unfinished, paragraph, spacings, etc.
“As per my earlier email, and more importantly the 3 spreadsheets sent with ARQ data need to be produced as individual exhibits (GIJ/1, 2 and 3) and each column header must be explained as you do in your usual statements …
“Also the line which begins at the foot of [the] page, “[Response Code] with a value greater than 10 …’ appears unfinished?”
This is perhaps, for our purposes, the most important part:
“… I’m concerned with the words ‘system failure’ which is also in an earlier line … ‘There has been some sort of a system failure’ – What does this mean exactly and is there any indication of a system failure at this office during the period in question?”
Then if we go further up to page 3 we see that later that day, at just after 3.00, Ms Lowther forwards that to you; can you see that?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I see that.
Mr Beer: “Hi, Gareth,
“Please see [below] from Graham …
“… ignore the … bit about exhibits. I will print out the exhibits and update your statement with this.
“I understand that you have copies of the spreadsheets …
“Please could you look at his second paragraph [that’s the bit which explained concern about the mention of system failures] and advise with your comments again.”
She sent your draft statement back and I think the same comment as earlier applies, that there isn’t a copy of that available that you can find nor we can find.
Can we go up, please, to page 2, and keep going to see the beginning part of Mr Jenkins’ email. You reply still later that day, 5.40:
“Neneh,
“I’m not quite sure what his problem is with what I’ve said.
“Basically, any value of Response Code that is greater than 10 does imply some end-to-end system failure. The actual value makes it clearer what exactly the failure is and where it has been detected.
“In the example there are two such codes …”
You’ll see what you say about those. You say:
“How do you want to play this? Do you want to add in specific text to the witness statement to cover these two codes or persuade [Post Office] that the generic statement is okay (perhaps with some clearer words)?”
So what did you mean by “How do you want to play” it?
Gareth Jenkins: What exactly was she asking me to do? Now I had this information, what does she want to do next? And I was giving her a couple of options as to what we could do moving forward.
Mr Beer: Can we go to page 1, please, and scroll down to her reply, the next day:
“Gareth,
“I have updated your [witness statement] with all the column headings you explained to me earlier.
“I have not included your response below as I am not quite sure where to fit it in.
“Can you help out with this.
“… Graham Ward is thinking that ‘system failures’ are drastic events. Could you please explain a little further on this like you said they are normal system occurrences.
“Please sent back to me when you’ve finished so I can send to [Graham Ward] if possible.”
Then, on this chain, the last email – scroll up – you attach a witness statement and say you’ve annotated it with revisions:
“In particular, I don’t feel I can include the last two paragraphs, which may make the statement useless.”
Can we look at the attachment to this email. FUJ00122204. If we just scroll down, we can see it, it is dated 23 March. First paragraph: is that something you had drafted in the original or had been drafted for you?
Gareth Jenkins: I’m not 100 per cent sure. I suspect that this was what Neneh had produced in the earlier emails in the chain and that bit of red that you see there is what I’ve added in and this latest version is how I’m interpreting it but I can’t be 100 per cent certain.
Mr Beer: More generally, before we come to the red parts, if we look at the black text, which is indented underneath that first paragraph, we can see, effectively, that your earlier email has been cut into this witness statement, hasn’t it?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Verbatim?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, and perhaps this is what Graham Ward was referring to, in terms of formatting problems. I’m not sure.
Mr Beer: To address the email that you’d received, you’ve added in the words underlined, “Such failures are normal occurrences”, is that right?
Gareth Jenkins: I thought that may be sufficient to address the fact that I could clearly see that people were concerned about the use of the term “system failure”, and I’m sure we’re going to discuss that further this afternoon but I felt as a first cut, let’s just say, well, they are normal occurrences.
Mr Beer: What do you mean, “let’s say as a first cut”?
Gareth Jenkins: Well, by “system failure” what this was talking about was an end-to-end failure within the overall banking system and so I thought that, just by saying this was a normal occurrence, then that would be something that would be sufficient to not make it considered emotive, and I can clearly see that Graham Ward was concerned about having the term “system failure” in the witness statement because that could give the wrong impression because that could – I now understand that he was thinking that meant that was a failure in Horizon. That is not what I meant by a system failure in this particular case.
Mr Beer: So you thought that your original language had sort of scared the horses and this was a way of calming –
Gareth Jenkins: Calming it town a bit, yes.
Mr Beer: Moving on, please, if we scroll on. You’ve added in, in red, at the bottom there:
“The actual value provides further information as to the nature of the failure within the overall system.”
Gareth Jenkins: Again, as a way of trying to calm things down and make it less emotive.
Mr Beer: I’m going to skip over, if we go to page 2, the other amendments, and if we scroll through page 2 and go to page 3 and scroll down. Thank you. You remember in your email you said that you didn’t feel that you could include the last two paragraphs. Are they the paragraphs beginning “There is no reason to believe”, and “Any records to which I refer”?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: You said that you don’t feel that you could include them and that might make the statement useless; is that right –
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: – in your email? You say, by way of comment, underneath:
“I am not sure that the yellow bit is true. Can this be deleted? All I’ve done is interpret the data in spreadsheets that you’ve emailed to me.”
Gareth Jenkins: And, in particular, I was referring to the second of those two paragraphs, which was saying that I’d actually got the records out of the audit system, because I hadn’t.
Mr Beer: Does the second paragraph actually say that you had got the records out of the audit system? I don’t think it does?
Gareth Jenkins: It doesn’t actually say that but it does imply that I had actually got hold of the information and I hadn’t got hold of the information; I had just been sent a spreadsheet by Neneh to say look to see what it says in this spreadsheet, and I had no reason – no information as to where that spreadsheet had come from.
Mr Beer: I want to concentrate on the first paragraph instead, please. That first paragraph in the second sentence says:
“To the best of my knowledge and belief at all material times the computer was operating, or if not, any respect in which it was not operating properly, or was out of operation was not such as to affect the information held on it.”
You said that you weren’t sure that was true and you asked for it to be deleted, correct?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Now, in terms of the guidance that you’d received about writing this statement, you tell us in your witness statement – no need to turn it up, it’s paragraph 313 of your third witness statement – that you do not recall receiving any briefing from the Post Office or anyone else setting out the factual history of the case or summarising the prosecution evidence, or the issues raised by Mr Thomas?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: Did you ask for any?
Gareth Jenkins: I didn’t think I needed to because I was being asked a very simple question: what do these zero value transactions mean?
Mr Beer: So the answer is you didn’t ask for any guidance because you didn’t think it was necessary?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: You tell us in your witness statement – it’s paragraph 316 of your third witness statement – that you do not have a clear memory of anyone mention anyone the word “expert” at any point and that you understood that you were giving evidence about Horizon because of your knowledge and experience of it. It was never explained to you that there might be a difference between giving you giving factual evidence about Horizon and expert evidence, in this context?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: This witness statement and the drafts of it do not contain any expert declaration, do they?
Gareth Jenkins: No.
Mr Beer: Why do you think you were chosen to prepare a witness statement regarding nil transactions in Mr Thomas’ branch?
Gareth Jenkins: Because I understood the way that nil transactions could be generated. I’d been involved in the design of the banking interfaces, so I actually understood how you could get zero value banking transactions in the circumstances and how to interpret them in the ARQ data.
Mr Beer: Do you know whether anyone else within Fujitsu was considered as a provider of this statement?
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t know that.
Mr Beer: Did you encounter any challenges in preparing the statement requested by Graham Ward from the Post Office, without the factual history of Mr Thomas’ case, or even a summary of the prosecution case?
Gareth Jenkins: I believed that I was being asked a very simple question: why are there zero value transactions. And that is all I was trying to address here.
Mr Beer: When you received Mr Ward’s request via Mr Pinder and Ms Lowther, was your understanding that you were providing a factual analysis of Horizon or giving any opinion evidence?
Gareth Jenkins: I think that – I saw that as being factual information.
Mr Beer: Did you understand the legal significance and full implications of preparing a witness statement for the purposes of criminal proceedings against the subpostmaster in a prosecution brought by the Post Office?
Gareth Jenkins: No.
Mr Beer: Did you ask for guidance?
Gareth Jenkins: No, I thought I was just doing a simple bit of analysis identifying the reason why there was zero value transactions, and I thought that was a relatively straightforward bit of factual information that I could provide.
Mr Beer: Did you have adequate time to prepare this witness statement?
Gareth Jenkins: I can’t remember how much time I had. I clearly had looked at the data that I had been presented with and had had time to analyse all the zero value transactions in the data that I’d been provided with. I can’t remember now how much data that was.
Mr Beer: Can we try and display, before the break, two documents side by side. The one that’s on the screen at the moment, please, and the second document, your third witness statement, at page 33. Perfect. You say in your witness statement at paragraph 102:
“I am aware that there is a question in the Inquiry as to what the two ‘boilerplate’ or ‘standard’ paragraphs that appear at the very end of the standard Fujitsu witness statement which exhibits the ARQ spreadsheets actually meant. These two paragraphs are usually read as follows …”
You set them out and they broadly match the paragraphs on the right-hand side, can you see?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, yeah.
Mr Beer: Moving on to 103:
“As I understand it, some witnesses to the Inquiry have suggested that these paragraphs were supposed to show (or were [intended] to mean) that Horizon was working properly at a given branch or even that Horizon was working properly across the whole estate. That is not what I thought these paragraphs were intended to mean.
“As I have set out above [paragraph 104], Fujitsu’s operational manuals concerning prosecution support appear to deal with the integrity of audit data, rather than the integrity of the Horizon system.”
Just stopping there, earlier in the statement you rehearsed those. You hadn’t seen them at the time, in fact, those manuals?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: So you’re referring here, in support of your position, to documents that you hadn’t seen at the time?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: “As I have set out above, Fujitsu’s operational manuals concerning prosecution support appear to deal with the integrity of audit data rather than the integrity of the Horizon system. They do not suggest the standard Fujitsu witness statement would address the integrity of the overall Horizon system at a given branch. Indeed, as I have already noted, paragraph L of this standard witness statement referred to the integrity of the audit data exhibited to the witness statement in terms of its origination, storage and retrieval.
“105. The individuals who signed this standard witness statement (such as Penny and Neneh) could not have given an opinion about the integrity of the Horizon system, whether at the particular branch or generally. They did not have the technical expertise and would not have been qualified to do this. They could comment on the integrity of the ARQ extraction process that they had personally undertaken.
“106. All of this explains why it makes little sense to me that the standard closing paragraphs in the Fujitsu witness statement could have been intended to have some broader meaning about the integrity of Horizon. This witness statement was only concerned with the production of time limited ARQ data and did not (for example) set out an analysis of the data. I think there is a clear distinction between a statement that the Horizon system was working (or a statement to its overall health) at a given branch during a specific period and a statement about the way in which the ARQ data for that branch had been produced (so that it had integrity).
“There is no explanation (that I have seen) in the Fujitsu documents as to what these two standard paragraphs were supposed to mean. I can see from the communications in the case study of Mr Hughie Thomas that I raised a question about the two paragraphs.”
That’s essentially what we’re looking at on the right-hand side.
Gareth Jenkins: Indeed.
Mr Beer: “Looking back now, I think my understanding was that the first of these two paragraphs related to the proper operation of the computers involved in the production of the witness statement and that the second standard paragraph related to the process by which any records referred to in the witness statement had been obtained and produced. In Mr Thomas’ case, I think that my concern was that I could not include these paragraphs because I had not extracted the ARQ spreadsheets that my draft statement was referring to. By this I mean that I could not speak to the computer which had extracted the spreadsheets as working properly.”
You deal with the issue in more detail below.
Just going back to the beginning part of that paragraph 107, thank you. Four lines in, you say, “Looking back at it now, I think my understanding was that the first of the two paragraphs related to the proper operation of the computers involved in the production of the witness statement …”
Just stop there. So you’re saying, by that, that the Word Processor or other computer on which the statement was being typed, or typed for you, was working properly?
Gareth Jenkins: And whatever was being used for doing the analysis, and so on, yes.
Mr Beer: So you’re saying that the first paragraph we see on the right-hand side in yellow relates to the computer on which the statement was being typed?
Gareth Jenkins: That is the only way I can understand that as making any sort of sense in terms of the people who are producing that sort of statement.
Mr Beer: You ask on the right-hand side that that paragraph is deleted, yes?
Gareth Jenkins: Because I –
Mr Beer: Just take it in stages. You asked that it’s deleted.
Gareth Jenkins: Yeah.
Mr Beer: Did you think the computer on which the statement was being typed was not working properly?
Gareth Jenkins: No.
Mr Beer: You were presumably satisfied that your draft witness statement was not inaccurate because of any improper use of the computer on which it was being drafted?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: Put another way, to the best of your knowledge and belief, the computer on which you drafted the witness statement was operating properly at the time?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: If the computer on which you drafted the statement wasn’t operating properly, presumably any such problems with the computer wouldn’t affect the accuracy of the content of the witness statement?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I think so, yeah.
Mr Beer: On what basis, therefore, could you have any doubts as to the truthfulness of the first section highlighted on the right, on the basis of the reason that you have given – you give, as is highlighted in yellow on the left?
Gareth Jenkins: I was just unclear about the whole lot and maybe I must have had some sort of discussion and then, when they said, well, that needs to be in there, then I realised what it must have meant, because that was the only sensible explanation for what that paragraph could mean.
Mr Beer: No, you say; looking back now, your understanding is that the first of the two paragraphs is, as I’ve summarised it, about the operation, the proper operation, of the computers being involved to type up the witness statement?
Gareth Jenkins: Yeah.
Mr Beer: You can’t have honestly have believed that?
Gareth Jenkins: Well, I couldn’t see any other way that that paragraph made any sense.
Mr Beer: Are you trying to explain away the first paragraph on the right-hand side through an explanation on the left-hand side which doesn’t hold substance?
Gareth Jenkins: I think it does hold substance because I couldn’t see it having any sort of meaning in any other form.
Mr Beer: Did you have any reason to believe that the computers involved in collating the ARQ data were not operating properly?
Gareth Jenkins: I had no knowledge of whether they were operating properly or not because I wasn’t using them. I didn’t have access to them.
Mr Beer: So if the first paragraph related to the computers used to obtain the ARQ data, that might be a proper reason for the deletion of that paragraph?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: But that’s not the reason that you give in your witness statement?
Gareth Jenkins: Well, that was part of the – it was the computers involved in the production of that, so not just the typing up but, actually, the extraction of the ARQ data as well, yes.
Mr Beer: Is the truth of the matter that what you explain in this paragraph, 107, one that you’ve come up with after the event to seek to explain away this comment in the draft witness statement that you didn’t think you could include the last two paragraphs?
Gareth Jenkins: I just don’t remember what it was. I certainly did include that paragraph and the only way it can make any sense is with the explanation I’ve come up with.
Mr Beer: Or is the truth of the matter that you know that the first paragraph on the right refers, and was intended to refer, to Horizon, and the truth of the matter is that you didn’t think you could include that first paragraph because you knew that there was no way that you could say that the Horizon system, ie the computer, was operating properly or, if not, any respect in which it was not operating properly wouldn’t affect the information held in it?
Gareth Jenkins: I wouldn’t have referred to the Horizon system as “the computer”; I would have referred to it as “the Horizon system”.
Sir Wyn Williams: Well, you didn’t write it though it, did you?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, but as I say –
Sir Wyn Williams: Well, no, you didn’t write it, did you?
Gareth Jenkins: No.
Sir Wyn Williams: No.
Mr Beer: If we go back to page 1, please. On the right-hand side, if we scroll down, paragraph 1, you say, second line:
“I have been … involved in many aspects of design and implementation of the computer system known as Horizon …”
Isn’t your reference in the last paragraph a reference back to that computer system?
Gareth Jenkins: I didn’t think so.
Sir Wyn Williams: I’m sorry to be persistent but you didn’t write that either, did you?
Gareth Jenkins: I think I probably would have written the first paragraph but I –
Sir Wyn Williams: I thought you told Mr Beer earlier that that was a paragraph suggested to you, and I’m not suggesting it was improper to suggest it to you, simply that it wasn’t you who had written it.
Gareth Jenkins: Right. Okay, I can’t remember exactly who wrote which bits at the time, sorry.
Sir Wyn Williams: All right.
Mr Beer: Can we go back to the last page of the statement on the right – sorry, one page up, the second paragraph in yellow:
“Any records to which I refer in my statement form part of records relating to the business of Fujitsu …”
Why couldn’t you say that?
Gareth Jenkins: Because I thought it was saying that I’d actually extracted them –
Mr Beer: It doesn’t say that – sorry to speak over you. It doesn’t say, “I’ve extracted them”.
Gareth Jenkins: That is what I thought that they were saying.
Mr Beer: So you’re saying that you thought that that last paragraph said that you personally had exacted them and that’s why you didn’t think you could properly say them?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Thank you.
Sir, it’s 3.00 now. I wonder whether that would be an appropriate moment.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, of course. 3.15, yes?
Mr Beer: Thank you very much.
(3.00 pm)
(A short break)
(3.17 pm)
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, Mr Beer?
Mr Beer: Thank you, sir.
Mr Jenkins, can we pick up the chronology with 24 March 2006, in Mr Thomas’ case, by looking at FUJ00122210. If we look at that first page and scroll down, thank you, an email, from Mr Ward to Ms Lowther, copied to Brian Pinder, Mr Baines, Mr Dawkins, and Diane Matthews. So not you at this stage, although we’ll see from the email above in a moment that this was sent on to you.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: He, Mr Ward, says:
“This statement needs more work … I’ve attached a suggested draft with a number of comments (as mentioned previously I think the ‘system failure … normal occurrence’ line is potentially very damaging). It may be worth considering someone from our team taking a statement directly from Gareth (where is he based?)
“Whilst there is some urgency with this, it is more important to get it right and ensure we are not embarrassed at court, which we certainly could be if we produced a statement accepting ‘system failures are normal occurrences’.”
Do you agree that Mr Ward was seeking here directly to influence the contents of your witness statement in criminal proceedings before the Crown Court?
Gareth Jenkins: I think that could be interpreted in that way, yes.
Mr Beer: Do you interpret it in that way?
Gareth Jenkins: I think he was just looking at getting my meaning made clearer, in that I – I can understand why he felt that the term “system failure” was going to be potentially causing embarrassment, and I can understand that the way I was using it was not in the way that he was interpreting it. So I felt that there was the scope for improving the wording.
Mr Beer: He was seeking to influence, do you agree, the contents of your witness statement, as it was presently drafted, because it may be damaging to the prospects of a prosecution?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I think you’d have to … say that, yes.
Mr Beer: And that the Post Office could thereby be embarrassed at court?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: This was sent to you, if we just look up. What did you think by this attempt by the Post Office to attempt to alter your evidence?
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t think I interpreted it in quite that way at the time, I just saw it as being a way of improving the wording of what I had in the statements, rather than being – just trying to alter what I was saying. I just saw it as a way of improving things.
Mr Beer: Let’s look at how he tried to improve it by looking at the attachment, FUJ00122211. Can we go to the second page, please, and scroll down. Stop there.
You had typed in your original email, and it had been cut into a witness statement for you:
“There are three main reasons why a zero value transaction may be generated as part of the banking system …
“The transaction has no financial effect …
“The transaction has been declined by the Bank
“There has been some sort of System Failure. Such failures are normal occurrences.”
If we stop there, he has struck through, either by deletion or by typing over – and the Word system has thereby struck through because its Track Changes – the word “main”, hasn’t he?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: He has added a question:
“If these are the main reasons, what are the rest?”
He has struck through again, in the same way that I’ve just described, either by direct deletion or by highlighting and then typing over:
“There has been some sort of system failure. Such failures are normal occurrences.”
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: He has added some comments in brackets afterwards. This is comments are addressed to you, aren’t they?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I assume so.
Mr Beer: “This a really poor choice of words which seems to accept that failures in the system are normal and therefore may well support the [subpostmaster’s] claim that the system is to blame for the losses!!!!”
You would agree, would you, that the words in brackets there that are highlighted seek to explain the reason for the deletion of the “system failure” reason?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: That’s how it reads and it’s how you would read it.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: It’s how you would have read it at the time, do you agree?
Gareth Jenkins: I think so, yes.
Mr Beer: What did you think of this? Did you think this was an attempt to alter your evidence? If you didn’t think the email was, what about the striking through of passages of your witness statement?
Gareth Jenkins: I saw that as seeking to see whether I was happy to reword it in using less emotive words, and he’s made it very clear that he doesn’t like the words that I’ve used there.
Mr Beer: Does he say, “Can you explain this by using less emotive words”?
Gareth Jenkins: No, he doesn’t.
Mr Beer: Why did you read it or see it as for him seeking for you to use less emotive words.
Gareth Jenkins: Because clearly he didn’t like the words “system failure” and he had made that clear both in the covering email and in the document.
Mr Beer: And by deleting it?
Gareth Jenkins: And by deleting it, yes.
Mr Beer: Did Mr Ward, to your knowledge, have any technical knowledge?
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t believe so but I don’t know.
Mr Beer: At the time, did you consider his conduct to be appropriate?
Gareth Jenkins: I saw him as trying to get – to improve the way that the statement was worded.
Mr Beer: So you thought this was appropriate?
Gareth Jenkins: I didn’t think it was inappropriate at the time.
Mr Beer: You presumably realised that these were very serious matters, these were proceedings in the Crown Court?
Gareth Jenkins: Oh, yes.
Mr Beer: This is your evidence and not his?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: There’s a declaration at the top of the statement, which –
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: – I think you will have read?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: If we go back to that at page 1, that statutory declaration at the top there?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, yes.
Mr Beer: It’s a personal witness statement?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Did you approach anyone within Fujitsu to say, “Is this appropriate, a Casework Manager suggesting changes to my evidence?”
Gareth Jenkins: I may have discussed it with Neneh or Penny, I don’t know – or Brian Pinder – I don’t think I would have discussed it with anyone else.
Mr Beer: If we go back to page 3, and scroll down. We can see that the last two paragraphs, the boilerplate paragraphs, don’t appear there, either as text or as being deleted.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Do you think you had deleted those or you’d removed them when you sent back your previous version?
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Can we go to FUJ00152587, top of page 2, please. You reply to him, sending that marked-up version of the witness statement to you:
“I’ve added some further annotations to your annotations. Does this move us forward?”
Did you regard this as some kind of negotiation in which you were required to haggle with the Post Office about the way in which you described the Horizon system and whether it had defects?
Gareth Jenkins: I suppose in a way I probably did, because that was how I was used to – when writing technical documents, then I would receive comments them and then make up dates based on the comments I’d received, and then update the next draft of the document. So I saw this as being a similar sort of process.
Mr Beer: Do I take it from that that you didn’t regard it as inappropriate to be haggling with the prosecutor over the content of your personal witness statement?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I think you can take it that way.
Mr Beer: Can we look at the attachment that you sent back, asking whether it moved us forwards. FUJ00122216. Now, I think the tracked changes have been lost on this but I think we can make sense of it. If we scroll down, please, paragraph 1, no changes. Paragraph 2, I think we can see a subtle difference of change in text in line 4; can you see that?
Gareth Jenkins: Ah, yes.
Mr Beer: It looks like a smaller font size. Is that likely to be your annotation?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, the “I’m not sure about this, I’ve had nothing to do with producing the spreadsheets”, I think is my text and, in fact, the rest of that paragraph is mine. So I think the original must have ended at “GIJ/03” and I think the “I’m not sure about this” is probably mine as well.
Mr Beer: So the passage which reads:
“I’m not sure about this, I’ve had nothing to do with producing the spreadsheets. All I’ve done is make some statements based on what is in the spreadsheet. I assume that Neneh or Penny produced the spreadsheets, but I have no personal knowledge as to what was included within them and what was excluded. For all I know, you could have typed them up from scratch.”
So you were saying, “I’m unhappy with the four lines that appear beforehand. I don’t want them included”?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: “Because I haven’t produced any of the spreadsheets, I’ve got no personal of what was included or excluded from the spreadsheets: you could have just made them up”?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at the same time as this document, at FUJ00122237. That, on the left-hand side, is the final version of the witness statement, dated 6 April 2006, which the Post Office in their disclosure tell us was the one submitted in the prosecution to the court or disclosed to the court in the prosecution of Mr Thomas, okay?
Gareth Jenkins: Okay, but I’m not aware that you’ve actually signed it.
Mr Beer: No, in this version – well, I might as well ask you now: did you sign a version?
Gareth Jenkins: I can’t remember is the simple answer to that.
Mr Beer: Do you remember them coming to see you?
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t actually remember that, although I can see from the email exchanges referring to “Meeting you a couple of weeks ago” that it must have happened but I’ve no recollection of that meeting.
Mr Beer: Okay, so you would agree that the evidence tends to show that they did come to see you to take a witness statement from you?
Gareth Jenkins: That appears to be what happened, it’s just that I don’t remember the actual meeting.
Mr Beer: Then scroll down, please. If we look at the third paragraph, you say:
“I extracted data from this system …”
That’s the PEAK system.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: “… concerning [the] post office. The data extracted was for all transactions for three specific time periods … From this data, I then extracted all the banking transactions which showed a zero value.”
Then it continues.
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Is it right that you obtained the data from the PEAK?
Gareth Jenkins: That’s what it says there. Therefore, I assume I must have done so.
Mr Beer: The data from the PEAK was not created by the PEAK. It had already been created, captured and attached to the PEAK by someone else, hadn’t it?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I realise that now and, clearly, the PEAK is not a good repository of the data like the ARQ data but I felt that at least what I was saying there was correct, in that I had extracted the data from PEAK, whilst I was unable to say that I had extracted the data from the ARQ system.
Mr Beer: Well, just reading what you say on the left-hand side in paragraphs 2 and 3, you say there was a fault management the system called the PEAK system and then you say:
“I extracted data from this system concerning [the] post office. The data extracted was for all transactions for three specific time periods requested.”
There was no data on the PEAK system for all transactions for the three specific time periods, was there?
Gareth Jenkins: I think there must have been at the time because, if a message store was extracted and put onto the PEAK system, it will have 35 days’ worth of data, so –
Mr Beer: We’re talking at cross purposes. I’m sorry, it’s me. The PEAK system itself doesn’t create that data. It’s not a means of capture of it. We’ve seen the PEAK system used. Sometimes people just attach documents to it –
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, yeah.
Mr Beer: – almost drag them into the PEAK?
Gareth Jenkins: Yeah.
Mr Beer: Is that what had happened here, the three sets of data had been dragged into the PEAK by somebody else?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, it had been.
Mr Beer: So when you say, “I extracted data from the system”, the PEAK system, and the data extracted was for all transactions, what you’re doing is not saying that somebody else had performed the original extraction function?
Gareth Jenkins: Correct.
Mr Beer: How was it any better from what you described on the right-hand side, where you say, “For all I know, you could have typed them up from scratch”?
Gareth Jenkins: Looking at it now I agree but, for some reason, I must have decided that that was all right at the time but I can’t remember why.
Mr Beer: Well, can I press you on that. You clearly rightly, on the right-hand side, say, “I can’t exhibit three sets of ARQs because I’ve had no role in obtaining the data in those ARQs”?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: On the left-hand side, in what appears to be your final statement, you say, “I have extracted that data from the PEAK”. It was no better than on the right-hand side, was it?
Gareth Jenkins: I accept that now but, clearly, I had not thought it through in that way at the time.
Mr Beer: Can we look, please – both those documents can come down – at FUJ00122230. In between those two drafts, you sent this email to Brian Pinder and say:
“Brian,
“I’ve taken the data off the PEAK and carried out my own analysis of it and presented the results in the attached Word document.”
Then there are the ARQs, 401, 459 and 460,which I think are Excel documents, and then a Word document, which is your own analysis; is that right?
Gareth Jenkins: I believe so, yes.
Mr Beer: So again, this not you extracting data, proprietary data from the system, it’s you dragging data captured by somebody else from the PEAK system, correct?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I think the one thing that is slightly different here is that, in the previous case, the spreadsheets had been produced from the raw ARQ data by Neneh or Penny, whilst, in this case, I’d actually extracted the spreadsheets from the PEAKs myself. So I think that’s the subtle difference here but I accept that it’s a very subtle difference.
Mr Beer: Can we look at the first attachment to your email here, where you say, “I’ve … carried out my own analysis of it and presented the results in [a] Word document”, by looking at that attachment. FUJ00122229, your document of 30 March 2006:
“This note is provided as input to a witness statement …
“What I’ve Done
“Penny Thomas provided me with extracts from Audited Data for 3 separate periods.
“I have taken this data and extracted details of all banking transactions and analysed the zero value transactions.”
Here, you’re referring to the data that Penny Thomas has provided you, rather than data which you have dragged from the PEAK system.
Gareth Jenkins: I accept that that’s what that says and I just can’t remember what had actually happened at the time.
Mr Beer: Well, this is under a heading “What I’ve Done”?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: So, presumably, that’s what you did?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes. Sorry, I just can’t remember the details of exactly what was happening at the time.
Mr Beer: Well, you accept here what you’re saying is you’ve in fact used the data provided by Penny Thomas, not the data extracted from the PEAK?
Gareth Jenkins: I can’t explain the difference.
Mr Beer: So, in fact, the analysis on the basis of this document was based on extracts provided for you by Penny Thomas, which you said you were earlier unhappy to rely on, because she could have typed them up from scratch, and then you ended up making a witness statement, if we go back to it, FUJ00122216, that’s the one which said, “For all I know, you could have typed this up from scratch”, yes?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Then you ended up – if we can also display FUJ00122237. So, based on your Word document, you’d, in fact, used the data provided by Penny Thomas. If we scroll down on the left-hand side, you tell us about the PEAK in the second paragraph, and then you say:
“I extracted data from this system concerning [the] post office. The data extracted was for all transactions for three specific time periods …”
That wasn’t true, was it?
Gareth Jenkins: I’m not sure. Whether something had happened between 30 March and 6 April, I just can’t remember.
Mr Beer: Was the wording you used in this final statement here a loincloth to cover up what you had done? You rightly realised that you couldn’t say that you’d extracted the ARQ data nor could you produce it yourself. You said in your Word document that you didn’t in fact analyse data that you’d taken from the PEAK but, as this document makes clear, you’ve used the phrase “I’ve extracted from the PEAK” to paper over what, in fact, had happened?
Gareth Jenkins: If I said there that I extracted it from the PEAK then I would have extracted it from the PEAK but I can’t remember exactly when I did that and how I did that.
Mr Beer: So, if that’s correct, then there’s something else that has occurred after the 30 March document when your analysis was based on Penny Thomas’ data?
Gareth Jenkins: I think there must have been, yes.
Mr Beer: If we go back to just FUJ00122216, on the right-hand side that’s it, and if we can go to page 2, please – and scroll down, thank you – in the paragraph that begins “Should the spreadsheets be regenerated”, three lines in, the statement reads:
“There are three reasons why a zero value transaction may be generated as part of the banking system:
“[1] The transaction has no financial effect …
“[2] The transaction hacks been declined by the bank …”
Then the third reason, “system failure”, has disappeared, hasn’t it?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, and that, I think, is due to the document we looked at earlier.
Mr Beer: Ie it had been deleted in the tracked changes –
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: – by Mr Ward?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: What remains is his addition “This is a really poor choice of words”, and you reply to that in the passage after the brackets; is that right?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, so the version that I would have seen would have had the deleted thing and I’d not twigged that I hadn’t undeleted it or replaced it with something.
Mr Beer: Well, I’m not sure you would have undeleted it because you say, “Can you please suggest something better, then”?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Why were you asking a casework handler to suggest what you should say in a witness statement for proceedings in the Crown Court?
Gareth Jenkins: Because he clearly didn’t like the wording that I was using, so I was asking if he had a better suggestion for me to use.
Mr Beer: Again, did you see it as appropriate to haggle with the prosecutor over the content of your witness statement?
Gareth Jenkins: I didn’t see it as inappropriate at that time but I clearly see now that it was.
Mr Beer: You explain that:
“What we have here are genuine failures of the end-to-end system which are not part of the normal operation, but are anticipated, and, the system is designed to cope with them. Some such failures could be engineered as part of a malicious attack (but that doesn’t apply to those failures that appear in the evidence presented). In all cases the system is designed to identify such failures and handle them in such a way that the Customer, the Postmaster, Post Office and the FIs …”
FIs?
Gareth Jenkins: Financial institutions. It’s a code for banks, basically.
Mr Beer: “… are all clear as to the status of the transaction and any necessary financial reconciliation takes place. I guess one option …”
This is still you speaking, yes?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: “I guess one option is to delete the paragraph since it is purely an introduction to the following more detailed description.”
So, again, was this part of the continuing dialogue that you thought it was appropriate to have as to how to word your witness statement in proceedings before the Crown Court?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, I think it was.
Mr Beer: Can we look, please, at the final witness statement alongside, FUJ00122237, and on the left-hand side scroll down, please – and stop. If we just scroll up a little bit. Thank you. You explain response codes 3, 4, 6 and 8: the financial institution has declined the transaction.
You explain codes 23 and 26, which indicate an unusual response from the financial institution and, again, no cash should change hands.
You say:
“… Response Code 32 indicates the Horizon’s central system has received no response to the financial institution within a timeout period and so no Cash should change hands.”
You then add:
“All these are perfectly normal occurrences and should result in clear instructions being passed to the counter clerk to ensure that no Cash should change hands.”
Just stopping there, it would appear that Mr Ward has been successful in pausing the alteration of your evidence?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes. Well, I still stand by what it actually says there as being an accurate representation of what had actually happened within the system.
Mr Beer: Is that why you were a willing actor in this process?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: Why you went along with his pushback?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes, because it was still accurately reflecting what had actually happened, but using less emotive words, which he clearly wasn’t happy with.
Mr Beer: Then can we see underneath, on the left-hand side, the objectionable last two paragraphs, the ones that, remember, had been marked up in yellow, have been replaced by:
“There is no reason to believe that the information in this statement is inaccurate because of the improper use of the computer. To the best of my knowledge and belief at all material times the computer was operating properly, or if not, any respect in which it was not operating properly, or was out of operation was not such as to affect the information held on it. I hold a responsible position in relation to the working of the computer.”
You told us in your witness statement that that paragraph, which is broadly the first of the two yellow paragraphs in the earlier witness statement, was all about the computer on which you were typing the statement?
Gareth Jenkins: And doing the analysis.
Mr Beer: What do you mean by “and doing the analysis”?
Gareth Jenkins: I was doing some analysis in the Excel spreadsheets that were then attached to the statement.
Mr Beer: What is “the computer” referring to, on two occasions in that witness statement?
Gareth Jenkins: The computer on which I was actually doing those. In other words, the PC on my desk.
Mr Beer: Really? You’re saying your desktop was working properly?
Gareth Jenkins: Yeah.
Mr Beer: So it was typing out the words –
Gareth Jenkins: Yeah.
Mr Beer: – when you typed “All these after perfectly normal occurrences”?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: “The computer” was intended to refer to, here, a computer in the wider sense, wasn’t it? It refers to Horizon, doesn’t it?
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t think I was in a position to say that Horizon was working correctly at the time, as far as this was concerned.
Mr Beer: Why, given what you’d said in your comment on the yellow highlighted paragraph, “These need to be deleted, I can’t say these”, has it now re-emerged?
Gareth Jenkins: Because I must have then understood that it was referring to what I was actually producing the statement on.
Mr Beer: How did you obtain such an understanding?
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t know.
Mr Beer: From whom did you obtain such an understanding?
Gareth Jenkins: I don’t know.
Mr Beer: Can we go back to the email chain, FUJ00152587, and Mr Ward’s reply:
“I do not understand why this statement, which was originally requested on 10 March is taking so long … I appreciate it is slightly unusual, but I do not understand the confusion as I thought I’d made our requirements clear.
“… Gareth’s annotations do not take us forward at all (and I’m sure this is not Gareth’s fault). Gareth has indicated in the attachment below that 3 spreadsheets produced by your team (which show the ‘NIL’ transactions and which were in addition to the usual event and transaction logs) were not produced by him, therefore, as he quite rightly points out, he is not in a position to produce them in his statement.”
In the event, that’s what you ended up doing, producing them in your statement, didn’t you?
Gareth Jenkins: But I got it the information from a different source.
Mr Beer: Ie they were Excel spreadsheets given to you in an email by Penny or Neneh, you didn’t think that was appropriate; they were attached to a PEAK, you took them from the PEAK, and thought that was acceptable?
Gareth Jenkins: The spreadsheets weren’t attached to the PEAK; it was the message store that would have been attached to the PEAK.
Mr Beer: Yes –
Gareth Jenkins: So I had actually extracted the spreadsheets myself and that’s what I thought was the difference.
Mr Beer: He continues:
“As already stated, we urgently need a statement producing these 3 additional spreadsheets explaining in general terms under what circumstances ‘Nil’ transactions occur and in particular how the ‘Nil’ transactions at Gaerwen occurred … The same statement needs to include a paragraph which states there is no evidence of a system failure … in relation to the ‘Nil’ transactions at the office. We do not need to mention ‘system failures being normal occurrences’ if there is no evidence of such a problem at this office.”
Was it because you were sent this email that you modified your evidence?
Gareth Jenkins: I think that’s why I went and extracted the data from PEAK, yes.
Mr Beer: And you modified the contents of your witness statement?
Gareth Jenkins: Well, to reflect that.
Mr Beer: Well, and to delete the “system failures are normal occurrences” line?
Gareth Jenkins: Yes.
Mr Beer: So Mr Ward expressed his concerns on numerous occasions over your wording, including, in your witness statement, “system failures”. He told you that system failures were potentially very damaging to mention. He told you that you should not mention them – “We do not need to mention them” – and that they were a really poor choice of words.
Did all of that pile pressure upon you to remove the reference to “system failures” from your witness statement?
Gareth Jenkins: Clearly, I did that as a result of that, but I was happy with the wording that I ended up with.
Mr Beer: Okay. Did you ever go back to any lawyer within Fujitsu to say, “Look, I’m being embroiled in a criminal prosecution here. I’m being asked to sign witness statements off and there’s this man from the Post Office who is applying pressure on me to change the substance of my evidence”?
Gareth Jenkins: No, I didn’t, but I clearly understand now that I should have done.
Mr Beer: Thank you.
Sir, we would now turn to the Seema Misra case study. It is probably an appropriate moment to take a break. I will be able, comfortably, to finish my questions tomorrow of Mr Jenkins.
Sir Wyn Williams: By “a break”, you mean adjourn for the day, Mr Beer?
Mr Beer: Yes, a long break.
Sir Wyn Williams: A long break. Right.
All right, that’s what we’ll do, and we’ll start again at 9.45 tomorrow?
Mr Beer: It is 9.45, please, yes.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, fine.
Mr Beer: Thank you.
Sir Wyn Williams: Oh, I mentioned last evening, Mr Jenkins, not to talk about your evidence. There shouldn’t be any secret about it: because there was a late disclosure of documents to you, I gave permission for your lawyer to speak to you about it.
The Witness: Thank you.
Sir Wyn Williams: But we’re now back to where we were before that late disclosure, so don’t talk to anyone about your evidence. All right?
The Witness: I understand that. Thank you, sir.
Sir Wyn Williams: All right. Fine.
(3.55 pm)
(The hearing adjourned until 9.45 am the following day)