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JONATHAN LORD MP
HOUSE OF COMMONS
LONDON SW1A 0AA
Tel: I
Mr Davinder Misra
JGCL/RP/
08 December 2010
Dear Mr Misra
l enclose a copy of a letter that I have today written to the Director of HMP Bronzefield, concerning
your wife, Seema.
1am also in touch with the Independent Monitoring Boards, who are responsible for overseeing
prisons, who may be able to investigate your concerns if the Prison does not provide a satisfactory
response.
I have also enclose a copy of a response I have received from the Minister, Edward Davey MP, about
his meeting with Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance.
I will be in touch again when I have heard further.
Yours sincerely
Jonathan Lord MP
Member of Parliament for Woking
0.9, L tame jose hemor Ther a renter 8 Me
defen dent Hei keving Boar wr vith Gore dle.
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Representing Woking Constituency
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Helga Swidenbank
Director, HMP Bronzefield
JGCL/RP/
08 December 2010
Dear Ms Swidenbank
Re: Mrs Seema Misra o'
1am writing to you about my above named constituent, who is a prisoner at Bronzefield.
Her husband has raised several concerns with me, which I understand have been passed on to.
members of your staff.
Both my constituents feel that their concerns have not been appropriately dealt with and I hope
that you will be able to write to me to confirm, that suitable measures are being taken to resolve
Another concern that iz
--which. 1am told, is the in the prison. I gather that she hag.
at she should be
1 do hope you will look into these concerns and get back to me quickly.
look forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely
Jonathan Lord MP
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Department for Business
Innovation & Skills
Edward Davey MP
Minister for Employment Relations,
Consumer and Postal Affairs
BIS
Jonathan Lord MP Our ref: 222489
House of Commons Your ref'J@CL/RP/
London
SW1A OAA
( b december 2010
Jonsthen ,
Thank you for your letters of 27 October and of 24 November.enclosina...
correspondence from your constituent, Mrs Seema Misra of GRO
f I the former subpostmistréss at West
Byfleet. I apologise for the delay in replying.
I have met representatives of the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance (JFSA)
and a number of points raised at that meeting are being followed up on my
behalf. I did however make clear at the meeting that neither I nor the
Department could intervene in cases which were sub judice or where court
action had been determined, as in Mrs Misra’s case.
Whilst the JFSA blames the Horizon system for the financial discrepancies
and shortages which have led to a number of subpostmasters having their
contracts terminated and subsequent court action, Post Office Ltd (POL)
continues to express full confidence in the integrity and robustness of the
Horizon system. They base this on the fact that Horizon has been operating
for 10 years and typically processes 230 million transactions a month from
over 30,000 counter positions in nearly 12,000 post office branches.
POL also categorically states that there is no remote access to the system or
to individual branch terminals which would allow accounting records to be
manipulated in any way. In addition, I understand that all system activity,
down to the individual key stroke, is also recorded into a separate vaulted
transaction file with every record encrypted and written to the log and with
each record having a unique incrementing sequence number. This log is
retained on a separate server independent of Horizon, is retained for at least
1 Victoria Street, London SW1H OET
www.bis.gov.uk
GRO Contact us www.bis.gov.uk/contact-us
seven years, cannot be altered in any way and all access to it is securely
controlled, This approach is consistent with that of banking systems and
provides a fully secure audit file which can show all system activity down to a
single keystroke in a particular branch. { further understand that Mrs Misra’s
defence did in fact utilise an IT expert as regards comments made about the
Horizon system before the Court reached its decision in her case.
EDWARD DAVEY
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