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Date
STRICTLY PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL Se Apri 2028
Economic Crime Unit poe re erect
Lancashire Constabulary London
EC2V 7AN
Blackburn Police Station
Whitebirk Drive
Blackburn
BB1 3HT
Classification:
Private
Thank you for your email dated 29" February 2024, the contents of which is duly
noted.
Post Office Limited (POL) Legal have reviewed the reasoning for not progressing
ito a charging decision. It is not for POL to influence the independence
of the investigation or the assessment of evidence in any case, however, the reasoning
around the credibility of the Horizon system seems to be a significant factor, if not the
central factor, in the reasoning for not progressing this investigation further and that
reasoning appears to be based on a misinterpretation of the findings of courts.
POL have been asked to address three questions in respect of the decision to No
Further Action this matter; POL hopes that the information provided below in respect
of these questions is sufficient to assist with a review of that decision. The questions
posed are:
(a) the new Horizon system is much more reliable that the old system
(b) evidence that a Court has ruled so
(c) (c) that the new system was installed and in place at th i eS G RO I Post Office
from 2021 onwards.
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Question (c
We can confirm tha I Branch was operating the HNG-A version of
Horizon.
Questions (a) and (b
The Horizon Issues Judgment (“HU”)(attached) is the judgment of Mr Justice Fraser
where, in short, he found there to be numerous bugs errors and defects affecting the
Horizon system that were capable of generating unexplained shortfalls in branch
accounts (as well as other matters). In the HJ, Fraser J made clear that it was important
to distinguish between the versions of the system in use from 2000 to 2018 and the
HNG-A system being used thereafter (i.e. today); paragraph 964 reads:
“The Post Office has been very concerned as to the outcome of this litigation
on its wider business. It described the group litigation as long ago as its
Opening Submissions in November 2018 for the Common Issues trial as
representing “an existential threat” to that business. I do not consider that these
answers to the Horizon Issues represent a significant threat to the Post Office’s
entire business. Findings in this judgment as to the performance and
robustness of Legacy Horizon from 2000 to 2010, and then of Horizon
Online (in both its forms, HNG-X and HNG-A) from 2010 to 2018 are not
findings on the Horizon system as it exists at the date of this judgment.
These findings cannot be routinely applied to the way that HNG-A operates
as at December 2019. It is agreed by the experts that the Horizon System in
its HNGA form is now relatively robust. This judgment is a historical analysis
of the Horizon System as it relates to the period in question in the group
litigation, not a judgment upon Horizon HNG-A as it is today.” [Our
emphasis].
Regarding the “robustness” of the current HNG-A system; Frazer J said this at
paragraph 936:
“Il consider, as explained in the Technical Appendix, that Legacy Horizon was
not robust, and that although Horizon Online in its HNG-X form was better than
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Legacy Horizon (not least, I consider, because Riposte was no longer part of
Horizon) its robustness was questionable and did not justify the confidence
placed in it by the Post Office in terms of its accuracy. HNG-A is a different
matter, and the experts are agreed that it is far more robust than Horizon in
earlier times. On the face of the relevant KEL, it is not possible to say whether
the Drop and Go bug, number 28 in the Bug Table, which occurred in June 2017,
was HNG-X or HNG-A. However, if the latter, it is one of only two such items
in the Bug Table that relate to the existing version of the Horizon system.” [Our
emphasis]
And in respect of bugs, errors or defects at paragraph 969:
“Further, all the evidence in the Horizon Issues trial shows not only was there
the potential for this to occur, but it actually has happened, and on numerous
occasions. This applies both to Legacy Horizon and also Horizon Online. It has
happened under both the HNG-X and HNG-A iterations of the Online system,
but far less frequently under the latter than the former. Indeed, there are only
isolated instances of it happening in respect of HNG-A, which the experts
agree is a better system than either of the other two iterations of Horizon.”
[Our emphasis]
When answering the direct question of Robustness, Fraser J stated at paras 974/5:
Issue (3): To what extent and in what respects is the Horizon System “robust”
and extremely unlikely to be the cause of shortfalls in branches?
Answer: This issue or question is in two parts. I shall deal with them
sequentially. The first is the extent and in what respects the Horizon system is
“robust”. The experts are agreed that HNG-A is relatively robust, and I have
found that the system as it is in 2019 is far more robust than it was prior to
2017.[Our emphasis]
Lancashire Police may have noted that the proposed legislation by the government to
exonerate all Postmasters prosecuted by POL acknowledges in the Explanatory Notes
at paragraph 42 that:
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“Subsection 2(2) sets out Condition A which is that the offence was alleged to
have been committed between specified dates. The first date - 23 September
1996 — is the date on which the Horizon pilot system began to be rolled out to
post office branches. The final date - 31 December 2018 — marks the point at
which the rollout of the current version of the Horizon System (HNG-A) was
concluded. The HNG-A system was found in the Government Litigation Order
High Court case to be “relatively robust”. The Department is not aware of any
cases prosecuted by CPS or Post Office Limited involving the HNG-A system
and therefore has concluded that there is no reasonable case to extend the
period beyond the conclusion of the use of the previous versions of Horizon.
This range of dates therefore encompasses the whole timeframe of the Horizon
scandal.” [Our emphasis]
So it is apparent that the HI) makes a clear distinction between the versions of the
system at the heart of the Horizon scandal and the system currently being used by
POL in the branch concerned with th
GRO _jinvestigation.
It is important to recognise the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division)’s (“CACD”)
interpretation of the HI (which it accepted in its entirety) when it was considering the
appeals of conviction in Horizon cases. There are numerous judgments where the
CACD opine on whether a case is a “Horizon case” but the leading judgment is that in
Hamilton & Ors (attached).
In Hamilton, the CACD defined a case as a “Horizon case” where the reliability of
Horizon data was essential to the prosecution, in that there was no independent or
corroborative evidence of an actual loss from the branch account as opposed to a
shortfall where Horizon evidence formed part of the evidence of the shortfall or
corroborated other evidence.
In the judgment of White & Others (attached) the CACD went on to clarify their
position at paragraph 5:
“We have consistently used, and will continue to use, the shorthand term
“Horizon case” to refer to a case in which the reliability of Horizon data was
essential to the prosecution because there was no evidence of the alleged
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shortfall other than the balance shown by Horizon, and in which there was no
independent evidence of an actual loss from the branch account at the post
office concerned, as opposed to a Horizon-generated shortfall.”[Our
emphasis]
It is important to note that the Horizon scandal relates specifically to POL prosecutions
of Postmasters for shortfalls in their branch accounts where the only evidence to prove
the loss was a reliance on data from the horizon system. It further relates to the POL’s
failure to investigate lines of inquiry and failure to disclose to Postmaster Defendants,
issues with the Horizon system that may have undermined the prosecution case or
assisted the Defendants. Horizon does not appear to the be the only evidence of the
matters reported inI
The decision to NFA the investigation appears to be based on the public perception of
the scandal and the versions of Horizon in use at the time of the scandal. It is not clear
whether the CPS EIA have considered the written judgments of the Horizon scandal
when assessing that the undermining issues in the case outweigh the realistic
prospect of conviction. The HIJ does not assess the reliability of Horizon HNG-A data
but as explained above, it does recognise that it is significantly more robust than the
versions that were at the heart of the scandal. Further, the CACD have reviewed many
appeals of convictions and made clear that the safety of those convictions, even
though the evidence relied upon was taken from the versions of Horizon that were the
subject of the HU, are not unsafe where there is other evidence of the offence being
committed or where the Horizon data was used to corroborate other evidence (or vice-
versa).
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In accordance with POL policy, this investigation has been conducted by Lancashire
Police and so POL do not have the benefit of all the evidence in respect of the above
matters and the significance of the Horizon evidence. However, POL has supplied
CCTV footage from the branch that tends to show that large amounts of cash, often
POL understands to b
IRRELEVANT
outside of trading hours, being handed to the
presenting himself as the Officer in Charge
j by a single customer.
POL believes that the Horizon data is evidence of the date, time and value of these
large transactions coming into and exiting the Post Office and that the CCTV footage
corroborates these transactions and the suspicious circumstances in which they take
place (and vice-versa).
The Horizon data and CCTV should be further corroborated by the transactional data
bev is independent company to POL and their systems
are independent of the Horizon system. If Lancashire Police have obtained evidence
1 this could independently corroborate the Horizon data that
captures a transaction and that may represent the corroborative evidence that the
CACD have stated would not be a “horizon case”.
If the defence were to challenge the reliability of Horizon data, which POL accepts is
highly likely, the prosecution would be entitled to rely upon the findings of Fraser J and
the CACD as set out above.
Following the discovery of suspicions relating to r
A full branch audit (the term in use at
“Which found that the branch had
a cash shortfall of! Lancashire Police have been provided with a copy of
the audit report produced by the Lead Auditor who conducted this audit.
POL have also provided a detailed analysis report (for intelligence only) that reviews
ducted at the branch between I
The report reveals several important matters:
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IRRELEVANT
POL will happily supply an evidential version of this report to demonstrate and
corroborate why POL believe that Horizon was reporting correctly throughout the
period in question.
POL understands that financial analysis by Lancashire Police of
bank accounts has identified an account with a balance of circa
is unable/willing to explain the source of. It is further understood that these funds have
been restrained by the courts. POL believe that the source of these funds could be
POL.
In light of the above explanations in respect of the HU and the CACD’s judgments,
POL invite Lancashire Police to review the reasoning for the NFA decision as it appears
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to be based on misconceptions of the horizon scandal and the reliability of the
evidence from the current Horizon system in the circumstances of this case. POL will
continue to support this investigation and POL Legal remains available to the CPS EIA
to discuss the legal points raised herein if that would be of assistance.
John Bartlett
Director of Assurance & Complex Investigation
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