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Case Study 3
Ethics and Values Workshop
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Please read the following and then discuss with your group. At the end of the session, the document must be returned to Fujitsu Legal.
From 2009, there has been significant publicity and media coverage of the issues between the Post Office and subpostmasters, and allegations regarding issues
with Horizon. However, the Post Office continued to pursue, and FSL continued to support, prosecutions up to 2014
May 2010
Computer
Weekly reports
that the HNG-X
pilot had to be
sealed back
after
@ connectivity
problems and
outages
I May 2009
I Computer Weekly
@ first reports on “plight
of subpostmasters” @
including
bankruptcies,
convictions for false
accounting and theft,
fines, and
imprisonment. Shortly
after, Alan Bates
forms Justice for Sub-
Postmasters Aliance
Early 2012
Group of MPs led by
RtHon James
© Arbuthnot MP raise
concerns with Post
Office over the
reliability of Horizon
after being
approached by JFSA
June 2012
POL appoints
Second Sight,
an independent
firm of forensic
accountants, to
audit Horizon’s
integrity
February
2011
Journalist Nick
Wallis fronts a
BBC Inside Out
investigation into
SPM claims that
they were being
blamed for
shortfalls
caused by the
Horizon system
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July 2013
Second Sight
publishes interim
report, highlighting
instances where
BEDs in the system
caused incorrect
balances in branches
This prompts Nick
I Wallis’s first blog post
February 2015
BEIS Select
Committee hearing.
POL confirmed to the
Select Committee
that “neither it nor
Fujitsu can edit
© transaction data
without the
knowledge of a
‘Subpostmaster”
March2015
POL closes Second
investigation days before the
final report was due for
publication and ordered
‘Second Sight to hand over
oF destroy all its investigative
material
.
August 2015
knowing
April 2015
Second Sight’s final report leaked to the
press, stating that POL had been too quick to
take legal action against SPMs. In response,
the Post Office publishes an 83-page report
of its own, claiming that Second Sights
claims were wrong and denying system-wide
problems with Horizon
Computer Weekly reported that @
whistleblower had claimed that Horizon used
@ bespoke asynchronous communication
system that could be overwriting data
e
BBC Panorama: Trouble
at the Post Office aired,
in which Richard Roll
suggested FSL were able
to remotely insert
transactions in branches °
without postmasters
April 2016
‘Subpostmasters
started the Group
Litigation - Bates v
Post Office.
November 2015
Computer Weekly reports that
Post Office IT support sent an
email to a member of the
postmasters’ branch of the
Communications Workers Union
(CWU) mentioning a known
software flaw (the Daimellington
bug) that could lead to
subpostmasters submitting
inaccurate accounts. In an email
to another postmaster, Atos —
which provides IT support to the
post office ~ described the
problem and said it had happened
before
2020
Criminal
investigation
into two FSL
witnesses
opened
Non-statutory
inquiry
launched
’ 2021
Statutory inquiry
launched
December 2019
Post Office and the postmasters
settled the litigation
Judgment criticises FSL and reveals,
potential failings from a technical,
business, leadership, legal and
cultural perspective
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e In mid-2012, the Post Office appointed Second Sight Services Limited (a forensic investigation firm) to conduct a review of Horizon in response to the
criticisms that had been raised. At around the same time, the Post Office initiated a mediation process with the SPMs to compensate them for any losses
or harm suffered. In March 2015, the Post Office terminated Second Sight’s mandate and subsequently published its final report on the mediation
scheme denying systemic problems with Horizon.
e In April 2015, the Post Office emailed FSL’s Public Relations Manager flagging that the Post Office had completed a full response to Second Sight’s
report as they could not endorse it. The email noted that the Post Office was going to pre-emptively contact journalists based on past experiences of
leakage and that news about the Post Office’s future IT contract was likely to become public. FSL’s Public Relations Manager forwarded the email on,
copying an FSL Comms and PR employee, who then replied:
“It is what it is, but this will likely blow up into a bigger story than it deserves to:
o “Post Office hid information from investigators”
o “Miscarriage of justice on these poor subpostmasters”
© “Collusion by Post Office (& Fujitsu?)”
and the one we need to avoid at all costs:
o “Fujitsu fired by Post Office after “proof” that their system did not work, leading to the suicide & false imprisonment of poor subpostmasters”
We need to distance ourselves from this report as much as possible... and also we would not want it getting out that we are no longer competing for the
contract, for as long a gap as possible...
[X] - is it worth tipping off Japan...?”
e We have not seen any indication of these concerns being escalated to Fujitsu Japan.
¢ FSL also worked closely with the Post Office preparing responses to questions posed by the BBC leading up to the Panorama program in 2015, including
editing draft responses prepared by the Post Office. FSL senior management were also briefed by the FSL Comms and PR employee about the
upcoming programme. That employee noted “Fujitsu have also decided NOT to make any comment nor give an interview — as usual, standing behind our
customer, as per our commercial contract with them, and as per precedent over the last 16+ years. We did however provide the Post Office with all the
information it required to respond to the allegations.”
¢ There was recurring and sometimes graphic negative publicity focusing on alleged flaws in Horizon and their possible impact on alleged wrongful
convictions and other potential injustices. Despite this, no thorough review or risk evaluation was conducted to assess and identify necessary changes, if
any, to Horizon or FSL’s practices, its role regarding prosecution support services (including taking directions from the Post Office), and any potential
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exposure to FSL and its individual employees. FSL’s focus throughout this period remained on supporting the Post Office as an important customer and
providing the Post Office with all assistance in rebutting the allegations being made, without questioning the approach.
e Earlier intervention could have impacted the evidence given in the Group Litigation and therefore the findings and observations in relation to Fujitsu and
the Fujitsu Witnesses — Mr. Justice Fraser commented in his judgment “Fujitsu do not...appear to me to have properly and fully investigated these myriad
problems, nor did Fujitsu categorise such incidents correctly. They also seem to have moved away, in their investigations, from concluding that there
were any issues with the software wherever it was possible for them to do so, regardless of evidence to the contrary, an approach that has been carried
into the Fujitsu evidence for the Horizon Issues trial’.
Discussion Points
Consider the following questions from the perspective of a member of the Post Office Account Team, and then separately as an employee of FSL who is not
connected to the Post Office.
« At what point would you have had concerns based on the media timeline?
e Where would you have raised your concerns, and are you confident positive action would have been taken?
¢ With hindsight, what should have been done in relation to these events?
Disclaimer - these case studies are based on facts and events that occurred within FSL over the past 25 years. However, some of the names of FSL employees have
been anonymized and some of the events and roles have been modified or composited for the purpose of this exercise to encourage discussions around key themes
that have arisen during the course of Project Holly and the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry.
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