POL00069404 - Email from Stephen Dilley to Brian Pinder (Fujitsu) re: Post Office Limited v Lee Castleton

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POL00069404
POL00069404

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Stephen Dilley

From: Stephen Dilley
Sent: 31 October 2006 16:04
To: ‘Pinder Brian’

Ce:

Subject: Post Office Limited -v- Lee Castleton
Importance: High

Dear Brian,

One of the witnesses in the Castleton case is Greg Booth who was the temporary sub-
postmaster at Marine Drive branch from 21 April to 28 May 2004. Greg is currently the
manager of the Newbury Post office branch, 401 Scalby Road, Scarborough, YO12 6TQ.

Greg spoke to me last week and reported that his computer froze on Wed 25 or Thurs 26
October 2006 (I will clarify which day) whilst he was serving a customer and part way through a
transaction. The transaction had not been settled. It related to a postage label. When he
logged back in again, the computer had lost the transaction of £1.27. The computer did

not prompt him to try to recover it. Greg is away this week, but I will be contacting him upon
his return to obtain a supplemental witness statement about this point. Prior to then, Greg's
evidence was that he had never know the system to lose a transaction. In this particular case,
Greg was £1.27 up because he had taken money from a customer. However, I anticipate the
reverse would have happened if he had been paying money out.

Although this is for a small amount, the principle on the face of it seems concerning because it
suggests that the Horizon system can, (albeit rarely), lose transactions. Castleton's solicitors
will try to exploit any weakness and we must be prepared for a possible attack on this point.
Our Counsel has requested that Fujitsu review the Newbury Post Office's Horizon data for those
days period to see if you can tell whether the system froze and lost the transaction and what
the explanation may be.

We have to serve Witness Statements very shortly. I will have to prepare a supplemental
Witness Statement for Greg Booth dealing with this and may possibly need to take a further
Witness Statement from somebody at Fujitsu, depending on your explanation. Accordingly, I
would be grateful if you could look into this and come back to me as a matter of urgency.

Kind regards.
Yours sincerely
Stephen Dilley
Solicitor

for and.on behalf of Bond Pearce LLP
DDI: : GRO

www.bondpearce.com

31/10/2006