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Agenda for meeting on 6 June 2006 at Fujitsu
Between
Brian Pinder Fujitsu
Anne Chambers Fujitsu
Graham Ward Post Office Limited
Stephen Dilley Bond Pearce LLP
Adrian Bratt Bond Pearce LLP
Mared Hughes Hugh James
(1) Stephen Dilley - outline of the Castleton dispute
Lee Castleton was a Sub-Postmaster at 14 Marine Drive, Bridlington, YO15 3DB (the Marine Drive
branch) between 18 July 2003 to 23 March 2004. His Contract for services states that he is strictly
responsible for the safe custody of cash and stock, obliged to make good all losses caused through his
own negligence, carelessness or error and losses of any kind caused by his assistants and that his
responsibility does not cease when he relinquished his appointment and that he remains obliged to make
good any losses incurred during his term of office which subsequently came to light.
Between 18 July 2003 and 25 March 2004, net losses of £27,115.83 occurred at the Marine Drive branch.
Castleton’s case is that any shortfall is entirely the fault of problems with the Horizon computer and
accounting system at Marine Drive branch and that the P.O wrongfully terminated his Contract in respect
of which he has suffered loss not exceeding £250,000.
(2) Mared Hughes - outline of Bajaj and Bilkhu disputes
(3) Horizon (general issues)
(a) We need to explain to a Judge who will know nothing about Horizon exactly how it works. What
precisely happens when a customer goes into a Post Office to buy an item? How is this recorded? Is it
manually recorded into the Horizon system at the same time or later in the day? Is the cash register
linked to Horizon?
(b) If there have been human errors in recording the transactions, could an explanation be that:
i. There was nothing wrong with Horizon, because it simply reflected the information entered on to
it; but
ii. If staff entered the wrong numbers into Horizon there may have been no real loss (even though
Horizon would show a loss), because there could be a human error in accurately recording
transactions.
If so, would that be a likely explanation?
(4) Mr Castleton’s specific allegations (see attached document for more detail)
Mr Castleton states that he encountered the following problems with the Horizon system:
(a) the 2 computer terminals did not communicate with each other properly;
(b) 1 or other of both terminals tended to freeze, i.e failed to lock up in respond to commands, requiring
a re-boot;
(c) display of 1 or other of both terminals would go blank before returning to the sale screen;
(d) electronic swipe card of one or other of both terminals, used to read a customer's payment card,
failed to read the card properly;
(e) the Horizon system "rolled over" cash figures, giving an OHCH figure that was 4 to 5 times as big as
the actual cash declaration for the day;
(f) the Horizon system would "lose" i.e failed to record transactions.
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Mr Castleton maintains that if the Horizon system missed a transactional piece of information, that would
alter the balance recorded on it. For example, if Horizon failed to record a payment out, there will be less
actual cash at the branch than the amount of cash recorded on the system.
Furthermore, if a cheque paid in is inputted into the Horizon system and the system sends that data off
site, but loses the information locally, when Castleton prints a cheque report to be sent with a bundle of
cheques to be sent away, he alleges that the report will not correspond to the number of cheques present.
We need to explain whether there is any evidence of the above problems and irrespective of this, what
the effect would have been if they had existed.
(5) Action taken by Fujitsu re Marine Drive Branch
(a) Review of call logs.
(b) What steps Fujitsu took to examine the Horizon system at the Marine Drive Post Office in 2004 and
what their conclusions were.
(c) Whether there have been any similar or serious problems with the Horizon system at the Marine Drive
Post Office since Mr Castleton’s suspension and dismissal.
(6) AOB
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