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Burges) _fieldfisher
Salmon
Mr Segun Jide and
Ms Laura Smith
Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry 5th
Floor,
Aldwych House,
71-91 Aldwych,
London,
WC2B 4HN
Direct Line:
‘Chis jacksong
By email: Solicitor@postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk
Our ref: CJ01/65113.1 2 November 2023
Dear Mr Jide (and Ms Smith),
Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry: Post Office Disclosure: Structural Update as Incoming RLR:
We write further to our letter of 1st September and in advance of our meeting on 3rd November. We,
and I personally, affirm the commitments made in that letter’.
We welcome the opportunity to discuss these issues, to provide an update, and to discuss with you
and with your other Inquiry team colleagues the ways in which Post Office and its external legal
advisers can best support the Inquiry.
We thought therefore that it would be helpful to write in advance of the meeting to provide a brief
update on certain key issues.
We are conscious that there necessarily continues to be ongoing detailed correspondence, relating
both to formal notices that have been served, and the position overall. The purpose of this letter is
not to duplicate or to cut across those, but rather to set context for the discussion on Friday, which
we hope is helpful.
We have also received on 31 October the Rule 9 request for a witness statement December with a
view to a potential hearing during January. The details requested will be covered in full in the
statement requested. Many of the issues cross-over with those summarised below.
Agenda for meeting on 3 November
1. We note that a number of topics that Post Office wished to discuss with the Inquiry are not
included on the revised agenda. Post Office recognises the need to make best use of the time
,-available and so will pick up a number of its proposed agenda items separately, including the
irrevevant! On that matter, on reflection, we would instead suggest a smaller separate discussion
between members of our team and the Solicitor to the Inquiry's team, or between Counsel as
has previously been the case.
2. However, Post Office considers that it would be helpful to include under the Inquiry's agenda
points (perhaps item 2) the matters set out under "Approach to Disclosure" below and to refer,
* Including those at paragraphs 3 and 10 and the final paragraph.
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even if only briefly, to some of the other items under that heading in our original agenda
(Harvesting of additional repositories and third partymaterial). We hope that the Inquiry will be
content with that.
3. We have already separately provided, as requested, somedetails about the issues that Post
Office wishes to raise under the Inquiry's agenda item 5.
Overview and Objectives
4. We understand, that in terms of timing and process, the Inquiry is seeking to conclude
hearings by Summer 2024.
5. The obligation to provide most of the disclosure and evidence and necessarily falls upon
Post Office. Some of the factors involved in that are summarised in paragraphs 10 and 11 of
our letter of 1st September.
6. Post Office’s objective in suggesting operational (formal and minuted) meetings with the
Inquiry, including this Friday’s meeting, is to set outtransparently the current position, how
those factors play out operationally, and to seek engagement in order to maximise the
effectiveness of Post Office’s input to the Inquiry.
Approach to Disclosure
7. In advance of the meeting, we wished to draw together some of the threads from the detailed
updates which the Inquiry has been receiving from HSF.
8. Avery significant amount of work has been carried outby Post Office and all of its external
advisers. As at the date of Gregg Rowan's evidence on 5 September, HSF had a team of
over 160 people working on this matter. HSF continues toundertake a substantial amount of
work with a large team, working with Peters & Peters. Between Burges Salmon and
Fieldfisher we have a team of a similar size to HSF. These are very substantial teams even
for firms of this size.
9. The work to gather documents since the Inquiry's establshment has resulted in a very large
document pool (60 million plus documents) and intensive work in response to incoming Rule
9 and Section 21 Notices. The amount and depth of sourceinformation available to assist in,
and evidentially underpin, the exposure of the truth onthe TOR issues by the Inquiry is
therefore very significant.
10. Further, the structural review, and related ongoing work (referred to by Diane Wills at
paragraphs 18 and 108 of her second witness statement ard paragraph 13 of our letter of 1%
September) has continued. The understanding by Post Offe of its data universe continues
to evolve along with its knowledge of the component aspects of its Relativity database (for
reasons set out in paragraph 11(e) of our letter dated 1 September. This will in reality be an
Ongoing process.
11. The consequence is that data sources have been, and contnue to be, identified and the
potential relevance of which will need to be assessed. PostOffice believes that its
understanding is now significantly advanced. However, becauseof factors set out at
paragraph 11 of our letter dated 1 September and ako difficulties with the availability of
corporate memory within technical (IT) functions, the development of Post Offices’
understanding, and the potential relevance of, furtherrepositories, other data sources, and
material not yet either fully harvested or fully reviewed, continues.
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12. The Inquiry is aware from the detailed updates given by HSF of some of these items. Those
categories include:
a.
b.
29
Hard copy material
Electronic information stored on physical eMedia
i. back-up tapes in Winchester (in part prioritised for review for phase 4
witnesses)
ii. servers and back-up tapes in Chesterfield
iii. I CDs, thumb drives and flash drives
Compensation/Remediation evidence (summarised in our etter of 20 October 2023)
Email data recently established to have not been captured by Mimecast harvesting
(latest update in relation to the email data recently established to be held on
Microsoft Exchange servers at paragraphs 54 to 59 of HSF’s etter of 20 October
2023)
13. Post Office can discuss further each of these categories a the meeting. However, in this
letter we expand briefly on the Microsoft Exchange/Mimecast issue given its potential
significance. The summary below reflects the best of our understanding (in this case as an
external legal team). Investigations continue and we wil update the Inquiry as further
understanding develops, including any changes.
14. Our understanding is that Post Office, from the pont approximately of demerger from Royal
Mail Group in 2012, operated an email gateway platfarm similar to Mimecast called
Proofpoint which, amongst other things, created an arctive of all emails sent from or to
postoffice.co.uk email addresses (sometimes known as ‘journaling'). As with other email
gateway platforms this was intended, and presumably believed, to capture all emails sent
and received along with attachments during its period d operation.
15. We understand that the technology behind the interaction of these email systems is complex
and still being investigated. However, subject to that, our current understanding is that
Microsoft Exchange (and before that Lotus Notes) is the erterprise mail server that serves
individual mailboxes as accessed by users through email applicdions such as Microsoft
Outlook. Mimecast (and before that Proofpoint) operates as an additional gateway between
Microsoft Exchange and the onward or inward transmissionof emails and in doing so
performs various functions including journalling of all nbound and outbound emails as well
as providing additional security and resilience features. Conceptually, platforms such as
Mimecast should contain the fullest possible record of inbound and outbound emails,
particularly given that they have much longer retention periods than Microsoft Exchange. By
comparison, unless litigation holds have been applied, Mcrosoft Exchange mailboxes
generally contain emails accessible within live email applications or only recently deleted
emails.
16. Around 2016 Mimecast was introduced and we understard that Proofpoint data was
migrated into Mimecast. On that logic there should have been continuity of email data in
Mimecast from 2012 onwards. We understand therefore tha Mimecast was used as the
source for email harvesting for the Inquiry and also forthe GLO. We understand that 300+
email accounts have been harvested from Mimecast into thevarious parts of the Relativity
database for the various phases of the Inquiry.
17. However, queries by HSF relating to the account of Andrew Wise, and in parallel queries
from BSFFf in the course of work on the section 21 (03) notice have led to investigations by
Post Office and by/with KPMG. Those have now established that there are material volumes
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of email data that are in Microsoft Exchange but that are not in Mimecast (and which
therefore have not been available for search). Post Offce has not been able to establish
why the Proofpoint to Mimecast transfer did not provide the assumed
continuity/completeness.
18. The total scale of this issue is not known because theemail boxes harvested for all Phases
to date have been taken from Mimecast. Post Office is currently investigating the number of
custodians in respect of whom any emails are available on MS Exchange.
19. An indication of scale is however available from analysis from KPMG carried out by them at
the instruction of BSFf and Post Office against the 13 of the 19 individuals named in the
section 21 (03) Notice identified to have had Exchange accaunts (6 of the 19 individuals do
not appear to have had Exchange accounts). The latest andysis indicates that there are
approximately 363k parent emails that are not held in Mmecast. That is after deduplication
following the standard forensic deduplication approach. That does not indicate the number of
documents that are potentially responsive to section 21 (08), or which require review.
20. In the light of those findings, the 13 (S21(03)) named email accounts are being reviewed. We
will discuss at the meeting the approach that we are taking to prioritisation and de-duplication
in the first instance to maximise the speed of that review to get any further responsive
evidence to the inquiry. We will also explain the further steps available after that prioritised
review. The steps and the interaction between them ard critical path (and resource relative
to other key Inquiry priorities) fall into the category of operational key issues on which we
hope to be able to engage to agree the approach whichbest meets the Inquiry’s objectives.
Irrelevant to 12 January 2024 disclosure hearing
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Irrelevant to 12 January 2024 disclosure hearing
We hope that the overview in this letter is helpful in framing the context for the discussion on 3%
November and, Post Office hopes, ongoing operationd engagement to maximise the effectiveness of
its support for the inquiry in its essential work.
We look forward to speaking tomorrow.
Yours sincerely
Chris Jackson
Partner
BURGES SALMON
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