1.
2.
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Witness Name: Brian Trotter
Statement No: WITN00980100
Dated: 4 January 2023
POST OFFICE HORIZON IT INQUIRY
FIRST WITNESS STATEMENT OF BRIAN TROTTER
I, Brian Trotter, will say as follows:
In making this statement I would like to acknowledge the importance of the
Horizon Inquiry and to offer my full co-operation to Sir Wyn Williams in his
investigation of relevant issues. I would also like to express my sympathy to
all those who were affected.
To confirm why I am providing this statement, on 8 September 2022 I
received a written request from the Post Office Horizon Inquiry for me to
provide a written statement pursuant to Rule 9 of the Inquiry Rules 2006 —
Request 1. This Request contained 21 questions which the Inquiry asked me
to address in my statement. For ease of reference, I have written out each
question with its corresponding question number.
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Question 1: Describe your role at the Post Office.
Area Manager
4. Between 1995 and 2005 I had two roles within the Post Office which were the
same in all but the title. These roles were in the ‘Agency Network’ division
and were essentially Area Manager roles where I looked after agency
branches.
5. Initially, this role included visiting branches as determined by the Head of
Retail network usually once a year and dependent on branch size I would
also manage sites’ adherence to business standards. This could be done by
face to face visits, telephone or written correspondence. This management
activity would be triggered by a wide range of issues, including customer
complaints or post masters asking for assistance, which was mainly via the
National Business Support Centre helpline
6. This role did not deal with quality assurance or training. However, I supported
the roll-out of Horizon by supporting Postmasters with their first balance post
implementation of Horizon. Agents would already have had some training,
but I would go in person to the site and ‘hand-hold’ the Post Masters through
the Horizon balancing process in the first week. Other than this, I had no
involvement with Horizon apart from using it myself when I occasionally
worked on centrally managed counters during strike action or busy periods.
There was a structure in place to deal with transaction-based issues or
system issues and if individuals had a problem with Horizon systems they
should have been sent to the Helpline or I would refer them to specialist
teams in the central support function of the Post Office.
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7. The Contracts Manager for each particular area would have dealt with any
allegations or suspicions of false accounting and therefore as Area Manager,
I had very minimal dialogue on interventions or suspensions although I may
have got involved with meeting with a Postmaster after red flags were raised
via escalations from support teams or field intervention teams. During this
period there were rare occasions when I might have been consulted about a
suspension of a Postmaster. Contact would normally have taken place if the
decision resulted in the closure of the branch and loss of service. From 2001
Contracts Managers dealt with contractual breach following an audit.
Contracts and Services Manager & Contract Advisor
8. Between 2004 and 2006 I was Contracts and Services Manager; an Area
Performance manager and 2 Intervention Managers reported directly to me.
Following a restructure of the Post Office in 2006 the role line management
responsibility and job title changed to Contract Advisor. Within the scope of
the role I was responsible for the management of a wide range of franchising
contracts covering a geographical area of around 1,000 branches. I was not
focused specifically Horizon during this period, however it could have come
up in my management of interventions with my colleagues in the contracts
team.
9. As Contract Service Manager, usually the first I would know about an audit
would be when I got a call from the audit team. I would not schedule the
audits and I would not be present at them. However, in exceptional cases
where information may have come from another source for example
bankruptcy or loss, criminal convictions coming to light and the loss of the
use of the premises in which the branch was located. In these cases, I could
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highlight problems to the Central function and request a special audit be
scheduled to investigate further and verify assets. Please see below my
answer to question 15 for when audits were usually carried out.
10.Once an audit had been undertaken I would be informed of the outcome by
phone by the audit lead. The lead would give me a verbal breakdown of their
findings. For example, it might show that a branch previous night's balance
declared to have £30k in cash, but in actual fact, only had £10k of physical
cash on hand. At the end of the audit the lead would ask the Postmaster to
verify and agree the audit findings. On some occasions, before the audit was
started, the Postmaster would ask to speak to the lead and provide an
explanation for example, by admitting to misusing funds to pay for staff
wages, business purchases or the payment of bills.
1
. On completion of the audit I would speak to the Postmaster and go through
the findings, I might have also made reference to any checks that had been
undertaken during the audit such as calls logs, training records, Horizon
reports and any other interventions, which had been undertaken by the
Contracts team. It was usual at this stage for the Postmaster either to admit
to misusing funds or to say that they couldn’t provide an explanation for the
shortage.
12. lf the Postmaster admitted to the misuse of Post Office funds, I would contact
my Line Manager urgently to discuss and agree on enforcement / suspension
and would look at whether the Postmaster was willing to repay the
discrepancy found during the audit. However, the final decision on
suspension had to be agreed and signed off by the Head of Contracts.
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13.Following the audit in most cases a formal/informal meeting would take place
to discuss the reasons for suspension or a non-suspension decision. This
would normally be a fact-finding meeting taking place to give the Postmaster
the opportunity to provide their version of events, discuss the audit findings
and next steps. At the fact finding interview the Postmaster could be
accompanied by a representative from the Federation of Suppostmasters, an
assistant or an employee of the Post Office. Following the meeting, further
investigations might take place I would then submit a decision rationale to the
Head of Contracts recommending reinstatement no further action,
reinstatement with a warning or Contract termination.
14. The decision rationale document would be based upon input from the
Postmaster during the meeting and all other relevant reports from central
functions and field teams. It would also include historical information detailing
training, interventions and call logs to the helpline etc. The Security Team
dealt with allegations of criminality, some contact may have been made with
them during the course of the contractual investigations.
15.My role also included discussing with the suspended Postmaster the use of
the premises to appoint a temporary agent. If this was agreed the
appointment and selection of the temporary agent was the responsibility of
the temporary Postmaster advisor. The aim was to avoid loss of Post Office
service and minimise the impact to the Postmaster retail business.
16.If concerns were raised about the functionality of the Horizon system, then I
would raise that with my Line Manager and also the appropriate technology
team for input into the report. I recall that if there was no obvious explanation
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for problems, I would monitor the performance of the temporary Postmaster
to see if the same problem continued. However, from my personal
experience there were no problems with temporary Postmasters.
17.As Contract Advisor, my role would also involve dealing with any contractual
issues highlighted by Subpostmasters. Day-to-day issues were usually dealt
with by the Helpline in the first instance or, if appropriate, were flagged to me
via other central support departments. Subpostmasters could also contact me
direct via the federation representation and I would be very willing to
investigate their issues.
18.In my role as a Contract Advisor, I was responsible for the effective
management of the Agents’ life cycle, including the recruitment and
appointment of conventional Main and Local Post Office operators, using
competency-based assessments.
19.1 was also responsible for the delivery of effective change in the Agency
network in Scotland, from initial recruitment through to improved performance
of them and their teams by monitoring of performance indicators and defining
appropriate support or remedial actions.
20.1 dealt with the management of debt and financial performance in this
network and the delivery of improved client performance indicators through
focused supportive actions or direct intervention where required.
Question 2: Set out any qualifications that you received to obtain this role.
21. The business was restructured in 2001 and 2006 and following these
restructures, a formal assessment and selection process took place to
appoint individuals to their roles, including myself. I had on-the-job
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experience and there was also an appraisal system which identified any
training needed to obtain the role.
Question 3: Describe any training that you received on the role
22.1 can recall that I received the following training:
¢ Objection handling
e Media training
e Interview techniques
e Horizon system training (user)
23.1 was also mentored in the role by other managers in the role for several
years.
24. The Post Office have provided me a spreadsheet of my training records
unfortunately this only covers on-line training between 2013 and 2022. As
such, this is of limited relevance and therefore I have not included it in my
statement.
Question 4: Please explain whether your role evolved over time and, if so, how.
25. The role evolved between 2002 and 2020 due to changes in the Post Office
network with the introduction of new operating models leading to more
complex contractual agreements.
26.Please see my answer to question 1 as to how my different roles during my
time at the Post Office evolved over time.
IDENTIFYING ISSUES IDENTIFIED BY SUBPOSTMASTERS
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The documents listed below are not exhaustive but are included to assist with
answering the questions posted.
Please consider FUJ00083815, FUJ00083770, POL00025697, POL00030241
Question 5: Describe what involvement you had in investigating any issues
encountered by SPMs.
As Area Manager, I had very minimal involvement with investigations, the aim
was always to work with the agent and be corrective rather than punitive. My
role may have involved meeting with the Postmaster after red flags had been
raised, this might have resulted in no action, a verbal warning or advising the
Contract team at the time to issue a formal warning. However, as Contract
Manager, I would have dealt with any allegations or suspicions of false
accounting. I would only have been involved in the early investigation stages
in investigating accounting discrepancies, which may have been raised by a
central function. Please see my response to question 1 for further details on
my involvement in investigations as Contract Manager.
27.Document FUJ0008315 is a document which logs a visit to Callendar Square
by the Area Intervention Manager, Sandra Mackay, on 12 January 2006.
28.At this point, my title was Contract and Services Manager and there was two
intervention managers and an Area Performance manager reporting to me.
Helplines were the first port of call and if they could not resolve the issue, it
came to through to the Contract team mailbox and escalated to an Area
Intervention Manager who would phone the branch, write to the Postmaster,
or do a site visit. Although it is not conclusive in this document, I suggest that
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the issue came from the helpline via the Postmaster regarding concerns
about what was happening with Horizon.
29. The box entitled ‘Expand on any letter requested/clarify any point’ mentions
me and is written by Sandra. I agreed to go along with her to the site as
support as she was new to the job and I knew the history behind the branch
because I had previously been its Area Manager.
30. Document FUJ00083770 is an email chain starting with an email from Sandra
31
Mackay to Shaun Turner on 11 January 2006 discussing problems with
balancing at Callendar Square. I recall that Shaun worked in IT and was part
of the roll-out of the Horizon programme. He would have been heavily
involved in the infrastructure and implementing the system and following up
issues. The email chain also involves Gary Blackburn who I don’t recall. In
the email chain he is using technical IT language which I do not understand
but he is interfacing with Liz Evans who deals with the Post Office account for
Fujitsu services and so I assume that Gary is the go-between for the Post
Office and Fujitsu.
- The email in the chain which is dated 16 January 2006 at 14:14 refers to ‘P &
BA’ (Product & Branch Accounting), they are an internal department which
should send a transactional correction to the Postmaster via the Horizon
system if there is an error to balance it. Upon receipt of the message, the
Postmaster can either accept the correction or decline settle centrally for
further investigation. Looking at the email, it says that there was a breakdown
in the processes and so Gary is not convinced that the branch was set up
correctly in the first place.
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32.A further email in the chain dated 17 February 2006 at 10:16 refers to ‘S90’.
33
34
35.
36.
From the discussion in the email I am not sure, but I think this is a system
update which was intended to fix the problem.
. This appeared to be an isolated issue and it was not within my skills or remit
to understand the nature of these problems. My job is to support the
Postmaster and ensure that there is a solution or to signpost it to the Post
Office to make sure that when these things are raised, they are dealt with
quickly and appropriately and they are signposted to the most appropriate
department. Reading the email chain as an outsider, it looks as though the
problem was raised and dealt with quickly.
. I cannot recall exactly who everybody in this email chain is but from reading
the emails, I think Mike Stewart is from the Post Office and Ann Chambers
works for Fujitsu.
The last inclusion of me in the email chain is 17 February 2006. I cannot
recall Gary ever speaking to me beyond this to say that the problem was not
resolved and there might be a bigger issue. I am confident that if he had
come back to me and said that it was not an isolated issue, I would have had
a conversation with my boss, Andy Bayfield, with whom I had regular monthly
meetings, or who I could call at any time and discuss any areas of concern to
me.
If an IT issue came up, I would signpost the individual to the relevant helpline.
Each issue had a unique reference number which would give an audit trail.
You should be able to track the reference number to see where the issue
started and where it finished and, if it finished, what the resolution was.
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Therefore, if an issue came across my desk, the first thing I would say to the
Postmaster is to chase it using the reference number. Otherwise, if no
progress had been made I would escalate internally to Shaun Turner, Service
Support Manager, Service Team, Post Office Ltd Operations and say that the
Postmaster had been in touch with the Horizon helpline multiple times and
was not getting anywhere.
37. Document POL00030241 is an email chain starting with an email dated 11
January 2006 which also relates to issues with balancing at Callendar
Square. Looking at the dates, some of it falls in parallel with the email chain
of document FUJ00083770 and some it prior to the visit that took place on 12
January 2006.
38.In the email chain, Shaun Turner is telling Sandra and myself that there is a
recognition that there is a wider issue than just a software quirk at one
branch. However, as a layman I would have been satisfied that we had
reported the problem back to the agent and if they had been unhappy, I think
that there would have been further emails stating this. From reading the
emails, the issue was saved in the Contract Teams electronic files on 6
March 2006 and that was the end of it. This appeared to be an isolated issue,
but I was alive to it and if this issue had happened more than once then I
would have informed my boss that it had happened in multiple places and
therefore, I think it might be a wider problem. The earliest knowledge I had
about technical problems with the system was in 2006 at which point it was
outside the scope of my role or seniority and appeared to be being dealt with
by Fujitsu and the Resolution Manager at a higher level.
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Question 6: Describe what sorts of issues you were called on to investigate by
SPMs
39.1 was called to investigate on the following sorts of issues by Postmasters:
e Opening hours
e Holiday pay
e Resignation
¢ Customer complaints (banning orders)
e Additional training
e Outstanding debt
¢ Failing to comply with Post Office business standards
40. The business standards folder was like the Post Master’s manual.
Question 7: Explain at what stage you carried out formal investigations
41.1 would carry out a formal investigation when an audit was conducted on an
alleged shortfall or when concerns were flagged by other central teams, such
as the agent’s account team.
Question 8: If not covered above, please explain any technical training that
you received on;
(a) computer systems
42.1 am literate on all Microsoft software packages.
(b) the Horizon system itself
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43.1 received user training only. I was not there to resolve technical issues as
there was a specific helpline and technical team for Horizon.
Question 9: Please explain in what circumstances you would go to visit
branches
44.1 supported the roll-out of Horizon by supporting Postmasters with the first
balance post-implementation. Agents had already had some training in the
operation of the system, but I would go in person to handhold them through
the process in the first week. Other than this I had no other involvement in
Horizon, although sometimes I would have to work on centrally managed
counters, for example during busy periods or if strike action was taking place.
45. Besides this, I would rarely visit branches, unless the Postmaster had
mobility problems. Most meetings, both formal and informal, took place in
Post Office Ltd sites or a secure site close to the Postmasters’ premises.
IDENTIFIED SHORTFALLS
Please consider POL00004403, POL00030284
Question 10: How did you identify any shortfalls
46.Post Office Ltd would identify shortfalls by conducting an audit, or from
central support teams.
47.Document POL00004403 is an email chain starting with an email dated 24
November 2006 discussing outstanding debt / a transaction error query at
Winlaton Mill.
48.From reading the emails I am guessing that the Postmaster accepted that he
made a genuine mistake and would pay the missing money back. On top of
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that, he has challenged a further discrepancy of £4k. It looks like the Post
Office sent £4k to the office and it was signed for, but it has not been input
into the Horizon system by the office. When funds are missing, a transaction
correction is issued to balance the branch account. The Post Office can
prove that the money was delivered because it was signed for by the branch
but the Postmaster denies it and cannot prove that he received the funds
because it isn’t visible. This is one of many problems going on as there were
also issues reconciling lottery transactions. The Postmaster was provided
with evidence of the delivery of cash to the branch or transactions taking
place.
49. The way that lottery transactions were accounted for in most branches was
that the Postmaster would have the National Lottery terminal located on the
retail counter and the funds and transactions would be transferred to the Post
Office terminal, which could be located on the same retail counter or possibly
in a dedicated secure Post Office area in the same premises. If you have a
Post Office and a retail business the contract Post Office Ltd has with the
National Lottery requires the Postmaster to transact or account for the lottery
transactions and funds through the Post Office account, not retail. Usually,
the Postmaster would keep a dedicated box securely within the retail counter
as this was a way of keeping the funds separate from their retail takings.
They would sell the lottery tickets for that day and at the end, the terminal
would give a summary of the sales minus the prizes and the money left over
should be the difference. That difference would then be input into Horizon
and the funds secured in the Post Office safe.
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50. The only reason I was involved in this email chain is because there is a
refusal to repay the debt when evidence has been provided. Under section
12(12) of their contract the Postmaster is obliged to repay all losses without
delay. We had a method and system in place called the concurrence process
which involved a written instruction coming from the Product & Branch
Accounting requesting further investigations take place with the Postmaster
and agree the repayment plan stated in the memo/email. This was a method
of recovering or speaking to agents about recovering the debt.
51.Document POL00030284 is a duplicate of document FUJ0008315
Question 11: How did you assess whether any disparity or shortfall identified:
a. Was as a result of human error;
52. If the discrepancy or shortfall was as a result of human error, this would
normally be highlighted during audit, by the central support function, Post
Office client team or following a report from a Postmaster normally via the
National Business Support Centre Helpline.
b. Was as a result of any issues with the device’s hardware;
53. Any kit issues that were highlighted by an Agent were referred to the Horizon
system Helpline in the first instance. I only saw sight of these types of issues
if they were escalated to the Contracts team via the team mailbox
c. Was a result of a bug, error or defect in the Horizon system.
54.1 do not recall having to deal directly with the issues arising from any
complaints or concerns from postmasters regarding system errors.
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Question 12: Please explain what, if any, involvement Fujitsu had in the
process. Please identify any individuals that you remember having worked
with.
55.Except as outlined above, I cannot recall any cases where Fujitsu were
involved in the process. However, I would not necessarily have known if they
were involved.
56.1 was aware of a small number of tech swap outs where there was a
suspicion that hardware was broken. The swap-outs would have been
tracked to ensure that they had been successful.
Question 13: How adequate did you feel the training of subpostmasters as to
how Horizon worked was.
57.Following a business restructure and implementation of new Postmaster
contracts In 2012, the training package for a Postmaster changed with a
reduction in some elements of the classroom training, however, from my
knowledge this did not have any impact on how much time was dedicated to
the operation of the system. In my experience of interviewing agents there
appeared to be a reluctance for new Postmasters to commit to attending the
classroom training in central locations because of travel and accommodation
costs they had to bear. It was business policy that all new agents attend
classroom training, however, when these isolated cases arose the training
team and contracts team did everything in their power to be flexible with the
package to make sure agents were trained adequately and be capable of
operating a Post Office branch.
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58.In 2012, further changes to company contracts came in and only the
nominated director was offered a place on the classroom training course or
they could nominate a person to attend on their behalf. It was the company’s
responsibility to ensure any new staff were trained to work on the Post Office
counter. However, Post Office Ltd liked to be flexible in cases like these and
if there were spaces available in the classroom they would be offered to the
company.
59. If there were issues transactional or technical they could ask via the helpline
and they would receive additional ad hoc training. It was not in my interest to
abandon Postmasters without training and I prided myself on making sure
that whoever was behind the counter was competent and confident; the Post
Office was a respected brand and we wanted to protect that, I also wanted to
make sure the agent felt supported during the early days of their tenure
60. From my knowledge and experience any issues with the training package
was always dealt with on a case-by-case basis and dependent upon the
results of the formal assessments made by agency trainers following
classroom and on-site training. If there was a concern, the policy was always
to find space in the schedule to extend training to make sure that the agent
had the capability to operate the branch.
Question 14: In what circumstances would you take a decision to suspend or
terminate a subpostmasters contract?
61. The decision to suspend a Postmaster was never taken lightly because of the
potential impact on service and any negative impact on the trading of the
Postmasters retail business. Suspension decisions were made on the results
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of scheduled or unplanned audits, or possibly from intelligence from an
external source such as a report of bankruptcy from a receiver or losing the
right to operate from the premises the branch is located in from a landlord or
owner. Please see below my answer to question 15 for further information as
to how I came to this decision.
Please consider POL00015153, POL00033169, POL00026858, POL00005279,
POL00005245
Question 15: Please explain when audits were carried out.
62. Audits were both planned and routinely scheduled or unplanned and carried
out following an office transfer or if an office was at risk.
63. Balancing discrepancies would be flagged by the central agents accounting
team (now known as the loss prevention team), who were responsible for
monitoring branch accounts. Shortfalls would be visible to the Postmasters
on the system and they would be contractually obliged to make good the
difference in the branch trading result. Central support functions were
responsible for maintaining a ‘Watch List’ of Postmasters. The purpose of the
process was to highlight any rolling losses in the accounts and any other
anomalies in the way the branch was trading. Dependent on the risk to Post
Office assets, an on-site audit would occur from the field audit team.
64. Retail cash management may also have been monitoring the branch because
there could also be an issue with overnight cash holdings. If the holdings
looked abnormally high in the first instance the Postmasters would be
telephoned and asked to return the excess cash. However, following
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telephone interventions sometimes the cash was not returned, therefore, the
only means of verifying assets was by way of an onsite audit.
65. Document POL00015153 is a document which I think has been produced,
compiled and issued by the Post Office Security Team. It is a Weekly Incident
Report which reports the number of incidents of burglaries, robberies, fraud
incidents etc. I am mentioned on page 2 and 3 of the report in relation to two
reports of Audit Cash Loss on 6 January 2010 and 6 February 2010. I
vaguely recall that there was an incident in 2010 with Killeter which resulted
in a loss. This is the kind of document that we would see and discuss at
monthly team meetings or alternatively cascaded by email by my line
manager, which would tell us what monitoring was being undertaken by the
security team.
66. Document POL00033169 is a presentation which defines the role of Contract
Manager. It is not obvious which audience this material was delivered to. It is
untitled and undated and I cannot recall who gave the presentation, including
whether it was me. However, the content of it looks accurate.
67. Document POL00026858 is a duplicate of document POL00004403.
68. Although the Inquiry have listed document POL0005279 first, document
POL0005245 precedes this document and therefore I have discussed it first
for the sake of chronology.
69. Document POL0005245 records a meeting at Guild Hall, Queen Street,
Glasgow on 27 July 2015 with myself in attendance as Agent Contract
Advisor. I cannot recall this meeting and I do not know who wrote this
attendance note. I do not think that I wrote this because it is not my style of
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writing. The note appears to have been written following an audit which
identified cash shortages, but I cannot recall anything about this document.
70. Document POL0005279 is an email chain starting with an email dated 16
July 2015 in relation to ‘Audit Report —- 243855 — Lenzie —- 2015-07-15’. I
cannot recall sending these emails but from reading them, I am reporting a
large discrepancy in cheques and asking the issue to be looked into and
escalated by the relevant team.
71.Although I cannot recall this particular incident, it would be standard practice
for the Post Office to give Postmasters the benefit of the doubt with cheque
discrepancies as occasionally items would go missing in transit. We would
therefore escalate the issue to the relevant product branch account team, as I
have done in this email chain, and ask them to have a look at the issue
alongside the audit report. However, beyond these emails I cannot recall
anything further about this particular incident.
Question 16: Please set out how items were allocated to the fraud list.
72. This was not within the responsibility of the Contracts team and I would have
only been involved in the early investigation stages and would investigate any
ledger discrepancies escalated to the Contracts team for further investigation.
Question 17: Please clarify whether this was before or after official
investigations were carried out?
73. The central function analysis was undertaken prior to an audit being
scheduled. Any additional findings or concerns raised by the Postmaster
found during the audit were passed back to the central function for further
investigation prior to decision-making.
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REFLECTIONS
Question 18: When did your involvement with Horizon cease (if at all)?
74. My involvement with Horizon ceased when I left the business in June 2020.
Question 19: How well did you feel that Horizon functioned?
75.When I was Branch Manager, I found that Horizon functioned as intended. I
also found that it functioned as intended during periods when I occasionally
worked on a counter to cover strike action or the Christmas pressure
Question 20: Is there anything you felt could have been handled better? If so,
who would have been responsible for implementing that?
76. My role was to deploy strategy and policy in relation to the Postmasters
contract for service, any high-level decisions I made had to be signed off and
agreed with the heads of contract.
77.1 did form the impression that some Post Masters were reluctant to speak to
the Post Office about balancing problems because they suspected that it
could lead to temporary suspension while matters were investigated. I would
encourage agents to call for help if they had issues and I would always
respond positively to requests for training as that was within my gift.
Question 21: Is there anything that you felt could have been handled better? If
so, who would have been responsible for implementing that?
78. The limits of my role in investigating incidents meant that I was reliant on the
audit team, the security team, and any associated teams e.g. IT teams or
Horizon teams who would have been involved if there were allegations or
suspicions of system errors. With the exception of the incident above, where
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Fujitsu were involved, I was not aware of any credible suspicions of system
errors. In the cases we investigated, the issues were resolved by training, if
there was a suspension by appointing a temporary/replacement postmasters
or explained by admissions from postmasters. As a result, there was a
context which pointed towards human error being the cause of issues and not
system errors. It would have been impossible for someone in my position to
discriminate between human errors and system errors but I accept that the
same might be true of postmasters themselves in some cases. In the rare
case where a system error was suspected, this would have been dealt with
by specialists. I have no insight into whether those specialists could or should
have identified systemic issues. I do not believe that the Post Office would
not take any suspension or termination lightly. A lot of thought and formal
detail was given to these steps and a formal decision would be made at the
end of a long detailed process, with the input of data, several teams and
managers and full agreement, which needed to be signed off by the head of
Contracts. I saw it as my job to support postmasters and to respond to their
concerns, so it is a source of great regret to me if anyone has been unjustly
dealt with as a result of the Horizon system.
Statement of Truth
I believe the content of this statement to be true.
Signed:
Dated: 04/01/2023
Index to First Witness Statement of Brian Trotter
WITNO0980100
WITNO0980100
Lenzie 15.07.2015 between Judi Irish,
Brian Trotter, Linda McLaughlin,
argaret Guthrie, Paul Kellet, Gary
Groogan, Jamie Haugh
INo. IURN [Document Description (Control Number
1 IFUJ00083815 Area Intervention Manager Visit Log IPOINQO089986F
2 IFUJ00083770 Email thread Re Callendar between
ike Stewart, Anne Chambers, Brian IPOINQ0089941F
[Trotter and Shaun Turner
3 IPOL00030241 [Email from Brian Trotter to Sandra
acKay re Callendar Square FAD IPOL-0026723
1160868
4 IPOL00004403 Email from Jaqueline Whitham to Neil
Barnard and Brian Trotter - RE 1$00005471
inlaton Mill transaction error query
i) IPOL00030284 Area Intervention Manager Visit Log IPOL-0026766
re: Audit Report and Horizon Problems
6 IPOL00015153 National Crime Team Weekly Incident IPOL-0008345
Report for 31 May - June 2010
7 POL00033169 [Training Slides: Role of the Contract IPOL-0030104.
anager
8 IPOL00026858 Email thread between Brian Trotter, IPOL-0023499
Neil Barnard and Jacqueline Whitham
NS) IPOL00005245 eeting Note with Brian Trotter - Agent
(Contract Advisor 1$00006313
10 IPOL00005279 Email Trail RE Audit Report 243855 1S$00006347