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Witness Name: Tim McCormack
Statement No: WITN11100100
Dated: 19 April 2024
POST OFFICE HORIZON IT INQUIRY
FIRST WITNESS STATEMENT OF TIM MCCORMACK
I, TIMOTHY JAMES MCCORMACK, will say as follows.
INTRODUCTION
1. I was formerly a subpostmaster (SPMR) in Scotland. I have been asked by
the Inquiry to provide a Witness Statement pursuant to Rule 9 of the Inquiry
Rules 2006.
2. The Inquiry has provided me with a great number of documents to consider
and has asked me to provide a narrative account of my dealings and
correspondence with POL and others in relation to bugs, errors and defects in
the Horizon system.
3. I was assisted in drafting this witness statement by my legal representatives
at Hodge Jones & Allen Ltd.
BACKGROUND
4. The Inquiry has requested that I set out my professional career background
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and first involvement with POL.
5. I studied Marine Engineering at Glasgow College of Nautical Studies and was
employed by Ben Line Ltd as an Engineering Officer until I was made
redundant in 1982. I used part of my redundancy payment to buy my first
personal computer and taught myself how to program.
6. From 1982 to 1992 I moved to South Africa and was employed within the IT
Industry until I formed my own company, High Technology Systems which
specialised in providing bespoke software and networking solutions to high
profile companies such as De Beers. During that time I enrolled in several
courses including at Unisa (RSA version of Open University) where I studied
accounting.
7. I returned to the UK in 1992 and was an IT Consultant (mostly with Citibank
where I was responsible for Credit Risk Technology throughout the CEEMEA
region). I was later employed by Misys and Abbey National Treasury services
as a Senior Business Consultant in Credit Risk Systems.
8. In 2004 my wife and I purchased a small shop, cafe and post office in the
Highlands of Scotland (Foyers on the banks of Loch Ness) where I was the
SPMR until 2010. In 2010 we purchased a larger post office in the Scottish
Borders and my wife was appointed as the SPMR but we ran the branch
together. In 2016 we exited Post Office under the Network Transformation
program.
9. From 2016 to 2020 I owned a small newsagents in Coldstream and am now
retired.
10.In 2010 my wife and I purchased Duns Post Office which was a 3 counter
operation and produced an income of over £60k per annum. Horizon Online
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had just been installed at the branch and we received one week’s training from
the outgoing SPMR. 2010 was also significant in that it introduced to the
Network, the project known as Network Transformation. I was convinced from
the start that this project would be detrimental to all existing SPMRs and as a
result I became involved in social media as a critic of the proposals.
I have never been a member of the NFSP but as they provided free
membership for 6 months to my wife I was able to attend some NFSP
meetings as her representative in the Scottish Borders. I was perhaps the only
person at these meetings who was prepared to be vocal in my opposition to
the proposed changes.
12.1 was subsequently banned from attending meetings and from the NFSP
online forum which at one stage was entirely shut down by George Thomson
as a result of my posting information that should have been made available to
all SPMRs but the NFSP had chosen to keep confidential.
13. It is difficult to recall when I first started to take an interest in events leading to
the scandal but I can recall my first contact with Alan Bates was in 2014 when
I advised him of an error in Horizon that had occurred at my branch and which
led to me interacting directly with Fujitsu at Bracknell in order to trace the
source.
14. This error has never been mentioned before as far as I am aware but as it
would have had little or no impact on branch accounts the effect of it is of little
relevance. Some of the detail is now of significance I believe.
15. The problem manifested itself by allowing 2 counters in a branch to use
different exchange rates for currency transactions. The differential would in
most cases have reflected only the movement in the overnight exchange rates
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but perhaps on occasion it could have been more serious and there could
have been a significant variation in rates on different counters.
16.1 contacted the Horizon Help Desk about this and subsequently entered into
phone conversations with a Fujitsu engineer in Bracknell who I believe was
called Steve Page. I provided him with documentary and photographic proof
of the problem occurring. He discovered the error was as a result of a counter
not refreshing its data from a table held on the master counter. That table
contained the currency exchange rates and was linked to the currency rate
window display system that many but not all branches had. It is an example
of Horizon having the ability to change data in branches remotely without the
SPMR having knowledge of it and which affected the branch accounts (but
not in a way that induced any financial risk to the SMPR). The only people
who would have been financially affected by this error were POL’s own
customers who would receive a favourable or unfavourable exchange rate
depending on which counter they exchanged currency at.
17.A second error occurred at Duns at some stage and I believe I assisted Steve
Page again in locating and working out what the problem was. The details and
dates are vague and it certainly did not affect branch accounts. It was to do
with the Card Reader installed at branches at the time and the firmware on
these prevented certain card types from being used and I think an update to
the firmware caused major problems and I was one of the first to report it.
18. There were also procedural errors (in my opinion) that were introduced to the
network and I took the opportunity when it arose to point these out to POL
management and in doing so suggested improvements. One of these was to
do with the introduction of Mail Segregation performance targets which led to
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a large volume of correspondence with POL noted in some of the documents
the Inquiry has provided me with [POL00144438, POL00298740].
19. This led to me being asked to work on a pilot scheme for a tablet based help
system for SPMRs, the details of which I cannot recall, and eventually
correspondence with Gayle Peacock of POL [WITN11100110].
20. In her oral testimony before the Inquiry Gayle Peacock referred to an alleged
abusive phone call I made to her on a Saturday afternoon although I think it
was her that called me. I recall the conversation but not the day (October
2013) and it certainly became heated after she blatantly lied to me. She could
not understand how I knew the truth behind ‘her decision’. I was not concerned
about not being on the Forum but was angry about being lied to. I can say that
that was the date when my attitude towards POL Management changed
completely. If she felt my language was abusive then I apologise to her but in
return I would accept an apology for the lies.
CORRESPONDING WITH POL
21. The inquiry invited me to reflect on the approach I took to my correspondence
with POL over the years.
22.My intent from the very start has been to be helpful to POL although the form
it took changed over the years. Up until perhaps 2013 I don’t think anyone in
POL could disagree with that assertion but there came a point where it was
clear that the people I was dealing with in POL were not the brightest kids in
the block and senior management seemed blissfully unaware of the problems
with Horizon that were being encountered by the network on a daily basis.
Perhaps my interactions on Social Media generated more information about
bugs, errors and defects than they were being told about. My approach then
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evolved into contacting senior management directly to make them aware of
the problems whether or not they understood the technical details behind
them.
23.Shortly after the Horizon verdict in the GLO (perhaps even before that) I was
researching Malicious Prosecution cases and was made aware of the genuine
defence of defendants in such cases that they believed the evidence they had
at the time to be true. That influenced me to direct some of my correspondence
with Senior POL executives to point out their legal duties, their standing as
Public Officers and their financial obligations in order that they would find it
difficult to rely on ‘not being aware of’ or ‘believed it be true at the time’.
24.As my frustration grew sadly the language I used in such correspondence
degenerated for which I am sorry as at times it may have crossed the line into
personal abuse. As internal correspondence disclosed to me reveals, that
had the effect of my assertions not being taken seriously by some
[POL00234092].
25.1 might also point out that I made it a point not to reveal everything I knew
about problems I reported to POL. I hoped that they would investigate these
matters for themselves to find out what was missing.
26.From reviewing all of my correspondence with POL over the years and now
seeing the internal discussions that this correspondence generated it is
abundantly clear that the mindset of POL Executives as to the reliability of
Horizon prevented them, and prevents them now, from being able to see the
real problems. The Postage Labels Error problem highlights this.
POSTAGE LABELS ERROR PROBLEM
27. With regard to the Postage Labels Error up until I received the disclosure
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from the Inquiry I hadn't given this error that I encountered at Duns much
thought other than it highlighted the ineptness of Angela Van-Den-Bogerd.
Now I discover it generated a lot of internal discussion [POL00101809], even
a report from Gareth Jenkins [POL00220125], before it was ultimately dropped
as being a possible error. To be fair, even Second Sight and Alan Bates were
not too interested in it as it would only generate small, relatively insignificant
shortages to SPMRs on a very infrequent basis. But as a study in how badly
POL and Fujitsu investigated these errors it is a perfect example.
28. The effect of the error was clear and unmistakable to the SPMR. It was a bug
in the system of that there is no doubt supported by photographic evidence
and an overwhelming positive result in a poll of SPMRs asking whether or not
it had affected them.
29.Horizon provided the SPMR the ability to produce postage labels of the same
value in bulk up to a maximum quantity of 10. Occasionally the system would
not produce the requested amount while indicating on the stack that all
requested labels had been printed. I think I explain the problem clearly with
suggested solutions in the email chain at POL00150592.
30. There could have been and most likely were 2 reasons for this happening.
One that a label already printed could have been re-inserted and overprinted
and secondly that a system error had occurred perhaps in Horizon but also in
the printer or interface to it. A third reason could also have been a software
glitch in Horizon itself but to be fair even I discounted this.
31.Both Gareth Jenkins in his report and Peter Prior-Mills, a Lean
Consultant/Business Analyst in POL, in POL00220151 completely overlook
the fact that a significant piece of hardware in the Horizon system, the receipt
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printer, could be causing a financial loss to SPMRs.
32.As it happens I had some experience with that particular Epson Receipt printer
as I owned one for my EPOS system and programmed it to do various
functions including printing a Bitmap image. It was also connected to the
Horizon system by a serial cable interface that can be unreliable particularly
with magnetic field interference (hence the cables used are usually shielded).
33.Post Office did take a greater interest in the financial aspects of the failure of
the system to print a label for which the SPMR would stand the loss while both
POL and RMG would gain financially from the SPMR making good the loss.
However in the end it appears they did nothing about it.
34.Angela Van-Den-Bogerd and Rod Ismay investigated whether or not there
were many reports of this error occurring on the Help Desk logs
[POL00107144]. This was a topic of my phone call discussion with Angela
Van-Den-Bogerd and I recall her saying that there was no opportunity for call
log operators to log such an event or link it to previous calls. I found this
strange as this was 2014 and call centre software that could deal with new
issues was being widely used. I told her I had written such a system for Caltex,
a major oil company in South Africa back in the early nineties.
35. The fact is that for such a small discrepancy (the cost of a label) it was not
worth the time and effort of a SPMR to go through the process of reporting it
to the Help Desk. Anybody who had previously reported it to the Help Desk
and not got anywhere were unlikely to have bothered trying again.
36.POL therefore had no way of knowing how prevalent a problem this was.
Therefore my suggestion, which I did a rough costing at approx £20k to ask
all SPMRs to print off 10 labels using the bulk printing option would have
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perhaps been the only way to prove it.
37. The most annoying aspect of it to me personally was that Angela Van-Den-
Bogerd took this to her Branch User Forum and 2 people in it (out of 5)
mentioned they had come across it. I know this because one of the people
was a friend who reported it back to me. Angela Van-Den-Bogerd reported
back to me as well but in her version it was only one person, the NFSP rep
from Northern Ireland, who suggested that it probably was because she had
inserted a previously printed label and it was overprinted so she, the SPMR,
was prepared to accept the loss as user error.
38. It was at this point that I recognised Angela Van-Den-Bogerd was not very
good at her job and if I was going to get anywhere I would have to raise it
further which I did in an email to Moya Greene suggesting RMG were gaining
financially from SPMR losses [POL00107144].
39.All this occurred over Christmas and January 2014-2015 and POL’s
investigations were probably more rigorous than usual given the media focus
on Horizon reliability. I do not think though that this prevented any thought of
raising the issue with the network and asking SPMRs if they have been
affected by the label printing error.
40.Nor did media focus have any bearing on their complete lack of investigation
into a possible hardware or software fault being to blame. Gareth Jenkins’
report did not look at that possibility at all although you might say that asking
Gareth Jenkins for such a report was an investigation into this.
41.In POL00150592 a ‘Litigation Lawyer’ for POL, Christopher Ingles, states in
his penultimate paragraph “It is entirely reasonable for POL to consider that
the circumstances described of by Mr McC are not occurring”. He follows that
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by quoting from the Theft Act 1968.
42.It follows then, in Christopher Ingles professional opinion, that if it was
unreasonable for POL to consider that my assertions were correct, that POL
would be liable under the Theft Act as I had made clear in earlier
correspondence.
43.Perhaps worth remembering then that in a poll of 5 SPMRs at a branch user
forum, Angela Van-Den-Bogerd was made aware, completely independently
from me that this was occurring in other branches.
44.1 would therefore attach some significance to the many people this particular
report from Christopher Ingles was forwarded to.
45.As part of the discussion around the labels problem, in POL00219911, Peter
Prior-Mills, POL Business Analyst, states “the nature of Horizon and its
transactions would suggest that any fault would be consistently present”. That
is representative of a mindset that is partly responsible for this whole mess.
The ignorance surrounding Intermittent Errors in Computer Systems is
widespread in POL perhaps even omnipresent. I wrote an article for Electronic
Evidence about this in relation to Seema Misra’s trial [WITN11100111].
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
46.1 am acutely aware that I am not a claimant and was not affected by the
scandal and can make no comment on how these poor people might feel or
what compensation they deserve. If I have ever lapsed from that then I
apologise to all or any of the claimants who take offence.
47.While this witness statement refers to the documents disclosed by the Inquiry
I have received there was substantial background to my actions based on the
acquaintances I had made over the years. The most important phone call I
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ever received I think was from Michael Rudkin. It was he who added the
missing link in my thoughts regarding the trust / blind faith in POL to provide
the truth in response to what were at that time, unsubstantiated rumours
regarding problems with Horizon. I was also in touch with Lee Castleton from
an early date. Ron Warmington and Mark Baker were early correspondents
too.
48. The barrister Stephen Mason and I discussed the issue of Electronic Evidence
and he helped me write the previously mentioned article for his journal.
49.Surprisingly perhaps, given my interest in Seema Misra’s case, I did not meet
her until the Horizon Trial.
50. The internal response to FOI request of mine at POL00242536 is absurd.
5
=
Every single person in the email chain is and probably remains oblivious to
the main point that when potentially criminal behaviour within POL is
highlighted POL themselves have a duty of care to report it to the relevant
authorities i.e the police. As it happens I understand that this matter is
currently under investigation by the police. I did try and tell them I suppose
three years before Sir Peter Fraser commented on exactly the same piece of
evidence.
. The contents of an email to Tom Wechsler dated 1 July 2016 in POL00242940
is one of the most astonishing of all the documents the Inquiry has provided
me with. It changes everything in relation to the various interpretations of the
actions and behaviour of Paula Vennells. A year earlier (2015) Paula
Vennells had sought the truth prior to a select committee hearing in what has
become a rather well known chain of emails [PO00030098]. In December of
2018 when those emails were first made public I chose not to follow
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mainstream interpretation of her email and wrote a blog about this
[WITN11100112]. I think it is fair to say that had Paula Vennells appended the
last line of this email to her original email in 2015 then the interpretation of the
2015 emails would have been similar to mine.
52.In an email dated 3 July 2016 Jane MacLeod, General Counsel intercedes to
Tom Wechsler and tries to close down any further discussion on this topic with
Paula Vennells “any help you can give on closing down further queries from
Paula on this would be very helpful” [POL00242983]. Makes you wonder who
was running the show at this stage and what Jane MacLeod and Tom
Wechsler actually thought of Paula Vennells.
53.As long as the Inquiry has provided me with all the emails in this conversation
and allowing for the fact that Tom Wechsler may have provided Paula
Vennells with verbal responses to her questions, which is unlikely, it seems
that Tom Wechsler made no attempt to respond directly to any of Paula
Vennells’ four instructions [POL00242940]. That is damning of both Tom
Wechsler and Paula Vennells. Paula Vennells demanded the complete truth
but Tom Wechsler did not bother to look and Paula Vennells never followed
up on her demand. As it turns out that happens to be a several hundred million
pound mistake.
54. Having considered this email chain in relation to other evidence in the public
domain (e.g. the Paula Vennells ‘I want the truth email’ as mentioned above)
I get the impression that Paula Vennells’ direct reports were extremely wary
of providing her with information that may have been contrary to her perceived
assumption that Horizon was reliable, That is not to excuse Paula Vennells for
not establishing the truth for herself. She employed these people and it was
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clearly her responsibility to ensure they did their job.
55.1 have been provided with a chain of emails at POL00021686 that originate
from Andrew Parsons of Womble Bond Dickinson dated 15 February 2016.
These appear to be internal emails from Second Sight and for the life of me I
cannot understand why Andrew Parsons should have access to Second Sight
private emails.
56. In POL00241070 Melanie Corfield contributes to an email discussion on how
best to respond to a FOI I made directly to Tim Parker by email. POL’s FOI
Team have previously said “You will see that in response to his reference to
a 'known errors log' we are saying that we do not hold the info as we do not
recognise the term Melanie Corfield’s response “I think this is a better
approach because although Mr McCormack asks for Known Error Log (which
might well not exist by that name), the reference could mean ‘events log’ or
‘issues log’, the existence of which have been confirmed to a degree in
correspondence with others (including Panorama)”, suggests that she knows
all about the Known Errors Log and the sensitivity of acknowledging its
existence — despite the fact that it had been referenced in Seema Misra’s trial.
The eventual response to me [POL00025368] has omitted all mention of my
requesting a copy of the Known Errors Log.
57. It is fair to say that POL were as obsessed about denying the existence of the
Known Errors Log as I was in proving they knew all about it. One year later in
another FOI asking for Known Error Log details [POLO0024909] I set off a
remarkable chain of internal POL emails which culminated in this rather
startling admission from Andrew Parsons at POL00024897, “This approach
also has the benefit of avoiding the pain of saying to TM that we were wrong
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before.”
58.The draft copy of the response to my FOI request [POL00241067] reveals
what I believe to be a dishonest answer that was withdrawn in the actual
response which is in itself evidence that it was dishonest. It states “we do not
recognise the terminology” referring to the ‘Known Errors Log’. This is surely
a matter for the police to investigate under the terms of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000.
59.The Inquiry should also look at an email dated 16 November 2016 some 7
months later with regard to another FOI request for the Known Errors Log,
where Andrew Parsons states “even the phrase ‘known error’ could set hares
racing” [POL00245938].
60. I had a phone call with Alisdair Cameron acting CEO of POL 24 June 2019.
61.
The introductory and follow up emails between myself and Alisdair Cameron
are self-explanatory and I have no concerns with his notes on our conversation
[POL00277366].
I personally have been aware, through social media, of errors in Remittance
Processing, where the branch either sends or receives cash to and from POL
Cash Centres for many years — certainly as far back as 2013. There is a great
significance in these types of errors as they are capable of producing losses
and gains in branches for very large amounts.
62.1 have been provided with a chain of emails that resulted from my call with
Alisdair Cameron and I think the conclusions that can be drawn from these
are highly significant [POLO00163614]. I note the response from Kim Abbotts
to Alisdair Cameron 27 June 2019 [POL00277535] if only to highlight the
significance of what is revealed here. She reports that there are 5 to 6
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incidents of this error happening every day and it seems it first became
apparent on the 25 January 2019. A later report suggests up to 10 per day
and it appears that Alisdair Cameron and the entire senior management team
were unaware of this error until I informed Alisdair Cameron directly
[POL00278014].
63. In a further email in this chain [POLO00277549] from Kim Abbotts she responds
to a question from Rob Houghton who I believe was Chief Information Officer
at the time and left the business quite suddenly after these emails. Kim
Abbotts says in response to Rob Houghton's question about what the worst
case scenario for this error would be “if they don't call and the control to pick
them up fails, they would have a discrepancy for the difference.”
64. This error has been in situ for 6 months during which the Horizon trial has
been taking place. Not only that this very type of error is being responded to
by POL in their closing statement to the Horizon Trial at the very date of this
email. This is read by among others Ben Foat and Angela Van-Den-Bogerd
[POL00277549].
65. In a follow up email from me to Alisdair Cameron [POL00277748] I wrote about
a potential problem with the Rem error should an assistant have remmed in
the pouch and found an excess of say £5k and the assistant took it leaving no
trace of a discrepancy at the branch. Applying POL’s approach to recovering
the REM discrepancy would in this instance always generate a loss to the
SPMR however the SPMR could quite rightly claim and depend on the
assistant’s version of events that what was accepted on Horizon was what
was received. POL would have no evidence to support their claim against the
SPMR other than circumstantial evidence in that they would have to provide
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evidence that 10 or so branches everyday for the last 6 months were
experiencing the same error. It could be an explanation of why there were a
few branches where there were unrecovered REM discrepancies.
66. This highlights the possibility that as a result of any computer errors generating
a gain to the branch, should an assistant be responsible for completing the
daily balance and noticing a significant gain takes the cash for themselves,
this would result in a significant unexplainable loss to the branch should the
error be later corrected by POL and or Fujitsu.
67. This error also highlights what I deem to be an intermittent error that could,
and in this case did, affect random branches throughout the network at any
given time. If it could affect any node in the network, then it was most certainly
also classed as a systemic bug.
68. The error appears to have started in January 2019 most likely as a result of a
software update. An important point for the Inquiry is to note that this error
may NOT be a Horizon error as it is linked to two independent computer
systems. One that monitors Cash in Transit and the other being Horizon. If it
was a software update to the Cash in Transit system that caused errors in
branch accounts on Horizon then that is extremely significant.
69.It does however appear from the documentation I was provided with that
Fujitsu identified the error and fixed it within days of being told about it
[POL00278014]. However it should be noted here I think that 3 years after
these events of 2019 Ron Warmington and I were invited by POL to visit
Birmingham Cash Centre as a result of similar errors being seen in the
network.
70. It is highly significant that this chain of emails suggests that, while the error
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with ordinary REMS was being picked up and corrected by junior staff since
the error was first noticed in January 2019, it appears that it was only as a
result of my intervention that POL noticed that the error also affected Bureau
Remittances [POL00277535, POL00278014, POL00277549, POL00277549,
POL00277748].
7
=
-On 4 July 2019 I drew Alisdair Cameron's attention to the fact that POL’s
closing statement in the Horizon Trial directly related to similar REM problems
in the past [POL00278009]. This led to the relevant passages from the closing
statement being circulated to which I can see no response [POL00278013].
72.1n [POLO0278014] Ben Cooke sends an update on 4 July 2019 to a large email
list which I presume is POL’s executive team regarding the original bug
appended to his report of 28 June 2019. In it he notifies the team of the Bureau
REM problem which resulted in at least 31 out of 33 errors not being picked
up by the system. If this error had been in existence since January 2019 I can
only presume that 31 SPMRs had not reported a gain from Bureau
Remittances at their branch which they were perfectly entitled to keep
according to their contract.
73. This might be a significant statistic in that it could show that when a computer
error results in a gain to a SPMR without the SPMR being aware of it being a
computer error then the effect of the error goes unreported because the SPMR
is perfectly entitled to keep the gain for his own benefit. How many Horizon
errors went unreported and undetected because of this no one will ever know.
74. It is my understanding that as early as June 2019, settlement negotiations
between the two parties in the GLO were underway. One has to wonder what
impact, revelation of these two errors might have had on negotiations let alone
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the findings of Justice Fraser.
75.At POL00277848 Andrew Parsons reviews in 2019 my email to Paula
Vennells from 2015 that was mentioned in the GLO. He was correct in
identifying that it was to do with Dalmellington. The details I did not supply at
that time were that I had been asked by Calum Greenhow for help with a
SPMR who was being pursued for a shortfall at his branch that was created in
identical circumstances to the Dalmellington bug. I also did not point out that
the original shortfall had arisen prior to the fix being put in place. I have asked
Calum Greenhow repeatedly over the years to reveal who the SPMR in
question was so I could check with them directly what the outcome was.
Calum Greenhow has never responded.
76.At POL00277977 Rodric Williams produces a summary of the Seema Misra
trial at the request of Alisdair Cameron. This is in 2019 some 9 years after the
trial yet nothing has changed. There is no attempt at a fresh look given that
POL would have possibly been far more aware of Horizon problems than they
were back then. It is probably my greatest regret in all of this horrible saga that
I did not manage to convince POL to at least sit down with me and hear what
I had to say about the trial. I got so close with Alisdair Cameron but not close
enough.
77.On or around 2016 I was sent a large amount of paper copies of documents
relating to Horizon and the period following rollout in the early 2000s. These
came from John Beswick, a former SPMR who wa:
Other than the documents I subsequently photographed [WITN11100101], I
appear to have lost the remainder. However I clearly recall, and appear to
have quoted from in correspondence with Tim Parker, a document which I
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believe to be the minutes of an NFSP Executive Committee meeting. I stated
in that email to Tim Parker "as early as 2000, from NFSP Executive committee
minutes, they adopted POL’s approach to criticism of the system saying that
to publicly decry the reliability of Horizon would be to put at jeopardy the
public’s trust in the Post Office network”.
78. By late 2015 I had come into contact with the barrister Stephen Mason who
was promoting discussion of the use of electronic evidence in Court. Stephen
Mason obtained and published in his online journal, the transcript of Seema
Misra’s trial.
79.Since then I have taken a keen interest in Seema Misra’s case and I am
pleased to say that Seema Misra, her husband Davinder Misra and I are now
very good friends.
80.Sometime between 2015 and prior to Seema Misra obtaining legal
81
representation from Aria Grace Law, I made contact with the CCRC on her
behalf and provided them with my research and opinions. At some stage I
obtained copies of the prosecution files used in her original trial including
internal POL emails. My study of these files has led to observations that the
Inquiry may not be aware of.
.On the very first day of the trial, Gareth Jenkins appeared in court with a new
set of previously undisclosed Horizon Data. These were the NT Event Logs
for a certain period during Seema Misra’s tenure of West Byfleet Post Office.
These became important evidence during the trial in establishing that a
previously discovered bug in Horizon known as the Callendar Square bug had,
according to the prosecution, not occurred at West Byfleet during that period
in question. This is Data that not even POL, let alone Seema Misra had access
Page 19 of 41
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WITN11100100
to prior to the trial.
82.The Inquiry will be aware that according to Fujitsu the Callendar Square
Horizon Bug was ‘discovered’ in 2005 and ultimately ‘fixed’ by Fujitsu/Escher
in 2006, but Mr Justice Fraser made a finding of fact that the Callendar Square
bug remained in the system until 2010 and the introduction of Horizon Online.
83.In order to try to establish that this error had not occurred in the West Byfleet
branch, Gareth Jenkins had to produce the NT Event Logs. What he could not
and did not produce was a document to say that Fujitsu had undertaken a
network wide search for the interval preceding the fix of the bug to ensure that
the bug had not affected any branch that had not reported it and of course had
not suffered any financial loss as a result.
84. It appears from oral evidence already submitted to the inquiry (from Stephen
Parker questioned by Flora Page) that Fujitsu were in fact monitoring NT
Event Logs on a daily basis for, at least, hard disk failures of the type that
caused the Callendar Square bug. This is also revealed in the call logs from
the West Byfleet branch shortly after Seema Misra resigned her contract in
2008 that I will mention later in this statement.
85. Prior to Seema Misra’s trial beginning, the defence team had requested further
disclosure which was denied by POL and led to an Abuse of Process
submission to the court. In reply the prosecution produced a Response to
Abuse paper dated 7 March 2010 [POL00054346] which made the claim that
if “there was a continuing problem with the Horizon system at West Byfleet,
Seema Misra should have been keenly aware of it at the time it was occurring.”
86.Later in the same document the prosecution state: With an expert eye the
material is not difficult to analyse. In a morning's work the Crown's expert,
Page 20 of 41
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WITN11100100
Gareth Jenkins, was able to analyse all failed credit card transactions and, to
his mind at least, refute Professor McLachlan's theories on that score.
87. This suggests that without an ‘expert eye’ it would be difficult to analyse this
data.
88.1 also refer to Paragraphs 7 and 8 of the Prosecution response to the Abuse
Paper [POL00054346], which refer to the costs of producing data. It is not
clear who was to pay the £20,000 mentioned, nor is it clear who carried the
cost of providing the additional disclosure that Gareth Jenkins brought to court
on the first day of the trial.
89.On 14 January 2008, POL appointed Vipin Vasarmy as the interim SPMR at
Seema Misra’s former branch at West Byfleet. Under cross examination
during Seema Misra’s trial he was asked “Were there any trivial problems?”.
He replied “The only trivial problems we had were with the printers but nothing
with the actual base unit or the monitors”.
90.According to the internal POL prosecution files, that is not true. I attach to this
9
statement a copy of a document from those files at [WITN11100103], which
shows that on 2 April 2008, West Byfleet had a Base Unit Fault which was
diagnosed as a ‘bad block’. This is exactly the root of the problem indicative
of the Callendar Square bug. The base unit was replaced in what was
described in the call log as a “critical event”.
.lt appears from this extract from the West Byfleet call log that identification of
the “bad block” was pre-emptive by Fujitsu and that Fujitsu were still
monitoring all NT Event logs in 2008 for such occurrences. I do not understand
why Gareth Jenkins failed to use this as evidence that the Callendar Square
Bug had not occurred at West Byfleet during Seema Misra’s tenure, nor why
Page 21 of 41
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WITN11100100
he failed to explain to the court why Fujitsu thought it still necessary to be
carrying out these checks after Fujitsu assured the court that the Callendar
Square Bug had been fixed.
92.1 have no knowledge of whether or not the details of this “critical event” were
disclosed to the defence team.
93.During Seema Misra’s trial, the witness Andy Dunks provided in his witness
statement what can only be described as a ‘summarised’ version of the West
Byfleet Call Logs [WITN11100104]. There is one call of particular interest
which Andy Dunks summarised as: “29. Thu 23 February 2006 08:59 Call E-
0602230104 annetee nbsc - pm states that she has losses every week in two
stock units Resolution: Fri 03 March 2006 13:55 Call Close by David Dawe:
pm was getting discrepancy's ssc have investigated and advised that the
NBSC take a 2nd look at this as the office stock units appear to be in a mess.
Outcome SSC team advice that call be passed back to NBSC for further
investigation.” The full call log for the same call was revealed in the GLO, and
subsequently in a FOI request from me to POL and is attached to this
statement [WITN11100105].
94.In this full version of the call log it is revealed that Fujitsu Employee Anne
Chambers investigated this particular call and her comments as recorded
include "/ have checked very carefully and can see no indication that the
continuing discrepancies are due to a system problem. I have not been able
to pin down discrepancies to individual days or stock units because the branch
does not seem to be operating in a particularly organised manner". This
statement requires consideration. If discrepancies cannot be “pinned down to
individual days” then even an expert like Anne Chambers could never find the
Page 22 of 41
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WITN11100100
root cause whether computer error or otherwise. Anne Chambers was willing
to look for a “system problem”, indicating either she was looking for a
manifestation of a known error (at that time) or she was aware that system
problems were a source of errors in branch accounts.
95.From the transcript of Seema Misra's trial, the Prosecution Barrister Warwick
Tatford takes Andy Dunks to various extracts from the summary of calls Andy
Dunks provided in his witness statement including that of 23 Feb 2006 in which
there was no reference to Anne Chambers looking for a system error.
96.1 have since provided the Metropolitan Police with details of Andy Dunks’
submission to the court.
97.Again, I do not know whether or not the full call logs were disclosed to the
defence for Seema Misra.
98.The documents provided to me by the Inquiry are generally related to my
interaction with POL over the years and the internal discussions and actions
these interactions generated. It is a recurring theme that since 2015 when I
first read the transcript of the trial I have pressed POL at every opportunity to
re-examine the transcript in the hope they would see what were/are in my
opinion significant faults in the prosecution case. In 2015 I had only the
transcript and my knowledge of computer systems as well as being a SPMR
to rely on. My initial analysis, which I still have and is sadly prescient of future
revelations, suggested to me that Seema Misra was either a victim of theft by
assistants, and/or losses created by user error, and/or losses created by bugs.
Given the eventual total discrepancy at her branch that had accumulated over
the years I did not consider that a single computer error could be to blame. I
do not and have never believed that Seema Misra stole a single penny from
Page 23 of 41
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WITN11100100
her branch. At the time of her audit and under the terms of her contract with
POL I believe she may have been in debt to POL but certainly not criminally
liable to them.
99.Since 2015 I have obtained more and more evidence to support my original
thesis and the overturning of her conviction by the appeal court supports my
findings.
100. My constant references to Seema Misra’s trial led to Paula Vennells
asking for more information about the trial (denied I believe by her General
Counsel and Rodric Williams) and then her successor Alisdair Cameron. At
some point this led to Simon Clarke producing a brief on the trial in which he
declares that in producing the brief he has relied solely on the transcript just
as I had done in 2015.
101. The conundrum that the Inquiry may like to address is why do two
102.
103.
104.
105.
people, one a lawyer and one a former SPMR with IT experience come to two
completely disparate conclusions from the same evidence — the transcript.
Why was the lawyer wrong in his assertions and the former SPMR correct?
The question I ask myself is, could I sit down with Simon Clarke and convince
him he was wrong? Is the mindset so established that nothing I show him will
change it.
In November 2015 I became aware of The Dalmellington Bug and wrote an
article [POL00234921].
As the actual bug and its effects are well documented I will stick to additional
thoughts and evidence on what transpired there.
I never provided POL with all the information I had about certain topics. With
Dalmellington I kept from them the fact that, having obtained Fujitsu’s
Page 24 of 41
106.
WITN11100100
WITN11100100
explanation of how the bug manifested itself (user timeout) we tested that
theory on an identical set of Horizon equipment and could not repeat the error.
It has therefore always been my belief that Fujitsu did not find the cause of the
error and probably in my opinion inserted code to trap the error when it
occurred. This belief is further substantiated by a document [POL00322166]
provided to me in disclosure that indicates several similar events occurring
within days of the Dalmellington incident suggesting that some unlikely trigger
caused the error to become more widespread.
107. The same document [POL00322166] states that less than 500
108.
109.
branches could be affected because it only affects outreaches. It goes on to
say that ‘in reality there have been VERY FEW INSTANCES because it
involves a number of actions in a particular sequence. Very few instances in
the writer’s mind equates to 5 in the last 3 months alone however closer
analysis shows 4 of these 5 events happening within days of each other as a
result of a process that each SPMR has carried out successfully hundreds of
times before.
The Inquiry should look closely at this document [POL00322166] and the
response to each of the 5 affected branches from the NBSC and note the
different advice given. I am extremely concerned in particular about the advice
given to the Kinlochleven branch which may or may not be the branch Calum
Greenhow talked to me about. If Kinlochleven followed that advice without
further assistance they would have incurred a loss in their accounts that may
only have come to light many months later.
In addition, the document is a perfect illustration of the failings of the NBSC in
not recording these REM errors as extremely serious and linking them to a
Page 25 of 41
110.
111.
112.
113.
114.
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WITN11100100
Knowledge Base so that quick identification of similar errors could be grouped
together and escalated [POL00322166].
It should be noted that the Dalmellington SPMR had performed the same task
many many times before and many times afterwards before the ‘fix’ was
implemented without further manifestations.
The Dalmellington bug was discovered in late 2015. I was part of a small group
that identified the bug from a social media post by the Dalmellington SPMR
and I subsequently produced a report on our findings as well as a blog post I
published on the website www.wordpress.com which I brought to the attention
of Paula Vennells. I a copy of this blog post is attached [WITN11100102].
As a result of our findings, Computer Weekly ran an article on the bug which
led to POL requesting from Fujitsu an investigation to determine the extent of
the problem and the number of branches affected. Fujitsu prepared a
presentation to POL (I do not know who the attendees of that presentation
were) about the bug which stated that they found the bug had been known by
POL since 2010 and allegedly fixed in 2010 and again in 2011 but had re-
occurred a further 31 times since then. POL had failed to report the bug to
Fujitsu between 2011 and 2015.
Fujitsu informed us and I assume POL as well of their understanding of what
had caused the Dalmellington Bug and how they intended to ‘fix’ it. From an
IT perspective it is noteworthy that this fix did not include a change to the
database structure to ensure that no duplicate records could be inserted (e.g.
set the database field attributes to unique and indexed)
I do find it astonishing the failure of anybody at POL to read what has been
presented to them and not question the contents as evidenced in an email
Page 26 of 41
115.
WITN11100100
WITN11100100
from Pete Newsome of Fujitsu in relation to the history of the Dalmellington
bug [FUJ00085967]. In this email it is highlighted that this error occurred 63
times following the release of HNGx in 2010 and in January 2011 a ‘fix’ was
applied. The VERY next line says that in 2011 8 further incidents were
reported and then it goes on to report several instances each year until 2015.
Then the last line is laughable. A fix will be applied in Jan 2016 no further
occurrences have occurred so daily monitoring has stopped. Duplicate
pouches continued to present problems to POL thereafter and probably to this
day all fixable by one small change to a single attribute of a field in a database.
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUESTS
116.
117.
Over the years I have made repeated requests to POL to publish a list of
known errors in the system (see below section on FOI requests). To this day,
they have steadfastly refused to do so.
Since 2013 I have been submitting FOI requests to POL under my own name
and that of a pseudonym Tony Williams. I originally used the Tony Williams
pseudonym as I was then an owner of a Post Office branch and did not want
to attract attention to myself or my wife who was the SPMR.
118. I have compiled a spreadsheet of all of my FOls and correspondence
119.
at WITN11100106.
I have noted below the very unhelpful delaying tactics of the FOI team at POL.
The reasons given for non-disclosure of information which included,
commercial, legal and cost excuses. There is also the matter of the use of
redactions and I note one particular recent example which gives cause for
Page 27 of 41
120.
121.
122.
123.
124.
125.
126.
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WITN11100100
concern as to why POL felt it necessary to redact a specific date.
POLO01 [WITN11100106 - page 4] was a request where I asked for a
snapshot of cash balances declared by the network on a randomly selected
day. I was surprised to receive a detailed response and it indicated that the
recording of cash balances by branches was problematic to say the least
showing that only 708 branches actually recorded balances that corresponded
with what Horizon said they should be. Of note is a subsequent telephone
conversation I had with Angela Van-Den-Bogerd where we discussed this
issue and we both agreed that those 708 branches would be subject to more
scrutiny than the others that reported discrepancies.
POLO002 [WITN11100106 — page 7] was a request to BIS which asked for
copies of all the correspondence between BIS and Paula Vennells between 1
June 2012 and 31 May 2013.
POLO07 [WITN11100106 — page 61] was a request for statistics of requests
to POL’s FOI team - I recall submitting this as I was beginning to notice from
other FOI requests to POL that they were only being responded to on the last
statutory day for response.
POL008 [WITN11100106 — page 63] is probably unrelated to the Inquiry but
was an example of the obfuscation provided by POL to me. This request
ultimately led to a successful complaint to the ICO.
POLO09 [WITN11100106 — page 65] was linked to my interest in the failure of
the Network Transformation project.
POLO010 [WITN11100106 — page 67] was an enquiry into the funding of the
NFSP.
POLO011 [WITN11100106 — page 69] related to the funding of the NFSP but
Page 28 of 41
127.
128.
129.
130.
131.
132.
133.
134.
WITN11100100
WITN11100100
was a good example of the obfuscation in the reply by POL to a simple
request.
In POLO12 [WITN11100106 — page 71] the question was “Has the Board of
Directors and Senior Management of Post Office Ltd ever been made aware
of ANY fault within the software or hardware of their Horizon System that
would have impacted in ANY way on the accuracy of the accounts of any post
office?” A simple question that they refused to answer after requesting an
extension period.
POL013 [WITN11100106 — page 73] was an enquiry to BIS regarding funding
of the NFSP.
POL014 [WITN11100106 - page 82] was a request to POL for details of
contingency amounts set aside to cover eventual compensation for convicted
SPMRs. This was dated 11 July 2014 and may have been the first request
for such information. It was refused.
POLO015 [WITN11100106 — page 83] is of no interest to the Inquiry.
POLO016 [WITN11100106 — page 85] is of no interest to the Inquiry other than
a simple request not being replied to until the last possible day.
POL017 [WITN11100106 — page 87] was a protracted ‘discussion’ with POL
regarding the Memorandum of Understanding that was meant to have been
signed by POL with the NFSP.
POL018 [WITN11100106 — page 90] was an unusually swift response to a
further request on contingencies set aside for future payments to affected
SPMRs. It would be interesting to find out who the Information Rights team
contacted to get a response to this or the original FOI.
POL019 [WITN11100106 — page 91] is the Memorandum of Understanding
Page 29 of 41
135.
136.
137.
138.
139.
140.
141.
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WITN11100100
with the NFSP again and POL refusing access to it.
POL020 [WITN11100106 — page 92] was a simple request that was refused
even though POL admit they have the information.
POLO021 [WITN11100106 — page 94] was a request to BIS that failed due to
website problems.
POL023 [WITN11100106 - page 100] was a request linked to the
Dalmellington bug. POL and Fujitsu had told us in private emails that this
release would fix the problem which occurred in 2015, but not until 2016. In
the interim they refused to inform the network that the bug still existed in the
system. This relates to the Seema Misra trial where it was wrongly stated that
any computer error would be spotted by the operator.
POL024 [WITN11100106 — page 103] was a request for financial information
- I took the opportunity to forecast a minimum of £300m contingency that
should be set aside by POL for compensation payments (this in January
2016).
POLO25 [WITN11100106 - page 105] was a request for numbers of
prosecutions that was only partially replied to. I seem to recall at this time I
was helping Nick Wallis to establish these numbers. The numbers provided in
this response did not match with what was eventually revealed by Nick Wallis
in an article he wrote dated 25 May 2020 [WITN11100107].
POL026 [WITN11100106 — page 107] was a request aimed at pointing out to
POL in a public way that I had come across a Transaction Correction credit
that had been sent to an office where the SPMR had moved on. The new
SPMR queried this with the Help Desk and was told to keep the “money”.
POL027 [WITN11100106 — page 109] was a reply from POL with regard to
Page 30 of 41
142.
143.
144,
145.
146.
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WITN11100100
my questions on suspense accounts. While they refused to answer how much
was posted from suspense to income statement on commercial grounds, they
did acknowledge that they had done so. That in turn leads to questions about
management bonus payments and possible fraud.
POLO28 [WITN11100106 — page 111] was a reply from POL regarding
disciplinary procedures in place in POL operated “Crown” branches. It should
be noted that at some stage it was discovered that £2m annually was being
written off by POL as losses in Crown Offices.
POL029 [WITN11100106 — page 113] was a request for additional financial
information about the suspense accounts which was refused on commercial
grounds. I requested an internal review but that was turned down as well.
POLO030 [WITN11100106 — page 115] was a request for the amount POL was
spending on defending the GLO. Understandably turned down and of course
this information was made public at a later date. By this time POL were now
routinely taking the full statutory timeframe in which to respond to requests.
POLO31 [WITN11100106 - page 118] was a request to the Ministry of
Defence based on a press report that there was a significant security problem
with Windows NT and asking them if they had advised POL of this. POL used
Windows NT for Horizon up until the introduction of HOLx. Support for NT was
discontinued by Microsoft in 2004 and I later came across a website
maintained by third parties that listed known errors in NT found after the last
Microsoft release including very significant security issues.
POLO32 [WITN11100106 - page 120] was about internal disciplinary
procedures for POL employees. I took a snapshot of the wording of the job
advert which clearly indicates the use of a “consequences policy”, but POL
Page 31 of 41
147.
148.
149.
150.
151.
152.
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WITN11100100
denied having such a document.
POL033 [WITN11100106 — page 121] was a request to establish under which
authority POL undertook Private Prosecutions. Of note here is their access to
the Police National Computer of which I have seen an audit of POL’s use of it.
POL034 [WITN11100106 — page 126] is a request to UKGI. I had pointed out
to POL that they had perhaps misused State Aid / Working Capital Loan to
help fund the GLO and they had to repay the money to BEIS.
POL035 [WITN11100106 — page 129] was linked to POL034 - I asked both
UKGI and POL much the same question.
POLO036 [WITN11100106 — page 131] was a request I made in 2019, by which
time I had become used to POL’s refusal to discuss the Known Errors Log and
I did not expect a response to this one, but this is part of the history of requests
to POL for the publication of the Known Errors Log and/or release notes for
patches/upgrades to Horizon. It would be interesting to know who was giving
these responses to POL’s FOI team from within POL as it was clearly a
concerted effort not to provide any detail on the KEL.
POL037 [WITN11100106 — page 133] was a request that produced the full
call log which had been summarised by Andy Dunks in Seema Misra’s trial
(see above). The document has since been provided to the Met Police as part
of their investigation into suspected criminal behaviour during the prosecution
of Seema Misra by POL representatives. I was surprised to receive it and it
was the turning point in communication with POL’s FOI team as they seemed
to become more forthcoming in their responses.
POLO38 [WITN11100106 — page 137] was a request for documentation
between UKGI and POL regarding POL’s funding arrangements. One of the
Page 32 of 41
153.
154.
155.
156.
157.
158.
159.
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WITN11100100
documents provided which should have been almost fully redacted was not.
It confirms the extraordinary amount of money that POL had available to them
to fight the GLO (£237m) and they were prepared to use it.
POLO039 [WITN11100106 — page 164] was similar to a request in 2013 which
was successful, but BEIS this time decided not to comply.
POL040 [WITN11100106 — page p166] was a request for POL board minutes
from 1999 and after a lengthy wait I was provided with them.
POL041 [WITN11100106 — page 224] was to find out how did, and how do
POL now, locate former SPMRs in order that transaction corrections issued
long after they have sold their branch are returned to them. The recent
example of POL’s search for possible HSS claimants indicates that they use
credit scoring agencies such as Equifax to locate them but in the instance I
report in this FOI, no effort was taken to locate the former SPMR.
POL042 [WITN11100106 — page 227] was in relation to Misconduct in Public
Office. This FOI was to raise the responsibility to report crime, and to consider
whether the POL management are Public Officers.
POL043 [WITN11100106 — page 229] was in relation to a Settlement of
Mediation Case. A former SPMR and member of the JFSA contacted me and
told me of the payment to the widow of a former SPMR, Martin Griffiths, and
the way that it was handled by Angela Van-Den-Bogerd.
POL044 [WITN11100106 - page 232] is where I was pursuing POL to
acknowledge and publish at least some of the Known Errors Log. The reasons
they gave for refusal were intriguing and changed over time.
POL045 [WITN11100106 — page 235] was where I was again pushing POL to
publish the Known Errors Log and asking for a review of their reasons not to
Page 33 of 41
160.
161.
162.
163.
164.
WITN11100100
WITN11100100
publish it, which in this instance included “legal privilege”.
POL046 [WITN11100106 — page 237] was in relation to a post on social media
which showed a screenshot of a Horizon Error Code and the poster asked
what it meant. Nobody on the forum knew what it was so I challenged POL via
this FOI to publish a list of these error codes.
POL047 [WITN11100106 — page 239] was in relation to Cash Remittances.
There is ample evidence from many SPMRs almost on a daily basis on social
media to this very day that the system of Cash Remittances is flawed. I have
continued to pursue POL on this topic which led to Ron Warmington from
Second Sight and I being invited to visit the POL Cash Centre in Birmingham
earlier this year, but still we have not full disclosure from POL on this topic,
including statistics and error logs for both gains and losses.
POL048 was in relation to the Investigation of a discrepancy at Wallasey Post
Office by a specially appointed team. This is an example of an FOI where the
reasons for non-disclosure could be questionable.
POL049 concerned the Known Errors Log. Even after Justice Fraser handed
down his decision on the Horizon trial POL were still refusing to publish the
Known Errors Log. The reply to this particular FOI is particularly disingenuous,
and brings into question the FOI team and the role they played.
POLO50 [WITN11100106 — page 241] concerned the Dalmellington Bug. I was
contacted in June 2016 by Calum Greenhow of the NFSP (then a branch
secretary) to assist him with a problem he had with a NFSP member who was
being pursued by POL for a debt which from my understanding from the
conversation I had with Calum Greenhow was identical to the circumstances
of the Dalmellington bug and that according to Calum Greenhow the debt had
Page 34 of 41
165.
166.
167.
168.
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WITN11100100
been incurred in 2015. This might mean that despite what POL and Fujitsu
had stated in court, POL had not in fact resolved the issue nor informed their
managers what to look out for. I have repeatedly asked Calum Greenhow for
details of the branch involved so I could cross check if Fujitsu had actually
found the error in that branch.
POL051 [WITN11100106 — page 244] was a request to which there is a
change in the tone of the response, which was after the GLO.
POL052 [WITN11100106 — page 248] concerned the Dalmellington Bug. An
email released under FOI! suggests the Dalmellington Bug was raised at quite
a high level. The unredacted version would be interesting.
POL053/054 [WITN11100106 — page 250] these are 2 requests which are
linked and are quite recent. These may be helpful to the inquiry to show who
knew what and when with regard to the extent of issues with Horizon. There
are 2 outstanding points that still need to be investigated further a) why was
the “Former Agents Debt Recovery Team” involved in deciding to have the
entry linked to Seema Misra removed as a result of her confiscation hearing
being decided? And b) why was the day and month on one of the emails
redacted and not the year when all other emails did not have their dates
redacted? It seems likely that the spreadsheet had been in use for some
considerable time prior to even the initial discussions of appointing Forensic
Accountants.
POLO5S5 [WITN11100106 — page p278] is a very recent example of POL hiding
behind the cost limit for FOI requests. It is also worthy to note that the
comments quoted from the Swift Review indicate a “system wide errorI”, which
is something Paula Vennells went to great lengths to deny existed and POL
Page 35 of 41
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WITN11100100
did not want the JFSA team to establish in court. I checked with the JFSA
expert witness, Jason Coyne, if he had found this bug in the data provided to
him and he said that he had never seen it mentioned before.
Page 36 of 41
Statement of Truth
I believe the content of this statement to be true.
Signed: GRO.
Tim McCormack
Dated: 7° April 2024
Page 37 of 41
WITN11100100
WITN11100100
Index to first witness statement of Tim McCormack
WITN11100100
WITN11100100
No. I URN
Document
Description
Control Number
POL00144438
Email from Tim McCormack
to Paula Vennells re Mail
Segregation Problem
POL-BSFF-0003575
POL00298740
Email chain from Tim
McCormack to Kevin
Gilliland, Paul Vennells and
others re Mail Segregation
POL-BSFF-0136790
WITN11100110
Email chain from Tim
McCormack to Gayle
Peacock and others re
Branch User Forum
WITN11100110
POL00234092
Email chain from Melanie
Corfield to Rodric Williams,
Mark Underwood and Patrick
Bourke and others
POL-BSFF-0072155
POL00101809
Tim
Paula
Email chain from
McCormack to
Vennells and others.
POL-0101392
POL00220125
Gareth Jenkins report on
Label Printing
POL-BSFF-0058188
POL00150592
Email chain from Christopher
Ingles to Angela Van-Den-
Bogerd and others re Tim
McCormack Feedback
POL-BSFF-0009704
POL00220151
Email chain from Peter Prior-
Mills to Angela Van-Den-
Bogerd and others
POL-BSFF-0058214
POL00107144
Email chain from Peter Prior-
Mills to Angela Van-Den-
Bogerd re Spoiling postage
labels
POL-0105452
10.
POL00150592
Email chain from Chistopher
Ingles to Angela Van-Den-
Bogerd, Rodric Williams and
others re Tim McCormack
feedback
POL-BSFF-0009704
11.
POL00219911
Email chain from Peter Prior-
Mills to Angela Van-Den-
Bogerd re New Year Update
- This has now got quite
serious
POL-BSFF-0057974
12.
WITN11100111
Article by Tim McCormack,
The Post Office Horizon
system and Seema Misra
WITN11100111
Page 38 of 41
WITN11100100
WITN11100100
13.
POL00242536
Email chain from Patrick
Bourke to Melanie Corfield
and others re Freedom of
Information request -
Misconduct in Public Office
POL-BSFF-0080599
14.
POL00242940
Email chain from Paula
Vennells to Tom Wechsler
POL-BSFF-0081003
15.
POL00030098
Email chain from Newsome
Pete to Satchithananda
Muhunda re Update Q1:
Urgent Action: Accessing
Horizon
POL-0026580
16
WITN11100112
Blog by Tim McCormack,
Post Office Trial. What is the
truth?
WITN11100112
17
POL00242983
Email chain from Jane
MacLeod to Tom Wechsler re
Confidential and Subject to
Privilege
POL-BSFF-0081046
18.
POL00242940
Email chain from Paula
Vennells to Tom Wechsler re
Criminal Investigation
Opened
POL-BSFF-0081003
19.
POL00021686
Email chain from Andrew
Parsons to Daniel Fawcett re
McCormack
POL-0018165
20.
POL00241070
Email chain from Melanie
Corfield to FOITEAM, Chris
Brow, Rodric Williams and
others re Request for Horizon
Information
POL-BSFF-0079133
21.
POL00025368
Letter from Martin
Humphreys to Tim
McCormack re Freedom of
Information Request
POL-0021847
22.
POL00024909
Letter from Kerry Moodie to
Tim McCormack re Freedom
of Information Request
POL-0021388
23.
POL00024897
Email chain from Andrew
Parsons to Kerry Moodie,
Rodric Williams, Patrick
Bourke and others re Tim
McCormack FOIA Response
Draft
POL-0021376
24.
POL00241067
Letter from Martin
Humphreys to Tim
McCormack re Freedom of
Information Request
POL-BSFF-0079130
Page 39 of 41
WITN11100100
WITN11100100
25.
POL00245938
Email chain from Andrew
Parsons to Rodric Williams re
BAU response
POL-BSFF-0084001
26.
POL00277366
Email chain from Alisdair
Cameron to Rob Houghton,
Kim Abbotts, Ben Foat and
others re Another computer
error
POL-BSFF-0115429
27.
POL00163614
Email chain from Rodric
Williams to Mark Davies,
Patrick Pourke, Melanie
Corfield and others re
McCormack - background
POL-0151817
28.
POL00277535
Email chain from Kim Abbotts
to Alisdair Cameron, Rob
Hougton, Ben Foat and
others re Another compter
error
POL-BSFF-0115598
29.
POL00278014
Email chain from Ben Cooke
to Alisdair Cameron, Rob
Houghton and others re
Branch Impacting Incidents
Summary
POL-BSFF-0116077
30.
POL00277549
Email chain from Alisdair
Cameron to Kim Abbotts,
Rob Houghton, Ben Foat and
others re Another Computer
error
POL-BSFF-0115612
31.
POL00277748
Email chain from Martine
Munby to Ben Foat, Rob
Houghton, Amanda Jones
and others re The error,
Catch 22 and Some other
thoughts
POL-BSFF-0115811
32.
POL00278009
Email chain from Angela Van-
Den-Bogerd to Huw Williams,
Kathryn Alexander, Shirley
Hailstones re Branch
Impacting Incidents Summary
POL-BSFF-0116072
33.
POL00278013
Extract from PO HIT Closing
Submission
POL-BSFF-0116076
34.
POL00278014
Email chain from Ben Cooke
to Alisdair Cameron, Rob
Houghton and others re
Branch Impacting Incidents
Summary
POL-BSFF-0116077
35.
POL00277848
Email chain from (GRO) sent
to Andrew Parsons re
Criminal Investigation
Opened
POL-BSFF-0115911
Page 40 of 41
WITN11100100
WITN11100100
36.
POL00277977
R_ v Seema Misra _ briefing
note on trial by Rodric
Williams
POL-BSFF-0116040
37.
WITN11100101
from
former
Documents _ received
John Beswick,
subpostmaster
WITN11100101
38.
POL00054346
R v Seema Misra prosecution
response to defence abuse
of process skeleton argument
POL00054346
39.
WITN11100103
POL prosecution files - West
Byfleet Call Log dated 2 April
2008
WITN11100103
40.
WITN11100104
Mr Andy Dunks’ witness
statement provided during the
trial of R v Seema Misra
WITN11100104
41.
WITN11100105
Full log regarding helpdesk
call by Mrs Seema Misra E-
0602230104 dated 23
February 2006
WITN11100105
42.
POL00234921
Article by Tim McCormack,
The Error in Horizon
POL-BSFF-0072984
43.
POL00322166
Draft Response — CWU and
alleged Horizon Errors
POL-BSFF-0160216
WITN11100102
Blogpost on the
Dalmellington bug by Tim
McCormack dated 10
November 2015
WITN11100102
45.
FUJ00085967
Email chain from Pete
Newsome to Steve Bansal,
Gavin Bell and others
POINQ0092138F
46.
WITN11100106
Freedom of ___ information
requests
WITN11100106
47.
WITN11100107
Article by Nick Wallis on the
number of Post Office
prosecutions dated 25 May
2020
WITN11100107
Page 41 of 41