On the 11th November 2024 Paul Patterson was re-called as a witness from Fujitsu Services (Day 196). This was supposed to be due to a lack of clarity in his previous evidence session, however it turned out to be very interesting. This was in Phase 7 which was supposed to be about future plans at Post Office but revisited some useful problems. Fujitsu raised a number of issues that had not been fully addressed previously. I will also briefly mention Elliott Jacobs. Day 176 and Day 175.
To understand his responses we really need to answer the question: just exactly what is Horizon? From the postmasters perspective it was the system that was installed in their offices. Mr Blake seemed to accept this and his questions were from that viewpoint. Mr Patterson, while not rejecting that idea suggested that POLSAP and Credence were also used to provide information used for prosecutions. We should also include the implemented business processes by Post Office Personnel.
Mr Blake appeared to reject the idea of POLSAP and Credence because they were “other systems”. Trying to force attention on the Fujitsu created code. Although the Inquiry did not really consider what POLSAP did for the business processes that resulted in Postmaster prosecutions it does not mean that it wasn’t involved. SAP R/3 has bugs, just the same way that Windows does, not only that there is code in POLSAP that could also contain bugs errors and defects. It would be entirely incorrect to ignore them.
What should be done is to completely analyse the path of the shortfall. To determine everything that contributes to that error.
Mr Blake pointed out that the survey conducted by YouGov, for the Inquiry, some number of Postmasters reported errors in the very latest version of the Horizon Software installed in their branches. Mr Patterson, while agreeing with that statement, had trouble accepting that Horizon (whatever that may be) is capable of being used to provide the information for their accounts.
Question from Mr Blake:
Q. Are you confident, for example, that somebody could come
14 to the Inquiry from Fujitsu, and say, where you're
15 sitting, that, as somebody who operates Horizon -- and
16 of course individual cases have to be taken on their own
17 basis and their own facts -- but as somebody who
18 operates Horizon, the system, so far as they are
19 concerned, is reliable for accounting purposes?
Mr Patterson replies:
20 A. Mr Blake, again, I'm going to answer it, I don't know.
21 If that question was being posed, I would expect the
22 Post Office to be sitting here, as well, as well as the
23 engineers on our side, to determine whether the
24 information required is appropriate to be able to sign
25 those things off.This exchange was picked up by the Press and resulted in a comment that “Mr Patterson” refused to answer questions.
This author thinks he has a very good point. The Inquiry was primarily focussed on the statements of individuals about disclosed evidence. The Horizon system was probably based upon a set of applications and related components. Information from these services was used to build the “evidence” used to prosecute Postmasters. This would include the spreadsheet like documents that were presented to sub postmasters as the “proof” that they had been cheating. Were these sheets also presented as evidence in court? This author has no idea because the Inquiry did not examine prosecutions in any depth. Elliott Jacobs, former non executive director at Post Office, in his evidence (24 Sep 2024), pointed out that he received a “PDF Statement” from Mr. Morley (Mr Andrew Morley, Senior Investigations Officer and John Bartlett from POL Central Investigation Unit).
How was the PDF Statement put together? It came with no instructions or documentation. What did the columns mean? Mr Elliott asked for clarification and for it to be put into a real spreadsheet format that he may do analysis. I believe this happened but it would be much more useful if those related documents were submitted as evidence to the Inquiry
Mr Patterson made a comment that had been made by someone at the Post Office about user errors but Mr Blake critiqued this response as raising old issues. Mr Patterson once again made a reference to POLSAP and whether data was being correctly extracted/entered from it.
Mr Patterson also stated that Fujitsu Services would not put forward any of their staff as witnesses in Court. He didn’t say but I guess he was referring Gareth Jenkins and Anne Chambers and how they managed to come under Police Investigation for their role in the GLO trials. It hasn’t been stated anywhere else and I certainly wouldn’t disagree with the judge (Fraser J) now Lord Justice Fraser. What those witnesses said was without any intent to deceive the court but circumstances conspired so that they probably did that. At the time of writing the author has no idea of the current status of those cases but Fujitsu surely does not wish to repeat that.
There was a moment when Mr Blake and Mr Williams appeared to be in “violent agreement”. Mr Blake asked why Fujitsu Services had not commissioned an independent inquiry into the into the Bugs and errors in Horizon. Mr Williams suggested that there should be a panel discussion, at the Inquiry, with members from Fujitsu and Post Office to track down the source of problems wherever they occur. This is with the implication that problems could truly be in Post Office and Horizon delivered components.