On evidence day 101 (19th December 2023) the Inquiry heard from it’s legal expert, Duncan Atkinson KC. He seems to be used by the Crown Prosecution Service and is held in quite high regard. As for most witnesses he submitted witness statements and was now being questioned about them. He must have mentioned Mrs Adedayo and this prompted some questions from the Judge (Sir Wyn Williams) and this was followed up after a break by the questioner (Jason Beer KC ) offering some additional clarity.
Note I use the term Postmaster interchangeably with Sub-Postmaster, at some point there was legal advice that the two terms are interchangeable. This author was not engaged in any of the Postmaster trials or even the Group Litigation Order so when I heard that some appeals were being held at Southwark Crown Court that piqued my interest. This was mainly due to that fact that appeals from the Magistrates to the Crown Court result in a Retrial. Of course that means all the evidence can be heard again, or for the first time for me. Of course being an officious bystander means that I don’t have pay any legal fees that the applicants would.
At the time of writing the Inquiry has only published Part 1 of its report, the bulk of the detail is expected in a few months. What is required to provide any justice to these cases is a technical expert who understands the software development process as it stands in the industry and as it was deployed at Fujitsu Services. How in their right mind could that viewed with some volunteers pulled of a streets and one legal helper that they could understand what was happening with Horizon (or even what Horizon was, more to come on that point)
What happened in Southwark was that Post Office decided not to oppose her/their Appeal, citing public interest issues. Their convictions were quashed. I imagine all the appellants were delighted with this. As it happened I was delighted for them but a bit disappointed personally because there would be no substance to the retrial. As it turned out the Inquiry would also be disappointed though they had more refined ways of expressing that opinion.
What was the nature of the problem this caused? All Postmasters were concerned with the matter of compensation. It remains a problem from that day to this. Yes months after the Inquiry evidence sessions are done some of the postmasters are still involved in a battle royal to get adequate compensation ( at the time of writing Janet Skinner certainly is but I’m unsure of Mrs Adedayo’s current status).
Somebody, the Post Office or any of the Lawyers involved managed to classify some cases as being a Horizon case! In the Court of Appeal (for cases appealed from the Crown Court) this was a very important classification. Those cases classified as Horizon Cases had their appeals allowed, otherwise they did not. The Lawyers seemed to accept this but from my perspective they were all using the Horizon Software, I don’t see where the distinction comes from.
One point that came up at the Inquiry was a pin pad to access banks. I believe this was to access the Bank of Ireland. It seems to be widely accepted that this device was faulty but some Post Office people seemed to latch on to this as a reason why Horizon problems were not theirs. Imagine a car engine being faulty due to an inherited problem from a faulty crankshaft. The engine maker has a legitimate complaint but you can’t expect drivers to replace the crankshaft, only the carmaker can do that. Post Office/Fujitsu was the integrator for the Pin Pad, it remains their responsibility to correct that problem. It is still a Horizon problem.
In Mrs Adedayo’s case, when it came to compensation, Post Office claimed that she was not innocent – they only allowed the appeal for public interest reasons. At the Inquiry Sir Wyn Williams applied the term “a Horizon case” to Mrs Adedayo’s case. Personally I’m not sure whether Post Office did that at her Appeal but …
Now coming to the main point of this blog, what is a Horizon Case or more to the point what is Horizon? The official name for the Inquiry is “Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry”. Now don’t you think that the Inquiry should have an official definition of what Horizon actually was? Part of the problem is that the Inquiry focussed on the Postmasters. They naturally thought Horizon was the box that was in their office. I’m not sure what Horizon is but I would use a very inclusive definition. Adding to the boxes in the office, the network (electronic), the SAP R/3 system (POLSAP), Credence and any and all systems used in conjunction. From my perspective anything and everything the Post Office supplied was Horizon. I don’t claim to know what Horizon is but they should have had a discussion at the Inquiry to verify or expand the definition. I couldn’t understand how they could continue with such a loose definition and why it hadn’t come up before, it turns out it had come up before.
One of the best witnesses in the Inquiry, probably the whole series of cases, was Jason Coyne. Not only did he know how an “expert” was supposed to present himself in court, he is quite skilled technically as well. Most other witnesses were very good at one or the other but few excelled in both areas (however that did not stop them trying). He was called to the Inquiry but mainly on one case, that of Mrs Julie Wolstenholme. He did much work on the GLO in the Business Court but he was not called to the inquiry to be a witness for that case. I have no idea why they didn’t do that at the Inquiry but I do consider it a flaw in the process.
In POL00139650 (an Inquiry document reference) this is a “Decision paper: Preservation of POLSAP” there is a discussion as to whether the SAP R/3 Instance called POLSAP should be preserved. It was a decision being made by “Womble Bond Dickinson” – Lawyers to the Post Office. It was realised the data contained on this system could be of relevance top the Group Action (the GLO). They discuss deleting the data but Postmasters were involved. I really don’t understand why they are doing this but it does reprieve an old Post Office or Fujitsu trope that it is too expensive to keep it. It appears to me that the cost is relative peanuts compared to the resources of those companies even excluding the consultants and lawyers.
Evidence WBON0001315 – Email from Andrew Parsons to Anthony de Garr Robinson, Simon Henderson CC: Gavin Matthews RE: Scope of Horizon [WBDUK-AC.FID26896945]. There issn interesting quote here: in our JM meeting and in the JM itself, Coyne has clearly signalled that he will consider POLSAP to be
within the boundary of Horizon. Jason was quite correct in doing this. SAP always say that there “is only one version of the truth”. Their Software is carefully designed to ensure this is the case.
I’ve not looked at many more cases but it shows that the issue of what exactly Horizon is was quite topical at one point. Now what should it be? I suggest it should be anything and everything that is used to build a case against a Postmaster. Jason Coyne was correct.
The whole idea of a “Horizon case” needs to be revisited.
What I really don’t understand is why Mrs Adedayo was not allowed to get her case retried. She was granted her appeal and that means her conviction was quashed. So how in subsequent activities, i.e. Compensation, was the Post Office allowed to claim that she really was guilty of fraud? This concept has appeared in other Criminal compensation cases, the applicant was deemed to be “not innocent enough”. I simply don’t understand, how the best justice system in the world, does not accept a conviction has been quashed unless and until it has been retried and a new verdict exists.