back to article Former Fujitsu engineer apologizes for role in Post Office IT scandal

Gareth Jenkins, former distinguished engineer at Fujitsu Services Ltd, said he "clearly got trapped into doing things that I shouldn't have done" when giving technical evidence that led to the wrongful conviction of Post Office workers in one of the biggest IT scandals to hit the UK. Speaking during the inquiry into the Post …

  1. alain williams Silver badge

    "assumed" & "not recall if anyone had told him"

    Jenkins said the EPOS code, which had been developed in 1998, became his responsibility around 2004 and 2005, but he had assumed it had stabilized by then.

    "I accepted that there were these problems in the early days, which I hadn't been involved with specifically, but there had been plenty of time then for things to be sorted out for it to be working stably," he said.

    He said he did not recall if anyone had told him about problems with the EPOS code.

    If it was his responsibility then should he have not made it his business to find out if there were problems so that they could be fixed ?

    Apparently not. So what was he doing with his time ?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      ...what was he doing with his time?

      Failing to read the documents that the Post Office legal team had sent him about the duty of an expert witness to be impartial, apparently. As he has repeatedly been forced to admit.

      I don't think that the last four days have exactly gone well for him.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: ...what was he doing with his time?

        yep he has had his pants totally pulled down at the inquiry had a right kicking

        1. keithpeter Silver badge
          Windows

          Re: ...what was he doing with his time?

          https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/gareth-jenkins-day-2-the-god-complex-unravels/

          Looks like more than a kicking. See the comments by the inquiry chair.

          1. elsergiovolador Silver badge

            Re: ...what was he doing with his time?

            I am amazed that such an old emails exist. I guess there was no Whatsapp then and ability to actually delete messages.

            1. Stuart Castle Silver badge

              Re: ...what was he doing with his time?

              You could delete messages but then, as now, you had no control over the backups taken of the servers your email or messenging services was hosted on, or whether the messages weren't merely marked as deleted, and easily retrievable by some Admin if needed.

      2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: ...what was he doing with his time?

        I'd guess that even if he-d read them they wouldn't have included a critical warning. The expert witness' worst problems come from the side that calls them. The examination that turns into a cross-examination trying to get them to over-commit. The statement that had to be retyped because it had to be on a different form, the original mentioned suspects who are no longer before the court. etc.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      For God's sake, nobody was hiding anything!

      E.P.O.S. === Egregious Piece Of Shit.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Distinguished engineer got trapped into doing things :o

    ‘Gareth Jenkins, former distinguished engineer at Fujitsu Services Ltd, said he "clearly got trapped into doing things that I shouldn't have done"’

    Baloney, Jenkins was complicit in the cover-up. To salvage his own ‘distinguished’ reputation and avoid the expense of fixing the software.

    What is it about these kind of NGOs that there is no one individual or department responsible for an issue. Every time I write to a certain local authority, I get a reply from a different individual with a different title, something something officer /s

    1. Howard Long

      Re: Distinguished engineer got trapped into doing things :o

      Well, I've watched his entire testimony this week so far, with 30 minutes to go.

      "Baloney, Jenkins was complicit in the cover-up."

      What is clear from his testimony is that he clearly is/was an expert in his domain, that of the Horizon computer systems, but he was certainly not an "expert witness" in the legal sense, and had no training to be one, although he was presented as such by the criminal lawyers in court.

      As he's never been a legal expert witness, he should never have been in a criminal court, as he did not know or understand what an expert witness is in legal terms, nor what their responsibilities are.

      To be blunt, he was the lawyers' useful idiot.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Distinguished engineer got trapped into doing things :o

        I'm beginning to think he was told they needed someone to make a statement on behalf of the company, that it was just a formality and they could draft most/?all of it for him.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Distinguished engineer got trapped into doing things :o

          Surely they did know in advance how malleable he was, and what he was going to say, and confirmed it verbally. Any number of humans could have been used instead, but what he provided was being an in-house system knowledgeable engineer who effectively singed a blank check with amount "I Promise to Pay My Soul as Fall Guy".

      2. elsergiovolador Silver badge

        Re: Distinguished engineer got trapped into doing things :o

        "patsy"

        1. trindflo Silver badge

          Re: Distinguished engineer got trapped into doing things :o

          Yeah, sort of a patsy. I get that he's remorseful. I just can't see how to excuse it.

          Was he just out of school and given a title and told to push a button? Doesn't seem so.

          Was he from a culture that values being a team player too much? Maybe.

          Is there a reasonable excuse for wrecking other people's lives and not blowing the whistle? I'm trying, but I can't see it.

          What I can see is that Seppuku is not an honest way to save face in this case. Accepting the atonement the state proposes is the right thing to do.

          It would be much better that the people goading him into it would face consequences.

          1. Graham Cobb Silver badge

            Re: Distinguished engineer got trapped into doing things :o

            I got to a very senior technical position in my company and knew many of these types of technical experts. They really were absolutely genuinely engineering marvels. They had full understanding of very technical details of large and complex systems. They could make excellent technical decisions, often with insufficient data, based on their years of experience, technical insight, and understanding of the system.

            However, they often didn't understand people, sometimes didn't understand processes (even good engineering processes), didn't understand that other people didn't understand the systems like they did and so there needed to be checks and balances, validations, self-correction and alarms for "impossible" situations. Just because the architecture was awesome, didn't mean the implementation was as good! And they had a habit of ignoring the fact that the operational processes often violated their wonderful architecture with hacks, workrounds, manual overrides, etc.

          2. UnknownUnknown

            Re: Distinguished engineer got trapped into doing things :o

            Cutting a deal with prosecutors and turning on those who made him the patsy is the best/only option here for him.

          3. Lars Silver badge
            Coat

            Re: Distinguished engineer got trapped into doing things :o

            Out of share curiosity how many at Fujitsu actually knew how many postmasters had been "caught". Was that not sort of kept a secret by the Post Office.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Distinguished engineer got trapped into doing things :o

        "What is clear from his testimony is that he clearly is/was an expert in his domain, that of the Horizon computer systems"

        He seems to have been unaware of the realities of the system, so hardly an expert in that domain, or any other relevant to the inquiry from what I can see. He would appear to have been an over paid manager with no interest or inquisitiveness in the areas he was supposed to be looking after. Yet another case of "what on earth did they do on a daily basis to justify their salaries" - along with all the POL managers we have seen in this inquiry.

        1. Spazturtle Silver badge

          Re: Distinguished engineer got trapped into doing things :o

          He couldn't accept that the design of the system that he helped design was flawed, so is it any wonder that people would stop reporting issues to him if he refused to accept them. He seems like the sort of guy to yell at people who point out issues with his work. Even now he refuses to admit that Horizon was flawed and is blaming everything on implementation bugs.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Distinguished engineer got trapped into doing things :o

        Responsibility and Pay: Jenkins < Singh < Vennels. Therefore Jenkins must be sacrificed. No, not a sign error - that's how it works.

      5. Ian Johnston Silver badge

        Re: Distinguished engineer got trapped into doing things :o

        You're banging on and on with this nonsense.

        Whether someone is an expert witness or not depends on precisely one thing: whether a court accepts them as an expert witness. If it does, then by definition they are. They may be a bad expert witness or a good one, a diligent one or a capricious one, an honest one or a corrupt one, but when the court accepts them they have the role.

        You might as well argue that Harold Shipman was never a doctor because he killed people or that Thomas Bouch was never an engineer because the Tay Bridge collapsed.

        I am very surprised that the courts accepted someone who worked - indirectly - for the prosecuting organisation as an expert witness, as they are supposed to be impartial, but they did and it's useless to try and wriggle out of that appointment on his behalf now.

        1. Dante Alighieri
          FAIL

          Re: Distinguished engineer got trapped into doing things :o

          NO.

          An expert witness has a duty to the court and no other entity.

          They are required to provide unbiased evidenced to the court, regardless of their employer

          And I have done this for a coroner

          1. Ian Johnston Silver badge

            Re: Distinguished engineer got trapped into doing things :o

            Which bit of my post are you disagreeing ("NO!") with? Because I think you just said what I just said.

        2. Robert 22

          Re: Distinguished engineer got trapped into doing things :o

          "I am very surprised that the courts accepted someone who worked - indirectly - for the prosecuting organization as an expert witness"

          He was clearly in a conflict of interest situation - it would be a huge stretch to expect him to admit that the software he was responsible for as an employee was a dodgy mess.

          1. gnasher729 Silver badge

            Re: Distinguished engineer got trapped into doing things :o

            “ He was clearly in a conflict of interest situation - it would be a huge stretch to expect him to admit that the software he was responsible for as an employee was a dodgy mess.”

            And there is me, assuming that if you are an expert witness in court you report the exact facts according to your best knowledge, and if the software you are responsible for is a dodgy mess then you tell them it’s a dodgy mess. One of the interests is overriding the others to such a degree, there is no conflict.

            1. Ian Johnston Silver badge

              Re: Distinguished engineer got trapped into doing things :o

              And there is me, assuming that if you are an expert witness in court you report the exact facts according to your best knowledge, and if the software you are responsible for is a dodgy mess then you tell them it’s a dodgy mess.

              That sounds more like being a witness. I don't think that in general people with responsibility for something can or should act as expert witnesses about it. Too many conflicts of interest, as in this case.

            2. CorwinX Bronze badge

              Re: Distinguished engineer got trapped into doing things :o

              A Conflict of Interest doesn't suggest someone will actually be affected by that conflict and tailor their evidence.

              It means there is the possibilty of that happening, even unwittingly.

              There's also the *appearance* of bias even if there is none. Justice must be *seen* to be done, etc.

              It's bad enough the lawyers thought it was a good idea to stand him up - what the heck were the judges in the cases thinking?

      6. Mike Pellatt

        Re: Distinguished engineer got trapped into doing things :o

        I'm sorry, that just doesn't wash.

        The idea that someone with sufficient intellect to obtain a Maths degree from Cambridge doesn't know the difference between a civil case and a criminal case - as he claimed - is utterly unbelievable. He's lawyered up to the hilt, in a failed attempt to present the scenario you describe. It's utterly, utterly false, and you've been suckered in.

        1. UnknownUnknown

          Re: Distinguished engineer got trapped into doing things :o

          No doubt at POL’s expense.

      7. UnknownUnknown

        Re: Distinguished engineer got trapped into doing things :o

        For a senior/distinguished engineer… I’m sorry this James/Rupert Murdoch grade ‘I didn’t know horseshit I didn’t know’ doesn’t wash.

        He has effectively perjured himself in a court or law, is possibly guilty of perverting the course or justice and maybe guilty of misconduct in a public office.

        He can cool his heels reflecting in jail - along with the rest of them that can successfully be prosecuted. That’s what happened to their victims inc loss of everything- homes, money and partners to suicide.

    2. R Soul Silver badge

      Jenkins was complicit in the cover-up

      More than that. He seems to have committed perjury. In one of the subpostmaster trials, he testified that it was impossible for anyone to tamper with the Horizon database. But at that time he knew this was possible.

      Notice too how all of the evil lying bastards responsible for this scandal have only apologised for causing distress to their victims? Nobody's said sorry for initiating the bogus prosecutions. Or putting innocent people in jail. Or bankrupting some of the victims. Or for bullying subpostmasters into making false confessions. Or interfering in independent audits. Or hiding evidence. Or lying. Or for failing to do their jobs: due diligence checks, getting Horizon's bugs fixed, asking questions when problems became public, etc. One of the PO's directors claimed he didn't know the PO could prosecute people. WTF?!

      1. Howard Long

        Re: Jenkins was complicit in the cover-up

        "More than that. He seems to have committed perjury. In one of the subpostmaster trials, he testified that it was impossible for anyone to tamper with the Horizon database. But at that time he knew this was possible."

        If yo go into the testimony, you'll realise that what you've claimed just doesn't hold up.

        As I've stated elsewhere in these comments, he wasn't an expert witness in the legal sense, and he is a nerd, the kind of nerd who answers the questions asked. The problem is that the right, targeted questions weren't being asked of a non-expert witness, nor was he given sufficient time to prepare. And those questions were unlikely to be asked bearing in mind the lack of disclosure, for which you can thank the criminal prosecution lawyers.

        1. R Soul Silver badge

          Re: Jenkins was complicit in the cover-up

          You really must stop making excuses for Gareth Jenkins. Here's what the BBC made of his appearance at the inquiry:

          https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c880e78rl77o

          Pay close attention to Section 2 "He was sent expert witness rules".

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Jenkins was complicit in the cover-up

          He most definitely was an Expert Witness.

          The fact that he failed in his responsibilities as one does not remove that status.

          1. TV nerd

            Re: Jenkins was complicit in the cover-up

            Unless you can cite a document signed by Jenkins making the required statements that he is an expert witness, then he isn’t one.

            I can’t see any such statement, so he was never an expert witness in the legal sense.

        3. Robert 22

          Re: Jenkins was complicit in the cover-up

          He was presented to the court as an expert witness.

      2. Ian Johnston Silver badge

        Re: Jenkins was complicit in the cover-up

        Easy. The people concerned, and the Post office as a whole, clearly believe that the sub postmasters were guilty and have only been let off on a technicality.

        1. SCP

          Re: Jenkins was complicit in the cover-up

          That technicality being "they didn't do it."

          1. Ian Johnston Silver badge

            Re: Jenkins was complicit in the cover-up

            Oh you and your fancy pants fact-based quibbling. If they didn't do it where is all that lovely bonus money coming from? That CBE?

      3. Rob

        Re: Jenkins was complicit in the cover-up

        None of them seem to care that their actions (or lack thereof in some cases) caused so much stress to individuals they took their own lives. Ultimately they are responsble for people dying, I don't know how much more serious it can get before they need to show some genuine remorse and apologise and I mean genuinely.

    3. TheWeetabix Bronze badge

      Re: Distinguished engineer got trapped into doing things :o

      A long time ago, I worked for a local government. I fsck’d up royal on the database and attempted to admit my mistake in the morning meeting. My boss asked why I wanted a few moments to speak, and I explained, and I was immediately hushed that it was “always a team issue and that we shouldn’t take personal responsibility for things”. At the time I thought it was just to shield me from blowback, but now I realize it was because it would set a terrible precedent for taking responsibility.

  3. David M

    Where were the tests?

    Where were the tests? Surely a system like Horizon would have had thousands and thousands of tests—unit tests, integration tests, directed tests, random tests, etc.—plus coverage analysis to ensure that everything was being tested, and a regression system to run the tests regularly. So Mr Jenkins wouldn't have to 'accept' that everything was working, he could just look at the most recent test results. Or am I being naïve?

    1. F. Frederick Skitty Silver badge

      Re: Where were the tests?

      I've read a lot of documents that have been made public by the court cases and inquiry. As a programmer, I was interested in looking for descriptions of the system architecture, any off the shelf components used and how it was coded. From what I can gather, unit tests were not written for the system as it was originally delivered, and they only began to be written when the original frontend was rewritten somewhere around 2010. The original frontend was Visual Basic, the replacement Java, and it was at this time that they also replaced the messaging middleware system.

      According to what I've read, even when fixing bugs in the original system no regression tests were written. I can believe this, since in my own experience of programming commercially since the 1990s, it wasn't until the latter part of the first decade of this century that management would even grudgingly allow time for unit tests to be written. So the programmers may have been familiar with the idea behind test driven development, but retrofitting that to an existing system and ICL/Fujitsu's outdated corporate mindset would have been costly. Having worked on projects where some of the development was outsourced to ICL/Fujitsu I can attest to their culture being entirely driven by doing the bare minimum for the maximum cost.

      Finally, if you look at Freedom of Information requests Mr Bates made, he asked about testing and the Post Office's claim the system had been independently verified. This verification turned out to be the kinds of box ticking exercises that allow you to claim conformance with those valueless BSI standards that just result in dusty, unread ring binders full of wishful thinking. When Second Sight were finally brought in to do a real investigation, Fujitsu and the Post Office were obstructive and the investigation ultimately ended when it became apparent the results would not be to the Post Office management's liking.

      1. elsergiovolador Silver badge

        Re: Where were the tests?

        I remember people writing tests - if they managed to convince management - to be described as slackers as tests were not features. Running test suites was perceived as an excuse to do nothing.

        Then it flipped somewhat in late 2000, where you couldn't deliver anything without tests, but still people were writing "tests" without understanding of what should be tested and how. So while they existed, mostly they didn't test anything.

        1. Justthefacts Silver badge

          Re: Where were the tests?

          But even in those mists of pre-history, *regression* testing, right? “Lead customer found bug X, we released bugfix B, plus regression test T. Thereafter we always ran regression test T on any new release before giving it to that lead customer”

          Remember, Horizon *was* broken, and now in 2024 it is allegedly fixed. Where’s the suite of regression tests *now*? All those bugs that were given the name of the subpostmaster branch where they occurred, they’ve all been fixed, have they? Where’s the checked-in source control that shows when each was fixed, and its regression test? Are we really to believe they had no source control in the 1990s? That’s just obviously not true.

          So, how can they possibly know it’s fixed now then? If there’s no regression test. I mean literally if you were working on the Horizon software right now today, either lead developer or project manager, and watching all this on TV, isn’t that the first question you’d be asking yourself? How do I know that the change I am about to make isn’t going to make this reappear….

          Of course, there *was* source control, and there *were* regression tests. And they are *still* hiding that information from the inquiry and the courts, because *thats* the smoking gun of when they knew the problems, and would have understood the consequences.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Where were the tests?

            Quite possible the leaks are still there, but now the PO is swallowing them as most likely they are simply "hallucinations". This can't be revealed though, for reasons that can't be revealed.

          2. SCP

            Re: Where were the tests?

            While regression tests have their uses, particularly where faults are subtle implementation errors, they are not a good indication that the system has met its objectives. A high level of faults being discovered in a system at deployment (or late in the qualification stages) is indicative of a fundamentally flawed system implementation.

            Testing should be verifying that the design and implementation is sound, not simply trying to catch errors. You can't use testing to improve quality on a case by case basis. Yes, testing will discover errors - but then the important thing is "how did this error occur" and how widespread might other errors be as a result of the cause. Only if you address these causes and review system elements in light of a known source of errors can you meaningfully address quality.

            Yes, anybody can make a slip up - but was this truly a random slip up or something more systematic (and Horizon has many many red flags). This need for attention to causes is especially true if an error has escaped a check that should have detected it (e.g. peer review). All this requires attention to the details of the processs you are using to design, implement, and validate your system.

            Somebody who claims to be an expert in a system should have a detailed understanding of this and how their system has fared during its development, and what was done to ensure its quality. Anybody with any integrity finding themselves in court answering questions should not be doubling down on any bullshit.

            1. KarMann Silver badge
              Trollface

              Re: Where were the tests?

              Testing should be verifying that the design and implementation is sound, not simply trying to catch errors. You can't use testing to improve quality on a case by case basis. Yes, testing will discover errors - but then the important thing is "how did this error occur" and how widespread might other errors be as a result of the cause. Only if you address these causes and review system elements in light of a known source of errors can you meaningfully address quality.
              Have you tried explaining this to Boeing?

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Where were the tests?

          I work on code where a manager has argued it is well tested on the basis of having a good coverage metric...

          Pointing out that test X hits 90% of the code.

          Test X basically tells you 1 thing. The code doesn't crash.

          X is a very important test both for regression and debugging - when someone (customer, tester, competitor doing interop) finds an input that crashes it that input is added to the test so that we can debug and prevent regression...

          But we have zero idea from the test of whether the system works; Just that the input won't permenantly break anything.

      2. Robert 22

        Re: Where were the tests?

        Thee sorts of problems happen even now. The Phoenix pay system developed for the Canadian government was put online when it was nowhere near ready.

        1. TheWeetabix Bronze badge

          Re: Where were the tests?

          That was truly a shitshow.

      3. Mike Pellatt

        Re: Where were the tests?

        It's so depressing to see people thinking, even in the late 1990s, that doing no proper testing would save money.

        I was around the development of an OSI Transport Class 4 implementation in the late 1980s. One person independently wrote a test suite to validate conformance with the protocol specification. It meant that when it shipped, the amount of post-installation support needed was minimal. And that's where your costs are.

        Now, I know business system specifications are generally a little more, errrr, loosely defined than comms protocol specs, but even so.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Where were the tests?

          Your point is well made

          However there is a more significant reason why minimal post-installation support was needed: nobody ever used OSI Transport Class 4.

          1. Mike Pellatt

            Re: Where were the tests?

            Except..... oh, yes. ICL :-) :-) :-) (it was to avoid Retix' price-gouging stack for the Mac that we developed it)

    2. martinusher Silver badge

      Re: Where were the tests?

      Writing tests that dig deeply into the code and really give it a workout is a bit of an art form. Most test software I've seen is pretty superficial its more to give management a warm fuzzy feeling than you actively look for trouble, something that requires a deep understanding of the system code and may well be as complex as the actual code its testing.

      If this code followed normal practice testing would be from the assumption that its working -- "not breaking" would be regarded as "working". You'll often see people stating "it ran overnight" or "it ran over the weekend" as if these are valid test parameters when all the code is doing is running the same relatively small set of test conditions repeatedly. You rarely find people actively looking for trouble. It screws up the schedules.

    3. Lars Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Where were the tests?

      "Or am I being naïve?"

      No, just optimistic.

    4. gnasher729 Silver badge

      Re: Where were the tests?

      Where were the tests?

      From what I read, the root cause was that sometimes the branch computer sent sales information and got no confirmation back, then sent the same sales information again, and then it was recorded twice. Because the main information had received the data, but sending the confirmation failed.

      That’s a tiny technical problem with an easy solution. Quite obviously nobody figured out this could happen. So there was no code to handle it and obviously no tests for it. Or there was code handling it incorrectly with tests expecting the exact same incorrect behaviour and passing.

      (And after the technical problem happened, there _was_ a discrepancy between data on the branch computer and the main computer. Any not completely brain dead organisation would have investigated, which would have revealed the problem because the main computer had recorded two identical sales numbers, but someone decided the only possible explanation was theft and manually changed the correct numbers on the branch computers to the incorrect numbers; that’s where incompetence changed to criminality).

      1. munnoch Bronze badge

        Re: Where were the tests?

        That’s my understanding too. The errors were caused by races and partial failures. These are far more involved to test for than purely functional cases like you tend to get with acceptance and regression suites. You need quite an elaborate test harness that allows you to stand up all the major components and orchestrate the inputs and outputs. More importantly you need the insight and will to go looking for those sorts of errors.

        But it’s no excuse for one so “distinguished” to claim that the system was error free or had somehow magically settled down and become reliable after a rough start. Anyone with more than about 10 minutes experience with software knows that it just doesn’t work like that.

  4. Dan 55 Silver badge

    This article seems somewhat kinder than others, e.g. here or here, perhaps undeservedly so.

    1. Mike Pellatt

      Yeah, the latter - his insistence that the computer system he swore to be working correctly was the one the witness statement was written on, not the one he was writing about - would be absolutely f**king hilarious if the consequences of the witness statement weren't so awful.

      There is no way to be kind to him about that.

  5. Andy 73 Silver badge

    Unimpressed

    I've seen some of his testimony, and the impression it leaves is that he refuses to take any responsibility for any of the systems and tasks that he was responsible for.

    Despite all of the recent evidence, he appears to still believe Horizon only failed in extremely rare circumstances and the majority of the cases against Postmasters were justified. Frankly this is astonishing, given that Fujitsu committed a significant body of staff to continual fire-fighting over the period in question, and staff above and below him are all openly admitting that serious mistakes were made.

    That leads us to the conclusion that either he was the most incompetent of managers, completely unaware of either the technical details or the operational reality of the systems he was responsible for, or he has regularly and deliberately perjured himself in order to support prosecutions. Whichever it is, there seems to be a strong case for a prosecution against him personally for the harm and damage he has caused.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Unimpressed

      According to the BBC "He is currently under investigation by the Metropolitan Police on suspicion of perjury and perverting the course of justice - no criminal charges have been brought". I recall reading that investigations, into him and others, are on-hold pending the report from the inquiry.

      1. Colin Bull 1
        Mushroom

        Pending report from the inquiry..

        Am I the only one that thinks the inquiry is a means of delaying any prosecution as long as possible, until the smoke has died down.

        1. keithpeter Silver badge
          Windows

          Re: Pending report from the inquiry..

          I take the point, and 'can kicking' is very common in the UK, but just consider the volume of evidence being generated here.

        2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Pending report from the inquiry..

          Np you're not. But that doesn't mean your thought is correct.

        3. nobody who matters

          Re: Pending report from the inquiry..

          <"............Am I the only one that thinks the inquiry is a means of delaying any prosecution as long as possible...........">

          Probably not the only one thinking that, but in the light of the extent and seriousness of a lot of the 'new' information that has come to light during the course of the enquiry, I think the evidence to support prosecutions has been massively strengthened.

          In short, waiting until the end of the enquiry will have made prosecutions far more likely to carried out; and also far more likely to be successful for the prosecution than would have been the case had such action been taken prior to the enquiry taking place.

          Most of the vast array of documents that have been disclosed by POL during the course of the enquiry (and have caused the enquiry to be paused on several occasions) would almost certainly have not been revealed to prosecuting counsel had procedings been initiated earlier.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Pending report from the inquiry..

            diddly shit is going to happen to them.

    2. CodeeMcCoder

      Re: Unimpressed

      Seems rather like Scenario B - Deliberately perjured himself for the company who'd given him his honory 'engineer' title.

      His only defence left is that of Paula Vennells, 'I'm actually too stupid to know what was really going on round me'.

      1. Like a badger

        Re: Unimpressed

        His only defence left is that of Paula Vennells, 'I'm actually too stupid to know what was really going on round me'.

        You might be surprised how corporations can collectively believe an untruth. If everybody knows the world is flat, then inevitably most people don't question the fact, and the few that do are inherently misguided and wrong. As a result any doubts about Horizon's veracity were denied first then acknowledged but minimised, "it'll be fixed in the next release", "it's an edge case we won't find in real world use", "testing would have found any errors", "if the code were at fault it would never have been signed off", "it's designed to balance, if it doesn't then it has to be the postmaster's on the take".

        1. Fr@nkenFuerter

          Re: Unimpressed

          I think you are absolutely correct about collective corporate false belief. I would argue the core false belief is that poor people are garbage and prone to criminality. The class of people who populated Post Office and Fujitsu management already believed this. It was easy for them to believe that prosecuting postmasters was a righteous cause. The lies just confirmed how they already felt about the class of people who become postmasters.

        2. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: Unimpressed

          > "You might be surprised how corporations can collectively believe an untruth."

          A person is usually reasonably intelligent. PEOPLE are mindless, easily spooked herd animals

          It takes a VERY brave person to stand up and say something's not right, especially when the likes of Vennells will simply say "Well, that was a rather career-limiting statement, wasn't it?"

          1. Mike Pellatt

            Re: Unimpressed

            And keep them out of the boardroom

        3. Mike Pellatt

          Re: Unimpressed

          It's the "thermocline of truth" (or as this blog post applying it to the Post Office Scandal - https://roblog.co.uk/2021/04/thermocline-of-truth/ - calls it, a vericline).

          Same thing with the opening of Crossrail. Everyone on the ground could see it wouldn't be ready for the scheduled opening date, and that years of work were needed. But it was only weeks away from that scheduled date when it was finally admitted at the top of the project.

          The referenced blog mentions some cultural stuff you need to do to try and stop it happening.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Unimpressed

        He does have the option of the "a bad boy did it and ran away" defence.

    3. Howard Long

      Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

      I've watched his entire testimony, and there's about half an hour to go.

      "either he was the most incompetent of managers, completely unaware of either the technical details or the operational reality of the systems he was responsible for, or he has regularly and deliberately perjured himself in order to support prosecutions"

      False dichotomy.

      "he was the most incompetent of managers"

      He wasn't ever a manager. He is and was a techy.

      "he has regularly and deliberately perjured himself in order to support prosecutions"

      There is zero evidence of that.

      ****************************

      There is plenty of evidence that he's a nerd who understood the software well, but has no legal training, and should never have been presented as an "expert witness".

      There's also plenty of evidence that, like the subpostmasters, he's inadvertently found himself to be at the wrong end of institutional and systemic failures of lawyers.

      Unfortunately for him, he's also been misrepresented as a key figure who deliberately went into court with malicious intent.

      1. James Anderson

        Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

        How could he possibly be unaware of the support desk being briefed to say "no one else has this problem" and the extent of the remote access to patch up errors.

        If any normal professional was called in as an expert witness they would surly check thier legal responsibilities before taking the stand.

        And why did the court accept him as "expert" when he had clear conflict of interest and a dodgy title bestowed on him by the provider of the dodgy software.

        1. Howard Long

          Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

          'How could he possibly be unaware of the support desk being briefed to say "no one else has this problem"'

          He wasn't in day-to-day BAU support on the end of a phone to subpostmasters. This was from people working for the Post Office on the helpdesk, not from Fujitsu people, although I believe they physically worked at Fujitsu's location.

          I am sure if you've ever worked for a medium to large organisation, while you may not technically be in a support role at the time, you'll occasionally be brought in to deal with certain very targeted things that you have domain expertise in.

          "the extent of the remote access to patch up errors"

          This came up during the testimony at least once. As explained, he was not typically involved in BAU, he was not aware that this was happening at the time, but he did become aware of it later, and recommended against it.

          'And why did the court accept him as "expert"'

          Lawyers. One in particular. Jarnail Singh, who was the PO's only criminal lawyer. There have been some stunning examples of claimed plausible deniability during this inquiry, but this particular individual takes the biscuit.

          I suggest you listen to the Jenkins' testimony and make up your own mind.

          1. James Anderson

            Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

            Any nerd who swears an oath and says “There are no bugs in this system” is either deluded or lying.

            IBMs IEFBR15, one line of assembler code imbedded in the name had two bug reports in its long life. That’s two bugs for every line of code. Part of if an OS that’s been running successfully and profitably for 60 years so we can assume that the people who wrote it were bloody good at what they were doing.

          2. nobody who matters

            Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

            <..............Jarnail Singh.......................this particular individual takes the biscuit..............">.

            From what I saw of his performance. I think he took the entire tin of biscuits!

            Difficult to believe that he actually has any legal training or qualifications from some of the things he came out with. It was fairly clear that his number one priority throughout has been to protect the PO from damaging accusations and deflect any suggestion that the PO may have acted wrongly in any way, and to go to <whatever> lengths necessary to achieve this. No surprise really that he should push forward as an 'Expert Witness' someone who could be moulded to say what the PO wanted the courts to hear and who would be unlikely to to have much knowledge of what the court would require of him (and I have no doubt that Mr Singh would have been very careful to give Mr Jenkins the bare minimum of instruction on the legal requirements of an expert witness to that end).

            Whilst it is now obvious that Gareth Jenkins was not properly instructed in his responsibilities and presented evidence to courts that was heavily biased in favour of POL, he was at the time accepted by the courts as an expert witness and consequently much emphasis was placed on his testimony, to the detriment of the accused SPMs and to the extent of making the court decisions unfair and wrong.

            I am not sure that I can make my mind up whether Gareth Jenkins was knowingly misleading the courts or whether he was entirely misled by Singh.

            1. R Soul Silver badge

              Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

              "I am not sure that I can make my mind up whether Gareth Jenkins was knowingly misleading the courts or whether he was entirely misled by Singh."

              These things aren't mutually exclusive. Not that it matters. As an expert witness, Jenkins had a duty to the court to be impartial and tell the truth. He wasn't and didn't.

              Oh and he lied at the inquiry too.

          3. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

            bollocks I'm a nerd.

            and no amount of pressure would mean I would say any software I have knowledge of has no bugs.

            And knowing it was programmed by a group of people, I would expect bugs, in general left hand doesn't know what the right is doing in a big group, and your more likely to have a fucking idiot somewhere in the mix, who is an over confident fuckwit that got promoted by brownnosing.

            1. TV nerd

              Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

              Er?

              You haven’t listed to the testimony have you?

              You know nothing about Jenkins nor his responsibilities do you?

              Get off your high horse and r listen to his evidence rather than acting like a Post Office idiot.

      2. Peter2 Silver badge

        Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

        There is plenty of evidence that he's a nerd who understood the software well, but has no legal training, and should never have been presented as an "expert witness".

        A nerd who understood the software well is an expert witness.

        You neither need nor should be an expert in law. Let's look up the definition, from the industry body shall we?

        What is an Expert Witness?

        An Expert Witness can be anyone with knowledge or experience of a particular field or discipline beyond that to be expected of a layman. The Expert Witness’s duty is to give to the Court or tribunal an impartial opinion on particular aspects of matters within his expertise which are in dispute.

        So anybody employed as an IT professional reading this who has specialist knowledge is qualified to be an expert witness.

        The key point here is that the opinion is required to be "impartial".

        The appearance is that he was an employee of a software supplier who had induced their staff to lie in court to cover up company mistakes instead of giving independent opinions on the issues.

        1. Howard Long

          Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

          "So anybody employed as an IT professional reading this who has specialist knowledge is qualified to be an expert witness."

          If you'd listened to the testimony, you'd realise that an expert witness in the legal sense has significant legal responsibilities to the court beyond this. A "layman" such as him (or, evidently, you) cannot be expected to know what those responsibilities are.

          This was a running theme throughout his four days of testimony, especially on the first day which was pretty much taken up with just this, i.e., whether or not he was an expert witness in legal terms. It was 100% evident he was not an expert witness, despite being and expert in technical terms.

          You've fallen into exactly the same trap as he did.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

            Just obeying mein Fuhrer's orders

          2. Ian Johnston Silver badge

            Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

            He may not have understood or fulfilled his role as an expert witness, but there is no doubt that he was qualified to be one.

          3. Mike Pellatt

            Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

            No, you've fallen into the trap that he, having been well "lawyered up" (believe me, like all of them, he has been), he's set for the inquiry. Trouble is, Beer et al know exactly what's gone on.

      3. Andy 73 Silver badge

        Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

        @Howard Long

        "There is plenty of evidence that he's a nerd who understood the software well, but has no legal training, and should never have been presented as an "expert witness".

        Given that other engineers have described the Horizon system as fatally flawed from an architectural point of view, extremely poorly implemented and with a swathe of bugs, if he genuinely "understood the software well", not only would he have known that it had serious problems but he also would have known that remote access to the system was built-in and used on a regular basis.

        As pointed out elsewhere, you do not need to be legally trained to be an expert witness. Your legal obligation is to share your understanding of the matter in hand, be clear on the limitations of your knowledge, and to avoid supposition and conjecture. Complaining that no-one explained to him that just repeating corporate soundbites was not in the job description speaks volumes about his character.

        I think his defence on the issue of errors in the software was "I believed they had all been fixed" - that suggests that far from "understanding the software", he had at best a surface level grasp of Horizon (or.. again.. perjured himself deliberately).

        I don't think he went to court with malicious intent. I suspect he did not once think about the effect his actions would have on those being prosecuted, and was just happy to have a grand title and a nice paycheque.

        1. Howard Long

          Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

          "As pointed out elsewhere, you do not need to be legally trained to be an expert witness. "

          The testimony at the inquiry this week says this is incorrect.

          And by "legally trained" I am referring to understanding and adhering to the legal responsibilities to the court to be an expert witness. You will not get that from a Google search. I am not talking about doing some kind of academic course either.

          It was a running theme throughout the week. I strongly recommend you listen to the first day, or at least the first morning of nis testimony: pretty much the whole of the day was taken up showing that he's not and never has been an expert witness.

          1. Howard Long

            Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

            In oarticular:

            Expert witnesses need to have read Part 33 of the Criminal Procedure Rules, and confirm that they have adhered to those rules, and have acted in accordance with the Code of Practice for Experts.

            He didn't, because he didn't know, like many others commenting here.

            1. Andy 73 Silver badge

              Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

              I suggest you read those rules yourself. He could not have submitted the required report without either adhering to them or perjuring himself.

              The required report elements - that he will have to have read and signed - cover those obligations. They aren't legally complicated.

              Nor do they change the meaning of truth. If he said the system had no bugs, and was not remotely accessed, it doesn't matter whether he knew the meaning of "export witness" or not - he would still be perjuring himself if he knowingly lied, or demonstrating his ignorance otherwise.

              1. Howard Long

                Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

                "I suggest you read those rules yourself."

                I have.

                And I suggest you watch the testimony, as I have.

                I am drawing my opinion having watched the enquiry for all four days this week.

                It is absolutely crystal clear that we had not read the Criminal Procedure Rules Part 33, and that was explicitly brought up several times during the proceedings, and at least twice this morning. For example, this morning's proceedings "Gareth Jenkins - Day 159 AM (28 June 2024) - Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry" with key points at 2:28:35, 2:35:00, and 2:40:08.

                Throughout the entire four days, the question of him being an expert witness was gone over dozens of times, particularly on his first day. There is no way he could be described as an expert witness in the legal sense.

                "If he said the system had no bugs"

                He didn't.

                "and was not remotely accessed"

                I suggest you watch the testimony. He was unaware that this was happening at the time, but the testimony is rather more complex than this due to the chronology, and that he was typically not a day-to-day BAU guy, so did not know what they were getting up to in the boiler room.

                If you haven't watched the testimony, I'm afraid all you're doing is guessing and relying on hearsay.

                What is still not clear is why he maintains that Horizon was reliable, when we all know what we know now.

                I'll add that the lawyers representing the subpostmasters today have been markedly less aggressive to him than they have been to a-hole lawyers and those at the top of the greasy pole. To me, that's a further indication that they already realise he'd just been used as a convenient cog.

                The problem I have is that in my career working for vendors is that I, and any one of my colleagues, could easily have been put in the same position. Furthermore, if you've ever had to deal with lawyers in the corporate world, e.g., trying to implement & get direction on GDPR policy, IME they have a propensity for being arrogant two-faced t*ssers who always look down their nose at you, hoping you'll go away rather than doing their job... until they need you for something.

                1. Ian Johnston Silver badge

                  Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

                  There is no way he could be described as an expert witness in the legal sense.

                  He was accepted by the courts as an expert witness. What definition are you using?

            2. F. Frederick Skitty Silver badge

              Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

              Howard Long, stop defending Jenkins on your mistaken understanding of what an expert witness is. Jenkins was emailed details by the lawyers of what his responsibilities as an expert witness were, and the emails have been preserved. This came up in the inquiry. Jenkins' answer? Same as that other forgetful innocent Vennels ... he rather conveniently can't remember reading them. If I was going to court as an expert witness I'd be damned sure to read anything stating what my responsibilities were.

              1. Howard Long

                Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

                "stop defending Jenkins on your mistaken understanding of what an expert witness is. "

                Thanks, but I will make my opinion from the evidence I have seen, not some rando on the internet who doesn't agree with me.

                Evidently, unlike you, I have watched his entire testimony. I have no skin in the game.

                I entered the week of his testimony on the fence. Until Ian Henderson's testimony (Second Sight) on 18 June, I was of the opinion that Jenkins was a bad actor like the rest of them. Henderson expressed his opinion that Jenkins "was very helpful throughout" and had "no criticism of him in terms of answering my questions and providing support." [Ref: "Ian Henderson - Day 152 AM (18 June 2024) - Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry" 2:01:45]

                To be clear, again, I do not understand why he still considers Horizon to be reliable in the face of what we all know now.

                As I have stated numerous times, the concept of "expert witness" in the legal sense was brought up dozens of times during the testimony.

                This includes adhering to Part 33 of the Criminal Procedure Rules and the Code of Practice for Experts, neither of which he's never read and didn't even know existed.

                I expressly draw your attention, for example, to "Gareth Jenkins - Day 159 AM (28 June 2024) - Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry" with key points at 2:28:35, 2:35:00, and 2:40:08.

                "If I was going to court as an expert witness I'd be damned sure to read anything stating what my responsibilities were."

                I am sure that we all will be know. I wonder, did you know of Part 33 of the Criminal Procedure Rules, or the Code of Practice for Experts, until I drew your attention to it?

                I could quite easily have seen me being inadvertently drawn into something like this during my career. Have you ever dealt with corporate lawyers at work I wonder? They're far from good at being forthcoming with anything unless it's going to benefit them. My experience is that you send them an email to have something clarified, but I rarely receive anything back.

                I very strongly recommend that at the very least you listen to the first first morning of his testimony, when the concept of "expert witness" was initially covered at some length. This then went on throughout the rest of the day, and was a continually referred to through out the remainder of his testimony.

                In my opinion, Jenkins was an individual who was trying to be helpful, but ended up being a useful idiot for the POL lawyers. He was also let down by his own management, who should've picked up on this, but ultimately, it was a failure of POL's lawyers, in particular Jarnail Singh who was the only criminal lawyer employed by POL.

                But I won't respond well to demands such as yours to change my opinion based on false claims.

                HTH.

                1. R Soul Silver badge

                  Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

                  "This includes adhering to Part 33 of the Criminal Procedure Rules and the Code of Practice for Experts, neither of which he's never read and didn't even know existed."

                  That's a lie. Jenkins claimed at the inquiry he was unaware of this. He was then shown the emails about Part 33 sent to him from the PO's lawyers. At which point he suddenly remembered he has been told.

                  Your claims about Jenkins not being an expert witness (or even being a reliable witness) are approaching Trumpian levels of delusion.

                  Are you trapped in the Vennels/PO/Fujitsu/Horizon reality distortion field?

                  1. Mike Pellatt

                    Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

                    It seems, from his comments, that he's s**t-scared of having done the same thing himself :-)

                    Setting up his defence in advance!

                2. Andy 73 Silver badge

                  Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

                  "This includes adhering to Part 33 of the Criminal Procedure Rules and the Code of Practice for Experts, neither of which he's never read and didn't even know existed."

                  I do not understand why you believe this. It is certainly what he claimed, but as has been pointed out - HE WAS LYING AND WAS SHOWN TO BE LYING.

                  The rules are short and to the point. He was emailed them. The fact that he outright lied to the committee, and was proven to have lied should tell you the important detail you seem unwilling to accept. His testimony cannot be trusted.

                3. nobody who matters

                  Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

                  Whilst it has now become clear that Gareth Jenkins did not adhere to the requirements of an expert witness (ie. to be impartial and be aware that his duty was to the court, not to the prosecution), and it is pretty clear that he had been moulded into what to say and what not to say by the PO lawyer (and probably by vested interests within ICL/Fujitsu) and therefore should not have been presented as an 'Expert Witness', nor should have been regarded as such in those court actions against various SPMs, the fact remains that he <was> presented as an expert witness, and the courts at the time regarded him as an expert witness, and therefore the outcome of those court cases hinged to a great extent upon his testimony.

                  We can see now that he didn't satisfy the criteria for an Expert Witness, but at the time, that is exactly what he was taken as. Arguing the legal semantics now doesn't alter that.

          2. Ian Johnston Silver badge

            Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

            And by "legally trained" I am referring to understanding and adhering to the legal responsibilities to the court to be an expert witness.

            So not legal training at all, then, in any sense.

          3. CorwinX Bronze badge

            Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

            Actually, you *can* get it from a Google search.

            Expert Witness 101...

            Duty is to aid the Court in understanding the situation - not to whoever is paying/employing you.

            Independant - how anyone ever thought a Fujitsu employee passed that test boggles the mind.

            Duty to bring to the Court's attention anything that might undermine your conclusions (differing opinions, lack of evidence, etc).

            Methodology - what steps you took to inform your opinion.

            Ongoing duty of disclosure if something crops up to change your opinion, even if the case is over.

            Statement should include your qualifications to be having an opinion on the matter along with other legal niceities.

            Few other bits and pieces but that's the crux of it and you don't actually need legal training to understand it.

        2. CorwinX Bronze badge

          Re: Unimpressed: false dichotomy

          There's no doubt he's an expert with a small "e" but it seems he was mostly involved in linking Horizon into the back-end financial systems - which is not where the problems were.

          The problems were with the front-end EPOSS (in both Legacy Horizon and Online) and he doesn't seem to have had much to do with that end of the system.

          It's notable that the lawyers kept trying to get him to "beef up" his testimony and to his small amount of credit he obviously pushed back sometimes.

          Most of the blame for the Horizon fiasco goes to the Legal, Security and Investigation depts - including standing him up as an independent Expert in the first place.

          As with all big systems it's not about if it's got bugs - it does. It's how you (mis)handle them cropping up.

    4. Ian Johnston Silver badge

      Re: Unimpressed

      Despite all of the recent evidence, he appears to still believe Horizon only failed in extremely rare circumstances and the majority of the cases against Postmasters were justified.

      That is pretty clearly the current opinion of most of the Post Office management. Which is why I firmly believe that the entire organisation as currently constituted should be disbanded and its assets given to a new mutual owned by the sub postmasters.

    5. SCP

      Re: Unimpressed

      ... there seems to be a strong case for a prosecution against him personally for the harm and damage he has caused.

      And if the Chartered Engineer status is to have the cachet that the institutions like to attach to it then he needs to be judged against that standard of professionalism.

    6. TV nerd

      Re: Unimpressed

      I listened to all his testimony.

      If you had, you would realise that Jenkins is not and never was a manager.

      He never had any responsibility other than as an architect.

      He never wrote any code.

      He never had responsibility for the system.

      He never decided to prosecute anyone.

      He simply told the truth.

      I note that the enquiry lawyers tried to imply that bugs in development of a replacement system should have been disclosed when that new system was not part of the case.

      The questions were inept and the attempts to finger Jenkins failed.

  6. ChoHag Silver badge

    I guess they've found who gets thrown under the bus.

    At least he deserves it.

    1. nobody who matters

      Looking at the sheer quantity of evidence of wrongdoing that has come to light thus far in the course of the enquiry, I rather think that Jenkins will not be the only one "thrown under a bus" - there appear to be a fleet of buses lining up in readiness, and I think there may be several people getting thrown under one or other of them who would not have expected that to happen to them ;)

  7. Howard Long

    Possibly controversial opinion...

    I've watched all of his testimony so far this week: there's still about an hour to go.

    Unlike other witnesses on the Fujitsu/PO side of this inquiry, he comes over as a reliable witness.

    He is a techy, and possibly on the spectrum (we all are to some degree or another). Thus he tends to answer questions more literally than some might.

    Furthermore, and key to this, in a legal sense, he is not and never was an "expert witness". Until recently he didn't know that in court an "expert witness" has some legal training, training that he neither had, nor was offered. In particular he did not know about disclosure.

    I'll add that Ian Henderson of Second Sight, the forensic accountants, considered him in a favourable light, as being transparent and honest in his work with them. I have seen no evidence in the inquiry that he has been anything other than transparent and honest.

    To my mind, this has been a failure of those higher up the chain, in particular lawyers, and if I am to pick one out, Jarnail Singh, who was the only criminal lawyer at POL, who should've known about disclosure requirements in criminal cases, and have liaised as necessary with Fujitsu on this.

    While we may not like his answers, like the sub-postmasters, he's someone who's been shafted by those who should've known better.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

      yep I thought exactly the same. He sees things in black and white, when he knew about errors in Horizon Online and why he didn't mention that when being asked about issues with Horizon he said well they're not connected, and he's right, he couldn't just see the need to mention issues with unconnected systems.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

        utter bollocks

    2. dinsdale54

      Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

      I agree with some of this. He does seem to actually be trying to answer questions and isn't suffering from the intermittently faulty memory of many of the witnesses.

      However on the technical side - which I guess is why most of us are here - the issue I have, and this was the same with his colleague Anne Chambers, is the clear assumption that the system was working fine and if they couldn't find a problem in the data after a cursory check then there wasn't a problem and it was somebody else's fault. To find bugs you have to actually go looking for them.

      The whole culture of the PO and ICL/Fujitsu seems to have been to see everybody else as the problem when a good hard look in the mirror was needed.

      1. Howard Long

        Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

        "the issue I have, and this was the same with his colleague Anne Chambers, is the clear assumption that the system was working fine and if they couldn't find a problem in the data after a cursory check then there wasn't a problem and it was somebody else's fault. To find bugs you have to actually go looking for them."

        Yes, I'd agree that this is a key disjoint, although from his evidence, he was doing a lot more than "cursory checks", although lacked time to do sufficient investigations as a supposed "expert witness" when issues were requests were often raised by the PO on the day before he was expected to give criminal court testimony.

        His (and others') dogmatic claims about the reliability of Horizon's operation in the face of "bugs, errors and defects" does seem to be overstated bearing in mind the real world results. At least he didn't call it "systemically robust"!

    3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

      Until recently he didn't know that in court an "expert witness" has some legal training, training that he neither had, nor was offered. In particular he did not know about disclosure.

      I spent 14 years in a job where being an expert witness was at the core of the work. No legal training was given. OTOH I was constantly thinking, as should any witness, expert or other wise "If I get this wrong someone could be wrongly convicted".

      Apart from that the one warning I would give to anyone who is being called as a witness, especially as an expert is "be careful of the side that's calling you; they may well want you to say more than you intend so you must stand your ground against them as well as against counsel on the other side".

      1. Howard Long

        Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

        "I spent 14 years in a job where being an expert witness was at the core of the work. No legal training was given."

        I have news for you: in the legal sense, according to the inquiry's evidence, and barrister questioning, you would never have been an "expert witness" in a criminal court.

        1. Ian Johnston Silver badge

          Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

          How many hours of training, undertaken in what setting, do you think are needed for someone to be qualified as an expert witness?

      2. keithpeter Silver badge
        Windows

        Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

        "If I get this wrong someone could be wrongly convicted"

        Well yes, and I'm pretty sure that you read all the files that any solicitor sent you very carefully. Alas Mr Jenkins did not so it appears...

        https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/gareth-jenkins-day-3-criminal-stupidity-or-helpful-fool/

        "Being involved in the criminal prosecution of anyone should focus the mind. There is a lot at stake for the individual concerned. Basic human courtesy demands you take whatever task you have or are given very seriously."

        "Today [day 3, 27th June 2024] Gareth Jenkins’ almost Olympian levels of disengagement with his wide-ranging role in helping the Post Office prosecute Subpostmasters was laid bare at the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry."

        1. Howard Long

          Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

          Well, I wen into this week of the inquiry with mixed feelings. Was this guy a malicious a-hole, or a techy fall guy?

          I've watched all four days.

          ""Gareth Jenkins’ almost Olympian levels of disengagement "

          That's not what I got from it, and frankly this kind of reporting to me is so obviously partisan, and as a result they've gone down in my estimation.

          What I saw was a nerd, probably on the spectrum, who was trying to do his best, under the shackles of working for a supplier that has commercial interests.

          If you've ever been on that side of the fence, you'll know that doing anything for a client comes with commercial implications, and doing anything for free or off piste is frowned upon. In all cases, he solicited direction from above where necessary before proceeding, as anyone would do in that situation.

          I still don't understand why he maintains that Horizon worked well when it was ridden with "bugs, errors and defects", but otherwise I have little doubt from this week's testimony that on balance he's a "techy fall guy".

          That's completely unlike the other POL/Fujitsu a-holes whose coached and curated testimonies have shown they're uniformly second rate human beings, like rats on a sinking ship.

          1. Mike Pellatt

            Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

            Of course Nick Wallis is "partisan". If, that is, you mean a decade+ of trying to get to the truth is partisan. He's one of the good guys.

            You, it seems, have been hearing what's been said but not been listening to it.

            Jenkins lied to the court and, as the second morning demonstrated, has also lied to the inquiry. Not the first one to do that, either. Graham Ward is another, like Jenkins found out by the electronic trail of what had actually happened. Except this time an evening's work by the Inquiry tracked it down, so the lie was exposed the next day rather than a few weeks later.

            That lie is enough to put all his testimony to the inquiry - every single piece of it - into doubt. It's known as being an "unreliable witness". If you lie once, you can lie repeatedly.

          2. Lars Silver badge

            Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

            @Howard Long

            I would agree.

            In a big software company with hundreds of software systems people come and go.

            And you will be given some to answer for, also for software you had no part in as a programmer.

            This does not mean that you have the time or the right to start to debug it instruction by instruction or to test if by first inventing a clever set of data.

            Your name may appear in front of a lot of software because if there is a question there has to be (doesn't always happen) a person or several to contact if a problem.

            I don't think this guy had any rights or possibilities to do a thing about that software by himself.

            And then he reacted like the "company man" I suppose.

            The crooks are higher up and in the Post Office, they knew what was happening and they had the right and the obligation and the power to find out if the software was at fault.

            Why they did not do it is beyond me, totally.

      3. Howard Long

        Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

        This is the legal training \i am referring to for expert witnesses in criminal cases...

        Expert witnesses need to have read Part 33 of the Criminal Procedure Rules, and confirm that they have adhered to those rules, and have acted in accordance with the Code of Practice for Experts.

        He didn't. Did you?

        1. lukewarmdog

          Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

          Reading something and signing your name to say you've understood it seem to be something he wasn't very good at in general. Fine fine let him off. But standing by after the convictions that his testimony relied on went through, he doesn't get a pass, they should find some books, glue them together and throw it at him.

          1. ITMA Silver badge
            Devil

            Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

            You mean like the Post Office investigator, Stephen Bradshaw, who admitted that his witness statement - which he signed - wasn't even written by him. It was written by "the business":

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a0b9Q7JMuc

        2. Andy 73 Silver badge

          Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

          I've read it. It's one page. It's mainly a list of elements that the report the expert witness submits and signs must contain.

          If he signed that document without reading it when prosecuting a pregnant woman facing jail, then this isn't a matter of ignorance or being a "fall guy" - it's deliberate incompetence.

          Further, he was questioned during those prosecutions and continued to claim the system was not at fault. That's not a question of misunderstanding what was being asked of him - it's indicative that he had no intention of engaging with the legal process.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

          If that's true, the court didn't ask him if he had. Which is highly unlikely.

          The lawyer(s) who brought him in as a potential expert witness should have provided Part 33 and made sure he signed a declaration he'd read and understood the doc. It's unlikely they didn't do that.

          Or he could be lying. Or has a sudden case of selective amnesia.

          1. Howard Long

            Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

            It is absolutely crystal clear that we had not read the Criminal Procedure Rules Part 33, and that was explicitly brought up several times during the proceedings, and at least twice this morning. For example, this morning's proceedings "Gareth Jenkins - Day 159 AM (28 June 2024) - Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry" with key points at 2:28:35, 2:35:00, and 2:40:08.

            1. F. Frederick Skitty Silver badge

              Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

              I'm beginning to wonder if you are Jenkins. There's a Freudian slip with the "we" in your comment. Even if you're not Jenkins, you are contradicting the evidence - emails were sent to him by the legal team that stated what his responsibilities were as an expert witness. Those emails are part of the evidence in the inquiry.

              1. KarMann Silver badge

                Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

                There's a Freudian slip with the "we" in your comment.
                Twice. Though, to be fair, it does look like a bit of copy-paste recycling there.

            2. Mike Pellatt

              Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

              On Monday, he said that if he'd received them, "of course" he'd have read them. He said he hadn't received them.

              On Tuesday, it was shown he had received them.

          2. nobody who matters

            Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

            Judging from some of the things which came out during the qppearance of Jarnail Singh ('THE' Post Office Lawyer) at the enquiry, it would not surprise me in the least if Gareth Jenkins had not been provided with a copy of Part 33, or had been provided with a version of it 'simplified' to allow the prosecution side to influence his performance.

      4. Justthefacts Silver badge

        Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

        Totally agree with your advice, plus add another point: Do not assume that the barrister on the side that instructs you, understands that certain facts may not support their case. Sometimes they are just not very good at their job. This is not your problem to solve; and you cannot lead them from the witness box.

        It’s particularly difficult when suddenly “the side that pays you” are treating you as a hostile witness and trying to discredit your professional reputation in public. You have to stick to the facts and not be bullied.

    4. Lon24

      Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

      One may also ask why the judges and defence lawyers in multiple cases didn't determine whether he was expert or not in the legal sense. But I agree it is POL's responsibility to ensure their expert witness is that and knows that. They should carry the can of putting an incompetent (certainly in the legal sense and possibly in the occupational sense). I'm sure if I was called as an expert I would expect the court to provide a checklist and briefing on what I can be expert about and what not.

      BTW doesn't the weight of the error log have some correlation with stability? Oh and I've seen errors as portrayed in the TV programme with my piss-poor attempts with Visual Basic. Also in a certain (non-ICL) leading accountancy VB package at the time.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

      Unlike other witnesses on the Fujitsu/PO side of this inquiry, he comes over as a reliable witness.

      In the sense that Horizon was reliable?

      Furthermore, and key to this, in a legal sense, he is not and never was an "expert witness". Until recently he didn't know that in court an "expert witness" has some legal training, training that he neither had, nor was offered.

      Wrong on both counts. The courts prosecuting subpostmasters deemed he was an expert witness. Therefore he is/was. QED.

      Expert witnesses don't need to have legal training. They're in court to provide impartial evidence - facts if you will - in their area of subject matter expertise/experience. It's up to the lawyers and the judge to take care of the legal niceties about hearsay, disclosure, etc. - not the expert witness(es). I suppose legal training would be a requirement if the court case is about jurisprudence.

      I was an expert witness for a civil case at the high court. The only "training" I got was a short (4-5 page) briefing to read. Apart from stating the obvious - be objective, tell the truth, translate technobabble into everyday language - the doc said my duty was to the court, not the lawyers for the plaintiff or defendant.

      1. Howard Long

        Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

        "The courts prosecuting subpostmasters deemed he was an expert witness. "

        Then I very strongly recommend you listen to the testimony at the enquiry this week, in particular the first day, where it became very clear that he was not, and never was, an expert witness.

        "Expert witnesses don't need to have legal training"

        They need to understand and adhere to their responsibilities to the court. They can get that from a non POL criminal lawyer.

        They need to have read Part 33 of the Criminal Procedure Rules, and confirm that they have adhered to those rules, and have acted in accordance with the Code of Practice for Experts.

        This is so fundamental to the testimony.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

          Well, I strongly recommend you get your head out of your backside.

          No matter what happened at the enquiry, Jenkins was an expert witness at various criminal trials. The courts relied on him for expert testimony about the Horizon system.

          Maybe he shouldn't have been called as an expert witness. That's a discussion for elsewhere. The irrefutable facts are the courts deemed him to be an expert witness for the criminal trials.

          1. Howard Long

            Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

            "Well, I strongly recommend you get your head out of your backside."

            Well, unlike you, I've watched the entire testimony.

            "No matter what happened at the enquiry, Jenkins was an expert witness at various criminal trials. The courts relied on him for expert testimony about the Horizon system.

            "Maybe he shouldn't have been called as an expert witness. That's a discussion for elsewhere. The irrefutable facts are the courts deemed him to be an expert witness for the criminal trials."

            There is no way you can have watched it with that response. I recommend that even if you only watch or listen to one part, start with Tuesday morning's testimony.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

              I've watched the entire testimony.

              So what?

              Read the summary of Regina v Seema Misra:

              https://journals.sas.ac.uk/deeslr/article/view/2217/2151

              The verbatim transcript of Jenkins's testimony shows he was an expert witness in that trial. See p64 of

              https://journals.sas.ac.uk/deeslr/article/view/2201/2136

              And on p86 one of the lawyers says in their cross-examination "I am asking you some questions as the expert."

              On p106: "So what I am saying is to give your own independent expert opinion"

              p139: [call the defence expert witness next] "so that the jury can assess the experts together".

              1. Howard Long

                Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

                "So what?"

                The concept of "expert witness" in the legal sense is absolutely fundamental to this. As you haven't heard the testimony, you're relying on guesswork and hearsay. At least listen to the first morning of his testimony. The "expert witness" issue is so completely and utterly fundamental to this.

                The transcripts you offer are from criminal court proceedings and transcripts that relied on the falsehood that he was an expert witness in the legal sense. He has never been an expert witness in the legal sense.

                He didn't know what his responsibilities were to the court. For example, he had no knowledge of Part 33 of the Criminal Procedure Rules, or even that such a thing existed. And I would strongly suggest that almost none of us did until this week.

                1. Richard 12 Silver badge

                  Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

                  The court transcripts state that he was an expert witness.

                  Therefore it is a point of absolute and irrefutable fact that he was an expert witness.

                  Your entire argument is that he was a really bad one. That may be true, and he may be prosecuted because of it.

                  That does not change the facts.

          2. PB90210 Bronze badge

            Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

            "the courts deemed him to be an expert witness for the criminal trials."

            The court doesn't deem him an expert witness

            He's presented by one side or the other as being an expert witness and the main difference from an ordinary witness is that he has a duty to be impartial and neutral.

            The back pages of Private Eye occasionally have tales where 'expert witnesses' have been used in numerous cases but turn out to be nothing of the sort. 'Abuse' cases spring to mind, because there is no register of approved experts and prosecutors tend to keep using the same 'experts' simply because they get results... until someone finally points out the fallacy of their arguement

      2. Justthefacts Silver badge

        Re: Possibly controversial opinion...

        “I was an expert witness for a civil case at the high court.”

        And there is a huge difference in the rules and responsibilities between civil cases and criminal cases. There is a much higher ethics and disclosure requirement for criminal cases. One of the (wider) problems of this scandal is that *all* the lawyers treated this as adversarial *civil* commercial cases, where the responsibility is to win at all costs.

        *None* of the lawyers had a background in the Crown Prosecution Service. None of them seems to have an inkling of an ethical duty in law, not to prosecute people who are in fact innocent. Whereas civil law (and criminal Defense) is the taxi-rank principle.

        Jarnail Singh (the only “criminal lawyer”) sole experience for the role was that he had done some conveyancing work, straight out of law school.

        This isn’t really about insufficient training in the rulebook though. I’m still enough of an optimist to believe that the reason the lawyers didn’t have the experience necessary in the CPS is simply that the CPS would have fired them, because they would have seen through the BS. The CPS may have its faults, but “deliberately imprison the innocent” is not one of them.

  8. Zibob Silver badge
    FAIL

    What was I supposed to do?

    "I accepted that there were these problems in the early days, which I hadn't been involved with specifically, but there had been plenty of time then for things to be sorted out for it to be working stably," he said.

    *I did nothing g and assumed everything was okay, how was I supposed to know*

    Doc we tried nothing and we're all out of ideas.

    Whatever punishment he gets should be double, that is open and clear negligence of job duties, fr9m day one with years to rectify it and not even trying to see if there was a problem.

  9. Eclectic Man Silver badge
    Big Brother

    Judge not lest ... Oh, hang on

    In all of this inquiry Fujitsu / ICL , the Post Office higher-ups, investigation teams etc have all been criticised, but I wonder at the judges who heard the cases and found people guilty and punished them. Why were they so accepting of the Post Office's claims and Fujitsu's claims? Why did they not ask even the simplest of questions about testing that would have shown Horizon to be basically a 'black box' system with no independent assurance of integrity?

    I humbly submit, m'lord, that the judges be summoned by the inquiry and required to account for their conduct and failure to ensure justice was done. (Don't worry, there is less chance of that happening than Liz Truss being re-elected as Prime Minister on 4th July.)

    (Big Brother icon, because, well, to whom does the judiciary answer?)

    1. CorwinX Bronze badge

      Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

      Who watches the watchers?

    2. Justthefacts Silver badge

      Re: Judge not lest ... Oh, hang on

      It’s true; but remember that a lot of the cases didn’t get to be judged. Part of the reason why it’s obvious that the evidence was wrong, was the sheer number of cases. But the PO bludgeoned guilty pleas out of the vast majority of their victims, who all thought they were the only one.

      And then the cases are distributed between regions, based on where the victims lived. Each judge probably only saw at most two or three such cases over a timespan of a decade. How were they to know of the pattern of abuse?

      The only people with the full picture of the 700+ victims, were the Post Office extortion krew themselves; and the CPS. All private prosecutions must be informed to the CPS, so they knew. The CPS have a lot of questions to answer. The DPPs in particular. Anyone we know?

    3. Spazturtle Silver badge

      Re: Judge not lest ... Oh, hang on

      The law requires that judges treat computer systems and computer records as infallible unless proven otherwise. To question the validity of the evidence would have constituted professional misconduct.

  10. cantankerous swineherd

    manager refuses to take responsibility for his actions

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "manager refuses to take responsibility for his actions and seems to know fuck all about software,

      and pretends they had no idea about remote access"

      FTFY

      he can fuck off with that shit, it would have been common knowledge with the techies.

  11. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
    Unhappy

    He was not

    an expert witness.

    Reading through his statements its more like he was a witness for the prosecution and had been coached by post office lawyers to be as such, and they should have known what an expert witness is and what his/her duties are to the court.

    He was part of the cover up of horizon failures by going along what the post office wanted him to say, and that the post office itself should have disclosed evidence to the defence that it withheld.

    So while he deserves throwing under a bus, that bus should be given a chance to run over the post office lawyers and manglement first.

    1. Eclectic Man Silver badge

      Re: He was not

      Agreed. Surely as an employee of the supplier with technical involvement in its creation, he would have been an expert in the sense that he who'll know what he was talking about. An 'Expert Witness' is, I believe (Reg Lawyers please correct me if I'm wrong), an independent subject matter expert not beholden to either the prosecution or the defence, but there to explain technical facts and importantly not supposed to take sides.

  12. CorwinX Bronze badge

    As I've mentioned before...

    ... computer expert. "It's just not the right structure … it indicates to me that they don't understand what those particular structures are,"

    This was the infamous doubling bug - some worthless widget didn't know how to use multiplying by -1 to change a positive variable to a negative.

  13. ecofeco Silver badge
    FAIL

    Trapped he says?

    Was he kidnapped? A gun held to his head? His life or family threatened?

    Lying bastard.

  14. Kingstonian

    Watch fully all 4 days of his evidence before making your mind up on Gareth Jenkins.

    I've watched in entirety all 4 days including his own Lawyers questions. Dont rely on "highlights" extracts seen elsewhere as these select the most lurid parts, especially today when most seem to concentrate on questions from the lawyer of Seema Misra and definitely give a false impression of the evidence presented. The lawyer attempted to paint a picture of Gareth Jenkins as the devil incarnate, which was not borne out by the full 4 days of evidence. The press is almost as bad.

    Gareth Jenkins has been reported as Systems Architect for Horizon and named in evidence by one witness as such earlier in the Enquiry. It would appear he was not when asked very early on in his evidence.

    The impression I got overall was that the courts were led to believe that he was an Expert Witness in the legal sense whereas he genuinely believed he was there to provide his extensive expert knowledge in both of the Horizon Systems, not the same thing at all.

    Gareth Jenkins is an IT person not a legally trained person and apparently worked for ICL/Fujitsu all his working life. Court work, after he was thrust into it, was less than 10% of his work and not really part of his job. Not legally trained in any way he appears to have been thrust into the legal role with absolutely no training whilst also fully continuing with his day to day responsibilities. One of his day 3 comments about how he was glad to be relieved of these legal duties and get back to his day job was very revealing. I can well believe the early day one comments about not remembering that he had had a letter about duties as a witness - very convenient that the enquiry found overnight between day one and two a slightly different piece of evidence that they must have had for some time regarding that letter. It was later explained there was a gap between getting the letter (as an email attachment) and actually providing input to any legal work and so very likely to be forgotten about by him. The Legally trained people would know very well what an "Expert Witness" meant in legal terms but in my opinion they should have ensured that he fully understood what that means and have got him to say in writing that he fully understood the difference between an Expert Witness in legal terms and a witness with expertise in the Horizon system rather than just supply a letter. I can well belive he thought he was just delivering information/evidence for others to apply to their legal arguments.

    Most of his work for the trials was to analyse logs, both hardware and software, to find errors, and also to see if any known bugs could have affected the branch in question (some known bugs still extant were shown to only affect branches with certain configurations and not apply to most post office branches). He appears to have performed this work diligently and honestly in as far as he was allowed to do so, often at short notice. The Post Office refused to allow him to perform an analysis over as much data as he would have liked in at least one case as they were not prepared to pay for more of his time and would ask for his help directly rather than go through the proper routes, which he resisted. He suggested longer period of logs should be examined but was not allowed to do this and he did report this in some of the statements to the court usually embedded in other authors documents, which they (not he) signed as expert witness. He maintained that he provided information for others to use. He certainly seemed naive regarding the legal niceties and his guiding principle (and legal advice from managers at Fujitsu when he asked for clarification) was "tell the truth" which he repeatedly insisted he did as he saw it. He admitted that based on what he now knows rather than what he knew then he would have done things differently. Look on the day 4 evidence for what he thought Fujitsu could hve done better.

    From evidence and questions on day 3 Jason Beer appeared to be saying that Bugs in Horizon Online needed to be disclosed in the Seema Misra trial when that trial was from a time when Legacy Horizon was in use. If that is true then, as Gareth Jenkins said, it makes no logical sense that bugs in a different system needed to be disclosed just because the new system was also called Horizon. Also It would seem to a logical person that any bugs fixed in Legacy Horizon before the relevant date would not need to be disclosed as the system would not have those bugs, only that bugs known to be extant at the relevant period would need be disclosed and even then they could be shown not to be relevant.I got the impression that even bugs found in testing and killed before go live should have been disclosed! Some of the lawyers seemed to confuse Legacy horizon and Horizon Online and did bring up bugs found in testing before go live as being relevant to their clients cases.

    This is not to say that just looking at transactions and error logs is necessarily sufficient to show the system was working correctly (or not) at the relevant times, possible bugs need to be taken into account. The Post Office should have carried out or caused to be carried out more detailed analyses before court cases.

    The comment by Gareth Jenkins early on that Robust does not mean Infallible is the first time I have heard anyone qualify what Robust meant - I am convinced that some people did indeed equate it with infallible.

    My understanding is that in England and Wales, courts consider computers, as a matter of law, to have been working correctly unless there is evidence to the contrary and a court will treat evidence from a computer being correct as it is assumed to be working perfectly unless someone can convincingly show why that is not the case!. This also applies to Horizon as a whole and this could explain a lot of the legal attitudes. The defence needs to rebut this assumption which is very difficult and costly for them.

    I can believe Gareth Jenkins did not fully understand his role and he could have done a far better job but had more excuses than so the legal teams with all their training.

    Many of those found guilty did plead guilty to false accounting and so were found guilty by the courts. That the Post Office forced the sub postmasters under extreme duress into committing false accounting by them having to sign off accounts as true before they could continue trading and not allow them to place disputed discrepancies in supense accounts until they could be resolved (they had a system change made to tighten this up) AND make them pay up immediately as they were responsible for any percieved shortfall was nothing short of disgraceful.

    1. Howard Long

      Re: Watch fully all 4 days of his evidence before making your mind up on Gareth Jenkins.

      That sums up my view. I too watched the entire four days. I wish I could've summarised it so well myself!

      Until Ian Henderson's testimony (Second Sight) on 18 June when he described Jenkins as "very helpful throughout", had "no criticism of him in terms of answering my questions and providing support", and "straight as a die", I was of the view Jenkins was probably in the same basket of deplorables as Jarnail Singh, and Vennals etc. These statements from Henderson urged me to reconsider, and that I'd like to make that judgement for myself.

      "The comment by Gareth Jenkins early on that Robust does not mean Infallible is the first time I have heard anyone qualify what Robust meant - I am convinced that some people did indeed equate it with infallible.

      I am certain you are right. There's nothing like a bit of good old confirmation bias.

      I put myself in his shoes. It would not have been at all surprising if I'd have been asked during my career, where I did more than my fair share of financial forensics on enterprise databases, to find myself offered up as a witness. I would have been totally dependent on the company lawyers to actively approach me and educate me on my responsibilities to the court, and I would not have even known what to ask, and neither would I have known about Part 33 of the Criminal Prosecution Rules, or the Code of Practice for Experts. Why would I?

      I did not know, until this week's testimony, that an expert witness in legal terms is distinct from, and a subset of, a domain expert.

      Jenkins, in my opinion, was trying to help. He was also conscious that this was part of a commercial relationship. He was misguided in that the likes of Jarnail Singh, the only criminal lawyer in POL, was not performing his responsibilities duties as a criminal lawyer to witnesses he was putting forward. Furthermore, Fujitsu top brass should've had alarm bells ringing, when someone seven levels down the pecking order was effectively representing their interests in a criminal court.

      The only niggling thing I have about Jenkins is why he still considers Horizon to have been reliable, bearing in mind what we all know now.

      1. Eclectic Man Silver badge

        Re: Watch fully all 4 days of his evidence before making your mind up on Gareth Jenkins.

        "I would have been totally dependent on the company lawyers to actively approach me and educate me on my responsibilities to the court,"

        My mother, shortly after she became a lay magistrate (Justice of the Peace or J.P., and yes, I know they were called 'Muppets' by the professionals) insisted that if ever I were to be questioned by the Police, I should insist on being accompanied by a solicitor. It seems to me that if ever you (or I) are called to give evidence in court, a quick trip to your own solicitor for some expert legal advice would be a very good idea.

      2. Justthefacts Silver badge

        Re: Watch fully all 4 days of his evidence before making your mind up on Gareth Jenkins.

        “I would have been totally dependent on the company lawyers to actively approach me and educate me on my responsibilities to the court, and I would not have even known what to ask, and neither would I have known about Part 33 of the Criminal Prosecution Rules, or the Code of Practice for Experts. Why would I?”

        Because, that is your responsibility, legal and ethical. To rely on *company* lawyers not to advise you to violate criminal law is, I’m afraid, foolish and irresponsible. They do not represent your interests. If you are unsure, ask your Union for legal advice. I may run my own company, but I’m still a member of Prospect. If that doesn’t help you in sufficient detail, get independent legal advice which you are going to have to pay for. If the resulting salary pay doesn’t add up for you, either refuse the task assignment, or walk away from the role.

        Doctors pay for their own independent training, as do many professions. That is the price of growth in a more senior role, sometimes the numbers add up, sometimes they don’t.

  15. Nematode

    No-one seems to have thought: "Hang on a minute, are you (PO, Fujitsu) saying this is the first system in the universe not to have bugs? Let's see the bug list, prove it's zero, show us the debug/fix trails. And how can you possibly NOT alter database figures behind the scenes?" After which the whole fracas could/should have been avoided. The whole lot of them need putting in clink to warn everyone else there are consequences for amoral actions. And as for the expert witness thing, does this guy have no mind of his own to state what's true and what isn't? All you have to be on the stand is honest and call out twisting of what you're saying.

    1. Howard Long

      "And as for the expert witness thing, does this guy have no mind of his own to state what's true and what isn't?

      The "expert witness thing" turned out to be key.

      "All you have to be on the stand is honest and call out twisting of what you're saying."

      The evidence presented during his testimony didn't show he was being dishonest, or twisting anything.

      I can only recommend that you watch, listen, or read the testimony. At least start off with the first morning of his testimony where the "expert witness thing" starts. This "expert witness thing" was pervasive throughout his entire testimony, and fundamental to it.

      1. R Soul Silver badge

        "The evidence presented during his testimony didn't show he was being dishonest"

        The evidence he gave in the trials says otherwise. Read their transcripts.

        In Seema Misra's trial, he said "No external systems can manipulate branch accounts without user awareness and authorisation.".During the inquiry, he admitted knowing that remote access was possible.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "The evidence presented during his testimony didn't show he was being dishonest,"

        Obviously, you've missed the bit when he said he hadn't been given the Part 33 bumf and then recanted that when presented with the evidence he had.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Beware of the leopard

          In an attachment marked "agenda"

  16. hayzoos

    Expert Witness Training

    The "Expert Witness Training" referred to here barely qualifies as training, yet does result in being elevated from a run of the mill expert in a field called as a witness to a bona fide "Legal Expert Witness".

    If all that is required is reading a particular section covering behavior as an expert witness and expectations and requirements for a report which requires signing an included acknowledgment of the section's requirements, then that is less onerous than a lot of "safety training" I have had to endure.

    The trouble I have with the focus on the expert witness vs. legal expert witness is the overlooking of the requirements of any witness at a trial, be it an eye-witness, ear-witness, nose-witness, expert-witness or legal-expert-witness. A key one is to tell the truth.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Expert Witness Training

      The text of the expert witness 'training' may be straightforward, but understanding the legal significance of some of the terms such as 'disclosure' absolutely is not.

      Having also seen much of the GJ testimony, I'm also totally persuaded that this is an honest, straightforward guy who was trying to respond as best he could to a difficult and unfamiliar situation in which he found himself. As a mathematician/systems analyst his whole mindset would have been to think logically and literally, probably to the exclusion of easily entertaining a wider context to some of the questions thrown at him. A clash of cultures almost.

      I'm personally very much in the camp who thinks that the legal establishment is highly culpable as a root cause of this tragedy, yes - so far at least - seems to be excluded from examination by the enquiry.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Expert Witness Training

        in that case your saying he was a shit mathematician/systems analyst, or an overconfident fuckwit at the least

  17. CAPS LOCK

    Expert witness?

    Expert witnesses for the prosecution know exactly what is required. If they don't 'come up with the goods' they don't get hired again. Defense lawyers frequently fall down on the job of finding counter experts. Don't ask me how I know!

  18. Robert 22

    From the BBC article:

    "The Post Office wanted his thoughts on how the losses could have occurred. One possibility, he said, was some sort of system failure. But the Post Office demanded changes, saying the line was potentially “very damaging". It got deleted."

    He was already in a conflict of interest situation given that his technical reputation and that of his employer depended on supporting the Post Office narrative, I'd suggest that his ethical compass was badly broken.

  19. WanderingHaggis

    If it was designed with remote access for error correction then that is not a bug but someone abusing the system. So we're getting into the area of fraud by Fujitsu employees rather than a software failure. It is only a failure if remote access is not allowed. I can also see someone assuming is remote access means third party hostile remote access and not Fujitsu maintenance access. It is a bit like when seniour management want to know if there is a hacker on the network the only truthful answer is I don't see one at which point they go postal. You give them the answer that best fits their understanding.

  20. Lars Silver badge
    WTF?

    Beside the point, perhaps

    But I just cannot understand how a company assumed hundreds of their postmasters (900) stole money, and apparently never tried to find out the truth and question the software and demand some thorough testing.

    And now they have found this one guy to fuck around with.

    1. Ian Johnston Silver badge

      Re: Beside the point, perhaps

      Senior managers were getting Very Large Bonuses out of the money recovered (spelled S-T-O-L-E-N) from sub postmasters. How deeply do you think they wanted to investigate?

  21. Michael Strorm Silver badge

    "First implemented by ICL, a UK technology company later bought by Fujitsu"

    This is misleading and risks letting Fujitsu off the hook, as if they only came along later and unwittingly bought a can of worms. When, in fact, they were up to their necks in it from the beginning.

    Development on Horizon began in the mid-1990s. By that point Fujitsu had already owned the vast bulk of ICL for several years (having bought an 80% stake in 1990). They bought the remainder outright in 1998, the year before the rollout of Horizon commenced, despite problems with the software already being well-known within the company.

    Furthermore, it's been established that Fujitsu themselves wanted to finally get paid and pressured and coerced the UK government into accepting the system (which they already knew to be unfit for purpose) by threatening not just the future of ICL/Fujisu UK itself (as a major employer in the UK IT field) but also making ominous threats to "bilateral ties" (i.e. between the UK and Japan).

    And, to be clear, this wasn't the UK branch of the company doing so, it was senior management at the Japanese parent doing so via the British embassy in Tokyo. So even the excuse some have made that the Horizon scandal was local to Fujitsu UK- i.e. the work of a recently-acquired and still largely autonomous entity that the Japanese parent had no real involvement in- doesn't wash.

  22. tim.j.birkett@gmail.com

    He lied. Put him in prison.

    Gareth Jenkins lied and gaslit innocent Postmasters. He deserves criminal prosecution and jail time, as do the delivery managers at Fushitsu and the Project managers at the Post Office.

    Any engineer or developer that claims that their software is bug free and absolutely reliable is just lying.

  23. archie99

    But for a nail....

    I have been watching this inquiry every testimony, usually watching them at the end of the day as some of us have a day job. I wouldn't normally comment on this case, as it is nuanced, complicated and there are many moving parts and the vast majority of people (outside of the Reg) haven't got a clue what's going on technically. However as this is an audience who should, I suggest you search for document POL00028838 and read it. If you have ever worked on a database project, keep the words "transaction integrity" in your thoughts. The very sad thing about this report, is that it appears that at one point the deficit may have only been roughly £35K to swallow, plus change costs to put it right. How many lives have been ruined and how much money & time has been spent since that report was written for £35K to sound a cheap cost to pay. "..but for a nail"

  24. xyz123 Silver badge

    He's not actually sorry. He's been told to pretend to be regretful, because he's facing charges of perjury, false accounting, malicious evidence tampering and money laundering. (hence why Horizon was built in such a way to hide remote access).

    He's overdue for a full financial audit.

  25. xyz123 Silver badge

    Fujitsu has full remote access over Horizon. They ALSO have full (secret) remote access over various HMRC systems. Public-facing tax-refund systems.

    How many 10s of thousands of people due small refunds, had them re-directed to FJ employee bank accounts, then the data quietly changed back to the taxpayers bank info...

    So it just looks like they had a £0.00 refund. FJ can override all the system lockouts/delays for changing bank info. To the system as a whole, it looks like a normal bank transfer. to the taxpayer it looks like they weren't entitled to a tax refund this year. (or it was a bit smaller than they expected).

    FJ even has the ability to simply DELETE the trail of transfers, so taxpayers can't see any money went out as a refund.

    They've stolen 100s of millions this way.

  26. NLCSGRV

    How could he ever have been considered a credible witness? I would have thought the first requirement of an expert witness is that they be impartial and independent, something by dint of his employment he was clearly incapable of being.

  27. nonpc

    Selective with the truth

    A software engineer of any worth would have dutifully read the lines 'the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth', or maybe that was commented out?

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