Former Fujitsu IT chief evidence postponed after late Post Office disclosure
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Put up Build of labor has disrupted Horizon inquiry schedule thru slack disclosure of ‘valuable’ proof as key IT search for proof is postponed
By
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Karl Flinders,
Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA
Published: 06 Jul 2023 12:00
An proof hearing for a key search for in the Put up Build of labor Horizon scandal inquiry has been postponed, after “valuable” proof incorporated in hundreds of documents was disclosed merely hours before he was region to be questioned by inquiry attorneys for the foremost time.
Gareth Jenkins, feeble chief architect at Fujitsu, was attributable to present proof on the statutory public inquiry over the next two days (Thursday 6 and Friday 7 July), as part of section three of the inquiry, which resulted in Would possibly well also merely. His proof was postponed and rescheduled for this week.
The statutory public inquiry was region up to look at how and why subpostmasters had been wrongly blamed and punished for accounting discrepancies of their branches.
After the introduction of tool from Fujitsu in 2000 to automate mainly handbook practices in Put up Build of labor branches, subpostmasters started to enjoy a look at unexplained shortfalls of their accounts. They had been subsequently blamed for these shortfalls, which didn’t if truth be told exist, and made to repay them. More than 700 had been prosecuted for monetary crimes, with many serving penal complex sentences. Hundreds more suffered existence-altering hardship on myth of failed companies and repaying unexplained shortfalls.
Jenkins is a key search for in the inquiry, who gave proof defending the robustness of the Horizon laptop machine in trials of subpostmasters being prosecuted for monetary crimes. He is currently underneath police investigation for possibly committing perjury at some stage in the pains of subpostmasters prosecuted primarily based totally totally on proof from the Horizon laptop machine, which later proved to comprise errors that introduced on unexplained accounting shortfalls.
Inquiry barrister Jason Beer KC printed that 4767 documents including some “valuable” to Jenkins’ proof had been handiest obtained from the Put up Build of labor at 10:32pm last evening (5 July), allowing no time for attorneys to analyse them. Jenkins will now give proof for phases 3 and 4 of the inquiry, potentially over four days, after the summer destroy.
Ragged subpostmaster Lee Castleton, who’s a victim of the scandal and a core inquiry participant, acknowledged: “For me it’s more prolong. The Put up Build of labor is enjoying a game. At any time when, they failed to conform with disclosure guidelines.”
Dejected attitude
Following the postponement of Jenkins’ proof, Jo Hamilton, who was wrongly convicted of false accounting after unexplained losses looked in the Put up Build of labor branch in Hampshire, acknowledged: “Nothing ever changes with the Put up Build of labor’s attitude, and I don’t contemplate it ever will.”
Alan Bates, the feeble subpostmaster who primarily based a campaign community to fight for justice and took the Put up Build of labor to court docket in a Community Litigation Remark (GLO) which proved laptop errors introduced on unexplained losses, has had years of experience of what he described as “the Put up Build of labor’s lack of skill of revealing records, whether or no longer it be intentional or unintended”.
“That is conventional of the Put up Build of labor,” he acknowledged. “It failed to abolish it on the GLO, and any individual wants to take control of it.”
In 2009, a Computer Weekly investigation first printed that subpostmasters had been being blamed for unexplained accounting shortfalls, which they believed to be attributable to tool errors (survey timeline of Computer Weekly articles underneath).
It has change into a nationwide scandal moving the authorities, the Put up Build of labor and IT seller Fujitsu. Three phases of a statutory public inquiry into the scandal were done.
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