The “chief architect” of the faulty Horizon accounting system that led to the prosecution of sub-postmasters was interrogated for a second day during the Post Office Inquiry in Aldwych House in London on Wednesday.
Gareth Jenkins was an expert witness in court cases that wrongfully convicted around 15 sub-postmasters, while the Post Office has since identified about 700 convictions due to the faulty IT system between 1999 and 2015.
Four of the convicted sub-postmasters are known to have taken their own life amid the scandal which has been branded the biggest miscarriage of justice in British legal history.
Mr Jenkins worked at Fujitsu as a senior engineer designing features of the Horizon programme from 1996 until his retirement in 2015, while he continued to work on a retainer as a consultant for the company until 2022.
Previous witnesses to the inquiry have accused Mr Jenkins of failing to disclose knowledge of bugs in the Horizon system to the sub-postmasters. Another Horizon manager, David McConnell, while giving evidence, referred to Mr Jenkins as the “chief architect” of the IT system.
Mr Jenkins is currently the subject of a Metropolitan Police investigation on suspicion of perjury and perverting the course of justice.
He will give evidence for four consecutive days until Friday – the longest run of questions any witness has faced so far.
1. Seema Misra tearful outside court
The day began with the arrival of Seema Misra outside Aldwych House who was she was given a 15-month prison sentence in November 2010, when she was eight weeks pregnant during the scandal.
Speaking to the BBC outside the inquiry, a teary-eyed Ms Misra said: “I’m here to hear from Mr Jenkins, why he did – what he did – that’s what I want to hear.”
Mr Jenkins had given evidence that led to her wrongful conviction. In a written statement to the inquiry, he wrote: “I am truly sorry she was wrongly convicted.”
But Mr Jenkins maintains that he did not lie in his evidence during the case, instead blaming the Post Office for not adequately explaining his duties for his role as an expert witness.
Just as the interview with Ms Misra ended outside court, Mr Jenkins was seen walking into court as he took to the witness box for another day of interrogation from lead counsel for the Horizon inquiry Jason Beer.
2. Branch accounts could be ‘tampered’ with via ‘remote access’
The inquiry heard that Fujitsu staff had the ability to secretly alter branch accounts through remote access without the awareness of Post Office staff.
Mr Jenkins said he always knew remote access was theoretically possible, but it didn’t often happen.
But he said when it did happen, it would leave a trace. The inquiry heard this was not the case, and that it was impossible to distinguish between changes made by the post-masters of Fujitsu staff.
“I now understand it wasn’t always done in the way I thought it was done,” he told Mr Beer.
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The inquiry was then shown a witness statement from Second Sight forensic accountant Ian Henderson in which he alleged Mr Jenkins had told him in 2012 that that sub-postmasters’ accounts could be changed without their consent or knowledge by Fujitsu.
Mr Beer asked My Jenkins: “So, you knew the SSC had the facility to tamper with branch accounts?”
Mr Jenkins responded: “I don’t think I’d call it tampering, but, yes, I understand what you’re saying.”
This ultimately allowed Post Office sub-postmasters to be falsely accused of having taken money from branch accounts.
3. Mr Jenkins had ‘no recollection’ of letter outlining role as expert witness
Mr Jenkins was quizzed about his duties as an expert witness during the prosecutions of the sub-postmasters but claimed he was unaware of the extent of his duties and responsibilities in this role.
He told the inquiry he did not recall receiving a letter from law firm Bond Pearce sent to Fujitsu in 2005 laying out the duties of an expert witness and that he would “have done things differently” in later cases – including that of Ms Misra – if he had been aware of this.
But the inquiry was shown an email sent to Mr Jenkins the following year which contained the letter.
Mr Jenkins again said he had “no recollection” of reading any letters outlining his role as an expert witness.
4. Witness statement that called Horizon system a ‘failure’ changed
Jenkins was contacted by the Post Office for a statement in March 2006 relating to Noel Thomas, who ran Post Office branches in north Wales.
In the draft witness statement written by Mr Jenkins, he called Horizon a “system failure.”
An edited copy of the draft showed the sentence with a line through it, with Post Office official Graham Ward calling it a “poor choice of words” that could “support the postmasters claim that the system is to blame for the losses.”
Beer asked: “What did you think about this attempt by the Post Office to alter your evidence?”
Mr Jenkins said: “I don’t think I interpreted it in quite that way at the time,” before he was then asked if he thought it was appropriate that his language was “haggled over.”
He said that at the time he thought it was appropriate because the Post Office wanted to use less emotive language.
The statement was subsequently re-written twice at the request of Graham Ward, an investigator at the Post Office and Noel Thomas was sentenced to nine months in prison for false accounting.
Mr Jenkins will again enter the witness box for his third day of questioning from 9:45am.