Thread by @nickwallis

I am at court 26 of the Rolls Building to witness the handing down of the Horizon trial judgment. I wasn’t going to live tweet this, but it is bedlam. I have never seen the court so busy. Five journalists and possibly 60 claimants plus families.
#postofficetrial

There is standing room only. Both legal teams are here including Patrick Green QC for the claimants and Owain Draper for the Post Office. Only a small number of people in this room know what is in the judgment.

Bear in mind most people made their plans before last Wednesday’s settlement. So there is a strange mood here. Part celebratory - the claimants, after all - won. Part curious - what will the judge say…? And...

… bear in mind Subpostmasters by the nature of their job exist entirely separate to each other often in remote areas… this is the largest gathering of Subpostmasters I’ve seen since I filmed a meeting of them back in Jan 2015 for the BBC...

Hack-wise we have @Karlfl from @ComputerWeekly, Sam Greenhill from the @DailyMailUK, and @PA. Sky and the BBC were outside with their cameras to film the banner which was up...

@Karlfl @ComputerWeekly @DailyMailUK @PA … Ian Henderson (@forensicgod) and Ron Warmington (@RonRwarming) directors of Second Sight, who investigated Horizon for the Post Office and sacked when the Post Office didn’t like their conclusions. Ian was on the 2015 @BBCPanorama ...

@Karlfl @ComputerWeekly @DailyMailUK @PA @forensicgod @RonRwarming @BBCPanorama There are at least three claimants here who have been to prison, including Seema Misra who was jailed in 2010 whilst pregnant with her second child (on her first child’s birthday)...

Judge - Sir Peter Fraser - is here. He has confirmed both teams saw his judgment before last Wednesday’s settlement.

He is now telling people how they can best get hold of the judgment which is public as of now. A hack - possibly from Sky - has rushed out of court with it.
I am going to stay to tweet the proceedings.

Patrick Green QC is looking for clarity on the issue of claimants with convictions making a claim for malicious prosecution after the settlement.

Judge asks PO QC for agreement with PG QC on this issue. He agrees. Judge says he will make an order which will allow claimants with convictions to make a claim for malicious prosecution against the Post Office should they feel they have a case.

Judge announces this is the end of the Bates v Post Office group litigation. Judge comments: the Horizon trial involved detailed analysis of the PO’s IT system. Says he has very grave concerns about the veracity of evidence provided by Fujitsu employees in previous court cases...

… against Subpostmasters. As a result of this the judge has sent all the evidence to the Director of Public Prosecutions with specific regard to previous court cases...

…
He is drawing specific attention to evidence from Fujitsu employees given in previous court cases. It is up to the DPP as to what they do next...

Judge rises. But not before telling the court his learned clerk has added up the total word count of all six judgments in this case and it’s a little shy of War and Peace, but not by much. Wishes everyone a Happy Christmas and leaves...

… I have the judgment. It’s big, but not as big as the first trial judgment. It has two appendices...

Now heading outside court for presser from james Hartley litigation partner at Freeths... on the way out Patrick Green QC for the claimants tells me "we won on all counts"...

Sorry for the silence. Been hoovering up interviews outside the High Court

Finally got time to sit and read this judgment. It is 177,211 words long. 3000 shy of the last trial judgment. Key pars to follow:

929: "This approach by the Post Office has amounted, in reality, to bare assertions and denials that ignore what has actually occurred...

… , at least so far as the witnesses called before me in the Horizon Issues trial are concerned. It amounts to the 21st century equivalent of maintaining that the earth is flat."

933: " Regardless of whichever approach is adopted, the same conclusions are reached. In this respect, all roads lead to Rome. In my judgment, the evidence of the factual witnesses accepted by me entirely supports...

… and corroborates the conclusions reached by Mr Coyne [claimants’ independent IT expert]. Indeed, I would go further than this, and state that Mr Godeseth’s evidence alone is enough to support and corroborate Mr Coyne’s conclusions….

…. [Mr Godeseth is the PO’s independent IT expert] When that is put together with the evidence of Mr Roll, and the concessions that were obtained from the Fujitsu witnesses (in the circumstances of their performance as witnesses, to which I have already referred) ...

… it is clear to me that the correct conclusions to be drawn on the Horizon Issues are those drawn by Mr Coyne, save and to the extent that I have modified them in any specific respect."

[Richard Roll was the Fujitsu whistleblower who appeared in court and Horizon]

Par 934: "I consider that the evidence of the Fujitsu witnesses in particular, both former and current, has been of considerable assistance to me... [they] have all provided clear evidence of the problems with the Horizon system...

… the bugs, errors and defects within both Legacy Horizon and Horizon Online in its HNG-X form, the way that these problems were (or were not) dealt with, and the way that Fujitsu had powers which...

… until shortly before the trial started, Fujitsu sought to keep from the court, and may not even have fully disclosed to the Post Office. Because the extent of these powers was kept secret in this way...

… the Post Office finds itself now having made misleading public statements previously. If one looks back to an earlier case management hearing and reconsiders how Fujitsu, through the Post Office, sought to portray the contents and lack of importance and relevance...

… of PEAKs and KELs [error reports in Horizon], then it can be seen that there has been a pattern of considerable defensiveness over the Horizon System. There has certainly been a lack of transparency, and a lack of accuracy in description."

The big question - is Horizon robust as the Post Office have long asserted is answered in par 936: "I consider, as explained in the Technical Appendix, that Legacy Horizon was not robust, and that although Horizon Online in its HNG-X form was better than Legacy Horizon...

… (not least, I consider, because Riposte was no longer part of Horizon) its robustness was questionable, and did not justify the confidence placed in it by the Post Office in terms of its accuracy….

… HNG-A is a different matter, and the experts are agreed that it is far more robust than Horizon in earlier times.”

So:
H1 : (1999 - 2010) not robust.
H2: (2010 - 2016?) questionable robustness.
H3: (2016? - pres) far more robust.

Further pars…

958: "On 17 August 2015 the BBC Panorama programme broadcast a programme which contained allegations about Horizon… The contemporaneous response to that by the Post Office...

… started with the following passages…

"The Post Office wholly rejects extremely serious allegations repeated in BBC’s Panorama programme of 17 August 2015. The allegations are based on partial, selective and misleading information….

- The Post Office does not prosecute people for making innocent mistakes and never has
- There is no evidence that faults with the computer system caused money to go missing at these Post Office branches”

… The first of those bullets point is for another day...

… and is not for this court [remember this was a civil trial not a criminal one]… that second bullet point, in the computer system and its accuracy is not consistent with.. the expert evidence on the number of bugs in the Horizon system... and my findings."

"To the extent that the second bullet point conflicts with my findings in this judgment, that public statement in 2015 by the Post Office is factually incorrect."

Par 946: "A theme contained within some of the internal documents is an extreme sensitivity (seeming to verge, on occasion, to institutional paranoia) concerning any information that may throw doubt on the reputation of Horizon, or expose it to further scrutiny."

938: "The Post Office’s approach to evidence, even despite their considerable resources which are being liberally deployed at considerable cost, amounts to...

…. attack and disparagement of the claimants individually and collectively, together with the wholly unsatisfactory evidence of Fujitsu personnel."

968: "It was possible for bugs, errors or defects of the nature alleged by the claimants to have the potential both (a) to cause apparent or alleged discrepancies or shortfalls relating to Subpostmasters’ branch accounts or transactions...

… and also (b) to undermine the reliability of Horizon accurately to process and to record transactions as alleged by the claimants.”

Par 969: "Further, all the evidence in the Horizon Issues trial shows not only was there the potential for this to occur, but it actually has happened, and on numerous occasions."

970: "I accept the claimants’ submissions that, in terms of likelihood, there was a significant and material risk on occasion of branch accounts being affected in the way alleged by the claimants by bugs, errors and defects. This is amply...

… demonstrated by Dr Worden [Post Office’s independent IT expert]’s evidence. He accepted that there was strong evidence of at least 12 bugs causing a lasting discrepancy in branch accounts. This conclusion was reached even within...

… the context of his unjustified creation of both “transient” and lasting impact, which limited his consideration of this, and is an approach which I have rejected."

I’ll put up a quick report on postofficetrial.com tonight and try to offer a full fisking by 8pm tomorrow.

My reporting of this trial has been entirely powered by crowdfunding. There is a paypal tip jar on the post office trial website if you are able to contribute I would be most grateful.

This story - particularly relating to the criminalised Subpostmasters and...

… the extraordinary announcement by the judge today that he would be passing a file to the Director of Public Prosecutions with specific regard to the evidence given in previous trials by Fujitsu employees means this has a long way to go...

… and that’s before our parliamentarians get a grip of this and start demanding some sort of inquiry into how the Post Office were allowed to get away with this for so long...

… paypal contributions of £20 or more get the secret emails tipping you off about potential developments in the story and lots of other nonsense besides. Do join the club. If you can’t - don’t worry I am committed to maintaining the publicly available website...

… and generally wanging on on social media. This story has a lot more left in it.

#postofficetrial

@threadreaderapp unroll pls

Here you go - an afternoon and evening’s worth of tweets, inc courtroom reports and judgment quotes in one beautifully-rendered web page. A 10 minute read: threadreaderapp.com/thread/1206573…
#postofficetrial

And apologies for the long periods of silence. I was asked to do @BBCPM and @BBCNewsChannel at 5.45pm and 6.50pm respectively. And I had to interview a lot of people outside court….

@BBCPM @BBCNewsChannel …
I’ll post a link to my report when it’s done.

Which will now be after I’ve picked up my daughter from air cadets.

Thanks v much for reading.