Paula Vennells was done the other week, the Post Office Inquiry is now questioning associates and others - thread 3

[nauticant]

A continuation of this thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5081592-paula-vennels-being-questioned-at-the-post-office-inquiry-followed-by-others-thread-2

When the hearings are going on, live-streaming can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/@postofficehorizonitinquiry947/featured

All of the previous hearings can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/@postofficehorizonitinquiry947/videos

Chairman Sir Wyn intervenes in the treacle.

He's carefully avoiding the issue of "places Fujitsu in breach of its contract with POL".

This is extremely boring, but at least he isn't pretending that he doesn't remember.

Christou has just described the scandal as 'all the fuss'.

Christou's 'defence' is that he performed at far too high a level to be bothered with matters technical or legal. He expected managers to deal with them, fix them, and that's that.

He seems unable to contemplate that the unfixable was happening under his eye. You know, the one that led to 'all the fuss'.

That's the trouble with being omnipotent but far from omniscient, mate.

Sir Wyn just got to the nitty gritty about the lack of oversight over Gareth Jenkins witnessing.

Christou - 'Integrity means whole and complete, not accurate'.

'Surprised' that Fujitsu's Gareth Jenkins acted as an expert witness. Very critical that he was not advised by independent legal counsel. 'Ignorance' by 'security people'.

Sir Wyn buttering him up to get Christou's opinion on a legal clause (Christou is a trained solicitor).

Jenkins's activity as expert (opinion) witness should have been approved by Chrsitou's board? Sir Wyn asks.

Yes, is the reply. And it would be Martin Bennett, Christou thinks, who should have brought it to the board.

"fit for purpose" was specifically excluded!

Christou concerned with hindsight with how Gareth Jenkins came to be an expert witness - the processes - not the bugs in themselves.

I know! 'Fitness for purpose' never part of the contract between Fujitsu and Post Office. Bloody hell.

By the way, on an extremely trivial note given the seriousness of the hearing, I wonder whether anyone else has been trying to work out who on earth Richard Christou looks like. It was annoying me because it was a bit distracting, but then I realised who it is - Count Arthur Strong. Just posting this in case anyone else was wondering why he looks familiar. On the other hand, maybe everyone reading this is saying "Who the hell is Count Arthur Strong?" 😳

Christou knew about the remote 'corrections' but understood that this was done by Fujitsu in conjunction with the Post Office.

Then gets uber tetchy over word 'tampering'.

Miss Page has hit a nerve over this and whistle-blowing (apparent lack of) at Christou's end.

End of Christou's evidence.

I was initially thinking of the weary-sounding man married to Mrs Hyacinth Bucket, but you're closer!

Duncan Tait, former Chief Executive of Fujitsu Services Ltd, up next (after lunch).

Evasive

What a pompous prick

The old 'it was technical' again.

His hands are giving him away, seems very uncomfortable despite his 'lack of involvement '

He's obliterating his own regional accent by trying to talk posh, and failing. Hence 'book' is 'back', 'us' is 'ass', etc. This guy has real issues.

Thinking it over, Christou was on an extremely sticky wicket attempting to claim that data integrity is not the same as data accuracy in this instance.

He would be right, of course, were he CEO of Excel (whatever company that is). Excel is not responsible for whether I have correctly typed my monthly income and expenditure data into my personal accounts spreadsheet, from my receipts and bank account.

But it's a very different kettle of fish for Horizon. Horizon is responsible for the PO's transaction data right from the beginning. It creates the data. No Horizon event = no transaction, and in cases where the Subpostmaster is aware Horizon isn't creating data (ie error message or freezing), they have to tell the customer, "Sorry, machine's playing up, I can't do that transaction for you right now."

So IIUC Horizon is responsible for the accuracy of PO data.

I remember having to build a database with FoxBase 3 (for Mac) at a university in the very early 1990s. I was in a specialist database users' group and those who were using predominantly numerical fields swore that it managed to take accurate data input and garble it into an inaccurately calculated output.

So it wasn't GIGO - it was AIGO: Accuracy In, Garbage Out.

I think that version was retired and reinvented for 'changing landscape' reasons.

No, it doesn't create all the data. It relies on user input. If the customer is, say, paying in or withdrawing money, the cashier has to select the right type of transaction and enter the correct amount. If the customer is paying for something with cash, the cashier has to enter the amount tendered correctly and give the correct change as indicated by Horizon. There are plenty of further examples. Horizon records data about transactions, but much of the data comes from external sources.

So he is correct - data integrity is not the same as data accuracy. Imagine a customer withdraws £100 but the cashier pushes the wrong button and enters it as a deposit of £100. In that situation, the data is clearly not accurate. However, data integrity will be fine as long as Horizon continues to show the transaction as a £100 deposit.

Having said that, one of the problems with Horizon is that it was not error repellent. For example, the buttons for depositing and withdrawing money were next to each other and the screens were very similar, so it was easy for the cashier to record a deposit as a withdrawal or vice versa.

Fair enough.

Wouldn't a user error like that appear on the SPM's (equivalent of a) till roll? So that when they came to spread long strips of paper out over their rooms in the stilly watches of the night, it would be possible to find the error?

I know at one stage that's what SPMs were doing, and there was still no sign of the error (in cases where the error was introduced by the bugs, not the SPM).

I've slightly lost track, but I seem to remember it being said here previously that at some stage (perhaps New Horizon?), the machines ceased to give the SPM any kind of till roll that they could check. Which, if I've got that right, doesn't seem great. <understatement>

Thanks again @nauticant (and other contributors) for keeping us abreast of the events so far for this week. I only managed to watch today's BBCiplayer lunchtime loop. All a bit dry at the moment so haven't missed too much. I suspect the main blame at Fujitsu is with the Horizon 'designers' and 'programmers' who were just unable to admit that their shiny system had errors that they couldn't really correct without it 'snowballing'.

@CustardySergeant based on my narrow viewing today and always up for a lookalike laugh - Christou looks a bit like Yasser Arafat I suggest.