Paula Vennells is history but now at the Post Office Inquiry is Fujitsu distinguished engineer Gareth Jenkins - thread 4

[nauticant]

A continuation of this thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5094266-paula-vennells-was-done-the-other-week-the-post-office-inquiry-is-now-questioning-associates-and-others-thread-3

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

I haven't been able to watch for a while, so am continuing to appreciate the reportage here.

This is extremely awkward for Dunks. It's clear that his witness statements were defective, by containing information that he was declaring to be true, when that wasn't within his knowledge. Also, although he's implying that he did cross-checking and referring back, it doesn't sound like he actually did that.

Well this is a very sticky issue. Dunks has essentially included hearsay from other people in his witness statements and then presented them as his expert evidence

Just joining. Watching Mr Beer calmly eviscerate Mr Dunks.

^Did the red BMW pass your house at 23.36?^

You shouldn't declare "yes" under oath in court when it's simply something someone told you and you weren't sure whether it was true or not.

I'm.justvgetting to that part now @nauticant

Jason Beer is really driving that point home
In the case of SPMR Jerry Hosi (who was sent to prison for 21 months), a Fujitsu colleague clearly is very unhappy and stressed signing a witness statement based on facts he didn't know.

But I seems Andy Dunks had no problem with doing that.
And nor did it ring alarm bells that he was more than happy to sign witness statements based on information he had no direct knowledge of, yet his colleagues did.

'My line managers would have known what I was doing ...'

They should have known. But did they know??

Phil Budd of Fujitsu did himself a massive favour by being so prudent.

I know!
I imagine Phil Budd, and other colleagues who refused to sign witness statements are sitting at home realising their caution was the correct action. (And saved them from all of this)

'I assumed that they assumed ... '

I've noticed that sometimes Jason Beer asks the same question in two slightly different ways, and Dunks gives two different answers.

Yes - you and Sir Wynn

At the risk of repeating myself - as I said the same stuff during the Gareth Jenkins evidence - WTF were Fujitsu's legal department doing to guide their employees about their evidence: how to format it and what they could/could not include? It seems like Fujitsu just decided to give the evidence the PO wanted

This witness statement (for Porters Ave) where Dunks is stating things that are well outside of his knowledge and/or expertise. Ouch.

Andy Dunks is completely missing the point of "having direct knowledge".
He thinks if he spoke to someone and they told him X,Y, Z, he now has direct knowledge.

It's a bit like me saying
"I've spoken to a surgeon and he has given me step by step instructions on how to perform heart surgery. I now have the direct knowledge to do surgery, so I will now go and tell a judge how a heart surgery is performed"

Is he really that thick?

Dunks is again obscuring the fact that for the 33 calls for Porters Ave he wouldn't have gone through the details of each with the SSC before confidently stating them to be routine. In evidence he implied he would have but he's canny enough not to be explicit and definitive.

He doesn't seem to have taken any of this seriously, up to and including the prosecutions of real, actual people like Seema Misri. It's like he was participating in a desultory restocking exercise for a corner shop's stationery shelf.

I'm.I'm.sure, im in two minds.

Part of me thinks, its not all his fault because nobody explained to him the difference between "having direct knowledge" and "knowing somethumg because someone told you".

But the other part of me thinks, maybe his ego got in the way. At the time, I can well imagine he was gung-ho about providing witness statements for criminal court. Never stopping to think, use caution and take responsibility for what he was doing- even though colleagues around him were doing just that.

He did suggest he was keen to do this, ie provide witness statements, while colleagues were distinctly reluctant.

Mr Beer asks about the 107 calls. Does the content not have importance as well as the quantity that you (at Fujitsu) played down as being not very many really over the time period?

Short break.

107 calls snd he views them as of a "routine nature"
And he claims this isn't unusual for the Post Office.

This averaged 3-4 calls per week.
I don't think I have ever called anyone 3-4 times a week.
Not even my own mother.

I think it was 3-4 a month, but that's still nearly weekly. It's a lot of calls.

Jason Beer playing to the audience there about leap year shenanigans.