Yahoo News Silence of IT expert who helped send innocent postal workers to prison
July 6 2023 was the day subpostmasters had waited for. Gareth Jenkins, the former Fujitsu employee and Horizon chief architect, was due to appear in front of the public inquiry for the first time.
Some convictions had been overturned, compensation schemes were up and running and all that was left was the hunt for justice. To find out what – and who – bankrupted and convicted innocent people.
But while victims were steadying their minds the night before the Post Office, at 10:32pm on July 5, revealed that there were almost 5,000 documents that had newly come to light.
They were of interest to the inquiry, the Post Office said, and they apologised to the inquiry for the late disclosure.
Such was the deluge of paperwork just 11 hours before he was due to be sworn in, Mr Jenkins’ appearance was delayed for several months.
The man whose expert testimony had led to a number of convictions would not yet face questions in public.
It was a temporary reprieve for Mr Jenkins, but not his last. His inquiry appearance was rescheduled for November, but the Post Office, again, announced days beforehand that they had found more than 3,000 new documents that necessitated another delay.
It was, as Sir Wyn Williams, the inquiry chairman, said, “a source of frustration”, compounded by the fact that in his witness statement Mr Jenkins deigned to answer only “a small number” of the 200 questions he was asked.
Jason Beer KC, counsel to the inquiry, said the key issues were also avoided and Mr Jenkins failed to address his knowledge of and involvement in the investigation of a series of bugs, errors and defects in the Horizon system.
More than 30 questions were unanswered on this topic.
Mr Jenkins is considered a central figure in the Postmaster Horizon scandal as it was his testimony that Horizon was working correctly which helped secure convictions and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.
He is also understood to have been instrumental in developing the faulty computer software in his role as a Fujitsu engineer where he was the Horizon chief architect.
The computer engineer lives a 10-minute drive from the Fujitsu headquarters in Bracknell, Berks. He did not feature in the recent ITV programme telling the story of wrongly convicted sub-postmasters but is very much central to the drama.
Two 11th-hour postponements
Alongside his two 11th-hour postponements he has twice asked that Sir Wyn request that the Attorney General grant him immunity from his comments being used against him in a court of law for any future criminal proceedings.
Both times Sir Wyn declined to pass on the request. Jason Beer KC, counsel to the inquiry, pointed out that he is investigating allegations that the Post Office used the late disclosure as a tactic against the postmasters for more than a decade.
Mr Jenkins has had his fate for at least a year as he will now not face the inquiry again until spring 2024 at the earliest.
He now passes his time as a treasurer for a local charity, Home Start Bracknell Forest, and is a trustee at Great Hollands Free Church. He has made no comment in response to his role in the inquiry and declined to talk to The Telegraph.
But his tongue was looser when he was working for the Japanese tech giant.
Back in 2005, two years after Alan Bates closed his Post Office, Mr Jenkins provided an expert witness statement for the first time during the prosecution of Hughie Thomas. Mr Thomas, from Anglesey, had been a postman since 1965 and was investigated at the age of 59.
He spent nine months in prison after pleading guilty to false accounting. Mr Jenkins’ evidence contributed to his condemnation and he was exonerated in 2021 during the landmark Court of Appeal case.
He was forced to give up his second job as a counsellor and was subsequently declared bankrupt. He had worked for the Post Office for 42 years, first as a postman and from 1981 as a postmaster.
‘One size fits all’ approach
But Mr Jenkins’ witness statement lived on far beyond 2005. His claims were reused by the Post Office lawyers with a “one size fits all” approach, according to criminal prosecution lawyer Duncan Atkinson KC who has produced an expert witness report for the inquiry.
But Mr Atkinson also concludes that Mr Jenkins was at the mercy of his Post Office overlords who, when liaising with him, failed to properly inform him of his duties. He did not know what being an expert witness entailed, and the Post Office lawyers are also accused of not telling him about the specifics of the cases he was consulted on.
Mr Jenkins only once gave live evidence in court in the case of Seema Misra who was pregnant when found guilty.
But for several years his template statement was being used against postmasters. The Atkinson report says the lawyers for the Post Office asked him to delete, change and re-word statements, often to “harden up” the claims.
Mr Jenkins repeatedly told various courts in written statements: “In summary I would conclude by saying that I fully believe that Horizon will accurately record all data that is submitted to it and correctly account for it.”
However, The Telegraph understands that Mr Jenkins told forensic accountants as early as 2012 that the IT system designed for the Post Office could be accessed remotely by Fujitsu despite one of the key prosecution arguments being that the system could not be tampered with and was failsafe.
Now Mr Jenkins is under police investigation for alleged perjury after concerns were raised that he had not told the truth in court.
His legacy is a long list of statements which allowed the Post Office to go after postmasters and control the perception of Horizon seen by the courts.
In de facto retirement
Now, in his early 70s, he is going for walks with his woolly hat on and a snow-white beard and is in de facto retirement as the director and owner of an eponymous business which he set up in February 2015, shortly after the Horizon scandal, that last operated in 2020.
Questions remain unanswered about his involvement and to what level he was influenced and controlled by the Post Office and its team of lawyers.
Warwick Tatford, the prosecutor for Seema Misra, said Mr Jenkins was “straightforward, modest, open-minded and impartial” to deal with. Mr Tatford adds that he went to great lengths to ensure the Fujitsu employee knew what was involved with being an expert witness, but the damning Atkinson report indicates he had little idea what it entailed.
Ms Misra’s case was one of several postmasters convicted using Mr Jenkins’ testimony among members of the “Post Office 39”, who were cleared in 2021.
They included Hughie Thomas as well as Anne Nield and Angela Sefton, two Post Office clerks from Fazakerley, Liverpool, who said they were “brought to their knees” after being convicted of false accounting.
In 2006, at the start of the scandal, Mr Jenkins asked Diane Matthews, a Post Office investigator, what going to court entailed, the inquiry has heard.
He had “never been to court in any capacity” and his knowledge was based on what he saw in films and on television, he said, quipping he was sure it was accurate.
Ms Matthews reassured him that it was “pretty much as you see on the TV really”, advice which has now been labelled inappropriate, wrong and positively misleading.
Victims of the scandal are now hoping that Mr Jenkins will finally be forced to answer questions in the open.
