Post Office IT scandal: Fujitsu analyst admitted having limited Horizon knowledge

A Fujitsu IT security analyst, whose witness statements was used in dozens of cases against Post Office sub-postmasters, has told the ongoing inquiry that he had "limited" knowledge of how the Horizon system worked.

The inquiry heard on Tuesday (16) that analyst Andy Dunks, who was a member of the Fujitsu post office security team, had little technical training or knowledge of the Horizon system. He admitted that his tech evidence was often based on what he was told by others, not his own understanding.

Dunks told the inquiry that he would get the knowledge by speaking to people in the Fujitsu Service Support Centre (SSC), which provided IT support to sub postmasters.

As told to the inquiry, Dunks' initial role soon after joining Fujitsu's Horizon team was supervising the machine which produced cryptographic keys to secure Horizon machines. But his duties soon expanded to providing witness statements in cases accusing sub-postmasters of theft and false accounting. This involved extracting audit record query data – detailing what keys had been pressed within Post Office branches – and records of calls to the Horizon helpdesk.

In his statement to the inquiry, Dunks said his former Fujitsu colleague, Rajbinder Bains, was the main person responsible for extracting data to support court cases, but that she did not want to be a witness in any court proceedings.

Another Fujitsu colleague who worked in the SSC, Phil Budd, made clear in an email to Dunk that he was not happy about the implications of saying in a witness statement that the Horizon branch counters were in full working order when he hadn’t done the testing.

It also emerged that Fujitsu was aware of the stress that giving evidence to courts was causing to tech staff. Dunks said that SSC manager Mik Peach did not want his staff to go to court.

Dunks' statements helped to secure the convictions of some of the highest-profile sub-postmasters, including Seema Misra, Jo Hamilton and Lee Castleton. They were among 700 convicted by the Post Office based on evidence from the flawed computer system Horizon, in what has been described as one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British legal history.

In Misra’s case and others, Dunks had told courts that the numerous calls put in by sub-postmasters were not a sign that the counters were not working properly. Misra was eight weeks pregnant with her second child when she was sentenced to 15 months in prison in 2010.

During the hearing Dunks was presented with emails which appeared to show the Fujitsu team taking a light-hearted approach to the prosecutions.

In 2006, before he gave evidence in the Castleton's case, his boss Peter Sewell wrote, "That Castleton is a nasty chap and will be all out to rubbish the Fujitsu name. It’s up to you to maintain absolute strength and integrity no matter what the prosecution throw at you."

Dunks replied, "Thank you for those very kind and encouraging words. I had to pause half way through reading it to wipe away a small tear."

At the inquiry on Tuesday (16), Dunks denied that he was being sarcastic or joking, and said his manager was just trying to put him at ease.