1 Tech Expert Who Built Horizon Gave Evidence to Convict Hundreds of Postmasters
Gareth Jenkins, Horizon expert, falsely testified to system integrity, leading to wrongful convictions & imprisoning innocent postmasters like Semaa Misra.
Gareth Jenkins, 69, previously said the Fujitsu system was ‘not corrupt’
The technology expert who built the faulty Horizon IT system is understood to want immunity before appearing at a public inquiry.
Gareth Jenkins, 69, previously gave evidence saying the Fujitsu system was ‘not corrupt’, which helped to wrongfully convict hundreds of postmasters.
The Cambridge maths graduate, from Bracknell, in Berkshire, has twice previously been called in to give evidence to the ongoing public inquiry into the Post Office scandal but on both occasions this has been postponed.
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His and another Fujitsu expert’s role in the fallout are currently being looked into by the Metropolitan Police as Scotland Yard also placed the Post Office under a criminal investigation last week over ‘potential fraud offences’.
Mr Jenkins yesterday refused to answer any questions about the scandal and told The Telegraph when asked if he was sorry about what happened: ‘I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.’
POST OFFICE SCANDAL:Fujitsu expert called out for ‘mistaken’ statement affecting subpostmaster cases
26 jun 2024
Post Office Horizon IT inquiry continues with Gareth Jenkins, former distinguished engineer at Fujitsu Services Ltd, who is due to give evidence for four days.
At the start of today’s hearing Mr Jenkins was pulled up by Jason Beer KC for sying he had not seen a previous email, when in fact he had.
DAY 2 Jenkins Fujitsu Horizon Engineer Evidence at Inquiry
POST OFFICE SCANDAL: Fujitsu engineer denies knowing ‘gory details’ of Horizon remote access
26 jun 2024
A former senior Fujitsu engineer has denied knowing the “gory details” of remote access to the faulty Horizon system which caused Post Office subpostmasters to be falsely accused of having taken money from branch accounts.
Gareth Jenkins told the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry he thought any remote access would have been visible to subpostmasters and could be distinguished from changes made by third parties, although he acknowledged he knew it was “theoretically possible” this might not always be the case.
Mr Jenkins worked at Fujitsu, formerly known as International Computer Limited, for the whole of his professional career before retiring in 2015, and had been a “distinguished engineer” since the mid-1990s.
His evidence about the Horizon system was used in the prosecutions of many subpostmasters, including Seema Misra, who was given a 15-month prison sentence in November 2010, when she was eight weeks pregnant.
Previous witnesses to the inquiry have claimed Mr Jenkins may have committed perjury due to his failure to disclose knowledge of bugs in the Horizon system to the subpostmasters.
LIVE Post Office Inquiry grills former Fujitsu employee Gareth Jenkins – Day 2
Former Fujitsu distinguished engineer, Gareth Jenkins, will return to the Post Office Inquiry to give a second day of evidence. Jenkins is scheduled to be the only person sitting in front of the Inquiry this week – with his submissions spread over four days.
Unable to accept how badly Fujitsu and Post Office messed up.
26 jun 2024
This Distinguished Engineer, this technical wizard, this “god” did not seem able to accept how badly he, Fujitsu and the Post Office had messed things up. He does, however, have a maths degree from Cambridge. We found out today he was not and never has been a Chief Architect of Horizon, nor has he ever been Fujitsu’s Lead Engineer on Horizon. In terms of his career, Jenkins joined ICL (which later became part of Fujitsu) on graduating in 1973 and in the 1990s was recognised as a Distinguished Engineer, an honorific title bestowed on him by Fujitsu.
Beer asked him if he accepted Fraser’s conclusion that Legacy Horizon (the 1999 – 2010 version) was “not remotely robust”.
“I don’t accept that finding”, Jenkins replied.
“Do you accept that Horizon Online (the 2010 to 2017 version) was susceptible to accounting flaws?”
“There were some discrete bugs which caused problems to the accounts”, said Jenkins, “but they were all very well managed”. He felt Horizon Online did “a good job in terms of the accounting, particularly with the monitoring that was going on, in terms of being able to detect things when they had occurred.”
www. postofficescandal. uk/ post/ gareth-jenkins-the-incredible-witness/
Nick Wallis reporting the Post Office Horizon Scandal.
Wed 26 June 2024
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12 min read
Gareth Jenkins pictured near his home in Bracknell this January (copyright Alamy)
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26/06/2024
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2 Martin Smith – Mr Henry’s Grilling: Let sleeping dogs lie
Martin Smith – Mr Henry’s Grilling
26 jun 2024
A former senior Fujitsu engineer has denied knowing the “gory details” of remote access to the faulty Horizon system which caused Post Office subpostmasters to be falsely accused of having taken money from branch accounts.
Gareth Jenkins told the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry he thought any remote access would have been visible to subpostmasters and could be distinguished from changes made by third parties, although he acknowledged he knew it was “theoretically possible” this might not always be the case.
Mr Jenkins worked at Fujitsu, formerly known as International Computer Limited, for the whole of his professional career before retiring in 2015, and had been a “distinguished engineer” since the mid-1990s.
His evidence about the Horizon system was used in the prosecutions of many subpostmasters, including Seema Misra, who was given a 15-month prison sentence in November 2010, when she was eight weeks pregnant.
Previous witnesses to the inquiry have claimed Mr Jenkins may have committed perjury due to his failure to disclose knowledge of bugs in the Horizon system to the subpostmasters.
3 Let the cat out of the bag
Seema Misra sitting next to her barrister, Ed Henry KC
Post Office Inquiry: Chairman intervenes as public gallery scoffs
The former Post Office boss Paula Vennells has denied trying to influence the independent investigation into the Horizon IT scandal – as emails emerged revealing that she saw managing the media as an urgent priority. The inquiry chairman had to intervene during groans of derision from the public gallery.
