Friday 15 March 2019

Horizon software error caused million pound "loss"

A Horizon terminal having a moment
Yesterday at the High Court, during re-examination of Richard Roll, the Horizon support engineer, the claimants' QC Patrick Green put the following internal Fujitsu document to him (PEAKS record a timeline of activities to fix a bug or a problem):

"Q.  This is PEAK PC0027887 and you will see it comes in on 21 July 1999.  Can you see the narrative there, for FAD code in the third line of the light green box, for FAD code O011523 on week, 9 receipts and payments misbalance of £1,337.05, week 10 misbalance of £24,000, week 11 misbalance of £12,000, week 12 £1,051,111.48; do you see that?
A.  Yes.
Q.  And if we could go forward please to page 3 {F/16/3} and look in the bottom yellow box, 27 July at 10.09, do you see "CAP12" on the left-hand side?
A.  Yes.
Q.  It says: "Balance brought forward was multiplied twice due [to] known software error.  The initial balance brought forward for this CAP was £1,196,622.72.  This was multiplied twice to give a total of BBF of £2,279,189.04. The discrepancy was therefore £1,082,540.28.  This was due [to] a known software error which has [now] been resolved." Do you see that?
A.  Yes.
Q.  So that would have been quite a bad one, is that fair?
A.  Yes."

I am glad it was resolved.

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