Tuesday 12 March 2019

Horizon trial: Day 2 transcript

This is the unperfected transcript of the second day of the Horizon trial, held on 12 March 2019 in court 26 of the High Court's Rolls Building. Enjoy.

                                         Tuesday, 12 March 2019
   (10.30 am)
   MR GREEN:  May it please your Lordship.  I have two things
       for your Lordship before we begin with Mr Latif who is
       sitting kindly waiting in Islamabad.
           There is the physical bundle of claimants' witness
       statements.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Thank you.
   MR GREEN:  My Lord, the other thing is an answer to
       your Lordship's question about whether we have a list of
       the Callendar Square bugs.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  We can deal with that after Mr Latif.
       We will deal with all of those things after Mr Latif.
   MR GREEN:  I'm most grateful.
           Mr Latif, if we look at your witness statement on
       the Opus screen {E1/1}, which hopefully --
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  I don't think -- we haven't sworn this
       witness yet.
   MR GREEN:  My Lord, no, I'm so sorry.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Good morning, Mr Latif.  We are just
       going to administer either the oath or the affirmation.
       Affirmation.
                    MR ADREES LATIF (affirmed)
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Just pausing there, the witness
       obviously doesn't have a form of words in front of him
       of the affirmation.  I am content that that is
       a sufficiently close affirmation for the purposes of
       the court, unless either party wishes me to readminister
       it -- now is your opportunity?  No.
   MR DRAPER:  No, my Lord.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Thank you, Mr Draper.
           Mr Green, over to you.
                 Examination-in-chief by MR GREEN
   MR GREEN:  Mr Latif, on the Opus screen in front of you you
       should be able to see a document which says "Amended
       witness statement of Adrees Latif", can you see that?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  And if we look at page 3 of that witness statement
       {E1/1/3}, there's a signature there.
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  Is that your signature?
   A.  Correct, that is my signature.
   Q.  And do you believe the contents of your witness
       statement to be true?
   A.  I do.
   Q.  Would you wait there for a moment because counsel for
       Post Office will have some questions to ask you.
   A.  That's correct, that's okay.
                  Cross-examination by MR DRAPER
   MR DRAPER:  Hello, Mr Latif.  The witness statement you have
       provided is a very short one so I want to first ask you
       some questions by way of background about your branch.
   A.  Yes sir.
   Q.  Firstly, can you give some indication of the size of the
       Caddington branch?
   A.  Caddington branch is situated in a village of about
       12,000 people.  It has two main counters and a third
       combi-counter, so it is a three counter office.
   Q.  What do you mean, Mr Latif, by a combi-counter?  Could
       you explain that please?
   A.  A combi-counter is a counter that is open on the same
       hours as the retail shop, so I have a post office at the
       back of the premises where there is two main counters
       and the third counter which is a combi-counter and it is
       situated nearby the retail counter of the convenience
       shop which I also operate.  And that counter is open at
       the same hours as the shop counter is open as well.
   Q.  Thank you.
   A.  So it is commonly known as out of hours counter.
   Q.  Yes.  Thinking back to two dates specifically, July 2015
       and January 2018, which are the dates of the two
       problems you complain of in your statement, how many
       Post Office staff members, your assistants, would
       typically be working in the branch?
   A.  On those days there would be three members of staff:
       two, including myself which is the third.
   Q.  If we could call up {F/1038.1/1} please.  This is
       a Post Office record, Mr Latif, of the assistants
       registered in your branch.  Can you look down those
       please and confirm whether those indeed were the
       assistants in your branch at the two dates that I have
       just given to you?
   A.  I can.  The first one is a Mrs Christine Helen Barnett,
       the second one was a Mr Muhammad Rouman Tabassum.
   Q.  When you say first and second, what do you mean by that?
       Are you talking about in order of importance as
       assistants?
   A.  No, no, they are both manager's level.  I'm talking
       about on the list where you've got the names of my staff
       on there, so Christine Helen Barnett and then
       Rouman Tabassum.
   Q.  On the screen we have it here the first entry is
       a Christine Fensome.  Can you see that at the top of
       your screen?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Counting down, just to confirm you are seeing exactly
       the same document as I am, it is Christine Fensome, then
       Christine Barnett, then Michael Brumwell, then
       Muhammad Tabassum, then Robert Deacock and then
       Tahir Shabir.
   A.  Correct, sir.
   Q.  And if you look down the far right-hand side of the
       screen, are those to the best of your recollection the
       Horizon user IDs for those assistants?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  It is not listed on here but am I right to say that your
       user ID was MLA001?
   A.  That's not my user ID.
   Q.  Sorry, did you say that's not?
   A.  No.
   Q.  What then was your main user ID?
   A.  It's ALA001.
   Q.  Thank you.
   A.  So can I just repeat that, my Lord?
   Q.  I got it.  I think you said ALA?
   A.  (Nods).
   Q.  001?
   A.  Correct.  Correct.
   Q.  And looking at the assistants that are still shown on
       the screen, can you give any indication of how many
       hours per week they would typically work, whether any of
       them, for example, worked most of the week and others
       were less frequent?
   A.  On an average week the (inaudible) work was 36 hours.
       Each person.
   Q.  I think you may have told me this before, but just to
       confirm, did any of these assistants have a higher
       status than any of the others, any additional rights?
   A.  There's two of them and that is Mrs Christine Helen
       Barnett and Muhammad Rouman Tabassum.
   Q.  In what respects were they more senior assistants?
   A.  Christine was a manager in the post office with me but
       she used to work mainly in the post office and Muhammad
       was also the shop manager as well.  So he used to manage
       the shop for me and the post office when I was not
       there.
   Q.  Would it be right then that there were some tasks on
       Horizon and in the post office more generally that
       Christine Barnett could do because she was a manager but
       your other assistants wouldn't have done?
   A.  I didn't quite understand that question.  Can you please
       repeat that.
   Q.  Of course.  Were there any tasks in running the
       Post Office branch that Ms Barnett could do or would do
       for you that the other assistants wouldn't?
   A.  Mrs Barnett and Muhammad Rouman Tabassum were trying to
       do the balancing procedures as well as myself.  Some
       staff would not know how to balance the office and when
       I say "balance the office", as you may already be aware
       that we have to reconcile at the office on a weekly
       basis, so every Wednesday we would reconcile the office
       and both Christine Helen Barnett and Muhammad
       Rouman Tabassum were fully trained to do that if I was
       not around.
   Q.  You say if you were not around.  How common would it be
       for you not to be in the branch on a given day?
   A.  It's very common.  As you know, Post Office ran various
       training sessions so you were expected to attend those
       and there could be holidays, there could be various
       other reasons.
           So can I just repeat, Christine Helen Barnett, she
       used to work for the police so she is very, very
       trusted.  I trust her completely.  And Muhammad
       Rouman Tabassum is a very close friend of mine who has
       been with me for a long time so these two were
       completely trustworthy, honest, hard working and very
       reliable.
   Q.  So it is fair to say you entrusted the operation of the
       branch to one or other of those two people, you said
       "quite frequently".  Could you give any more specific
       indication?  Do you mean once a week, twice a week?
   A.  I tend to be there most days.  Five days to six days
       a week, so -- but sometimes I did take time off, so it
       was infrequent but it did happen occasionally.
   Q.  Looking then at hours, I think you said that the hours
       were strange, presumably you mean long, so might there
       be times of day even on days when you were working in
       the branch when you weren't there, say early in the
       morning on are late in the evening?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  How common an occurrence was that, Mr Latif?
   A.  Uncommon, but it could have happened, it does happen, it
       did happen.  I mean I could have had a meeting where
       a customer has come in for a financial services product,
       so I will take them to the room where we hold private
       conversations so that means I'm away from a counter, so
       yes, that does happen.
   Q.  I'm going to ask you some questions now about a stock
       unit transfer for £2,000 that you describe in your
       witness statement.  You say that it was carried out in
       or around July 2015; that's right, isn't it?
   A.  Correct, sir.
   Q.  Now, just to explain to you what I'm going to do, I'm
       going to come on a bit later to tell you what
       Post Office says happened, but because there is not much
       detail in your witness statement I'm first going to take
       you through your account of what happened and ask you
       questions about that.  Do you follow?
   A.  Okay, I do.
   Q.  And when I'm doing that it doesn't mean that Post Office
       accepts as true the things that I'm exploring with you,
       I'm just asking you questions about what you say.
   A.  I understand, sir.
   Q.  So you say at paragraph 6 of your witness statement
       {E1/1/2} that the transfer was from the AA stock unit in
       your branch to the SJ1 stock unit, is that right?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  I suggest that you have made a small mistake there,
       Mr Latif -- no criticism, but Post Office's records
       suggest that there was a stock unit called SP1 but not
       a stock unit called SJ1.  Do you think that might be
       right?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  So you think it -- forgive me, it is my fault, my
       question was unclear.
   A.  (Inaudible) can check my statement.
   Q.  Yes.  It is paragraph 6, the first mention of SJ1, which
       is the second page {E1/1/2}.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Do you accept that that's a small mistake?
   A.  That is a typo, sir, that should read SP1.
   Q.  Thank you.
           Can you tell me anything about these two stock
       units, so, for example, what was the AA stock unit?  Was
       it a specific counter?
   A.  Okay, the AA stock unit, sir, is the main stock unit
       that's in the two counters that's behind the back of the
       post office, okay?  That's where the most interaction
       happened during normal hours of operation, which are
       between 9 and 5.30.
           SP1 is the combi-counter that I referred to earlier
       on.  Combi-counter is open on the retail side of the
       premises, okay, and it is adjacent to the shop retail
       counter.
   Q.  And where was the cash for stock unit AA kept?
   A.  Behind the closed, locked doors of the main office.
   Q.  And what about the cash for stock unit SP1, where was
       that kept?
   A.  SP1 had its own dedicated safe.  It's a rolling deck
       safe and how that works is it has got a cassette,
       an (inaudible) cassette which is supplied by the
       Post Office as a mandatory requirement of handling
       stock, so the cash is kept in the RollerCash and a small
       amount is kept in a flip draw which the Post Office
       supplied to us for normally about one hour's worth of
       operation in the flip top, and the rest of the cash is
       kept in the roller deck safe which is below the flip top
       safe.
   Q.  Thank you.  So this transfer of £2,000 in or
       around July 2015, is it right that the purpose of that
       was to replenish the cash stocks in SP1 because it was
       running low of cash?
   A.  Correct, sir.
   Q.  It might be useful to take you now to the statement of
       one of Post Office's witnesses, Ms van den Bogerd.  Her
       statement is at {E2/5} please.  Mr Latif, is this
       a witness statement that you have seen before?
   A.  No.
   Q.  Okay, going to page 22 of this document please
       {E2/5/22}, you see paragraphs 87 to 88 there towards the
       bottom of the screen.  Can I ask you to read
       paragraph 87 and paragraph 88 and please indicate when
       you need the page to be turned.
   A.  Okay.  So paragraph 87?
   Q.  Yes, please, read it to yourself.  No need to read it
       out loud.
   A.  Okay.
           So:
           "If subpostmasters wish to move cash or stock
       between stock units, there is a process which must be
       followed.  Firstly, the item which is being transferred
       (in this case cash) must be transferred by the user via
       Horizon using the back office function (transfer out)
       from the outgoing stock unit.  The cash must then be
       physically removed from that particular stock unit.
       Providing these two actions are completed, the stock
       unit from where the cash is transferred should not show
       a discrepancy."
   Q.  Thank you.  If you stop there.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Mr Draper, you are going to have to be
       a bit more clear in how you either put questions or
       express yourself, because I know that you said, rather
       sotto voce, "Don't read it out loud"; the witness
       obviously thought you had asked him to read it out loud.
   MR DRAPER:  Understood.
           Mr Latif, that paragraph you have just read, that's
       an accurate description of the process, isn't it?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  Can I ask to you read to yourself, not out loud,
       paragraph 88 and tell us when you need the page to be
       turned please.
   A.  Okay.
           (Pause).
           Next page please.  {E2/5/23}.
           (Pause).
           Okay.
   Q.  Thank you.  That's accurate as well, isn't it, Mr Latif?
   A.  It is, sir.
   Q.  It is probably now helpful to go to your witness
       statement at {E1/1/2} and paragraph 7 please.  Do you
       have that in front of you now?
   A.  I do.
   Q.  I'm going to take you through it in stages to look to
       add some more detail to the account that you give.  I'm
       going to ask you to confirm that each of the stages that
       I describe is correct.
   A.  Okay.
   Q.  So first stage, you logged into stock unit AA and you
       used the transfer out function, identifying the stock
       unit SP1 to which you wanted to transfer the £2,000, is
       that right?
   A.  Correct, sir.
   Q.  And when you did that the system printed out a transfer
       out slip, is that right?
   A.  That is mandatory, yes.
   Q.  You say it is mandatory, is it automatic that the system
       prints the slip?
   A.  It's automatic, there's nothing -- it's automatic,
       there's nothing you can do about it, it happens
       automatically.
   Q.  It's right, isn't it, that you could also choose to
       print one?  You could press "print" as well; that's
       right, isn't it?
   A.  You could print an additional one, sir, if you need to.
   Q.  Thank you.  Could you explain what you then do with the
       transfer slip once it is printed out?
   A.  We file that with the paperwork from the office.
   Q.  It's right, isn't it, that you should sign the transfer
       out slip and take it with you when you go to
       transfer in?
   A.  Correct.  Well, you also at the same time get the
       transfer in slip from the receiving stock unit as well,
       sir.
   Q.  Yes.
   A.  And sign -- date stamp both of them.
   Q.  Thank you.  Looking at this specific transfer that
       you're describing at paragraph 6 of your statement,
       so far, describing the transfer out from stock unit AA,
       everything had worked as it should have worked, is that
       right?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  You say you then moved over to stock unit SP1 to process
       the transfer in, is that right?
   A.  Yes, correct.
   Q.  So you walked from the counter position for stock
       unit AA to the counter position for stock unit SP1 with
       the physical cash, is that right?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  You say then that you noticed immediately at stock
       unit SP1 that the £2,000 had not transferred
       successfully.  That's what you say.
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  I'm going to talk you through that process to see how
       you say you saw immediately that it had not transferred
       successfully, so again I'm going to take it in stages.
   A.  Okay.
   Q.  First, Mr Latif, you logged into the counter SP1,
       didn't you?
   A.  I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear that.  Can you repeat the
       question please?
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Your voice is incredibly low, Mr Draper.
       You will have to speak up.
   MR DRAPER:  Forgive me.
           The first step was to log into the counter for stock
       unit SP1?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  You then went to the back office screen for that
       terminal and went through the key sequence to view
       transfers in available on that stock unit?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  And you say that it is at that point that you realised
       that the £2,000 had disappeared from Horizon; that's
       right, isn't it?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  So to check I understand correctly, what you are saying
       is it had disappeared, in the sense that it was not
       available on the screen as a transfer in?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  You then say, Mr Latif, that you immediately performed
       a cash declaration on the AA stock unit; is that right,
       that was your next step?
   A.  Yes, and also on the SP1 as well.
   Q.  Dealing first with the cash declaration on stock
       unit AA, you say you walked back to stock unit AA and
       carried out a cash declaration which involved you
       manually counting the cash, is that right?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  And you say that the stock unit balanced.  What you mean
       by that I think is that two things were the case and I'm
       going to put each of them to you separately.  If we
       assume that before the transfer there was £10,000 cash
       physically in stock unit AA and that the Horizon cash
       figure was 10,000 as well, after the transfer both of
       those were 8,000 -- just hypothetical figures -- is that
       what you say?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  And as I understand your evidence what you are saying is
       you knew from that that the transfer out had been
       successful because the physical removal of the cash was
       also reflected in the position on Horizon; Horizon was
       2,000 lower as well, the Horizon figure?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  It is right, isn't it, that when you went back to stock
       unit AA you already had, didn't you, the transfer out
       slip?
   A.  I did, correct.
   Q.  And that showed a transfer out of £2,000?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  You could also have simply printed out the transaction
       log from stock unit AA to show the transfer out,
       couldn't you?
   A.  Yes you could and we did.
   Q.  Sorry, you say that you did?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Is there any reason why you don't mention those steps in
       your witness statement?
   A.  I just kept my witness statement as simple and
       straightforward as possible.
   Q.  Apart from this cash declaration, you don't mention any
       other steps to identify the transfer out or the
       transfer in, do you?
   A.  No, but I can go through those with you.  I'm quite
       happy to go through those with you, sir.
   Q.  I will come back to those shortly.
   A.  I'm experienced -- I have been running a post office for
       17 years, sir.  I have also worked for the Post Office
       on training other offices how to run a post office.
       I was also involved in running and introducing the new
       Horizon software changes in 2006 onwards, where I went
       to several offices on behalf of the Post Office to give
       them training.  So I'm an experienced, trained
       subpostmaster and I ran my business successfully for
       17 years.  So I may have been a bit brief in the
       statement but obviously I can run through those --
       exactly those steps that we would take to make sure that
       there is no operator error on our behalf.
   Q.  Maybe we can do it a bit more shortly by my asking you
       this, Mr Latif.  You as an experienced subpostmaster
       would know that there were lots of reports you could run
       on Horizon that would show you the transfer out and
       that --
   A.  (Inaudible).
   Q.  Would show you the transfer in?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  And would show you any failure to reconcile the two if
       there was one missing.  Do you follow that?
   A.  Correct.  Correct.
   Q.  You also say at paragraph 7 of your witness statement
       {E1/1/2} that you checked the CCTV to see whether you
       had performed the process correctly.
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  But, Mr Latif, you will have known that, wouldn't you,
       from your transfer out slip, from the cash declaration
       and from all of the other reports that you could run?
   A.  Yes, sir, but when we counted the cash £2,000 was
       missing, so that's what alerted us to why we need to
       check the CCTV and make sure (a) that there was no --
       nothing was done incorrectly, make sure all procedures
       were followed and, secondly, make sure there is no theft
       from employees or (inaudible) or something like that
       that happened.  So we made sure that the £2,000 that
       disappeared, we made sure that there wasn't anything
       untoward in our -- and we were suspicious of Horizon
       anyhow.  Horizon had some glitches in it.  I have seen
       it in other branches and I have seen it in my own branch
       as well.  So we wanted to make sure that there was no
       other explanation why the £2,000 is gone.
   Q.  So you now say, Mr Latif, that you checked the CCTV also
       to make sure that no one had taken £2,000 from the
       branch, is that right?
   A.  Correct, correct.
   Q.  When would that have happened --
   A.  As an experienced subpostmaster -- can I just say as an
       experienced subpostmaster I would make all the checks to
       make sure that nothing untoward happened.  In any
       business you would do that; whether it is Post Office,
       whether it is retail, I would make sure that things were
       done properly and nothing untoward had happened.
   Q.  The process that you have just described with me,
       Mr Latif, in relation to the transfer involved you
       personally taking every step in that process; that's
       right, isn't it?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  You carried out the transfer out on stock unit AA;
       that's right?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  You physically moved the cash to stock unit SP1, you
       say?
   A.  I did.
   Q.  And you tried to process the transfer in on stock
       unit SP1 but you say that failed because there was no
       transfer in to accept.  That's what we have just gone
       through.
   A.  Correct, correct.  At the same time, sir, can I just
       stop you there, I just want to clarify a point that's
       not in my statement which perhaps with hindsight should
       be there.  When the transfer was not there in stock
       unit SP1, there's a reverse option on Horizon which you
       can press to bring the cash back.  Okay?  So you reverse
       the original transaction which says "transfer out".
       It's next to the "transfer out" button, it's a button,
       an icon on Horizon that you press that brings that money
       back to AA.
   Q.  Again that's not in your witness statement, Mr Latif,
       but do you now say that that's what you did?  You say
       you reversed the transfer out?
   A.  Correct, yes.
   Q.  Why don't you mention that important detail in your
       witness statement, Mr Latif?
   A.  Well, I'm not sure.  I mean looking at that carefully,
       that's probably -- maybe perhaps I should have done.
       But can I also say that obviously I had near the time
       when I made the statement lost my father and I was going
       through a period of distress and I lost ... so ...
   Q.  I'm sorry to hear that, Mr Latif --
   A.  That could be the reason.
   Q.  I'm sorry to hear that, Mr Latif, but it is fair to
       point out that you reviewed this statement again this
       month and you made a correction to it, didn't you, in
       relation to the transaction --
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  You had then every opportunity --
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  -- to look again at your statement and correct it or add
       any further important detail, didn't you?
   A.  Correct, but it is never too late, sir.  You have to
       understand we're very busy, running round, so it's
       obviously, you know, an oversight.  Yes, perhaps
       I should have put more detail in, but you see I kept my
       statement as simple as possible to keep things simple.
   Q.  I will take you back to the CCTV footage that you say
       you looked at and I'm just going to give you the
       context --
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  -- to my question, so it will be quite a long question,
       if you just wait until I have finished please.
           We have just discussed how every step in the process
       of the transfer out on the stock unit and the physical
       transfer of the cash, and the attempt to transfer in on
       stock unit SP1, were all performed by you personally and
       over a very short period of time; that's right,
       isn't it?
   A.  Correct, correct.
   Q.  Why then would it help you to look at CCTV footage to
       see whether the £2,000 had somehow been removed from the
       branch?
   A.  Well, I wanted to make sure in my mind that everything
       was done properly.  I looked at the CCTV as a double
       checkability just to make sure that everything was
       followed correctly.
   Q.  But you knew, didn't you, that you hadn't --
   A.  That's why ...
   Q.  Forgive me.  You hadn't taken the £2,000 out of the
       branch, had you?
   A.  I want to prove to my colleagues that -- Ms Christine
       Helen Barnett was there, that, you know, the procedure
       was followed and the money was back at AA where it
       should be.
   Q.  So you now say you looked at the CCTV because your
       colleagues were concerned that you hadn't done the
       transaction properly?
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  No, that isn't what he said, Mr Draper.
       You can't do that.
   A.  No, it was just to double check and make sure -- I'm not
       saying that.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Mr Latif, just bear with me just one
       second.
           You can put what you say the answer amounts to back
       to him but you can't say that's what he said if you are
       not putting it back to him in the same terms.
   MR DRAPER:  Forgive me, I'll find it as closely as I can
       from the transcript.
           The most important bit of it is inaudible so it is
       hard to see.
           But are you saying that when you looked at the CCTV
       that was because you wanted to show to Mrs Barnett that
       you had done the transaction properly?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  So do you no longer say that you were checking the CCTV
       to make sure no one had taken the £2,000 out of the
       branch?
   A.  Correct, make sure not anything untoward happened.  I'm
       not just saying -- money taken out the branch but money
       could have gone anywhere so I want to make sure the
       money goes back in AA where it should be.
   Q.  I'm going to ask just one more question on this.  You
       were concerned that you personally might have somehow
       lost the £2,000 during this process, is that what you
       are saying?
   A.  No.  All I'm saying is I want to make sure that the
       procedure was followed, to make sure that all the --
       Christine and my staff are absolutely confident that the
       correct procedure was followed, the money was in the
       right stock unit (inaudible), but make sure it is
       a software issue not a misplaced cash or cash is lost
       somewhere else.  We wanted to make sure that we had done
       everything by the book and make sure that nothing
       untoward had happened.
   Q.  Thank you.  Forgive me, I'm just going to check the
       transcript a moment because I think some of your answer
       was lost.
           (Pause).
           So there are then two elements, two reasons why you
       say you looked at the CCTV footage: the first was to
       make sure nothing untoward --
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  The first was to make sure nothing untoward had happened
       and the second was to make sure that you had pressed all
       of the right buttons on the screen, is that right?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  So --
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  Was the CCTV camera focused in on the counter so that
       you could see everything that you had physically done at
       the counter?
   A.  Yes, sir.  I've got a 16 channel system and there is
       a camera on every counter, which includes SP1, the
       entrance to the main stock unit, stock position, which
       is AA where the main two counters are.  There is
       internal and external cameras.  So I've got a 16 channel
       camera system that is designed to catch anything that
       moves in the office.
   Q.  If what you say about looking at the CCTV footage were
       right, that footage would help confirm at least
       important parts of your evidence, wouldn't it?
   A.  Can you just repeat that question please, sir, my Lord.
   Q.  Yes.  If what you say is right, the CCTV footage would
       help to confirm important parts of your evidence,
       wouldn't it?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And it might, for example, help you dispute
       responsibility for any shortfall?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  And it is right, isn't it, that you haven't provided
       that CCTV footage to Post Office in these proceedings?
   A.  That's correct.
   Q.  Why not?
   A.  Well, that was obviously a long time ago and we were
       convinced that everything was done properly.  The CCTV
       was just a backup.  I'm still convinced that everything
       was done properly.  There is a software glitch that
       stole our money, you know, that disappeared into magic
       air where it is not possible and so I -- we were
       convinced that we were right.  So the footage was shown
       to my colleague who is a trusted member of staff and we
       were completely confident that we had done nothing
       wrong.  But the problem is with the Post Office, as you
       may or may not be aware, you are always -- we are always
       wrong.  So if the money is missing, we have to put it in
       and I just put the money in and said "Okay, you know,
       I must be wrong" even though we knew everything was done
       perfectly, the CCTV was checked, the process was
       followed properly, we are both experienced personnel and
       Mrs Barnett was with me for over 13 years and, as I say,
       she worked for the police, so we were both trusted
       personnel.  However, the way the Post Office view it, if
       you ring the helpline they will say to you "The money is
       missing, you have to put it in" and that's how the
       system -- the procedure works and we're always liable,
       as per my contract with the Post Office, so I had to
       physically put that money in from my own pocket and
       balance the books.  As you know, every Wednesday, we
       must balance the books and that's how we were trained to
       procedures within the Post Office.
           So with the money, any monies -- and I mean this is
       just one instance of £2,000 missing.  There are several
       other instances where money has disappeared, small
       amounts, and we put it down to the fact that it has got
       to be operator error, you know, that's what we have been
       told by the Post Office, of "Our software is perfect, it
       must be you guys, it must be a training problem, must be
       a staffing problem", or must be somebody making
       a mistake and that's how we reimburse, so we just put
       the money in and carry the money (inaudible)
       Post Office.  As we are obviously trained professionals
       to do so, that's what we did.  I mean I'm in a fortunate
       position, I can raise money from the shop, you know, and
       put the money in, but I think others are not in that
       position to do so and that's why I'm kind of
       disappointed with Post Office's behaviour.
   Q.  Mr Latif, that's a very long answer and I'm not sure it
       entirely responds to the question I put.  I don't accept
       much of what you just said but I'm going to carry on
       with the questions and we can come back to those
       specific points.
   A.  As the Post Office I don't expect you to, sir.  I'm
       happy for that to be the case.
   Q.  The next thing you say in your witness statement is that
       limitations in accessing data and reporting functions
       made it difficult to interrogate the system.  Do you
       remember that in your witness statement?
   A.  I do, sir.
   Q.  That's not consistent, is it, with what you told me
       earlier, which was that you were able to produce lots of
       different reports on Horizon that would show you exactly
       what had happened?
   A.  Can I just hold you there for one second.
           My Lord, we can perform stuff at our end, but there
       is a -- Post Office had its own servers and I'm an IT
       guy, you know, I have qualifications in City & Guilds
       before I came over to the Post Office.  So yes, while we
       can make checks at our end at the stock unit level,
       there are a lot of stuff that happens in the background.
       Obviously you've got your own -- the Post Office has its
       own servers and networks and we can not access those
       server.  We just got our user interface at the front end
       and we have a back office where we can do the reports,
       transfers in, transfers out, reports.  Yes we can all do
       that.  However, there is other stuff that Post Office
       does with our data that we cannot access.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Mr Latif, what I'm going to ask you to
       do now is just listen to Mr Draper's questions and try
       and confine your answers just to his questions, if you
       would.  Is that clear?
   A.  Yes, sir, my Lord, I apologise for that.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  No, no, that's all right.  It sometimes
       happens, but Mr Draper's questions are going to be quite
       tightly focused.
           Over to you, Mr Draper.
   MR DRAPER:  Mr Latif, I suggest that's wrong and that
       Horizon provided you with all the information you needed
       on your case.  I'm going to take you through that stage
       by stage with short questions and you should be able to
       give short answers.  Do you follow?
   A.  Okay.
   Q.  Horizon provided you with the information you needed to
       know that the transfer out had succeeded, didn't it?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And you say that you saw immediately on stock unit SP1
       that the transfer in had not succeeded, so Horizon told
       you what you needed to know there as well, didn't it?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And we have already discussed how you could have printed
       off an unreconciled transfer report that would have
       identified any transfer out for which there was not
       a transfer in; that's right, isn't it?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And you could also carry out reports, or checks on all
       of the stock units to see any changes in their Horizon
       cash figures, couldn't you?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  You could also physically check the cash in any relevant
       stock unit to see whether it was the same as what the
       Horizon figure showed, couldn't you?
   A.  Yes, sir, you can.
   Q.  So if your evidence were right that the transfer out
       succeeded but the transfer in failed, Horizon could tell
       you everything you needed to know to confirm that
       position, couldn't it?
   A.  I think the issue -- yes, sir, but the issue is what's
       happened in-between and I can't see what's happened
       in-between, sir.  And that's -- I think you're not
       labouring that comment, that you are saying -- you are
       skirting round that, but that's the crux of the issue.
   Q.  Do you mean between the time you performed the
       transfer out and you attempted to perform the
       transfer in?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  You could also, Mr Latif, during this process have
       phoned the helpline to ask them whether there was any
       report or any function on Horizon that would help you
       investigate what had gone wrong; you could do that as
       well, couldn't you?
   A.  You could do, but, as I have said previously, I'm
       a trainer for the Post Office, I train other branches
       how to do their procedures, reconciling accounting,
       balancing, so yes I could do, but you've got two
       experienced people at the counter that have years of
       experience behind them and they knew what they're doing,
       so ...
   Q.  So I'm going to try to summarise what you just said and
       tell me if it is not a fair summary.
   A.  Okay.
   Q.  You are saying that you and your assistants were so
       experienced that you did not need to call the helpline
       to ask for any help in finding reports or other
       functions?
   A.  We did log a complaint to the Post Office, so there will
       be a call log to the Post Office, the log to say the
       money has disappeared, so there will be a call log for
       that, sir.
   Q.  That's a separate point.  I'm asking why you didn't
       phone the helpline to seek their assistance in
       investigating what had gone wrong and I'm trying to
       summarise your evidence as being that you didn't need to
       because you were so experienced, you knew what to do?
   A.  No, we -- first of all, yes, we did ring them, okay?
       I'm not saying we didn't ring them.  I'm saying we are
       experienced people, we know what we're doing.  We did
       ring them, there will be a call log.  Secondly, the
       helpline is not very good either.  It is full of
       inexperienced people there in a call centre somewhere
       where we don't know where they are and I have made
       a number of calls to the helpline and the word
       "helpline" is not correct for it, it's not a helpline.
       They go through very basic stuff, okay, and it's not
       very good.  That's my personal opinion; nobody else's,
       that's my personal opinion.
   Q.  I'm going to take you to a couple of examples then of
       the helpline assisting you and your staff, Mr Latif.
       Can we call up the call log please at {F/1829.1}.  If
       the operator could move down to row 49 please.  Do you
       see in column D, Mr Latif, that this is a telephone call
       from your branch in November 2014?
   A.  You said column D?
   Q.  Yes, that's right.  Just looking for the date there.
       Row 49.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Then if the operator could please move the screen
       sideways so that we can see column M please.  That is
       a description of the call from your branch and I will
       read it out:
           "Is there a report they can do to check what has
       been transferred through units."
           Do you see that?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And if the operator can move us along to column U
       please.  This, Mr Latif, is the answer that was given on
       that call and you see it says:
           "Yes tran log using mode for transfers."
           Do you see that?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  So what this shows, I suggest, is that in November 2014
       one of your assistants phoned the helpline to ask how to
       identify transfers between stock units and was told,
       correctly, that they could identify them from the
       transaction log; that's right, isn't it?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  If we could go now down to row 70 please and across to
       the left please as well so we can see column A and so
       on.  You see this is another call at row 70 from your
       branch, Mr Latif, and the date for this one in column D
       is 20 January 2015.  Do you see that?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  And if we go to column M please we see again the
       question -- and I suggest there is obviously a missing
       word in it, tell me if you disagree, but it should read:
           "Can [we] print off report that will show transfers
       between stock units."
           Do you see that?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  And going to column U again please, this is the advice
       given:
           "Advised how to do so - TL mode - transfers -
       print."
           I suggest that "TL mode" is "transaction log",
       do you agree?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  So this is the second occasion on which you or a member
       of your staff had been told how to show transfers on
       reports you could print in the branch; that's right,
       isn't it?
   A.  Yes, sir, but can I just make a point here, if I may,
       my Lord?
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Yes, go on.
   A.  The branch is open from 6 o'clock in the morning to
       9 pm, seven days a week, so at times I may not be there,
       or Christine Barnett may not be there, or Muhammad may
       not be there, so if the operator is not sure they will
       ring up the helpline to get the help that they need,
       okay?  So the fact that there are calls does not really
       specifically -- you know, I'm not surprised because
       I can't be there from 6 o'clock in the morning until
       9 o'clock seven days a week, sir.
   MR DRAPER:  Mr Latif, on the basis of what you say happened,
       the failed transfer between stock units, the truth is
       there were no limitations on the information that
       Horizon could provide to you to help you investigate it;
       that's the position, isn't it?
   A.  At the front end, yes, but we don't know what happens at
       the back end and we don't have access to that, sir, and
       that's my point, my Lord.
   MR DRAPER:  Maybe, my Lord, one question before a short
       break for the transcribers?
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  How long are you going to be, because it
       might be we can put the break a little later, but don't
       feel hurried.  If you think you still have --
   MR DRAPER:  Quite a while, sir.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  All right.
   MR DRAPER:  What report or information do you say Horizon
       did not provide you that would have helped you
       understand what had happened with the transfer out and
       the transfer in?
   A.  It's the stuff in-between the transfer in from one place
       to the other place.  It obviously goes through the
       Post Office servers and we don't have access to that --
       at the front end at the office, we don't have access to
       that.  All we have is the front end system and that's
       it.  Obviously I'm convinced that something has gone
       wrong in-between the (inaudible) process, there is
       a glitch and we cannot -- I'm not in a position to find
       out what has happened.
   MR DRAPER:  That's probably a convenient moment, my Lord.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  You want to stop now?
   MR DRAPER:  For the break and come back.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Mr Latif, we are having these
       proceedings transcribed which means every hour/hour and
       20 minutes we have to have a break for the person who is
       doing the typing, so we're going to have one of those
       breaks now.  They are usually between 5 and ten minutes.
       This one is actually going to be eight minutes long.  So
       you get a break for eight minutes.  Can I just ask you
       two things please: one is please don't touch any of the
       equipment because I've got previous experience of links
       dropping over breaks.
   A.  Yes, sir.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  And the second one is because you are in
       the middle of your cross-examination, during that break
       please don't talk to anyone about the case.  Is that
       understood?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Thank you very much.  We will have an
       eight minute break and come back at quarter to.
   A.  Thank you.
   (11.37 am)
                          (Short Break)
   (11.45 am)
   MR DRAPER:  Mr Latif, just before the break you said that
       you had carried out a reversal to reverse the
       transfer out on stock unit AA, is that right?
   A.  Correct, sir.
   Q.  That's a reversal that you say you personally carried
       out?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  Using your user ID that you told me earlier was ALA001?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  Can you explain then why Post Office's transaction
       records show no reversal carried out by you
       in July 2015?
   A.  I don't know what records Post Office holds, sir.
       I cannot really accept (inaudible) holding.
   Q.  We will come back to the transaction data shortly, but
       I just want to make clear that we suggest now there was
       no transfer out reversal carried out by you
       in July 2015.  Would you like to comment on that?
   A.  So where has the money gone?
   Q.  That's a different point, Mr Latif.  I'm suggesting you
       did not carry out a reversal of a transfer out for
       £2,000 in July 2015.  Can you comment on that suggestion
       please?
   A.  Well, if that was the case, or that's what you're
       suggesting, then the money should be in somewhere
       (inaudible).  It's not there either.  I'm saying to you,
       sir, that there is a glitch with the software and,
       you know, who knows what happens behind the software.
       I cannot read -- I cannot see into it.  I'm just telling
       you what I know, sir.
   Q.  Sorry, Mr Latif, just to clarify something on the
       transcript, you said "If that were right then the money
       would be somewhere in ..." then the next word was
       inaudible.  What was the word you said there?
   A.  Well, the money will be somewhere in the office, either
       whether it is SP1 or AA.  If you are saying that
       I didn't do a transfer in -- back into AA then the money
       would be in SP1 and the money was not in SP1.  So the
       money has disappeared.  Where has it gone?
   Q.  Those are different points, Mr Latif.  You are talking
       about the physical cash at this point.  Where the
       physical cash goes has got nothing to do with Horizon,
       the physical cash goes where you physically put it;
       that's right, isn't it?
   A.  But -- that's right.
   Q.  And you say you physically put the cash back in stock
       unit AA.
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  So stock unit AA would then show a surplus, wouldn't it,
       unless you carried out a reversal of the transfer out?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  Earlier on when we were talking about the helpline,
       Mr Latif, you said that you did call the helpline and
       you made some remarks about not finding the helpline
       very useful.  I don't need to hear that again, I just
       wanted to ask you a short question about that.  When do
       you say you called the helpline about this alleged
       failed transfer?
   A.  I cannot be completely sure when that was, sir, if I'm
       honest.
   Q.  Well, was it when the failure happened?
   A.  I believe it was July.
   Q.  If I show you the call log for the relevant period and
       it shows that there are no calls from you or your
       assistants in relation to a failed transfer, would you
       accept that you are mistaken?
   A.  Well, sometimes we also ring the area sales manager, so
       I may have rang him, so it doesn't necessarily mean that
       there were no logs of the call.
   Q.  Which do you say you phoned, the area sales manager or
       the helpline?
   A.  I believe it was the helpline, but it's a long time ago.
   Q.  If we could call up the call log please, which is at
       {F/1829.1}.  If the operator could please take us to row
       89.  Do you see, Mr Latif, row 89 and looking over to
       column D, that gives a date of 29 June 2015 which is the
       first entry on this log for June?  I'm just confirming
       that you see it, Mr Latif?
   A.  Yes, I can.
   Q.  And if the operator could take us down please to row 97,
       and looking again in column D, that's a call on
       11 August 2015 and is the last call shown in August.  So
       if we look between those two rows, Mr Latif, that will
       be the calls logged from between June and August 2015.
       Do you follow?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Please can the operator take us to column M and looking
       then, Mr Latif, in column M at row 89 we see from
       column L that this is a call from Chris and the call
       says:
           "[Lots] of customers are coming in saying the
       website shows the branch has accepting [ukba] aie."
           That looks to be a call about the website; that's
       right, isn't it?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And looking down these rows, row 90 at column M, that's
       a call about a passport, do you see that?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Row 91, again a call from Chris is about travel
       insurance, do you see that?
   A.  Yes, yes.
   Q.  Row 92 is about ordering euros?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Row 93 is about an error with transaction
       acknowledgements, do you see that?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Row 94 is about euros again.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Row 95 is a miskey error, do you see that?
   A.  Can you repeat that please, sir.
   Q.  Row 95 is -- forgive me, it's what I would call a miskey
       error.  One of the assistants has pressed the wrong
       buttons on Horizon and so has entered the wrong amount
       for a rem out.
   A.  Okay, so are you saying the helpline makes a mistake?
   Q.  I'm saying that someone in your branch, you or one of
       your assistants, appears from this call log to have made
       a mistake in performing a rem out; specifically rather
       than remming it out for £118.74, it was remmed out for
       £11.74.  Do you see that?
   A.  Yes, yes.
   Q.  That's a fairly easy mistake to make, isn't it,
       Mr Latif, in your experience?
   A.  Well, everyone is human, sir, so yes, people do make
       mistakes.
   Q.  And mistakes like that sometimes happened in your
       branch, didn't they?
   A.  Sir, I would inform you that mistakes happen everywhere.
       But they are easily rectifiable and can be resolved in
       most cases.
   Q.  Tell me how they are resolved, those kind of mistakes,
       Mr Latif?
   A.  Well, the steps you can take to resolve matters -- in
       this case someone remmed the wrong amount out, so you
       can rem the extra amount out, so there's various things
       you can do to rem the correct -- make the correct
       decision.  When money goes remmed out it is checked the
       other side and if it is wrong, they come back and tell
       you it's wrong.  So there are steps in place to make
       sure that things are done properly.  So yes, mistakes do
       happen, but they are easily rectified.
   Q.  And those mistakes are usually rectified by your
       informing Post Office and Post Office helping you by
       issuing a transaction correction, for example?
   A.  Not always, sir.  That's not my experience with them.
       Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.  It all depends
       on what operator you get on what day and that's my
       personal experience and that's the experience and the
       mood I have in the office, that it's hit and miss.  It
       depends on which operator you get, how well they are
       trained, it is whether the response you get back is good
       or not so good.
   Q.  It also depends, doesn't it, Mr Latif, on how clearly
       you identify the problem?  You would accept that,
       wouldn't you?
   A.  Yes, indeed.  In terms of if they are remote they can't
       see what we've got in front of ourselves.  You know,
       their knowledge can sometimes be very basic.  Sometimes
       very good -- sometimes very good, sir, I accept that.
       But sometimes it's not.
   Q.  Moving on, Mr Latif, along this spreadsheet that we have
       been looking at, we were looking down the rows.  Row 96,
       the one below the miskey concerns a car registration
       document.  Do you see that one?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  Row 97 relates to travel insurance?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  So those are all the call logs for June to August 2015
       and they don't show the call that you say you made.  How
       do you explain that?
   A.  I'm not sure.  Sometimes we ring up and they don't know
       that we made the call.  We've had in the past when we
       rang up, we say we spoke to somebody and they haven't
       logged the call properly.  Mistakes do happen, sir.
   Q.  On the basis of these records, Mr Latif, Post Office
       will contend that there was no call that you made of
       that kind, but I think I have your answer to that.
           Now, moving on --
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Just before you move on, Mr Draper.  Is
       this in chronological order, this call log?
   MR DRAPER:  My Lord, it is largely in chronological order.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Because I'm looking at it on my private
       screen and I thought it would be and it doesn't appear
       to be.
   MR DRAPER:  It is within sections but I think, if I'm right,
       towards the top --
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Well, row 2, for example, has June 2016
       and then later on it goes to 2014 and then back to 2015,
       so is there any pattern to it?
   MR DRAPER:  I can't give you a detailed answer as to why,
       my Lord --
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  All right, let's not worry about it at
       the moment, I just thought I would ask.
   MR DRAPER:  The point for present purposes is there are on
       this call log no other calls between June and August.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  I understand that's the point that you
       are putting to the witness and it's not necessary to
       pursue it now, but, for example, row 2 is a June 2016
       entry.
   MR DRAPER:  Yes.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  But we can deal with that separately.
       You continue with Mr Latif.
   MR DRAPER:  Thank you.
           Mr Latif, in your witness statement you say there
       was a shortfall in the branch account for £2,000 that
       you attribute to the failed transfer that you describe,
       is that right?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  The first point on that, Mr Latif, is Post Office's
       records from the data it has about your branch show no
       shortfall of that amount between June and August 2015.
       Would you like to comment on that?
   A.  Well, we would have put the money in, sir, so by the
       following Wednesday, reconciliation, the money has to be
       put in otherwise we cannot rollover with a shortfall,
       it's not possible.
   Q.  But it's right, isn't it, that before rolling over you
       would carry out balance snapshots, variance checks,
       other kinds of reports that would identify
       a discrepancy, wouldn't they, if there were one?
   A.  We would do that if there was discrepancy, sir, anyhow.
       As soon as we find a discrepancy we print the balance
       snapshot, transaction logs, so we would do that by
       definition, we would do that by default.  That's how we
       were trained to do so.
   Q.  And those steps that I have described, variance checks,
       balance snapshots, trial balances, all of those things
       that you do would come up with a discrepancy on the
       screen, wouldn't they?  That's how you would identify
       it?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  The transaction and event data for June to August 2015
       shows no such reports that disclosed a discrepancy of
       £2,000.  Would you like to comment on that?
   A.  I don't know how the Post Office's system works
       internally.  I know the user side of it, but I don't
       know how the inside works.  So I don't know what's going
       on.
   Q.  Coming back then to the shortfall that you allege, when
       do you say you became aware of the shortfall?
   A.  Immediately after the transfer did not go through we did
       a cash calculation to make sure, that's when (inaudible)
       £2,000 missing.
   Q.  A cash declaration on which stock unit, Mr Latif?
   A.  SP1 balanced but AA did not.
   Q.  If you go back to your witness statement, Mr Latif, at
       {E1/1/2}, at paragraph 7 you describe having done a cash
       declaration on stock unit AA to confirm that the £2,000
       had been transferred out; that's right, isn't it?
   A.  Yes, that's correct.
   Q.  You then say that after the transfer in failed you took
       the £2,000 physical cash back to stock unit AA and put
       it into the cash drawer?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  That's what you say.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And this isn't in your witness statement, Mr Latif, but
       you now say that you performed another cash declaration
       on stock unit AA and that this second one showed
       a shortfall?
   A.  Well, once the transfer did not happen to SP1, we became
       suspicious that something has gone wrong.  So we would
       will do another cash declaration.  Balance snapshot was
       printed, a transfer log was done, transaction log was
       done, so a number of checks were made to make sure
       what's happened to the money (inaudible).
   Q.  Was this cash declaration before or after you say you
       reversed out the transfer out?
   A.  One was done before and then the other was done after
       the transfer in and then we did another one just to make
       sure that we hadn't counted the money wrong or
       double-checked every single thing in the office to make
       sure that everything was as it is.
   Q.  Mr Latif, why do you give no evidence in your witness
       statement about this process of finding and failing to
       understand a £2,000 shortfall in stock unit AA?
   A.  When you say "evidence" what are you referring to, sir?
   Q.  Your witness statement, Mr Latif.
           (Pause).
   A.  Can you repeat that question?
   Q.  Why do you not in your witness statement say anything
       about this detailed process that you have now explained
       of finding a shortfall on stock unit AA and
       investigating it?
   A.  Well, I'm an experienced subpostmaster and to me the
       steps that we do are basic logic steps, but obviously to
       other people it may not come across -- I now realise
       that that's not how it comes across to other people that
       have no experience within the Post Office, so perhaps in
       hindsight I could have been a bit more clearer, but the
       fact remains the money disappeared and there's
       nothing -- you know, I'm confident -- I'm extremely
       confident that it is the software that's caused the
       problem.
   Q.  Let me ask you a question about the use of the word
       "disappeared" there, Mr Latif.  In your witness
       statement you say that the transfer in disappeared.  We
       discussed that earlier, do you recall, that when you
       went to stock unit SP1 --
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  -- the £2,000 transfer in was missing?  Do you recall
       that?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  You don't say --
   A.  Yes, it disappeared.
   Q.  You don't say anywhere in your witness statement that
       the £2,000 physical cash also somehow disappeared, but
       that seems to be what you are now saying, is that right?
   A.  Well, the system gave a shortfall of £2,000 and that's
       been my statement all the way through, sir, so I don't
       know what you're trying to confuse me, but there's
       a shortfall of £2,000 in stock unit AA and there should
       not be a stock shortfall.  The money is physically
       there.
   Q.  If I have confused you, I'm sorry --
   A.  It was a counting error, sir.
   Q.  If I have confused you I apologise.  I will take it
       slowly.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  I think, Mr Draper, the starting point
       is paragraph 8, isn't it, and what he means by his last
       sentence.
   MR DRAPER:  Yes, that's right.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Which is probably worth exploring just
       so you can be clear what his evidence is about.
   MR DRAPER:  Yes.
           I think it is right, Mr Latif, that you are now
       explaining that you say that immediately after the
       failed transfer that you describe there was a £2,000
       shortfall in stock unit AA.  That's what you say?
   A.  Yes, sir, correct.
   Q.  And you say that shortfall was after you had reversed
       the transfer out, is that right?
   A.  Correct, correct.
   Q.  And after you had put the £2,000 back in stock unit AA?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  So on your account the physical cash in stock unit AA
       would be the same after all of these processes as it was
       before, you had taken it out and put it back; that's
       right, isn't it?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  And you say there was nonetheless a shortfall in that
       stock unit?
   A.  Yes, the cash declaration showed a shortfall of £2,000.
   Q.  Logically that must mean that the Horizon cash figure
       had gone up £2,000 over the same period of time?
   A.  It should have balanced out, it should have been nil, it
       should have been no discrepancy.  So it looks like the
       software for some reason is -- done something twice.  It
       has done something it's not supposed to do.  There's
       a glitch somewhere, sir.
   Q.  Mr Latif, on your account the only thing that can have
       caused the shortfall that you're describing is the
       Horizon derived cash figure for stock unit AA somehow
       having increased; that's right, isn't it?
   A.  Correct, it's a software accounting issue, sir.  That's
       my statement.
   Q.  That also isn't described anywhere in your witness
       statement, that you identified some problem with the --
   A.  Well, we cannot look -- I mean I do not have access to
       the Post Office's internal software so I can only assume
       the money is missing.  It has disappeared into the
       Post~Office's system.  That's all I can say.
   Q.  Mr Latif, that's not right.  Let me take it slowly with
       you, Mr Latif.
           If your account were right, the problem would be
       that the Horizon cash figure in stock unit AA had
       somehow gone up by 2,000 when it shouldn't have done so.
       That's right, isn't it?
   A.  The money is there but the system doesn't resolve.
       Something has gone wrong with the transfer, sir.
   Q.  Can you just answer the question.  Am I right that the
       derived Horizon cash figure would have had to go up by
       £2,000 for there to be a £2,000 shortfall given that the
       physical cash, on your case, was the same?
   A.  The Horizon derived figure and the physical figure
       should have matched, but they did not, sir, and the
       shortfall -- what I'm saying is there is a loss of
       £2,000.  So that does not make sense.
   Q.  If that were right, Mr Latif --
   A.  It shouldn't have happened.
   Q.  Mr Latif, it would have been very easy for you to have
       shown that, wouldn't it, and to have described it in
       your witness statement?  What you would have said was:
       before these processes the Horizon derived cash figure
       for stock unit AA was X thousand and after all of these
       processes the Horizon derived cash figure was X minus
       2,000 and there was no reason for that.  Do you follow?
   A.  That is what happened, that's what I'm trying to say.
   Q.  I think you said earlier, before the break, that you had
       had to put £2,000 into the branch, is that right?
   A.  Correct, sir.
   Q.  When do you say you did that?
   A.  I would have done it on the Wednesday (inaudible), sir.
   Q.  Do you say you did that without disputing this
       shortfall, Mr Latif?
   A.  We are liable.  The Post Office's contract clearly says
       that we are liable for any shortfalls.
   Q.  Is your understanding that you are liable for
       a shortfall even if it is a computer glitch, is that
       what you are saying?
   A.  Yes, sir, we're liable.
   Q.  Mr Latif, you will appreciate we don't accept that there
       was any such shortfall, or that you paid it in, but can
       you comment on this suggestion.  If you genuinely
       believed that the derived cash figure on stock unit AA
       had been increased by a glitch and that therefore you
       were in no way responsible for any of this, what do you
       say to the suggestion that it's very surprising that you
       wouldn't raise that with Post Office and complain about
       it?
   A.  Well, I have complained to the area manager, sir, so
       I don't know your saying I haven't complained.  I have
       complained to the area manager, Mr Navjot Jando,
       a number of times, so I don't know why you're saying
       I haven't complained about it or raised it.
   Q.  So do you now say you disputed a £2,000 shortfall
       in July 2015 by contacting your area manager and
       complaining that there was a glitch; is that what you
       are now saying?
   A.  Well, yes, we would have obviously raised questions, but
       there is a glitch or something and we don't know what's
       happened.  This is just one instance, sir, but there are
       a number of other instances which I haven't given in my
       statement.  It happens all the time and generally we
       think it's the operator that's causing the problem and
       that's what the Post Office keep telling us, it's
       operator error, not necessarily it's a software error,
       and this is clearly a software error, sir.  And also,
       can I just say, when I have been training other offices
       they have been telling me a similar story, sir.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Mr Latif, just hold on a second, please.
       You gave the name of your area manager and the
       transcript didn't pick it up.  Can you just tell me what
       they were called please.
   A.  Sorry?
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  The name of your area manager.
   A.  Mr N-A-V-J-O-T, J-A-N-D-O.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Thank you very much.
   A.  Correct, sir.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Now, all of the rest of your answer has
       gone onto the transcript so you can take that that's in
       the record.  Can you now just concentrate on Mr Draper's
       specific questions please.
           Mr Draper.
   MR DRAPER:  Yes.
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  Just to confirm your previous answer, you said that you
       would have complained, or words to that effect, about
       the glitch.  Do you say that you in fact did phone your
       area manager and tell him that you had suffered a £2,000
       loss as a result of a glitch as you have just described?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  Why is none of that recorded in your witness statement?
   A.  I didn't think it was relevant.  I talk to the area
       manager about a lot of things, so, you know ...
   Q.  Do you accept that you did not, however, phone the
       helpline to say that you had suffered a £2,000 loss as
       a result of a glitch?
   A.  There would have been definitely a call to the helpline.
       I'm not sure why it is not showing up there, but it
       should have been logged all through helpline as well.
       As you can see, we quite regularly make calls to the
       helpline.
   Q.  I'm going to now take you quickly, I hope, through
       Post Office's case.  Can I ask you to turn to
       Ms van den Bogerd's witness statement which is at
       {E2/5/23} and paragraphs 90 to 91 of that statement.
       Can you read please those two paragraphs just in your
       head, no need to read it out loud please.
           (Pause).
   A.  Okay.
   Q.  Ms van den Bogerd has taken the three months around the
       date that you identify.  So you say "in around July";
       Post Office has looked at June, July and August.  She
       has taken the transaction and event data for your branch
       and based on her review of that data she says there were
       no transfers out of £2,000 in June and in July
       and August there were transfers of £2,000 but for every
       transfer out there was a corresponding transfer in.
       That's Ms van den Bogerd's evidence.  Do you accept that
       that's what the transaction data shows?
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Well, first you need to ask him if he
       has seen the transaction --
   A.  But that does not mean they were done properly though,
       does it?
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Mr Draper, first you have to ask him if
       he has seen the transaction data.
   MR DRAPER:  Have you, Mr Latif, had an opportunity to see
       any of the transaction data?
   A.  Sorry, can you repeat the question please.
   Q.  Have you looked at any of the transaction data to which
       Ms van den Bogerd refers?
   A.  You mean this document in front of me now?
   Q.  No, forgive me.  This is her witness statement.  She
       says here what the data shows.  But Post Office has also
       provided to your solicitors the underlying transaction
       data documents that she has looked at.  Have you seen
       those Excel spreadsheets?
   A.  I haven't seen the spreadsheet but I did have a call
       with my solicitors a few weeks ago.
   Q.  We don't need to know about that, Mr Latif.  But you
       haven't seen the spreadsheet is the key point there,
       that's right?
   A.  No, no.
   Q.  Okay.
   A.  I have been out of the country since 19 February as
       well, sir, so ... I think these transfers are coming in
       a little bit late and I have poor internet access where
       I am, I'm in the mountains in Kashmir and there is the
       small matter of tensions between India and Pakistan
       going on as well, so I have very limited access to the
       outside world apart from -- predominantly voice calls.
   Q.  Mr Latif, since when is that that you have been in
       Kashmir?
   A.  I arrived on 19 February, sir.
   Q.  I'm going to show you the underlying transaction data
       for June 2015, Mr Latif, and the suggestion I'm going to
       make is that shows no transfers of £2,000 within your
       branch.  If you are confident that this problem occurred
       in July, there's no need to look at June.  Would you
       like to look at June?
   A.  Why not?
   Q.  I'm sorry, Mr Latif, I missed that.  What did you say?
   A.  I said why not -- while we are here, why not?
   Q.  If the operator could call up please {F/1353.1}.
       Mr Latif, I should explain, this is not a document of
       a type you will have seen.  It's not a report printed
       out in your branch.  It's an Excel spreadsheet showing
       data from Post Office.  Do you understand?
   A.  Okay, I do.
   Q.  This is the full transaction data and we won't scroll
       down but it is an extremely long document so what
       I propose to show you is a filtered version that only
       shows transfers out and transfers in, okay?
   A.  Okay.
   Q.  If the operator could please call up that version.  This
       spreadsheet has now been filtered using codes that the
       claimants are aware of that enable the spreadsheet to
       show only transfers out and transfers in.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Is this an agreed document then this
       one?
   MR DRAPER:  No, this was produced shortly before the
       cross-examination rather than doing it manually.  It
       takes a couple of minutes.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  All right, continue.  We will need to
       address this at the end I think.
   MR DRAPER:  Mr Latif, now that this has been filtered, if
       you scan your eye down column L there are no transfers
       shown for £2,000 on this spreadsheet.
           (Pause).
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  I'm not really sure where this is going
       to get us, Mr Draper, to be honest.  It's a bit much to
       ask a witness to look at a document that has about --
       how many is it, entries?
   MR DRAPER:  You won't be able to tell by counting, I don't
       think.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Quite, that's rather my point.  But if
       your case is there are no entries on there for £2,000
       in June, just put that point to the witness and he might
       either agree or disagree.
   MR DRAPER:  Sure.
           Mr Latif, Post Office says there are no entries here
       for a transfer of £2,000 in June.  Do you accept that?
   A.  I can understand what you're saying, but I'm confident
       there's a glitch in the software, so it's possible it's
       missing.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Maybe a different way, a quicker way of
       getting to the same point, or a broadly quicker
       way: Mr Latif, on this document for June it shows
       various transfers for different amounts.
   A.  Yes.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Can you remember roughly how often you
       would have to fill up or replenish the combi-counter
       cash till with money from stock unit AA?
   A.  Quite regularly, sir.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  I beg your pardon?
   A.  Quite regularly, sir.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Quite regularly.
   A.  At least every other day.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  All right.  Back to you, Mr Draper.
   MR DRAPER:  The next point, Mr Latif, that Ms van den Bogerd
       makes is that she has checked the transaction data
       for July 2015 and there were two transfers of £2,000
       between stock unit AA and stock unit SP1, but both of
       those were successful.
   A.  How do you determine successful, sir?
   Q.  Maybe I can show you the spreadsheet.  It is at
       {F/1365.1}.  This again is the raw data but if the
       operator can filter it to just show transfers out and
       transfers in.  Mr Latif, can you see that?  The first
       transfer out Post Office says is at row 18352.  Do you
       see that?  Maybe if the operator could highlight the
       four entries starting at 18351 and going down to 18359.
           What Post Office says this data shows, Mr Latif, is
       a successful transfer of £2,000 from stock unit AA to
       stock unit SP1 and Post Office says that transfer out
       was performed by Christine Barnett.  You see her
       user ID.  And the transfer in was performed by
       Christine Fensome, we see her user ID.  Do you see that,
       Mr Latif?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  The next transfer --
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Hold on, before you -- are you moving
       off this page?
   MR DRAPER:  To lower down on the page.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  But on these four can you just identify
       for the transcript, because I think it will be useful,
       what line shows what happening at what time, out of or
       into of what unit?  Because they are grouped together in
       a way which seems to me to be a bit confusing.
   MR DRAPER:  Yes.  Post Office contends that the transfer out
       is shown at row 18352 as being performed by
       Christine Barnett out of stock unit AA, the time is
       given.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Can you tell me what it is please.
   MR DRAPER:  13.52.22.  And that is for £2,000.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  And the date?
   MR DRAPER:  21/07/2015.
           Then the transfer in is at row 18359.  It is
       performed by Christine Fensome.  It is on stock
       unit SP1, it has the same date, 21 July 2015, it is
       timed at 13.55.01 and it is also for £2,000.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  And that's into SP1?
   MR DRAPER:  It is.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  And then the other one?
   MR DRAPER:  The next transfer starts at row 25988.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  No, no, sorry, there are four together
       there, aren't there?
   MR DRAPER:  There are four entries.  This is probably
       a point I should explain to Mr Latif.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Just deal with this first and give me
       the entries and then deal with it --
   MR DRAPER:  Yes.  My Lord, the two I have given you --
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  You have given me 18352 and 18359.
   MR DRAPER:  Yes.  Those are the transfer out and the
       transfer in.  They are surrounded on this spreadsheet by
       two other records.  They are not transfers.  They
       correspond to the value of the transfer but they are not
       actually transfers.  They perform a back office
       reconciliation function that wouldn't be visible to
       a subpostmaster.  If Mr Latif had called up records in
       his branch he would have seen the two transactions to
       which I have referred you, he wouldn't see the
       effectively inverse transaction that are only visible in
       the back office systems.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  I see.  All right and then go to the
       next one.
   MR DRAPER:  The next one, Mr Latif, starts at row 25988.  Do
       you see that's a transaction performed by another one of
       your assistants?  Can you recall the name of that
       assistant?  I don't have the paper in front of me,
       Mr Latif.  Is that Mr Deacock?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  So we see there --
   A.  Yes, he is an employee of mine.
   Q.  25988, Mr Deacock on stock unit SP1, on 29 July 2015, at
       11.49.19 performs a transfer out of the value of £2,000.
       Do you see that?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And then if we go a couple of rows lower than that, at
       25990 on here we see MLA001.  Who is that, Mr Latif?
   A.  Pardon, LAA001?
   Q.  Yes, user IDMLA001.
   A.  That is Mohammad Latif, my brother.
   Q.  Am I right to say that he wasn't shown on the assistant
       document that we saw?
   A.  He is a holiday relief and he was -- he should have been
       on there.  I can't remember ...
   Q.  Did you register him as an assistant with Post Office?
   A.  He has been registered with the Post Office, sir.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  If you can just finish your exercise.
   MR DRAPER:  Yes.  So that's your brother then,
       Mohammad Latif --
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  -- performing, Post Office says, a transfer in at 25990
       on stock unit AA on the same date, 29 July 2015, at
       11.50.30, about a minute after the transfer out, so
       Post Office says this was a second successful transfer
       between the two stock units in July but in the opposite
       direction.  Do you follow that?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  On the basis of that, Mr Latif, Post Office says that
       in July 2015 there were two transfers of £2,000 between
       the stock units you identify, one in one direction and
       one in the other, but that both of them succeeded
       because there was both a transfer out and a transfer in?
   A.  Well, what's your definition of "succeeded"?  What's the
       cash figure?  I mean I'm not sure I follow you, because
       you're saying if you transfer in and transfer out, that
       it works?  That's not necessarily the case.  The case it
       works is where your cash declaration says that it has
       worked.  That's how you confirm that it worked.
   Q.  Mr Latif, I'm just dealing with your evidence.  Your
       evidence is that you performed a transfer out but then
       the transfer in was not available on the second stock
       unit to accept.  I have just shown you documents that
       Post Office will say that there was not such a transfer,
       there was not a transfer for which there was
       a transfer out but no transfer in.  Do you follow that?
   A.  I follow that, but I'm still saying that there's
       a glitch.  We transfer stuff all the time and yes, most
       of the time it works, but there are times when it didn't
       work and that's what I'm saying.
   Q.  Ms van den Bogerd then says in her statement that she
       has looked at the data for August 2015 and there were in
       fact four transfers of £2,000 between the stock units
       but those too were all successful, there was in every
       case a corresponding transfer in for each transfer out.
       Do you follow that?
   A.  I do.
   Q.  Do you accept that that is what the data would show, or
       would you like me to take you through the data?
   A.  No, no, I accept.
   Q.  On the basis of that, Mr Latif, Post Office says there
       was no failed transfer such as that described in your
       witness statement and that you are simply wrong about
       that, it never happened.
   A.  So you are calling me a liar?
   Q.  Mr Latif, you may be mistaken or you may be lying.
       I put the question that it didn't happen.
   A.  Well, I state that they did.
   Q.  Notwithstanding, Mr Latif, that it is not shown on the
       transaction records, do you say that those transaction
       records are then wrong?
   A.  I believe so.
   Q.  Thank you.
           I'm now going to move on, Mr Latif, to ask you about
       the transaction correction issue in January 2018.
           I have been asked to confirm with you that
       the heading in your witness statement is a typographical
       error and you meant to refer to transaction
       acknowledgements, is that right?
   A.  Yes, TC, transaction acknowledgments.
   Q.  Sorry, I heard that as TC transaction acknowledgment.
       Did you mean to say TA, transaction acknowledgment?
   A.  TA is transaction acknowledgment and TC is transaction
       corrections, so it is two different things, sir.
   Q.  Yes.  In paragraph 9 of your statement, if you could
       look at that, that's {E1/1/2}, you say:
           "... Camelot sent information to Horizon in relation
       to scratchcards.  Camelot sent this information to
       Horizon twice."
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  First question about that: by amendment to your
       statement you now say that this was in
       around January 2018 rather than March 2018.
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  What caused you to make that correction?
   A.  I had a look at the -- we hold the records for the
       information in the office, so I had my assistants look
       at the records, transaction logs and that's when
       I confirmed that it was January rather than March.
       (Inaudible) was logs in March as well.  We made calls
       effectively every month to Horizon help desk concerning
       this issue.
   Q.  When do you say you asked your assistants to check about
       the date?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Sorry, when do you say that happened?
   A.  It was after I made the initial statement, I was
       checking.
   Q.  Roughly when, Mr Latif?
   A.  It would have been a few weeks ago, sir.
   Q.  So is it right that you didn't check those records from
       the branch before making your witness statement?
   A.  No, I thought I was correct but I double checked and
       made sure that actually in fact they were correct, those
       (inaudible), so I was right but initial incident
       happened in January when TA (inaudible) transaction
       acknowledgement, the TC, the corrections, they came
       in March.
   Q.  Okay.  So you say, do you, that the TCs in relation to
       these transaction acknowledgements came in March 2018?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And you say that's something you have checked from your
       records?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Looking at paragraph 9, why is that put in such vague
       terms, Mr Latif?  What information are you talking about
       in that paragraph?
   A.  Which paragraph, sir?
   Q.  Paragraph 9, starting "In or around January ..."?
   A.  Yes, the way the system works with Camelot and
       Post Office is they have a contract with Camelot, is
       that the Camelot machine predominantly is based on the
       retail side of the business, so it's -- retail business
       is the shop side.  So, for example, a customer comes in,
       does a transaction, buys the scratchcard or the lottery
       ticket from us, that data is transmitted back to branch,
       to the Post Office, the following morning.  So say on
       a Tuesday we perform transactions, on the Wednesday
       morning a TA, which is a transaction acknowledgment,
       will go to a branch, okay?  So the money that was taken
       in the retailer side is then accounted for in the
       Post Office's system on our tills, so we have to put our
       money in to the Post Office till and that's done
       throughout the country at every Post Office that has
       a Camelot machine installed at the branch.
   Q.  So in paragraph 9 what you are referring to is
       a transaction acknowledgment sent to your branch by
       Post Office --
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  -- relating to Camelot scratchcards, is that right?
   A.  Yes.  I believe they made the mistake and sent out the
       information twice to every branch up and down the
       country and that's what we were told by the help desk.
   Q.  When do you say the help desk told you that, Mr Latif?
   A.  When we learned in January -- when we got two lots of
       certain TAs.
   Q.  So you say you phoned immediately when you received two
       sets of TAs, is that right?
   A.  Yes, sir.  We automatically have to accept the TAs.  You
       can't not accept them.  As soon as you log on in the
       morning, the TAs are there.
   Q.  So do you say you phoned Post Office and said "You have
       mistakenly sent me two transaction acknowledgements
       rather than one"?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And they nonetheless told you to accept them, is that
       your evidence?
   A.  No, sir, you have no choice but to accept them.  If you
       do not accept them you cannot continue to serve in your
       branch during the day.  You have to accept them.
       There's no way round it.
   Q.  Mr Latif, why don't you mention this important telephone
       call in your witness statement?
   A.  Well, we will make -- I can see we made lots of calls to
       the helpline, so, I mean it was -- we also had a message
       come through from Post Office saying that there was an
       error, there was a glitch, the transaction was put
       through twice, was sent twice to the branches and "We
       are going to resolve it".  The Post Office were aware of
       it.
   Q.  What form do you say that notice took, Mr Latif?
   A.  I believe it was a memo view, which is an internal
       communications system that the Post Office uses to
       communicate to branches and it pops up on your screen on
       the Horizon channel.
   Q.  And you say that this notice told you that Camelot had
       made a mistake, is that right?
   A.  That's right, sir.  No, it said there was a -- the
       information was duplicated, so it was sent twice.
   Q.  And you were told that was Camelot's mistake, you say?
   A.  Well, they said it was a mistake.  They are working with
       Camelot to resolve the issue.  Whose fault it is, I'm
       not sure.
   Q.  Mr Latif, have you provided any notice that Post Office
       sent you referring to a mistake involving Camelot that
       you refer to in paragraph 10 of your witness statement?
   A.  I haven't, but that's quite easily accessible to
       everybody.  It's not a -- it's commonly available to the
       Post Office.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Mr Latif, is that different from the
       item you have just referred to that pops up on the
       screen, or is it just a different word to describe the
       same thing?
   A.  Well, it's the same, it's called a memo view, sir,
       my Lord.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  It's called a what, sorry?
   A.  It's called a memo view.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Memo view.
   A.  M-E-M-O, V-I-E-W.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  So is your paragraph 10 talking about
       the memo view, or is it talking about something
       different?
   A.  That's it, that's what I'm talking about.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  That's what you are talking about.
   A.  Paragraph 10, yes.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  All right, back to you, Mr Draper.
   MR DRAPER:  Mr Latif, do you accept you might be
       misremembering the things you describe in paragraphs 9
       and 10?
   A.  No, a notice is a memo view, sir, that's the
       communication we have with the Post Office.
   Q.  Do you say --
   A.  It's a one-way system -- it's a one-way system, sir, how
       I explained.  So if the people at Post Office want to
       communicate to us something very quickly, that's the
       system they use.  So it's messages about procedural
       changes, or anything that's about to expire, the
       memo view comes to our screen and that happens
       automatically and that goes to every branch up and down
       the country, all the time.
   Q.  Do you say that you personally processed the transaction
       acknowledgements to which you refer in paragraph 9?
   A.  The transaction acknowledgements would have been done by
       Christine Barnett.  It's done when you first log -- when
       the first person logs in on stock unit AA the
       transaction screen pops up.  The transaction
       acknowledgment, the TA pops up.  That happens almost
       every day except for Sunday.
   Q.  But you say you personally received the notice that you
       refer to in paragraph 10?
   A.  The branch received the notice, sir, so whoever logs in,
       the first person to log in among the staff, or one of my
       colleagues, the notice will come in.
   Q.  Was that you or one of your staff?
   A.  I believe it may have been Christine -- it was
       Christine, Christine Barnett.
   Q.  So is it right to say that everything in paragraphs 9
       and 10 are things that have been told to you by
       Ms Barnett?
   A.  The memo view, sir, will come to us as well, it will
       come to me as well, sir.  As soon as I log on I will get
       the memo view as well.  So ...
   Q.  I don't think that quite answered the question.  Were
       you told these things by Ms Barnett, or do you say you
       personally saw them?
   A.  Well, my statement says information sent to Horizon, it
       does not say sent to me or Christine, sir.
   Q.  I understand that.  I'm asking which it is?
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Mr Draper, I think you are
       misunderstanding his evidence.  His evidence is that it
       pops up when each person logs in.  Now, on the basis
       that he's got a separate login -- if you want to suggest
       an alternative method that the information is
       communicated, you should pursue that.
   MR DRAPER:  Forgive me.
           Mr Latif, is your evidence that even after
       a transaction acknowledgment has been accepted, it still
       pops up on someone else's screen when they log in?
   A.  No.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  No, you were asking him about the
       notice, Mr Draper.
   MR DRAPER:  I was asking him about both, my Lord.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Well, if you were, you were putting it
       together in one question.  Would you like to -- you
       actually said "Were you told these things by Ms Barnett"
       and by "these things" you were talking about
       paragraph 10.  Now, paragraph 10 includes the
       notice/memo view.  So if you would just like to pursue
       it so that it is clear please so that you are not
       talking about one thing and he is asking questions about
       another.
   MR DRAPER:  Understood.  I will put the question exactly as
       I put it before, my Lord.
           Is it right to say that everything in paragraphs 9
       and 10 are things that Ms Barnett told you?
   A.  No.
   Q.  So which bits of that evidence do you say are from your
       own personal knowledge?
   A.  Well, sir, every branch for the last 17 years I have
       been working with the Post Office gets a TA from Camelot
       if they are a Camelot authorised branch, so that's
       standard procedure within the Post Office.  I don't
       understand your labouring this point.  It happens every
       day at every branch, to whoever logs in first gets the
       transaction acknowledgment to account for yesterday's
       takings that the Camelot machine has performed.  Okay?
       The notice that I'm referring to as a memo view, every
       operator gets that memo view, irrespective.  As soon as
       they log in, that memo view comes up automatically.  So
       that's the notice that I'm referring to in section 10,
       sir.  Have I made myself clear?
   Q.  No, Mr Latif, you haven't answered the question.  It is
       a really small question.  It is not about how TAs work
       or how memo view works.  Are you saying that you
       personally processed the transaction acknowledgment and
       that you personally received the memo view message, or
       are you saying that these are things Ms Barnett told
       you?
   A.  What I'm saying to you is that I performed the
       transaction, but Mrs Barnett will discuss it with me as
       well that it comes up twice.  So that statement is true.
       You know, as soon as you log on it comes up
       automatically, the TA comes up automatically, whoever
       the first person to log on is, so we would -- you know,
       we communicate with each other in the branch all the
       time.
   Q.  Mr Latif, paragraph 11 {E1/1/2} you say that
       a transaction correction was later received and that you
       accepted it, is that right?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  You said a few minutes ago that that was in March 2018,
       is that right?
   A.  The transaction correction, again you have to accept,
       sir.  And yes, that's correct.
   Q.  You say in paragraph 11 that the TC didn't change the
       stock figure of scratchcards but Horizon showed an extra
       £1,000 of scratchcards in stock.
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  You then say that means the transaction correction did
       not work.  Can you explain what you mean by that phrase
       "did not work"?
   A.  The transaction correction corrects -- was meant to
       correct the stock that was wrongly assigned to us where
       it was duplicated, so it should have reduced it down to
       minus 50, so £500 worth of scratchcards rather than
       £1,000 worth of scratchcards.
   Q.  Just to be clear, what you mean by "did not work" is
       that it didn't resolve the problem in your branch.  You
       don't mean that there was something faulty at
       a technical level with the transaction correction, you
       mean that it worked technically but that it didn't
       resolve the problem, is that right?
   A.  Well, it's the same thing, sir.  If it didn't work, it
       didn't -- it didn't do what's it's supposed to do, which
       is to correct our stock figure.  It didn't correct the
       stock figure.
   Q.  I don't follow, Mr Latif.  It did change the Horizon
       stock level, didn't it?
   A.  What do you mean, sir?
   Q.  The figure on Horizon for what the stock level should be
       changed when you put through the transaction correction,
       didn't it?
   A.  No, as I say, my statement says that the correction was
       £1,000, but it didn't work.  The TC should have reduced
       the stock, but it didn't.  The TA added it twice, the TC
       should have taken it away.  The TC did not take it away.
       Sometimes the TCs take them away, sometimes they add
       them.  You either get a credit, or you get an invoice.
       So the TCs work in two separate ways.
   Q.  Okay, maybe it is unhelpful to focus on the word
       "worked", but what you say is that the Horizon figure
       for scratchcards went up by 1,000 but of course the
       physical number didn't change.  That's the point you're
       making?
   A.  I think I may need to explain how that works.  I think
       you are getting confused.  Can I just explain how
       scratchcards work, your Honour?
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Well, I think I understand how they
       work.  I'm pretty sure Mr Draper does, but maybe
       Mr Draper will just in summary form put it to you so
       that you can agree it or disagree it.
           Mr Draper.
   MR DRAPER:  It may be the best thing to do, Mr Latif, is to
       get a short statement on this from a Post Office
       witness.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  No, I don't think so.
   MR DRAPER:  Sorry, I mean to go to the statement and we can
       agree the text.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  By all means if you have got one, yes.
   MR DRAPER:  If you can turn please to Ms van den Bogerd's
       witness statement at {E2/5/8} and at paragraph 25 -- do
       you see that, Mr Latif?  Can you read paragraph 25 to
       yourself please just in your head.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  That's about the PING fix, isn't it?
   A.  Okay.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  We were on transaction corrections.
   MR DRAPER:  I believe he wanted me to take him through how
       one gets a TC for scratchcards and to what it relates.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  I don't believe he did, but we will let
       him read that and then you can put your question.
           Mr Draper, you're going to have to pay attention to
       what his answers are.  This is incredibly slow going.
       How much longer are you going to be with the witness?
   MR DRAPER:  I would say about 15 to 20 minutes.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  All right.
           (Pause).
   MR DRAPER:  Then, Mr Latif, over the page {E2/5/9} --
   A.  Okay.
   Q.  -- Ms Van den Bogerd at 26.6 is referring to the process
       you described earlier, that scratchcards are first
       activated on the lottery terminal and then at 26.7, if
       you could read that to yourself, she describes the
       process for TAs and I'm just putting this to you because
       I think we agree about that process, so if you could
       read 26.7 to yourself please.
           (Pause).
           Are you there yet, Mr Latif, the end of
       paragraph 26.7?
   A.  I am.
   Q.  What she says there is right, isn't it?
   A.  She does.
   Q.  Can I ask you to then go forward to paragraph 98, which
       is at {E2/5/24}.  What Ms van den Bogerd says there is
       that the problem in your branch started -- I'm
       summarising, but the problem in your branch started when
       your branch received two TAs on 18 January 2018 and she
       says that they were mistakenly negative in value when
       they should have been positive.  Do you follow that?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  Do you accept --
   A.  Positive has corrected a negative (inaudible) is what we
       have to put the money into the Post Office till.
   Q.  Precisely.  And she is explaining that was Post Office's
       mistake when it made the TA.  Someone put a minus when
       they shouldn't have.  Do you follow?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  And she says that's what started this problem in your
       branch.  Do you accept that?
   A.  I do.
   Q.  The mistake in the transaction acknowledgment would have
       been apparent and obvious from looking at the
       transaction acknowledgment itself, wouldn't it?
   A.  I don't follow.
   Q.  Well, if the transaction acknowledgment was negative
       rather than positive you would see that --
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  -- when you looked at it?
   A.  We would look into our stock figure and yes, our stock
       figure would be negative, so in this case the £10
       scratchcard, which is what that TA refers to, it would
       have been negative.
   Q.  Yes.  I think you're saying after the TA you had
       a negative balance of scratchcards on Horizon, is that
       right?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  But that happened, Mr Latif, because the TA was negative
       and I'm suggesting that that would be obvious from
       looking at the TA.  Do you follow?
   A.  Well, yes, because we -- it was done twice.  It would
       have been obvious, yes, it would be a negative figure,
       but what you're saying about -- what Mrs Van den Bogerd
       is saying is that the transaction was done twice, the TA
       was done twice in error.  So our stockholding would gone
       negative.
   Q.  We agree that point, Mr Latif.  Your stockholding for
       scratchcards went negative.  It did that because of the
       negative TA.  That's common ground.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Ms van den Bogerd is not saying that there was a mistake
       made duplicating a transaction acknowledgment, she is
       just saying it was negative when it should have been
       positive and I think you have agreed that?
   A.  Yes, I do.  When we (inaudible) like that to the shop,
       it is activated on a lottery machine, that's a message
       that goes back that means we have to pay for that
       scratchcard to the Post Office.  Okay?  And that got
       negative, so when we do the TA we then have to send that
       scratchcard to the system to make it positive, manually.
       We put the money in at the same time, so the TA was sent
       in twice.
   Q.  Okay.  We will disagree on that and I will come back to
       the precise mechanism --
   A.  Well, you can check.
   Q.  -- in a moment.  The point I wanted to make -- and it is
       no big criticism, Mr Latif, but the point is you were at
       your branch required to check the TAs and Post Office
       made a mistake and you missed the mistake; is that fair?
   A.  How do you say we missed the mistake?  Because memo view
       said the Post Office will issue a TC, a transaction
       correction, to correct their mistake.  What I'm saying
       is that that TC didn't work.  Our stock figure stayed,
       where it should have basically gone into the positive,
       so rather than being negative it should have gone back
       to zero and it did not (inaudible) and that's why the TC
       failed.
   Q.  Can I ask you then to look at paragraph 99 of
       Ms van den Bogerd --
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Before you do that, Mr Draper, it is now
       5 past 1.  I don't know if you are paying any attention
       to the time, but what's your attention, to plough on
       until you have finished, or to take stock, or -- we have
       to in some way address the fact this is a time limited
       trial.
   MR DRAPER:  Of course, my Lord.  My intention was to see
       whether Mr Latif agrees with paragraph 99 because that
       then will determine how much more I need to show him.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Well, in terms of timing for your
       cross-examination?
   MR DRAPER:  Oh, forgive me.  15 to 20 minutes.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Well, it was 15 to 20 minutes when
       I asked you 15 to 20 minutes ago.
   MR DRAPER:  Well then --
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Is your intention --
   MR DRAPER:  It will have to be, my Lord.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Is your intention just that we sit here
       until you have finished and then we have a break, or we
       have a short break for the transcribers now for
       ten minutes and then come back?
   MR DRAPER:  No, my Lord.  My intention was to show Mr Latif
       paragraph 99 which will then determine how much more
       cross-examination is needed on this area and then break.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Right, we will do that then.
   MR DRAPER:  Mr Latif, can you read to yourself paragraph 99
       of Ms van den Bogerd's statement please.
           (Pause).
   A.  Yes, okay.
   Q.  Do you agree with what she says there about what
       happened next?
   A.  I agree that you cannot roll over with a negative stock
       figure, Horizon does not allow you to do that.
   Q.  Do you agree with the rest of it?
   A.  I do.
   Q.  Thank you.
           That is an appropriate moment, I think, my Lord.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Right and you think another 15 to
       20 minutes.
   MR DRAPER:  I do.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Right, Mr Latif, I know you are in
       a different time zone.  Usually we would have a break
       now in the middle of the day.  Can you tell me what the
       time is there please?  What time of day is it?
   A.  It is just going on 10 past 6, your Honour.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  In the evening, yes?
   A.  In the evening, yes, your Honour.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Now, are you all right to have a short
       break for about 40, 45 minutes and come back, or would
       you prefer to keep going now until we finish your
       evidence?
   A.  Your Honour, I would really appreciate your help if we
       continue to finish so I can get back.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  All right.  Well, what we're going to do
       then is just have a five minute break for the shorthand
       writers and then we're going to continue.  On the basis
       that this gentleman is on the videolink from Pakistan,
       Mr Draper, I think that's the best thing to do.  So if
       I can say we have a break until let's say quarter past
       and then we will come back and then Mr Draper is going
       to complete your evidence, all right?
   A.  Thank you.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  So that's about six minutes.
   (1.10 pm)
                          (Short Break)
   (1.15 pm)
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Mr Draper.
   MR DRAPER:  Mr Latif, before the break you agreed with
       paragraphs 98 and 99 of Ms van den Bogerd's witness
       statement {E2/5/24}.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  I wonder whether you could read to yourself also
       paragraph 100 and tell me whether you agree with that
       please.
           (Pause).
   A.  Okay, yes.
   Q.  You agree that, Mr Latif?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  Can I ask you then to read paragraph 101, starting at
       the bottom of the page and please do indicate when you
       would like the page turned.
           (Pause).
   A.  Okay, page please {E2/5/25}.
           (Pause).
   Q.  Have you done with paragraph 101, Mr Latif?
   A.  I am.
   Q.  Do you agree with that paragraph as well?
   A.  I do.
   Q.  Do you then agree, Mr Latif, with the conclusion that
       Ms van den Bogerd draws in paragraph 102?  If you read
       that to yourself please.
           (Pause).
   A.  Okay.
   Q.  Do you agree that that's the position, Mr Latif: it was
       a confusing situation, but once the data has all been
       analysed, Ms van den Bogerd is right about what
       happened?
   A.  Can I just confirm, there was an audit done in September
       of this year, an audit by a Post Office trained auditor,
       and my stockholding was still showing negative.  And
       a Jane Lawrence is the auditor and she has -- still
       could not resolve this matter, so the problem hasn't
       gone away, the problem is still there.  And there have
       been a number of calls to the helpline to resolve that
       negative stock and it hasn't worked.  They haven't come
       back with a response.
   Q.  Mr Latif, the evidence of Ms van den Bogerd that you
       have just agreed is correct, at least up to
       paragraph 101, is that the initial mistake by
       Post Office caused the branch to have a negative stock
       level, you agree?
   A.  Yes, correct.
   Q.  Your branch then carried out a sales reversal that
       addressed the stock level but created a cash surplus;
       that's right?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  The transaction correction from Post Office then
       adjusted the stock level but because of your reversal it
       didn't put the branch back how it should have been.  Do
       you follow that?
   A.  Yes, okay, go on.
   Q.  So in effect the transaction correction cancelled out
       the mistaken transaction acknowledgment, do you agree
       with that?
   A.  That's what it's supposed to do.
   Q.  But the problem was that because of the reversal in your
       branch, you would need to undo that reversal before the
       branch would be back as it should have been?  That's
       Ms van den Bogerd's evidence.
   A.  I still state that an independent audit was done by the
       Post Office, a Mrs Jane Lawrence, in September 2018 the
       stockholding was still negative and as the branch was
       handed over to another subpostmaster that is going to be
       investigated, it's going to be investigated.  If you are
       now coming back with this evidence, I still say that
       there is a problem somewhere and I don't know what's
       happened but we have still got a negative stock figure
       within our branch.
   Q.  Mr Latif, that's inconsistent with the evidence that you
       have just agreed is correct about what the transaction
       correction did, isn't it?
   A.  Well, that's what it's supposed to do, but what it did
       is a different thing.  I mean that's what it is supposed
       to do.
   Q.  Why do you not mention the audit in your witness
       statement?
   A.  Well, I'm just saying that the stock figure is wrong and
       the till is wrong, so it's a fact.  I mean you should
       know, the Post Office should know they did an audit of
       this.  I have complained, we made a number of calls to
       the helpline.  We rang Camelot as well to address the
       issue and they just haven't got back to us.  I told them
       we had an audit coming, "You need to do it before the
       audit" and if you check the call logs there will be
       a number of call logs to the helpline about these
       scratchcards.  I'm sure you have those.
   Q.  Mr Latif, what Post Office will submit about this
       problem with transaction acknowledgements and
       transaction corrections in 2018 is that there were
       a series of human errors that led to a problem in your
       branch that was quite hard to get to the bottom of, but
       that did not involve any computer bug or error in
       Horizon.  Do you agree?
   A.  I agree, but the fact remains that an independent audit
       happened and the stock we were holding was still
       negative, so how do you explain that, sir?
   Q.  Mr Latif, I'm sorry to go back.  It's not entirely clear
       from your answer whether you did agree with me or not.
       Do you agree that the problem with transaction
       acknowledgements and transaction corrections can be
       explained by human errors and that there was not a bug
       or error in Horizon involved in that problem?
   A.  The human error is when the Post Office, or Camelot,
       PINGed the information to our terminal, duplicated the
       information.  That's the human error.  We then, to
       balance the office, had to do a number of transactions
       to correct that cock-up, if I may use that word,
       my Lord.  So, yes, there was a mistake that was made,
       but I still stress it was on Post Office's side, or
       Camelot who are their partner.
           So the fact remains there was an independent audit
       happened by your Post Office -- by Post Office's
       auditor, her recommendation was that they look into it
       as is (inaudible) the strategy is still there.  And
       there were a number of calls to the helpline pleading
       with them to resolve this issue before the audit and
       there will be a complete trail of that, sir.
   Q.  I'm going to leave the transaction correction issue now
       and turn to some final points.
           At paragraphs 15 and 18 of your witness statement
       {E1/1/3}, Mr Latif, you make a number of very general
       allegations about Horizon.  Do you see those?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  I can't meaningfully challenge you on those because
       there is no detail for me to engage with, but I just
       formally make clear that Post Office does not accept
       that what you say there is correct.  Do you follow that?
   A.  Okay, I accept the Post Office explanation, but that's
       not my experience.  I think you have to accept that as
       well please.
   Q.  Mr Latif, we saw earlier a mistake in your branch.  Do
       you remember the remming error with the cheque?  Do you
       recall seeing that?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  If we could go back to the call log please at
       {F/1829.1}, and if we could go please to row 172.
       Mr Latif, this is a record of a call from your branch,
       Caddington, on 26 March 2018 and we get that from
       column D and the content of the call is shown at
       column M and it says there at M:
           "Thursday: customer wanted to withdraw £1,000 but
       did as a deposit so now £2,000 down."
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  So what happened there, Mr Latif, was the assistant
       processed on Horizon a deposit for £1,000, that's right?
   A.  Can I just stop you there.  That incident, a customer
       came in, distracted the counter clerk, okay, made
       comments about her, made her feel uneasy.  There were
       two buttons next to each other on Horizon, one to the
       left, one to the right, so she pressed the wrong button,
       okay.  We -- instead of withdrawing money we put money
       into his account.  So rather than taking £1,000 out of
       his account, in fact the button hit was the deposit
       button, so we put £1,000 into his account.  So the
       shortfall was £2,000.  That same night when we did the
       cash declaration, we realised the mistake, we checked
       the CCTV and proved that the customer -- in fact the
       wrong transaction occurred.  I personally contacted the
       customer, the customer refunded us the money and that is
       the correct procedure followed to make sure that the
       money was put back into the system.
   Q.  Mr Latif, prior to that resolution that you were able to
       reach there will have been a £2,000 shortfall within the
       branch, wouldn't there?
   A.  (Inaudible) yes, but before the next balancing period.
   Q.  If we go --
   A.  The customer put the money back, sir.
   Q.  If we can go to row 182 please.  We see there a mistake
       where someone -- you or one of your assistants -- has
       accidently entered a council tax bill for £13 as £130,
       so what I would call a miskey error.
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  So it's fair to say, isn't it, Mr Latif, that there were
       errors and mistakes in this your branch of that kind
       that could lead to shortfalls?
   A.  I would say that every branch has shortfalls, sir.
       Everybody is human.  We all make mistakes, but most
       mistakes are corrected.  However, with software glitches
       you cannot correct those.
   Q.  One conclusion point, Mr Latif.  Do you accept that
       everything you complain of in your witness statement can
       be explained by human errors, whether Post Office
       errors, or errors in your branch, and might not have
       involved any bug or error in Horizon?
   A.  No, no.  I would say some errors are human error, but
       there is also a bug in the Post Office system and that's
       my evidence, sir.
   Q.  Just one short last point, Mr Latif, just to confirm.
       Post Office's position is that you ceased to be the
       subpostmaster of the Caddington branch in September of
       last year.  That's right, isn't it?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  Was it --
   A.  That's -- the date it happened -- 27 September is when
       the audit was.
   Q.  It doesn't matter, but Post Office records suggest it
       was the 26th, but it doesn't matter, Mr Latif.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Is it therefore a mistake in your witness statement that
       you failed to correct when you say in paragraph 1 that
       you are currently the subpostmaster?
   A.  I did discuss that with the -- my solicitor and they
       said because the incident happened while I was in charge
       it didn't really matter.
   Q.  Thank you, Mr Latif.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Re-examination?
   MR GREEN:  My Lord, I'm just going to ask -- because he's
       got a four hour drive home I'm going to ask two --
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  I'm not encouraging any.
   MR GREEN:  But I need to do some.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  I'm not stopping you, but he has been in
       the witness box for three hours.
   MR GREEN:  Precisely.  So, my Lord, I was just going to
       explain, I'm asking two indicative questions.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Yes.
                    Re-examination by MR GREEN
   MR GREEN:  Could you be shown the transcript please at
       page 40, line 15.  Sorry, Mr Latif, just bear with us
       a second.  We're just trying to find the transcript --
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  You can just read out the question and
       answer if you want.
   MR GREEN:  At page 40, line 15 {Day2/40:15} Mr Draper asked
       you:
           "Question: If we could call up the call log
       please ..."
               Which is at 1829.1, which we will look at
           in a moment.  And then it says:
           "Question: ... row 89 and looking over to column D,
       that gives a date of 29 June 2015 which is the first
       entry on this log for June?"
           And you will remember his Lordship spotted that
       there were some dates which were out of order.  Could
       the operator please go to that document 1829.1
       {F/1829.1}.  And could you please enable editing and
       filter by date please, sort by date, sort and filter,
       custom sort, sort by created date.  "Okay".  And please
       can you then look at row 95.  Can you see that's
       actually 22 June?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  And if we go across to the right we can see in rows L
       and M the caller is identified as Chris and it says:
           "Customer rang as she is trying to complete
       an existing reversal on a rem in.  She is using the
       session ID and it is not accepting and coming up with an
       error message 'unable to reserve as remmed as product in
       AD'."
           Do you have any recollection as at today what that
       was about?
   A.  To be perfectly honest, I don't.
   Q.  Okay, thank you.
           Then could we just use the duplicate of that
       spreadsheet please that you had, the unfiltered one.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Whereabouts are we going?
   MR GREEN:  We're going to be going to row 167, my Lord, in
       the original version.
           If we can go down to row 167 very kindly and look at
       167, that's 25 January 2018.
   A.  Okay.
   Q.  Now, Mr Latif, you mentioned there were a number of
       calls about the issue.
   A.  Yes.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  Can we go across to row M first please.  Let's pause,
       "Description":
           "TC received for launch of £10 x 100 scratchcard
       games ... only received 50 ... if we accept the TC, will
       cause a discrepancy?"
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Can you remember what that was about?
   A.  That's it, that's the -- the thing we discussed earlier
       on.
   Q.  Can you go to the right to column U please, "Resolution
       details", we have only got a certain amount of text in
       this box.  It says:
           "Sent below email to P&BA team:
           "Good afternoon, I have received a call from
       0561347 ..."
           Is that your FAD code?
   A.  That is my branch, sir, yes, my FAD code.
   Q.  "... Caddington office, disputing the TC they received
       this morning relating to the issue of the £10 game 1100
       scratchcards."
           I think that should say 100 scratchcards, should it?
   A.  It should say 100, sir.
   Q.  Okay, just a miskeying error.
           "The TC received says that they should have had ..."
           Can you remember what came back?
   A.  That is the problem: nothing came back from Camelot.
       And again we kept chasing them, we kept chasing the
       Post Office and nothing came back until September the
       audit happened.  Thank you, sir.
   Q.  Thank you very much, Mr Latif.
           I don't know whether his Lordship has any questions?
                 Questions from MR JUSTICE FRASER
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  I just have a couple of questions which
       will be quite quick.
           I think you said the audit was carried out -- was
       the lady called Jane Lawrence?
   A.  She was, my Lord.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Jane Lawrence.  And when the audit
       happened in September 2018 was Mr Jando still your line
       manager, or was it somebody else?
   A.  No, Navjot still was just there.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  All right.  Thank you very much for
       giving up so much time and being cross-examined on the
       videolink and that's now the end of your evidence.
   A.  Thank you, sir.  Thank you, my Lord.  Thank you for your
       time.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Right.  We're going to come back at
       quarter past 2.  There's going to have to be a somewhat
       different approach in terms of timing.  We are supposed
       to have three possibly four witnesses today.  I don't
       think -- if the other witnesses take as long as that
       witness we're just going to massively run out of time.
           Also I would have thought things like a notice or
       a memo view ought really to be, if they are contentious,
       explored in advance.  I imagine the Post Office will be
       able to produce a list of the memo views that were sent
       out in January 2018.  I would like that to be done
       please.  I'm not going to make an order but we will
       revisit that on Wednesday morning and if it is going to
       be difficult then I can have an explanation then and
       I might make an order, but there's no point having
       disputes of fact where there are none, because there are
       enough genuine disputes of fact in this case it seems to
       me.
           We will come back at quarter past 2.  So who is your
       next -- just remind me your next witness?
   MR GREEN:  It is Mr Tank, my Lord.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Mr Tank and then after that if we reach
       them it is one of the --
   MR GREEN:  Anup Patny.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Which is Mr Patny senior.
           All right, so quarter past 2.
   (1.40 pm)
                    (The luncheon adjournment)
   (2.15 pm)
   MR GREEN:  My Lord, I'm going to call Mr Tank, if I may.
                    MR JAYESH TANK (affirmed)
                 Examination-in-chief by MR GREEN
   MR GREEN:  Mr Tank, there should be a witness bundle there
       in front of you.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  If you turn to tab 6 please {E1/6/1} you should see
       a witness statement there with your name on it.
   A.  That's right.
   Q.  And if you go to page 3 of that witness statement
       there's a signature {E1/6/3}.  Is that your signature?
   A.  It is.
   Q.  And do you believe the contents of that statement to be
       true, subject to what you have dealt with in your
       subsequent one?
   A.  Absolutely.
   Q.  Can we look please at your supplemental statement which
       is tab 11 {E1/11/1}.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  If we go over to page 2 {E1/11/2}, you deal there with
       having read Ms van den Bogerd's second witness statement
       and enquiries that you then followed up in the light of
       that?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And you have then dealt with the £195.04 issue she
       referred to in 2011?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And then you have dealt with the £600 issue and you have
       said there it was in 2014.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  You have originally said that was 2011.
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  Subject to those matters do you believe these statements
       together to be true?
   A.  I do.
   Q.  I'm most grateful.
                Cross-examination by MR HENDERSON
   MR HENDERSON:  Mr Tank, good afternoon.
   A.  Good afternoon.
   Q.  Hopefully you can see the screen to your right which has
       the documents on it.  Is that clear enough for you
       there?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Great.  Can you first of all just tell us a little bit
       about the nature of the branch where you were the
       subpostmaster.
   A.  Of course, we were a two-counter rural post office.  We
       offered almost the entire suite of Post Office products
       and services, everything apart from the AEI, identity
       checking machine.  I considered it to be a busy branch.
       It was a high turnover, lots of cash coming in, lots of
       cash going out, a full range of transactions as well.
   Q.  And is it a retail premises as well?
   A.  It was -- we had a small retail premises attached to the
       post office and that sold gifts, cards, stationary.
   Q.  And there are two counters, you said?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And so how many assistants did you have?
   A.  Over the course of ...
   Q.  Generally?
   A.  Generally it would just be myself, my wife and possibly
       one other member of staff.
   Q.  Right.  Now, you have given two witness statements, as
       you have just been taken to, and you have dealt with
       three events.  There is a power cut which you say led to
       a loss of £600?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  A shortfall of £195.04?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And you have some observations about label transactions?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  So I want to deal with each of those in turn.
   A.  Okay.
   Q.  First of all, in your second witness statement which you
       provided a few weeks ago you tell us that when you saw
       Ms van den Bogerd's evidence responding to your first
       statement you thought you would have a look at the forum
       group that you used to use?
   A.  That's correct.
   Q.  And you call that the list?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Is that something that's notorious amongst
       subpostmasters?
   A.  I wouldn't call it notorious.
   Q.  Well-known?
   A.  Well-known, yes.
   Q.  Can you tell me, can you tell us, tell his Lordship,
       a little bit about what that forum was used for?
   A.  The forum, it was just a space where subpostmasters
       could share information, knowledge, advice.
   Q.  If the operator could go to {F/1257.1}.  This I think is
       the extracts of the forum that you attached to your
       second witness statement?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And if we could just scroll through that -- I will come
       back to some individual entries, but just scroll through
       that.  We can see -- actually just before we scroll
       through, I assume your username is jaytank23, is that
       right?
   A.  That's correct.
   Q.  And if we just page down -- I will come back to that
       particular entry, but if we just page down just to get
       a feel for the sort of thing that's being said, so
       people come on and they say "I've got a bit of a problem
       can you help" and other people chip in and say "The same
       thing happened to me" and so forth?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  How often did you personally post things on the forum do
       you think?
   A.  Not very often.
   Q.  Would you generally post whenever you had a problem?
   A.  No.
   Q.  Some of the time when you had a problem?
   A.  Some of the time, yes.
   Q.  How often did you look at it?
   A.  Every day.
   Q.  Every day.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  So you were well aware that this was something which was
       relevant to the nature of issues being faced by
       postmasters?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And when you prepared your first witness statement you
       obviously knew this resource existed, didn't you?
   A.  I did.
   Q.  And it is plain that it is relevant to your evidence,
       isn't it?
   A.  It is.
   Q.  Why didn't you think to look for this material when you
       were preparing your first witness statement?
   A.  Because my first witness statement was I think short,
       brief, and it was just my way of -- I didn't really
       fully research the whole background regarding it, I just
       put my statement in.
   Q.  Can I just press you a little bit on that.  You
       understand that what's being said in this case, by you
       amongst many others, is that you carried out certain
       very specific actions which you did correctly and that
       the Post Office is at fault, or the Horizon system is at
       fault?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  So it is important, isn't it, to have been precise in
       the evidence that you give?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And I'm just wondering why you didn't make some effort
       to find what was plainly a relevant document in putting
       forward what you agree to be the need for precise
       evidence?
   A.  Because I didn't -- I didn't feel that my information in
       my initial witness statement was going to be taken any
       further, so I -- it wasn't as important as it now has
       become.
   Q.  Were you asked to look for relevant documents?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And what effort did you make to find them?
   A.  I kept all my Post Office sort of related paperwork in
       a box file and that's -- when I was asked to look for
       evidence I went strictly to that box file and that's
       where I sourced all my information from.
   Q.  Can we look at your second witness statement {E1/11/2}
       in paragraph 6.  Your evidence there is you hadn't
       looked at this previously:
           "... as I did not think I would be able to access
       the forum group and it did not seem relevant."
           Can you just explain how on earth you could conclude
       that it wouldn't seem relevant?
   A.  Sorry, can you ask the question again.
   Q.  How did you reach the conclusion that the forum posts
       would not be relevant?
   A.  I didn't reach that conclusion.
   Q.  Well, you say in paragraph 6, Mr Tank:
           "... I did not think I would be able to access the
       forum group and it did not seem relevant."
           I'm just wondering how you reached that conclusion?
   A.  Because when I made my first initial witness statement
       I wasn't aware of £195.04 loss, that information only
       came to light after reading Ms van den Bogerd's
       statement.
   Q.  But you were putting forward evidence, Mr Tank, about
       various matters including a number of matters that you
       now say you got the date wrong in relation to?
   A.  I wasn't aware that my first initial witness statement
       was evidence.  I thought it was just a witness
       statement.  I thought ... yes, that's what I thought.
       I didn't think it was --
   Q.  Is your evidence that you didn't take care over the
       preparation of your first witness statement?
   A.  I did.
   Q.  But not much?
   A.  It was very general.  My original witness statement --
       I was just trying to get the point across -- because
       I was referring back to my memory as well, I couldn't
       realise the importance of what was important as -- it is
       only subsequently after finding the information and
       having -- being able to go back into -- it was only
       a few weeks ago that I managed to get back into the
       forum.  I left my post office in 2016, so I stopped
       visiting the forum.
   Q.  Right.  Ms van den Bogerd's statement is dated
       16 November 2018.  You can take that from me.  We can
       look at it, but take that from me.  And your second
       statement that you have just referred to is dated
       27 February 2019, so just over three months later, after
       Ms van den Bogerd's statement.  When did you first think
       to look at the forum?
   A.  It would have been a matter of weeks ago.  I can get
       more specific if I go into my email history.
   Q.  All right, well, let's turn now to the power cut.
       I would like to ask you some questions about the power
       cut.
   A.  Okay.
   Q.  And there's some confusion about this, at least on my
       part which may be my fault, but let me go through it in
       the way that I understand it.
           Could we first of all have a look at your first
       witness statement at {E1/6/3} and we can see there that
       that was signed on 28 September 2018 and on the first
       page, page 1 of that {E1/6/1}, you say the information
       is true to the best of your knowledge and belief and in
       paragraph 6, which is on the second page {E1/6/2}, you
       give evidence that a power cut occurred and that while
       you could not recall the specific date, it "definitely
       occurred in or around 2010-2011".  Do you see that?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Now, why were you able to say that it definitely
       occurred in those dates?
   A.  Because when I went to the box file that I mentioned
       earlier there would have been a handwritten note
       somewhere in amongst that that would refer to that
       incident and that's what led me to believe that that was
       the particular date.
   Q.  You now say -- and we're only talking about the £600
       here, all right?  The incident relating to the £600.
       Do you agree?
   A.  I think so, yes.
   Q.  You now say that that event that you describe in your
       first witness statement did not in fact take place in
       2010 to 2011, but actually took place three or four
       years later on 16 September 2014.  That's your evidence
       I think?
   A.  I -- yes.
   Q.  Can you just assist with how you came to make that
       error?  It's a big lump of time, isn't it?  There's
       a big, big difference, a four year difference -- three
       or four year difference.  How did you come to make that
       error?
   A.  I just must have misjudged it.  It was a failing in my
       recollection.
   Q.  Anyway, your evidence, as I understand it -- I'm not
       sure that this is right but I want to put it to you
       fairly.  Your evidence as I understand it is that you
       say that that is the only mistake you made in relation
       to the alleged loss of £600.  In every other respect the
       facts set out in your first witness statement you say
       are accurate, is that right?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  So your evidence is there was a power cut
       in September 2014, a complete electrical failure to the
       entire building, yes?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  There was a transaction for a withdrawal from
       a customer's Post Office card account for exactly £600?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  At the end of the day you had a shortfall of exactly
       £600?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And you rang the help desk and told them about the power
       cut but they said there were no problems?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  And your evidence remains that you investigated this at
       the time and even tried to contact the customer, but
       that she had passed away.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Presumably within a few days of coming into the branch?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And, again, whereas before you thought that the customer
       had passed away in 2010/2011 --
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  -- he or she passed away four years later.  Okay, well,
       I'm going to come to the detail of that in a moment, but
       just one small point before I carry on.  One of your
       complaints is that you had to look at -- and in fact it
       is still on the screen, it's in paragraph 9 {E1/6/2}.
       You investigated this event and you complained that you
       had to look at a very long report in order to see what
       had happened.  You say it was 15 to 18 feet long.
   A.  That's correct.
   Q.  A couple of points.  First of all, you were as a matter
       of fact you say able to work out what happened, weren't
       you, from looking at this report?
   A.  No.  Because then -- if I was able to look at what
       happened then I might have an idea what happened to the
       £600.
   Q.  We will come on to look at that.  But you didn't have to
       print that, did you, you could have looked at it on the
       screen?
   A.  Yes, but the length of the report and the screen would
       mean you would probably have to page down over 100
       times.
   Q.  But you could have filtered it in various ways,
       couldn't you?
   A.  I could have filtered it, yes.
   Q.  The point is that the impression that your evidence
       gives is that you had to print out this comically long
       document and go through it, but you didn't have to do
       that, did you?
   A.  No.
   Q.  And you have now been reminded that you went onto the
       forum to complain about this, so can we have a look at
       the forum entries which prompted your memory.  That's
       {F/1257.6}.  And just while that is being turned up,
       I think you will agree -- I think perhaps you have
       already agreed and apologies if I'm repeating myself,
       but the point of going on to the forum is to try and get
       assistance from other subpostmasters presumably?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  And in order to do that I imagine you would generally
       give them as much information as possible?
   A.  Yes.
   MR GREEN:  Do you mean point 1 at page 6?
   MR HENDERSON:  I do, yes.  I'm very grateful to my learned
       friend.  It is 1257.1 at page 6 {F/1257.1/6}.
           At the top quite helpfully in red we can see your
       entries and this is what has prompted your memory about
       the correct date, as I understand it?
   A.  I think so, yes.
   Q.  And you say:
           "I too have had a recent unexplained loss of c.£600
       on 16 September.  Settled centrally on 17 September."
           And so forth.  You don't say anywhere on that that
       there had been a power cut, do you?
   A.  No.
   Q.  And why is that?
   A.  I just omitted it.
   Q.  You just referred to an unexplained loss?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Now, again just to put this in context, if we go to --
       we may have to flip backwards and forwards a little bit
       so apologies, but the actual shortfall which the
       Post Office write to you about is at 1262.1 {F/1262.1}
       and that is actually in the amount of £660.  Do you
       recall that?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Not 600.
           Now if I could ask the operator to go to {F/1257.4}
       and if you could enable editing I think that makes it
       easier to manipulate.
           As far as the Post Office can tell there was no
       power cut on that day, all right?
           And if the operator could go -- if you go into the
       top left-hand box that says A8, if you type in 11676 --
       I think you may need to keep the "A" in to tell it that
       it is the row.  It is at the bottom of the page.  Is it
       possible to bring it up to the top and if you go to the
       right, keeping the tab in that row, row 11676 -- can you
       scroll right.
           We can see in red there a transaction for £600, do
       you see that?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And there's another transaction after it for another
       £600?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Now, Post Office say that if there had been a power cut
       at or around this time they would expect it to either
       see no activity for a period of time --
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  -- or certain repeat events such as two sequential
       log ons performed by the same user in a short period of
       time, but no log off in-between.  In other words, there
       are certain indications of where there has been a power
       outage.  Do you see that?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And when we come on to look at one, the £195.04, we will
       see those indications.
   A.  Okay.
   Q.  But we don't see those indications here.  Do you accept
       that?
   A.  I do.
   Q.  We could, for your Lordship's note, also -- I don't
       suggest we necessarily need to go to it, but we can also
       look at a slightly different spreadsheet which is the
       events data spreadsheet at {F/1257.5} rows 4171 to 4457
       and again one would expect to see evidence of outage
       around row 4253.  I'm just putting that in the
       transcript, my Lord, I don't think we necessarily need
       to go to it, it's the same point.
           So there's no evidence from Post Office's point of
       view of any outage, power cut at this point.
           Could we have a look at your amended schedule of
       information which is --
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Before you do that and you don't need to
       take me there, but is there a document similar to that
       that does show how a power outage would appear?
   MR HENDERSON:  Yes, my Lord, and we're coming to it.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  All right.
   MR HENDERSON:  Could you look at your amended schedule of
       information, {F/1717.1}.  Now, you will recall that this
       is the document that each of the claimants, including
       you, have had to fill in to give a summary of your
       claim.  Do you recall this?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And I think you have signed this, haven't you?
   A.  I think so.
   Q.  If we look at page 4 in section 2.4 {F/1717.1/4}, it is
       the big paragraph in the middle, you say:
           "When the branch incurred a shortfall, I didn't
       always contact the Helpline as I did not trust the
       advice which I received.  Sometimes, after a few days,
       the shortfall would resolve itself in any case but if it
       didn't, I would try to resolve the issue myself by
       contacting other post Office representatives.  I recall
       that on one occasion there was a shortfall of around
       £600 which I knew could not be right. There had been
       a power failure when we were processing the transaction
       which, to my knowledge, did not complete."
           Do you see that?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Just for completeness and to be clear, you don't refer,
       for perfectly understandable reasons, in this schedule
       of information to the £195.04 incident because you were
       reminded of that by Ms van den Bogerd's evidence?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  But if we look at page 5, the following page
       {F/1717.1/5}, at section 3.1, at the very bottom you are
       talking about apparent or alleged shortfalls and in the
       bottom paragraph it says:
           "I recall that there were also unexplained cash
       shortfalls of ... [various numbers] in May 2008 and also
       £660 in August 2014."
           Do you see that?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Now, this is part of where I am confused, because your
       evidence here is that there are two events.  One is
       a power cut on a date that you don't specify which led
       to a loss of £600 which we saw on page 4, do you
       remember?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And the other is a separate incident in August 2014 for
       £660 but again no mention of a power cut.  Can you
       explain the anomaly?
   A.  The fact that I didn't mention the power cut?
   Q.  Well, you do mention a power cut -- I apologise -- if
       I'm taking it too quickly, I apologise.  Your evidence
       now is that there was a power cut in September 2014
       which led to a loss of £600.
   A.  Okay.
   Q.  Well, if you disagree say so?
   A.  No, I agree.
   Q.  Okay.  And in this document you refer, as I understand
       it, to two separate incidents.  One is a power cut on
       a date you don't specify, which led to a loss of £600,
       and the other is the loss of £660 in August 2014 and I'm
       just asking if you can explain what appears to be
       a rather strange situation?
   A.  Just confusion, I would ... I was just confused.
   Q.  You are confused.  So are we to take it that the £660
       in August 2014 is caused by the power cut and there's
       only one incident that you meant to refer to in this?
   A.  I couldn't say for sure.  As I tried to explain earlier,
       in drafting my original witness statement I went back to
       my box file and it was filled with various bits of
       paper, different sizes, different formats and with
       handwritten scribbled notes on and that's where I tried
       to piece together the information that I provided in
       this.
   Q.  I'm not trying to trip you up here, Mr Tank, I'm just
       trying to understand what your case is.  Because you
       appear to now be saying that there were two power cuts.
       One was in December 2011 and it resulted in the loss you
       say of £195.04 and you were reminded of it by
       Ms van den Bogerd's statement.  Yes?  That was one power
       cut?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And we will come on to that in a moment, but Post Office
       agrees that that was a power cut.
   A.  I didn't -- no, it wasn't a power cut.  The transaction
       was unable to complete on the £195 because if you --
   Q.  Okay, well, we will come on to that --
   A.  I put the sequence of events, the fact that three
       receipts printed out, so it was a lot more detailed, so
       I'm not sure -- I don't think that was a power cut.  I'm
       not sure if it was a power cut.
   Q.  You're not sure one way or the other, okay.
   A.  I'm not sure if it was a power cut, but the transaction
       was unable to complete.
   Q.  Right.  What I'm trying to test with you is is it
       possible that the evidence that you give in your first
       witness statement about the power cut, power outage,
       actually is evidence that is relevant to the £195.04
       transaction rather than the £600 transaction?
   A.  It could well be, yes.
   Q.  Because my understanding -- well, never mind about my
       understanding.  Is it your suggestion that there have
       been two incidents of outage, if I put it like that: one
       for £195 and one for £600?
   A.  That I'm aware of, yes.
   Q.  Okay.  Well, let's look at -- I'm still talking about
       the £600 transaction at the moment.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Did you use "outage" there meaning
       a power cut, or did you use "outage" as a discrepancy?
   MR HENDERSON:  I mean a failure -- I mean Horizon going
       offline for a moment, as opposed to a power cut to the
       whole shop.
           So let's look at the transaction.  Now, first of
       all, it wasn't you -- this is the £600.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  It wasn't you who carried out this transaction, was it?
   A.  No, it was a member of staff.
   Q.  Louise I think?
   A.  Louise Boneham, yes.
   Q.  So all the evidence you give is based on what Louise
       told you?
   A.  It is, as also with what I viewed over the CCTV.
   Q.  Okay.  You don't mention anything about the CCTV in your
       witness statement I don't think.
   A.  No.
   Q.  Why was that?
   A.  Because this -- after viewing the CCTV it wasn't
       conclusive.  We have seen Louise performing the
       transactions on the computer system, receipts going one
       way, the banking slip coming the other way, everything
       looked in order.  When I phoned to investigate the
       incident they said from what they could see everything
       looked fine: there was a cash withdrawal, there was
       a cash deposit.
   Q.  Well, let's have a look at what might have happened.
       First of all, the relevant transaction for £600 was from
       a Post Office card account, wasn't it?
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  And as I understand it that's quite a basic bank account
       offered by the Post Office?
   A.  Sort of.  The card account is a vehicle for people to
       receive benefits payments from the Government.  The
       daily cash withdrawal limit on a Post Office card
       account is £600.
   Q.  Right and it only offers basic withdrawal services,
       doesn't it, from a post office counter or
       a Bank of Ireland ATM?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  So Post Office card account customers are not able for
       example to deposit money into their account?
   A.  No.
   Q.  To use a debit card facility, or to transfer funds from
       a Post Office card account to another bank institution?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  You agree?
   A.  I do.
   Q.  Thank you.  So if a Post Office card account customer
       needs to transfer money from the POCA account to one of
       the Post Office's partner banks, they will typically
       within the same customer session undertake the following
       transactions: they will complete a cash withdrawal from
       POCA and they will deposit the withdrawn money directly
       into the other account --
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  -- by means perhaps of a debit or deposit card issued by
       that bank?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  There wasn't any other way to do it?
   A.  Well, in this instance it was a little paper paying in
       slip, so we take the paper paying in slip off the
       customer, input the sort code and account number and
       then deposit the cash.
   Q.  Fine.  Let's go back to the ARQ data at 1257.4
       {F/1257.4}.
           Could we go -- again I'm afraid we will have to
       enable editing I think, if we go back to the row
       I looked at before.  Could we go back to -- again if you
       keep the "A" in and you just put 11676.  And again if
       I could trouble you to the bring it to the top of the
       screen I just think it's a bit easier to see.  Thank
       you.  And again if you could go right.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Can we just go left a couple of columns.
   MR HENDERSON:  Yes.  Stop there, that's perfect.
           So what we see here is the red figure is the
       withdrawal of £600 from the Post Office card account,
       yes?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And then below it, immediately, there is a cash deposit
       into a Lloyds Bank?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Now, it's possible, isn't it, that what actually
       happened is that the cash was accidently handed over to
       the customer and also registered as being deposited with
       Lloyds Bank?
   A.  It's possible, but, as I have mentioned, I checked the
       CCTV and we could see what was going backwards and
       forwards across the counter and it was receipts going to
       the customer and a paying in slip coming from the
       customer.
   Q.  Well, Mr Tank, you haven't referred to any CCTV in your
       witness evidence.
   A.  I understand.
   Q.  Which I accept you thought was only provisional but we
       take a bit more seriously.
   A.  Okay.
   Q.  And as far as I'm aware, you haven't given disclosure of
       any CCTV, have you?
   A.  No.
   Q.  Okay.
           (Pause).
           Based on the evidence here, you can't say that what
       I have suggested to you, which is that an error was
       made, a simple user error was made, you can't say that
       didn't occur, can you?
   A.  I can say that.  I can say that there is no cash that
       went over the till.
   Q.  Based on what you tell us you saw on the CCTV?
   A.  Correct, yes.  Obviously I can't evidence that, but ...
   Q.  I'm just wondering how you can be so confident about
       what happened, about this particular transaction when
       you couldn't even get the year right to the tune of four
       years?
   A.  I investigated the loss to the best of my ability.
       I turned to the Post Office for help.  What they told me
       on the telephone was everything looked fine, they could
       see the transaction, they could see the £600 going out,
       they could see the £600 going in.
   Q.  Exactly.
   A.  So that's why it is an unexplained loss, because I can't
       explain it.
   Q.  Well, I understand that it is a frustrating loss, but
       there's a perfectly simple explanation for it which is
       an understandable user error?
   A.  I agree.
   Q.  And you nevertheless come into court and say on oath
       that you are so confident that you did nothing wrong,
       that that didn't happen, because of evidence you have
       seen and we haven't.
   A.  Okay.  Fair point.
   Q.  In a situation where you couldn't, until reminded by
       Post Office, recall the date of the transaction to the
       tune of four years?
   A.  But you have to bear in mind I paid that £600 back.
       I beared that loss.  I never thought that I would
       actually get it back.  My relationship with Post Office
       ended a couple of years ago, so that money was written
       off.  I wrote that money off myself.  I paid that back.
   Q.  I understand that.  But if it was, as I'm suggesting to
       you, or if it's possible that it was a user error then
       you would have to pay it back, wouldn't you?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Now, let's turn then to the shortfall which you did
       report on 13 December 2011 for £195.04 and just to
       recap, this is not one you mentioned in your first
       witness statement but you read Ms van den Bogerd's
       statement and she, just to remind you, said "I can't see
       anything that suggests there was a problem for £600 in
       2010/2011, but it does make sense in a relation to
       a transaction for £195.04".
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And you tell us in your second witness statement -- and
       we can go to it if necessary but I think you have
       already agreed -- that before you saw
       Ms van den Bogerd's evidence you had no real
       recollection of this event at all?
   A.  No.
   Q.  So everything that you are basing it on now is really
       based on the forum, is it?
   A.  It is, yes.
   Q.  Now, this is an example of you, quite understandably,
       contacting the helpline about a shortfall of less than
       £200?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And presumably you would routinely report any
       discrepancy at that sort of level?
   A.  No.
   Q.  Not necessarily?
   A.  No.
   Q.  Why not?
   A.  I wouldn't say routinely, no.
   Q.  Okay, let me put the question more precisely, it is my
       fault.  If you felt that there was an unexplained
       shortfall --
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  -- for something like £200, I'm suggesting it would be
       perfectly understandable and that in the natural course
       of things you would contact Post Office?
   A.  Okay, so if I can just explain about the £195.04.
       Obviously I was reminded about that from --
   Q.  Yes.
   A.  -- looking at the forum posts, which is in red on the
       screen --
   Q.  Yes, we will come to it.
   A.  £195 withdrawal and I state, you know, what happens, the
       screen says "Cash to customer, balance due zero".
       I subsequently then go on to report that I tried to find
       that transaction the following day and there was no
       record of it.  On whatever I could access on my
       terminal, I could not find the £195.04.  After phoning
       the helpline, they were able to find that transaction.
       I think they use a system called Credence which we don't
       have access to.
   Q.  I will come on to all that.  I'm just exploring at the
       moment what your practice was about reporting an
       unexplained shortfall and I'm suggesting that when you
       have got an unexplained shortfall of £200, quite
       understandably you have contacted the helpline.
   A.  Mm-hm.
   Q.  And I'm asking you whether that would be your usual
       practice, if you had an unexplained discrepancy?  You
       might have an explained discrepancy, you might know that
       something went wrong, you remember "Oh, I messed
       something up" or "I know what that's about", but if it
       is an unexplained discrepancy I'm suggesting that at
       that sort of level you would generally report it,
       I imagine?
   A.  I think it's the other way round.  If it was an
       explained then I would report it.  If it's unexplained
       then I'm less likely to report it because it could be
       down to human error.
   Q.  All right, let me put it in a different way then.  If
       you felt it called for some further explanation then you
       would contact the helpline?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And certainly if it was more than a few pounds you would
       do that?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Okay.  So let's have a look again at the forum comments
       which are {F/1257.1}.  This is 13 December 2011:
           "Some advice/help required.
           "Yesterday during HOL failure ..."
           Horizon Online, HOL?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  "... was in process of POCA card withdrawal.
       Transaction seemed to go through okay apart from Horizon
       printing 3 identical receipts.
           "Receipts showed a disconnected session with
       recovery code.  Receipts also showed."
           And you go through total due to customer, blah,
       blah, blah:
           "Because receipts showed cash due to customer. we
       paid out.
           "Come evening balancing till showed approx £200.00
       loss.  Thought at time must be mis-count and will try to
       sort in morn.
           "This morning produced transaction log for the
       period of HOL FAILURE.  No record of 195.04 transaction
       at all!!!!
           "Phoned help-line and was told by very irate member
       of staff that loss is mine unless I can sort out with
       customer directly ..."
           And so forth.  Then at the bottom of the page:
           "What should be my next course of action???
           "Speak to press (is there anything in contract
       preventing me doing this?"
           Then if we can go down the page:
           "Speak to CWU (not member of POLFED anymore)?
           "Speak to Shoesmiths?
           "Try taking POL to small claims court?
           "Any useful suggestions appreciated."
           So you were pretty cross about this by the look of
       things?
   A.  Yes.  In the one hand I have receipts produced by
       Horizon and then the following day when I go to look for
       that transaction there was no record of it.  It was
       very, very frustrating.
   Q.  I understand.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Can we go back to the previous page
       please {F/1257.1}.
   MR HENDERSON:  So what appears to have happened was
       a transaction from Post Office card account was in the
       middle of being processed and so it was in the stack
       presumably.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  But had not yet been posted to Horizon.  So you hadn't
       cashed out on that transaction, you hadn't completed
       everything to do with that transaction?
   A.  On the stack --
   Q.  It's on the stack.
   A.  It's on the stack, but the stack has a balance of zero,
       so to clear the stack you just press "enter" and it goes
       straight --
   Q.  But you hadn't got to the point of clearing the stack?
   A.  I'm not sure.
   Q.  Okay.  My suggestion is that there was probably an
       outage at just the point where the money had been taken
       from Post Office card account but had not been processed
       onto Horizon.  That's my suggestion to you.
   A.  Okay.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Well, is the witness going to be in
       a position to agree or disagree?
   MR HENDERSON:  Well, he might be if he recalled.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Do you recall that happening when there
       were outages?
   A.  No.  I cannot recall.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Were you aware of when outages would
       occur like that?
   A.  Not all the time.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Do you want to put the question again?
   MR HENDERSON:  Yes.  What I'm suggesting is that the cause
       of this problem was that an outage occurred at
       a particular point in time.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  You were in the process of effecting a transaction from
       POCA?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  It was in the stack and it had cleared from POCA?
   A.  Actually you mentioned the word "outage".  I'm not --
       was there a power outage?
   Q.  I'm not sure if it was a power outage, but I think it
       may have been a problem with the system.
   A.  Ah, okay.
   Q.  The system went down in some way.
   A.  So -- yes, because you said that if there's a power
       outage then there's evidence when you have to log back
       in, so did that happen on this occasion?
   Q.  Okay, I want to come to all this and I'm doing this
       clumsily.  What I'm suggesting is that what may have
       happened -- and if you don't recall, you don't recall,
       but what may have happened is that the transaction was
       in the stack, the money had been taken from the
       Post Office card account and before you cleared the
       stack there was an outage.
   A.  Possibly.
   Q.  Okay.
           Let's look at the events data at {F/869.1}.  And if
       we enable editing.
           That is not the document I was expecting.  871.1.
       {F/871.1}.  No, I don't want that.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  What are we looking for, the event data?
   MR HENDERSON:  We are looking at the event data.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Is it 1257.5?  That's just a partly
       educated guess based on ...
   MR GREEN:  I think it is F/869.1 but you have to click on
       the sheet tab.  You were in the summary tab.
   MR HENDERSON:  Right, I couldn't see that.  Thank you very
       much.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  It doesn't show up on the common screen,
       the tabs at the bottom, you can't see them on the common
       screen.
   MR HENDERSON:  I'm so sorry, back to {F/869.1}.  And there
       is I think --
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  I think you have to click on the tab
       before you go full screen, so if you go into half screen
       you will be able to see the tabs at the bottom.  At the
       bottom you will see "Sheet 1", click on "Sheet 1" and
       now expand it.
   MR HENDERSON:  Thank you very much.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Is that what we are after?
   MR HENDERSON:  That is what we are after I believe.
           If you go to the top and type A327, what we see here
       is that you are logged on at 13.39.  Do you see that at
       the top there?
   A.  (Nods).
   Q.  Do you see that?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Okay and then there's a message at 13.40 to say
       "Session ... could not recover".
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And then there's a gap of 22 minutes and there's
       a session receipt at 14.02.  Do you see that?
   A.  Yes.
   MR HENDERSON:  Now, my Lord, in answer to your Lordship's
       earlier question, that is what Post Office would expect
       to see when there is an outage.
           So then the Horizon system comes back online and at
       that point there will be a recovery process, won't
       there, various screens that you need to go through?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Okay.  And if we could have a look at
       Ms van den Bogerd's statement at {E2/5/16}, if you look
       at paragraph 53 and just read that to yourself.
           (Pause).
           Have you read that?
   A.  I'm just getting to the bottom of it.
   Q.  Sorry.
           (Pause).
   A.  Okay.
   Q.  Do you agree that that's a fair summary, an accurate
       summary?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Okay, thank you.
           When power is restored there is a procedure to be
       followed, isn't there?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And that procedure will result either in a transaction
       being cancelled, or recovered?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Okay.  Let's have a look at the Horizon Online quick
       reference guide at {F/1365}.  You will see at the top
       there:
           "Disconnections and screen freezes on Horizon Online
       are dealt with differently to Horizon.  If either occurs
       during a customer session Recovery actions may be
       required.
           "You need to make sure you do the right thing at the
       time the counter becomes unavailable."
           If you drop the next session section and it says
       "Disconnected session receipt", do you see that?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  "The system will then settle the session automatically
       and print 3 copies of a disconnected session receipt
       before automatically logging you out.
           "The copies of the receipt are, 1 for the customer,
       1 to be kept with your stock unit, 1 to be kept at the
       failed terminal."
           Okay?
   A.  Okay.
   Q.  And then below it says, again missing out the next
       section:
           "The system treats transactions as
       either: recoverable ... or cancelable ..."
           This is a recoverable one, isn't it, because it is
       a card transaction?
   A.  Okay.
   Q.  We see that from below.  Do you see
       "recoverable/cancelable products" including debit/credit
       card payments, et cetera?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And then at the end of that:
           "These will be recorded on the disconnected session
       receipt as completed and must be settled with the
       customer."
           Okay?
   A.  Okay.
   Q.  Then if you look on to the next page {F/1365/2} there's
       a flowchart which takes you through that process.
   A.  Yes.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  I think that flowchart is what you do
       higher up the page on the first page, isn't it?
   MR HENDERSON:  Yes, I think that probably is right.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Well, let's go back to the page before
       {F/1365/1} just to make sure I follow what charts go
       with which.  Is that's what referred to as page 2 of the
       document under "Disconnected session receipt"?
   MR HENDERSON:  Yes, I believe so.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  So:
           "... a disconnected session receipt will not be
       produced if the system freezes or there is a hardware
       failure.  Page 2 of this document describes what you
       should do in this scenario."
           And the flowchart is on page 2.  Is that right?
   MR HENDERSON:  I think that must be right, my Lord, but what
       Mr Tank says here is he was provided with three
       receipts.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Yes.
   MR HENDERSON:  Then if we go to page 3 of this same document
       {F/1365/3}, this is "When online connectivity is
       restored".  Do you have that, Mr Tank?
   A.  I do.
   Q.  "Page 4 of this document provides a simple diagram that
       explains the actions you should take when Horizon Online
       connectivity is restored the system will carry out
       Recovery for customer sessions that were in progress at
       the time of failure.  When you next login to the
       terminal where the failure occurred, the system will
       recognise that the last session did not complete
       properly and will automatically commence Recovery.  You
       will see the following message ..."
           Then "Recovery receipt":
           "You should follow all on-screen instructions.  Once
       the Recovery process has completed, a Recovery receipt
       will be printed automatically."
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  I think we are on a different page to
       you.
   MR HENDERSON:  I'm so sorry.  Page 3.  I just hadn't noticed
       the screen.  Right, I have just read out the top section
       and I'm looking now at the "Recovery receipt" section.
       Do you see that, Mr Tank?
   A.  I do.
   Q.  "You should follow all on-screen instructions.  Once the
       Recovery process has completed, a Recovery receipt will
       be printed automatically.
           "The Recovery Receipt should be attached to the
       Disconnected Session receipt stored at the failed
       terminal."
           Do you see that?
   A.  I do.
   Q.  So what this procedure tells you is that if you follow
       the Horizon procedures properly you get three receipts
       for the disconnected session and a recovery receipt,
       do you agree?
   A.  I agree, but I don't actually remember having this
       document in my office.
   Q.  This is online I think.
   A.  Oh, this is online?
   Q.  I thought it was online but I might be wrong.
   A.  It is quick reference guide, it states it is version 5.
       The only version I remember having was just a single
       piece of A4 -- a double-sided A4 piece of paper.  This
       suggests that there were four -- two pages.  Because you
       are on page 3 at the moment.  I never had -- I never
       had ...
   Q.  All right.  I don't know what you had, candidly, at the
       moment.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  We did have some evidence on this in the
       common issues trial and a document was produced that was
       a single A4 sheet, but it did look different to this.
       It had red on rather than blue.
   MR HENDERSON:  Right.  The point is, however, that this
       document that I have taken you to sets out the procedure
       that needed to be followed.  Do you accept that?
   A.  That document does, yes.
   Q.  Okay.
   A.  I never had that document, so I could never refer to it.
   Q.  But you would have been taken through the screens that
       came up on Horizon?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Okay.  Your evidence -- I think your evidence is that
       you gave -- I should have asked this before and
       I apologise.  Was it you doing this transaction, was it
       Louise or another assistant, or do you not recall?
   A.  I can't recall.
   Q.  Okay, that's fair.
           Your evidence at {E1/6/2}, in paragraph 7, the
       penultimate sentence, is:
           "A series of receipts were printed which she then
       gave to the customer."
           Now, the reason I'm pointing to this, Mr Tank, is
       this is the evidence you give in relation to the £600.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  But I have suggested to you already, and I think you
       have accepted, that it's possible that this evidence in
       fact relates to events in 2010/2011 in relation to the
       £195.04?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And it seems that what was done was all of the receipts
       were given to the customer?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Which is not the proper procedure?
   A.  Which is not the proper procedure, no.
   Q.  So do you accept that the proper procedure wasn't
       followed?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And then you call the help desk and we see that in
       {F/1286.1}.  If we enable editing and actually you can
       scroll down to row 120 I hope.  Can we go across, keep
       going across ... I think this is the wrong ... no, I'm
       sorry, I have given you the wrong reference.  It is the
       call log -- this is 1286.1, is it?
   MR GREEN:  You might be looking for the "Remedy" tab.
   MR HENDERSON:  I do want the "Remedy" tab and I hadn't
       spotted that it hadn't -- I'm so sorry, at the bottom
       there the "Remedy" tab, thank you.
           If you then go to -- if you just go into the top
       left hand and if you delete the 1 and put 120, or you
       can scroll down, whichever is easier.  Then if we go to
       row 120 and if you just stop there.
           This is the call made from your branch, Mr Tank,
       yes?
   A.  Yes, the following day.
   Q.  And it is column I:
           "Called this morning about a Horizon failure
       yesterday, branch completed a withdrawal and the 195.04
       failed recovery receipt ..."
           And so forth and so on.  And that resulted in a PEAK
       being raised, which you wouldn't have known about at the
       time, I accept.
   A.  No.
   Q.  But let's have a look at it {F/870}.  And if you go to
       page 2 of that document {F/870/2} in the first yellow
       section there -- do you see that?  It says date
       14 December 2011, do you see that?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  "Summary", it says:
           "The banking transaction had completed ... including
       the receipt print ... and money should have changed
       hands.
           "The basket settlement failed from 13.35 with 'no
       response received from data centre' and then two retries
       also failed and the attempt cancelled ...
           "The Disconnected Session receipts show 'Cash TO
       CUSTOMER 195.04' so the customer's account should be
       correct but the branch will have a shortage (for a
       withdrawal) because the session hasn't been recorded."
           And that's just explaining what had happened.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And then if we go to {F/871.1}, the transaction
       correction is raised.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  So you were refunded this amount of money?
   A.  I was.
   Q.  That's not something you mentioned in your witness
       statement, is it?
   A.  No.
   Q.  Why is that?
   A.  Because I was referring to the incident in terms of
       something that I had no control over that caused a loss
       to my office.
   Q.  But it didn't --
   A.  The fact that -- it caused a loss.  The fact that that
       loss was resolved afterwards was not the issue.  The
       fact that it caused a loss and I had no explanation for
       it, that's what I was reporting, that's what my witness
       statement was for.
   Q.  Okay.  But having now seen everything that's happened
       and looked at the procedure that should have been
       followed, do you still maintain that this event shows
       that there's something wrong with Horizon?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  It is Horizon working as it is supposed to, isn't it?
       Something has gone wrong and a procedure has been
       followed --
   A.  Mm-hm.
   Q.  -- from the user point of view not quite correctly
       because you should have kept some of the receipts, but
       nevertheless you have raised it, it has been
       investigated and the money has been refunded?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  How is that a fault with Horizon?
   A.  Because the error shouldn't have happened in the first
       place.  If -- it seems like -- with the relationship
       between postmasters and the Post Office, it's very much
       one-sided and we as subpostmasters bear all the risk.
   Q.  But that's not true for this transaction, is it?  You
       failed to follow the proper procedure --
   A.  Okay.
   Q.  -- maybe for understandable reasons, I don't know.
   A.  Okay.
   Q.  You raised a query and a few days later you were
       refunded the money.  I don't see what the complaint is?
   A.  If I didn't call in to report, would I still have got
       the refund?
   Q.  I think you would have actually, yes.
   A.  I wasn't to know.  I didn't know there was a PEAK --
   Q.  But I'm not sure, I don't have the -- okay --
   A.  I don't know either.
   Q.  -- we will explore that later this week.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Can you not overspeak one another.
   MR HENDERSON:  Apologies.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Mr Henderson, do you just want to reput
       what you --
   MR HENDERSON:  I think I completed what I --
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Well I didn't get the answer because you
       then started speaking.
           You were asked, Mr Tank, "You raised a query, you
       were refunded the money" and Mr Henderson said he didn't
       see what the complaint is and what was your answer to
       that please?
   A.  On the day of the transaction my office showed a loss of
       nearly £200.  I -- the following day I went to
       investigate that loss, I couldn't find any record of it
       on my terminal and then that's when I phoned through to
       the helpline and reported.
   MR HENDERSON:  Okay, but the way --
   A.  What was going on in the background in terms of the PEAK
       review or whatever, or -- I don't know if that was
       automated, or if my call to the network business support
       centre instigated the refund.
   Q.  The point is that the way Horizon works, it either
       records the transaction as having been completed
       properly --
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  -- or it generates the evidence to demonstrate that
       there has been a problem?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Identifying that particular transaction.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  I want to ask you a few questions about the third area
       you deal with, very brief questions, on label
       transaction issues.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Now, you say you experienced some problems with printing
       labels --
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  -- where you say no label could be printed even though
       you were charged for it.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And again we've got a timing issue here because in your
       first witness statement you said that that happened in
       2007.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And Ms van den Bogerd says she could find no evidence of
       that at all.
   A.  Okay.
   Q.  And now you say in your second witness statement that
       you think it was 2011.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And again can you help with how that error came to be
       made?
   A.  Again, my initial witness statement I was just relying
       on my memory and my supplemental witness statement is
       when I was able to research it a bit more.
   Q.  And what was the evidence that you got for your second
       witness statement that helped you on this date, because
       I'm not sure that I'm aware of any?
   A.  Again, it was Horizon generated receipts, print-outs,
       with hand-written dates and reference numbers on them.
   Q.  Sorry, where are these documents?
   A.  With my solicitors.
   Q.  Oh.  I don't think they have made their way over, but
       I might be wrong.
           Now, there are again processes on Horizon which
       cover this type of eventuality, aren't there?
   A.  No.
   Q.  Well, Horizon allows you to record a label as rejected,
       doesn't it?
   A.  It does, yes.  Usually, usually, but in this particular
       scenario it didn't give you that option.
   Q.  But normally it would prompt you to specify whether or
       not the label has been printed correctly, wouldn't it?
   A.  Yes, this is my point: during this particular issue,
       Horizon doesn't perform as it should.
   Q.  And it is also possible, isn't it, to process
       a completely separate transaction for spoiled postage
       labels and printing a replacement?  Have a look at
       {F/1848.6}.  This just summarises the procedure that's
       in place.
   A.  "A label can only be spoiled, if the label is on hand."
   Q.  Ms van den Bogerd's evidence at paragraph 82 of her
       witness statement at {E2/5/21} says this process is
       available even if the printer had not produced a label
       at all.  Do you accept that?
   A.  No, because the previous page showed that you had to
       have a label on hand.
   Q.  So she is wrong about that?
   A.  Yes.  Well, it is contradictory, isn't it?
   Q.  Well, I accept that that's what that document says, but
       the evidence from Post Office is that in fact you could
       do that even if the printer had not produced a label at
       all?
   A.  I could do that, but then it would be contrary to the
       other instructions.
   Q.  If you could do it -- my point is a simple one, Mr Tank.
       There were procedures built into Horizon to cater for
       the situation that you explained -- I have to say in the
       vaguest of terms, but as I understand what you are
       saying, there were procedures in place which ensured you
       could deal with the situation, weren't there?
   A.  No.
   Q.  We will have to differ.
           Finally, you were investigated for various matters
       in 2015, weren't you?
   A.  Not investigated.
   Q.  You were interviewed on 5 November 2015, do you recall?
   A.  I had a performance interview, yes.
   Q.  And this resulted in a letter from Post Office to you of
       15 February 2016.  We see that at {F/1431.1}.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Just let me read this quickly.
           (Pause).
           Actually I will do it on my screen, give me
       a second.
   MR HENDERSON:  If you go to --
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Just give me a second, Mr Henderson.
       There is a reason.  I will explain at the end.  Let me
       just quickly read it.
           (Pause).
           Is this a Civil Evidence Act situation?  I will tell
       you what, just pause there.
           Mr Tank, I'm just going to ask you just to pop out
       of court for literally two minutes.  There is just
       something I need to ask counsel.
   A.  Okay.
                 (In the absence of the witness)
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  I just ask out of caution.  In the
       common issues trial there were two claimant witnesses
       who had to be given the warning against
       self-incrimination under the Act because of potential
       criminal offences.  It was obviously a situation that
       was at the forefront of everyone's mind because of the
       nature of that trial, so before those questions were put
       I knew in advance whether I had to give that warning or
       not.
   MR HENDERSON:  I understand, my Lord.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Is this one of those situations?
   MR HENDERSON:  I think it probably would be sensible to do
       so.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  It does seem to me based on the four
       items listed that the witness is entitled to it.
   MR HENDERSON:  I think that's probably right.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Any observations, Mr Green?
   MR GREEN:  My Lord, no, I think it should be given.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Let's have Mr Tank back in.  I did have
       the form of words with me last time.  I don't have it
       now but I'm pretty confident that I can do it
       effectively; if either of you think I haven't, correct
       me.
                (In the presence of the witness).
           Thank you very much, Mr Tank.  Just have a seat.
       Just before Mr Henderson asks you some questions, there
       is just a formal warning I have to give you in relation
       to the right you have not to answer any questions if you
       think answering them may incriminate you in respect of
       future criminal proceedings.
           It is a statutory warning.  It was given in two
       other cases that you don't have to be concerned with in
       the previous trial and it is something standard but
       I have to draw it to your attention.  So depending on
       what questions Mr Henderson is asking you, what the
       subject matter of them is, you are entitled to say that
       you don't wish to answer the question.
   A.  Sure.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Is that sufficient?
   MR HENDERSON:  I'm grateful.
           If we go to the second page of that letter
       {F/1431.1/2}, do you recall that at that meeting you had
       a discussion which is referred to here in the second
       paragraph:
           "We also discussed the inappropriate official
       postage claims conducted at the branch.  During the
       period 25 August 2015 and 15 September 2015 nine claims
       of £100 official postage were undertaken totalling £900.
       These claims were subsequently reversed on
       23 September 2015.  A further claim of £500 was made on
       2 October 2015 and subsequently reversed on
       27 October 2015.
           "As discussed the use of official postage in this
       manner is contrary to the instructions contained within
       Horizon Online.  The 'stamps for official use' icon on
       Horizon Online must only be used for postage costs that
       are incurred when undertaking official Post Office
       Limited business and where no official pre-paid envelope
       is available.  For full instructions please see Horizon
       help back office ..."
           And so forth.  Do you see that?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Do you recall this incident or this --
   A.  The meeting?
   Q.  The meeting and what was said?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And official postage is a function on Horizon that
       should only, as we have just seen, be used for postage
       costs incurred when undertaking official Post Office
       business, that's right, isn't it?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And you have always known that presumably?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And essentially, as I understand your position, you
       considered that you were experiencing certain issues
       which were causing you loss --
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  -- and you decided to take matters into your own things
       and to take official postage, is that right?
   A.  No, it was just my way of formally recording my dispute.
       Communication channels with the Post Office weren't
       particularly good.  Every time I tried to air any
       grievances, I never really found I got anywhere, so this
       was my way of complaining.
   Q.  To help yourself to some official postage?
   A.  I wasn't helping myself.  I wasn't helping myself.  No
       money actually left the office.  Official postage is --
       it's a computer function and all it does is allocate
       that money under that particular ... so there's no --
       I'm not helping myself at all.
   Q.  Well, if there was another shortage in Horizon, for
       example, that would make up for it, wouldn't it?  I mean
       one way or the other -- one way or another, by claiming
       official postage you're doing something you shouldn't do
       which improved your financial position?
   A.  No.
   Q.  How not, Mr Tank?
   A.  Improved my financial position?
   Q.  Yes?
   A.  How would it improve my financial position?  We're
       talking about -- it's just a ledger entry.
   Q.  Just a ledger entry?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Let's have a look at the transcript of your interview at
       {F/1399.1}.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  We need to have a break for the
       transcribers.
   MR HENDERSON:  My Lord, I'm very happy to but I only have
       five minutes.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  All right, we will keep going then.
   MR HENDERSON:  1399.1, if we go to page 14 {F/1399.1/14}.
       You are obviously "Jay"; KB is?
   A.  Keith Bridges.
   Q.  Keith Bridges.  He says:
           "Okay thank you.  Let's move on to the postage
       claims for the moment.  So in my letter I gave details
       of the claims and the reversals that you completed since
       25 August. I think my first question would be that
       I know that you reversed them but why undertake them in
       the first place bearing in mind these are, in effect you
       are stating the transactions which took, well say the
       transactions have taken place which you have used
       official postage for which in effect did not take
       place."
           And you said:
           "... I understand the actions were wrong, but the
       money never left the office.  The receipts were always
       kept and I did reverse them but again it was just a form
       of protest ..."
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  When you were warned about this you did reverse them,
       didn't you?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  But you hadn't told Post Office that you were doing that
       at the time you were doing it?
   A.  I did.
   Q.  How did you do that?
   A.  Network business support.
   Q.  Okay.  I have seen some references to this.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  If we look at Post Office letter {F/1374.1}, this is
       I think the letter that Mr Bridges was referring to and
       in the third paragraph he says to you:
           "I understand from our conversations on occasions
       when this scenario has happened the branch has claimed
       a compensating value in official postage and thereby
       recovering the value of the postage label resulting in
       no loss to the branch.  Would you please in future
       process by contacting the NBSC ..."
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And if we look at the NBSC call log at {F/1286.1}, under
       the "Remedy" tab, at row 216 and if you go right to
       column I:
           "PM wanted noting that due to a RM complaint cust
       has over SD he is going to refund the customer SD as
       official postage.  Advised PM he cannot do that that and
       I have advised him so."
           And then in row 310 this is an event that is
       discussed in your interview you have said:
           "PM is putting in 4.34 X 10 ..."
           So you felt there had been a discrepancy of £4.34
       and you put in an official postage of ten times that, is
       that right?
   A.  Yes, but if I can just explain the reason why
       I multiplied it by ten: this was something I had noticed
       before, the label transaction issue, and I reported it
       using all official channels and nothing was ever done
       and then the fact that it happened again and caused
       a financial loss --
   Q.  You just put in official postage?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And just the final reference, {F/1252.1} is a letter
       from an Andrew Morley, an internal Post Office letter
       I think.  If we go to the second page of that -- that
       doesn't look right.  It doesn't matter.  It is a further
       document where you mentioned that you were doing this.
           When did you start taking official postage in this
       sort of way?
   A.  I can't remember.
   Q.  And I have tried to take you to various entries that I'm
       aware of where you notified Post Office, but it's right,
       isn't it, that you didn't notify them on each and every
       occasion that you were doing that, there was a whole
       series of £100s that were referred to in your interview?
   A.  Yes, but I knew they were being recorded, so ...
       I wasn't informing network business support centre but
       because I was putting the entry onto the computer I knew
       that there was a record of it.
   Q.  Well, it wouldn't be obvious to Post Office whether that
       was official postage or not, would it, or whether you
       had just helped yourself to it?
   A.  I think it would be obvious that it wasn't official
       postage because of the amounts involved.
   Q.  All right.
           Nothing further.  If you just stay there, Mr Green
       may have some questions.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  I assume not for very long, Mr Green.
   MR GREEN:  Really very short, my Lord.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Yes.
                    Re-examination by MR GREEN
   MR GREEN:  Could you look back at {F/1365} please.  This is
       the document you were shown and let's leave aside for
       the moment this is a 2015 version.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Just park that, because I think you have already made an
       observation about what you did or did not have.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  But at least as at 2015, do you see sort of halfway down
       on the right-hand side there's a print-out?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Post Office.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And you come down and it says "Total due to customer:
       102.34".
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And it is in red.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Do you see that?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  It says:
           "You must take care to only settle with the customer
       for the amount specified on the receipt ..."
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Is that what you did?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And when we go to {F/1257.1}, which is the Facebook
       post -- sorry, the Yahoo! -- the list.
   A.  Okay.
   Q.  It was put to you that this whole episode is a good
       example of Horizon working well.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And I just wanted to take you through your
       contemporaneous account of what happened very quickly.
   A.  Okay.
   Q.  So you begin:
           "Yesterday during HOL failure ..."
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Did you regard that as Horizon working well, when it
       failed?
   A.  No.
   Q.  Okay.  And it says:
           "Transaction seemed to go through okay apart from
       Horizon printing 3 identical receipts."
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Was that what should have happened, three identical
       receipts, or not?
   A.  Normally, no, that wouldn't happen.
   Q.  And then:
           "Receipts showed a disconnected session ..."
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Is it meant to have a disconnected session or not?
   A.  No.
   Q.  Okay.  And then you get total due to customer, 195.04.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And you hand that over.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And then it says -- you say that:
           "Because receipts showed cash due to customer, we
       paid out."
           Then:
           "Come evening balancing till showed approximately
       £200 loss."
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Was that Horizon working correctly?
   A.  No.
   Q.  "Thought at time must be miscount and will try to sort
       in morning.
           "This morning produced transaction log for the
       period of HOL FAILURE.  No record of 195.04 transaction
       at all!!!!"
   A.  No.
   Q.  Was that Horizon working well?
   A.  No.
   Q.  "Phoned helpline and was told by very irate member of
       staff that loss is mine unless I can sort out with
       customer directly ..."
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Did you feel that that was a satisfactory response?
   A.  Absolutely not.
   Q.  "... apparently there is a message on screen during HOL
       failure to not pay any money to customer ..."
           Is that what you saw, or did you see a message that
       said "Pay the customer £195"?
   A.  I cannot remember.
   Q.  "Asked irate staff to pass call up as I was not a happy
       bunny, was told she was not going to do this ..."
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  Was that what you felt you should reasonably expect?
   A.  No.
   Q.  "... only after I asked to speak to contracts manager or
       somebody from POL press office with regards to speaking
       to press about my loss was I given a number for
       Chesterfield."
   A.  Correct.
   Q.  Did you think it was appropriate that you should have to
       make those threats to get the relevant telephone number?
   A.  No.
   Q.  "So spoke to POCA lady at Chesterfield who after
       pressing a few buttons was able to find transaction ..."
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Did you think it was satisfactory that she could see
       a transaction involving your branch that you couldn't
       see?
   A.  No, it wasn't satisfactory.
   Q.  "She couldn't promise anything ..."
           Did you find that satisfactory?
   A.  No.
   Q.  "... but will see if she can get a credit TC after she
       has spoken to Fujitsu???  She took my number and
       promised to call back after speaking to Fujitsu, being
       very non-committal about possible loss."
           Did you find that a satisfactory response?
   A.  No.
   MR GREEN:  My Lord, no further questions.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  No questions from me.
           Thank you very much.  I'm sorry you had to be asked
       to leave court for a couple of minutes but sometimes
       these things just happen and it is important that
       sometimes there's a debate without a witness hearing
       what it is.
           Thank you very much, you are free to go.
           We're going to have a short break for the
       transcribers and then you are calling your next witness.
   MR GREEN:  Mr Patny.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Is there any prospect of finishing him
       today?
   MR HENDERSON:  I don't think so.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  All right.  Are you cross-examining,
       Mr Henderson?
   MR HENDERSON:  Yes.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  We will have five minutes until 10 to 4
       and then we will run to about half past 4 but if you
       find a convenient break at or around that time or
       earlier it's up to you.  Right, so until 10 to 4.  Thank
       you very much.
   (3.44 pm)
                          (Short Break)
   (3.52 pm)
   MR GREEN:  My Lord, I am going to call Mr Anup Patny.
                     MR ANUP PATNY (affirmed)
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Do have a seat.
   A.  Thank you.
                 Examination-in-chief by MR GREEN
   MR GREEN:  Mr Patny, in front of you is a folder and if you
       kindly turn to tab 3 of that folder {E1/3} you see
       a document that says "Witness statement of Anup Kumar
       Patny".
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And if you turn to the third page of that {E1/3/3}
       there's a signature.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Is that your signature?
   A.  It is.
   Q.  And do you believe the contents of your statement to be
       true?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Most grateful.  Would you just wait there.
                Cross-examination by MR HENDERSON
   MR HENDERSON:  Mr Patny, good afternoon.
   A.  Good afternoon, sir.
   Q.  You were subpostmaster in the Spencefield branch for
       a relatively short time, between October 2014 and
       August 2016, is that right?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  And you ran a retail business from the same premises?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  Are you still running that?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  And can you just describe what the set-up was when you
       had the Post Office there?
   A.  Well, it's a single-counter Post Office.  Well, it came
       within my branch counter.  We had two tills before for
       the counter but we took one out for post office side and
       retail side there's one counter for retail and one
       counter for the post office.
   Q.  Okay.  And it may sound like a silly question, but what
       else do you sell in the newsagent?  It is it just papers
       and cigarettes and so forth?
   A.  Yes, newspapers -- mainly it is high in home news
       deliveries and cigarettes and cards, stationary,
       et cetera.
   Q.  How many other people work in the shop?  We obviously
       know about you and your son?
   A.  Yes, my wife, she ran -- she worked in the retail and
       she worked in the post office as well, with one other
       assistant.
   Q.  Okay, so four of you in total?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  Okay.  So there was a separate post office counter in
       the branch, is that right?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  And how does that work from a practical point of view?
       If someone wants to buy something from the newsagent and
       do something at the post office counter as well, how do
       you sort that?
   A.  Well, most of the time there's one person allocated to
       the post office.  In the morning there's two people, in
       the afternoon there's two people as well.  I am there
       floating to serve on the counter both sides.  My wife,
       she was there for the same reason as well.  So whenever
       somebody required, you know -- if my wife is like
       serving on the post office side I would hop onto the
       retail side and vice versa because there's two different
       queues we had for post office queue and for retail
       queue.
   Q.  And what if someone comes in and wants to buy
       a newspaper and some cards and do something at the
       post office counter as well, how does that work?
   A.  Well, they will have to go to the post office queue
       afterwards or beforehand.
   Q.  Right.  Now, you tell us in your witness statement that
       you remmed in cash on 11 May 2016, I think.
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  But your son undertook a balance on that same day, on
       11 May.  Do you remember that?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  And I want to ask you some questions about both of those
       activities, but first of all, was that your usual
       practice, was it you that would rem the cash in and your
       son who would carry out what you call the balancing
       exercise?
   A.  Most of the time, because me and my wife normally came
       in in the morning.  The cash normally came in just
       before 12 o'clock.  That would come in, I would check
       the cash, rem in and then put it safe in the safe and
       then my son would come in just in the afternoon and take
       it from us.
   Q.  And he would do the balancing at the end of the day?
   A.  At the end of the day or every Wednesday, yes.
   Q.  And when you do the balancing, presumably it's not
       uncommon that there's some sort of discrepancy between
       the cash that Horizon expects you to have, for example,
       and the cash you have actually got?
   A.  Well, it happens sometimes.
   Q.  Sure.  And I'm just interested in how you reacted if you
       found that there was a discrepancy.  If it was just
       a few pence or a few pounds would you just make up that
       difference from your own pocket?
   A.  Well, under normal circumstances, yes, so if it is a few
       pounds or few pence, yes.
   Q.  And if it was more than that, say £40, £50, £60 or
       above, would you investigate it?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  And raise it with Post Office?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Okay.
           Now, I want to start off by asking you some
       questions about an outage that took place on 9 May 2016.
       Do you recall that?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  This was a Horizon system outage, wasn't it, it wasn't
       a power cut to your ...?
   A.  No, it was a Horizon outage.
   Q.  Can you recall how long it went on for?
   A.  To my memory I think it is just over an hour.
   Q.  Okay.  And do you recall what you were doing at the time
       of the outage?
   A.  Well, it was my wife -- she was serving on the
       post office counter and the screen went black and we
       couldn't do anything to the system.  I think I have had
       a customer come in saying that the post office down the
       road -- it's a mile away from there -- they are having
       problems.  We thought nothing of it.  I tried to ring
       the helpline, couldn't go through, and found out later
       on there was an outage.
   Q.  And you tell us you closed the branch at that time?
   A.  The branch was closed all that time, yes.
   Q.  We can see evidence of this outage if we go to
       {F/1834.3}.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  You might need the other tab.
   MR HENDERSON:  Yes, I do need the other tab.  If you go to
       row 47.  If you just highlight row 47.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Can you see that okay, Mr Patny?
   A.  Yes.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Because we can change the view.  Can we
       go to "View" in the top task bar please and just
       increase the magnification.  That might work a little
       bit better, Mr Henderson.  Can you work from that?
   MR HENDERSON:  Yes.  It may mean going along a bit but
       that's okay.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Row 47.
   MR HENDERSON:  So row 47, do you see that highlighted,
       Mr Patny?
   A.  I can see that.
   Q.  So that's at 8.22 and if we scroll right so we see the
       full column at H.  So "No recovery required", so this is
       what tells Post Office that there has been an outage --
   A.  Okay.
   Q.  -- and you are logging back in.  Do you see that?  And
       it says that no recovery procedure was required.  That
       suggests that there were no particular problems caused
       by the outage as far as your session was concerned.  Do
       you see that?
   A.  I don't know.
   Q.  Well, what was going on -- what Ms van den Bogerd's
       evidence is is if you look at -- you don't need to move
       the screen, but if you look at row 42 and row 45, what
       was going on at the time of the outage was that there
       were two postage labels to be printed and that they were
       printed, but it is possible that the transaction was
       interrupted before it could be completed.  Do you see
       those entries?
   A.  Mm-hm, yes sir.
   Q.  So as far as this data is concerned, the worst case
       scenario that could have occurred as a result of this
       outage is that the labels might have been handed over
       and payment taken in cash -- because the PIN pad won't
       work when the Horizon terminal isn't working -- without
       following the correct recovery process and what that
       would result in is a small surplus of cash, not
       a shortage.  Do you accept that?
   A.  It looks that way, yes.
   Q.  Okay.  But what this doesn't in any way suggest is that
       the outage could have given rise to a discrepancy of
       £17,000 or so, which is what I think you believe
       happened?
   A.  Well, at this stage we didn't have the rem ins.
   Q.  No, I'm so sorry.  The rem ins -- this is the 9 May,
       this is before the rems.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Okay?  We're just looking at the outage on 9 May at the
       moment.
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  There's nothing in this data to suggest that at this
       point it could possibly have caused a discrepancy of
       £17,000.  Do you see that?
   A.  I can see that there, yes.
   Q.  Now, you say in your evidence that you rang the helpline
       and I think you said a moment ago in answer to
       a question that you didn't manage to get through to the
       helpline, is that right?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  Okay.  I don't think that's explained in your witness
       statement, but that's fine, we can agree on that.
           But your position as I understand it is that this
       outage was responsible in some way for a shortfall of
       £17,000, is that right?
   A.  Might have been.
   Q.  Might have been or was?
   A.  Well, there's no other argument for that.  I mean never
       had a shortage before like, you know, all --
   Q.  Okay, well, let's have a look at it.  I mean first of
       all, do you agree that if it was the outage on 9 May
       that caused a shortfall of £17,000, you would expect
       that to show up on that day?
   A.  I think so, yes.
   Q.  Let's have a look at the event data spreadsheet at
       1507.1 {F/1507.1}.
           This is one where we will need to enable editing and
       then remove the filter.  Then if you could go to row --
       if you go in the top left-hand corner if you just type
       in D13904.  If you can bring that row up to the top of
       the screen.
           This shows the cash declaration at the end of
       9 May 2016.  Do you see that, the cash declaration for
       a total of £48,021?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  And below that it says that there is a discrepancy of
       £1,138.21.
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  So do you accept then that the outage that happened
       earlier in that day could not have been responsible for
       a £17,000 discrepancy arising?
   A.  I can't say that.
   Q.  Well, had it been responsible there would have been
       a much higher discrepancy shown, wouldn't there, for
       cash as a result of the declaration; isn't that right?
   A.  Could be.
   Q.  Well, it would be, wouldn't it?
   A.  I can't say that.  I don't know.
   Q.  Well, let's look at the same document but the cash
       declaration for 11 May, two days later.  That's at
       14515.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Row?
   MR HENDERSON:  Row -- yes, 14515.
           So on 11 May, two days later -- this is I think when
       your son did the balance --
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  This is just the daily cash declaration and we see there
       a cash total of £71,000-odd and a discrepancy there of
       17,339.
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  And then when your son called the helpline on 11 May --
       and we see that at {F/1522.1}, row 136.  So if you again
       enable editing and if you could bring that up to the
       top.
           So this is 11 May 2016, so the same date that we
       have just been looking at for the cash discrepancy and
       if you could go across to column N:
           "Doing BP and got a shortage in cash £17,000.  Had
       a rem in of 46,500 cash, 16,000 coin."
           That column is what's used by the help desk operator
       to report what is said when someone rings up?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  So it looks as though what your son had said was that
       there had been a rem in of £16,000 worth of coins?
   A.  No, as I can remember Aakash came in home that night and
       he said there was a shortage shown and he had phoned the
       helpline and they said there has been a rem in of
       £16,000 coins and they asked him to do some reversal or
       something.
   Q.  Okay.  Let's have a look -- if we just go over and look
       at column V in that same row.  So what he was told to do
       according to this was ask the subpostmaster to make sure
       only one cash declaration and make sure rem was scanned
       in correctly.  So it seems from this, doesn't it, that
       the helpline thought that perhaps there had been
       a problem -- either a problem with declaring the cash,
       in other words counting it, or some sort of problem
       remming it in?
   A.  No, remming in was fine.
   Q.  Well, let's look at how the discrepancy may actually
       have arisen.  So on 11 May -- let's have a look at
       {F/1834.2}.  This is the cash that was remmed in on
       11 May, do you see that?
   A.  I can't see that clearly.
   Q.  No, okay.  And the second row down shows that there was
       £16,000 worth of £10 notes, do you see that?  Do you see
       the second entry?
   A.  Yes, I can see that.
   Q.  Okay, so I think there's £26,000 worth of £20 notes,
       16,000 of £10, 4,500 of £5, 1,000 of £1 and then there
       is coins.  So I think the important one is £16,000 worth
       of £10 notes.
           Now, it's a bit fiddly this, but bear with me.  If
       we look at {F/1438.1}.  This is filtered data, all
       right, so we have put a filter on this just to show the
       cash that was remmed in to your branch over this period
       and you can see that there is highlighting on 11 May but
       there was no cash remmed in on 12 May, the following
       day.  Are you able to recall whether that's right?  You
       have given evidence of the cash that you remmed in on
       11 May, all I'm saying is that there was no cash remmed
       in on 12 May.
   A.  Well, 11 May -- the cash comes in on a Wednesday, all
       the time.
   Q.  Right, okay.  So it wouldn't come in any other day?
   A.  Well, unless it came in by post, if he required some --
       any time we would ask the ADC and they would send it,
       like an emergency.
   Q.  All I'm suggesting to you is that there was cash remmed
       in on the 11th and there was no cash remmed in on the
       12th, as far as Post Office's records can tell.
   A.  Okay.
   Q.  Do you accept that?
   A.  Yes.
   Q.  Now, if we look at the cash management report for your
       branch, which is at {F/1514.1}.  Actually these relevant
       rows are highlighted.  Do you see the highlighting on
       rows 383, 384 and 385?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  Okay.
           If you could just scroll right a couple of cells.
       Thank you, that's fine.
           So the declaration on 10 May -- if you just look at
       the £10 note column in column M, do you see that?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  So that's 16,070.
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  Okay.  And then we know that you remmed in £16,000 worth
       of £10 notes on 11 May.
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  But the 11 May £10 notes are only 22,130.  So what you
       would have expected, on 11 May, would be something like
       £32,000 of £10 notes, which is the 16,000 from the 10th,
       plus the 16,000 from the 11th, less any notes that had
       been paid out in the course of 11 May; do you agree?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  And in fact, as we can see, there's only £22,130 worth
       of £10 notes, but the cash declarations for the
       following days in £10 notes are very much higher: 37,650
       and 35,700.  Do you see that?
   A.  I can see that, yes.
   Q.  And even though there had been no cash remmed in in that
       period?
   A.  Well I think when my son rang the NBSC on that 11 May
       they asked him to do some adjustments.
   Q.  Well, what I'm suggesting is that the most natural
       explanation for this, whatever adjustments were made, is
       that at some point on 11 May someone hadn't counted
       a big pile of £10 notes.  They had been put in a safe
       and forgotten about, which is understandable, and that
       they were found the next day, or located, and there was
       an accurate cash declaration on 12 May.
   A.  I don't know about that, sir.
   Q.  It's perfectly plausible, isn't it?
   A.  I can't say anything to that.
   Q.  Well, the final piece of this little jigsaw is at
       {F/1507.1} and I think you will need to --
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  What document is this?
   MR HENDERSON:  This is going back to the events data showing
       the cash declarations on 13 May.  Now, we saw before
       that on 11 May the cash discrepancy was minus £17,000.
       Do you remember that?  We looked at that a few moments
       ago?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  And two days later the discrepancy is plus 17,000, in
       other words it looks as though it has gone, it has
       cancelled out.  Do you see that?
   A.  I can see that, sir.
   Q.  So it's a bit of detective work and it's a bit fiddly
       and I apologise for that, but doesn't it look overall as
       though what the problem here was is nothing to do with
       an outage, it's been a mistake somewhere in the branch,
       temporary mistake, counting cash and once the cash count
       was done properly, the problem disappeared?
   A.  I don't know, sir.  I don't think so.
   Q.  You didn't suffer any loss as a result of this incident,
       did you?
   A.  I still think this is because of the adjustments NBSC
       had asked my son to make.  I don't know.
   Q.  What I'm trying to put to you, I hope fairly, Mr Patny,
       is your evidence is -- I think your evidence is that
       there were some sort of problems in Horizon that caused
       all of these difficulties and all I'm trying to
       demonstrate to you is that if you go through the various
       records that are available it looks as though in fact
       there has just been a difficulty with declarations of
       cash.  Do you accept that?
           (Pause).
   A.  I wouldn't know how to answer that.
   Q.  Well, let's just look at one other document which is
       {F/1834.3}.  Again I think we need to minimise it and go
       to the other tab, sheet 1, and if you go to row 2336.
           If you look at row H -- well, these are two entries.
       Row 2336 and 2337 are two entries only seven minutes
       apart, do you see that?  One is at 17.28 and one is at
       17.35, do you see that?
   A.  Yes, I can see that.
   Q.  Okay, thank you.  Seven minutes apart for the same
       sign-on, APA001 -- is that you or is that your son?
   A.  That's me, but it would be my son because that looks
       like it has been logged on since the afternoon.
   Q.  So he was using your log on?
   A.  He was, yes.
   Q.  Why would he do that?
   A.  Well, normally between three of us nobody else would go
       on apart from the three of us, so we didn't really mind,
       whosoever is logged on we just carried on and continued
       with it.
   Q.  If you look there are two cash declarations seven
       minutes apart, one for £68,000-odd and one for
       £52,000-odd.
   A.  Yes, I can see that.
   Q.  Now, I can also show you -- and my apologies that this
       is slightly painful in terms of how long it takes, but
       if we go to {F/1482.1} --
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Do you mean within this document or
       a different document?
   MR HENDERSON:  No, sorry, a different document, F/1482.1.
       And we will need to do the tab at the bottom.  And if we
       go to row 4323, this is the transaction data for the
       branch.  Thank you.
           Between those two times that I told you about, those
       two declarations, if you see 4323 is at 17.28, there is
       a single transaction for a £300 cash withdrawal, do you
       see that in row 4323?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   Q.  Okay.
           So the picture that emerges, I'm suggesting,
       Mr Patny, is this, that you've got two cash declarations
       minutes apart, substantial difference in value, which
       isn't explained by any transactions.  Do you see that?
   A.  Yes, I can see that.
   Q.  Okay.  What I'm suggesting to you is that things were
       pretty chaotic in your branch when it comes to these
       sorts of things.  The cash declarations look like they
       are all over the place.  Is that a fair observation?
   A.  Sometimes when you do the cash declaration, say if you
       wanted to change something for that particular column,
       you just have to delete that section to put in a new
       figure.  Sometimes what happened is if you carried on
       adding the digits in, that would take it -- you are
       thinking that you put the right amount in and just
       crosses the declaration and that cancelled declaration
       comes wrong.
   Q.  I don't understand that, I'm sorry.
   A.  Like when you declare the cash -- I mean I haven't done
       that so many times, my son had done it.  When you
       declare the cash, all the coins and notes, you put in
       the entry how much you got in there.  If you see under
       the declaration, if there's a difference, if you check
       your balance and everything, if you -- say you counted
       the cash again and if there's a difference in there and
       you have to log on to change to that particular
       denomination -- the amount of that denomination, if you
       don't delete that amount and put a new entry in,
       sometimes what happens is if you put some figure in it
       just adds onto that figure and you are thinking that you
       have changed that value and you process it again and
       then it shows an amount, the difference amount.
   Q.  Mr Patny, your evidence, as I understand it, is that
       your experience of Horizon leads you to conclude that
       there are bugs in the Horizon system.
   A.  Well, how else -- I mean these shortages have occurred
       and there's no explanation to that.
   Q.  Well, I'm suggesting to you that there's a perfectly
       sensible explanation, which is that as far as we can
       see, none of the events that you refer to are consistent
       with there being a serious problem in Horizon and all of
       them are consistent with things being pretty chaotic in
       your branch.
   A.  But where the cash has gone then?
   Q.  Are you suggesting that you actually lost this cash?
   A.  No.
   MR HENDERSON:  My Lord, I don't have a great deal more, but
       it is now 4.30.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  I assume you are going to put the
       detailed points to Mr Patny's son about what he in fact
       did and was told, are you?  On the basis that he was the
       one who called the helpline and --
   MR HENDERSON:  Yes, but I mean the records are the records
       but --
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Well, Mr Henderson, that's not really
       an answer to my question.
   MR HENDERSON:  I wasn't intending to repeat
       cross-examination that I have already done.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  I didn't interrupt you because obviously
       this gentleman's log in was used and he is the
       subpostmaster but I'm not going to have his son
       cross-examined by proxy through him so you are going to
       have to put some of these points to his son.
   MR HENDERSON:  Okay, that's fine.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Do you think you will be longer than
       five minutes with this ...
   MR HENDERSON:  Possibly, yes.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  All right, I think we will stop until
       tomorrow.
           Right, Mr Patny, this just happens sometimes so
       don't -- it's not ideal, but you are going to have to
       come back tomorrow.
   A.  Okay.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Because you are in the middle of your
       cross-examination that means you mustn't discuss things
       connected with the case or your evidence with anyone
       overnight.
   A.  Yes, my Lord.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  In your situation that's going to be
       probably harder because obviously you worked with your
       wife and your son as well, but please don't discuss your
       evidence with either of them and come back tomorrow at
       10.30.
   A.  My Lord.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Is that all right?
   A.  Yes, sir.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Anything else in terms of the evidence?
       Don't think so.
   MR GREEN:  My Lord, there was just one thing that
       your Lordship asked us for yesterday.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Hold on a second, I can let Mr Patny go.
   MR GREEN:  I'm sorry.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  I can let Mr Patny go.
           You can leave the witness box by all means, we have
       a few bits and pieces to sort out.
           Mr Green.
                           Housekeeping
   MR GREEN:  Your Lordship asked whether we had a list of all
       the branches affected by Callendar Square.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  If you have give me the reference or
       hand it up rather than read it out.
   MR GREEN:  What we have is a document which has
       Callendar Square and some others on it.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  How many are there?
   MR GREEN:  There are 20 that it records as having been
       affected and others that reported problems but probably
       didn't have losses, it says.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Is it on Magnum?
   MR GREEN:  It is.  It is {F/322.1} and we don't know whether
       that's the same list that Mr Godeseth is referring to at
       {E2/7/5}, paragraph 15.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Well, Mr Godeseth is not being
       cross-examined until next week.
   MR GREEN:  Of course.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  So I'm sure Mr De Garr Robinson and
       Mr Henderson and Mr Draper between them will let you
       know if it is what he is talking about, if it is not I'm
       sure they'll tell you which one he has.  But I can now
       go and have a look at it, all right.
           You and Mr De Garr Robinson were going to tell me
       about your proposals for closings insofar as you had
       thought about it?  Is that right?
   MR GREEN:  My Lord, yes, I have discussed it with my learned
       friend --
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Just give me some dates if you have
       agreed them.
   MR GREEN:  It is the 8th and 9th.
   MR DE GARR ROBINSON:  My Lord, yes.  My learned friend's
       team has problems the previous week so he suggested
       8 and 9 May.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Can you just remind me --
   MR GREEN:  It is Wednesday the 8th and Thursday the 9th.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Do those dates work for you,
       Mr De Garr Robinson?
   MR DE GARR ROBINSON:  My Lord, yes.  There is one member of
       the team that won't be able to be here but we can close
       orally on that basis.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  All right.  A day each?
   MR GREEN:  My Lord, yes.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  Given it is going to be some weeks later
       than initially planned I'm going to ask for the closings
       to be submitted somewhat earlier than normal and I will
       just have to think about when that's going to be.
   MR DE GARR ROBINSON:  My Lord, I quite understand.  I mean
       I would ask for --
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  You want as much time as possible of
       course.
   MR DE GARR ROBINSON:  Your Lordship didn't need me to say
       that.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  No, no, I know you want as much time as
       possible and I will try and give you as much time as
       possible, but if it is going to be then I will give
       myself more than the usual 48 hours to read them.
   MR DE GARR ROBINSON:  My Lord of course.
   MR JUSTICE FRASER:  I will of course take that into account.
           Anything else tonight?  No.  So we will resume with
       Mr Patny senior tomorrow and then after him it is
       Mr Patny -- his son.  Thank you all very much.
   (4.35 pm)
        (The court adjourned until 10.30 am on Wednesday,
                          13 March 2019)