A former Fujitsu engineer has apologised for an email in which he accused Seema Misra, a high-profile victim of the Japan Post Horizon IT scandal, of “jumping on the bandwagon” to question the reliability of the organisation’s computer systems.
Gareth Jenkins, a former senior engineer at Fujitsu, which developed the Horizon system, was testifying for a third day at a hearing investigating why the Postal Service wrongly charged hundreds of branch operators with financial discrepancies before it became clear the system was unreliable.
Jenkins was being questioned about the criminal prosecution of Misra, a postal worker who was convicted of theft while pregnant with her second child in 2010 and sentenced to 15 months in prison. Misra’s conviction was overturned by an appeals court in 2021. Jenkins was an expert witness for the postal service in Misra’s trial.
Mr Jenkins told the inquiry that the prosecution by Post Office management had been “quite chaotic” and he acknowledged he had felt “uncomfortable” and pressured by Post Office management over the case.
The investigation showed a March 1, 2010 email that Jenkins sent to postal service executives in which he wrote that Misra had “decided to jump on the bandwagon” and blamed Horizon in her case.
In response to an inquiry into his choice of words, Jenkins said: “My comments were totally inappropriate and I apologise.”
In another email to the post office manager in February 2010, he wrote: “Please see the email history below. This is another example of the postmaster trying to get away with saying ‘Horizon stole my money.'”
“Does that reveal anything about your state of mind when you were investigating the Seema Misra case in February 2010 and giving your witness statement?” Jason Beer KC, counsel for the inquiry committee, asked.
Jenkins responded: “No, this was just a very poor attempt to summarise what I thought was said in the email exchange below, and I apologise for the language I used.”
Beer continued: “Do you believe there have been many instances where postmasters have tried to get away with saying, ‘Horizon stole my money’?”
Jenkins responded: “I don’t remember what I believed. I was trying to summarise the email exchange below. I did not believe there were any issues that would cause losses to Horizon.”
Mr Jenkins was asked why he did not feel the need to take legal advice about whether to include details in his deposition about an IT bug discovered at the Derby branch.
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“You were leaving the computer lab and trying to enter the courtroom, weren’t you?” Beer said.
“I didn’t know there were any differences I should be concerned about and no one advised me about it,” Jenkins said.
Asked if he was “okay now” or “satisfied” with Misra’s testimony at his trial, Jenkins replied: “I was at the time. I clearly understand now that it wasn’t as good as it should have been, but I was happy with it at the time.”
The inquiry was told that after Misra’s trial a colleague emailed him to say: “Gareth, great, now you look to have a side business as an exclusive expert witness in future post office fraud cases.” The inquiry was told that Jenkins had been used as a witness in a number of prosecutions since 2010.
He said he now realizes he didn’t understand “what an expert witness is” or the “legal niceties” of it.
The investigation is ongoing.
