Chris Mason
Political editor

The prime minister is meeting sub-postmasters who are in Parliament this lunchtime and have watched PMQs from the House of Commons public gallery today.

Ben Hatton
Live reporter

The counsel to the inquiry asks Longman why by July 2010 - with all the issues raised to him relating to Horizon that we have heard about this morning - he did not change his view about the reliability and integrity of the system.

"With hindsight I should have done," he says.

But he adds that at the time he was probably focused only on specific instances where an actual fault with Horizon had been identified.

Blake is now asking Longman about a message from Post Office lawyer Jarnail Singh sent to him on 6 April 2010.

Blake puts it to Longman that it looks as though it took until that time to disclose transaction and help desk logs in Misra's case.

He then asks if Longman accepts that it was too late in the day and it shouldn't have taken that amount of time.

Longman says yes, and there was a really long period between the defence's request and actually getting some of the items and full information.

He stresses he wasn't trying to delay getting disclosure to the defence.

Longman is asked about the issues at the Post office "with having somebody in charge of pursing reasonable lines of inquiry but didn't have significant knowledge of Horizon system?"

"Well yes," Longman answers and says that the onus was on the investigator to find people who could explain how the system worked.

"When putting a case together if there were questions about Post Office procedures that I couldn't answer, it was a task to find someone who could," he continues.

Ben Hatton
Live reporter, at the inquiry

The counsel to the inquiry is referencing a document from February 2010. He puts it to Longman that the impression you get from the documents shown up until this point suggest Misra really needed to fight for disclosure in her case.

“I would have to agree,” Longman says.

Some of the reason for that was cost, Longman says. As for the rest, “that wasn’t my decision” he adds.

But he insists that if he was asked to get data he would have made every effort to get it.

“Costs shouldn’t have come into it”, he says.

Blake mentions an email sent to Phil Taylor, a member of the Post Office legal team, on 16 November, 2009. Just to remind you of the timeline, Misra's trial was 30 November.

In the email to Taylor, Longman says Misra would "be lucky to get any of it at this late stage" - which Blake says appears to show a lack of concern in respect of disclosure. Longman says this email must have been sent after a request for data.

Longman says no, it must be some information that's due to come to Fujitsu or some other department, but that his phrasing could have been a bit more professional.

Blake asks if there was a deliberate attempt to delay disclosure until as late as possible in the day before the trial.

"Not on my part," Longman replies.

He says he wants to make it clear that he "never delayed" getting disclosure.

We're still on the issue of disclosure of data.

Longman is still being asked about his requests for transaction data and help desk data. It says in the evidence that it would take up to six weeks to obtain help desk data, and Longman confirms.

Blake continues to read a letter written to the defence, and says that "the letter is clearly an attempt to dissuade the defendant from seeking the underlying data". Longman agrees and adds that he didn't have any input into it.

When asked if he was concerned by the letter at the time, Longman says "No, because it came from the legal department I accepted it, I didn't question them."

He denies he was reluctant in any way to provide discloure to Seema Misra, saying "I would do it if I was asked to... I wish everything had been provided."

Blake turns to an email from Longman to Jarnail Singh, a Post Office lawyer, sent in August 2009.

In the email, Longman says at the hearing in July of that year, the defence indicated they would be seeking a forensic accountant to analyse Horizon data, after Misra challenged the accuracy of the IT system.

Longman goes on to say in the email that there was some issues with ordering the data. He also forwarded Singh an email from Dave Posnett, who outlined these issues.

The email from Posnett says that due to the size of the ARQ request, he couldn't authorise Fujitsu to proceed.

As a reminder, the ARQ requests are Audit Record Queries - which show the record of transactions.

He also says they could only request 60 ARQs per month, and that this defence request could be detrimental to other prosecution requests.

Blake asks Longman if this was an appropriate consideration when deciding if something should or shouldn't be disclosed to a defendant.

Longman says with hindsight, he wishes all data requested had been provided.

Ben Hatton
Live reporter

Longman is currently being quizzed over the approach the Post Office took to disclosure in court cases against sub-postmasters, with a particular focus on Seema Misra's case.

Longman says he accepts he was responsible for disclosure, but he didn’t know he was officially titled the disclosure officer.

One of the continuing themes of the scandal is how differently things might have turned out if the sub-postmasters taken to court, and their legal representatives, knew what the Post Office knew about concerns over Horizon - that’s why this evidence matters.

Chris Mason
Political editor

Meanwhile here in the House of Commons, both the prime minister and the Labour leader begin their contributions to prime minister’s question time by acknowledging there are former sub-postmasters watching on today from the public gallery.

We are back after the inquiry took a short break.

Counsel to the inquiry Blake moves on to disclosures in the Seema Misra case and shows a list of unused material for the case. He then asks Longman who he thought was the responsible for the disclosure for the case.

"Well, me, but I didn't know I was called the disclosure officer," Longman answers.

Blake asks again if Longman was "just someone who compiled a schedule or were you someone who either provided instructions on whether or not to disclose?"

Longman answers: "I just compiled the schedule, that's how I saw my role."

Longman is asked again about the emerging evidence something was going wrong with the Horizon IT system.

He is asked again if he would do things differently, knowing what he knows now, when he was investigating losses at post offices.

“Yes” says Longman.

He says he would have applied for transactional data, and that there should have been a process and consistent approach by investigators, when dealing with unexplained losses.

Blake turns to the case of Dawn O'Connell, whose office had a loss of £40,000.

In a letter to the lead investigator Lisa Allen, she writes "I believe there to be a lot of around £40,000 in the office, it seems to have been building up over a period of several months. I don't know how this is accumulated."

She says she has tried to search the units before but hasn't been able to find where the lossed could be, and says that no staff has been involved.

Taking this as an example, Blake says that there were a number of interviews of those who are being accused of stealing from Horizon who couldn't pin-point exact transactions and exact periods of loses.

"Do you think it was unrealistic to expect them to provide you with more specificity?" he asks.

"Yes, I would agree," Longman says: "I thought as a sub-postmaster you may be identify when the losses start and give a steer on some sort of data to obtain, but in these cases they were not able to give us specific data."

The inquiry turns to the case of Jerry Hosi - one of a group of former sub-postmasters who were wrongly convicted. His conviction was quashed in 2021.

A transcript of a recorded interview in 2006 with Hosi is shown on screen. Lisa Allen was the investigating officer, but Longman was present at the interview.

Blake reads out some of the transcript, where Allen tells Hosi she doesn't think his loses - £70,000 - were genuine and that it was stolen from the Post Office.

Hosi says he didn't take the money.

Blake asks Longman if he accepts it wouldn't be possible for someone like Hosi to have said there is a bug in Horizon.

Longman says from what Blake just read, there should have been an investigation into Horizon at Hosi's office, and if what he was saying had "any merit".

Jon Longman is shown a statement he made in February 2010 on Seema Misra's case.

In the statement Longman said he had never had any issues with Horizon. Blake asks why he said this, and whether he was trying to be supportive of the reliability of Horizon.

The ex-Post Office investigator tells the hearing he was trying to get across he never personally encountered a problem with the system on the few occasions he used it.

He adds he "wasn't trying to defend Horizon" with that statement, but was just describing his experience with the system.

Things are getting a little technical but it boils down to what was known as far back as 2010, about the problems with the Horizon IT system.

The counsel to the inquiry is asking about issues with ARQ data - that is Audit Record Queries - which show the record of transactions.

We're seeing emails written in 2010 which highlight problems with duplicate transaction records at Horizon. The emails show that questions were being raised about the integrity of Horizon - and investigators knew about this.

Longman is asked if his department was concerned about this. "Yes" he replies.

And another question from the counsel to the inquiry - was Longman concerned about historic cases where audit data was not accurate?

Longman replies: "I take your point it maybe should've been a trigger to look back at other cases."

Emma Simpson
Business correspondent

Some other news we're just learning now. Post Office CEO Nick Read has been cleared of all misconduct allegations by an external barrister-led investigation.

The Post Office says he's got the full and united back of the board to continue leading the business.

Last month it emerged that he was the subject of a complaint in the midst of the furious row between former Post Office Chair Henry Staunton and the Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch.

Staunton told MPs that an 80-page document had been compiled by the company's former HR director under it's "Speak Up" process.

The final report isn't being published. The Post Office says it was "unacceptable" that the process was put into the public domain. But given that it was, it says it's appropriate the key conclusion is made public.

Blake continues with the O'Dell case, and asks Longman if the reason for non-disclosure was "simply because you didn't consider those matters shouldn't be disclosed or because of bigger business concerns?"

Longman says that it was because it hadn't been fully investigated.

"Can you see a problem there in where you don't continue with a case because there may be a bug but you don't look into that bug therefore you don't consider it being a case that merits disclosing?" Blake asks.

"Yes, that should've gone up to Fujitsu for an investigation," Longman says, and denies that there was any deliberate attempt to not investigate it.

Longman says that he asked O'Dell herself to identify a smaller period of time where she could identify problems during the interview.

Blake asks: "Do you think putting that burden on a defendant is a difficult burden to put on them?"

Longman agrees, but adds that as an investigator he wasn't really aware what the faults with the Horizon system were.

He says he didn't know they were taking about the whole Horizon system as possibly having faults.

Blake probes Longman now on a memo from Jarnail Singh, a Post Office lawyer, sent to him on 6 July 2010.

In it, Singh says the circumstances of the facts will cause difficulties in prosecuting the case, and the business would come under "grave criticism" which, the memo says, the defence would exploit.

Blake asks if this was a concern Longman shared.

"Yes, I would say so," he responds.

Blake draws the inquiry's attention to another line in the memo, where Singh suggests that a caution should be administered in this case.

He asks if Longman was aware if the Post Office had the ability to issue a caution. He says he was aware. He says a caution was drawn up and he called O'Dell to tell her this, but she said she wasn't going to sign it.

The matter didn't go any further, he adds.

Then Blake moves to Longman's witness statement, where he says at the time, he didn't consider a challenge to the Horizon system in one case to be relevant to others. Blake asks if looking back, does he think the O'Dell case would have been relevant to Seema Misra's.

Longman says looking back on it now, yes,

"It was another case where Horizon was being blamed for losses, so yes," Longman answers.

He says this should have been mentioned to the defence.

Jon Longman is now being asked about the case of Jennifer O'Dell.

In a write-up of an interview with O'Dell shown at the hearing, Longman wrote she blamed losses on Horizon and refused to make good the audit shortage.

He wrote at the time there was "not sufficient evidence to prove Mrs O'Dell, her son Daniel or husband" stole money from the Post Office and she had contacted the helpline multiple times to inform them of losses.

"I did have reservations with this case," he now tells the hearing.

He says looking back, this case should have led to an investigation to see if there was a fault with Horizon, and Fujitsu should have conducted this review.