Peter Ruddick
Business reporter

When is a bug not a bug? Apparently, when it is an anomaly. Or an exception.

It has been revealed that, in 2013, the Post Office's then chief executive Paula Vennells had asked her "computer literate" husband for alternative words to describe a computer bug.

What was the type of alternative being sought? Something "non-emotive".

Amazingly, the two words he suggested made their way into a briefing note for a meeting with an MP looking into Horizon issues.

A briefing note Susan Crichton appears to have been involved in crafting. Although she said she must have a "mistaken" recollection of that.

The counsel to the inquiry suggested this was all a bit "Orwellian". Alternative words to try and elicit alternative emotions.

Another email, now from the start of July 2013, is shown to Crichton. It shows "potentially defamatory" content within the Second Sight interim report.

Blake says it appears Crichton was involved in seeking advice.

In the email Blake says lawyer Cameron McKenna, from international law firm CMS, is asked about attempting to seek an injunction on the report.

Crichton is asked if she recalled this.

"No," she answers, adding that she cannot recall attempts to prevent the Second Sight interim report from being released.

Susan Crichton is asked if she recalls debate within the Post Office about referring to "bugs" with the Horizon system and trying to change the wording.

Crichton says she would use the word "defects", adding that the term "bugs" is "a bit slang" and imprecise.

Blake presses on with this line of inquiry. He says that by July 2013, there were discussions within the Post Office about changing the language around the so-called "bugs". He pulls up an email from chief executive Paula Vennells, who discussed finding a "non-emotive word" to replace the word "bugs".

In the email Vennells said her "computer-literate husband" suggested "exception or anomaly".

Blake asks if Crichton recalls this discussion about language at the top of the business.

Crichton says she doesn't.

Crichton is now asked about an email she sent to Ron Warmington in June 2013, where she asked how things were going on the Second Sight report.

Blake asks if Crichton was aware of a "potential shockwave" happening as a result of the report.

"No, I don't think so," she tells the inquiry's counsel, and says it was an independent report that had to be allowed to continue its investigation.

In the email, Warmington says "it's all getting a bit heated", citing the need to disclose two Horizon defects.

He wrote that Post Office Limited had disclosed two defects that led to shortages in accounts.

Asked about these defects, Crichton confirms that in this email exchange they were talking about the issue of remote access.

We're now looking at a letter from Simon Baker to Crichton and others.

It summarises a letter from Lord Arbuthnot to Alan Bates.

In the letter, Lord Arbuthnot suggested Second Sight focused its efforts on the two "best MP cases". It doesn't respond to Bates' request to focus on "systemic failures".

After summarising the letter, Simon Baker's email says: "This gives us the opportunity to really contain the scope of the investigation."

"That is inconsistent with the evidence you've just given," Blake tells Crichton.

Crichton says the Post Office was finding "from a practical point of view" that the investigation was taking "a lot longer than we had anticipated".

She says Second Sight wasn't able to get through cases as fast as they'd hoped.

Blake points to the "contain the scope" line in the email again. Doesn't that, combined with evidence they've just looked at, suggest the Post Office was trying to confine the investigation?

Rather than trying to restrain the investigation, Crichton says she was "trying to understand how it all fitted together".

Susan Crichton accepts she might have been short sighted back in June 2012 when asked about Seema Misra's case. As we reported earlier, Misra was wrongly jailed while she was pregnant.

Now in January 2013, Julian Blake shows the inquiry an email from Ron Warmington about the issuance of transaction corrections raised by sub-postmasters.

A second part of the email chain shows a response from Crichton, which says: "This is not Horizon, how do we box this off?".

"Were you trying to confine?" Blake asks.

Crichton disagrees, saying she was trying to make sense of the issue at hand.

Inquiry counsel Blake refers to an email from Alice Perkins, which says she doesn't "buy the argument" that the court process would be undermined by including all cases by MPs.

In the email Perkins also mentions the Seema Misra case, and there is a suggestion that if the case was reviewed over Horizon issues it would be "a red rag to a bull".

Blake goes on to ask Crichton whether she was concerned at that time about the "publicity" that had been raised by her conviction.

Crichton responds by saying she was "very concerned about the situation", and she didn't want to reopen it unless there was good reason to believe there was an issue there.

By June 2012 Crichton was concerned about going ahead with criminal casespublished at 12:05 British Summer Time 23 April

12:05 BST 23 April

Emma Simpson
Reporting from the Post Office Inquiry

Susan Crichton has been talking about her role when she joined the Post Office in 2010 as head of legal, telling the inquiry she was trying to understand the process.

She was no expert in criminal law.

The Post Office needed a technically strong and highly-commercial lawyer, ahead of the split with Royal Mail.

By June 2012, she was concerned about going ahead with criminal cases - where Horizon issues were being raised by sub-postmasters - with an independent review starting to happen.

Crichton wanted them ceased but there is no email evidence so far of her raising any concerns with anyone - and she can’t remember what she exactly said or did.

Blake brings up an email Susan Crichton herself sent to Alice Perkins and Paula Vennells in June 2012.

Blake quotes part of Crichton's email back to her. She wrote that in cases where the Post Office has criminally prosecuted sub-postmasters, "I do not think that we want to be seen as re-opening the cases but rather position this as a review of the existing evidence".

Blake then asks why it would be a problem if issues with the Horizon system were identified in relation to those who have already been convicted.

"Forgive me, I am lamentably unqualified in the criminal piece of this," Crichton says.

Blake then asks: "But if there was new evidence that showed that that conviction was unfair, wasn't that something that positively should be investigated?"

"Yes, I agree with you. It should have been," Crichton says. "And it was, actually."

In light of this, Blake asks if Crichton's June 2012 position - that these cases shouldn't be investigated - was a mistake.

"I think it was - yes," she says.

Inquiry counsel Julian Blake asks Susan Crichton whether those who had been convicted should have been included in the Second Sight review.

He asks if, at that stage, there were concerns about reopening the cases that had concluded and gone through the courts.

Yes, Crichton answers.

"I thought we shouldn't re-open that," she adds.

We're now in June 2012.

Blake shows us a proposal from investigators Second Sight to carry out an independent review of past fraud and theft cases to determine whether facts supported charges that had been brought forward against individuals.

Blake asks Crichton if the proposal would look at individual cases.

"Correct," she replies.

In the proposal from 2012, Second Sight said it would study and selectively test the Horizon IT system in order to find any "black hole" or defect in the programme.

Susan Crichton continues to face questions from inquiry counsel Julian Blake, this time about a Deloitte document that was used in preparation for a meeting with MP Lord Arbuthnot and Sir Oliver Letwin.

The Deloitte audit would cost in the region of £250,000 to £500,000. It was suggested in the document that the audit could be used as an assurance in court for future cases.

The Deloitte review was not commissioned by the Post Office - the company decided to go with Second Sight instead.

The inquiry now turns to a later board meeting, which took place in March 2012.

A briefing, given to the board and compiled by Mike Young, is pulled up. In it, he notes that a recent incident on Horizon was the "fourth significant service failure of this system in nine months".

Young describes an "architectural design change" to reduce the Post Office's operating costs.

He also speaks of "wide network service disruption".

Blake asks if any link drawn between these technical reports and her own reports about challenges to Horizon system?

"I don't recollect that they were," she says.

We're looking at minutes from a board meeting on 12 January 2012, which Susan Crichton attended.

At this point, she was legal and compliance director for the Post Office.

A civil litigation report was shown to the board. One member asked for an assurance that there was no substance to claims brought by sub-postmasters that had featured in Private Eye at the time.

At the meeting, Crichton assured the board that Horizon had been subject to an internal audit.

Inquiry counsel Julian Blake asks what Crichton what she understood, at this stage, integrity in Horizon to mean.

"Reliability and probity, I guess," she says.

Julian Blake, inquiry counsel, refers to Susan Crichton's witness statement again.

Speaking of when she left the Post Office, Crichton says she "made it clear that no further prosecutions" reliant on Horizon evidence should be taking place.

Clarifying what she meant, Crichton says she wanted the teams to be aware "they had a duty" to review this evidence.

"I was trying to heighten people's awareness about what we were doing," Crichton adds.

"It was for [the Post Office] to really try and understand what had happened in the branches and why the sub-postmasters, if sub-postmaster were the issue, had got into this situation."

She is asked if it is fair to say that this did not stop such prosecutions happening.

"I think that's right," Crichton says.

Crichton says there was a group of people who had worked at the Post Office for a long time who believed the money allegedly going missing from sub-postmasters' accounts was public money and the Post Office should make efforts to recover it.

She identifies network director Kevin Gilliland, a group of debt recovery team in Chesterfield and Angela van den Boegard as being within that group.

The inquiry is on a 10 minute break, but in the meantime we'll bring you up-to-date on the exchanges between Susan Crichton and counsel to the inquiry Julian Blake.

A few moments ago Blake brought up another email from Jarnail Singh, concerning the withdrawal of the Post Office's ability to prosecute.

In Singh's 2012 email, he said a decision not to prosecute "cannot be kept secret". He wrote that the Post Office may face criticism and it could undermine faith in Horizon.

Blake asks Crichton if she was concerned by Singh's response. She says she did not agree with it.

We're now looking at an email from Susan Crichton to Post Office lawyer Jarnail Singh. It is from June 2012.

In it, Crichton wrote: "If we decide not to go ahead with criminal prosecutions are there any risks for POL [Post Office Limited]?".

Crichton tells the inquiry they were worried about the independent review of Horizon happening at the same time as the prosecutions.

Julian Blake then asks why she wanted to know about the risks the prosecutions could have on the Post Office.

"It wasn't because I knew there was anything wrong with Horizon necessarily, but I just felt it was important that we pause these cases whilst we did the review," Crichton adds.

Susan Crichton says her "normal practice would have been to talk to both IT and network team if they were confident that these issues had not been caused by Horizon".

She says she looked at individual cases strategically.

"I was trying to understand that part of the Post Office process."

Crichton says an issue would come through from a sub-postmaster or from an MP, then the IT or network team would talk her through the case, demonstrate the entries that had been made, and give her assurance that the issue wasn't caused by Horizon.

But she is emphatic on her role. "I am not an IT expert. I would rely on their assurance," she adds.

Image source, Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry

Susan Crichton is asked by counsel to the inquiry Julian Blake whether she thought the IT system should have been investigated.

"I think as part of this work, it was an iterative process of going back to the IT department," to ask if they had reviewed these cases and ask the team how shortfalls rose.