Image source, Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry

The questions around document shredding are proving to be quite taxing for Singh. He has kept his head in his hands for the last few minutes - "umm"-ing and "err"-ing through a lot of answers.

So much so that Beer has just asked him to keep his head and voice up when talking to the inquiry.

It's crucial that Singh speaks clearly into the microphone on his desk, especially given that the chair to the inquiry, Sir Wyn Williams, it watching along on a video link.

We're still hearing about the issue of document shredding.

Beer - inquiry counsel - asks about the minutes of a conference - and whether Singh, giving evidence, recalls being instructed to shred documents.

He goes a step further in asking whether Singh himself was the person who perhaps carried the shredding out?

Singh says, again, that he can't recall.

Image source, Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry

The inquiry is turning now to an alleged instruction from within the Post Office to shred evidence, including meeting minutes talking about Horizon bugs.

Before questioning begins, we stop for another short break on request from Singh, who says he is having problems with his eyes.

Once back, the inquiry looks at Singh's witness statement in which he says minute shredding made him "very uncomfortable".

After clarifying that the instruction Singh received was to both shred existing minutes and scrap minute-taking ongoing, Beer puts it to him that he felt uncomfortable because the meetings discussed Horizon faults "and touched upon possible non-disclosure of Horizon faults in past criminal proceedings".

Singh, who now appears to be rubbing his temples, agrees, and says that why he said at the time not to do it, recalling he probably swore at David Posnett in doing so.

We're back from a quick break - and straight into looking at some 2013 notes from senior Post Office lawyer Rodric Williams, discussing Gareth Jenkins (formerly of Fujitsu) and his suitability as an expert witness in the trials of sub-postmasters.

Williams is seen to have written that Jenkins had never been advised of his duties.

Beer asks Singh, the former Post Office lawyer giving evidence, whether it was ever relayed back to him that Cartwright King had the view that Jenkins had never been advised of his expert duties.

“I don’t recall having that conversation,” Singh says, to which Beer pushes back - asking how this was "never raised with you, you’re the solicitor in the case” (referring to the Seema Misra case).

“Was it the case that this was the truth that dare not be spoken - that the Post Office is implicated in this too?” Beer asks. Singh respond by saying:

Beer says Singh knew Gareth Jenkins wasn't a professional expert witness nor did he have much experience giving evidence in court.

Singh agrees with the first, not the second claim here.

He says it was his first time dealing with an expert witness, and says "I should've been more aware as to what the expert duties were," admitting this is a mistake on his behalf.

He adds that it was also a mistake not to pass the case on to someone more experienced.

Beer accuses Singh of covering up his knowledge by not voicing concerns at the time that he and the Post Office were at fault.

Singh refutes this, and with that the inquiry takes a short break.

There's some more questioning on the topic of disclosure now - specifically whether Singh, a former Post Office lawyer, failed to tell Gareth Jenkins, Fujitsu's former chief IT architect, about his duty to comply with this as an expert during sub-postmasters' trials.

Inquiry counsel Beer suggests Singh "sat on" a report by Jenkins about Horizon's receipts and payments mismatch bug.

He also asks why there wasn't a Post Office investigation into what Singh knew and when about said bug.

Singh says that is above him and is a question for the senior legal team.

Image source, Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry

It's another day at the Post Office inquiry that's filled with documents - we're currently seeing one from Cartwright King solicitors, which contains issues about evidence presented by Fujitsu.

Former senior PO lawyer Jarnail Singh, again, says he doesn't remember coming across this - and goes on to tell inquiry counsel Jason Beer that "what you are suggesting is not true".

Beer says he wasn't suggesting anything - "but it is nice to know that it would not be true".

His impatience with Singh then shines through a bit, asking him whether it's his "default position...that things are not true?"

Jason Beer, counsel to the inquiry, pulls up advice given to the Post Office by an in-house lawyer on using the expert evidence of Fujitsu engineer Gareth Jenkins in criminal proceedings against sub-postmasters.

In it, he outlines why Jenkins was no longer a witness that the Post Office could rely on, including that he failed to disclose material known to him but which undermined his expert opinion.

"Do you agree that you were one of the very people capable of addressing the reasons why Jenkins may not have discussed it because you had not told him about those duties" of disclosure? Beer asks.

“This is true,” Singh says, adding that “we probably made mistakes” and that at some point someone should have realised this.

Beer now points to an email exchange in which Singh is asked to send a witness statement from the Castleton case and instead send details of the Misra case.

Singh says he only had details of the Misra case and that's why he sent them.

Beer puts it to him that Singh was starting to understand that the Misra case was going to be a problem for him.

"It wasn't a problem for me because I wasn't dealing with it," Singh replies.

He adds that he is grieved that Seema Misra "had to suffer", and is "doubly grieved" that mistakes were made.

"You knew that your knowledge of the mismatch bug was going to come under scrutiny," Beer continues.

"Absolutely not, not true," Singh says.

The inquiry's shown a 2013 email discussing the Horizon system in the case of Seema Misra, then later the Lee Castleton case.

Both are former sub-postmasters who've had their convictions overturned. Misra, as we've already reported, was sent to prison whole pregnant. Castleton was made bankrupt.

Counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer asks if Singh was seeking to justify the verdict in the Misra case as a vindication of Horizon.

Singh says that was not the case - and insists "nothing like what you are suggesting" happened "at all".

We're now seeing an email Singh sent to Gareth Jenkins, asking him what bugs were discovered in the cases of Seema Misra and Lee Castleton.

Jenkins replies saying the Callendar Square bug was discussed in both cases.

This email arrived a week before the publication of the Second Sight interim report, Beer highlights.

Why were you at this stage, Beer asks, not revealing your knowledge of the receipts and payments mismatch bug, when there was "a detailed revelation of yet another bug?"

Singh says he didn't know about them, adding that Fujitsu would know, particularly Jenkins and that's why he reached out to him for information.

Image source, Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry

We turn now to what's known as the Callendar Square bug, named after the Post Office in which it was first detected.

It's a bug in the Horizon software that created duplicate transactions.

Beer asks why Singh sought information about it. He shows the inquiry a short email from July 2013, just before the Second Sight investigation released its report, in which Fujitsu's Gareth Jenkins "seemingly out of nowhere" forwards Singh his witness statement from the Seema Misra case.

Singh says he doesn't think that this came out of nowhere, that he had emailed Jenkins.

Why, Beer asks, given that Misra had been found guilty three years previously?

He says the request came from his line manager, Hugh Flemington.

Zoe Conway
Employment correspondent, reporting from the inquiry

Image source, Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry

Those were the phrases of the morning as lead counsel Jason Beer KC tore into Jarnail Singh’s evidence.

At the heart of this combative exchange is this question: why has Singh testified that he did not know about the existence of the payments and mismatch bug in 2010, when he was forwarded an email in October that year that referred to the bug and said that money had been disappearing at branch level.

This matters because former sub-postmistress Seema Misra was sent to prison whilst pregnant in 2010 and the existence of the bug was not disclosed in her trial. When her conviction for theft was eventually overturned in 2021, the Post Office admitted that the existence of the bug should have been disclosed.

Beer insisted that it fell to Singh to disclose the existence of in her trial. But Singh insisted that was not his job to disclose it. Beer again and again accused Singh of being part of a cover-up by the Post Office of the existence of this bug.

Beer is asking if there was any "scrabbling around" at the Post Office in the weeks before the Second Sight interim report was released "to essentially get their ducks in a row?"

Singh answers that he was not aware of it because he was not involved, adding that there was probably a working group.

Beer asks Singh to stay on topic and answer the questions as he seems "to be getting off track." Singh says he doesn't recall any kind of "activity" going on behind the scenes.

The inquiry counsel again puts it to Singh that he knew about the mismatch bug for about three years, which Singh again denies.

Another Horizon issue - known as the “local suspense account bug” - is raised. This affected the balances of gains and losses on some Post Office branch accounts, and created inaccuracies

The inquiry is shown an email exchange from June 2013 between several Post Office executives, including Lesley Sewell, the Post Office's former IT chief, and Paula Vennells, the ex-CEO.

The emails made clear the Post Office was informed of the bug in 2012, Beer says, adding that Singh was also sent this information on email.

Beer asks if there was a rush at the Post Office to find out - in the weeks before the publication of the Second Sight interim report - when the company became aware of the bugs which the report flags up.

"As far as local suspense accounts are concerned, I have no knowledge or what they mean," Singh says, adding that he was just copied in to these emails.

We now get something of an apology.

Singh tells the hearing: "I admit mistakes were made and I am sorry that Mrs Misra had suffered.

"And I am ever so embarrassed to be here, that we made those mistakes and put somebody's liberty at stake, and the loss she suffered and the damage we caused."

In case you missed it earlier, Seema Misra and her husband are watching on today on from the public gallery.

Let's get back to the inquiry.

Singh is asked about another email sent to Singh in 2010, which the ex-Post Office lawyer again says that he doesn't remember seeing.

The email is about the outcome of Seema Misra's case, sent a week before the trial.

Beer points out that Singh received the report about the so-called "mismatch" bug before this email.

"This email left you in no doubt how important Misra's case was to the Post Office business," he says.

"Misra was on trial, not Horizon," Singh says.

Image source, PA Media

We've been hearing a lot this morning about the case of Seema Misra. Here's a bit more about her.

She became a sub-postmistress in West Byfleet in Surrey in June 2005 and was suspended in January 2008 after an audit found a discrepancy of £74,000 in her accounts.

She had been feeding at least £100 per day from her shop into the Post Office tills, because of discrepancies in balancing the accounts. One day there was a £10,000 hole. This went on for two years, with Misra trying to balance the books by transferring takings from her shop and borrowing money from family members.

After an audit, the Post Office sent her a court summons and a jury found her guilty of theft and false accounting. Misra was sentenced to 15 months in jail and served four-and-a-half months before giving birth to her second son wearing an electronic tag. Her conviction has since been overturned.

She recently rejected an apology by a former Post Office boss who congratulated the team behind her conviction.

Image source, Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry

After a short break, inquiry counsel Jason Beer resumes pressing Singh on whether he had seen the email that included the 2010 report on Horizon issues, written by Fujitsu's Gareth Jenkins.

On the Seema Misra case, Singh tells Beer that at one point he actually asked other colleagues to take on the case because he was nervous about it.

Singh said he was careful and methodical with this case “because I knew it was somebody’s... somebody's... I didn’t want to get anything wrong on it.”

"Being careful you would have read this email carefully, wouldn't you?" Beer asks.

Singh says if he had seen it he would have sent it to colleagues to ask what it meant.

Beer then retorts: “'All of this if it received it, if I read it'. It's s a big fat lie, isn’t it? And you know it Mr Singh.”

Singh replies that he didn’t come here to lie to the inquiry, but to assist it.

We're looking again at Singh's witness statement - and the section where he suggests he did not recall the 2010 Jenkins report.

"You're here running the same line that you ran in 2013 and 2015...giving false evidence to the inquiry?" Beer says

He asks if when Singh wrote the statement, was he aware the inquiry would uncover that the report had in fact been forwarded to him over email.

Beer pushes him again, saying "You weren't a details man, were you?"