A Post Office IT expert told a colleague “I don’t really know what I’m doing” as she investigated a postmaster’s branch accounts before his trial.
Anne Chambers was one of two Fujitsu IT experts, contracted to the Post Office, who was referred to the director of public prosecutions for alleged perjury because of evidence she gave in Lee Castleton’s civil trial.
Castleton, a former airman and stockbroker from Bridlington, East Yorkshire, was made bankrupt after he lost a two-year legal battle with the Post Office over a £25,000 cash “shortfall” that did not exist.
He was one of thousands of postmasters to be accused of taking cash from their own tills between 1999 and 2015, when in fact dozens of glitches in the branch computer system, called Horizon, were to blame.
The impact of the Post Office’s persecution was so severe on Castleton’s daughter, Millie-Jo, that she suffered more than a decade of depression, anxiety and anorexia. She told the inquiry that it had left her in hospital weighing little more than five stone.
The Met Police opened an investigation but three years on no arrests have been made.
Chambers, giving evidence to the public inquiry into the scandal on Tuesday, claimed she had been pushed by her bosses into investigating the case and giving evidence in Castleton’s trial even though acting as an expert witness was not part of her job.
She said she did not tell the court about Horizon bugs because they were not relevant in Castleton’s case.
In one message sent to a colleague at the time, she said: “I don’t really know what I’m doing! This hasn’t had my full attention, lots of people are on leave . . . Also, yesterday I got my witness statement which is (as I expect you found) full of things I didn’t say or do . . . ”
Chambers told the inquiry in written submissions that she was unable to find the source of Castleton’s shortfalls “then or now”, but that there was no evidence it was caused by a computer bug.
The judge in Castleton’s trial accepted her evidence, ruling in his 2007 judgment: “The conclusion is inescapable that the Horizon system was working properly in all material respects, and that the shortfall of £22,963.34 is real, not illusory.”
How Castleton was hounded for fake money
Thousands of pounds went missing without explanation within months of Castleton taking over his business on the Yorkshire coast, having invested his life savings.
He called the Post Office’s helpline almost every day for three months, but was unable to explain where the losses were coming from. Auditors found his branch to have a £23,000 shortfall in the accounts. He was immediately suspended and the Post Office pursued him for the cash in the civil courts.
Having exhausted his legal insurance on a counter claim, he was forced to defend himself, and when he lost the case he was made bankrupt.
After the trial Chambers raised issues internally with the way the case had been handled, including the Post Office’s “use of me as effectively an expert witness at trial” and the failure to appoint a forensic accountant. She also raised “concerns around disclosure of evidence”, she said.
She told the inquiry on Tuesday: “I was not aware of any bugs, errors and defects that were causing money to be lost without them leaving any sign that a problem had occurred. In general while there were bugs, errors and defects, they were not causing continual ongoing losses.”
She added in written evidence: “If I had ever found evidence of a bug, error or defect or any explanation for the losses I would have pointed that out and done so gladly because it would have solved the mystery. I wish I could have found the cause of Mr Castleton’s problems, but sadly could not then, despite investigation in 2004, and many hours of further checks in 2006, and I still cannot now.”
Daughter lived in fear
The inquiry heard a statement from Castleton’s daughter, Millie-Jo, who was eight when her father was taken to court.
“I remember feeling terrified on the school bus when I was a child. I was asked, ‘Didn’t your dad steal lots of money or something?’ I removed myself from social interaction,” she said in a written statement. “I lost faith in everybody around me over the years. Living in a constant cycle of fear and anxiety.
“I would have graduated in 2016 but I had to take a gap year in 2014 to 2015 because of medical intervention because my health problems and my eating disorder. This is what the Post Office did to me and my family. While my story won’t be the only one, the mental toll that so many years of fighting has taken is frightening.”
