As a senior IT specialist looking after a team of up to fifteen engineers and at least ten systems worth millions, repeatedly I was told to lie to my own staff. The consequence of refusing to do so was the gradual fragmentation of my team as systems were moved elsewhere, while pressure on me to achieve arbitrary goals increased. I'd resigned within a year. Gareth Jenkins would be fully briefed when Fujitsu tasked him as an expert witness... unless Fujitsu wanted plausible deniability. He's a scapegoat, equivalent to jangling a bunch of shiny keys at the media and public.

As some-one has said already, true "Expert Witnesses" make a very good living out of being an Expert Witness. It is a job in and of itself. Plucking some subject matter expert out of a systems engineering role and calling them an expert and then inserting them into the legal system is gross misconduct by lawyers - Jenkins was a Witness with expertise - not an "Expert Witness". To portray him an anything else was on POL, not Jenkins. Why would he know, or be expected to know anything about the law, and especially the legal Term-of-art - Expert Witness. There was malfeasance going on all right, but it was with Lawyers and managers - POL and Fujitsu

Full of respect for Lee Castleton and his attitude. If only people like him had been in charge.

Gareth Jenkins is a very ''intelligent'' computer geek. I think he is naïve and was outside his area. I believe the lawyers and managers are to blame, and the unfair contract that Sub-Postmasters signed up to.

Worked well for the CEO and co.....their salaries increased with the extra money did it not?

This man should be given a lengthy prison sentence for contempt of court.

He was clearly way out of his depth

Anyone here who isn't yet seeing that Beer is not terribly interested in Jenkins, but is using him to demonstrate/implicate the crimes of others, completely fails to understand what is going on here. What Jenkins is good for is highlighting the perjury of others - So many others.

My partner worked in our local post office and shop there was always problems with Horizon. The shop owner said to me it's people making mistakes. I said to him it could be the system is faulty. He said to me no way. I realised later on how right i was. I felt so sorry for all the poeple whose life's were ruined by this unreliable system. Mark Jones

weird I don't feel all fuzzy and warm about Alan Bates getting a Knighthood. it's just a slight of hand by the British establishment to distance themselves from this scandal that they are ultimately responsible for. this disaster was caused by decisions made all the way up to the cabinet office, including a prime minister, Tony Blair. to hand out gongs and so pretend that they're not at fault is kind of disgusting to me, particularly since it still looks like the victims are not going to get the compensation they deserve

Sounds like a copper giving evidence

Nobody has unpicked the faulty code and yet the system remains in use.

Technically the Titanic was a good ship,so good it didn’t really need lifeboats.And we all know how that ended.

Gareth Jenkins the System Architect knows fully well already the Horizon system was flawed to the point of being potentially fraudulent as the local database on the Post Office installed computer would at many times fail to synchronise with the central mainframe database but instead of marking those transactions as Pending simply flagged them as Completed instead - Shame on you Gareth how do you sleep at night

Didn`t know what he was doing , but still was happy enough to take the money for doing it

I wasn't interested..... that is the heart of the whole mess. No empathy.

Tell that to the families that had their relatives commit suicide because of your incompetence.

So he wasn’t aware of what the responsibilities are of an “expert witness” and he’s still confident that the Horizon system was “robust” despite all the subsequent evidence that has proven wrongful convictions? It’s hardly any wonder that he tried to secure immunity from prosecution as a condition for giving evidence to both enquiries is it?

The question I would like asked is - ‘have you been coached in preparation for your evidence’? There seems to be a party line here of ‘I didnt know, it was somebody else’s function.’ That’s why he’s saying he didn’t know that he was an ‘expert witness’…

Castleton has far more generosity of spirit than I can muster.

I watched the evidence and he was fully railroaded by the lawyers. They changed his statements and he was a mathematician and computer nerd and didn’t see the warning signs of being screwed. Management knew of the issues and pushed a nerd to slaughter, there should be legal certifications you require to be an expert witness. I cannot believe any old nerd can be an expert witness as long as a lawyer says so.

He engineered a computer program that couldn't add up. You know that thing, the only thing that computers can actually do, numbers, and he made a computer do them so badly they kept getting the wrong answer... I wouldn't believe a word that comes out of his mouth. He is clearly utterly inept.

how about taking the system back to the original software level in a controlled environment and test the thing to death. The remote access is already a given which throws all convictions into doubt lets see how robust the system was back then.

Gareth Jenkins denies he created or was the chief architect of the Horizon system. You seem to be ignoring this, Channel 4.

The Post Office should be barred from criminally prosecuting its postmasters because it’s evidently a conflict of interest. In the future, this should be handled by ordinary courts.

asked for imunity but is totally innocent 😂

He can't admit it was dodgy, that would mean he committed purgery.

This dishonesty is a disgrace for the Post Office and Fujitsu

He should go straight to jail and loose everything.

Perfect memory when stating fact that helps them, it was a long time ago when they don’t want to incriminate themselves, they have all been well drilled in what to say, by lawyers who, we as taxpayers will foot the bill for. Fucking disgraceful

Personally, I have been quite impressed with his evidence so far. He comes across as completely honest, with his hands face down on the desk in front of him, open and sincere. Having worked in IT for many years across various companies, I've noticed that there is always one 'boffin' that everyone turns to as a last resort for problem-solving. These individuals are often perceived as 'autistic' and tend to work in remote rooms, sometimes even in the attic, surrounded by accumulated computer gear. Gareth Jenkins fits this type perfectly, being totally focused on his specific areas of concern. Therefore, I feel it is unjust that he should be made a scapegoat for issues beyond his remit. Many witnesses in this inquiry have been too ready to blame him for problems that were ultimately their responsibility.

Another sociopathic witness who should be in jail for the rest of his life.

Truly shocking, let's hope the dedicated post masters get justice.

PURE incompetance 🤬🤬

'The operation was a success but the patient died'!!

He was Covering his own back 100%….Cover Up.

He reminds me of Peter Hitchins. What I don't understand is why the court didn't ask for Gareth Jenkins declarations/signed documents which he was supposed to have signed declaring himself to be an "expert." It's like going for a job interview and the prospective employer believing you have the qualifications you say you have!

If no monies were ever found in anyones accounts or spending habits, surely this would be a red flag to any fraud investigator 😮..hmmmm

Gareth Jenkins was NOT the chief architect of Horizon.

It was the cause of 'innocent' deaths, caused family break-ups, caused 'innocent' people to lose their homes, caused 'innocent' people to be sent to prison, this has been dragging out for years. Yeah it worked really well. Jail those responsible and pay the compensation to all those 'innocent' people and their families.

Are any subpostmasters still imprisoned or otherwise subject to penalties where this person's evidence was used?

But isn't this the fault of the Court. The Judges should have made sure that the witnesses are proper. Did he lie to the court or did the court not ask?

The integrity of the Horizon system is not the core issue here - all software has bugs. It's the cover-up that Fujitsu and the Post Office decided on in order to protect their reputations, and the injustice and pain they knowingly inflicted on others in order to do it that's the issue. No sympathy, no mercy.

No way can it be legal to alter a third party's financial records without telling them. If the SPMs are personally responsible making good any discrepancies, then the till records belong to them and not to the Post Office. The Post Office cannot give authority to Fujitsu to alter the records, because they don't own them. It's that simple. You can't hold other people legally liable for a process which they don't control but you do. It would be like hiring a car, then the hire company remotely accesses the controls, causes a crash - and then blames you.

Absolute disgrace and this kind of human actually exist. Shameless, lying in the face and without regret or remorse. He should just go to jail.

It seemed like his responses were as rehearsed as Paula Vennell and Angela van der Bogart !! All trying to SHIFT any BLAME !!

Yet another senior, highly paid executive who doesn't seem to know literally anything about how to do his job. You'd be better off putting the temps in charge.

Every single postmaster sent to jail and those who lost money should be fully compensated + interest for all the years this has gone on for and have their jobs and salaries reinstated.

Where are the CPS,SRA, police with so much in the public domain why has no one been arrested or prosecuted is this inquiry a cover up.

wot planets he off. pathetic

I believe Jenkins is the innocent person here and was being instructed by his management team , He has no knowledge of the legalities of what his superior's where instructing him to do . Honest as the day is long IMHO

Evidence says he is a liar.

So horizon is taking responsibility for the pain, loss, suffering & self unaliving? Does one need to understand how the bugs came about? If it doesn't work then it's on the developers. If he gave evidence falsely or negligently then he's in contempt of court.

All these people in command that tell people they are there due to being the best and knowing what they are talking about. Then when it all goes wrong and they have to face the music it'as "oh I'm an idiot! What's an email?"

Bad Journalism from C4, they clearly did not watch ALL of his testimony.

Instead of lawyering up and going down the prosecution route, POL (the decision makers, that is) should have been banging on Fujitsu’s door for answers to the ongoing technical issues - support centre requests for help alone, if properly reported and reviewed, should have spoken for themselves, for example. This scandal is like an accident - a combination of many factors coming together in a perfect storm. Gareth Jenkins’ apparent naivety about being a technical consultant, rather than a fully blown expert witness, is just one cog in a very big wheel. I suspect it gradually dawned on him that his initial “goodwill” towards the customer was inappropriate and the snowball just got bigger and bigger. Others involved seem capable of maliciousness and blindsiding terrible personal harm for career protection or advancement purposes, but this guy looks like a scapegoat to me.

You do realise that not one person in this inquiry will be prosecuted don't you?

These people should be behind bars.

Seems to me he's decided to lie under oath..

How can he protect the system when there is a proven fault . No way would an engineer not know of such fault. The fault would show logged on the screen ... He's lying,, he probably spent most of the time deleting the fault off from the system fault log.

Journalists like Cathy chose not to report it when it was ongoing ....

It obviously didn’t work well

Well, the horizon system obviously didn't work well ????

He seemed like a tech boffin and it’s quite possible, amongst all the POL witnesses and Fujitsu witnesses, truthfully? he seemed to answer quickly and openly and less speak less guardedly from what I saw, unlike other many others like Rodric Williams, van den bogard etc - he seemed to have been exploited by POL lawyers like Parsons and internal POl managers like Van Den Bogard and Vennels - BUT in the end after 4 days the overall picture will emerge

Why did the judges and defence lawyers not point out in court that Gareth Jenkins witness statements were inadequate if that is now blindingly obvious to the Inquiry?

Ignorance is no excuse

I feel for him he is obviously not an evil guy and I’m not convinced bugs did affect the discrepancies. I suspect they made mistakes. Having said that the real scandal is the outrageous prosecution process

Habitual lier , asking not to be prosecuted twice shows a guilty complex

Initial bugs, errors or defects occur in every new software installation. So they would have been expected when Horizon was rolled out. I believe Gareth Jenkins was correct to say the system worked well afterwards. The scandal was that the Post Office was able to instruct remote access to create false deficits. Because of their unique position, they could prosecute Subpostmasters directly, without going through Court procedures. In effect, the Post Office was stealing from their servants.

Covering up something that is faulty is not being a scape goat, it’s having NO self respect. How can anyone do what they did to those innocent people.

The dudes old, development was likely very Wild West, it’s unlikely he remembers much at all line by line. Doubt he would be able to speak with certainty about much. Obviously shocking that no reverse engineering or code inspection/reviews have happened.

At best he is another 'expert' who is totally inept at worse he is a criminal and a liar who should already be in jail for the lives ruined in his arrogance and well paid failures.

Just shocking to the core, so many in the post office knew and yet so many backed innocent people going to jail because profit was king.

...it’s becoming a comedy show......! The lame and APATHETIC attitude... Now surely, there are enough Lawyers to see through this absolute FACADE....There shouldn’t be any hold up ...I cannot imagine the total despair the victims are still suffering from. And, let’s just say the victims get PROPERLY COMPENSATED,...... it’s not in any way, the end to their suffering...

He's probably right....the real problem is PO carrying on with prosecutions of innocent spm, not the technical engineer.

This issue is starting to be a significant if not dangerous issue for open repair

Perhaps his appraisal by the enquiry won't match that one given by his company at the time . . .

Can someone pls explain how a BUG could always ADD money on to the monthly bill in a RANDOM fashion across multiple terminals. This has never been clarified.

Said PO engineer from his padded cell.

Well said. An apology is worthless.

Nope the results speak for themselves nd should be used in a civil suit. There is a pattern in the overcharges that will point to a request made to bump up the profits. To justify bonuses and promotions and increases in pensions. They are never going to be truthful to protect their careers

The Post Office including Paula Vennells, her colleagues including Horizon's Jenkins are all guilty and the PM's should be compensated asap.

Put him in prison!

He is delusional to think the software worked fine even it’s replacement has issues , not in any of the major cases has Fujitsu owned up to serious faults, remote control , or just a simple we maybe wrong , a typical uncaring manager , he may be good at what he does but that doesn’t make up for accountability

The PO is just one British institution caught in flagrante. British business suffers from PO management culture and it's why our businesses are unproductive, risk averse and better run by non Brits. The British management culture really does need overhauling.

"I duno anything! They told me to be an expert witness at 100 pound an hour so i cancelled me cleaning job"

'what BUGS' Wasnt it downright back end theft, rather than 'bugs'? It seems to be that the 'bugs' have two hands and 10 fingers.

Sorry forgot to put Mr.

What I hope is that the inquiry discovers who in Fujitsu and POL was pressurising him to lie in court. Clearly Jenkins himself is in the crosshairs, but it's important that he doesn't become a scapegoat for the senior managers and lawyers who were orchestrating the coverup.

When do the prosecutions start?

Nicely crafted summary by C4news. They assembled an accurate summary here.

so will he be held in contempt of the enquiry for lying and then prosecuted?

Gosh Lee, you are an impressive human being. Thank you.

I personally think the knighthood should be recognised but not excepted After all it’s in the title Royal Mail , they have done nothing, the Royals for the life and tragically death of those Postmaster’s !

Surely Mr. Jenkins position is that he designed a system that was acceptable to his client. If that system was abused or misused by his client, or at the instruction of his client, that is not his responsibility. What we need to know is who issued the instructions to misuse the system, who knew that these instructions were being issued and who in the Post Office management caused this to happen and allowed it to continue for so long. All the witnesses from Fujitsu and the Post Office are coming up with the same excuse, which can be paraphrased as the little boy caught standing beside the broken window with a stone in his hand shrieking 'It wasn't me, a big boy did it and ran away.' The witnesses simply are not being pressed sufficiently to name names by the inquiry lawyers and if this goes on indefinitely, we will never know where the buck stops and no individuals will be held responsible, either in justice or law. Exactly the same thing is happening at the Grenfell inquiry. We know what went wrong. What we need to know is who made it go wrong, who allowed it to continue to go wrong, who knew it was going wrong and did nothing to set it right and who lied about it going wrong. Without that, there will be no justice.

Incompetent and a liar. Off to jail.

Hes not part of the post office...But he's responcible and is trying to deflect blame.....hes obviously guilty.

He's just the guy they are going to crucify... you can tell by CH4's dialogue introducing him. He is culpable because he kept doing what hos bosses told him ,,, but it's the bosses that sent people to jail, in particular the Post Office bosses, but the Fujitsu lot were working in full co-operation.

Usually there is not a single person directly responsible for a failed IT system although the "leaders" and managers should take this responsibility for the team as part of their job (but don't). It's easy to blame engineers and programmers because they need to produce something even after confused or non-existent business requirements, poor project management, inadequate testing and the involvement of a series of non-technical people who are not qualified to work in IT at all.

I would seriously question anything C4 news puts out, it's a sad day for journalism. I thought C4 was better than that.