1 Tuesday, 9 May 2023 2 (10.00 am) 3 MR BLAKE: Good morning, Chair. Can you see and 4 hear me? 5 SIR WYN WILLIAMS: Yes, I can, thank you. 6 Good morning, Ms Longley. 7 MR BLAKE: Ms Longley, I think we can hear you. Can 8 you just speak a little louder or can your 9 volume be turned up? 10 THE WITNESS: Hello? 11 MR BLAKE: Can everybody in the room hear? If 12 I could ask you to affirm, and we'll test the 13 volume. 14 BARBARA LONGLEY (affirmed) 15 Questioned by MR BLAKE 16 MR BLAKE: Thank you very much, can you give your 17 full name, please. 18 A. My name's Barbara Longley. 19 Q. Thank you. Ms Longley, you have produced two 20 states in this Inquiry. Do you have them in 21 front of you? 22 A. Yes, I should do. 23 Q. Thank you. 24 A. Are these witness statements? Yes. 25 Q. Thank you. The first is dated 12 September 1 1 2022. 2 A. Yes. 3 Q. Could I ask you to have a look at the final 4 page, page 6. Is that your signature, at the 5 end of the statement? 6 A. Yes, it is. 7 Q. Thank you very much. Is that statement true to 8 the best of your knowledge and belief? 9 A. Yes, it is. 10 Q. Thank you very much. Your second witness 11 statement is dated 8 February of this year. 12 Could I ask you again to turn to the final 13 substantive page, that's page 11. Just confirm 14 that's your signature. 15 A. Yes. Yes, it is. 16 Q. Thank you. Is that statement true to the best 17 of your knowledge and belief? 18 A. Yes, it is. 19 Q. Thank you very much. For the purpose of the 20 transcript, those statements are WITN04500100 21 and WITN04500200. 22 Ms Longley, those two statements will go 23 into evidence and will be published on the 24 Inquiry's website so the questions that I'll ask 25 you will be supplementary and add to that, 2 1 although I'll cover a little bit of the same 2 ground. 3 First of all, thank you very much for 4 attending the Inquiry today. I'm going to begin 5 by asking you about your background. You joined 6 ICL retail in the 1980s; is that right? 7 A. That's correct. 8 Q. You joined SSC, the Software Support Centre, in 9 January 1998 as SSC coordinator. 10 A. Yes. 11 Q. SSC coordinator sounds like a very grand title 12 but I think you've said in your witness 13 statement it was a clerical role; is that right? 14 A. Mainly, yes. 15 Q. Can you tell us in broad terms what that 16 involved? 17 A. Doing the rotas, keeping annual leave, sick 18 leave, making sure that anything like the 19 air-conditioning is working, photocopier is 20 working and then, of course, the calls. Just 21 general clerical stuff, stationery, maintaining 22 the stationery cupboard. 23 Q. Thank you. You said that one of your roles 24 involved the calls. I'm being told that people 25 can't hear in this room. A message has gone to 3 1 RTS, the providers, to try to turn up your 2 volume. Sorry, you won't be aware of this issue 3 but at the moment it's just a few of us who can 4 hear you. On the plus side, I should say we 5 have plenty of time. 6 Thank you. We'll try again. You joined the 7 SSC before what we know as the national rollout 8 of Horizon, the 1999/2000 period. You don't 9 recall, I think, specifically the rollout of 10 Horizon; is that correct? 11 A. No, no, I didn't. 12 Q. But presumably you were aware when you joined 13 that you were in the early days of Horizon? 14 A. I don't know. I can't remember whether I did 15 read something or not. I did print something 16 out when I went for my interview with Nick but 17 I can't remember what it said. 18 Q. You stayed at the SSC until your retirement in 19 2005? 20 A. That's correct. 21 Q. Can you tell us something about the training 22 that you received for this role? 23 A. I went over to the Feltham office where my 24 predecessor was doing the role and I spent four 25 months with her every day, just sat with her and 4 1 noting what she did and she'd sort of be 2 instructing me as we went along. So I was sort 3 of learning from her, who was passing all her 4 knowledge on to me. 5 And then after the four months I went back 6 to the office in Bracknell. 7 Q. Can you tell us her name, peace? 8 A. Hazel Salvat. 9 Q. Presumably again, Ms Salvat would have had 10 little experience using Horizon in 1998 because 11 it was a new system. Was that something you 12 were aware of or not? 13 A. I think she'd been with the system for a lot 14 longer before I met her. She didn't say too 15 much about what she did before, because I'm not 16 sure what her role was, but she did work on the 17 Horizon System before. 18 Q. Would it be fair to summarise that when you 19 joined and were trained, you weren't told about 20 this being a brand new system or you don't 21 recall being told about this being a brand new 22 system? 23 A. No, I don't recall. No, I don't recall being 24 told much about the system. 25 Q. I'm now going to ask you about error logs and, 5 1 to help you prepare for today, you've been 2 provided with what are known as PinICLs and 3 PEAKs. Do you remember those? 4 A. Yes. 5 Q. Yes. Now, you described your role in relation 6 to administrative matters. In broad terms, what 7 was your role in relation to PinICLs and PEAKs? 8 A. The calls would come over from Stevenage, 9 Helpdesk, and arrive on a stack now either first 10 thing in the morning, the duty technician would 11 have been monitoring and doing pre-scan. I went 12 in about 9.00 and if there was anything urgent 13 then it would be dealt with straightaway or 14 somebody might have been dealing with it 15 previously, before the call came. 16 And then just throughout the day I would 17 monitor what was going on and take phone calls, 18 sometimes from Stevenage, if somebody wanted 19 an update, but basically I was just copy and 20 pasting information from the calls, back into 21 the calls, so that everybody could see it. 22 Because some people, and I can't remember 23 exactly who, which people it was, not everybody 24 could see everything in the call. But if 25 I copied and pasted an update showing progress 6 1 of the call into the call, then everybody could 2 see it. Does that make sense? 3 Q. Thank you very much. I'm going to take you to 4 the expert report that the Inquiry saw in 5 Phase 2 of the Inquiry, that's EXPG0000001. 6 Thank you very much. Can we turn to page 116. 7 A. I'll look at the one on the screen. 8 Q. Yes, thank you. The page after that, please. 9 So the Inquiry's expert carried out some 10 analysis and he refers to what are referred to 11 as "PPs", those are PEAKs and PinICLs. You 12 appear there, if we could scroll down the page, 13 in the highest number of PPs in the period 14 before the rollout, so 1996 to 2000. Can you 15 tell us why you think your name appears so often 16 in those logs? 17 A. I know why my name appears so often, because 18 every call, or nearly every call that came in, 19 would have to pass through my hands, so to 20 speak. Every call that came in, if I dealt with 21 it, I would be the one to do the pre-scan which 22 is sort of looking at it, checking it, and 23 assigning it to somebody and maybe making 24 a change to the title, because the titles came 25 in exactly as spoken to the Horizon people at 7 1 Stevenage, and they just type it in. 2 So when the call came in, it automatically 3 had a title that was the first conversation 4 held. So I had got the power to change that, to 5 look further into the call and see what the 6 actual problem was and make that title. 7 Then I'd assign it to one of the technicians 8 to deal with. So every call that came in, they 9 might have been passed through me two or three 10 times in the day, maybe. Every time I put 11 an update on, then my name would appear on it. 12 So ... 13 Q. If we look at that list, Lionel Higman, for 14 example, is that somebody you remember at all? 15 A. I do remember Lionel, mainly from my four 16 months' training. He was over at Feltham. 17 I can't remember if he came over to Bracknell at 18 any stage. 19 Q. Do you remember what his role was? 20 A. I can't remember exactly but I think he did 21 something like he would set you up on the 22 system, so you've got a password to get in. 23 I don't really -- I didn't -- 24 Q. So again, more of an administrative role? 25 A. I think so. I didn't have a lot to do with him. 8 1 Q. Are there any names on that list that's on 2 screen at the moment that stand out for you in 3 your recollection? 4 A. People that I know, um, Richard Coleman, who 5 left to become a priest. John Simpkins sat 6 behind me. Diane Rowe at to the side of me. 7 Paul -- 8 Q. They were engineers, were they? 9 A. Yeah, the technicians. Paul Steed, he was 10 a technician, he left. I don't know, the 11 name -- Eric Jennings, I don't know. I'll carry 12 on down. Mike Croshaw was one of the 13 technicians on the other side of the floor. Pat 14 Carroll was on the other side of the floor. 15 Steve Warwick, I think he was one of the big 16 bosses that resided upstairs. I didn't have 17 much to do with him at all. 18 Q. Thanks very much. Let's look at our first 19 PinICL, FUJ00010355. 20 A. I'll look at it on screen. 21 Q. Thank you. This is from January 1998 and, about 22 halfway down, it says: 23 "I have set up Privilege Plus access for 24 Barbara Longley." 25 I think you've said in your first statement 9 1 that that probably gave you access to the call 2 logging system; is that right? 3 A. Yes, this is the four months when I joined over 4 at Feltham, so I had to be set up on the system 5 because I was a new joiner. 6 Q. Does that give an indication as to when you 7 started, 23 January? 8 A. Yes, that's how I worked out where I started. 9 It was in January to April because I think on 10 some of these ones, 1998, we might see Hazel's 11 name on them. So everything on a call that was 12 1998, those first four months, would not have 13 been my words. So I'd have been dictated by 14 Hazel or somebody else. Because I wasn't fully 15 trained then so I wasn't able to be let loose on 16 the calls, so to speak. 17 Q. Am I right in saying you can't recall exactly 18 what "Privilege Plus" meant but you had some 19 abilities to, for example, add and amend entries 20 in the logs? 21 A. Yes, I presume it means that I can deal with 22 extra things on the calls. I'm not -- I've not 23 seen that bit. I didn't see that when I was 24 working, as far as I can tell. I don't remember 25 seeing "Privilege Plus". 10 1 Q. Thank you. 2 A. It would only be a guess if I said anything. 3 Q. Thank you. I want to ask you about how calls 4 were assigned. You've addressed that at 5 paragraph 7 of your second witness statement but 6 I want to take you through step by step. The 7 first step, it seems, was that the Horizon 8 Helpdesk would put calls on your stack and 9 you've talked about a stack. Can you tell us 10 again, what is a stack or what was a stack? 11 A. It's just a list. It's like your mailbox with 12 your mails coming in. You've got a list of 13 calls rather than a list of emails and it's all 14 set out, you know, you've got PinICL number, 15 description, I think at the top, what -- 16 Q. Those came in from what we know as the Horizon 17 System Helpdesk; is that right? 18 A. They came over from the Stevenage Helpdesk. 19 Q. Can you tell us, did you have a view at the time 20 or, looking back, do you have a view, as to 21 whether those calls were filtered appropriately 22 to you? 23 A. No, I'd just take them as they come over and 24 I don't know what happened to them before then, 25 unless somebody had specifically typed in there 11 1 what they'd done. 2 Q. Do you recall any conversations with any 3 colleagues that there are too many coming over 4 from the Helpdesk, too few coming from the 5 Helpdesk or anything like that? 6 A. I don't remember anything like that, no, no. 7 Q. The second step was that you would allocate 8 calls to an SSC technician. How would you know 9 which technician to allocate calls to? 10 A. Sometimes the clue was in the actual problem. 11 I have a sort of idea that after four months who 12 did what, there were sort of key words like it 13 was -- I think, is it AS -- would be 14 a communications problem? You know, like 15 a phone problem or something. 16 Q. ASDL, was that? 17 A. I think so, yes something like that. It would 18 go to a technician who was dealing with that 19 sort of thing. Basically, it was the technician 20 or technicians that dealt with that particular 21 problem and over time you learnt, if it wasn't 22 that person, they would either say, "Oh no, that 23 is wrong, give it to somebody else", when I was 24 first starting out. So there wasn't any chance 25 that I would give it to the wrong person and 12 1 that it would stay with the wrong person. 2 (Unclear) straightaway when I was new at it, 3 sort of thing. 4 Q. Was there a list, was there a manual of some 5 sort that told you who specialised in particular 6 areas or was that just something that you were 7 expected to know? 8 A. I was expected to know and learn as I went 9 along. 10 Q. You've said in your statement that some of the 11 engineers were interested in particular 12 problems. 13 A. Oh yes, particularly if it was one that had come 14 over before I got into work because they quite 15 often would phone up and they'd have 16 conversations with the Helpdesk. Somebody might 17 say "There's a call on the stack, can I have 18 that because I did something similar the other 19 week?" or "I know a little bit about that one, 20 could I have it, please?" 21 Some of the technicians could do 22 multi-tasking, you know. They knew various 23 other subjects, besides their specific subject. 24 Q. How would you familiarise yourself with who was 25 interested in what? 13 1 A. If they said they were interested in it or had 2 done something similar, then they'd get the call 3 because it made sense, if they knew about the 4 call, for them to carry on and they wouldn't 5 have to go and start the research all over 6 again. 7 Q. Can you tell us what would happen when, for 8 example, a new engineer joined, a new technician 9 joined. How would you familiarise yourself with 10 their particular interest or speciality? 11 A. I think everyone who joined, in the technicians, 12 had a mentor and they would sit with the mentor 13 so, obviously, whoever the mentor was, their 14 specialist subject would be passing on to the 15 new person. So that would mean that the new 16 person would be doing the same subject as their 17 mentor. 18 Q. Are you able to assist us in any way whether 19 there was a turnover in those technicians? Did 20 they come and go? Were there some that were 21 constant? 22 A. It varied. We had some that had been there for 23 years, and there'd be some that stayed sort of 24 probably a year. 25 Q. Are there any that you recall that were 14 1 particularly experienced and knowledgeable? 2 A. Probably the ones that had been there the 3 longest. Like Steve Parker, John Simpkins, Pat 4 Carroll. Paul Steed had been there a long time. 5 Q. Sorry, can you just say that again for the 6 transcriber? 7 A. Paul Steed. 8 Q. Paul Steed? 9 A. He was right at the beginning. 10 Q. Thank you. We may see some names as we go 11 through documents and if any stand out to you 12 that you recall of being of particular 13 experience or knowledge, then do feel free to 14 say. 15 A. As far as being experienced and able to do the 16 job well, that would not be for me to say 17 because that would go into their appraisal. 18 Their manager would be the one who would know 19 more than me. 20 Q. Certainly but, if you were allocating calls to 21 particular people because you had in mind that 22 they were particularly experienced in something 23 or had a particular knowledge, then please do 24 say if you can where we come across those names. 25 A. Okay. 15 1 Q. Thank you. You've spoken about the room and 2 you've said that some people sat behind you, 3 some people sat across the room, some people 4 were on different floors. Can you tell us 5 a little bit about that and what the set-up was? 6 A. Upstairs was top management. Well, people above 7 Mik, above the manager, the top managers, and 8 a few other types. I don't really know. We 9 didn't go up there very often. 10 The floor was divided one side of the 11 building and the other side and people tended to 12 sort of -- I just had sort of like, John and 13 Diane next to me and then Steve was over the 14 way. 15 Q. Were they sitting in accordance with any 16 particular specialism? Was there a particular 17 reason why those technicians were nearer you? 18 A. Not the technicians, no. There were other sort 19 of little groups that came in from time to time, 20 we had people come over occasionally from 21 Belfast. I can't remember what they did but 22 they always sat in one area. Then I think there 23 were some test people. They all sat in one 24 area. People who tested equipment, people, they 25 were away from us down the other end of the 16 1 floor. 2 I'm trying to think now. I think the 3 technicians, more or less, were just sort of 4 spaced around in the middle of the building. 5 Q. Were you aware of them sharing their own 6 knowledge between themselves of things like 7 bugs, errors and defects in Horizon? 8 A. Oh yes, everybody helped everybody. I don't 9 think people kept their stuff to themselves. 10 I think that if somebody could help somebody 11 they would. 12 Q. Did they specialise in particular bugs, errors 13 or defects, for example, or was there 14 a generalised sense of knowledge relating to the 15 Horizon System or a base level knowledge of 16 bugs, errors and defects? 17 A. I'd say probably general. Most people could 18 step in if needed to help out. 19 Q. Are you able to give us any examples of where 20 a particular problem had to go to a particular 21 engineer? Is there anything you can recollect? 22 A. Not specifically, no. 23 Q. You've said that you also used key terms to work 24 out who to approach and you, I think, mentioned 25 one may be ADSL, or something like that. Are 17 1 you able to assist us with that, how you became 2 familiar with those key terms? 3 A. Just from seeing them in the calls and knowing 4 that those words meant that it was 5 a communication and I gave it to the person who 6 was dealing with that. 7 Q. It's right to say that you didn't have any 8 expertise in technical matters? 9 A. No, no. No, I'd not heard about Horizon when 10 I joined. It was all a mystery to me when 11 I joined. 12 Q. The third step in the allocation process, once 13 you had allocated to a particular engineer, was 14 that you would update the calls, you've said in 15 your statement, as instructed. 16 A. Yes. 17 Q. Who would instruct you in relation to updating 18 the PinICLs or PEAKs? 19 A. Do you mean when they came in first of all or in 20 progress when, say, an engineer had done 21 something or -- and -- 22 Q. Either or both? 23 A. Either. I was able to, as I say, change the 24 title. I could correct the spelling and I was 25 usually told -- I'm trying to think what it was 18 1 called now. If it was a new batch of software 2 that had been sent down to the Post Office 3 overnight to say it had a different -- I can't 4 think of the word. 5 Q. A release? 6 A. Yes, a release. I could change that. They'd 7 tell me "All calls coming in from now on are 8 going to be this release, so change that on the 9 call". 10 Thank you for helping me out on that. 11 Q. Did that, to the best of your recollection, lead 12 to a call being closed if there'd been a release 13 or did it lead to something else? 14 A. No, it would be dealt with the same way. It 15 would just be a call that was being dealt with 16 with a different release from, say, a previous 17 one the week before or something, before the -- 18 Q. So would you update all cases that related to 19 a particular release? 20 A. If I was told that all the calls coming in were 21 this new release then I would. I'd change it. 22 Q. Who would tell you? 23 A. Probably Mik, Mik Peach. 24 Q. Was he your manager or -- 25 A. Yes, he was the manager at the SSC. 19 1 Q. I'm going to take you through some logs to see 2 if you can assist the Chair. Can we start with 3 FUJ00010388. 4 A. That one on the screen? 5 Q. Yes. So this a PinICL, it's an early PinICL 6 dating back to January 1998, and the summary at 7 the top there is "PM [postmaster] has run 8 a weekly report and 1 payment is missing". 9 So it relates to a missing payment. If we 10 start with the substantive activities that are 11 logged there it says the user "Customer Call". 12 Would that information from a customer call be 13 put in by yourself and your colleagues in 14 a similar position, or would it appear there 15 from the Helpdesk, for example? 16 We can talk in general terms. It doesn't 17 have to be about this particular PinICL but 18 where we see information -- we will come in 19 subsequent PinICLs and PEAKs to information from 20 a customer call. Would you input the customer 21 call information or would it -- 22 A. It looks like it's been put in already, I think, 23 looking at it. 24 Q. This may not be the best example because I think 25 this is one of those early PinICLs, where -- 20 1 A. So someone has rung the PM. I didn't have any 2 contact with the PM at all, so that might have 3 been John did that, John Simpkins. I can't see 4 that I -- I think it -- 5 Q. If we turn over the page, we see your 6 predecessor's name, Hazel Salvat, becoming 7 involved on 22 January? 8 A. Yes. She's asking Paul, that would be Paul 9 Steed. 10 Q. Typically in these PinICLs and PEAKs what we'd 11 see is a customer call and then followed by 12 further logs and really my question is the 13 information that relates to customer calls, is 14 that information that you at the SSC would put 15 in or is that something that would already 16 appear before your involvement? 17 A. Which bit is the call log? Are you talking 18 about something that's been put in -- 19 Q. The entries before, for example, Ms Salvat's 20 name where it says "Customer Call"? 21 A. "Customer opened" -- that would be from 22 Stevenage, that would be opened by Stevenage, 23 I think. "Customer opened date", "customer" 24 would be the Post Office person phoning in, 25 I presume. 21 1 Q. I think you said that you didn't have any 2 contact with the subpostmasters? 3 A. No, no, they didn't have my phone number. They 4 wouldn't ring me but the technicians could 5 because technicians could contact the postmaster 6 but I had no contact with them. 7 Q. During your time as SSC coordinator, do you 8 recall at any time speaking to subpostmasters or 9 their managers or assistants? 10 A. Only about twice, when a little group came over 11 and they came to my desk to sign in, in the 12 visitor's book, and then it would only be sort 13 of general chit-chat, you know, sort of "Where's 14 the coffee machine?", "Did you have a nice 15 journey?" Nothing about work or anything like 16 that. Very occasionally, as I say -- I only 17 remember two lots coming over. 18 Q. Do you remember what kind of a group was it, was 19 it an organised group like the NFSP or was it 20 just a -- 21 A. It was just a little group of people. I didn't 22 know who they were or anything. I just knew 23 that they worked for the Post Office. 24 Q. Thank you. Can we turn to page 5 of this 25 document and you become involved at this stage. 22 1 You're named for the first time on 26 January 2 1998. 3 A. Yes. 4 Q. Now, as I say, this isn't the best of PinICLs 5 because this one seems to be a little bit out of 6 order. Some of the wording is out of order but 7 if we look at the very bottom, it says: 8 "Having spoken to Margaret Brunton/NELSON 9 VILLAGE SPS -- she is ..." 10 Now, I think if we go two up, it says: 11 "happy for this to be closed." 12 That might be a single line suggesting that 13 the customer is happy for the call to be closed. 14 If we look at the customer name at the top it 15 has "Margaret Brunton/NELSON". Where it says, 16 "Have spoken to" so it has your name as the 17 person entering the information. 18 A. I wouldn't have spoken to the postmaster. 19 I don't know whether Hazel did because this was 20 all done under supervision. She'd have got me 21 sort of typing stuff in to get used to typing 22 the stuff in, the responses, and doing the cut 23 and paste. And the wording looks more like her 24 wording than what I would have probably put. 25 Q. So from your involvement, if we see the words 23 1 such as "Have spoken to" and it's followed by 2 a customer name, that wouldn't signify that you 3 in any way spoke to the customer because that 4 wasn't part of your job? 5 A. No, I never spoke to them. There might have 6 been something -- is there anything further up 7 that I could have copied, maybe? It doesn't 8 look like it, does it? 9 Q. If we look at the summary, where it refers to 10 a missing payment, this was very early in your 11 job, in the SSC. Do you remember issues such as 12 missing payments being issues that came across 13 your desk? 14 A. I think I had calls about missing payments but 15 I don't remember any in particular. It's like 16 this one was -- I'd only been probably in the 17 job about a week or two -- 26/01. I was -- 18 Q. Can you give us an indication, let's take 19 missing payments as a topic. Is that something 20 that would have come across your desk rarely, 21 often, sometimes? Is it something you recall? 22 A. I can't recall how many times, no. 23 Q. Is it a familiar phrase, "missing payments"? 24 A. Yes, yes. There would have been calls for 25 missing payments. But I can't remember anything 24 1 much about ... 2 Q. Let's move on to the year 2000. Can we look at 3 FUJ00086585. We're now moving onto the PEAK 4 system, so this is the system that followed the 5 PinICL system and it says there in the summary: 6 "The pm [postmaster or mistress] is having 7 problems rolling the office over." 8 Now, again, if we talk about an indication 9 of how often -- a lot, sometimes, rarely -- is 10 that a kind of issue that would crop up? 11 A. I think it would crop up quite often. I can't 12 say how many times. 13 Q. Let's look at the information, customer call. 14 So again, this is a different format now but 15 we're looking at information that's provided. 16 It says "User: Customer Call"; do you recall who 17 would have inputted that information? 18 I'll read you the first part. It says: 19 "The pm is having problems rolling the 20 office over. There are figures missing from the 21 cash account which is one person entire work. 22 "Advice: got the pm to check all the stock 23 unit and they are in [cash accounting period 24 06]." 25 A. That's sounds very much like it was inputted by 25 1 Stevenage Horizon desk, Helpdesk. 2 Q. So that's coming in from the -- that's 3 information you think -- 4 A. Yes. 5 Q. -- that has been provided by the Helpdesk that 6 pre-dates your involvement? 7 A. I believe so, yes. 8 Q. Yes. 9 A. It sounds like they've been in contact with the 10 PM and been trying a few things or giving 11 advice, and -- 12 Q. The advice there is advice that the Helpdesk had 13 given? 14 A. Yes. 15 Q. Thank you. I'll just carry on a little bit. It 16 says: 17 "Got the pm to try and get a trial cash 18 account. It says balancing error receipts and 19 payments do not match, investigate the error. 20 The error may be corrected using the reversal 21 function." 22 A. That also sounds like it's come from the Horizon 23 Helpdesk at Stevenage. 24 Q. Thank you. "Receipts and payments do not 25 match", again, are you able to assist us in how 26 1 often? You don't need to give me an exact 2 number but was it a lot, sometimes, rarely that 3 those kind of issues would come across? 4 A. I suppose they would come over fairly recent -- 5 fairly often. It sounds very familiar, sort of 6 thing. 7 Q. Thank you. If we scroll down about halfway, it 8 says "AL1". It's on the right-hand side. 9 Perhaps this could be highlighted. 10 A. "Her work is missing", that one? 11 Q. Yes, exactly: 12 "... her work is missing from the CA 13 [I think cash account]. When she did a balance 14 snapshot she was £9,000 over and all her stock 15 is showing as minus." 16 A. That comes from Stevenage. That little update. 17 Q. Then you have the advice below, which says: 18 "I asked caller to do a reprint of the final 19 balance for SU DD to see what the figures looked 20 like. Everything is minus of what she sold. 21 I think that she rolled over with nothing in her 22 Stock, and everything went as an over. Advised 23 caller to roll over the SU into the next BP and 24 declare stock stamps and cash." 25 Again, so is it your evidence that that is 27 1 likely to have been advice from the Helpdesk? 2 A. Yes, it sounds like they tried something, 3 something else with them and that's the result. 4 Q. Thank you. Then at the very bottom of this 5 page, there's another piece of advice there and 6 it says: 7 "... advised to go into stock bal and 8 declare stock, then stamps then cash. Advised 9 to then roll over XXX. Then to transfer the 10 stock from XXX to DD and then roll over office. 11 Pm ok to do this." 12 At the bottom it has "Repeat Call", and it 13 says: 14 "Caller has rung back in again. She's 15 rolled over SU XXX over with all the stock 16 missing from the clerk's SU. This is the 17 incorrect [it seems as though that may be 'This 18 is incorrect']. Caller should never have been 19 advised to do this. If my update had been read 20 and when she rang in before it would have been 21 clear that the caller rolled over DD SU with no 22 stock in it. Everything was zero and then she 23 started serving in [cash accounting period 06] 24 with no stock [maybe 'thus'] creating the minus 25 figures. By creating a correctional SU in [cash 28 1 accounting period 05] and putting the figures in 2 showing it as a minus from [cash accounting 3 period 06] it will now roll with CAP06 figures. 4 If anything, they should never have added stock 5 from this CAP, they should have added stock from 6 the last CAP. This faulty advice has caused 7 even more trouble and the pm has not rolled XXX 8 over." 9 Is this kind of discussion from within the 10 Helpdesk itself something that would crop up, 11 that you recall? 12 A. That's -- that sounds rather unusual because 13 someone's criticising somebody for not doing 14 something correctly, the way I just read it. 15 I'm not sure who actually did that, whether it 16 was the Helpdesk or a technician. It doesn't 17 have a technician's name against it, so 18 I presume that somebody is telling the Helpdesk 19 that they gave the wrong advice but I can't see 20 from the call who that was. 21 Q. Is that something you would come across, do you 22 recall? 23 A. No, that sounds rather usual, that anyone would 24 do the wrong thing. 25 Q. Did you find the Helpdesk advice in general to 29 1 be helpful, unhelpful, something else? 2 A. I don't know. I wouldn't know because it would 3 be technical. It would be someone like the 4 technician would know. 5 Q. Is this history that's been entered here, is 6 that something that you would read through 7 before assigning to a technician, for example? 8 A. Usually. Is my name on this one? 9 Q. Yes. If we could turn to page 5 and we'll look 10 at your first involvement. 11 A. No, I just wondered in case it was one of the 12 times I wasn't there, perhaps, you know. 13 Somebody else was pre-scanning. 14 Q. So you have your name, 3 May 2000, about halfway 15 down this page -- thank you -- and you assign it 16 to John Simpkins. 17 A. Mm. 18 Q. Perhaps if we could use this as an example. Are 19 you able, in relation to this specific case or 20 just in general terms, to tell us how it is that 21 you would assign something like this to John 22 Simpkins? 23 For example, how would you know that it was 24 John Simpkins who should deal with this kind of 25 a call? 30 1 It may assist us to look at the log below 2 where he then assigns it to EPOSS Development. 3 Sir, we may have lost Ms Longley. At the 4 moment we're only seeing the document on screen. 5 SIR WYN WILLIAMS: All right. 6 Can you hear me, Ms Longley? It doesn't 7 sound like it, does it? It doesn't sound like 8 you have her. 9 MR BLAKE: Perhaps we could take a five-minute 10 break. 11 SIR WYN WILLIAMS: Yes, by all means. 12 MR BLAKE: Thank you very much. 13 (10.46 am) 14 (A short break) 15 (10.52 am) 16 MR BLAKE: Sir, we appear to be having a little bit 17 of difficulty with the witness's Internet 18 connection. Could I suggest that we take our 19 15-minute break now. We will -- I only have 20 a maximum of one hour of further questions and 21 we will be certainly finished before lunchtime. 22 SIR WYN WILLIAMS: Yes, certainly by all means. So 23 what is the time now? 24 MR BLAKE: It is now 10.50. 25 SIR WYN WILLIAMS: So 11.05. 31 1 MR BLAKE: Thank you very much. 2 (10.50 am) 3 (A short break) 4 (11.10 am) 5 MR BLAKE: Sir, we're still having some difficulty 6 with the Internet connection. Could we take 7 15 more minutes? As I say, the witness will not 8 be very much longer once she has been 9 reconnected. 10 SIR WYN WILLIAMS: Well, if you think that's 11 fruitful, yes. But I am getting a bit sort of 12 uneasy about everything being in a state of not 13 knowing what's going to happen, if you see what 14 I mean. 15 MR BLAKE: Yes. 16 SIR WYN WILLIAMS: I mean, take 15 minutes now but, 17 otherwise, I suggest that you and the Core 18 Participants take stock about how crucial oral 19 evidence is in this case, given that her manager 20 is giving evidence shortly. But, in any event, 21 if it is important, whether it's just better to 22 adjourn until 2.00 so everybody knows where they 23 are, sort of thing. 24 MR BLAKE: Thank you very much, sir. 25 SIR WYN WILLIAMS: Let me know in 15 minutes what 32 1 you think, yes? 2 MR BLAKE: Yes. Thank you. 3 (11.12 am) 4 (A short break) 5 (11.29 am) 6 MR BLAKE: Thank you, sir. We can see you and we 7 can now see Ms Longley, as well. 8 SIR WYN WILLIAMS: Yes. 9 MR BLAKE: Can you both see and hear me? 10 SIR WYN WILLIAMS: I can hear you loud and clear. 11 MR BLAKE: Ms Longley, can you hear and see me? 12 A. It's a bit faint. I think somebody is trying to 13 sort it out for me. 14 Q. We can see somebody in the corner of your 15 screen. 16 A. Yes. 17 Q. Thank you. Perhaps if I start with a question, 18 and we'll see if it's loud enough for you. 19 A. Okay, that's better now. 20 Q. Thank you. Excellent. We were on document 21 FUJ00086585 and we were on page 5 of that 22 document. The question was: you there have 23 allocated this matter to John Simpkins. Are you 24 able to tell us, using this as an example, how 25 it might be that something was allocated to John 33 1 Simpkins? As in, who would that decision have 2 come from and what was the process by which 3 Mr Simpkins would have been selected to deal 4 with that particular issue? 5 A. I can't see any clues at the moment. 6 Q. If we go down and I'll take you through a few 7 more entries -- and don't worry if you're not 8 able to assist us with that question -- but if 9 we go down we then have John Simpkins 10 transferring it to "EPOSS-Dev". I think that's 11 EPOSS Development. Is that a team that you 12 recall? 13 A. Vaguely, yes. That would be counter issues, 14 EPOSS, wouldn't it? 15 Q. Thank you. Then if we have a look further down, 16 we have your name again: 17 "New evidence added -- Complete message 18 store by John Simpkins in EDSC ..." 19 Then we have "Customer Call", and it says: 20 "Carl Motion chasing this call for an update 21 ..." 22 Do you remember somebody called Carl Motion 23 at all? 24 A. Not at all, no. Maybe he was on the -- maybe he 25 was on the Horizon Helpdesk. 34 1 Q. How about Paul Steed? 2 A. He's a technician -- he was a technician. 3 Q. So: 4 "... tried Paul Steed but unavailable ..." 5 Then it says there: 6 "... voiced Barbara Longley for update on 7 this call ..." 8 Can you assist us, we've seen this on a few 9 occasions, "voiced Barbara Longley", what does 10 that mean? 11 A. Yes, that would be the Horizon Helpdesk giving 12 me a phone call asking me if there were any 13 updates and I'd look, and if there were, I would 14 cut and paste them back into the call or chase 15 up, possibly. 16 Q. We have again "voiced through Barbara Longley as 17 [postmaster or mistress] needs to know what is 18 happening"? 19 A. Yes, that would definitely be Stevenage Helpdesk 20 because they're the only ones who can speak to 21 the PM. The PM would phone them up, if you look 22 at the call, it's sort of clear that the 23 postmaster obviously phoned into the helpdesk 24 and then they chased me up to see if I'd got any 25 developments on it. 35 1 Q. Thank you. If we go over the page there's 2 another entry relating to the Helpdesk phoning. 3 At the top there, it says: 4 "HSH rang to say that NBSC are chasing for 5 an update on this call. Have informed them that 6 call currently with EPOSS Development team." 7 Was part of your role as a liaison between 8 the technicians and the Helpdesk? 9 A. Yes, I was sort of approached for any 10 information on any of the calls because, as 11 I say, not everybody could see every part of the 12 call and every update. So they would either 13 phone up and ask me if I knew, and I'd look at 14 the call, and then, if there was an update, 15 I would cut and paste it into the call. If not, 16 I'd probably go round to the technician's desk 17 and ask him and then they'd probably put 18 an update on and then I'd cut and paste that 19 into it. 20 Q. Did you form a view at any point as to the 21 abilities of the Helpdesk, their competence, 22 their abilities to assist? 23 A. No, they always seemed very helpful to me. They 24 were sort of very nice to people. I actually 25 went over there to Stevenage once and they 36 1 seemed quite efficient. As for the technical 2 information they were giving out and things like 3 that, I wouldn't know. But I don't think there 4 were any complaints about them. 5 Q. Would they indicate to you, on a personal level, 6 the effect that certain issues were having on 7 subpostmasters? 8 A. No, no. I don't think so. 9 Q. If we look down about halfway down the page, 10 16 May at 4.11 pm. 11 A. Right. 12 Q. It says there: 13 "RNM has reported a problem whereby the 14 transactions carried out on the counter are 15 being lost from SU TT. Stock was balanced on 16 Tuesday and it was noticed that there was 17 a £6,343 surplus discrepancy. The counter daily 18 and weekly reports were showing zero. The RNM 19 put the [6,000 figure] into the suspense 20 account. The discrepancy has now doubled and is 21 showing a [£12,000] surplus." 22 Scrolling down to the entry from Steve 23 Warwick, about halfway down, he says there: 24 "The call needs to be looked at in detail by 25 the EPOSS team in order to establish why the 37 1 system appears to have failed to locate any 2 transactions for this stock unit in [cash 3 accounting period 5]." 4 Do you recall any particular issues relating 5 to the EPOSS system and EPOSS team? 6 A. Nothing in particular, no. 7 Q. If we scroll over to the next page and about 8 halfway down the next page, your name appears 9 again, and I think you assign it to John 10 Simpkins. 11 A. I think on that previous thing, there had been 12 issues occasionally where a fault doubled up. 13 When something was done it duplicated it, so it 14 was twice the amount, I think. 15 Q. Yes. 16 A. Is that -- does that make sense? 17 Q. It does. Do you recall that happening 18 sometimes, often? 19 A. Just sometimes. I saw it more than once, 20 I think. I do sort of vaguely remember that 21 problem, that sometimes someone would do 22 something. Instead of curing it, it would make 23 it double the fault. 24 Q. Can we look over to the final page, page 8, and 25 there's a note there from Mr Simpkins. We're 38 1 now in July, so this log starts in April. 2 A. Right. 3 Q. He says: 4 "This is another instance of [and it gives 5 the reference number] where Dataserver trees 6 have failed to build. This has now been fixed 7 in CI4 ..." 8 That's, we know, a release. 9 A. Mm-hm. 10 Q. "... and in conjunction [and there's a reference 11 there] (where the data tree rebuild is minimised 12 to 2 attempts instead of 4), should return 13 an abort right back up to the user to retry the 14 balancing process", et cetera. 15 "Instances where this potentially can occur 16 is for example where the Riposte service has 17 stopped/failed/unable to complete an IO request 18 issued etc." 19 Are you able to assist us, in terms of 20 length of time -- we're now in July, the issue 21 started in April -- was it common, to your 22 recollection, that some issues can take months 23 to resolve? 24 A. I don't know about months but not everything was 25 done sort of immediately. Some things are 39 1 obviously more difficult to fathom out than 2 others and to cure. So I don't know, I can't 3 tell. I've got no sort of information. I can't 4 think of any information in the reports or 5 anything that would probably have shown you that 6 there were long times for curing something. 7 Q. I'm going to move on to another one, it's the 8 summer of 2001. Can we look at POL00028743, 9 please. Thank you. This another PEAK and the 10 summary there is "Master Call for Phantom 11 [Transactions]". 12 Can you assist us at all as to something how 13 something becomes a "master call" or what that 14 term meant? 15 A. I can only guess, I don't recall, but I would 16 imagine that it was one call that was referred 17 back to -- this is me guessing -- one call 18 referred back to for a certain problem, a master 19 call. I may be wrong but that's what I'm 20 thinking it probably could be. 21 Q. "Phantom transactions" is that something you 22 recall at all? 23 A. Yes, I think that was quite a common one. 24 Q. You referred earlier in your evidence to using 25 certain key terms and assigning to certain 40 1 individuals. 2 A. Mm. 3 Q. Was "phantom transactions" one of those key 4 terms? 5 A. I don't know whether that might have been one 6 that was pretty general and lots of people could 7 have dealt with. 8 Q. Is it something that you recall being spoken 9 about a lot? 10 A. It was one I remember because it was a funny 11 name, you know, "phantom transactions". It just 12 stuck in my mind, that one. 13 Q. I'm going to take you through -- 14 A. Yes, I'm looking at it. 15 Q. -- this log. We have there the customer call. 16 So we've established that these are likely to 17 have come from the Helpdesk, and it says there: 18 "New complaint call as previous ... closed 19 WITHOUT permission from the [postmaster]. 20 "Information: [postmaster] wishing to 21 complaint [it says, must be 'complain'] about 22 ongoing system problems ..." 23 It gives a reference and it says: 24 "[The postmaster] was under impression 25 (correctly) that it could only be closed with 41 1 his permission. It would appear Ki Barnes ..." 2 Is that a name you recall at all? 3 A. No. 4 Q. "... gave authorisation to close that call. 5 [Postmaster] VERY unhappy about this." 6 If we scroll down to "Information": 7 "PM extremely unhappy about the problems 8 with his counters. He says he has had to pay 9 out over £1,500 in losses that are due to these 10 problems. He's informed POCL they can suspend 11 him because he is refusing to make good any 12 further losses. 13 "PM wants a face to face meeting with 14 someone in authority from Pathway/POCL to 15 discuss the issues. PM feels very strongly 16 about this and says he is willing to take POCL 17 to a tribunal/court because of the stress he has 18 suffered because of the problems." 19 Now, we discussed earlier that you were the 20 Helpdesk's point of contact within the SSC. You 21 liaised with the Helpdesk. Did they, in any 22 way, give you an insight into the strength of 23 feelings amongst postmasters experiencing these 24 kinds of issues? 25 A. No, that one, I don't even recall anything like 42 1 that. That, at the moment, seems like the first 2 time I've actually seen that. I don't recall 3 that at all. 4 Q. If we scrolled down on this page, it says: 5 "Information: please contact PM to discuss 6 issues." 7 Then it says: 8 "This call is only to be closed with the 9 expression permission of Julian Hall." 10 Is Julian Hall somebody you recall at all? 11 A. No, no, I've not heard that name. 12 Q. Then it says: 13 "The system seems to lose transactions and 14 the PM is concerned that for every transaction 15 that error he notices there is the probability 16 that there are ones he misses, leading to 17 discrepancies. The PM is at present finding the 18 whole scenario very stressful and is suffering 19 sleepless nights due to these problems. In the 20 light of what has gone on the PM is prepared to 21 break his contractual obligations with POCL and 22 refuse to pay any more discrepancies and will 23 take legal action if required." 24 Again, the strength of feeling that is set 25 out here, looking back to your years at the SSC, 43 1 is that the kind of thing that you recall at all 2 being raised with you by the helpdesk? 3 A. No, I don't recall that at all. I mean, I'm 4 sure that I would have taken note of that. 5 Where was my name on this one? 6 Q. I'll take you to it shortly. 7 A. Okay. I'm jumping the gun. 8 Q. If we stay with this page, I'll just highlight 9 a few more passages from this call. 10 A. Okay. 11 Q. It says, "Contacted: I have left a message on Ki 12 Barnes' voicemail as the PM is now complaining 13 about her. I was speaking to her about the last 14 complaint call and we both feel that this PM is 15 complaining unjustly. She has been in contact 16 with him, and I feel he is complaining because 17 the feedback has been advising it is user error, 18 whereas the PM thinks it is software." 19 Do you recall any disputes between, say, the 20 Helpdesk and postmasters as to whether something 21 was user error or is software related? 22 A. No, no. Either I have forgotten or I never sort 23 of saw it. It doesn't ring any bells with me at 24 all. It's as if I've read this for the first 25 time. 44 1 Q. The final passage that I'll read on this page, 2 it says: 3 "Contacted: As I was on the phone to the PM, 4 he advised that three First Class stamps that 5 were on the screen just 'dropped off'. PM had 3 6 First Class stamps, and other stamps for 30p. 7 When the other stamps 30p went on, the First 8 Class stamps disappeared", et cetera. 9 Over the page, please. There's another 10 customer call entry at the bottom of the page, 11 18 April. It says: 12 "PM rang to say that he has had the keyboard 13 and screen replaced today ... 14 "The system is still playing up in that the 15 screen is hanging in the middle of 16 transactions -- PM did transaction ... but left 17 office for 1 hour -- when he came back the 18 monitor had 141 First Class stamps on screen 19 totalling £38.07 -- PM reports that the F1 key 20 does not appear to be faulty ..." 21 If we go over to that at page, let's just 22 look at that second entry. It says: 23 "Information: I have been advised that the 24 problem may be due to an environmental issue & 25 may be investigated as such ..." 45 1 So we've gone now at the beginning, we had 2 it being attributed to user error, the PM being 3 told that it's user error and him thinking it 4 was software. We then have these transactions 5 that have appeared on screen and he's been 6 advised that it may be due to environmental 7 issues. 8 If we scroll down just to show these are 9 customers calls, your name has not yet appeared. 10 If we keep on scrolling down to page 4, thank 11 you. There is an entry there that says -- it's 12 near the bottom of this page, it says: 13 "PM would like to add to the current 14 complaint that transactions are currently 15 appearing and disappearing on screen and also 16 that the PM's counter [pointer] has not been 17 working either." 18 If we scroll down, it says about halfway 19 down: 20 "Information: PM feels that the system is 21 unreliable. PM cannot trust this system." 22 Just pausing there, is that a complaint that 23 you recall receiving from postmasters, or recall 24 reading in the customer call log about 25 complaints that the system is unreliable? 46 1 A. I've not seen that on a call, no. I don't 2 remember seeing anything like that on a call. 3 Q. Then: 4 "Information: PM wishes to speak to someone 5 face to face and is fed up with things being 6 passed back and forth to and from different 7 departments and nothing ever appearing from 8 this. 9 "PM is willing to travel if he has to in 10 order to speak to someone face to face." 11 Over the page. Could we go about 12 three-quarters of the way down. We have 13 reference to a "Romec engineer". So -- thank 14 you, yes: 15 "PM said when a Romec engineer was on site 16 yesterday to replace the cable connecting the 17 two counters, he found that the cable that has 18 always been there was faulty and that comms were 19 sometimes unavailable between the two counters. 20 Engineer replaced the faulty cable with another 21 one from a different system." 22 Then at the bottom, it has a section 23 beginning with the word "Information". It says: 24 "Ki Barnes has called in. I am unsure as to 25 what to do with this call now. Romec have been 47 1 to site and state that they have actually seen 2 the phantom transactions, so it is not just the 3 PM's word now. They have fitted suppressors to 4 the kit but the PM is still having problems. As 5 yet there has been no re-occurrence to the 6 phantom transactions but there still may be 7 problems. Contacted Pat Carroll for guidance. 8 He advised to pass call over." 9 A. So somebody obviously phoned Pat and Pat said 10 pass the call over. Pat was one of the 11 technicians, Pat Carroll. 12 Q. That's pass it over to the SSC, is it? 13 A. Yes, that's what I get -- what is happening, 14 yes. 15 Q. Thank you. Because if we scroll over to the 16 next page, this is where your name appears for 17 the first time, we have the customer call on the 18 third box that says: 19 "PM contacting with further problems to add 20 to call. 21 "Clerk was having problems selling a BT 22 Cellnet ... card. 23 "Every time it was pressed on the screen, 24 a £10 Orange card appeared. 25 "PM has since had to recalibrate the screen, 48 1 and it is now working, but feels this is part of 2 the ongoing problem." 3 Then we have your entry there or certainly 4 your name being entered there. Can you assist 5 us, then, how that would have reached you? 6 A. Oh, right, so it came back to Pat. I'm trying 7 to work this one out. 8 Q. I can ask in this way: we've seen something 9 being attributed to user error. We've then seen 10 reference to possible environmental issue. 11 We've read about a faulty cable. We've read 12 about value tomorrow transactions being seen by 13 the cable engineer. 14 A. And there's still a problem. 15 Q. Still a problem and we've also seen the 16 subpostmaster feeling that they've been passed 17 back and forward. 18 A. Yes. 19 Q. In those kinds of circumstances, how would you 20 know which engineer or which technician to 21 allocate this kind of a case to? 22 A. Do you mean in the first instance or from this 23 point in the call? 24 Q. Either. 25 A. I would think that probably it would have been 49 1 one of the counter technicians. It sounds like 2 a counter problem to start with and then it's 3 sort of gone on to various different things, 4 sort of like cables and things, aren't they 5 hardware? 6 Q. Yes. 7 A. Or comms, maybe. Now, it's gone back to sort of 8 counter stuff, again, going wrong. So I'd 9 probably give it to somebody who deals with 10 counters. It looks like it's been given to Pat, 11 who's then closed it. 12 Q. Can you assist us, who was Patrick Carroll? 13 A. He was a technician. I can't remember what he 14 specialised in now. I think he was pretty 15 general purpose. He knew a lot about 16 everything, I think. I can't tell you what his 17 specialist subject was but I think he was expert 18 at quite a lot of things. 19 Q. Would you have selected him because you knew him 20 as a generalist because you knew that he had 21 particular knowledge or was it just -- 22 A. I -- sorry. 23 Q. -- a person that was available. 24 A. I don't know. If I could go back in time and 25 know what he actually did, I might have been -- 50 1 giving it him deliberately or I might have been 2 giving it to him because he dealt with it 3 before. As you can see, his name is on it from 4 dealing with it before. 5 Q. Can we go to page 8, now, and the bottom of 6 page 8. Thank you. If we could scroll to the 7 very bottom entry. It says "Becky from" -- so 8 this has your name, and it says: 9 "Becky from Manchester says PM has phoned in 10 as he has more ghost transactions the same as 11 before." 12 Do you recall who "Becky from Manchester" 13 was or who they might be? 14 A. I'm not sure whether -- I think someone was 15 vaguely telling me, whether it was when I was 16 discussing with my solicitors or something 17 months ago. I didn't realise, or I'd forgotten 18 that those people up in Manchester, there was 19 some of the sort of office up in Manchester and 20 Becky was obviously there and I still can't 21 remember what they did in Manchester but, 22 obviously, Becky worked there and it looks, 23 I think, if this is the right call, that she was 24 passing messages down to me. I was copying and 25 pasting her information into the calls and then 51 1 going -- pasting what our technicians were 2 saying back to her, as a sort of go between -- 3 Q. So would this likely be a note of a conversation 4 you personally had? 5 A. -- Becky from Manchester was. 6 Q. Did you ever have conversations with, say, the 7 NBSC at the Post Office's own support centre? 8 A. No. No. I've not heard of that. No, 9 I didn't -- I only spoke to people within the 10 Fujitsu side of things. I never spoke to the 11 PMs or anybody outside. 12 Q. So it's likely that Becky from Manchester is 13 somebody from Fujitsu? 14 A. I would have thought so. I would have thought 15 she was on -- not on the Post Office side, that 16 she was on our side of things. 17 Q. It says there that the OTI is down, she'll email 18 the transaction details. 19 A. Yes, OTI, that's a system, isn't it? 20 Q. Can we turn over the page to page 9 and look at 21 the second entry there. It says: 22 "Mr Hall called with the information that 23 a Child Benefit [transaction] of 3 dockets ... 24 has also got [a certain reference] attached to 25 it", et cetera. 52 1 A. (Unclear). 2 Q. That says, "Thanks Becky". So is that Mr Hall 3 contacting again Becky in Manchester? 4 A. Yes. So I presume Mr Hall is obviously the 5 postmaster and he's been in touch with Becky. 6 I'm not quite sure why or what department they 7 are up there. They must be another Helpdesk or 8 something. I can't enlighten you on that, 9 sorry. 10 Q. If we look at the entry two below, it says: 11 "PM called stating that the system is being 12 monitored and at the moment has stopped 13 monitoring, was advised to call and let us know, 14 voiced Barbara Longley and advised to update 15 call." 16 So who would that have been voicing that 17 information to you? 18 A. It doesn't say, does it? I would have thought 19 Becky again. She seems to be the one doing all 20 the updates at the moment on this call. 21 Q. Thank you. If we scroll down to the bottom of 22 the page, we have an entry from Patrick Carroll 23 there which says: 24 "Phantom [transactions] have not been proven 25 in circumstances which preclude user error. In 53 1 all cases where these have occurred, a user 2 error relate cause can be attribute to the 3 phenomenon." 4 If we go over the page: 5 "I am therefore closing this call as no 6 fault in product." 7 There we have it marked "No fault in 8 product". So that's: 9 "Responded to call type L as Category 62 -- 10 No fault in product." 11 Is this something you're able to assist us 12 with at all? Patrick Carroll has put on the 13 log, after that long history that we have been 14 going through, that the phantom transactions 15 haven't been proven in circumstances which 16 preclude user error and, in such a case, no 17 fault in product has been attributed to it. Do 18 you recall being instructed or told to use that 19 code in any particular circumstances? 20 A. Only if a technician told me to. I'm just 21 wondering about the time of that, because Pat 22 closed that, didn't he? He actually closed that 23 one and then the next one's 9.51. I wonder if 24 he did that as a pre-scanner before I got into 25 work. What was the time on the -- 54 1 Q. If we go back to the page before at the bottom, 2 thank you, 9.48. 3 A. Ah, I probably would have been in work then if 4 I was in that day, yes. It's okay, I wondered 5 if he did out of hours. Obviously, he closed it 6 himself and didn't come back to me. He didn't 7 use me as an interface on that occasion; he just 8 closed it himself, which he was okay to do. 9 Q. The instruction to attribute no fault in 10 product, was that something that you were ever 11 told to do, asked to do, told about? 12 A. I think on some occasions, if there was a fault 13 that was coming in, maybe on a particular day, 14 that was more than one or two, I might have been 15 told when that one comes in, "Can you just close 16 it as 'no fault in product'?" But this one is 17 a long -- elongated call, with a lot to it, so 18 I wouldn't have been told that. That was one in 19 several that could be just done automatically. 20 That would have been Pat deciding that it was no 21 fault in product and closing it himself. 22 Q. Before you closed something as no fault in 23 product, would you be told the circumstances, 24 would you be told what led to there being no 25 fault in the product? 55 1 A. Usually, it would be an update from the 2 technician, which I would cut and paste with the 3 closure "no fault in product" included in it, 4 and close it as that. That would be the norm 5 and, obviously, there's -- not everything is the 6 norm. Like this one Pat's just closed and it's 7 a very long going call that's been ongoing for 8 a very long time. 9 Q. That's exactly what I was going to ask, 10 actually. 11 A. It says 200 hours, doesn't it? I've not noticed 12 that. This is 200 hours. 13 Q. Are you able to assist us whether that's likely 14 to be the total time investigating from the 15 beginning, first call to the last, or whether 16 that was something else? 17 A. I would imagine that figure is automatically 18 generated. I don't think anybody sits and adds 19 them up. So I'm not sure. It could be -- 20 I would have thought from the start of the call 21 to the end. Something in the system must be 22 generating that figure. 23 Q. Thank you. I'm going to look at our final log, 24 and that's FUJ00086578. This is a similar 25 period. We have a summary there "Continual 56 1 phantom transactions". We have the first call, 2 24 July 2001: 3 "PM reports that he has been having phantom 4 transactions continually for months and the 5 problem is still persisting." 6 Now, if it was known in the SSC at this time 7 that there were problems with phantom 8 transactions, who would draw the links between 9 the different calls? Let's say Patrick Carroll, 10 we know, was working on that other issue that 11 we've just seen. If this came to you, was there 12 a particular log that would identify particular 13 individuals as dealing with transactions or was 14 it just relying on your memory? 15 A. It would be partly my memory. Someone might 16 come round who's been dealing with it before and 17 say, "I'll take that one". 18 It's possible that I knew at the time who 19 was dealing with phantom transactions but if 20 it -- I can't recall now. 21 Q. But if we think -- I mean the chair will, in due 22 course, be thinking about recommendations. In 23 terms of running the SSC, would you have 24 expected to see some sort of record that 25 assigned particular issues to particular people, 57 1 or would you have expected there to have been 2 some sort of guidance provided to you to tell 3 you who -- 4 A. Ah, there was not particularly for me, but there 5 was the book of KELs -- of the KELs. 6 Q. Yes. 7 A. Now, that was problems and they were given 8 a number. If they were going to be problems 9 that cropped up again, probably -- this is only 10 my understanding of it. They were given 11 a number and rather than somebody start from 12 scratch trying to solve a problem, they could go 13 to this KEL and look it up and maybe the 14 solution was there, or they'd know where to 15 start looking on the problem. Does that make 16 sense? 17 Q. Yes, but before you personally assigned 18 a problem to a person, would you check the Known 19 Error Log? 20 A. No, that wasn't for me. It wasn't for me. 21 I don't think I'd know how to actually do 22 a search to look for a particular problem. It 23 wasn't for my benefit. I'd have to rely on 24 either knowing or being told who was dealing 25 with it, and it could possibly be that it was 58 1 a fault that many people in the team could sort 2 out. 3 Q. If we scroll down on this page, there's an entry 4 from yourself where you've changed the call 5 summary from "PM reports that he has been having 6 phantom [transactions]" to "Continual phantom 7 transactions". 8 A. Yes. 9 Q. Would somebody have asked you to have changed 10 the call summary? Is that something you would 11 have done yourself? 12 A. If the call had come in with it just saying 13 "transac" and stopping there, I would have 14 probably changed it to something more sensible 15 like that. It doesn't take technical knowledge 16 to do that. So ... 17 Q. If we go over the page, we have an entry from 18 Patrick Carroll on 5 September 2001: 19 "Following a significant amount of 20 monitoring we have been unable to definitively 21 link any equipment/environmental issues to any 22 particular event. There have been incidents 23 which showed a possible correlation between the 24 system activity and phantom [transactions], 25 these pointed to a touchscreen problem and as 59 1 a result of the screen was replaced with 2 a Resistive model. As this produced no 3 measurable improvement it has been assumed that 4 the problems were user related." 5 Again, this one has been marked as "No fault 6 in product", and this is a similar time period 7 to the log that I took you to just before. 8 A. Yes. 9 Q. Again, "no fault in product", attributing 10 an issue such as phantom transactions to being 11 user related. Does this jog any memories for 12 you as to this being the way that these kinds of 13 issues were resolved? Does it assist in any 14 way? 15 A. It looks like he's checked the environmental 16 issues, which were on the other call. So that 17 check has been done and proved okay. The rest 18 of it must have been whatever Pat phoned out 19 when he was investigating it. So I can't really 20 say. 21 Q. I mean, you gave evidence earlier about 22 potentially being asked on occasion to mark 23 similar issues as "no fault in product". 24 A. Mm. But, obviously, you wouldn't get that call 25 come in and then immediately close it. It would 60 1 have to be investigated. It was -- the ones 2 that I would close was where there was something 3 that had happened and it was a known sort of 4 problem that could be fixed really, really 5 quickly or had been fixed already, and I'd be 6 told, just -- "if that one comes in again, just 7 close it as 'no fault in product'", but, on the 8 whole, it was -- the technicians would 9 investigate every call first. 10 Q. When you would be told to mark something as "no 11 fault in product", was there a particular level 12 of engineer that was required to authorise that, 13 or could that have been any of the engineers? 14 A. It could be any of the technicians or the 15 manager, anybody except me, that was 16 investigating the calls, could do that, the 17 person who'd been dealing with it, usually. 18 Q. Thank you very much, Ms Longley. I don't have 19 any further questions. Is there anything that 20 you would like to say to the Chair or anything 21 that you feel is of assistance to the Inquiry? 22 A. Sorry, I missed that. We cut out for a few 23 seconds. 24 Q. Before we're cut off for the second time, is 25 there anything that you'd like to say or raise 61 1 that you feel is of relevance to the Inquiry 2 that I haven't addressed? 3 A. I don't think so. I mean, I can't remember 4 everything that happened because it was so long 5 ago, between sort of 17 and 20-something-odd 6 years ago. So I just tried my best to answer 7 the bits and pieces of the calls that do ring 8 a bell with me. 9 MR BLAKE: Thank you. 10 Sir, do you have any questions? 11 SIR WYN WILLIAMS: No, thank you very much. 12 Are there any questions from Core 13 Participants? 14 MR BLAKE: No. 15 THE WITNESS: No. 16 SIR WYN WILLIAMS: All right, well, thank you very 17 much, Ms Longley, for giving evidence to the 18 Inquiry and trying your best to remember what 19 occurred. Thank you. 20 THE WITNESS: Thank you. Bye. 21 SIR WYN WILLIAMS: So we'll adjourn until tomorrow 22 morning, yes, Mr Blake? 23 MR BLAKE: Yes, thank you. 24 SIR WYN WILLIAMS: All right then. 10.00 tomorrow 25 morning. 62 1 ( 12.08 pm) 2 (The hearing adjourned until 3 10.00 am the following day) 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 63 1 I N D E X 2 3 BARBARA LONGLEY (affirmed) ...........................1 4 5 Questioned by MR BLAKE ........................1 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 64