Mr Bates vs The Post Office
Discussion
Mojooo said:
Its worth saying that just because you are an expert at something doesn't mean you are an expert witness
^ This. He's a technical expert not an expert witness. Even if there is an email with legal bumff in it that he's signed, he's made it clear he didnt pay attention to legal bumff.He's coming across as an honest IT person who was doing what he'd been asked to do as best as he could, and importantly, nothing more.
SeanyD said:
Mojooo said:
Its worth saying that just because you are an expert at something doesn't mean you are an expert witness
^ This. He's a technical expert not an expert witness. Even if there is an email with legal bumff in it that he's signed, he's made it clear he didnt pay attention to legal bumff.He's coming across as an honest IT person who was doing what he'd been asked to do as best as he could, and importantly, nothing more.
A fairly typical 'techie' who was very good at the detail of what he was expected to achieve. Seemingly good at his job.
I doubt if most of his breed would labour over loads of legal niceties and any general waffle that has little call on his specific expertise.
LimmerickLad said:
I'm almost certain my wife had to undertake some sort of specific training and then go on an experts' witness register of some kind before she could act as an expert witness in her field.
I act as an Expert Witness, I am neither on any kind of register or have been required to take any formal training. I have however chosen to engage in my own training - preparing Expert Witness Reports is a skill and they are slightly different to the reports I prepare in my day job, plus the thought of being cross-examined by a barrister for the first time without training would send shivers down my spine.Vasco said:
SeanyD said:
Mojooo said:
Its worth saying that just because you are an expert at something doesn't mean you are an expert witness
^ This. He's a technical expert not an expert witness. Even if there is an email with legal bumff in it that he's signed, he's made it clear he didnt pay attention to legal bumff.He's coming across as an honest IT person who was doing what he'd been asked to do as best as he could, and importantly, nothing more.
A fairly typical 'techie' who was very good at the detail of what he was expected to achieve. Seemingly good at his job.
I doubt if most of his breed would labour over loads of legal niceties and any general waffle that has little call on his specific expertise.
JQ said:
LimmerickLad said:
I'm almost certain my wife had to undertake some sort of specific training and then go on an experts' witness register of some kind before she could act as an expert witness in her field.
I act as an Expert Witness, I am neither on any kind of register or have been required to take any formal training. I have however chosen to engage in my own training - preparing Expert Witness Reports is a skill and they are slightly different to the reports I prepare in my day job, plus the thought of being cross-examined by a barrister for the first time without training would send shivers down my spine.
Maybe she did these voluntarily to add to her CV?
LimmerickLad said:
He's clearly demonstrating there are various forms of intelligence.....he can write computer software but probably struggles with making beans on toast.......FWIW so far I don't see him as dishonest but more as naieve but there are 3 more days to go.
I think there's a possibility of neurodivergence, possibly autism or dyslexia.Speed 3 said:
He's coming across as honest rather than slippery. The KC is trying to lead him into what the POL's motives were for system changes and quite rightly points out his role was to deliver the "what they want" not question the "why do they want that".
If you've ever had to deal with bespoke industry software suppliers, this is exactly how they operate. When your requirement doesn't work the way you expected, you still pay for what you asked for. Goes something like:
"Can you prefix all invoices with JL"
"Yep"
"Now I can view them"
"That's because the invoice table only recognises numbers"
"Can you fix that then"
"Yep"
"Here's the invoice... £££££....."
Every developer I have ever worked with has had 1000% confidence that the system they built was correct and working as intended.
We used to have an in house developed data processing solution that ran like dogs
t in a virtual environment and the dev team were adamant we were not allocating enough RAM, we proved conclusively they way they had written it mean that it used almost no RAM but did need a big frontside bus so as not to overwhelm the available CPU.
we built a dedicated physical machine to run it and ran it about 5000% better than compared their required/advised virtual spec.
We used to have an in house developed data processing solution that ran like dogs
t in a virtual environment and the dev team were adamant we were not allocating enough RAM, we proved conclusively they way they had written it mean that it used almost no RAM but did need a big frontside bus so as not to overwhelm the available CPU.we built a dedicated physical machine to run it and ran it about 5000% better than compared their required/advised virtual spec.
worsy said:
Interesting he doesn't accept the high court judgement, which suggests he thinks the SPMs were/are guilty of what they were convicted of.
I think he is a facts guy (may or may not be neurodiverse, I'm not seeing strong signals). He said wasn't asked or allowed to do a deep forensic dive on the full data logs in the many early cases (or they weren't possible to extract) so he defaults to his position of "I didn't see anything other than low level bugs as is normal in software evolution". He also indicated it would need to have been site-level analysis to change his view. AIUI the High Court decision rested on the fact that the bugs should have been considered as strongly possible causes leading to doubt for conviction as not proven. He cited them as possible in his initial witness statements but in the absence of facts before his eyes to the contrary he continued to view it as a robust system.Speed 3 said:
worsy said:
Interesting he doesn't accept the high court judgement, which suggests he thinks the SPMs were/are guilty of what they were convicted of.
I think he is a facts guy (may or may not be neurodiverse, I'm not seeing strong signals). He said wasn't asked or allowed to do a deep forensic dive on the full data logs in the many early cases (or they weren't possible to extract) so he defaults to his position of "I didn't see anything other than low level bugs as is normal in software evolution". He also indicated it would need to have been site-level analysis to change his view. AIUI the High Court decision rested on the fact that the bugs should have been considered as strongly possible causes leading to doubt for conviction as not proven. He cited them as possible in his initial witness statements but in the absence of facts before his eyes to the contrary he continued to view it as a robust system.As regards techies not understanding law, you don’t get to be this level of techie without being able to parse detail at a very low level. How else would you know what the client asked for? How else would you ensure your accounting system was in compliance with legal requirements? (That last is slightly tongue in cheek - I’m not convinced Horizon *was* compliant with the basic requirements of auditability set by HMRC)
And, as a very senior techie, didn’t he read or hear about articles in Computer Weekly?
AceRockatansky said:
It's an interesting conversation between Jenkins and Beer, here you have two very clever escorts in their field, neither with hardly any clue what the other does.
Do you know what prosecutors do
Nope.
Do you know the difference between criminal and civil courts
Nope.
A very good summary of the day.Do you know what prosecutors do
Nope.
Do you know the difference between criminal and civil courts
Nope.
AceRockatansky said:
It's an interesting conversation between Jenkins and Beer, here you have two very clever escorts in their field, neither with hardly any clue what the other does.
escorts?I am in IT and Jenkins was very credible today. I don't agree with him, but I can relate to the environment he was working in and he didn't default to "I don't recall" and did seek to keep the tech language relatively clear.
I suspect Beer is well briefed.
AceRockatansky said:
It's an interesting conversation between Jenkins and Beer, here you have two very clever escorts in their field, neither with hardly any clue what the other does.
Do you know what prosecutors do
Nope.
Do you know the difference between criminal and civil courts
Nope.
The bit where Beer was going through the basics of a tree data structure was the same thing in reverse "I am going to read out some text it says here but don't really understand what it means" .Do you know what prosecutors do
Nope.
Do you know the difference between criminal and civil courts
Nope.
In general, I'm beginning to think that the Inquiry has either been poorly advised on what technical Horizon issues to follow up on, or there are actually rather less of these than everybody thinks.
I don't think the Inquiry is going to go into too much detail on what the technical faults are
I assume its either been agreed at the previous case or PO just accepts it clearly was fudged as so many innocent people were caught up in it.
Although as that Scottish guy said the other day, the problems only make up a very small percent of the millions of transactions so overall the system works (depending on you definition of what works means!)
I assume its either been agreed at the previous case or PO just accepts it clearly was fudged as so many innocent people were caught up in it.
Although as that Scottish guy said the other day, the problems only make up a very small percent of the millions of transactions so overall the system works (depending on you definition of what works means!)
Mojooo said:
I don't think the Inquiry is going to go into too much detail on what the technical faults are
I assume its either been agreed at the previous case or PO just accepts it clearly was fudged as so many innocent people were caught up in it.
Although as that Scottish guy said the other day, the problems only make up a very small percent of the millions of transactions so overall the system works (depending on you definition of what works means!)
Don't forget that these are the Phase5/6 hearings. This inquiry has been going on since 2022!I assume its either been agreed at the previous case or PO just accepts it clearly was fudged as so many innocent people were caught up in it.
Although as that Scottish guy said the other day, the problems only make up a very small percent of the millions of transactions so overall the system works (depending on you definition of what works means!)
Phase 2 (Oct-Dec 2022) dealt with "Horizon IT System: procurement, design, pilot, roll out and modifications," whilst Phase 3 (Jan-May 2023) dealt with "Operation: training, assistance, resolution of disputes, knowledge and rectification of errors in the system." A lot of Fujitsu employees appeared during those sessions.
Gareth Jenkins is appearing now, I believe, because he was the expert witness, and falls into the catch-all heading of Phases 5/6 - "Redress, access to justice, Second Sight, Complaint Review and Mediation Scheme, conduct of the group litigation, responding to the scandal, governance, monitoring of Horizon, contractual arrangements, internal and external audit, technical competence, stakeholder engagement, oversight and whistleblowing."
This whole process (as the thread title indicates) only came to the public's attention after the ITV docudrama. But there's a vast archive of evidence from prior years.
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