The ultimate closing statements are being made to the Publish Workplace Horizon IT Inquiry and legal professionals for key figures have submitted their very own final arguments.

Former Publish Workplace boss Paula Vennells says, in her personal written assertion revealed on-line, she is “devastated” that info was “not shared along with her” in regards to the defective Horizon IT system.

It’s the first time the inquiry has heard from her since her look on the inquiry earlier this yr.

Listed below are three summaries of a number of the key submissions from Ms Vennells and different so-called core individuals.

Paula Vennells

The previous Publish Workplace boss’s remaining authorized submission states there was “nothing to point out she acted in dangerous religion”.

As a part of a bundle of closing statements Ms Vennells is described as somebody who “needed to do proper by the sub postmasters”.

She accepts that she “didn’t handle to uncover the reality in regards to the issues” as a result of “she herself was not informed about points which can have allowed her to take action.”

Her legal professionals mentioned she was “devastated” by the truth that info was “not shared” along with her however that she “has no need to level the finger at others”.

Her apology to the inquiry was additionally reiterated as a part of her authorized crew’s 138 web page written submission.

“Ms Vennells apologises unreservedly to all those that are affected by the issues which this inquiry is investigating,” it learn.

Whereas Ms Vennells admits she was the “holder of final govt accountability” her legal professionals state that ought to “not be confused with an obligation to make each resolution personally.”

She “relied” on briefings, experiences and recommendation from “senior colleagues”, together with IT specialists and legal professionals, they wrote.

Her fundamental argument is that the data handed on to her “was incomplete or fallacious”, or that info “was not handed on” in any respect, including due to this fact that “doesn’t equate…to a failure on Ms Vennells half.”

Her closing submission additionally casts doubt, at instances, on different witness testimony.

It states that contemporaneous paperwork relatively than recollections, the place disputed, needs to be relied upon.

Fujitsu

Fujitsu, which offered the defective Horizon accounting system software program, says it “absolutely acknowledges and accepts its share” of failings and “deeply regrets its function” within the struggling of Publish Workplace victims.

Attorneys for the IT firm state that the Horizon IT system, nonetheless, was “however one half” of the Publish Workplace IT infrastructure.

It states that each Fujitsu and the Publish Workplace “have been conscious from the outset” that bugs, errors and defects have been current within the IT system.

The written assertion admits that Fujitsu employees have been capable of entry sub-postmasters’ department accounts remotely.

It additionally describes IT coaching for Horizon customers as “insufficient”, in addition to Fujitsu and Publish Workplace helpdesks.

Their legal professionals level out that “miscarriages of justice” weren’t attributable to “technological failures alone” but additionally ” the product of significant human and organisational failures in conduct, ethics, governance and tradition”.

The IT firm made a promise to “by no means once more present witness proof of any type in assist of Publish Workplace-led felony investigations or prosecutions”.

Gareth Jenkins, former Fujitsu worker

Gareth Jenkins, a Fujitsu engineer, offered key proof which helped in Publish Workplace prosecutions of sub-postmasters.

A part of his defence is that he was “by no means formally instructed as an professional witness” and did not have “any formal {qualifications}” for offering that proof in “a authorized context”.

Mr Jenkins’ legal professionals additionally blame the Publish Workplace’s “systemic failings as an investigator and prosecutor”.

They describe “an agenda” that seeks “to make Mr Jenkins liable for failures which have been these of Publish Workplace Restricted alone… and which prolonged effectively past the comparatively small variety of instances that he was concerned in”.

His authorized crew additionally describe an “astonishing” consequence of him not being “formally instructed” as an professional witness as this: “…not a single assertion ready by Mr Jenkins upon which POL [Post Office Limited] relied, in any of his prosecutions, constituted admissible professional proof.”

He’s accusing the Publish Workplace of “actively misrepresenting” him to the function he was “required to discharge”.

Mr Jenkins denies he suppressed issues with Horizon, as a substitute insisting that he volunteered info to the Publish Workplace.

His legal professionals describe failures by prosecutors as a part of a “broader canvas of dysfunction”.