Lost Chances and Fujitsu's Paul Patterson at the Inquiry
The Lost Chances team attended a Phase 7 hearing at the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry on 11th November 2024 at Aldwych House, where Paul Patterson, CEO Europe, Fujitsu was recalled to give evidence. Ms Patrick, a barrister for Hudgells Solicitors, was able to put questions to him about working with Lost Chances.
This followed a meeting the Lost Chances team had with Paul Patterson back in August.
Katie Burrows, Katie Downey, Ms Patrick and Rebekah Foot
Paul Patterson, CEO Europe, Fujitsu
Here is a summary of the session transcript:
Ms Patrick: When you gave evidence in January, at the end of your evidence you committed to meeting subpostmasters and their families; is that right?
Paul Patterson: I committed to meeting subpostmasters and the families contacted me.
Ms Patrick: Yes. In August, early August, seven months on, you met then with representatives of the children who suffered as a result of their parents being prosecuted and convicted.
Paul Patterson: Yes.
Ms Patrick: In that meeting, there were nine children of former subpostmasters, including Katie Downey, Rebekah Foot, and Katie Burrows, who sit next to me today.
Paul Patterson: I recognise them now, yes.
Ms Patrick: I think you might be aware that their group is called Lost Chances for Subpostmaster Children?
Paul Patterson: Yes, I am.
Ms Patrick: Lost Chances for Subpostmaster Children, affected by the Horizon scandal, they’re campaigning for financial support to address chances and opportunities lost or, as they would say, taken from them, during their childhood as a result of the experiences of their families.
Now, today, perhaps coincidentally, or fortuitously, while we raised your contact that you’d had with their group with the Secretary of State during his evidence, they’ve had a response from the Post Office to their request for a meeting with them. But you have met their group, haven’t you?
Paul Patterson: Yes, I have.
Ms Patrick: During that meeting, they did something that was quite painful for them: they’d written down their stories and they shared each of them with you, everything that they had gone through, didn’t they?
Paul Patterson: Yes, they did.
Ms Patrick: It was in very moving terms, to be frank, wasn’t it?
Paul Patterson: It was.
Ms Patrick: They explained that their lost opportunities and their trauma, it just isn’t caught by any existing compensation redress or restorative justice scheme; is that fair?
Paul Patterson: That’s my understanding, yes.
Ms Patrick: You listened to what they had to say and you said you would take it away and you would come back to them?
Paul Patterson: Yes.
Ms Patrick: That’s over three months ago now, August, isn’t it?
Paul Patterson: Yes.
Ms Patrick: Yes. Now, Hudgells Solicitors has regularly sought updates on their behalf from Fujitsu as to what would happen and when; is that fair?
Paul Patterson: I believe so.
Ms Patrick: Just very briefly, we don’t have to go through the detail, in September, on the 13th, your solicitors for Fujitsu replied and said that your team were continuing to study what you had learned during your meeting in August. Can I just ask briefly, very briefly, what had you learned in your August meeting?
Paul Patterson: So the – I think the two or three colleagues – sorry, the three members of the group sitting beside you, it was a very difficult day for them and it was a very difficult day to listen. They had a number of ideas, some of which I had no – I’ve got no experience of personally. I don’t know even how we would execute those things and I think I said in the meetings we are not the right people to – the right organisation to do some of those things. But let us think about could we find organisations. But, equally, I think the group were also structuring themselves differently to allow us to potentially engage with them in a more structured way than the way that it was previously.
So we do want to engage in that way. I’m still unclear about what things we can do other than sums of money, the list of – I think, the education topic that we talked about, the mental health topic that we talked about, how we can, as a company help, help in that way, and I think there was also a conversation around legacy on education. I didn’t bring my notes with me on that particular meeting.
So we still want to do that. Frankly, we’ve struggled, though, to figure out how.
Ms Patrick: Can I ask you to pause there for one moment because I know we’re very short of time. The last reply they received, I believe, suggests you would revert with the timetable around engagement towards the end of this year but that you had no further updates at this time, and that came through Fujitsu’s solicitors. Does that mean that it will be the end of the year before you can take a position on whether you can engage further with the Lost Chances organisation and with the people sitting here; is that what that means?
Paul Patterson: So I think there was something else that happened today with the Secretary of State, where he also said he thought there was a theme in here or topic in here that we could be involved in.
I don’t know what format that engagement with two of you, three of you, the nine of you, could be before the end of the calendar year but I won’t stay silent. So I won’t stay silent.
Ms Patrick: So you won’t stay silent. Can I just ask, you said before the end of the year. Now, given everything that you’ve said today, and we know what you’ve said about waiting until the end of the Inquiry, given everything you’ve said today about that meeting and Fujitsu’s role in the scandal, is there really any need for this work, this engagement, to wait until the end of the Inquiry to decide where Fujitsu might fit?
Paul Patterson: So for us as a company, it’s very difficult to understand, when we had the first conversation, very difficult to understand where that engagement could be, what could we do. You had a list of several topics that we think we could help with. I think that we’d want to explore those again, not to – I think, in fact, Rebekah, you made a point about kicking the ball down the road – not to do that, but we struggled, frankly, to find a way to engage it.
Now, I think, if my memory is right, you’ve also structured yourself slightly different now, I believe. I owe it to you to have a look at what that new structure looks like and is there a way we could engage with before the end of the calendar year.
Ms Patrick: Thank you, Mr –
Paul Patterson: And I don’t know off the top of my head what your new structure looks like. Okay.
Ms Patrick: Thank you, Mr Patterson. There have been updates provided to Fujitsu and I’m very grateful for your indication that there would be further engagement.
Read the full transcript of this Inquiry session here or you can watch the session on YouTube.