Former Fujitsu IT-security analyst Andy Dunks told the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry that he prepared prosecution witness statements using information from colleagues who had more direct knowledge of some Horizon support and data-extraction work. Some of those colleagues were reluctant to give evidence in court, he said. The testimony raises questions about how the source and limits of technical evidence were explained to prosecutors and courts; it does not, by itself, establish that Dunks knowingly gave false evidence.
What Dunks told the inquiry
Dunks gave evidence to the inquiry on 8 March 2023 and returned for questioning on 16 July 2024. He had worked at Fujitsu as an Information Technology Security Analyst. His job title should not be mistaken for proof that he was a Horizon software developer, system architect or independent technical expert.
In the July 2024 hearing, counsel Jason Beer asked whether Dunks had prepared statements using information from Fujitsu Service Support Centre staff who were “the experts that didn’t want to give evidence.” Dunks agreed. He described asking colleagues about matters he did not know himself and acknowledged that parts of his evidence came from what others told him rather than from his own technical understanding. The exchange is in the inquiry transcript; Computer Weekly also reported the testimony on 16 July 2024.
That distinction matters. A witness can report what a colleague told them, but that is different from personally carrying out an extraction, independently checking its result, or being qualified to explain the system behind it. A signed statement may contain information gathered from several people; the court still needs a clear account of who supplied each technical assertion and what the named witness personally verified.
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Who had the more direct knowledge?
Dunks identified Rajbinder Bains as a colleague who had, for a period, been responsible for carrying out ARQ data extractions. He said he understood that Bains did not want to be a court witness. Dunks’s impression was that being questioned in court seemed daunting to her, but he did not claim to know all her reasons. The evidence supports a narrower point than a blanket ranking of professional qualifications: Bains had more direct operational responsibility for particular extraction work.
Bains later gave evidence to the inquiry as Rajbinder Sangha (née Bains). The inquiry’s hearing page and published witness statement identify her evidence. Her later appearance before the inquiry does not alter what Dunks said about her willingness to act as a witness in earlier court cases.
The chain of knowledge at issue can be stated simply: Horizon records were retrieved or handled by operational staff; information about those records was passed to Dunks; Dunks put information into statements; and those statements could then be used in Post Office proceedings. The important questions are whether the chain was made clear, whether the information was checked, and whether relevant limitations or contrary records were disclosed.
What ARQ data was, and why the witness mattered
ARQ extraction was a process for retrieving audit-related data from Horizon systems. Such records could help reconstruct transactions and were used in investigating alleged branch shortfalls and supporting legal cases. A witness describing an extraction therefore needed to be clear about whether they performed it, understood the tools and process, or were relaying another employee’s account.
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Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →The inquiry has examined records about duplicate transaction data and limitations in retrieving ARQ information. A Fujitsu incident log concerns a duplicate JSN; another internal record discusses duplicate transactions and possible missing transactions. The inquiry also heard from John Simpkins and Gerald Barnes on 17 January 2024.
These records make the competence and role of the person explaining data legally significant. They do not establish that every ARQ extraction was invalid. The issue is whether a particular extraction, its records and its interpretation were reliable and complete in the circumstances of a particular case.
How statements entered Post Office cases
The inquiry’s records show Dunks statements and related documents in more than one case, including Post Office v Seema Misra and Post Office v Lee Castleton. The documents differ by case, so Dunks’s role should not be assumed to have been identical in each. The inquiry’s evidence listing includes material associated with Castleton, while Dunks’s first and second statements are available as his first witness statement and his second witness statement.
Seema Misra
Dunks supplied evidence used in the prosecution of Seema Misra. She was convicted of false accounting and imprisoned while pregnant; the Court of Appeal later overturned her conviction. Her case illustrates the stakes of technical evidence used in a prosecution, but the available account does not show that Dunks’s statement alone caused the conviction.
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Castleton’s case was civil litigation rather than a criminal prosecution. The inquiry record includes Dunks statements alongside investigator requests and related case documents. It is a useful example of how information about Horizon records could move through a legal process, but it should not be treated as identical to Misra’s prosecution.
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Why this mattered in the Horizon scandal
The Post Office prosecuted hundreds of subpostmasters after Horizon showed apparent shortfalls. The High Court’s 2019 Horizon Issues judgment established that bugs, errors and defects could affect branch accounts. Fujitsu technical evidence formed part of the evidential foundation used in prosecutions and civil proceedings. But it was human decisions—to investigate, disclose, interpret and prosecute—that turned records into cases; it is imprecise to say that a computer itself convicted people.
Dunks’s evidence belongs within a wider inquiry into Fujitsu and Post Office evidence, not as proof that every Fujitsu witness lacked competence or that every statement was knowingly false. Gareth Jenkins, Anne Chambers, Rajbinder Sangha, John Simpkins, Gerald Barnes and Penny Thomas had distinct roles and evidence histories. The inquiry considered issues involving witnesses and records across those roles; Dunks should not be conflated with Jenkins, whose technical-witness history was separate. The inquiry’s Phase 3 archive, January 2024 hearing and evidence listing provide further records.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the evidence does—and does not—establish
Dunks’s testimony establishes that he sometimes relied on information supplied by colleagues and that some colleagues with closer operational knowledge were reluctant to give court evidence. It makes the provenance of statements an accountability question: who drafted or amended a statement, what the signer checked, and whether a court was told about the signer’s limits.
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Those questions are not the same as a finding that Dunks fabricated evidence, that Bains formally refused to testify for a particular reason, or that Fujitsu knowingly misled a court in every case. To assess any individual statement, the relevant document trail must show its sources, edits, technical basis and treatment of known bugs or extraction limitations.
The testimony is historical: Dunks’s relevant oral evidence was heard in March 2023 and July 2024. The inquiry reports page lists Volume 1 of its final report, published 8 July 2025, and a chair’s progress update dated 8 July 2026 concerning the remainder of the report. It should therefore not be described as wholly concluded on that basis alone. See the inquiry’s reports and statements page for its published status.
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