1.

Claimants
2. Name of witness: Mr Anup Patny;
3. No. of statement: 1st
4. Date: 28 September 2018
THE POST OFFICE GROUP LITIGATION

Claim Numbers: HQ16X01238, HQ17X02637 & HQ17X04248

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE

QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION

BETWEEN:
ALAN BATES & OTHERS

Claimants
-and-

POST OFFICE LIMITED

Defendant

WITNESS STATEMENT OF ANUP KUMAR PATNY

I, Anup Kumar Patny of 11 Combe Close, Leicester, Leicestershire, LE3 9TJ, do say as follows:

1. I have been the Subpostmaster of Spencefield Post Office, 47 Downing Drive, Leicester,
Leicestershire, LE5 6LL, (the “Branch”) since 13 October 2014. I am still the
Subpostmaster but my contract has been suspended since 17 August 2016. I am in the
process, through negotiations between my instructed solicitors (Freeths LLP) and the
Defendant’s instructed solicitors (Womble Bond Dickinson LLP) of agreeing the termination
of the agreement between myself and the Defendant. I also continue to operate a retail
business from the premises this being a newsagents.

2. I am Claimant number 424 in these proceedings. I make this statement in relation to the
Horizon Issues as set out in Schedule 1 to the Third CMC Order (“the Schedule”).

3. The matters stated within this statement are true to the best of my knowledge and belief.
Unless otherwise stated, the facts contained in this statement are within my own knowledge
and are true. Where they are not within my own knowledge they are derived from the
sources to which I refer and are true to the best of my knowledge and belief.

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Background

4. I understand that the Horizon Issues Trial in these proceedings concerns the technical
issues relating to “the Horizon System”, a term which is defined in the Schedule but which
I refer to as “Horizon” in this statement for brevity. I give this witness statement in respect
of these issues.

5. I understand that issue which the Court is determining is to what extent it was possible or
likely for bugs, errors or defects to cause discrepancies or shortfalls in Subpostmasters’
branch accounts. I have experience of such an error which occurred in May 2016.

Monthly Balance – 11 May 2016

6. During the time that I operated with the Horizon system, there were one or two power cuts
and I also had to reboot Horizon several times.

7. There was a major system outage on 9 May 2016 when Horizon went down at or around
09:00-10:00am. I was working in the Branch at this time. The screen went blank and none
of the transactions that I had undertaken that morning were showing. I rang the Helpline to
find out what had happened and had no option but to close the Branch until the problem
had been rectified.

8. I understand that this outage affected Branches across the whole national Post Office
Network.

9. Following the system outage of 9 May 2016 mentioned below, at the end of the trading
period on Wednesday 11 May 2016 there was a shortfall of over £17,000 which could not
be explained, but which I understand related to remming in of approximately £16,000 worth
of £1 coins.

10. As I usually worked in the Branch in the morning, to the best of my recollection I was
responsible for remming in the cash delivery on the morning of 11 May 2016. I know and
am certain that I did not receive £16,000 worth of £1 coins. Such an event would have been
wholly out of the ordinary for my Branch and I have never held such a large amount of £1
coins.

11. My son, Akash Patny, worked as an assistant in the Branch and was responsible for
undertaking the balance. Akash therefore undertook the necessary liaison with the Post
Office.

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12. On 19 May 2016 I received a call from Debra Lambley (from NSBC) about a discrepancy
with the figure Horizon was showing for stamps. This appeared to relate back to the £16,000
discrepancy referred to above but I immediately thought this was strange as, again, I would
never have had stamps to that value in the Branch.

13. I told Debra that she would need to speak to my son about this as he was responsible for
carrying out the balancing procedure. I understand that Debra called the Branch later that
day and did speak to Akash.

To my mind, these discrepancies could only have been caused by some failure of the
Horizon system.

I believe the contents of this statement to be true.

Signed

Date 28.09.2018

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