Fujitsu boss admits Horizon glitches were known of amid Post Office scandal in Select Committee 

Finally, someone from the wrong side of this debacle showing a little humility

Respect, stood up and owned up, complete honesty from him. Members of Parliament watch this and learn it’s not demeaning to apologise.

I wasn’t expecting him to say all that. It’s open and shut case. Now give the postmasters what they deserve in compensation. From the companies and not the public. Justice for the postmasters.

If only our politicians could show such honesty and humility.

Even for a careless heartless company, the opening first words is “we are sorry” something thar ed davey was unable to even mention.

Wow! How did he get his job? He appears HONEST!!!!!

No software is bug free and bug fixing is part of the service Fujitsu was providing for the last 20 years. The scandal is Post Office knew there were bugs, but continued ruining people's lives.

I would have been nice if the Post Office investigators were as open, honest and demonstrated the same level of human decency over such an appalling chain of events. Fair play to Fujitsu here.

Fair play. Clear answers. Clearly put.

Fair play to this bloke, wasnt him back then but he is the face of the company now and has held his hands up. Clear honest answers

I was honestly expecting him to spend the whole meeting saying it wasnt their fault, so this really surprised me. Fair play to him.

THAT is how it is done. Acknowledge you did wrong, and accept that you had a hand in it; now Fujitsu needs to help repair the damage that they helped cause. Imagine seeing this level of honesty from the Post Office; we’d think the sun was rising from the west!

Paul Patterson seems interesting. From this clip he did not dodge any questions and was open. He's either an exception in being honest, or resigned to the fact that there is no where to run.

Those responsible at the time this scandal was happening, both at Fujitsu and The Post Office, need to be held to account and face prosecution.

This is how they start to put things right, honesty with a little compassion and humility. Sadly not what we've seen from some in the Postal Service. Well done that man.

Interesting how Post Office have been leaning the problem at Fujitsu, despite knowing it was using their faulty software and continuing to prosecute regardless.

Respect to the gentleman telling the truth and saying sorry and taking responsibility. Why can’t many people just do this it saves alot of embarrassment. I hope the families are compensated for the errors.

Fujitsu said they had informed the post office. And are willing to pay their share of the compensation His answers were straight up unlike post office investigaters and managers.

What a brave man to be so forthcoming about past misdeeds. All credit to him!

Hat off to this Fujitsu man. First time I’ve heard anyone put their hand up and admit guilt, without the caveat of “well we didn’t know this that or tother” as so many politicians have done!

You have to respect this chap for his handling of this, what a terrible position for him to be in. His humility and apology is very welcome. All new software systems of this scale have bugs so I am sure the Post Office knew of them and still wanted to roll it out, and as the Post Office were the clients they would have the power to make that happen. It is shameful that the Government/post Office is trying to make Fujitsu pay when the Government were in charge of everything.

Yes he is being transparent - but they always talk of 'The Post-Office' and 'Fujitsu' and fail to mention the names of those who where making the decisions to hide the truth, blame the postmaster, and happily sit by as they were prosecuted, jailed, bankrupt and committing suicide - but said nothing. Those are the people who should be answering for their actions, or failure to act, to this committee

Hard not to tell the truth with Jo sat directly behind you.

How refreshing to hear a company representative own up to their mistakes and relatively freely accept that they bear liability for redress. Fujitsu will obviously seek to hold the Post office as liable as themselves. I have been in the situation where the business were keen to roll out large applications regardless of the fact that testing had discovered errors in the code. They decided that they would rather deal with problems "in the wild", by recompense to users rather than spend more on development costs and debugging.

I think they should rebrand the company name to Fudgshitsu. Great to hear Mr Patterson give what felt like a genuine apology, and accept the companies part in the PO prosecutions. Ultimately though, it's still 90% down to the P.O. Fujitsu provided information regarding Horizon problems from an early stage. It was the PO that chose to ignore or brush it under the carpet and also not share it with the defence teams. It's the PO that ultimately took the sub-pm's to court and pushed for convictions.

Kudos to him for being honest and upfront about a problem he presumably had nothing personally to do with. How is it that a representative of a private company is more honest and more forthright than representatives of a government owned corporation?

I'd just like to know, as a person with only a basic knowledge of accounting, if the system was telling sub-Postmasters they were down on balances, and they were making said balances good by means of their own money, AND ALL THE TIME IT WASN'T SHORT, where in the hell did the money go? There must have been a surplus, so who has it? Added to which they were told that their terminals could not be remotely accessed, and it appears that they could and were, again what was being done? Was that money being shifted out of the system and put somwhere else, otherwise the accounts would not balance. The only thing that I can think of is criminality, and I'm not saying Corporately but more probably individually. IMHO of course!

oddly shocked he admitted fault straight from the get go. good level of standard to keep.

This guy is a breath of fresh air. Very honest. Well done

The post office executives and mps should learn from this man! This is how you show that you are truly sorry and regret your mistakes. Not continue being in denial and playing the blame game. Shame on the Post Office and our MPs.

It took a TV program to get everyone to hold their hands up!!! The corruption in this world is mind blowing and off the scale

My mum worked for a bank in Australia and one of her roles was to test any new programs to make sure they were working correctly before going online. The systems weren’t provided by Fujitsu.

You've got to hand it to him. He was no doubt under a massive amount of pressure from his Board and wider shareholders to protect Fujitsu's reputation through damage limitation, and most others would've taken the politicians evasive approach to answering (or rather, not answering) those questions. I think he's been about as transparent as he can be at this point without committing to figures on behalf of Fujitsu. Unfortunately, this all comes far too late.

At last, a person who answers the questions unlike the others gone before him.

In this hearing, it was pointed out that of the 8 Horizon developers at Fujitsu, 2/3rds of them were between "not much good" and "useless". Almost the whole set of people in the Post Office and Fujitsu, from lowly admins on the help desk, through to auditors, IT people and managers, and from lawyers to upper management and executives were (with one or two lonely exceptions shouting into the void), a bunch of ignorant, incurious and incompetent jobsworths eager to cover their backsides and never mind the consequences. But meanwhile, the taxpayer, under the stewardship of Rishi Sunak, gives around £100 million a year to the Post Office and _£billions_ to Fujitsu in government contracts. Post Office executives and management pay themselves huge bonuses from the public teat. Fujitsu executives donate large sums to the Tory party and get nice little sinecures of £80k per year for _two days work a week._ It's all a metaphor for "modern" Britain...

Wow. Still amazes me that it takes a TV drama to really bring this to the attention of all. What was Parliament doing?

Respect to him for his honesty.

Quite shocked at people praising this apology, people have lost their lives in a literal sense and also through financial ruin. Only once everything was stacked against them have they apologised, I’ll give some credit once they have actually contributed financially to the compensation and the complicit parties are punished

A refreshing dose of honesty & very welcome too in this debacle. We'll see if actions follow words after the statutory enquiry reports.

A crime and injustice has been committed and ALL the people at the TOP need to be held accountable as soon as possible with those found to have broken rules or the law jailed !

The guy apologised quite well here, whatever happens

People died because of their lies. How can he seriously say they're ethical after supporting the prosecution of innocent people? People should go to prison.

Nice to see someone who has been briefed to fess up to their part in the aiding and abetting the PO prosecutions. Well done for your honesty Mr Patterson. I would be very happy to work for Mr Patterson after seeing him not side step the questions he was given. I am incredulous that those who conduct the interviews seem to be deaf when it comes to questions that have already been answered with honesty.

If Fujitsu knew and STILL allowed P/O to prosecute, prosecute Fujitsu.

How unusual to see an executive and/or a public servant take responsibility for their company's/organisation's failure. Paul Paterson is clearly a brave, decent and honourable person. Compare him to to Paula Vennells and the rest of the Post Office Senior management. A real breath of fresh air.

This guy should be PM,humble,honest and apologetic

Kudos. This man fronted up. Well done to him. Clear, concise, humility and taking responsibility.

Im disappointed that the Chair shut down the Fujitsu rep when he said that they told the Post Office about the bugs in Horizon. I would have liked to have known more about this

Fair play for owning up. But if it weren’t for a tv show we’d never be here. Disgraceful that it took so long for a proper investigation and justice.

What a great spokesperson, takes responsibility, talks facts, demeanour is appropriate, has humility.

A level of honesty in this which has been almost non-existent with most from the Post Office. Jujitsu should contribute to the compensation.

This company knew from the outset there was a issue with Horizon, but was explicit in prosecuting the individual. Humility is clear in his voice and accepting responsibility for the company. Now let's see how deep their pockets are.

Now I want to hear about their full cooperation in releasing all records so we can see who exactly were keeping what they knew from the courts. And I want to hear about charges being laid on them.

For a moment there I guess he thought he had been saved by the bell!

Honesty, humility and no “whataboutery” This will help families move towards justice

Absolutely outrageous and criminal negligence too

The bells are the Division bells signalling 8 mins until MP's have to vote on something. They are all across the Westminster Estate, including in some of the pubs! 🤓

Wow! I did not expect that answer. Kudos to you all!

The more I know about this horror with the Post Office and their handling of it just left me scared at how this could happen.Fujitsu opening statement was a good start.

Compensation isnt just about money for the wrongly accused, it's about getting back every penny of every bonus and filling prison cells with those guilty at the P/O, Jujitsu and the Government.

If Fujitsu boss knew then surely the post office leaders knew and they did nothing until a tv series came out. Police should be ashamed that tv show did better than what they can do. Post leaders should all resign and not be given board or committee jobs, some should go to jail, and ministers involved should also be held accountable

Well credit where due ..showing that honesty (and integrity) are always the best approach in a witness box..and the humility as well did not go amiss.

Good man! No politics, no prevarication. So, so refreshing😊

I am surprised but pleased that at least one person has admitted Fujitsu had errors and the post office actually were fully aware but went ahead with their shameful persecution of the postmasters. We need to see the post office come clean and accept they were devastatingly wrong and all those overpaid executives should face jail. This is a wrong that apologies cannot ever put right. People committed suicide and were jailed and emotionally scarred for life through all this corruption.

at least he owns up...... unlike the man who investigated them he owned up to fuk all

Well done for your honesty. Now get out your chequebook.

Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee, Mr Patterson.

Wow that was Damming from Fujitsu but at least he sounded truthful more than you can for the Post Office liars and schemers

Take Fujitsu illegal profits back ,and allow them no more govt. contracts,then lock all their people involved up.

Thanyou at last for forthright answers to questions... Unequivocal... unlike our snake in the grass politicians and civil servant's who try to wriggle a way out of answering direct questions... he could even go one step further... by giving interim payments to all the people affected... pending what will inevitably be a long drawn out enquiry. These victims need to be able to rebuild and put there lives back together.. now.... not some indeterminate time in future once the slow wheel of justice finally comes to a halt.

Hats off to this chap for being honest and straightforward as opposed to being evasive and deceitful!

The TAX payer will foot the bill, the corporations will get off completely and the post office management will walk away with after being hit with a wet lettuce leaf. It's the British way.

Amazes me how these CRIMINALS just like apologising and think we the public are just supposed to say apology accepted and move on ????!!!!!!!! €$#¥ THAT 🤬

See Patterson's face when the bells went off midwaffle .

Christ!!! a man in a bad situation with balls like King Kong, i was not expecting that

Isn't it amazing when company directors always apologise when they 've been found that they were in the wrong after years of saying that they haven't done anything wrong.

Had to laugh out loud when this muppet describes how his employer knowingly collaborated in the wrongful persecution and prosecution of innocent people, then claim that the company is ethical.

More integrity in this fella than the entire government

That’s great ethical leadership. At last an individual who stands up and is accountable.

didn’t Blair know about this but didn’t want to upset the Japanese?

I believe Fujitsu should be banned from tendering for any public sector contract in the UK ever again and any existing contracts held by them should be terminated as soon as it is possible to do so.

Refreshingly honest and apologetic. Wow. Watch how it's done PO.

He should be sharing a cell with the old boot who had the operation to remove the CBE

"I am personally appalled, but I look forward to receiving my bonus and my golden handshake"

Notice how the parties now being caught out lying are apologising. Your apologies mean fuck all, to the dead and jailed.

Full respect to you sir, you took that right on the chin, Top man

At least the man has the courage to tell the truth. If only the rest of them would do the same, these poor postmasters could get a proper apology and compensation for their loss and distress

This man is a breath of fresh air. Well done 🙌🙌🙌

It’s so obvious that the Fujitsu guy got briefed by lawyers.

Impressed with this gent - comes across as genuinely remorseful and accepting of his company's egregious role in the scandal.

This select committee should have happened years ago like Ian Hislop said. I said this for a very long time in a previous life and I stick by it today (I know because I did it for a couple of decades mainly on the front line but I did help design systems on occasion), the people designing the software / app / service / website should work on the front line for at least a month before putting pen to paper. It should be a mandatory requirement. It should also be mandatory that during development and testing, all staff working on the front line be given the chance to test prototypes and provide feedback as part of User Research and Testing. It can easily be done on via a simple weblink or apps such as Invision, Figma, Zeplin and even TestFlight.

He is absolutely correct in his statement "ALONGSIDE EVERYONE ELSE" this was a mis-carriage of Justice , over a failed software system ( software fails every day and always has done how was this allowed to be presented to a Jury as not so ) , in normal British courts of law ( only who pays the prosecution is private every thing else is normal British Law ) with British Judges and Barristers and Solicitors, with a TUC member organisation representing the sub post masters ( it has since left but was in at the time in 2014 almost when the scandal is over ), with nearly every MP in the House having a PO affected in their area keeping quiet, and the Government of the Day ( all countries of the UK ) all parties keeping quiet about it. The Mr Bates issue probably started in 2000 in Warwickshire with probably a Tory MP and a Labour Government. With currently about 900 so far affected ( probably more ) and about 650 MPS just how did the MPs Judges Barristers, Solicitors, TUC, as well as the Post Office and Fujitsu not know and are trying to blame everyone else.

He knew that they were "probably" innocent but prosecuted them anyways. Somebody's who is "guilty" needs to go to prison.

Great to hear someonecinleadership speaking with humility and truth. G Ire

More actual answers here in a 5 min highlight reel than the whole covid enquiry so far or even PMQ’s for the last 3 years put together!

Credit where it's due. Open, honest, frank, and direct answers.

At least he didn't dodge the questions and held his hands up.

“We are a very different company to back then. But we still didn’t come forward until the tv programme aired”

Software is typically unit tested by the developers, then by the users (typically the end users - PO postmasters as well as the direct customer - the post office), once passed user acceptance testing, it is signed off for use. If additional bugs are found after go-live, they will be added to the backlog and prioritised for fixing - typically based on impact. There are several points where this process could have fallen short, least not if the pre-build requirements were either not discovered or not defined properly. It seems in this case that the bugs were known but not acted upon at some point during the product lifecycle. This could be the fault of the post office or the software supplier, or both to remedy. I would say the supplier (Fujitsu) will only act as directed by the customer (post office) even if the supplier are aware of the bugs.

I think that ITV should be given a lot of credit for bringing this travesty of (in)justice to light and be given a CBE.