Gareth Jenkins tells Post Office inquiry he only realised in 2018 that this was happening in practice

A former engineer for the company responsible for developing the Post Office’s faulty Horizon IT system has said he knew the computer system could in theory be accessed remotely by its staff for nearly two decades before realising it was happening in practice.

The former Fujitsu engineer Gareth Jenkins was giving his second day of evidence to the Post Office inquiry which is looking at why the state-owned institution prosecuted 900 operatives on the basis of alleged financial shortfalls in their branches when many of the discrepancies were caused by bugs, errors and defects in the Horizon IT system.