To draw your attention to Mr Bates vs The Post Office

Probably both @PerkingFaintly. I doubt we'll see anything resembling the truth without his evidence. I also doubt that he'll be set free to tell us. Lots of arm twisting ahead for all sorts of people.

Blimey. Imagine what he knows...

I can't access the Telegraph article, so I can't see whether he's more scared of breaking an NDA with Fujitsu or of being criminally prosecuted.

God gets all the best people Paul2023 have you never noticed? I often feel a bit of smiting wouldn't go amiss.

Chief techie demands immunity

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

I had been wondering what the situation in Scotland was - it seems that the Post Office doesn't have prosecution powers there. I wonder if the numbers prosecuted there were much lower. It could be quite telling - but also if the Scottish authorities were refusing to prosecute - why did they not raise the alarm - or did they?

There was an ex MP writing in the Times who received an email/letter from someone affected in Scotland and he said he'd forwarded it to the Post Office who'd said they were investigating, but he'd not followed it up and felt bad about it now. I bet he did, but they might have been the only person who contacted him.

Scary to think she was a woman of religion , a priest none the less. ( Vennells)

Unbelievable. A liar and being corrupt isn’t the qualities I’d expect from someone who was a priest.

I don’t want her to be a scapegoat though, but I’d imagine the post office hierarchy will now hang her out to dry to divert the blame.

It goes much further than just her.

Ultimately , her reputation is ruined and she’ll go down in the history books connected to this case.

So that’s some justice atleast

Watched the documentary episode of the current series last night.

Vennells in front of the parliamentary committee.

She's soooooo slippery. She constantly does Reasonable Voice, while evading the question and pretending she's the one in authority.

If you didn't know the context, she'd come across as sincere and reasonable. Except that sitting in the background of the shot is Jo Hamilton, one of the SPMs featured, who actually laughs when Vennells denies knowing stuff.

IIRC Jo said that was the moment she realised PO management had decided to go for a full cover-up.

I think the current government will overturn all convictions and give out large interim payments. Having said that there will of course be post masters who did scam the system. Nothing to do with Horizon. One of the PMasters did indicate this in a recent intereview but that is a small price to pay for this horrible situation.

Let’s be honest, the whole reason this case came to light is because of Alan Bates and his campaign which started 15 years ago.

Neither Labour nor the Conservatives government, gave a shit really did they ?

It took an ITV drama to cause the outrage it did. No government past or present comes of well from this.

This is just another inconvenience for the government , Im sure that’s how they see it.

But compensation isn’t enough, but that doesn’t hurt or punish the individuals responsible for this.

I want them to face criminal charges. I want to see them financially hurt.

Just giving the post masters a sum settlement isn’t enough- those responsible need to see a prison cell or be financially punished.

The writers and cast deserve all tv honours for taking a huge, unwieldy collection of information that developed in bits over 20 years - post offices, technology, little frauds, some people dishonest , nothing to really grab mass attention - and packaging it into an understandable form that has socked us all in the mouth with a mighty punch. If you didn't have personal knowledge of the events you wouldn't believe it happened. To see it unfold in front of you over 4 nights was utterly shocking. Best wishes to all concerned for a satisfactory resolution and many thanks to everyone involved in the tv production.

Yes, they can get some great PR for their response to the scandal now; but when it comes to apportioning blame for what happened at the time, they can just hold their hands up and blame the previous administrations.

It is indeed disgusting that nobody in government cared enough to do much about it until the ITV drama. Does nobody do right for the sake of simply doing right anymore? Is it all just about appearances and making it look like you actually care about whatever 'hoi polloi' have had brought to their attention - and even that only in an election year?

Yes, that's the maddening part. In theory, it makes it look like it was her choice (although it's interesting that she never thought to make that choice for over a decade before it finally became untenable) and, fwiw, belittles the idea of what an honour actually is, if it's seen as something you can just take and keep for as long as you fancy.

Being allowed to 'decide' to hand it back potentially puts her in the same category as people who have turned them down for noble, just reasons - not unlike Alan Bates, in fact - or handed them back as a legitimate protest against government decisions that they feel strongly about.

Even the way she's framed it, you can just tell that she doesn't really see what the 'fuss' is about; it wouldn't surprise me if she thinks that giving back the honour is sufficient punishment and that her slate is now all clear.

And I still would like to see an inquiry as to how she ever came to be given it in the first place. Either the people in charge are seriously corrupt and/or morally bankrupt; or there was gross incompetence in their execution of the most basic due diligence. At least with the likes of Savile, it was given to him decades ago - long before it emerged publicly what he was really like (as if it wasn't very well-known by the establishment all along); but Vennells was given hers in 2019!!! It was the equivalent of giving Nick Leeson an honour 'for services to banking' in 2002!

Yes I agree!

It's a good news story for them in an election year, nothing more. Truly scandalous that they didn't care before and are only now rubbing their opportunist hands in glee! 😡

It was a brilliant drama btw. Yes - these people wouldn’t have have those sorts of discrepancies over such a short time period in small rural villages. Yet - the systems were deemed correct.

Like Peking I have also been involved in government contracts and she is spot on regarding hand over of government contracts to a new supplier. Having said that government depts are a nightmare to work with. Hang onto very old technology and despite warnings of no maintenance choose to ignore the risks. I did a very large handover government project a few years ago and it was truly shocking what we had to do to get the government dept to take this all seriously.

Sorry I meant Paula Vennells - it seems to have auto corrected.

That's about it really. This scandal has been known about for years, so innocent people have been left to suffer all this time. It is really appallingly cynical for the Govt to suddenly and belatedly say they are going to do something about it. I just cannot believe that this has been allowed to drag on for decades, evidently they hoped this would all just go away.

I am really glad that Paula Venables has handed back her CV and the public petition worked. But this barely scratches the surface of what needs to happen, so I hope it doesn't assuage public anger.

What urgently needs to happen:

Compensation for everyone who was affected, without any further delays;
The repayment (with interest) of all the money individuals were forced to repay ie was stolen from them;
Justice - a criminal investigation into this, prosecutions of all those who were party to it and prison sentences for the guilty. Although I have no sympathy for Venables I hope she is not made a scapegoat to allow other guilty parties to escape justice.

Gillian Keenan’s ( education secretary) husband is head of Fujitsu UK and Ireland.

Would that explain why the government is still giving contracts to the firm ?

Its gets worse doesn’t it ?..

This independent expert's report on Horizon was buried in 2003.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-67921974
Jason Coyne, who worked for Preston-based Best Practice Plc at the time, was instructed to examine the computer system called Horizon in 2003.
He said he notified the Post Office the data was "unreliable" but he was ignored, sacked then discredited.

It annoys me she was able to hand it back. She should have been stripped of it.

The risk is, as with Fred Goodwin, that honour is handed back and then nothing else happens

Well exactly. The 'holier than thou' types who often are, in practice, deeply unpleasant!

You don't have to look too far in to the history of all the major religions for evidence of horrific behaviour amongst its 'stewards of the lord'...

Good. Now she needs to be criminally prosecuted, and her compensation as head of the PO recovered from her. Treat it as the white collar crime that it is.

She's handing back her CBE!

Good!

Whilst, of course, Paula Vennells should be stripped of her CBE - not 'asked to hand it back' - and the person/people in charge of the due diligence before giving the honour to her seriously cross-examined and forced to justify their decisions, we all know that she is very likely to decide to keep it and not be made to return it.

However, I think this will actually work against her. Honours do not exist in a vacuum and are only actually meaningful alongside the wide public knowledge of what the person has done to deserve it.

Like with Blair and many others, I reckon the existence of the honour forces their disgrace above the public parapet. As we know, millions of decent hard-working people - many of them truly outstandingly great, like Alan Bates - will never be given honours, and this is not in any way considered a slight on their character, work or abilities, not to have an honour; it is the norm.

That CBE will go everywhere with her and haunt her, for as long as she has it. It shines sunlight on the fact that she has acted astonishingly shamefully and disgracefully. It is a perpetual mocker and an open-goal gift to everybody who chooses to bring it up with her, or when talking about her, or when booing every time she is introduced/announced along with it - it's a poisoned chalice, like filthy, soiled laundry that she's forced to carry with her everywhere she goes.

Currently, Alan Bates doesn't have an official honour, and he may never have one; but there are now millions and millions of British people who know exactly what he has done and what a hero of the people he is, and he will carry that public reputation with him for life, and even beyond as he goes down in the history books. Whether or not he has also had a letter from Buckingham Palace is completely irrelevant, really.