To draw your attention to Mr Bates vs The Post Office

I cried through most of it, it was harrowing

so many destroyed lives

i finished it last night and took ages to fall asleep as I kept thinking about it

so so awful

Good!

Breaking news. Tom Witherow at the Times is reporting that the public inquiry has obtained covert recordings of senior staff, including Paula Vennells. An inquiry source says there are around 80 tapes and they could be "damning".

In Feb 2015 there was a Parliamentary committee evidence session on the Horizon mediation scheme . In the first half there were questions to five individuals including Alan Bates and representatives of the Communicatiin Workers union and the NFSP. Later they questioned Paula Vennells, Angela van den Bogerd and Ian Henderson (Second Sight, forensic examiner)

The NFSP rep, George Thomson was very clear that he didn't think that there was a big problem and said that it affected very few. He was worried about damaging the brand 'if we are not careful, we damage the brand, we damage the franchise and we cost my members’ ability to sell the franchise'. He said 'the difficulty the Post Office must have is that some of the people are chancing their arm'. Later he was told by the chair that he was 'quite out of order' when he claimed that some were 'spinning a yarn' subsequently mentiontioning Michael Rudkin and his wife . It's worth noting that Michael Rudkin has recently been offered £600,000 compensation.

Transcript But it's well worth watching the whole session on Parliamentary TV.

As much as I agree there are nameless people in the shadows here, and multiple people culpable. There is no way round the fact this woman was a key enabler here in making it happen. She could have resigned, but she didn’t. She stayed in, enabled it. Lied. Then took 400k pay off and a cbe as a thank you.

Thank you, that’s interesting, I wasn’t sure of the chain of command, but knew she’d have had a boss and someone else was responsible above her that was in the shadows.

@Shoppingfiend I agree. I don’t like the focus on one person. It would be an easy way out for the government to sidestep responsibility too.

When it does finally come, even full compensation will feel like it’s not enough when it’s taken so many years of people’s life and obviously loss of life. I really hope it happens soon.

I’m sure there are examples of blatant racism - is that being ignored as it happened in the past??
I don’t like that we are only focussing on the ceo -surely the software manufacturing company lies and lied -I bet there were a ton of staff who knew their stuff was corrupted.
and the police and lawyers????

So over 230 sub postmasters were jailed.

How many were actually procecuted ?

I've seen varying ammounts from 700 to 900.

That's quite a lot of wayward sub postmasters, surely someone must have thught this was strange in itself.

All I can say is I hope Paula Vennells's has got a robust constitution for all the disgust that is aiming her way.

I wonder too how many judges must be hanging their heads in shame for this miscarriage of justice.

I also find it interesting how smugly proud of themselves the perpetrators are - eventually - that they actually make a point of announcing how many millions of pounds they have agreed to pay in compensation.

As was made clear by Lee Castleton in the drama, it's an absolute insult and a tiny fraction of what anything approaching true compensation could possibly be, when split between all of the people that the PO ruined and stole from. He himself was ripped off to the tune of hundreds of thousands - you can well see how getting a measly £20K back would hardly leave him jumping up and down in delight that he had seen proper justice.

Something that Jo said in the drama really brought this home to me in its essence: people who have deliberately and shamefacedly stolen from you are then getting you prosecuted and heavily punished/destroyed for allegedly stealing from them.

Tearing that CBE from PV in public disgrace is only the tiniest start of it (never mind 'asking' her to give it back); how on earth are all of these deeply guilty people completely escaping what they cheerfully put the innocent people through?

It strikes me that this country would be a much, much better place for us all to live in if people like Alan Bates were in charge of the big national institutions and in government and the likes of Paula Vennells were sent out to run sub post offices in remote areas - ideally not so remote that they don't have two sub POs, so that everybody can use the other one instead.

I know there's the old chestnut about 'isn't it funny how everybody who best knows how to run the country is out in the streets driving a taxi?' - but maybe there's a lot more actual truth to it than we may have thought. It's not like there aren't a great many people who are high up and in charge who are utterly incompetent, corrupt and/or thoroughly untrustworthy, even criminal.

I couldn't agree more.

I also detest the way that, just because a great number of so-called conspiracy theories are crazy and ridiculous, most people then take that to assume that any belief in or accusation of conspiracy whatsoever must also be hogwash and not be considered or entertained for a second.

If the very concept of 'conspiracies' doesn't exist - basically just two or more people secretly planning a crime, which surely can't be that far-fetched - then why do the police successfully prosecute many people for 'conspiracy to X' on a very regular basis?

it also illuminates how many financial barriers to justice there are in this country.

It's absolutely astounding (or maybe it isn't really) that it's just accepted that justice is usually available for anybody who is rich enough to pay for it.

The law of this country seems to be based wholly around the desires and conveniences of the wealthy and powerful, and the only interest in involving the ordinary little people is when they can put them in the dock and convict them, whether justified or not.

There really should be some kind of legislation to prevent very rich people and corporations from wearing down their much poorer opponents by simply making them spend all of their money, and then swooping in and stealing a march on them once they're broke. Once it's very clear that somebody is trying to buy the result that they want, this should be severely punishable; not just accepted as the way it is.

This reminds me of at least one case I know of (and I'm sure there must be loads more), where Tesco were determined to build a controversial new store in a small town where the council were keen to stop them, for various reasons. Tesco got their way in the end, as the council were honest about the fact that Tesco could and would just keep on appealing until the council was skint and they would win anyway, so the council said they may as well just give in at the start. I believe this is what's known as 'British justice'.

Private Eye has kept on reporting on it for over a decade. It really should be required reading to alert the public to all the scandal that goes on daily by our so-called leaders.

So often PE is way ahead of the rest of the media in exposing stuff, the Cyril Smith scandal was reported by the Eye years before it became generally known.

@Whydowomendothistothemselves - this documentary is a harrowing watch. Those appalling newspaper headlines!

There’s a documentary about this scandal on ITV1 now.

I've always wondered about the amounts involved. They were so huge. Wouldn't the PO have to document that there was a huge drop in takings, that there was a history of taking £20k/day or whatever the huge amounts were, that were supposed to have gone missing? In order to prove the seemingly missing amounts weren't a software glitch.

I never perceived that any PO I've been in had turnover anything close to the amounts that were supposed to have been stolen.

On PM on radio 4this evening they were saying it’s taken this tv prog to get the public involved - but I’ve been sickened by the whole carry on for years, since it first came to light - but what can a member of the public do -we assume our MPs are dealing with it.
I could have emailed my MP I spose .

I first became aware of this injustice at least 2 years ago. The only part that interests me is how many people were unfamiliar until now. Or how much people want to feel outrage, maybe.

Way too sad & upsetting for me to 'enjoy' the dramatisation.

Thank God for people like Alan Bates.
The nightmare continues for these people.
They deserve proper compensation, though for many even that will be too little too late.
Makes my blood boil how they are being treated even now.
All involved in the Post Office should hang their heads in shame.

Remember hearing an interview with an educated middle class woman who killed 3 friends in a car accident. She went to prison and was glad to. She found the other women prisoners were largely kind and sympathetic and most had appalling backgrounds hence ending up committing crime and prison.

It hits home that not everyone in Prison is bad and guilty just like not every Priest is good and innocent. Yes, I am staring right at you Paula Vennells.

It was very emotional. Alan Bates is a remarkable man.