Govt knew about Post Office Horizon cover-up

@VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia Last week when they came out with this conscription thing was also Grenfell Testimony Week

I dont think she shouldn't be held accountable as I stated in my post, however as it stands she is the only one that has been publicly held up as culpable. But I refuse to believe that the CEO before her (I think Adam Crozier) plus big wigs at Horizon or Fujitsu were not also partly responsible.

nb Adam Crozier is now at itv so that may expalin why he wasn't featured in the drama but its feasible he may have been implicated in records/documents etc

Of course she is responsible for what happened on her watch. But a lot of it happened many before she was appointed

All the relevant chief execs and chairs (as a minimum) should all be accountable

It's so frustrating isn't it. Not that she doesn't have some accountability but utterly outrageous how many others are likely to get away Scot free because the public are happy once a single head has rolled

I agree that everyone who is culpable for the scandal should be held accountable.

However, Paula Vennells took home more than £4.5 million during her tenure. If CEOs being paid such obscene amounts can't take accountability for what happens on their watch, what are they being paid for? By contrast, the average current salary for an investigator is £40k.

The problem started (and was known about - although perhaps not in mainstream media) before her tenure , why is her predecessor also not being brought to account?

ive dipped in an out of a series on radio 4 about this but Im pretty sure the problems at Horizon/Fujitsu were known about almost from the start. (ie turn of the century)
Paula Vennells has been (rightly) implicated but there must be a lot of others at the post office, at Horizon (who was authorising the "no one else has had a problem with it script at the helpline for a start?) Fujitsu and the government.
Why has she been singled out? the corruption is widespread, she was not a lone wolf masterminding the whole thing!!

@VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia
Local authorities can, for instance - https://www.isonharrison.co.uk/our-services/regulatory-law-solicitors-for-business/local-authority-offences/

They aren't civil cases.

I can bring criminal cases in my job. We have nothing to do with the CPS.

Better than that, I've found the CPS's own page on private prosecutions.

The Post Office used this legislation to prosecute the postmasters. The RSPCA is another body which makes frequent use of it.

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/private-prosecutions

There was a total of three Horizon cases prosecuted by the CPS during Starmer's period in office – out of four criminal million cases the CPS handled in that time. He wasn't involved in any of the Horizon cases.

The attempt to make this about Starmer is just more smoke and mirrors from the Tory press. General Election imminent, so anything bad that's happened in the last 14 years is the fault of Anyone But The Tories. <shrug>

I didn't know about Horizon prosecutions, says Keir Starmer
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67950501

It's not a civil case. In England Wales anyone, even individuals, can bring a private prosecution through the criminal courts.

I did actually know this before, but someone on one of the other threads explained it quite well. Let me see if I can find it.

Royal mail run their own prosecutions though. It had nothing to do with the CPS/DPP. That's true too for every local authority in the country too (for instance).

He apparently didn’t know that the CPS were dropping child abuse charges against the BBC’s most famous entertainer. a knight who was friends with the future king and multiple politicians. Apparently no one told him

They are ALL totally corrupt.

This country is fucked

Neither party give a shiny shit about the general public. Alister Cambell actually admitted on the rest is politics podcast that the investment levels the Blair/Brown govt made in public services were completely unaffordable so they used PFI to “get it off the govt books” and basically signed the country up to decades of paying off “rent” / maintenance/ contracts for decades that are substandard. IT systems that didn’t work, schools and hospitals made from RAAC with maintenance contracts where it costs £300 to change a light bulb.

The Tory’s just give the contracts to their mates and don’t care if it isn’t delivered - PPE, Teesport port.

This country’s politicians are totally corrupt and anyone who thinks one side is ‘better’ or ‘different’ from the other is fucking kidding themselves

Utterly grim .I've witnessed first hand how my friend's dad's whole life has been shattered by this. And he is one of thousands

I know ….. thank goodness we have an independent judiciary to keep Westminster in check. A competent Director of Prosecutions who would at least notice 700+ prosecutions from a single institution in his courts and investigate this ….