To hope that the Postmasters who were wrongly convicted/accused of fraud are compensated?

[Pottedpalm]

I know there is no adequate recompense for the horrendous stress, loss of livelihood and , in some cases, imprisonment they have suffered, but they deserve compensation and a public apology.

Yes they bloody well should be compensated. 39 out of 42 convictions quashed.

@user1471517900

Is there a story around this? Not sure I know what you're on about

I'm in Ireland and I know about it!

Oh, and all of those people who trusted the system reported shortfalls and made them good from their own pocket So the Post Office has basically made pure profit from postmasters too. This has to be fraudulent acquisition of monies, or theft, surely? Does anyone know if there are any estimates made of how much post office made from that angle? Just so, so shocking.

Just read that another lady, Fiona Cowan took an overdose and died over this. Years later her husband found through a freedom of information request that she had been acquitted before her death. No one had told either of them.

@BumBurnerBum

Just read that another lady, Fiona Cowan took an overdose and died over this. Years later her husband found through a freedom of information request that she had been acquitted before her death. No one had told either of them.

Oh my god that is awful

I saw a couple on our local news this morning who were affected by this. They lost everything and at one point were living in a van on a supermarket car park. The woman now has kidney problems and is on dialysis awaiting a kidney transplant. She said her hope was that her name is cleared before she dies. I really hope that happens and that they get a massive payout, but it will never give them back the years that they've been robbed of during this whole sorry affair.

Why aren’t the PO prosecuted for essentially blackmailing all those poor people who made up ‘shortfalls’ with their own money?

I would go further and say that the senior managers knowingly involved should have been charged with perverting the course of justice and done some of the prison time they made others do.

Absolutely this.

I've been following this off and on for years, and so much of it is too awful for words.

It's also a warning about what happens when an organisation has invested very heavily in a technology, and then doesn't want to see it "go to waste".

Management committed more and more egregious acts in order to not have to deal with the fact the Very Expensive Software was failing.

Just one of the terrible stories in Private Eye’s long report I linked to upthread - Martin Griffiths was told that over £57,000 had ‘gone missing’ in a year from the PO he ran. He must have been desperate, knowing it wasn’t anything he’d done and he couldn’t explain it or put it right. His elderly parents lent him their life savings because the PO insisted he had to make good the shortfall. Then the branch was targeted by armed robbers who stole over £50,000 in cash from the safe. He was told his contract was being terminated and he’d have to pay back some of the stolen money too.

That poor man killed himself. It’s heartbreaking.

As far as I understand it, by the time the money had supposedly gone ‘missing’, the IT bugs that were causing the problems in the Horizon system had been known about by the PO for years. They just kept it quiet and pretended to each postmaster that nobody else had a problem.

(Oh, and they got a new postmaster in to run the branch after Martin Griffiths died; they didn’t tell him what had happened and he was soon being told he had to pay thousands to make good an unexplained shortfall, too)

I'd not heard about this until today and I'm utterly appalled.

How the hell were they convicting people of theft and fraud when they had no evidence other than "computer says so"?

Why was no pattern observed by the judiciary?

And as another poster said, just how likely is it that hundreds of previously honest and diligent employees, also raising their IT issues so not exactly covering things up, in fact drawing it all to attention, were all just doing that as a front for nefarious deeds?

It's utterly mind boggling.

A false accusation is a horrible thing (I have experience of this), but being convicted while innocent must be so much more devastating. PTSD probably doesn't begin to cover it.

I truly hope these victims of such a terrible miscarriage of justice do get compensation, because essentially the Post Office stole from them!!!

What really bothers me is that a company was able to use the justice system as their personal playground and sent people to jail for crimes they knew they didn't commit. Simply through maliciousness and lying.
Imagine your employer being able to send you to jail at anytime based on "computer says so" and nothing else.

On top of it all, they made money out of it. All those people trying to desperately pay back money that was never there. Where did all those thousands go?

Interesting hearing Vince Cable on the radio saying he knew nothing about this when he was in charge or else he'd have done something.

As a PP pointed out, Private Eye has been all over the story for more than 20 years.

Vince was also saying no-one in the Post Office knew - that is obviously wrong.

To me, this is absolutely a conspiracy. Heads should roll.

I also only heard of this today too, it’s beyond appalling.

These people deserve a lot of compensation, and I mean a lot.

Agreed! I’ve been following this take for a few years. It’s awful what has happened to the people concerned. It’s a story that never really gets much traction for some reason. Dominic Cummings drama is now going to knock it off the weekend front pages now too

Was reading about it more today, those poor people. And 3 of them died before they saw their names cleared

IMO, every one of them (or families of the deceased) need to be compensated (if they havent already been), and compensated properly. Some small comfort I know, for the lost jobs, homes, pensions, the judgement from your community.

And I agree the enquiry needs to be public, transparent. And those actually responsible in letting those women and men take the blame need to be bought to account.

@Halsall

Just one of the terrible stories in Private Eye’s long report I linked to upthread - Martin Griffiths was told that over £57,000 had ‘gone missing’ in a year from the PO he ran. He must have been desperate, knowing it wasn’t anything he’d done and he couldn’t explain it or put it right. His elderly parents lent him their life savings because the PO insisted he had to make good the shortfall. Then the branch was targeted by armed robbers who stole over £50,000 in cash from the safe. He was told his contract was being terminated and he’d have to pay back some of the stolen money too.

That poor man killed himself. It’s heartbreaking.

As far as I understand it, by the time the money had supposedly gone ‘missing’, the IT bugs that were causing the problems in the Horizon system had been known about by the PO for years. They just kept it quiet and pretended to each postmaster that nobody else had a problem.

(Oh, and they got a new postmaster in to run the branch after Martin Griffiths died; they didn’t tell him what had happened and he was soon being told he had to pay thousands to make good an unexplained shortfall, too)

The paradox or maybe irony was by making up the shortfall he maybe looked guilty! Poor man, and he had nowhere to turn as everyone thought he had stolen the money. Must have been a nightmare

I also had not heard about this before today, but am absolutely appalled - truly awful and shocking.

Compensation should be 7 figures for every person affected by this - their lives have been ruined.

It must at least have been some kind of validation when people finally made contact and realised how many others were going through exactly the same thing. But even then, how many more years and how much more anguish did they have to suffer before they were believed?

I actually feel more and more angry as I think about this.

It's despicable. There can never be enough financial compensation but there really needs to be a public apology in every paper, and on every tv and social media channel.

And not just an apology but an account of every impact they had on the wrongly accused and their families.

I've been reading up on Paula Vennells, who was CEO of the Post Office during the worst excesses of the accusations against the Post Office managers. She was roundly , and correctly, criticised for her role in the prosecution (and persecution) of the victims

As can be seen, she has been roundly rewarded for her incompetence.

She currently holds the following positions -

CEO of the Imperial College Healthcare Trust
Non-executive board member of Morrisons
Non-executive board member of Dunelm
Non-executive board member of The Cabinet Office

She was awarded an OBE in the 2019 New Years Honours List

She became an Ordained Minister of the Church of England in 2006 and currently preaches at the Church of St Owens, Bromham near St Albans.

The establishment always unites behind its own.

It’s an absolute disgrace.

This is utterly heartbreaking. How could it have happened? Is our judiciary really this fragile that so many people were convicted on no real evidence?

Yes, Paula Venells and her entire senior team and the Chairman at that time need to face criminal prosecution

The rules around compensation for wrongful convictions were tightened up ages ago. Basically it's very difficult to succeed because the logic is the courts wouldn't have convicted if there wasn't some evidence.

Also people have to pay for their board and lodging in prison out of any compensation.