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AIBU?

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Original poster

That the Gov & Post Office have been horrendous in the response to the Post Office scandal?

106 replies

FavouritePi · 20/02/2022 17:40

Listening to what happened on Radio 4 - people committed suicide, others imprisoned and gone bankrupt over shortfalls the Post Office had claimed were occuring but CEOs had been aware of a system issue years before. Compensation was then only menial in relation to how this has impacted people financially and mentally.

OP posts:
stilldumdedumming · 20/02/2022 17:45

And told them losses weren't happening elsewhere- when they clearly were. I understand how things get cocked up and individual officers will believe what the system is telling them, but equally there were people who must have known the shortfalls were not right, people ignored that and some downright lied, and then the response has been slow and too little. There are certain people who should have trouble sleeping at night.

Idontevenknow · 20/02/2022 17:46

Yes it is absolutely disgusting!

Original poster
FavouritePi · 20/02/2022 17:50

I couldn't believe it that they were lied to so brazenly. Especially the man who purchased his Post Office after another had to sell due to the scandal and it happened with him too and he was told they weren't aware of it! It's criminal.

We had a family friend who we've lost touch with but they were selling their post office as they were struggling and on the verge of bankruptcy themselves apparently. I do wonder if it was due to this.

OP posts:
balalake · 20/02/2022 17:51

I agree. It was described on a news programme (cannot remember which) as one of the great injustices of recent times in the UK, which I think is a fair description.

MrsPuddle · 20/02/2022 17:57

Just heard it too, there should be criminal prosecutions. There would be in the private sector, but somehow the public sector is dodging any responsibility. It really Is heart breaking.

StoneofDestiny · 20/02/2022 18:10

I hope these people or their families get enough compensation to start their lives again. They have been through hell, made pariahs in their own communities and lost their reputations and occupation. Of course some have died or taken their own lives - but their families should be compensated to the full. Money won't make up for it, but it will send a gigantic message to these companies that human beings matter over profit.

Whatdayisitnow · 20/02/2022 18:14

There was an excellent series about it on BBC Radio 4.

It was broadcast in 2020. The final episode is an update from May 2021.

FourTeaFallOut · 20/02/2022 18:15

YANBU. It's an absolute disgrace.

ClariceQuiff · 20/02/2022 18:16

YANBU

Whatdayisitnow · 20/02/2022 18:17

Sorry, didn’t realise it was being rebroadcast. I agree about how scandalously bad it was.

DancingQueen2018 · 20/02/2022 18:20

My dad was caught up in this. It sounds totally unbelievable but is absolutely true, the PO refused to admit there was anything wrong and always blamed the post masters. Once they’d decided that there was literally nowhere else to turn.

He’s since died but would be totally outraged that no one has taken my responsibility for this, peoples lives were destroyed, no amount of money can make up for it. People need to be held to account.

FourTeaFallOut · 20/02/2022 18:25

It is absolutely unbelievable. What are the chances that otherwise law abiding innocent postmasters all decided to dip their toe into criminality at the same time? It's bullshit that this ever got this far. The most obvious answer was this was an indicator of a systemic problem and it took calculated stupidity to ignore it.

Jijithecat · 20/02/2022 18:29

It is absolutely horrendous. How the Post Office is effectively allowed to be the Judge, Jury and Executioner is terrible.
That these poor people were making up the supposed shortcomings out of their own pockets too makes me feel that the Post Office were basically stealing from them.

lucillelarusso · 20/02/2022 18:30

This scandal has been the final nail in the coffin of any trust I had for anyone in authority, ever. The way that this has been handled and continues to be handled is criminal. WHY are non of the PO top brass in prison?

bigbluebus · 20/02/2022 18:32

It's absolutely appalling. It happened to a couple in my town. They were doing a local radio interview about 12 months ago. They lost everything - she went to prison. Then they were living in a van on a supermarket car park as they had nowhere else to go. She is now in poor health - no doubt brought on or exacerbated by the stress of it all. They were such a modest sounding couple. You couldn't help but feel incredibly sorry for them but no amount of money is going to compensate for what they've been through.

ToInverness · 20/02/2022 18:49

I agree, I'm an accountant and I just can't believe it happened. It's very very very common to get differences between the system and the real world (bank account, till, whatever). They come up literally all the time in my job. It can be difficult to track the differences down, that's one of the reasons accountancy is a skilled job. But that's what you do with a difference, you investigate it. It will be due to human error or system error 99.99% of the time. Very very occasionally it may be down to fraud. The existence of a difference alone is absolutely not evidence of that. The fact that people were convicted on the basis of "the system says there should be more cash than there is, therefore you stole it", is just unbelievable to me.

And that's even before you consider the fact that that investigations found issues with the system that were brushed under the carpet, while these convictions were happening ... I really think someone should go to prison for perverting the course of justice over that, how can you draw any other conclusion??

whirlygirl · 20/02/2022 18:59

It really upsets me to watch the coverage. Those poor poor people. Losing everything including the respect they must have had in the community. No amount of money is enough. It's utterly appalling that it ever happened.

Original poster
FavouritePi · 20/02/2022 19:34

@ToInverness

I agree, I'm an accountant and I just can't believe it happened. It's very very very common to get differences between the system and the real world (bank account, till, whatever). They come up literally all the time in my job. It can be difficult to track the differences down, that's one of the reasons accountancy is a skilled job. But that's what you do with a difference, you investigate it. It will be due to human error or system error 99.99% of the time. Very very occasionally it may be down to fraud. The existence of a difference alone is absolutely not evidence of that. The fact that people were convicted on the basis of "the system says there should be more cash than there is, therefore you stole it", is just unbelievable to me.

And that's even before you consider the fact that that investigations found issues with the system that were brushed under the carpet, while these convictions were happening ... I really think someone should go to prison for perverting the course of justice over that, how can you draw any other conclusion??

This is what left me gobsmacked. I would have thought that to prosecute based on this they'd have to have located and proved they stole it, surely?!

I agree, if the PO knew and the evidence has gone to court, someone should have been held to account by now.

These people need properly compensating. £21k someone got, that didn't even cover the money they'd lost!

OP posts:
ToInverness · 20/02/2022 19:40

@FavouritePi the guardian podcast gave me the impression that a lot of those convicted had pleaded guilty on the advice of their solicitors, certainly the main woman they featured had. It's possible (and I hope) that if it had actually gone to trial it would have become clear that there was zero evidence. In that case they were seriously failed by their solicitors.

Also if I understood correctly the post office could bring prosecutions without the CPS (one of the few bodies that can). Potentially if the CPS had been involved they wouldn't have pushed the prosecutions through on so little evidence??

Original poster
FavouritePi · 20/02/2022 19:51

I missed the beginning so might have missed it about solicitors advice.

I'm trying to think of scenarios where I think a public body like PO would need that power to prosecute without the CPS and I can't. It makes the it all even worse.

OP posts:
user1471453601 · 20/02/2022 20:03

The proposed Hillsborough Law would require public bodies to be frank and honest in cases such as this.

Cannot help these people now, they've been treated appallingly and lied to. I've heard a number of people saying they were told no one else had reported problems with the system. While that may be literally true, it certainly isn't a frank disclosure of the facts that many had been prosecuted.

Poshjock · 20/02/2022 20:27

I followed this case for some time. It's a disgrace and I feel so heart sick for all the poor innocent people caught up in this.

The PO were absolutely ADAMANT that Horizon was faultless, I think many solicitors were issuing their advice based on an electronic system with no reported faults. That would be very hard to defend.

I watched an interview with an independant IT specialist who was part of the installation/roll out team and he said that there were problems with the system on installation and when it first went live. He was told to document the issues he found, pass them up and move on. He genuinely believed that these issues would be investigated and rectified. It wasn't until years later that the story broke and he found out that people had been prosecuted for discrepancies that he knew were part of problems that he reported and that the PO were denying knowledge of any issues with the software. He said he would never know if the problems we document and passed on made it back to the PO from the developer and who it was that 'buried' these problems.

There needs to be an investigation to find out who all knew about it and who was keeping information hidden. There needs to be prosecutions. The victims of Horizon's failures deserve nothing less.

campion · 20/02/2022 20:42

I'd like to see a few people in court over this scandal, maybe starting with this person:
BBC News - Post office scandal: Ex-boss quits director jobs after scandal
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56882496

How this can happen and yet no one is held accountable is beyond all natural justice. Common sense alone should have told those at the top that something wasn't right. Instead, all those postmasters were told that they were the only one with 'missing money'. Shocking.

jcyclops · 20/02/2022 22:19

There is a lot of blame to go around. In some cases I am disgusted at the juries sitting in the criminal cases. Read this carefully and ask yourself if you were a juror and heard this, could you return a guilty verdict beyond reasonable doubt.

This quotation is from the judge's summing up in a 2010 case against a sub-postmaster:
“There is no direct evidence of her taking any money… She adamantly denies stealing. There is no CCTV evidence. There are no fingerprints or marked bank notes or anything of that kind. There is no evidence of her accumulating cash anywhere else or spending large sums of money or paying off debts, no evidence about her bank accounts at all. Nothing incriminating was found when her home was searched.”
The only evidence was a shortfall of cash compared to what the Post Office’s Horizon computer system said should have been in the branch.

The jury returned a guilty verdict, and the pregnant sub-postmaster was sentenced to 15-months for stealing £74,000

Girliefriendlikespuppies · 20/02/2022 22:25

Following this case makes me feel sick, those poor poor people.

People high up in the post office should go to jail for this.