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

[FavouritePi]

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.

Outrageous. I too am losing trust in our institutions and supposed authorities.

Private Eye really took up this case. Terrible

It is appalling. I spent all my career in IT and software development. Quite a lot of that time was on financial systems. No way would I have considered the systems totally infallible. Of course you try to cover everything and test for every scenario you can think of. But sometimes unexpected shit happens or a scenario nobody thought of. The systems can be so complex that a change can have unexpected consequences.

I would be surprised if anybody who really knew about software development would be as confident as PO management apparently were that the system had to be right all the time

It is incomprehensibly awful. Those poor people and their families.

I cannot get my head around how many people in authority made sure they weren’t accountable for this. They should made an example of. The fallout has been sickening to read about!

It is beyond appalling. I know compensation won't take away what they've been through but they all should be awarded fortunes. I can't fathom going to jail for a crime I didn't commit - those in charge of the PO at the time need to go to jail for this.

I couldn't agree more OP,

I listened to the Radio 4 podcast about it and the think that staggered me more than anything was the total fluke that led to the story coming out.

It didn't come out because the post office saw this was happening all the time or because their accountants saw massive gaps in the accounts, or they realised it was unlikely 700 postmasters with previously unblemished records all decided to embezzle from their own businesses. Nope, none of this seemed to raise alarm bells at the post office at all!

It actually came about because a bbc journalist at a local station replied to a speculative tweet on the account from a local cab company asking if they could provide cabs for them. The journalist replied, well can you provide a story for me, and in return he was tweeted a phone number, and it was the number of a man whose pregnant wife had been imprisoned for this very thing......

I mean, what are the chances of that! What if the journalist hadn't replied in a flippant way to that tweet? Would they still be imprisoning100s of innocent families?

What is so awful is the cover up. As soon as 2 or 3 cases with exactly the same thing happening were coming out it surely must have been noticed. It's absolutely outrageous what happened to those poor people.

@jcyclops

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

I read that in the Private Eye article, but it was followed by this question from the judge: “Do you accept the prosecution case that there is ample evidence before you to establish that Horizon is a tried and tested system in use at thousands of post offices for several years, fundamentally robust and reliable?” It was almost like he was recognising no evidence as far as the defendant was concerned, but then directing the jury to deliver a verdict based on the guilt of the system, not the defendant. If this is how it happened, I can understand how a jury found her guilty, based on the direction they were given.

I didn't know that a journalist uncovered it that way, Relentless

When will the PO and government take some responsibility over this scandal? They really need to be arranging funding to pay for all damages to these families. I heard on Radio 4 that less than 3% of those impacted had been compensated under the newest scheme - one that didn't fully reimburse victims of this anyway. These people are receiving radio silence from the PO.

I think what got to me on top of the people who couldn't go on with their lives due to this was a woman who was jailed with murderers, etc. She won't spend her life as it should have been spent as no one is going to change her criminal record and agree she was innocent. The type of work she can get, her friendships, everything will be impacted.

Everyone involved within the PO just gets to carry on as normal.

The R4 podcast is well worth listening to, heartbreaking though
Really early on one of the accused trawled through the tiny print outs and found the duplicate transactions. He showed them the issue and it was ignored. They knew the faults in tye system from the start yet let people get massively into debt, lose their livelihoods and their good names, go to prison and, in some cases, take their own lives
I want to see those responsible in prison for this. And fujitsu held to account. How could they live with themselves?

It is such a disgrace and I hope that these poor people get justice and compensation but listening to the series on radio four many are now in such a state it has impacted on their lives for so long.

Can't help wondering which government ministers benefitted from this somewhere along the line...fujitsu have form for lousy software if you just Google though this must be one of the worst that's come to light so far. Makes me feel really safe that HMRC and DWP also use programs from this outfit...

I heard that R4 set of programs during Lockdown and was so angry and upset on behalf of so many of the victims, especially the pregnant lady they featured. And the compensation they're being offered is derisory.

Don’t forget about the manufacturer,
Fujitsu- they knew of the flaws but also covered it up

I was about to say the same @drpet49. I saw a clip on the news of a guy who worked for Fujitsu and trained people on Horizon. He said it was a known fault and these disparities happened all the time. So Fujitsu just stood back and let it happen ? It's a truly shocking case and I feel so sorry for those poor people.

@FlouncerSIT

Can't help wondering which government ministers benefitted from this somewhere along the line...fujitsu have form for lousy software if you just Google though this must be one of the worst that's come to light so far. Makes me feel really safe that HMRC and DWP also use programs from this outfit...

I heard that R4 set of programs during Lockdown and was so angry and upset on behalf of so many of the victims, especially the pregnant lady they featured. And the compensation they're being offered is derisory.

Indeed - Fujitsu were responsible for a fuck-up involving my car tax at DVLA. I asked the DVLA person and he said he couldn't do anything as everything was run by Fujitsu. I assume some senior politicians must have a lot of Fujitsu shares or highly paid advisory roles etc.

agree its awful what happened.

It’s vile, I have seen videos of interviews with those affected (and their families) and the anguish is evident. One woman would stay at work until the early hours of the morning going through receipts frantically trying to understand where the ‘lost’ money had gone, and borrowed huge amounts from loved ones to try make up the shortfall when they told her she was responsible. Can’t imagine the toll that would’ve taken. She said she would’ve killed herself had it not been for her family.

I hope that aside from financial compensation (which they all deserve) they are able to find some peace and support in dealing with it at all. They should have counselling/therapy paid for too as part of the compensation.

Truly shocked whenever I read about this and utterly mystified by the sheer stupidity of it, and the lives wrecked.

It's actually hard to think what could possibly be done to make up for some of the damage, though serious amounts of compensation plus damages would be a start.

I saw the news clip with the Fujitsu employee.

They were allegedly informed there was a problem and yet still they allowed it to roll out.

As responsible as the PO if they did not address concerns.

Totally disgusting.

We're the Post Masters tied into a long term contract?
Most Post Offices are a corner of a bigger shop. If the PO was loosing money what stopped them from closing it, pulling out of the service?

I'm about halfway through the podcast. It makes my blood boil. It's all the spiteful things too. I think one postmaster was to be tried in local court and the post office didn't turn up, so verdict in Postmaster 's favour. Then post office appealed to higher court and the Postmaster had no money to defend himself against 7 barristers and expert witnesses. Lost the case and post office also wanted costs too ending up bankrupting the guy to set an example.

And the tech-savvy Postmaster who had managed to detect where the discrepancies came from. Still was asked to pay £1000 shortfall. He said no, I want to see data on Horizon. Post office gave notice on his lease to get him out of the way and shut him up.

Also why is it OK for post office have power to investigate the crimes versus police? And why didn't defendants solicitors get hold of the bullying interviews that took place?

@jcyclops

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

This whole situation is bizarre.

The judge in the above quote was clearly telling the jury not to convict. Why did they not listen?

The PO used this software and suddenly there seems to be an outbreak of thefts from previously honest post master and post mistresses.

Would any sensible person conclude that they'd sudden all conspired to steal from the PO, or would they take a careful look at the software?

All those people's time in prison, all those ruin lives, the powerlessness they must have felt. It just makes me so angry.

Where does it go from here?

When are the massive compensation pay outs going to be made? Obviously, nothing can really compensate them though.

And are the people who were responsible for destroying so many lives actually going to be held to account?