To draw your attention to Mr Bates vs The Post Office

[5foot5]

There is already a thread about this on the Telly Addicts forum here

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/telly_addicts/4970440-mr-bates-vs-the-post-office-mon-to-thur-itv-9pm-tv-pace-no-spoilers

However this seems like such an important subject that I thought I would draw attention to it on AIBU.

The first episode aired tonight but the whole series is available on itvx.

Most of you will no doubt have heard about the Horizon scandal, but whether you have or you haven't this program is compelling. It will probably make you furious but it deserves as wide an audience as possible.,

My understanding is that the postmasters had no way of checking and reviewing the transactions once they had 'pressed the button' to send the information to Horizon which is why they were living in fear of what might happen once an initial loss had appeared.

The more I find out about this, the more horrified I am about the total lack of any common sense on the part of the post office, let alone any kind of compassion or understanding.

Thank you @theresnoonequitelikegrandma, that sounds deranged but I suppose if your employer/contractor imposes a substantial system on you with no alternative but to use it, that explains it. And they couldn't afford to say so and walk away. Unbelievably exploitative.

Yes exactly. Actually Alan Bates who was familiar with computer accounting systems asked the PO for access to run queries on his data to try to trace the source of the errors, but he was denied.
He transferred the incorrect balances to a suspense account to make the main accounts balance, but the PO fired him and took away the ability to move the values into a suspense account later.
The only audit available was of the transaction log - but when that log didn't agree to the cash and stock at hand the PO instantly assumed the missing cash had been stolen, rather than accept the log could be wrong.

Got it. Thank you. I should have paid more attention.

Horizon didn't give the subpostmaster the kind of reports that would allow them to do this. Post Office took the view that any shortfall that Horizon showed was money owed to Post Office by the subpostmaster with no further evidence required. The courts supported Post Office.

On the podcast linked upthread, the "reconciliation" of accounts was done by Horizon. They did indeed make credits to sub post masters. However, one of the numerous glitches on the system was that they sometimes credited the wrong post master! The wrongful recipient would have been none the wiser, he or she would have just thought they had got it wrong and the computer was correcting their mistake. Meanwhile, the correct recipient was out of pocket. The whole thing was a shambles.

So essentially the employees at Fujitsu, Horizon could move money around like God, what if imaginery accounts could be made up to recieve these profits.

I can't believe there hasn't been a thorough forensic accountancy body to check all PO accounts and Fujitsu accounts.

Absolutely no faith if questions are not answered.

So we know the computer system could bankrupt postmasters, could it work the other way, whereby some sub postmasters were credited instead ?

That's a really interesting question. Supposing Horizon had somehow balanced a SPM's accounts wrongly so that they were £50K in credit, would the PO have insisted that Horizon was robust, so it must be their (the SPM's) money and thus told them to take it? I think I can guess...

The recuse request really is the icing on the PO's great big turd-cake. Stamping your feet and demanding that the person who has listened to all of the evidence must be biased against you, because they have come to the logical conclusion that you were in the wrong and must therefore be replaced by somebody who hasn't heard all of the facts, is ridiculous and toddler-like in the extreme.

Finding you guilty as a result of a great amount of very conclusive evidence against you is justice. In fact, regardless of the individuals involved, it's kind of the whole point of it that the justice system is supposed to be biased against proven crime!

Just finished watching. I'm sick to the stomach. Honestly, most of the stories are the most harrowing I've ever heard. Innocent people investigated, convicted of crimes they didn't commit. Innocent people who took their own lives. Innocent people whose lives were wrecked by the stress and worry.

I never want to use the post office facilities again but in doing so, it's the SPM's that get affected.

Just utterly shocking.

So we know the computer system could bankrupt postmasters, could it work the other way, whereby some sub postmasters were credited instead ?
Yes, sort of. The former Postmaster and CWU rep gave an example on the podcast. A SPM was away and a manager covered. When IIRC £27K landed that the branch it shouldn't have had he trousered it. It was due to a Horizon error, the money was allocated wrongly. So no electronic record made at that branch, which of course left the branch that should have had it £27K down.
In that case the PO did notice and he got caught. We can take from that that the PO only ever did due diligence when it suited them.
And don't forget with all of this the 'thefts' from PO branches had to be in hard cash, there was no way of making digital transfers. Which made the idea of a small PO being thousands down even more risible.

Met police investigating PO for fraud and Fujitsu witnesses for perjury.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/05/post-office-criminal-investigation-potential-horizon-accounting-fraud

Despite all the recent publicity and an excellent program no one will be held properly accountable and CBE will stay where it is

Just want to reiterate how interesting the podcast is. The episodes are short so are a quick listen.
I know there's been a few questions on this thread re Horizon and Fujitsu. This episode of the podcast might answer some of those questions.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001sd4l
But I would encourage everyone to listen to the whole series.

First article in the times too.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/091281c1-c51f-48c4-bca1-088256305f4c?shareToken=401f8c0b9ea1c05c8ded651f9a61838c

@Jijithecat I know there's been a few questions on this thread re Horizon and Fujitsu. This episode of the podcast might answer some of those questions.
I think this programme opens the lid on how this all started. A toxic mix of poor system design, corporate secrecy, financial stress and political pressure at the very highest level. To think if whoever said no to Horizon at the DSS had been followed at the PO it wouldn't have happened. If Gordon Brown had had his way none of this would have happened. If the PO commissioning team had actually been allowed to do their job then...

Michael Keegan, husband of Tory minister Gillian Keegan was a senior executive at Fujitsu during part of this period and now is something or other in Whitehall doing techie stuff for the MOD.

Sorry, should have added that there have been pieces in both the Telegraph and the Times about this, but they're paywalled.

Good. Anyone who knew what was going on and didn't blow the whistle on it has played a part in ruining innumerable lives and deserves to go to prison imo.

They should additionally all have to pay heavy fines that can be used in part to compensate the subpostmasters. Although you can never compensate for loss of life with money.

The problem goes back to 1999 - so many must be embroiled in responsibility for this - call centre workers were told to lie to the post office postmasters that they were the only ones with this problem, where are these people ..........everyone is obviously keeping their head well down - or have signed a non disclosure statement.

Here is a good explanation of events
https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Post-Office-Horizon-scandal-explained-everything-you-need-to-know

Thank you very much, @Shoppingfiend , that summary article by Computer Weekly is very good.

It has a good timeline and links to Computer Weekly's own articles as the story unfolded down the years.

Just to repeat the main link:
https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Post-Office-Horizon-scandal-explained-everything-you-need-to-know

I can't see the rest of the Twitter thread on this as I'm not logged in, but some stuff here

https://x.com/flaminhaystacks/status/1743545499104244208?s=46&t=c1YpZJygPcF37enm3MVDKg

Horizon developed by CLE and later Fujitsu must be held responsible for some of this - I'm worried the former PO CEO is sacked, loses her CBE and everyone else hides away and gets off with it. She only appeared on the scene in 2015 I think it was.

There'll be some individual scapegoats. Fujitsu's insurers will have to pay up something probably but there won't be any senior accountability. Fujitsu will be on the naughty step for a while and then it will all be forgotten. The Japanese have huge influence and leverage over the UK and Government. They are not worried.

I'm wondering if they are able to trace the actual line of code that might have been at fault