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.,

Correction: 11 cases were brought when KS was DPP, but only three resulted in convictions.

Why do people call Starmer "Keith"? Is it supposed to be an insult?

In my opinion it's either because they are too thick to remember his name, other are trying to be derogatory as it's usually accompanied by a seemingly innocent comment about how awful Keir Starmer is for not taking responsibility for everything that has ever happened.

To be doing this on a thread about people who have lost lives, livelihoods, years, pensions, careers is fucking disgraceful. Rather than politicising about this issue, they should be focusing on ensuring the victims are supported, repaid and compensated.

Because the CPS was only involved in a few of the prosecutions. I think it may have been 13 of them. And I think there were other factors in those cases which meant that they weren't necessarily to do with Horizon.

Edited: I see a pp has said it was 11.

I had assumed it was a typo/autocorrect thing but sounds like it might be intended as an insult.

Some people did the same to George Osborne by calling him Gideon. I think he was baptised Gideon but uses George.

So, not the same thing at all!

Not exactly the same thing, but intended to insult and put someone in his/her place, I would say. I read that George Osborne very understandably hated being called Gideon so decided to change to George, which I think was his grandfather's name, when he was about 13. I've always been irked by people refusing to accept that and calling him Gideon on the spurious pretext that otherwise it might not be obvious that he is the son of a very wealthy family and had a very privileged upbringing. I don't think anybody hearing George Osborne speak could ever be in doubt about his origins, even if he'd chosen to change his name to Kaleb or Jayden. I don't like the man, but come on - people are allowed to choose their own names.

I assume anyone deliberately calling Keir Starmer Keith is trying to cast doubts on his socialist credentials by refusing to give him the same name as Keir Hardie, or trying to make him sound dull, or both. Equally silly.

The Keith thing comes from when one of his PR staff tweeted his name as Keith by mistake and is used by all the Keir haters.

They're rerunning the 2020 File on Four about this on R4 now (I think that's what it is)

When you give power to people not trained or equipped to deal with prosecutions, you get people like Stephen Bradshaw.
This is coupled with the fact he sounds as think as mince.

I doubt Stephen Bradshaw would have had the intelligence to pass the police selection process, yet he was instrumental in sending innocent people to jail.

It absolutely must be the police and them only that can investigate people with these types of cases.

I listened to the original series of podcasts on BBC Sounds from Nick Wallis - took a whole day but was worthwhile.

Has anyone picked up on the fact that the postmaster union NFSP actually blamed their own member and accused them of theft. They were being paid by the post office. The Union was so corrupt it’s unreal.

Union barons are usually pigs with their noses in the trough. But the postmasters union proved that you can never trust these robbing, thieving unions who are only interested in the power and money that comes from duping union members.

Tony Blair commissioned the multi billion pound tax payer funded IT system despite being told that Fujitsu were doing a shit job. This moron literally never made a good decision for this country. And massively corrupt to boot.

Ed Davey, who think he can be prime minister was so incompetent he couldn’t see the obvious and refused to do anything about it, a decade after the scandal had been exposed. And trousered £275k from legal firm that fought sub postmasters. The guy is crooked, he should be no where near public office.

Theresa May gave Paula Vennells a CBE 15 years after the scandal had been exposed. Arguably the worst PM in this country’s history. An utter idiot.

Paula Vennells left Post office to go and chair an NHS trust. The NHS is such a basket case, it’s not surprising that they hire these morons.

Adam Crozier, the serial destroyer of public sector organizations presided over this mess at the post office and then want onto ITV. He’s been as quiet as a mouse over this. Wonder why.

Rishi Sunak continues to give billions worth of contracts to Fujitsu. Someone should check what backhanders he is getting. This Tory govt has a track record for being bent.

Postmasters union blamed accused the postmasters for theft because they were liking their pockets with post office funding. You couldn’t make this shit up.

Keith was DPP when this going on and will be this country’s next PM. Really scraping the bottom of the barrel there.

We are being led by donkeys and corrupt bastards. Anyone listening to these pieces of crap and trusting them is a moron who deserves what they get.

Different topic but the report into repeated failings by Gtr Manchester Police and Rochdale council is put and whistle blower Maggie Oliver is drawing clear parallels with the organisational cover ups that the post office used at the press conference

The more that comes out about this, the more we can be sure that this did not happen without corruption at the highest level. People in this country are too quick to put things like this down to apathy or incompetence from the authorities. Where the truth is far from that. Politicians, civil servants, officials are corrupt to the core to allow this to happen.

Someone should look into what money changed hand and how between Fujitsu and the government in the name of ‘lobbying’. Where did the money go that was paid back unnecessarily by the sun postmasters. We should not assume that went into profits. It was probably stolen by post office officials.

The government and civil service is corrupt to the core. If we didn’t learn this after Covid, we never will.

I haven't read it all, but that day of inquiry evidence on 11 October 2022, laying out the story from 1995 onwards, contains paragraph after paragraph completely damning to ICL & Fujitsu.

Eg, someone on one of these threads mentioned the fact that you can't build a decent system unless you know the client's requirements.

Here's the inquiry evidence (pp96-97):

In a report dated 18 December 1998, Project Mentors found that ICL Pathway had "made no attempt to undertake requirements analysis in accordance with normal industry practice", despite having access to the sponsors' requirements for the benefit payments service at the
time of entering into the contract.

As a result of this failure, the sponsor's expert concluded that ICL Pathway had designed and partially built a system without knowing whether it fully met the requirements of the Department of Social Security.

Project Mentors acknowledged in their report that the analysis which they had undertaken was restricted to the benefit payment service. However, they expressed "grave concerns" that the same lack of professional analysis would be apparent in other areas of the system, and articulated a particular concern about the EPOSS application. The cross-reference to that is POL00031114 at paragraphs 2.2 and 2.3.4.

Reflecting on the impact that this failure was likely to have upon the future of the programme, Project Mentors made an important observation. [...] Under its conclusion "Impacts on the Programme in the Future", Project Mentors said:

"Our experience of systems where requirements have not been analysed satisfactorily is that the system fails to meet the users' needs. An effective acceptance test will identify many such failings necessitating considerable rework. The result is a significant extension of the time and cost required to complete the system and roll it out. The alternative is to allow unacceptable processing in the operational environment, with unpredictable and potentially damaging results."

https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/sites/default/files/2022-10/POH%2011%20October%202022.pdf

[NB Project Mentors was an independent consulting firm hired by Post Office Counters & the Benefits Agency]

It is also linked to decades long failings for respected consultants, surgeons etc in the NHS being slapped with NDA's when whistleblowing on practises that were/are unsafe in order to protect the trust concerned. Several of these have also committed suicide.

Private Eye did a special report on this but I can't find it on their website. There are a bunch of special reports free to download on there though that all have corruption or cover ups at their core, so are well worth reading.

Watching Nick Read, CEO of the PO saying that they have no intention of prosecuting anyone in the PO. He also doesn't like to admit any wrongdoing. The Fujitsu director, Paul Patterson, genuinely seems a lot more apologetic and upset about it all. He also said he thinks that Fujitsu should take a role in repayment for the errors in the system that were known and that PO knew that SPM accounts could be hacked. Live inquiry still on BBC2

Well it's probably a good job that it's the cps and police that will decide whether anyone at the PO is prosecuted then.
after all, PO do have a great track record in fair prosecutions don't they 😂

Just been catching up on the transcript of today's hearing - all about evidence of duplicate transactions in ARQ reports being suppressed.

The CEO of the PO says they have no intention of prosecuting anyone?
I hope the CPS and police take a different view!

Quite how the PO should still have the power to prosecute anyone from now is beyond me. Surely this travesty shows they must have all these powers taken from them?

I mean they gave the likes of Stephen Bradshaw, a thick , bumbling idiot the power to investigate people.

Surely should never be able to again

i hope that they will be looking at misconduct in public office, which seems appropriate to what has happened. It is triable on indictment only (crown court) and as a common law offence has no cap on sentencing powers. You can serve life for it.

Quoted from the CPS website
"The offence concerns serious wilful abuse or neglect of the power or responsibilities of the public office held. There must be a direct link between the misconduct and an abuse of those powers or responsibilities. "

So far we have routine and serious failures of disclosure (where the prosecutor has a duty to disclose information that may be prejudicial to the prosecution case or assist the defence); misleading parliament during a select committee; perjury on a industrial scale

@Paul2023
Quite how the PO should still have the power to prosecute anyone from now is beyond me. Surely this travesty shows they must have all these powers taken from them?
We all have the power to bring a private prosecution and that is, in effect, what the PO were doing. The difference being they had their own investigation department, in-house lawyers and a near bottomless pit of money to ensure success. And, as a venerated British institution, much much more likely to be believed.

As for Stephen Bradshaw he's a real piece of work. Clearly given the job because he was an highly effective enforcer, who admitted that he understood nothing nor had any professional curiosity about Horizon, had some of his written evidence was written for him, blamed those above and below him for everything and when asked if he had anything to say to one victim basically said 'No'. Oh and denied he was incentivised to get results, though we know otherwise. Nice man.....

@Laughingravy thats not quite right, as a private individual you cannot prosecute someone. You can only lodge a civil action, you cannot achieve a criminal conviction in the civil court with all the ramifications of that.

essentially there are 3 types of prosecution

1. public criminal prosecutions lodged by the CPS on behalf of the queen
2. criminal prosecutions lodged by "private prosecutors" but these are all public bodies such as Financial Conduct Authority, DEFRA, RSPCA and post office. These are prosecuted by "private prosecutors" who has significant expertise in these offences so have prosecuting powers. These have full sentencing powers such as prison, community service and fines. They can launch jury trials and obtain criminal convictions just like the CPS/police
3. private prosecutions by private individuals in the civil court. These cannot result in imprisonment, criminal records or anything associated with a private prosecution. These I believe can only impose financial "damages". Essentially this is where one person sues another

my experience is in the criminal justice arena so I'm not "up" on civil law but that is my understanding of the system.

so I could sue John Bloggs for common assault in the civil court but he will not be convicted of a criminal offence and could not be sent to prison only made to pay me damages. But I would also have to pay the cost of that prosecution entirely myself.

Your understanding of the system is wrong.

Private individuals can indeed bring criminal prosecutions. The Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 preserved that right. The RSPCA does not have any specific prosecution powers. It brings prosecutions using the powers that any private individual has.

There are some offences for which you need the consent of the Attorney General or the DPP before bringing a private prosecution, and the DPP has the power to take over any private prosecution. But, if you want to, you can prosecute John Bloggs for common assault in the criminal courts. If you succeed, he will be convicted of a criminal offence and could be sent to prison. You would pay the costs of prosecution, but you may be able to recover your costs from the public purse. That is separate from your right to pursue him for damages in the civil courts.

Criminal prosecutions by private individuals are rare, but they can happen. For more information, see Private Prosecutions | The Crown Prosecution Service (cps.gov.uk)