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.,

I’m glad people are getting angry. When I first signed that petition it had 7000 names, now it’s over 55000. Only 24 hrs between the two.

Brilliant podcast about it -search on Radio 4. I listened to it over the summer. People still haven’t had their names cleared or compensation. Completely scandalous!

I’d heard of it before, and listened to the podcast, but seeing it like this …it’s fucking awful.

My DH was in a similar position to yours. He worked for Fujitsu, on a project for the DVLA.
He also got out as swiftly as he could because it was so badly managed, awful politics.

Read Private Eye, it's full of cosy contracts that the government won't do without even though said companies are often fined giant amounts of money (sometimes in the millions) for not delivering. They can pass that cost onto us but in the meantime they are destroying so much they are 'in charge' of.

Also AI. If you think that horizon employees being able to get into the post accounts was bad. It is nothing to the power that AI systems already have. Including being sent to war zones and being allowed to decide when to kill with no oversight. (sorry about the tangent).

I just signed the petition
you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/strip-paula-vennells-of-her-cbe
Nearly 70,000 signatures now!

ITV news is reporting that Vennells should hand back her CBE. Big deal. She should hand back the vast amount of bonuses she got during the period.

Agreed

Thank you! Signed!

I don't think it's too much of a tangent at all.

This has been an appalling case in its own right, but treating it as isolated and anomalous will mean we fail to learn the bigger lessons.

God so depressing. How an intelligent and even religious woman would destroy innocent hard working people if it suited her salary and her agenda…

Would be harder for them to get away with now as the SPM could have found each other more easily online.

Thank you, signed.

And still very silent about Adam Crozier.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12918565/amp/itv-viewers-mr-bates-vs-post-office-drama-ex-royal-mail-chief-adam-crozier.html

in case you are interested: the cabinet office publish the details of who sits on the honours committees (see link below ) but don’t tell you who has nominated an individual for an award.

Anyone can nominate someone for an honour but obviously you have to be able to build a case that meets the approval of the honours committee and the nominated person has to pass due diligence.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/honours-committees#main-committee

It would be interesting to know who nominated Paula Vennells but I don't think we’ll ever be told. Nor do I think we will find out how she passed due diligence when , at the time the award was given (2019) , the failings were already well known. I think the fact that she was a non executive director at the Cabinet Office will have helped!

Obviously my sympathies are primarily with the victims of this awful scandal but I also think that people like her being granted awards undermines the system for those who genuinely deserve honours. The Honours system needs to change : much more transparency and accountability is needed. I used to think it didn’t matter, was mostly nonsense, but I’ve seen that it does. Many of the senior awards put people in positions of authority : allow them to decide on legislation and help them get plum jobs!

I think the biggest thing for me is that we have I stop - now - the ability of the Post Office to be able to criminally investigate. That is nonsensical. All the usual checks and balances flew away with catastrophic consequences. How far would this have gone had prosecutions required actual evidence of loss, rather than the say so of Horizon?

I signed the petition although I think removing honours is just a symbolic gesture and those in charge at the time of this scandal should be properly investigated and held to account.

Yes, my husband was a sub postmaster in 2002. He said the most the system was out by for him was £50 but frequently small amounts so it just reduced the profit for him. He said it was anything but a computer as it didn't compute.

My local post mistress was a victim of this. She was sent to prison pregnant with her second child. It was horrendous. She is a lovely lady and the community supported her.

I'd say maybe not. It includes a violent armed robbery, a suicide and an attempted suicide. Why not watch it yourself first, and then decide. Every adult should watch it, that's for sure.

This was my support mistress. She's a lovely lady.

I agree jSmill. Why are the suicides - for example - not corporate manslaughter?

What I don't understand is why did the PO want to cover up the issue? When it became obvious there was a problem with the IT system, why did Paula not
a)not send out an email telling the post masters/ mistress to stop using the system and go back to paper based until Fujitsu had sorted it.
b) contact Fujitsu and tell them there was clearly an issue and they would no longer use the machines until it was sorted.

Why cover up? I mean really who would have cared if the IT was screwed, it wouldn't have been a scandal. Everyone knows new systems having teething problems.

So was it Paula's ego that stopped her from investing properly, was she so blinded by her power she refused to accept the issue, or was she being leaned on by someone?

She has blood on her hands, how dare she profess to be a woman of God when she's responsible for so much needless suffering. She needs to be accountable and so does her sidekick.

If you read what happened in a book, you'd never believe it because of all the holes in the plot. There were so many obvious problems I just don't understand how she ignored them, or why the PO was so heavy handed in its approach. It's not even the case of 'hindsight' the issues were obvious from the calls to the helpline, so why oh why didn't the CEO, whose job it was to protect her staff, call a halt on the programme? I cannot get my head round this at all.

It's worth watching the documentary on ITVX. I hope the government now does the right thing by all those who suffered and families who have lost loved ones are properly compensated, although it will never bring back their loved one, and it will never repair the terrible tole it's taken on those still living with their trauma of lives being turned upside down, they all deserve a good retirement now, with no financial worries.

Toll not tole

This breaks my heart.

Trying to bring ourselves to watch it. Suspect it’s going to make us angry.