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've seen a lot of senior people do this kind of thing because they hope (rightly in her case) that by the time the shit really hits the fan they will be long gone and in another high paying role or with a massive pension (and an honour).

They know there is an issue but they do just enough to ensure it won't become big enough to hurt them during their tenure.

If she had told them to go back to paper she'd have been ridiculed and people would (rightly) have asked how she allowed the system to go live at all.

As I understand it the Fujitsu deal was a PPI so they would do anything to make sure it kept rolling. If some evidence is to be believed, they were trying to patch up crap data as they went along, rather than stop and fix the issues first.

Quite a few posters have mentioned good IT practises and that's to be applauded - but in my 30+ years in IT I would have to say that none of this is a surprise to me - organisations are often trying to do things on the cheap with the wrong people and anyone who questions stuff is fired or moved to a different project.

By the time Paula Vennells was in charge, Horizon had been in use for a number of years. Going back to the old paper system wasn't really an option. In any case, she and other senior managers were in denial about the problems with Horizon. They were burying their heads in the sand.

Also "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 isn't a CEOs job to protect staff, sadly.

Also, most postmasters are not Post Office staff. They are self-employed providing services to Post Office.

Excellent point.

I was aware of this, but am astounded again at how shocking it was.

I also can’t fathom why when it started to become obvious the system was a problem they continued to go after their own staff, instead of carrying out a proper full investigation and halting all prosecutions. It was obvious it was going to come out. They did it for the money, yes, but they just kept digging, hoping they would get away with it.

they went after the sub post masters for a criminal conviction (, fraud, theft or falsifying records), so that when they got a conviction (which all were gained without any evidence of criminal intent), they could then use the proceeds of crime legislation to take the submasters personal assets to pay back monies owed and costs , so they took their homes, everything, bankrupting so many.

paula presided over that. Instead of seeing something was wrong and attempting to fix it, and she was a former Anglian vicar, she doubled down on it. Lying to the government and ministers. Lying to the public, and convicting innocents for money. It became a real scandal under her tenure. Either that was complete incompetence or a deliberate act. There is no other option.

and she walked away with 400k pay out and got a cbe for her services to the post office. Which in itself is utterly scandalous.

I suppose at the start there must have been some “holy shit” moments - when the PO realised the extent. But the right thing to do would be a company investigation and a hands up - it would have cost millions of course. So it’s easier flatly to deny. But the bit I can’t fathom - these people knew the misery being caused - that people were suicidal/desperate/going to jail. At that point; moral kick in.

any no whistle blowers? At some point, a tonne of in house lawyers and external counsel knew there was no case. Call centre staff at Fujitsu must have known. Whistleblowing legislation is meant to prevent this stuff but it’s all toothless

but with the advent of AI this is a chilling reminder to us all about “computer says no”

Indeed - this should be a good enough answer to all those ridiculous "if you haven't done anything wrong you have nothing to fear" wonks who pop up any time government proposes more draconian measures. I notice those types are conspicuous by their absence from this thread.

I agree, the fact no one’s morals kicked in, that inherent right from wrong , when they were aware of how bad this was. Just how evily people were being treated. But then I guess there was a lot of fear.

The federation guy who saw they had remote access, getting his numbers changed to owe 44k, his wife convicted. It seems many resigned, but said nothing, and I’d sssume they were scared.

but people like Paula and Angela? The ones who stayed in and made it happen. Thr lawyers, the staff , the people changing the numbers, all doing it, knowing. Knowing people were being robbed, bankrupted, convicted, but doing it anyway.

And Paula , a prior Anglian minister too, taking her exit money, her cbe, still, still not willing to explain how it got so bad on her watch, still not willing to accept any personal responsibility for the evil.

and it was evil. This wasn’t just people being fired. Loosing their jobs. This was people being falsely convicted so they could use proceeds of crime legislation to seize their assets, bankrupt them. People were being sent to jail. Families broken up. Homeless. People committing suicide.

and Still these people kept going after more and more people for the money.

I will add, the Paula thing is odd.

she got 400 k pay off and a cbe for services to the post office, and they are refusing to withdraw it.

that’s a thank you and pay off if ever I saw it, yes Paula was responsible . Yes, the buck stopped with her, but Paula was accountable to someone. That someone was the single shareholder, the government,

the post office, Paula, reported to the parliamentary under Secretary of State. Who was responsible for postal affairs as part of their office. He/she was her boss.

i do wonder if this went much deeper into the government than is being shown, and Paula got a thank you for taking the fall.

I've just listened to the podcast linked to above - https://audioboom.com/posts/8417438-ep-34-where-did-all-the-money-go

I think MasterBeth's point above is the crucial one here, and @PerkingFaintly said the same thing in a different way:

Just as with Crapita, the DWP and DWP service-users, so too do Fujitsu, the PO and the subpostmasters & mistresses sound like a classic case of Supplier, "Customer 1" and "Customer 2". Customer 2 is the end-user, and is captive with no choice but to use whatever product or service Customer 1 procures. The supplier and Customer 1 care only about their cosy relationship with each other; Customer 2 gets screwed.

The Post Office had no incentive whatsoever to sort the problems out. They believed (wrongly, I think, as decided in one of the court cases) that their contract with the subpostmasters meant they could retrieve all losses from them, no matter how they arose. The examples given in the podcast aren't just about the Horizon system. The PO could demand subpostmasters reimburse the PO for things like this too.

1. Employee of subpostmaster steals money from till, subpostmaster knows this but the Investigation Branch refuse to look into it, police say 'Nothing to do with us, the PO investigate all crimes to do with the post' and the employee has vanished along with the cash. PO say to subpostmaster 'Hand over the money, it disappeared on your watch, it's your problem'.
2. The PO's central accounting office puts the wrong code on a transaction or miscounts the money sent to a sub post office or somebody there miskeys an amount. The sub post office ends up in deficit. See above for PO response.

They went to great lengths to vet subpostmasters to make sure they were honest decent people before allowing them to take on the role, but from that point on seem to have switched to the default assumption that everyone in the system was dishonest and on the take.

They also seem to have been too ignorant about computer systems to be competent to assess what Fujitsu were palming them off with. There isn't a computer system in the world that is free of software problems. How could they claim Horizon was running perfectly and expect to be believed? Why, indeed, were they believed, in court case after court case?

I hope Paul Vennells burns in hell.

But what happened to the money that the sub postmasters paid to the post office through the proceeds of crime legislation? As the shortfalls in accounting didn't actually exist, where did that money go? I've heard a lot about compensation but nothing about actual repayment. Apologies if I've missed it.

It’s like the millions of normal Germans who didn’t do much about the nazi atrocities.

Most people are sheep like, will follow orders if it’s in their interests and they will have been told to protect that system at any cost because the alternative is extremely expensive. So that’s what they did. Milgram experiment all over again.

The thing is the contracts saying sub poster masters were liable were put in place when it was a paper system. When horizon came in the contracts were not changed. With the paper system the sub post masters could go back and trace it, they had the documentation. Losses were rare. But when horizon came in they couldn’t trace it, they had no means to do so, but the old contracts still existed, and the post office leveraged them

but more importantly they also leveraged they could bring their own cases, had their own powers, and used that to convict people. And then they used the legislation regarding proceeds of crime, after conviction, to strip them of their assets, their homes, their savings.

it is utterly shocking . Absolute power corrupted absolutely.

I hope Paul Vennells burns in hell

agree. Even if a government minister above her was ultimately guiding this, she stayed in. She made it happen. She knew, and she did nothing to prevent it. She did everything xhe could to allow it to continue and cover it up.

pure evil.

@Janieforever

"pure evil"

Let us not forget she was an ordained C of E priest as well. I think the fires of hell would be quite apt.

Sorry havent read full thread but also wanted to add that many subpostmasters are actually quite isolated. I was a subpostmaster for a couple of years in a very rural area so there was only me and my dh and my bil worked for us for about a year. I had no contact with other subpostmasters. It's not like in an office/other work environment where you can say "has anyone else noticed that the system does x,y, z first thing on a Monday" at teabreak.

It was also made very clear that you were responsible for any shortages no matter how they happened and that it was a big deal to be investigated or audited. I think the PO took advantage of the isolation of subpostmasters and that most of us were decent, law abiding people.

I count myself extremely fortunate not to have got caught up in the whole thing and think "there but for the grace of God go I " every time I see/read anything about this. I also wonder how Paula Vennels can sleep at night

Listen to the podcast mentioned above. A lot of this money never really existed. The Horizon system would put through one side of a transaction and not the other, or double post things, and the so called deficit it threw up at the end of the week was often entirely fictional. The Post Office found it convenient to believe that this money actually existed and so pursued the subpostmasters to get it from them. Nobody appears to have used any common sense in this. It's pointed out on the podcast that the amount the Post Office wanted from Jo Hamilton was far in excess of any amount of cash she could ever have had in her tiny sub post office. Where was it supposed to have come from?

Isn't there some kind of trade association or professional body for postmasters? That's amazing and also explains why the PO got away with it.

The national federation of sub post masters, it's mentioned in the program and one of the characters who had been a fed rep is in the program.

Yes - the Federation does exist but I was running a business , my husband was also running a business - both 7 days a week in the tourist season. We had a young family and were very rural so it really wasnt feasible to attend meetings (and im not sure there were very many regular Federation meetings in my area). Most subpostmasters are in a similar position running a small business with not much spare time.

Ah ok! I've only watched one episode.

I agree that a bit of common sense and looking at the type of post office/the number and type of transactions carried out would ( and should) have raised questions. I was fortunate that my PO was very small , not very busy and we could between the 3 of us pretty much list who'd been in and how much the transaction had been which made it easy to keep track so I knew week to week how much cash there should be but in a busier office that's not so easy.

I know, right? It’s not even she knew, stepped down and stayed silent. She stayed in role. Enabled it. Lied to cover it up. Then took a cbe and a golden handshake and buggered off.

even if someone in government was directing this strategy. (And I’m guessing ed davey has just played the incompetent fool as people are going to start asking about government oversight, ) she still was complicit, enabled it, she knew, she knew they were being persecuted, robbed, she she lied, covered it up, enabled it.

I too haven't read the whole thread, but wanted to add a point, which I apologise for if it is a repeat of someone else making the same point.

My point is about the PO being its own prosecuting authority, with the power to bring cases to court for criminal prosecution, bypassing the Crown Prosecution Service.

I can see how, in the days pre Horizon, this would have made sense. Sub post masters would have kept their own records manually/via double entry bookkeeping. These would have been audited by the PO, and mistakes/fraud picked up without having to involve the police and CPS and extra, unnecessary steps in gathering evidence etc. The PO were effectively "independent" of the sub post masters' accounts.

Once Horizon was introduced, and sub post masters compelled to use this system, the PO was no longer independent of these accounts. In fact, they were directly and evidentially involved in the accounting process, and fundamentally conflicted from any semblance of being fair prosecutors. As such, they should have been stripped of their power to prosecute for accounting anomalies picked up by this system. That they were not is part and parcel of this massive scandal, because they were able to rely on their own wrongdoing (a botched computer system) and cover it up via what can only be described as a set of malicious prosecutions.