Govt knew about Post Office Horizon cover-up

[VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia]

Whilst everyone is panicking about some military staff saying "well, we might have to conscript", it becomes clear that that particular media-whipped panicfest is a dead cat deployed to stop us all from clocking that David Cameron's coalition govt knew about Project Sparrow, knew about the Post Office's decision to fire the forensic accountants who found the bugs, and were complicit in the cover-up of software defects that cost the jobs, livelihoods, and liberty of over 700 sub-postmasters. The actual govt knew.

Heads are already rolling but frankly this is not enough. The BCS want legal changes to the presumption of "computer is always right".

It's a shame that Jo Swinson has left politics because I'd love to see her in front of an inquiry.

Yup. I've been reading the transcripts and evidence daily, and it's clear the corruption ran through from top to bottom.

I am 100% sure that conscription is in the news right now solely to bury this.

I agree that the conscription nonsense is yet another tory smokescreen. Furthermore yes, it is clear those at the very highest point of our establishment not only knew of the horizon issues but did all they could to bury them and the postmasters with it. Sickening.

Yep, those unredacted minutes of the Project Sparrow meetings in 2014 are a bombshell.

No wonder the PO blacked out so many paragraphs before releasing them previously.

Well done the BBC for getting the originals.

Well done the BBC for getting the originals.

The Beeb are losing the licence fee so they've got nothing to lose by blowing the whistle on what was a mostly Tory govt.

I said on another thread and I think it's important enough to repost here:

We are talking about the govt and Post Office perverting the course of justice over 700 times. If they [the govt] can do this to sub-postmasters, they can do it to any of us.

Of course they did! Is this actually a surprise to anyone?

The Beeb got docs that prove it and everyone was too busy going "zomg conscription" to notice.

We have NO RIGHT to criticize other countries when the level of corruption in the UK is this high.

That's why I started this thread. There's no other thread concerning the Coalition govt's involvement in this perversion of justice and several about the NATO guy who was given column inches to distract us all.

Certain parts of the press are complicit in this cover-up too.

What about the Labour fucking govt that was responsible for this shit shoe in the first place?? Another PFI disaster thanks to their sheer fucking incompetence. They were told Horizon didn’t work, were told not to sign off on it but did so any way.

One day, someone will actually expose the PFI corruption from the last Labour govt and show the decades long disaster it has been for this country

Libk

That's "day ending in Y" stuff for any Westminster government, and TBH the other British govts too. The 700+ people convicted of fraud based on computer output that was known by 2014 to be unreliable is is a whole new level of corruption.

I know ….. thank goodness we have an independent judiciary to keep Westminster in check. A competent Director of Prosecutions who would at least notice 700+ prosecutions from a single institution in his courts and investigate this ….

Hmmm... looks like the current Leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition was one of the DPPs who failed to spot this.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Director_of_Public_Prosecutions_(England_and_Wales)

Utterly grim .I've witnessed first hand how my friend's dad's whole life has been shattered by this. And he is one of thousands

This is the same Keir Starmer who rightly intervened to protect women who withdraw rape accusations from being prosecuted unfairly themselves.

It's not like he didn't spot things and sort them out as DPP, so how come he missed this?

Neither party give a shiny shit about the general public. Alister Cambell actually admitted on the rest is politics podcast that the investment levels the Blair/Brown govt made in public services were completely unaffordable so they used PFI to “get it off the govt books” and basically signed the country up to decades of paying off “rent” / maintenance/ contracts for decades that are substandard. IT systems that didn’t work, schools and hospitals made from RAAC with maintenance contracts where it costs £300 to change a light bulb.

The Tory’s just give the contracts to their mates and don’t care if it isn’t delivered - PPE, Teesport port.

This country’s politicians are totally corrupt and anyone who thinks one side is ‘better’ or ‘different’ from the other is fucking kidding themselves

He apparently didn’t know that the CPS were dropping child abuse charges against the BBC’s most famous entertainer. a knight who was friends with the future king and multiple politicians. Apparently no one told him

They are ALL totally corrupt.

This country is fucked

Royal mail run their own prosecutions though. It had nothing to do with the CPS/DPP. That's true too for every local authority in the country too (for instance).

A civil case ending with a jail sentence? I didn't know that was allowed.

It's not a civil case. In England Wales anyone, even individuals, can bring a private prosecution through the criminal courts.

I did actually know this before, but someone on one of the other threads explained it quite well. Let me see if I can find it.

Better than that, I've found the CPS's own page on private prosecutions.

The Post Office used this legislation to prosecute the postmasters. The RSPCA is another body which makes frequent use of it.

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/private-prosecutions

There was a total of three Horizon cases prosecuted by the CPS during Starmer's period in office – out of four criminal million cases the CPS handled in that time. He wasn't involved in any of the Horizon cases.

The attempt to make this about Starmer is just more smoke and mirrors from the Tory press. General Election imminent, so anything bad that's happened in the last 14 years is the fault of Anyone But The Tories. <shrug>

I didn't know about Horizon prosecutions, says Keir Starmer
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67950501

They aren't civil cases.

I can bring criminal cases in my job. We have nothing to do with the CPS.

@PerkingFaintly @forcedfun This is all very useful, thanks.

I had no idea that criminal cases could he brought by anyone other than the Crown via CPS.