Post office scandal: 'The first thing I did was cry' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-56859105 But the PO have said, "sorry", so that's OK then and we can just forget the whole thing. Why is it that suits at the top never pay? Maybe they should lose their homes and do a spell inside to see how the other half live?
Whilst we continue to vote tory as a nation, we will continue like this. Although no-one will vote for a labour candidate who would either. The press make sure of that. Just a moderate amount of socialism needed. Nothing fancy. Just basic common or garden social sense and conscience. Nope, they want their cake.
They might be, but I am not holding my breath. The PO knew that there were problems with the system and the developers (Fujitsu) walked away counting their money. This was a government owned institution prosecuting people whilst knowing (and covering up) that they had a defective system. If course the government will hold their hands over their ears and scream but they have some very p1ssed off postmasters up for a fight. Should be interesting.... This could run into millions and guess who's gonna pay? I hadn't noticed that it said "mug" on all of the public's forehead. The GPO management won't pay a penny out of their own pockets.
So nothing to do with govt then. May have been when this kicked off 10yrs ago though. The guy who did talksport (Crozier?) cluster-fucked everyone: staff, customers, U.K. taxpayer with his liberal know fuck all old mate who’s so insignificant, apart from selling a U.K. asset for less than half its worth, I can’t remove this name.
Surely this is a problem owned by Post Office Counters, isn't it? That's part of the state-owned Post Office. It was the Royal Mail delivery service that was privatised. It's also not simply a "Tory" problem - the Horizon system project was started by the Major government but then continued to operate (even after the Blair government cancelled it in some way) all the way through 13 years of Labour rule, and then on through more recent coalition and Conservative governments. We'll have to wait and see what happens but it would be good to see some heads roll for a change - they'd be mainly public sector ones though, I think, which might make it less likely.
Ha ha! It's a moving target - I took a quick look at the post office website where the senior management team are listed - most of them have only been in their roles for a couple of years. Even if the period during which bad decisions were made can be narrowed down to a few years (out of the 25 or so since the project started), I'll bet that this particular hot potato changed hands many times.
A write up from Private Eye, co-written by Nick Wallis https://www.private-eye.co.uk/pictures/special_reports/justice-lost-in-the-post.pdf
An interesting development; Paula Vennells who was Post Office Chief Executive between 2012 and 2019 has stepped down from her current roles, which are nothing to do with the PO: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56882496 It's unusual for someone to step down from an existing senior job some time after having left the job associated with the relevant problem. She has explicitly said sorry too. We'll have to see how this develops, but it must put a load of others on the spot. Much of the problem, and certainly a bulk of prosecutions, took place Paula Vennells became CEO, although she had been in senior PO management since 2007. There might have been some element of taking on the top job, being handed the can of worms, and having to decide between saying "something stinks about this - I want it all reviewed from the start, by independent people", and the alternative of doubling down and believing other senior managers who were telling her that the problem was entirely a matter of dishonest people using the IT system as an excuse. Obviously she made the wrong decision if that was the way things were.
It's good that she has stepped down but, as you say, others must be culpable. I would absolutely love to find out who the real dodo was. You are told that all these upstanding citizens are on the fiddle as discovered by the new IT system. And you say, "oh, that's good we can nail these bastads now, because we have this superb new system." Nobody butts in and says, "Are you sure that this system is so infallible? Have we tested it properly?" Or somebody did, and was told to "Shut the f*c* up! We've got people to blame now, who won't fight back! Fujitsu will resist and they have deep pockets and will blame us for not specifying the system properly. Better to let sleeping dogs lie and send a few sub postmasters to prison! That will show the bastids!"
The managers who told staff to destroy all data referring to the issues can and should be traced, this activity is illegal and they should be held to account.
The SFO is not known for its' success rate in white collar trials. Take the recent Serco "excess profits" case for the electronic tag contract with the government. All the evidence was there, poor SFO presentation led the judge to direct the jury to "not guilty" for the two responsible directors. The outsourcer agreed to a £19.2m fine and paid SFO costs of £3.7m. It has subsequently overhauled working practices and has returned to being a government supplier. No one did jail time.
I represented a defendant about 6 years ago in a case where the PO relied on Horizon data and it was known back then that the system was dodgy, but of course, “computer says no”. A couple of my colleagues in Chambers also represented a group of the Horizon appellants last week. The disclosure “failures” were a disgrace and tbh I think there should be prosecutions for attempting to pervert the course of justice of those responsible. That opinion is my own and I don’t claim to speak for my colleagues.
If anyone is interested, the R4 serialised coverage of this is very good and gives interviews with those affected. Look it up on Sounds. They are currently putting together an new episode with updates on the current situation.
It amazes me that someone can be found guilty where there is no actual evidence that they either profited from the incident, or even possessed the purported money!
