PO Scandal

[mc2fool]

While acknowledging that it's a TV drama, there was one point in it where Lee Castleton appears to have actually found the (or, at least, a) bug, saying he put in a transaction on one terminal and it also showed up on another. "That should never happen. That's proof, it's proof that there's something wrong with the system." https://www.itv.com/watch/mr-bates-vs-the-post-office/10a0469/10a0469a0001 at 18m20.

That got me to wondering why he, or indeed any of the others, didn't hire some independent trusted person to sit and observe him and the business for a day to certify that the errors he was seeing were genuinely happening and that he wasn't creaming off the top.

Of course, it's easy to wonder now, long after and with all we know, but still.....

[swill453]

I assume that the PO had people inspecting PO branch accounts before the introduction of Horizon and that a few postmasters were dishonest and prosecuted. So, I wonder how many were prosecuted each year before Horizon, does anyone know?

This is a very interesting question, that I have also wondered about. Indeed, how was such dishonesty discovered before Horizon?

It basically wasn't discovered very much. Some might say because it didn't exist, others might say because they didn't have such a fantastic product as Horizon...

Scott.

[UncleEbenezer]

That got me to wondering why he, or indeed any of the others, didn't hire some independent trusted person to sit and observe him and the business for a day to certify that the errors he was seeing were genuinely happening and that he wasn't creaming off the top.

Of course, it's easy to wonder now, long after and with all we know, but still.....

"some independent trusted person ..."

Think it through. A lot of hassle and expense, and for what?

"Why should I pay thousands in fees when the case is so clear-cut no court could possibly find against me?" - the mistake made by so many innocent people and victims of civil lawsuits. Fail to fee the lawyers and it becomes much more likely they will find against you!

"What level should I pitch my independent trusted person"? Does it have to be someone who has status with the courts? A day of that will cost several months of my income! If not that, then who? Who can I ask, and will evidence will Andy from down the pub or Betty the neighbour carry any weight in any case?"

[mc2fool]

That got me to wondering why he, or indeed any of the others, didn't hire some independent trusted person to sit and observe him and the business for a day to certify that the errors he was seeing were genuinely happening and that he wasn't creaming off the top.

Of course, it's easy to wonder now, long after and with all we know, but still.....

"some independent trusted person ..."

Think it through. A lot of hassle and expense, and for what?

"Why should I pay thousands in fees when the case is so clear-cut no court could possibly find against me?" - the mistake made by so many innocent people and victims of civil lawsuits. Fail to fee the lawyers and it becomes much more likely they will find against you!

"What level should I pitch my independent trusted person"? Does it have to be someone who has status with the courts? A day of that will cost several months of my income! If not that, then who? Who can I ask, and will evidence will Andy from down the pub or Betty the neighbour carry any weight in any case?"

I was thinking of a notary or solicitor. Yes, it's a cost, but if it were happening to me I'd want to have indisputable proof, and any cost has to be measured against the cost of, as you say, the mistake made by so many innocent people. Hassle and expense for winning!

[UncleEbenezer]

I was thinking of a notary or solicitor. Yes, it's a cost, but if it were happening to me I'd want to have indisputable proof, and any cost has to be measured against the cost of, as you say, the mistake made by so many innocent people. Hassle and expense for winning!

Hassle and expense for perhaps a small change in the chance of winning. They're up against a serious professional litigant, and it's not the relatively-transparent-and-honest police.

The reason so many people are innocent is that we're brought up to think that so long as we're honest and law-abiding we have nothing to fear from the "justice system". If you have nothing to fear, why should you worry? If you spend thousands on defending yourself, you're behaving like a guilty person, and it feels dirty by association!

[mc2fool]

I was thinking of a notary or solicitor. Yes, it's a cost, but if it were happening to me I'd want to have indisputable proof, and any cost has to be measured against the cost of, as you say, the mistake made by so many innocent people. Hassle and expense for winning!

Hassle and expense for perhaps a small change in the chance of winning. They're up against a serious professional litigant, and it's not the relatively-transparent-and-honest police.

The reason so many people are innocent is that we're brought up to think that so long as we're honest and law-abiding we have nothing to fear from the "justice system". If you have nothing to fear, why should you worry? If you spend thousands on defending yourself, you're behaving like a guilty person, and it feels dirty by association!

Indeed, and that was clear from the drama with Lee Castleton saying he went in having faith in British Justice, which I assume was the case for the real Castleton and not just made up for the drama.

For anyone interested, the judgement on Post Office vs Lee Castleton is at https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2007/5.html, with the judge's report of the "anomalies" in Horizon Castleton detailed in sections 13 to 15. It's not exactly light reading....

[UncleEbenezer]

Another thought on the independent witness suggestion ...

In principle, isn't that the kind of thing a Trade Union should be good for? They'd have people on their books with recognised training in such tasks.

Still two hurdles. Firstly, for someone like Castleton to think of going anyway near a trade union, particularly if he grew up in an era when unions had a deservedly-bad name (seems likely if he's over 50). Secondly, to convince someone at the union to take up the baton. No idea how big a hurdle the latter might be in the general case, but ISTR from some of the Private Eye reporting that the postmasters' union proved worse than useless when some victims did try turning to them.

[UncleEbenezer]

but ISTR from some of the Private Eye reporting that the postmasters' union proved worse than useless when some victims did try turning to them.

Ah, yes. It seems that goes back before Private Eye even started on it. From Rebecca Thomson's original feature in Computer Weekly in 2009:

All of the postmasters we spoke to say that their union, the National Federation of Sub Postmasters, has refused to help them investigate their concerns.

[mc2fool]

Another thought on the independent witness suggestion ...

In principle, isn't that the kind of thing a Trade Union should be good for? They'd have people on their books with recognised training in such tasks.

Still two hurdles. Firstly, for someone like Castleton to think of going anyway near a trade union, particularly if he grew up in an era when unions had a deservedly-bad name (seems likely if he's over 50). Secondly, to convince someone at the union to take up the baton. No idea how big a hurdle the latter might be in the general case, but ISTR from some of the Private Eye reporting that the postmasters' union proved worse than useless when some victims did try turning to them.

Yes, the "worse than useless" outfit that the sub postmasters tried to get to help was the National Federation of Sub Postmasters (NFSP), which describes itself as "a professional not-for-profit trade association representing post office operators", so not now a union per se (any more). https://nfsp.org.uk/about-us/about-us

A couple of related things google threw up:

From the excoriating Written evidence submitted by Mark Baker (elected to the Executive Council of the NFSP in 2001) to the enquiry:

"Members would ask the EC for legal representation to be supplied and paid for by the NFSP funds. But all requests were turned down by the EC and the General Secretary. I was told much later, after the incident, that one member a Mr Lee Castleton applied for such help as he had terrible problems with his Horizon system. Without consulting the EC the General Secretary, Colin Baker, simply refunded the membership fees paid by Mr Castleton and sent him on his way and to his fate.
:
In my opinion the NFSP is part of the Horizon problem." https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/5207/pdf/

It also mentions funding but another source is more succinct: "the Post Office fully funds the NFSP following the NFSP being struck off as a trade union in 2013". https://www.postofficetrial.com/2019/01/a-union-man-writes-be-careful-he-said.html

He who pays the piper....

[tjh290633]

Many years ago, I was a sub-postmaster for 2 weeks. I was deputising for the Pilot Officer designated P3, ,whose job was to run the Station Post Office.

One important job was to organise the remittance each week. This was to ensure that you had enough cash to pay out the marriage allowances, child allowances and pensions to be paid out the following week. This was considerably more than the cash receipts from the sale of stamps, purchase of postal orders, payments in to the POSB, etc.

I wonder how the system runs today? Presumably there are much fewer disbursements of cash, although there will be withdrawals of cash from bank accounts.

TJH

[stewamax]

Out of the frying pan...
It now appears that the PO deducted compensation payments from its declared trading profit in order to arrive at its much smaller taxable profit. Even novice lawyers are familiar with 'ex turpi causa' - the doctrine that you cannot profit from an illegal act. Having taken private prosecutions that failed and resulted in compensation being paid, they CANNOT then just expense the compensation. But they did.

Now more revelations: executive bonuses were based on trading profit. What a surprise.

I wonder if Paula Vennels remembers the Beverley Sisters singing: 'it's illegal, its immoral or it makes you fat"...

[Tedx]

Well, we'll just end up paying for it.

[Nimrod103]

I wondered when his name might figure in this tragedy:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/0 ... apan-ties/

The Foreign Office warned Sir Tony Blair that scrapping the Horizon scheme would damage relations with Japan, The Sunday Telegraph can disclose.
The former prime minister ordered officials to go ahead with the new Post Office IT system despite being told it had been “plagued with problems” and that independent IT experts had found the firm behind it was “failing to meet good industry practice” in its handling of the project.

[XFool]

..."The Sunday Telegraph can disclose."

[UncleEbenezer]

I wondered when his name might figure in this tragedy:

Years ago. I think it's even been mentioned on Lemonfool before now that Blair was advised to cancel it (though I don't know to what extent it was ever in his power to do so).

Blair was complicit in inflicting a broken system on the world, but he surely can't have foreseen the extent to which it would later be abused against the postmasters!

[Lanark]

Recent news is that "The Post Office unlawfully claimed £934m tax relief for its compensation payments, and now faces an unexpected £100m tax bill."

But in December "The government has today announced that circa £138m has so far been paid out to over 2,700 claimants across the three Post Office compensation schemes."

£934 million relief on payments of 138m?? Am I missing something?

Maybe they used Horizon to work out the tax return.

[Mike4]

£934 million relief on payments of 138m?? Am I missing something?

Well yes. The higher the reported profit the higher the directors' bonuses. Silly you!

[mc2fool]

Recent news is that "The Post Office unlawfully claimed £934m tax relief for its compensation payments, and now faces an unexpected £100m tax bill."

But in December "The government has today announced that circa £138m has so far been paid out to over 2,700 claimants across the three Post Office compensation schemes."

£934 million relief on payments of 138m?? Am I missing something?

Maybe they used Horizon to work out the tax return.

The article phrases it badly. It's relief on £934m of costs, not relief of £934m, and it isn't all compensation payments.

The article does tot them up, scroll down to The total deductions wrongly claimed by the Post Office. Unfortunately they don't explain the acronyms/abbreviations but from looking at the annual reports linked to in the footnotes we can find what they stand for.

But they're costs, not amounts of compensation given, and the notes in the accounts say for most of them that they "relate to legal costs and costs to run the scheme".

HSS = Horizon/Historical Shortfall Scheme
OC = Overturned Convictions
Postmaster = Postmaster Remediation
GLO = Group Litigation Order

[stewamax]

The bill for litigation and private prosecutions is mostly tax deductable.

The compensation payments resulting from failed or subsequently overturned private prosecutions are not, especially as most of these prosecutions have been shown to be founded on deliberately concealed or obfuscated evidence that Horizon had major problems. The PO's tax accountants, their lawyers AND HMRC know this: it is a well-established principle.

Concrete examples of a different type often occur as a result of H&SE prosecutions, sometimes to the surprise of the defendants. The non-fatal injuries on the Alton Towers Smiler rollercoaster in 2016, for example, cost owner Merlin £5M in H&SE fines in addition to civil damages and neither are tax deductable. Civil damages are normally, however, covered by insurance but fines are not as to do so would be against public policy.

[didds]

Slightly OT but can I ask what remming is? I was involved in programming for 40 years and haven't come across the term.

Short for remarking.

A descriptive line of text inserted between coding lines, prefaced with a character which makes whatever is running tne program skip the line.

a.k.a. "commenting"