The Lemon Fool

It looks like a long drawn out process before all those wrongfully convicted or blamed for the the faults in an accounting IT system are suitably compensated. What would seem a far lengthier process is to identify who, within the PO is accountable. It has all the signs of a corporate cover-up.

It appears the errors in the Horizon accounting system were known to the PO while Post Masters were still being blamed. In my mind that action is criminal. What do you think?

I'm surprised they couldn't do a full audit of the disputed amounts when they were first highlighted
Surely if the accounts are down £10k that would be matched by a missing £10k of stock, or till activities for services ?
Plus, the fact that large numbers of previously honest and reliable postmasters appeared to have suddenly decided on a life of crime should have been a massive red flag

It is an interesting case and will no doubt be studied for years. Private prosecutions in the UK are incredibly difficult and expensive with no legal aid available, it is very much against the odds they were able to get justice, though it did take 21 years.

The Rev Paula Vennells and the managers who covered it up for decades have been given OBEs, CBEs and 6 figure pensions.

The Fujitsu whistleblower who risked his whole career to expose the thing, got nothing out of it except maybe a pat on the back.

The multi-million payouts are mostly going to cover legal fees.

A lot of details can be found at
https://www.postofficetrial.com/

Ministers have set aside more than £1 billion to settle claims with victims of the Post Office IT scandal, in which more than 700 subpostmasters were prosecuted for crimes they did not commit.
The business department has quietly made three grants available to the Post Office, confirming for the first time that compensating subpostmasters could cost more than £1 billion. The last grant in December was for £685 million. [The Times, January 2022]

£ 1 billion divided by 700 postmasters is £ 1.4 million each, but they will be lucky if they see a fraction of that.

The original cost of the system was £700 million.

The reason why nobody has tried to sue Fujitsu yet

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252 ... on-scandal

AleisterCrowley wrote:I'm surprised they couldn't do a full audit of the disputed amounts when they were first highlighted
Surely if the accounts are down £10k that would be matched by a missing £10k of stock, or till activities for services ?

The system was so opaque (and rubbish) that it was impossible to do something as simple as that. This Computer Weekly article discusses some of the technicalities https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252 ... ys-insider There were no agreed definitions of transactions, and if the system saw something it didn't recognise it was prone to inventing a phantom transaction.

Plus, the fact that large numbers of previously honest and reliable postmasters appeared to have suddenly decided on a life of crime should have been a massive red flag

Again you're exactly right, but that was an intrinsic part of the cover up. Each postmaster who complained that the system must be wrong was told that they were the only ones doing so, nobody else had problems. When in fact there were hundreds if not thousands.

Scott.

This is well worth a listen. 'The Great Post Office Trial'. An excellent podcast series from a couple of years ago. I've followed the story from the early days in Private Eye and the Computer Weekly reports. What is really saddening is that millions will be paid in compensation, money which comes out of tax payers pockets, straight into the pockets of the legal profession. There may be a little left over for the victims, if they're lucky. BUT... no one will be held responsible. If the victims are innocent then the accusers committed perjury in court and it is they that should be serving time.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/m000jf7j

Redmires wrote:This is well worth a listen. 'The Great Post Office Trial'. An excellent podcast series from a couple of years ago. I've followed the story from the early days in Private Eye and the Computer Weekly reports. What is really saddening is that millions will be paid in compensation, money which comes out of tax payers pockets, straight into the pockets of the legal profession. There may be a little left over for the victims, if they're lucky. BUT... no one will be held responsible. If the victims are innocent then the accusers committed perjury in court and it is they that should be serving time.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/m000jf7j

I used to think of Computer Weekly as just adverts. Principally job ads, from mindless recruitment agencies filled with far more buzzword-soup than anything meaningful. But they seem to have done some actual journalism on this story.

Private Eye has of course been excellent, covering the story for many years. As has that BBC reporter (I forget his name) who gave us a number of reports through the years, long before the big trial that finally caught the attention of the Beeb as an organisation along with other mainstream media.

Lets face it ... the bottom line is 700 people and their families and friends in some cases (particularly wrt the suicide) will never ever receive effective, or any compensation for what is a terrible situation.

And those that perpetrated it wont face any sort of justice whether civil or criminal.

It was ever thus.


didds

didds wrote:Lets face it ... the bottom line is 700 people and their families and friends in some cases (particularly wrt the suicide) will never ever receive effective, or any compensation for what is a terrible situation.

And those that perpetrated it wont face any sort of justice whether civil or criminal.

It was ever thus.


didds

Sadly you are correct.

The fact is that at some point, at least one person high up in the organisation, knew for definite that people were being wringly imprisoned, and they colluded to fdo nothing about it.

It would be nice if those people were stripped of honours, their large pensions and assets seized as proceeds of crime, and them sent to prison.

But it won't happen.

DrFfybes wrote:

didds wrote:Lets face it ... the bottom line is 700 people and their families and friends in some cases (particularly wrt the suicide) will never ever receive effective, or any compensation for what is a terrible situation.

And those that perpetrated it wont face any sort of justice whether civil or criminal.

It was ever thus.


didds

Sadly you are correct.

The fact is that at some point, at least one person high up in the organisation, knew for definite that people were being wringly imprisoned, and they colluded to fdo nothing about it.

It would be nice if those people were stripped of honours, their large pensions and assets seized as proceeds of crime, and them sent to prison.

But it won't happen.

With the greatest respect to all those affected, this has all been commented on in lengthy threads in the past. Could we possibly stick to the inquiry itself?

Dod

Dod101 wrote:

DrFfybes wrote:Sadly you are correct.

The fact is that at some point, at least one person high up in the organisation, knew for definite that people were being wringly imprisoned, and they colluded to fdo nothing about it.

It would be nice if those people were stripped of honours, their large pensions and assets seized as proceeds of crime, and them sent to prison.

But it won't happen.

With the greatest respect to all those affected, this has all been commented on in lengthy threads in the past. Could we possibly stick to the inquiry itself?

The OP was specifically asking what we thought about those running the PO being aware of the errors while prosecuting postmasters.

Scott.

What I find incredible is that none of those clever Eton schoolboys and Oxbridge graduates who flood the legal system seemed to notice the smell when all these cases started to go through the courts.

Leothebear wrote:It looks like a long drawn out process before all those wrongfully convicted or blamed for the the faults in an accounting IT system are suitably compensated. What would seem a far lengthier process is to identify who, within the PO is accountable. It has all the signs of a corporate cover-up.

It appears the errors in the Horizon accounting system were known to the PO while Post Masters were still being blamed. In my mind that action is criminal. What do you think?

You have been around this site surely long enough to be aware that this was well ventilated some time back?

Dod

Below is a link to a free Private Eye report with 'names' on this scandal - they have been reporting on this for some 20 years.

https://www.private-eye.co.uk/pictures/special_reports/justice-lost-in-the-post.pdf

T7

Newscast on BBC Sounds featured the first day of the inquiry and gave a precis of the background. 17m 45s into this https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0bp46g5

It features journalist Nick Wallace.

Scott.

didds wrote:Lets face it ... the bottom line is 700 people and their families and friends in some cases (particularly wrt the suicide) will never ever receive effective, or any compensation for what is a terrible situation.

According to the Beeb yesterday (if I heard them right), it's a whole load worse than that.

Yes 700 were prosecuted but many more when faced with prosecution, re-mortgaged their houses, borrowed from family and otherwise raised the cash to pay back what they were accused of embezzling, in order to escape prosecution. None of those seems likely to be repaid.

If this had happened in the US, just imagine the level of punitive damages that would have been awarded!

Mike4 wrote:

didds wrote:Lets face it ... the bottom line is 700 people and their families and friends in some cases (particularly wrt the suicide) will never ever receive effective, or any compensation for what is a terrible situation.

According to the Beeb yesterday (if I heard them right), it's a whole load worse than that.

Yes 700 were prosecuted but many more when faced with prosecution, re-mortgaged their houses, borrowed from family and otherwise raised the cash to pay back what they were accused of embezzling, in order to escape prosecution. None of those seems likely to be repaid.

There really ought to be a joint action by these apparently forgotten victims to sue for losses and for damages for their lost reputations.

dubre wrote:What I find incredible is that none of those clever Eton schoolboys and Oxbridge graduates who flood the legal system seemed to notice the smell when all these cases started to go through the courts.

They do what they're paid to do. It would be career suicide to notice truths that favour the wrong side.