PO Scandal – poetic justice

[stewamax]

Former sub-postmaster Alan Bates, who was wrongly sacked by the PO for alleged financial irregularities, has announced that he will consider crowd-funded private prosecutions of those in PO ultimately responsible for the prosecution of sub-postmasters (that in England and Wales were private prosecutions by the PO) if the State does not.

This is unlikely to be welcome news to Mmes Vennells and van den Bogerd and (I hope) General Counsel Chris Aujard. Mrs Vennells, for example, is shortly due to spend a pleasant and relaxing three days being questioned by (inter alia) the urbane and extremely well-prepared Inquiry leading counsel Jason Beer who is undoubtedly already sharpening his low-key but lethal points.

[Arborbridge]

Former sub-postmaster Alan Bates, who was wrongly sacked by the PO for alleged financial irregularities, has announced that he will consider crowd-funded private prosecutions of those in PO ultimately responsible for the prosecution of sub-postmasters (that in England and Wales were private prosecutions by the PO) if the State does not.

This is unlikely to be welcome news to Mmes Vennells and van den Bogerd and (I hope) General Counsel Chris Aujard. Mrs Vennells, for example, is shortly due to spend a pleasant and relaxing three days being questioned by (inter alia) the urbane and extremely well-prepared Inquiry leading counsel Jason Beer who is undoubtedly already sharpening his low-key but lethal points.

I can imagine any appeal to raise funds would be massively successful, too.

[UncleEbenezer]

Former sub-postmaster Alan Bates, who was wrongly sacked by the PO for alleged financial irregularities, has announced that he will consider crowd-funded private prosecutions of those in PO ultimately responsible for the prosecution of sub-postmasters (that in England and Wales were private prosecutions by the PO) if the State does not.

This is unlikely to be welcome news to Mmes Vennells and van den Bogerd and (I hope) General Counsel Chris Aujard. Mrs Vennells, for example, is shortly due to spend a pleasant and relaxing three days being questioned by (inter alia) the urbane and extremely well-prepared Inquiry leading counsel Jason Beer who is undoubtedly already sharpening his low-key but lethal points.

I can imagine any appeal to raise funds would be massively successful, too.

In principle I'd be happy to contribute.

In practice, I think not:

1 - The public prosecutor will decide what happens, and may prosecute. In which case a private prosecution is moot.
2 - If the public prosecutor decides against it, there's a lot they can do to kill off a private prosecution. Including forcibly taking over the case and then dropping it, or kicking it into the long grass.
3 - If the public prosecutor does neither of the above and lets a private prosecution proceed, both it and its political masters look pretty damn silly. Can you really see that happening?

[stewamax]

1 - The public prosecutor will decide what happens, and may prosecute. In which case a private prosecution is moot.
2 - If the public prosecutor decides against it, there's a lot they can do to kill off a private prosecution. Including forcibly taking over the case and then dropping it, or kicking it into the long grass.
3 - If the public prosecutor does neither of the above and lets a private prosecution proceed, both it and its political masters look pretty damn silly. Can you really see that happening?

My point was that the threat tightens the rack a little further (squeak! squeal!) on at least the three individuals. Since there is documentary evidence that at least one of them has deliberately perjured themselves, the CPS does have a record of successfully sending to the slammer some well-placed perjurious individuals (think Aitken). Much easier to prove perjury than a criminal mismanagement where responsibility may be diffuse.

[Arborbridge]

1 - The public prosecutor will decide what happens, and may prosecute. In which case a private prosecution is moot.
2 - If the public prosecutor decides against it, there's a lot they can do to kill off a private prosecution. Including forcibly taking over the case and then dropping it, or kicking it into the long grass.
3 - If the public prosecutor does neither of the above and lets a private prosecution proceed, both it and its political masters look pretty damn silly. Can you really see that happening?

1. a private prosecution, hopefully, would not then be required
2. Who is "they" - I doubt having raised a complete furore over this, whether anyone wants to see these people get away with it, least of all the law officers. I'm not saying the politicos involved will take the rap, but some of the commercial and managerial people surely would, if only as fall guys for the former group.
3. it's the threat of a private prosecution which will make them more likely to act.

Arb.

[stewamax]

3. it's the threat of a private prosecution which will make them more likely to act.

Exactly. And if this darkens further the cloud of impending doom over the PO's senior malefactors, so be it.

[jfgw]

1 - The public prosecutor will decide what happens, and may prosecute. In which case a private prosecution is moot.
2 - If the public prosecutor decides against it, there's a lot they can do to kill off a private prosecution. Including forcibly taking over the case and then dropping it, or kicking it into the long grass.
3 - If the public prosecutor does neither of the above and lets a private prosecution proceed, both it and its political masters look pretty damn silly. Can you really see that happening?

4 - The public prosecutor prosecutes some of those involved; Alan Bates prosecutes the others.
5 - The public prosecutor prosecutes for perverting the course of justice; Alan Bates prosecutes for the manslaughter of those sub-postmasters who committed suicide.


Julian F. G. W.

[Beerpig]

A private prosecution will get nowhere.
At the root of the scandal is the PO investigated and prosecuted their own cases so did not look on the evidence -or be seen to be looking on the evidence- with a neutral, independent mind. It was in the PO's interest to secure convictions - the police used to conduct their own prosecutions before the advent of the CPS and as already said on this thread, if a private prosecution was brought by Bates and Co, the CPS would take it over and -if it did not meet the criteria- they would bin it. If Mr Bates mounted a private prosecution, he would be no more independent than the PO who sanctioned the trough against former PO staff.

The CPS have two criteria.
Is the prosecution in the public interest?
is there sufficient evidence to secure a reasonable prospect of conviction?

The first limb is clearly satisfied.
The second limb is far more stringent. The allegations against the previous PO bigwigs are all crimes of specific intent and would be hard to prove to the requisite standard.
There is a long way to go- the finding of the PI is months away and then the suspects would have to be interviewed.
At the end of all that, if the CPs don't bring charges, it would be extremely difficult to get a private prosecution off the ground whatever the size of the war chest.

[stewamax]

The pillory was abolished in 1816 except for perjury and subornation of perjury (inducing someone to perjure).
This final loophole was closed in 1837 - something many sub-postmasters may feel was an egregious error given the lying, stonewalling and 'the business gave me this [lie] to sign'' excuses.

[stewamax]

For those who wish to follow key events in the Inquiry, the following are due to give evidence.
Sessions can be followed live on YouTube.

* Tuesday 23rd April - Susan Crichton (former POL Company Secretary and General Counsel)
* Wednesday 24th April - Chris Aujard (former POL General Counsel)
* Thursday 25th April - Angela van den Bogerd (former People Services Director and Branch Support Programme Director)
* Friday 26th April - ditto
* Tuesday 7th May (pm) - Belinda Cortes-Martin (former Programme Director, POL Project Sparrow)
* Friday 10th May (pm) - Rod Ismay (former POL Head of Product and Branch Accounting)
* Wednesday 22nd May - Paula Vennells (former POL Group Chief Executive)
* Thursday 23rd May - ditto
* Friday 24th May - ditto

[stewamax]

The time has come:
Thursday 25th April and Friday 26th - Angela van den Bogerd (former People Services Director and Branch Support Programme Director) will be in the witness box
Second only to Paula Vennells (22nd May for three days - be patient...) , this is the one the sub-postmasters will be watching.

[stevensfo]

A private prosecution will get nowhere.
At the root of the scandal is the PO investigated and prosecuted their own cases so did not look on the evidence -or be seen to be looking on the evidence- with a neutral, independent mind. It was in the PO's interest to secure convictions - the police used to conduct their own prosecutions before the advent of the CPS and as already said on this thread, if a private prosecution was brought by Bates and Co, the CPS would take it over and -if it did not meet the criteria- they would bin it. If Mr Bates mounted a private prosecution, he would be no more independent than the PO who sanctioned the trough against former PO staff.

The CPS have two criteria.
Is the prosecution in the public interest?
is there sufficient evidence to secure a reasonable prospect of conviction?

The first limb is clearly satisfied.
The second limb is far more stringent. The allegations against the previous PO bigwigs are all crimes of specific intent and would be hard to prove to the requisite standard.
There is a long way to go- the finding of the PI is months away and then the suspects would have to be interviewed.
At the end of all that, if the CPs don't bring charges, it would be extremely difficult to get a private prosecution off the ground whatever the size of the war chest.

At the root of the scandal is the PO investigated and prosecuted their own cases so did not look on the evidence -or be seen to be looking on the evidence- with a neutral, independent mind.

I admit that I have no experience in legal matters, but how does this work? Can any company simply investigate and privately prosecute any case they like? Surely, if a company has evidence of fraud, then the case is taken over by the police, so no private prosecution necessary.

Sorry if I've missed something. There seems to be so much injustice these days!


Steve

[Nimrod103]

Over the last few days there has been a semantic argument as to whether there were bugs in the software and whether they should be called bugs. I don’t follow the significance of this because the accusation is that there were back doors into the programme and that Horizon staff were changing figures without the postmasters knowing it. It doesn’t seem to me that that is a bug, that is an intentional bit of programming.

[swill453]

Over the last few days there has been a semantic argument as to whether there were bugs in the software and whether they should be called bugs. I don’t follow the significance of this because the accusation is that there were back doors into the programme and that Horizon staff were changing figures without the postmasters knowing it. It doesn’t seem to me that that is a bug, that is an intentional bit of programming.

I'm pretty sure it's both. The existence of the back door is significant because it's a means of proving that the sub-postmasters (and potentially the courts) were lied to by the PO.

But I believe the bulk of the financial losses that the PO attributed to the sub-postmasters were caused by bugs, one way or another.

Scott.

[jfgw]

Can any company simply investigate and privately prosecute any case they like?

Anyone can prosecute. You can prosecute someone yourself if you want to. It could be something minor that the police don't have time for, or you might want to get the job done more quickly than if the police and CPS dealt with it.


Julian F. G. W.

[stewamax]

Section 69 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 laid down that, in effect, it was incumbent on a prosecution to prove that a computer system was producing correct information for the latter to be adduced in evidence. This section was repealed by section 60 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999; the result is now that the correct working of a computer system is assumed unless this can be disproved.

What an amazing coincidence that, timewise, this coincided with the introduction of Horizon, and POL was one of the parties that submitted its support for this repeal.

The change then forced a sub-postmaster to prove somehow that Horizon was faulty, with the assumption that otherwise it was working correctly.
Even POL had limited technical understanding of the internals of Horizon, so how on earth could any ordinary man-in-the-postoffice defend themselves?

[Alaric]

I'm pretty sure it's both. The existence of the back door is significant because it's a means of proving that the sub-postmasters (and potentially the courts) were lied to by the PO.

It's likely to be both.The existence of a back door is quite likely for a development system to set up test data. In a live system it indicates that the software wobbles from time to time produce anomalies which would be corrected (covered up) if noticed. There really ought to have been a strong audit trail reporting to the Post Office, since it may have been plausible for a Fujitsu employee in conspiracy with a postmaster to cook the books to make money appear rather than disappear to the credit of the postmaster.

[Watis]

I'm pretty sure it's both. The existence of the back door is significant because it's a means of proving that the sub-postmasters (and potentially the courts) were lied to by the PO.

It's likely to be both.The existence of a back door is quite likely for a development system to set up test data. In a live system it indicates that the software wobbles from time to time produce anomalies which would be corrected (covered up) if noticed. There really ought to have been a strong audit trail reporting to the Post Office, since it may have been plausible for a Fujitsu employee in conspiracy with a postmaster to cook the books to make money appear rather than disappear to the credit of the postmaster.

Writing as someone who has worked in (financial) software support...

The idea that a database is inaccessible to the people responsible for managing the database and its associated systems is preposterous! And that would not be back door access - more like front door access. That is, it's approved, official access.

I understand that the sub-postmasters were able to access the system, albeit only to process transactions and report on them, not to change or delete them. The same access, but without those restrictions, would surely have been available to the Horizon technicians.

It goes without saying that access to the data needs to be tightly controlled, with passwords, etc. However, I couldn't have done my job without that access. Not every data problem can be resolved via the UI (user interface). User errors probably can; software errors - bugs - usually can't.

Watis

[Alaric]

The idea that a database is inaccessible to the people responsible for managing the database and its associated systems is preposterous! And that would not be back door access - more like front door access. That is, it's approved, official access.

I understand that the sub-postmasters were able to access the system, albeit only to process transactions and report on them, not to change or delete them. The same access, but without those restrictions, would surely have been available to the Horizon technicians.

From about 1999 the legal premise was changed so that computer systems were deemed to be operating correctly. One might suspect that those who drafted and approved this change of law may not have been aware of the plausibility of back door access and for that matter unresolved bugs. You might wish to have a legal premise that a breathalyser or a speed camera are operating correctly to avoid frivolous challenges, but hindsight suggests this is a dangerous premise to adopt uncritically to commercial systems particularly recenty implemented ones.

[swill453]

The idea that a database is inaccessible to the people responsible for managing the database and its associated systems is preposterous! And that would not be back door access - more like front door access. That is, it's approved, official access.

I understand that the sub-postmasters were able to access the system, albeit only to process transactions and report on them, not to change or delete them. The same access, but without those restrictions, would surely have been available to the Horizon technicians.

It goes without saying that access to the data needs to be tightly controlled, with passwords, etc. However, I couldn't have done my job without that access. Not every data problem can be resolved via the UI (user interface). User errors probably can; software errors - bugs - usually can't.

You seem to be assuming the data and/or database is physically located somewhere centrally, or at least remote from the post offices.

I'm not sure that's (entirely) the case. The implication from what I've read is that the access which was stated to be impossible but turned out not to be, was the techs accessing something physically in the sub post offices.

Scott.