The sub-postmasters scandal

[honeybee13]

The bishop thing could be fairly recent, after the gong it seems to me.

[tobyjugg2]

2017 HB

Paula Vennells: Ex-Post Office boss was shortlisted to be Bishop of London

WWW.BBC.CO.UK

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Paula Vennells, an ordained Anglican priest, is facing questions over her role in the Horizon IT scandal.

 

[tobyjugg2]

Heres another thought

She claimed to have taken the PO from loss making to profit didnt she?

According to the Horizon system is that? phuut

With all the money extorted from the SPMs?

 

I'd say its long past time there was a forensic accounting exercise - but that would just be more millions of taxpayer money wasted.

[tobyjugg2]

Doesn't Fujitsu also supply systems to the MOD and HMRC

.. No wonder my tax is so high and too often I've had corrections applied to my cost with no explanation other than - you haven't paid enough

[honeybee13]

This is from Liam Byrne, chair of the Business select committee on the evidence given by the heads of POL and Fujitsu.

“You’ve left us fairly shocked actually. You’ve not been able to supply the committee with key events in the timeline, such as when the Post Office first knew that remote access was possible.

“You’ve told us you haven’t kept evidence safe about what money was paid to you inappropriately and therefore is owed back, and you can’t estimate the scale of compensation. We are grateful to the moral commitment to pay compensation, but that leaves us many questions.”

[theoldrouge]

Great to see that Postmistress Councillor standing against Davey at the GE

[tobyjugg2]

May government ‘pushed for Paula Vennells CBE despite concerns over Post Office role’

WWW.INDEPENDENT.CO.UK

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The former Post Office CEO, who gave up the honour this week following public outcry over the scandal, was nominated for the prestigious award by...

 

"Despite concerns being raised about Ms Vennells’ nomination for the honour, Sir Ian Cheshire, who chaired the committee recommending her for a CBE, “brushed them aside”

"Ms Vennells, who gave up the honour this week following public outcry over the scandal, was nominated by the Department for Business."

"At least one member of the committee questioned plans to award Ms Vennells a CBE amid growing outrage over the scandal, sources told The Sunday Times."

[tobyjugg2]

Well my take away from the latest hearing is Fujitsu knew about the issues, but still helped POL in the prosecutions

- but did tell PO about the issues and considered it the PO's decision what to do about them

So Fujitsu would seem to be guilty of corporate immorality and technical incompetence .. and their staff would seemingly (in my lay opinion) be guilty of expert witness versions of perjury/perverting the course of justice charges

PO (IM lay O) guilty of perjury, perverting the course of justice, extortion, theft, false accounting, fraud, tax evasion,  with at least some seemingly guilty of misconduct and/or malfeasance in public office.

 

[tobyjugg2]

tell you what else caught my eye today

Some minister or other clearly just trying to self-aggrandize saying they wanted to boot Fujitsu out of contracts and refuse new ones, but claimed he couldn't because of procurement rules

Didn't say that to the pub landlords, cake shop owners, coffee cup makers, Mone and PPEMedpro, none existent companies and the other VIPlane VIPals that bypassed proper process with government deals done at taxpayer expense via whatsapp  and personal phone numbers eh?

Edited January 16 by tobyjugg2

[honeybee13]

Nick Wallis who writes a blog on the PO scandal, on Talk TV.

 

[honeybee13]

More on bonuses for PO investigators and their attitude to the SPMs from the Telegraph.

https://archive.is/jijtJ

[tobyjugg2]

The right wing press really does seem to be running with this dont they

- well since they lessened their efforts to pin it on davey and starmer

 

wonder why?

Surely not a concerted effort to trash Sunak by the wrong wing?

Whats the odds of a challenge within the next month? They've got nothing to lose have they?

 

Edited January 17 by tobyjugg2

[tobyjugg2]

Oh - and what have the met been doing while sitting on a slam dunk conviction of people who ruined 700+ lives

.....

Met police say covert operation has halved luxury watch thefts | Metropolitan police | The Guardian

WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM

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Commander praises officers who ‘volunteered to stand alone in dark streets in the middle of the night, waiting to be robbed’

 

"The operation helped to reduce annual watch robberies from 113 to 55 in the year to July 2023 in three central London boroughs: Westminster; Kensington and Chelsea; and Hammersmith and Fulham, police figures show.

In two operations over several months in 2022 and 2023, 27 people were arrested. Of these 21 were later convicted, according to figures provided at the briefing."

 

.. all at a cost to the taxpayer of probably  little more than the watches that would have been stolen

So, if the SPMs had only owned Rolex's

[cjcregg]

I don't know if anyone has been following the inquiry today but some significant evidence being heard from Fujitsu witnesses.

A court of appeal case hearing for a convicted postmaster last year has established that at least 13 missing transactions that were subsequently manually replaced by Fujitsu remotely & covertly didn't show up in the ARQ (audit data) evidence that post office relied upon in prosecuting the sub postmaster. 

[brassnecked]

That of itself will lead to the conclusion that Fujitsu were regularly as a matter of course accessing accounts to manually alter data.

[tobyjugg2]

.. while still being part of the evidence process to convict people of stealing the moneys their system misrepresented and they secretly corrected

[honeybee13]

The more I hear about what went on behind the scenes, the more I wonder how these people sleep at night.

[cjcregg]

35 minutes ago, brassnecked said:

That of itself will lead to the conclusion that Fujitsu were regularly as a matter of course accessing accounts to manually alter data.

Well on this occasion it backfired on them even though they were attempting to assist the subpostmaster in correcting his data, but basically those corrections didn't show up on the Fujitsu's own archived data and that's why PO prosecuted him.

It was fortunate that the subpostmaster kept the Horizon printouts that established that the transactions actually existed.

[tobyjugg2]

54 minutes ago, cjcregg said:

Well on this occasion it backfired on them even though they were attempting to assist the subpostmaster in correcting his data,

 

but basically those corrections didn't show up on the Fujitsu's own archived data and that's why PO prosecuted him.

It was fortunate that the subpostmaster kept the Horizon printouts that established that the transactions actually existed.

So the error was discovered

.. supposedly corrected by Fujitsu tech - presumably 3/4th line - but those corrections didn't show up on any archived data - and seemingly didnt correct/balance the 'current' accounts

.. as PO still tried to prosecute him

- despite there being horizon printouts - but not balanced/logged transactions

 

any link or copy of the actual detail?

 

[tobyjugg2]

on a side note

Fujitsu told to pay Corrections $3.9m after lengthy legal battle

WWW.RNZ.CO.NZ

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The Wellington High Court has ruled in Corrections' favour in its long-running dispute with technology company Fujitsu.

need to read it all perhaps twice

[tobyjugg2]

52 minutes ago, tobyjugg2 said:

any link or copy of the actual detail?

 

for starters

 

Post Office given ‘unreliable’ audit data in Court of Appeal case last year

WWW.STANDARD.CO.UK

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The inaccurate data came to light in August last year in the case concerning the Apex Corner branch in London.

"Explaining the problem in the Apex Corner case in “simple terms”, Mr Barnes said: “There was some technical problem and the messages weren’t copied to the correspondent servers at that time, so they didn’t appear in the normal audit data.”"

 

MSN

WWW.MSN.COM

 

Edited January 18 by tobyjugg2

[tobyjugg2]

Theres an extra point in this - the massive legal costs dumped on the postmasters in addition to the falsely alleged shortfalls

£321,000 in PO claimed legal fees and costs in just one case

 

So 600k really doesnt cut it for many does it

600k compensation, + (return of falsely claimed money + associated legal fees paid by victims + interest) plus legal fees since will be nearer the mark.

 

Edited January 18 by tobyjugg2

[honeybee13]

Lee Castleton had costs in the region of £300k didn't he, for POL recovering £25k? It's being said that they wanted to make an example of him to discourage other SPMs from fighting.

I just hope they at least start to be paid out on account soon. The compensation committees sound hugely bureaucratic.

I do wonder if they're also considering the impact on people's lives; the homes or relationships or businesses they lost, never mind the mental effects. Fairness IMO says that they should be returned to the position they would have been in if they hadn't been falsely sued.

[tobyjugg2]

I agree HB - 600k plus all costs plus interest really isnt that ..

but it might be a compromise acceptable to the majority of the victims without putting them through the minute examinations reliving the issues which is being required of the compensation claims.

Of course, we also want those who carry the responsibility to pay and pay properly. Claw back of bonuses and pensions before criminal charges even start of ALL the PO execs involved is MORE than justified seems to me.

(Investigators, who may well seem and be heartless scumbags, are just small fry and just a distraction from the real criminals)

When is Vennels formal forfeiture of that utterly undeserved honor being processed - her just 'handing back' her honor is literally nothing. She could start using it again tomorrow .. if she has even stopped.

[honeybee13]

Has Vennells been seen or heard of recently? The last I read was that she'd left the farmhouse in Bedfordshire and no one knew where she was.

A bit like Michelle Moan...