The sub-postmasters scandal

[tobyjugg2]

Mone whos husbands tax avoidance scams are coming to the fore

 

Edited January 18 by tobyjugg2

[tobyjugg2]

Heres another thought

As there seem to be no records of the 'corrections' made by fujitsu staff, and the accounts apparently never balanced .. where did the money go

..yep we've heard about the suspense account and it just vanishing back into profits .. But did it? Lets see the records.

The 'corrections should have balanced the book - but seemingly didn't, and apparently theres no record of the corrections other than a printout a SPM kept - so where is the money from all these corrections? Potentially £millions

 

 

Someones been skimming the milk?

 

Edited January 18 by tobyjugg2

[honeybee13]

Funnily enough I spoke to someone today who's heard a theory that money's been siphoned off, TJ.

[tobyjugg2]

Yep

Fujitsu manual Corrections that seemingly didnt correct - money seemingly remained 'missing' from the SPM accounts

and Millions seemingly assumed as gone into a PO suspense account that no-one had to explain missing or not.

Seems like no one ever balanced the books at any level - apparently with ZERO checks and balances apart from a black box calculation that was KNOWN to generate errors - even in the training.

 

all on top of system generated errors

 

Whens the PO cfo or equivalent up ? let alone auditors reports

Edited January 18 by tobyjugg2

[cjcregg]

10 hours ago, tobyjugg2 said:

 

any link or copy of the actual detail?

 

I always find it better to see the actual evidence rather than some journalist's interpretation of it.

It's at the very start of this evidence session. And before you start slagging off the Fujitsu witness, he's actually a good guy.

 

[cjcregg]

This was reported in the media, where a Fujitsu manager dissed Lee Castleton in an email before his court hearing.

He was being questioned by sub postmaster's barrister Flora Page (who my partner works with).

You can't really see him but Lee Castleton is sitting right behind her, so It's pretty cringing stuff.

Fast forward to 47:00.

 

 

 

[honeybee13]

I like Flora Page. And the Scottish lady lawyer.

Peter Sewell looked uncomfortable, I thought, and not a particularly helpful witness.

[honeybee13]

The i paper is saying there could be a second scandal with the Capture system in the 1990s. I think we may have mentioned this.

What is Capture? Second 'flawed' IT system that may have led to Post Office convictions

INEWS.CO.UK

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Former sub-postmasters have claimed they were wrongly convicted due to alleged faults with Capture

 

[Nicky Boy]

Heard on Radio 4 this morning that these "shortfalls" are still happening on Horizon now.

A Scottish interviewee (SPM) was being interviewed about the "blanket quashing" that Westminster are doing and how Scotland might implement it.

He said Horizon is still faulty right now and mentioned an un-named Scottish SPM suffered a circa £400,000 shortfall last month!

[tobyjugg2]

Anyone know how they are dealing with branch 'alleged shortfalls, let alone ridiculous amount ones currently?

Looking through and reviewing what I've seen so far, seems unlikely but not impossible there was significant skimming by anyone other than the PO itself into its own accounts

Depends really on how the PO tries to excuse not balancing the books.

 

 

[Nicky Boy]

Presumably, like any other business they have to submit accounts for tax purposes?

Like you say, how have they balanced the books all these years?

[honeybee13]

I think Paul Patterson has put the cat amongst the pigeons today with his evidence.

Post Office IT scandal: Fujitsu boss condemns ‘shameful’ editing of witness statements | Post Office Horizon scandal | The Guardian

WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM

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Europe chief of tech firm embroiled in Horizon IT scandal opens evidence with apology for ‘appalling miscarriage of justice’

 

[tobyjugg2]

6 hours ago, Nicky Boy said:

Presumably, like any other business they have to submit accounts for tax purposes?

Like you say, how have they balanced the books all these years?

Yep. They seem to have managed to total the compensation claims they resist paying enough to make a false tax relief claim against the amount - although that is of course a far simpler task.

But how the hell did they ever balance a SPM account with 10's of £1000 double accounted? However the error occurred.

- or did they after they extracted the data for the prosecution and just said nowt - that possibility is at least implied in the evidence.

 

it also seems possible so far that fujitsu tech staff may have performed their 'corrections. via direct editing of the DB rather than balancing with proper logged  transfers against a specific error correction account/wo/project

Not seen any detail of the hows. But if it was done correctly, there should have been an 'error' account with £18M quid in it to explain.

I know about the suspense account - but that itself should have been audited regularly. It AINT free money.

 

[tobyjugg2]

On 19/01/2024 at 11:42, tobyjugg2 said:

Anyone know how they are dealing with branch 'alleged shortfalls, let alone ridiculous amount ones currently?

Looking through and reviewing what I've seen so far, seems unlikely but not impossible there was significant skimming by anyone other than the PO itself into its own accounts

Depends really on how the PO tries to excuse not balancing the books.

 

 

 

Apparently - little has changed

 

Post Office still chasing payment from postmistress

WWW.INDEPENDENT.CO.UK

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Marlene Wood, a sub-postmistress in Perthshire, Scotland says her continued struggle with the Horizon IT software has “taken her to dark...

 

[honeybee13]

This Times article explains some of the history of ICL/Fujitsu and successive governments.

https://archive.is/aaJyc

[tobyjugg2]

Very interesting HB,

"Our procurement systems were designed to prevent officials from just giving contracts to their mates. But the result has been a process that too often revolved around ticking the right boxes and offering the lowest headline price, rather than actual performance."

VIPal lane?

 

Having been involved in procurement under the  older systems, seems that the apparent excuse for the VIPlane referred in that article was by people who didnt like the checks and measures system requiring competence and accountability. I had no problems with it at all.

addendum

Neither did the companies tendering as I gave them specific requirements at each step of the process - although you wouldn't believe it the way the half baked incompetent ones whined when they failed - despite very simple documentation of why.  (almost exclusively 'you haven't delivered what was required and clearly stated here here and here)

 

Edited January 21 by tobyjugg2

[tobyjugg2]

Software at scale is of course more difficult, especially with existing embedded systems

But the reasons for above board dealings are the same - no out of the blue threats to sue to protect themselves from not meeting agreed requirements

Edited January 21 by tobyjugg2

[honeybee13]

Interesting interview, he's quite forthcoming even though there's an NDA in place.

We got ‘too close to the truth’, says forensic accountant who was called in by the Post Office to investigate then sacked – Channel 4 News

WWW.CHANNEL4.COM

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We spoke to Ian Henderson from Second Sight forensic accountants, who were called in by the Post Office to investigate. 

 

[tobyjugg2]

they need to interview earnst & young who the PO dragged in to apparently whitewash the second sight review

Despite EY also finding issues, they seemed to give 'robust supporting statements?

Edited January 24 by tobyjugg2

[honeybee13]

Good point. I haven't really seen anything from E&Y.

[tobyjugg2]

due later this year aren't they phuut

They may argue that their 'targeted requirements were to ensure that high level figures and tax accountability was  what they were paid vast sums to 'account for - not whether the make-up of those sums was valid - phuuut

Worth noting if they do claim that is that there are a number of reports that E&Y noted errors and the remote access and reported them - so they need to be pressed on the reports of E&Y statements on the robustness etc of the horizon system

- err yes yer honor - we meant the system was robust in resisting fixes to its errors and robust in its false accounting and entirely robust in allowing remote access and seemingly unaccounted changes to the transactions DB

 

Patterson has said that 'changes' were all agreed with the PO but it seems unclear whether he was referring to system bug fixes - changes to the actual systems, or changes to the DB - the remote editing of the SPMs entries/transactions

Edited January 24 by tobyjugg2

[honeybee13]

Lord Arbuthnot and Ian Henderson have both talked about Paula Vennells lying to the select committee/Parliament and covering up what POL knew about Horizon. What next?

 

[tobyjugg2]

and she still hasn't properly forfeited her 'honor

- well the one she was awarded that is ..

Edited January 24 by tobyjugg2

[honeybee13]

In the FT yesterday. 'The UK Post Office privately told ministers this month that it would have opposed appeals by nearly half of the 700 sub-postmasters convicted using data from Fujitsu’s faulty Horizon IT system.'

They still seem to be convinced that hundreds of SPMs suddenly went rogue.

https://archive.is/LD6Mo

[brassnecked]

They are still trying to stop any police investigation into Vennells and others it may seem. That FT article seems to indicate they still don't accept the damage their borked system has done. Far too many cases for them to be dishonesty.