The sub-postmasters scandal

[brassnecked]

Why the police are not knocking on those Politicians and executives doors is beyond me.

[cjcregg]

The problem is the Post Office's untypical and unique status as a private prosecutor which dates back centuries. An entity that can be victim, investigator and prosecutor cannot possibly be free from conflicting interests and bias.

[honeybee13]

Dan Neidle [Zahawi's tax affairs investigator] is backing the postmasters and has reported the post office's lawyers to the SRA for trying to silence them.

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[honeybee13]

Marina Hyde has a new opinion piece on the scandal.

After 20 years, here’s why the Post Office scandal is special: the cover-up is happening in plain sight | Marina Hyde | The Guardian

WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM

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People whose lives were destroyed deserve justice. And those responsible are contriving to make sure they don’t get it, says Guardian columnist...

 

[dx100uk]

Post Office: Horizon scandal victims offered £600,000 compensation

WWW.BBC.CO.UK

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The sum is for postmasters whose wrongful convictions for theft and false accounting have now been overturned.

 

[dx100uk]

First subpostmaster Horizon conviction overturned in Scotland | Com...

WWW.COMPUTERWEEKLY.COM

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Scotland has seen its first Post Office Horizon conviction overturned, taking the UK total to 92.

 

[dx100uk]

 

[dx100uk]

Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry - Ongoing And Revealing More And More Disasters

17th November 2023

The Horizon Inquiry into the Post Office and ruining of sub-postmasters lives based on false readings from the Horizon system supplied by Fujitsu.

The Inquiry is costing millions of pounds of taxpayers money. The Inquiry is looking in great detail at the biggest miscarriage of justice in British History. Hundreds of sub-postmasters were wrongly charged with fraud. Some went to prison based on wrong information from the computer programme.

It all reads like fiction but it is a true story of how trusting computers is not they way we should go forward if we think they don't go wrong. Managers and board directors unwilling to face the truth that Fujitsu covered up and things made worse by a board accepting what they said.

(44) Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry - YouTube

For a very good series on the subject in 14 minute episodes go HERE
It is live every day this week at 1:45pm

BBC Radio 4 FM - Schedules

WWW.BBC.CO.UK

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This is the daily broadcast schedule for BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Sounds - The Great Post Office Trial - Available Episodes

WWW.BBC.CO.UK

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Listen to the latest episodes of The Great Post Office Trial on BBC Sounds

 

justice-lost-in-the-post.pdf

[brassnecked]

Its a true horror story DX £600K insufficient for the harms caused.

[dx100uk]

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-introduces-new-post-office-compensation-bill

 

[honeybee13]

Related article by Joshua Rozenberg the legal commentator.

https://archive.is/3xngv

HB

 

 

[dx100uk]

Horizon scandal: Call for all Post Office convictions to be overturned

 

A call has been made for hundreds of Post Office staff wrongly accused of theft and false accounting to all have their convictions overturned.

More than 700 Post Office managers were convicted when faulty accounting software made it look as though money was missing from their sites.

A board overseeing compensation said until all convictions were quashed, "we cannot put the scandal behind us".

The Ministry of Justice said it would respond in due course.

Horizon scandal: Call for all Post Office convictions to be overturned

WWW.BBC.CO.UK

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A board advising ministers on compensation for the Horizon software scandal says all should be cleared.

 

 

[slick132]

I see a new TV drama about this starts after New Years Day - Mr Bates vs. The Post Office - starring Toby Jones

Seems a bit premature considering this is still ongoing but maybe it'll bring it into focus and lead to better outcomes for the victims 

[dx100uk]

following a successful set aside - compensation has been halved...

Post Office victims' compensation pot cut by half

WWW.BBC.CO.UK

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The firms has now set aside £244m following over estimations on the number of people who might apply.

dx

[dx100uk]

Mr Bates vs Post Office

hotly-anticipated drama based on real life events where hundreds of innocent sub-postmasters were wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting due to a faulty IT system.

 

Mr Bates vs Post Office’s Monica Dolan wipes away tears as she joins real-life woman she plays

UK.NEWS.YAHOO.COM

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Mr Bates vs Post Office's Monica Dolan was visibly upset as she sat beside real-life subpostmaster Jo Hamilton who she plays in the drama.

 

[honeybee13]

The excellent ITV series has really stirred up public anger over this, and rightly so in my view. It seems that 50 potential new victims have come forward since it was aired.

There's a petition that's been signed by over 600,000 people as at this morning, calling for Paula Vennells' CBE to be withdrawn.

And the Met are investigating the Post Office for potential fraud. This relates to the money that they made postmasters pay even though they knew that the Horizon system had multiple bugs.

Police investigate Post Office over 'potential fraud offences' after wrongful prosecution of subpostmasters

NEWS.SKY.COM

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Former subpostmasters and subpostmistresses were held liable by the Post Office for financial discrepancies thrown up by its computerised...

 

[honeybee13]

Dan Neidle, tax campaigner, explains the problems with the compensation scheme. Victims were also being made to pay tax on the sums awarded but I believe that was changed.

Eight reasons why the Post Office compensation scheme is a scandal

WWW.TAXPOLICY.ORG.UK

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I keep going back to this Daily Mail story in which a postmaster who was financially ruined received only £8,000 compensation. How could that...

 

[honeybee13]

Private Eye, who have been investigating this for years, along with Computer Weekly, have released a special report as a pdf.

Private Eye Online | Justice Lost In The Post

WWW.PRIVATE-EYE.CO.UK

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CONCEIVED in 1996 as one of the first private finance initiative (PFI) contracts, between the Post Office and the Benefits Agency on the...

 

[honeybee13]

From the Times today, on the Met investigation. I thought I read somewhere that there's another investigation into two Fujitsu people but can't find it atm.

https://archive.is/ZMINR

'

[BankFodder]

Yes I think that was referred to in the Times as well. In the second article I think it was about the police carrying out their own investigation into the post office. Questions about whether it would simply be the post office which might be prosecuted or whether individuals would be prosecuted.
It also said very clearly that two employees or ex-employees of Fujitsu were also under investigation by the police.

I have to say that all this nonsense about Paula Vennels surrendering her CBE is ridiculous and shortsighted.
If she is allowed to surrender her CBE then she will attract praise for her "noble gesture". She should not be allowed to fall on her sword. It is clear that her CBE should be stripped from her before she has an opportunity eventually to do it of her own back.

I suppose I mainly have the TV series to go on but it is pretty obvious that the email which she sent asking the question whether or not Horizon could be controlled remotely and then explaining that she needed to be able to say that it could not be – was effectively asking to be shielded and simply to give the message that whatever she was told she would repeat but then she felt that she would be to do it with a clean conscience.

She obviously had her own thoughts about it – maybe even inside knowledge but we will probably never know. She walked away with £4 .5 million.

She should be stripped of the CBE and made to return the money.

She should also be made to suffer the ignominy of a criminal investigation into her behaviour.


Once again, simply from the documentary it seems to me that Angela van den Bogerd had a significant hand in it. I understand that she was in charge and a very important figure in the network management. She had been there for 33 years – well before Paula Vennels joined.

And it seems that from her testimony, she was well aware that the system could be controlled remotely but it was simply that she had never been asked the right question.

However, at that level I think one has a duty to disclose information which one knows is going to be relevant and it seems that she stood by silent was hundreds of people were prosecuted, ruined, and some died.

 

Where is she now?

https://twitter.com/hqqsk2kkfg

 

And where is she?

Do they still have any friends? Do their children even talk to them?

[honeybee13]

BF, one of the petitions is addressed to Sir Chris Wormald in the Cabinet Office, as Chair of the Forfeiture Committee, asking him to strip PV of her gong. About 50,000 more people have signed so far today.

[brassnecked]

A All the execs and Ed davey should at least all be questioned under caution by the MET, as to Alan bates and Sue Sercombe, between 2002 and until the Woolshop closed, I used to deliver there when covering holidays for one of the home delivery Couriers I managed, Alan Bates told me all about the PO shenanigans, and it was obvious that Horizon was seriously borked. Aled Job has written a book about an Anglesey Postmaster who wound up in jail

the stamp of innocence by  Aled Gwyn Job its on Amazon apparently

 

[honeybee13]

Not just Ed Davey, BN, there must have been other Post Office ministers as well.

[cjcregg]

Gareth Jenkins, Fujitsu's 'expert' witness in lots of the earlier prosecutions, has been under investigation for 3 years for perjury. The idea of interviewing Ed Davey under caution is just silly. They should go after the real culprits. 

[brassnecked]

Likely all the Managers at some point must have been involved. Davey was a Minister in charge he should have his collar felt.