The sub-postmasters scandal

[tobyjugg2]

I'm not seeing any detail in that link HB?

 

My questions even more basic

Why 3 years on, when it took the MET 10 months from the first referral to decide there was a potential criminal case to be answered, are  Gareth Jenkins and Anne Chambers not in court for Perjury at the very least? (other charges could follow if they didnt own up and ask for them to be taken into account)

Or This yet another bit of packing that Cress sat on - heck she must have been 20 feet tall when she was sat at her chair.

Mind you, they'll be waiting for her to die before it comes out eh?

 

[honeybee13]

I don't know what to suggest about the link. I clicked on it just now and was then able to scroll down FollowTheScience's posts on X.

You could google him/her otherwise.

[cjcregg]

19 minutes ago, tobyjugg2 said:

 

Why 3 years on, when it took the MET 10 months from the first referral to decide there was a potential criminal case to be answered, are  Gareth Jenkins and Anne Chambers not in court for Perjury at the very least? (other charges could follow if they didnt own up and ask for them to be taken into account)

 

 

The police will be smart enough to wait until Gareth Jenkins gives his evidence, under oath, to the inquiry before charging him. Wyn Williams has already dismissed two applications by him for criminal immunity in respect of the evidence he'll give, so the MET will get him handed to them on a plate, with garnish. Ann Chambers has already given hers but I suspect they'll be charged together - if she's charged.

[tobyjugg2]

Strange HB, rather like that computerweekly link that i can still jump straight into - although the other computerweekly links from there throw up the signin block

Edited January 15 by tobyjugg2

[tobyjugg2]

7 minutes ago, cjcregg said:

The police will be smart enough to wait until Gareth Jenkins gives his evidence, under oath, to the inquiry before charging him. Wyn Williams has already dismissed two applications by him for criminal immunity in respect of the evidence he'll give, so the MET will get him handed to them on a plate, with garnish. Ann Chambers has already given hers but I suspect they'll be charged together - if she's charged.

Maybe - and thats perhaps somewhat poetic if they are sitting there with the sword of Damocles hanging over their well deserved heads. A small taste of what the SPMs suffered.

Lets hope that that is the case. I seriously think its all the usual kick into long grass for as long as possible by the primarily guilty - the directors and ministers who made wodges of money out of it .. or maybe simply didnt want to be bothered with it and a potential visible bad mark on their copybooks

Edited January 15 by tobyjugg2

[tobyjugg2]

not sure if this has already been referred - but worth looking again even if it has

Ecce Chambers – Post Office Scandal

WWW.POSTOFFICESCANDAL.UK

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I attended the morning session of Anne Chambers’ evidence at the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry yesterday. Chambers is a former senior Fujitsu...

"Williams pointed out that it surely was unlikely to be a user error if both trainers and auditors had recorded the Subpostmaster as inputting information correctly."

Chambers replied:

“Well, yeah, I… yes, I don’t know why… I’m not happy with this one. But I still stand by there being no indication of a system error and the numbers that they were recording just didn’t make a lot of sense.”

Chambers admitted to the Inquiry that despite being told the discrepancies had occurred on various occasions at the branch throughout the year, she only looked at the system information behind the most recent discrepancy. She also didn’t check to see if something similar had been reported by any other branch. Her “investigation”, from assignation to conclusion, took one hour sixteen minutes."

[tobyjugg2]

She strikes me as an utter bone idle incompetent who perhaps understood that her bosses didn't want issues, and she was rewarded for ensuring none were reported. Didn't want to put the effort in, and didn't want to rock the boat.

She needs dragging into court and her likely deliberate negligence and perjury highlighted. Flush out some info on the bigger rats and set an example. She was an expert witness, with that comes legal duties.

[cjcregg]

9 hours ago, tobyjugg2 said:

I seriously think its all the usual kick into long grass for as long as possible by the primarily guilty - the directors and ministers who made wodges of money out of it ..

 

So ministers are putting pressure on the police service to delay investigating the Fujitsu employees because they made wodges of money out of it (whatever 'it' is)?

I'm quite happy to contribute to this thread with informed comment and hope others do too but this is just mindless landfill that isn't worth the pixels.

 

[honeybee13]

The Times has found a whistleblower who worked in a PO call centre for Horizon. They're saying that the PO could access accounts and change them.

I remember in the ITV series, the Michael Rudkin character [from the SPMs' 'union'] said that after he went to Fujitsu's offices, his wife's Horizon account suddenly showed a shortfall of tens of thousands of £. He said it was done to punish him.

https://archive.is/dPNeg

[tobyjugg2]

2 hours ago, cjcregg said:

So ministers are putting pressure on the police service to delay investigating the Fujitsu employees because they made wodges of money out of it (whatever 'it' is)?

I'm quite happy to contribute to this thread with informed comment and hope others do too but this is just mindless landfill that isn't worth the pixels.

 

LOL

Says the person who alleges that the police are holding back on a prosecution for years, despite the recommendation of a very senior appeal court judge just so they can eventually, some time many years later, charge 2 together

[tobyjugg2]

10 minutes ago, honeybee13 said:

The Times has found a whistleblower who worked in a PO call centre for Horizon. They're saying that the PO could access accounts and change them.

I remember in the ITV series, the Michael Rudkin character [from the SPMs' 'union'] said that after he went to Fujitsu's offices, his wife's Horizon account suddenly showed a shortfall of tens of thousands of £. He said it was done to punish him.

https://archive.is/dPNeg

WOW

that the accounts could be accessed has been stated repeatedly, and that accounts were secretly accessed to 'correct' issues caused by the system faults (whether or not they actually made the issues worse) but deliberately accessing accounts and fiddling them to punish people is a new one.

If true, thats a whole new level.

[cjcregg]

39 minutes ago, tobyjugg2 said:

LOL

Says the person who alleges that the police are holding back on a prosecution for years, despite the recommendation of a very senior appeal court judge just so they can eventually, some time many years later, charge 2 together

If you think that the police would or even could charge them before a judge-lead statutory enquiry examining these very matters is concluded then you just don't understand how the world works.

But I suppose it's easier for you to stick with social populist conspiracy theories dreamed up between keystrokes.  

[tobyjugg2]

Then why did a senior appeal court Judge, who has examined the evidence of the specific cases in detail, refer these two people for (in his VERY clearly stated opinion) evidence of perjury? Sounds like a slam dunk to me. But the Met or someone in the CPS doesn't agree with an appeal court judges stated opinion - or thinks lets put this on the back burner in case we want to charge them together later?

.. and God forbid that anyone should accuse the Met of corruption eh? .. or the politicians involved

- I mean the Met cant have known anything about the criminality occurring in all those drunken parties they were guarding either eh?

or that they had officers known as 'the rapist' and whatsap groups discussing raping and assaulting women 'in fun'

.. Let alone that driving a wedge into the case would undoubtedly speed up the process rather than leave it unquestionably still rather languishing despite the kick up the backside the dramatised documentary did, jerking it out of the spend £10s millions of taxpayer money batting it into the long grass until everyone dies or at least gives up category?

I mean, its not like its been dragged out year after year after year after year even after the appeal court case highlighted and detailed many of these issues  eh?

and on top of all that, do you really think it likely that these two people will be tried for perjury together ? 50/50 at VERY best.

Seems you are the one who should look to yourself for 'theories dreamed up between keystrokes and understanding how the 'real world' actually is working @cjcregg

 

[honeybee13]

That Nick Wallis article on Anne Chambers' evidence is pretty shocking.

'No evidence. Williams pointed out that it surely was unlikely to be a user error if both trainers and auditors had recorded the Subpostmaster as inputting information correctly. Chambers replied:

“Well, yeah, I… yes, I don’t know why… I’m not happy with this one. But I still stand by there being no indication of a system error and the numbers that they were recording just didn’t make a lot of sense.” '

[tobyjugg2]

Yep see post 231 just up the page with that and other readings leading to an opinion in 232

 

Seemed she thought that if there wasn't a system message from the horizon system saying 'I Horizon, hereby admit I messed up my (ac)counting - then it wasn't horizon

Hence my considered lay opinion she was negligently lazy and incompetent - which doesn't IMO (and seemingly the appeal court judges) excuse her stating that there were no issues - she maybe/reportedly didn't look - but that does not justify her as a expert witness to say there were no issues - especially given the mounting evidence that there was. Hence perjury (compounded by the expert opinion part/requirements in law)

[brassnecked]

Two articles that deal with one of the causes of the guilty verdicts, presumption that computer data reliable t some links also to external sources, and the Computer Weekly article from Archive.  Looks like the Law Commission and Blair need to be pulled into the frame also.  If S69 PACE had not been repealed Horizon could have been challenged for reliability.

Corporates: a presumption of reliability | Turbulent Times

WWW.TURBULENTTIMES.CO.UK

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Any number of issues are beginning to stack up, which are crying out for analysis and which, under normal circumstances, would be the subject of a...

Politics: the man who saved the day | Turbulent Times

WWW.TURBULENTTIMES.CO.UK

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The Sunday Times yesterday led its front page with a piece about Paula Vennells, declaring: “May government pushed through CBE despite Horizon...

The conclusion of the second post

"Then, you might ask, who was the Post Office chair who accompanied Vennells in their bid to “protect the brand” – the task for which she had probably been appointed. It was none other than former senior civil servant Alice Perkins who served between 2011 and 2015, when 120 sub-postmasters were prosecuted.

It was, of course, a complete coincidence that Alice Perkins was the wife of Jack Straw, the man who had so successfully saved the day back in 1999."

[tobyjugg2]

Good link for some info/ on the stuff available (but requiring registration) on Computerweekly and interesting comments about the changes of laws that I dont entirely agree with - but well worth reviewing

As stated, I've been in related situations which required examining both systems and end user actions in audits, as well as involved in systems development, testing and user acceptance - from both sides

The changes in law referred made it easier for incompetents/negligence/liars (like (apparently) certain folk in the horizon scandal) to cause improper allegations, charges and even prosecutions to occur which they should have caught and stopped - and in so doing also improved the system

but there is the issue of proper robust and competent evidence they refer - black box system 'guilty' unless proven innocent with what is an empty claim should NEVER be the default in our courts.

I'd ask - why did the defense not require better forensically audited evidence - or did they?

 

A lot of this also harks back to apparently known (or should have been known) false claims that the system was fault free and itself 'robust'. £18M quid plus extra in the bank balance the PO couldnt have been legitimately able to account for should have been anther clue too in addition to all the reports.

Seems to be that at the very least the cases should have been checked back against the logged key input and entries that Fujitsu could supply on request - but it seems so far they were never asked

 

Careful with that second times article - certain folk here might accuse you/the times of fantasy

Edited January 16 by tobyjugg2

[honeybee13]

I'm not sure which second Times article you mean, TJ.

In that Twitter thread you couldn't access, @FollowTheScience says that the lawyer he was writing about asked Gareth Jenkins of Fujitsu to rewrite part of a statement because it could help the defence.

[tobyjugg2]

Should have said second link in @BN's post to the times article - apologies.

Its the content of @BNs links I was commenting on, and of course, a dig at how some might take them.

 

Its why those 2 3rd/4th level support people should be pressed on where their expert witness statement content came from and how they justify it. (Judges perjury referral)

Shouldn't take years ....

.... Should have been done before a conviction notwithstanding any softening of requirements (@BNs links)

 

 

Edited January 16 by tobyjugg2

[tobyjugg2]

oops wrong thread duhhh

 

Edited January 16 by tobyjugg2

[tobyjugg2]

Just a thought

Vennells got her 2019 gong for services to post office - err what!!  ... and services to charity

One would think that even with the Horizon scandel, a gong for services to charity would fire up details of exceptional services to charity .. I'm struggling

... anyone know what these outstanding services to charity are that warranted a gong despite the known issues at the time with the PO?

Might be they are just swamped by the scandal coverage

- anyone?

The Archbishop of Canterbury supports  her doesn't he?

Edited January 16 by tobyjugg2

[brassnecked]

Can't think of anything the venal Vennells did to deserve a gong TJ.

[honeybee13]

Paula Vennells CBE for charity work - a Freedom of Information request to Cabinet Office - WhatDoTheyKnow

WWW.WHATDOTHEYKNOW.COM

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Part of Paula Vennells CBE was awarded for Charity work Could you please provide a full list of the charity work carried out and what charities she was...

 

[tobyjugg2]

LOL +1

I was looking for reports of her raising 100's £k for charity - All i find is apparently well paid positions on trusts/boards - aka cash cows

Gave up looking but wondered if i'd missed some epic charity work she had done. Surely I must have.

Must be some justification mustn't there? Surely the gong committee wouldn't pass it otherwise?

 

Like ennoblement - Lord conmoron - despite doing nowt but lobbying since he ducked and ran as it was politically expedient to enable his position in guvernment (sic)

 

Enough to make one think the allegations of Guv corruption are true - Let alone the lawyer who alleged collusion between UK guv - Japan guv in other deals dependent on Fujitsu deals (must find that link)

I have no doubts whatsoever remaining that this guv is utterly corrupt - way beyond levels that have historically given 'politcking' a bad name

Edited January 16 by tobyjugg2

[tobyjugg2]

She was in line to be bishop of london wasn't she? - - the third most senior in the Church of England - but not appointed from a final shortlist of three .. despite alleged promotion by Welby

- They clearly do their checks better than the gong comittee