The sub-postmasters scandal

[tobyjugg2]

says it all:

“Almost any evidence coming from the Post Office would have to start with the assumption that it’s now seriously flawed”

- Richard Moorhead, Horizon compensation advisory board

[honeybee13]

Another conviction was overturned. Kathleen Crane was in the high court in the Strand today. 

One of the main firms of solicitors involved, Hudgell, has said since the ITV series it's had 450 requests for legal help, of which over 50 want to appeal against a court sentence. 

[tobyjugg2]

I find it hard to imagine any SPM's haven't been impacted - most of them just paying the (not) shortfalls out of their own pockets.

Which money the PO owes them - plus interest

Edited January 25 by tobyjugg2

[Nicky Boy]

I wonder if the Horizon system ever showed a positive credit balance?

[tobyjugg2]

good point

.. probably not for long though

 

As a number of the faults appear to be repeating single entries - or repeating entries as SMPs sat at a frozen screen - seems possible.

PO can have their money back in 20 years - after the board have spent time in jail and they've paid it anyway - twice - but only if they lose their houses

Edited January 25 by tobyjugg2

[tobyjugg2]

"Labor peer Prem Nath Sikka has asked the government what it knew about the Post Office’s attempt to remove a High Court judge from his position during a High Court battle with 555 subpostmasters."

"The application was widely seen as a delaying tactic by the Post Office and an attempt to ramp up costs"

"Fraser rejected the application and the Court of Appeal rejected the Post Office’s appeal against his decision. Lord Justice Coulson, in the Court of Appeal, said: “The recusal application never had any substance and was rightly rejected by the judge.” "

as

"Paula Vennells could be stripped of her CBE as the Honours Forfeiture Committee commits to reconsider its award in the light of the Post Office Horizon scandal."

- about time

 

Urgent question asks which ministers knew of Post Office’s shocking...

WWW.COMPUTERWEEKLY.COM

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Labour peer uses urgent question to uncover who, if anyone, in government was aware of the Post Office’s attempts to remove judge as it became clear...

Attention Required! | Cloudflare

ROMANIA.POSTSEN.COM

 

Edited January 25 by tobyjugg2

[cjcregg]

16 hours ago, brassnecked said:

They are still trying to stop any police investigation into Vennells and others it may seem. 

As some kind of moderator shouldn't you be discouraging conspiracy theories rather than inventing them?

 

[BankFodder]

2 hours ago, cjcregg said:

As some kind of moderator shouldn't you be discouraging conspiracy theories rather than inventing them?

 

That is scarcely an argument to rebut what is being said but I have noticed that you often like to introduce a note of tension into these discussions.

 

[cjcregg]

There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that ministers are ''trying to stop any police investigation into Vennells and others''. Where is the argument to support saying it?

I think those who run forms of social media (which this is) have a responsibility to separate fact from fiction.

[tobyjugg2]

@cjcreggWasn't the horizon scandal itself and accusations of a conspiracy by the PO -  a conspiracy theory?

Unthinkable that a british institution would hide evidence, let alone prosecute innocent people - that they had very good reason/evidence toi believe were innocent?

VIPlane scandal?

Crony Mone scandal?

Money for access scandals?

MP expenses scandals?

or is it just a little mild tourettes flareup you've got there?

Edited January 26 by tobyjugg2

[tobyjugg2]

On 19/01/2024 at 04:56, cjcregg said:

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

 

On 19/01/2024 at 05:14, cjcregg said:

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

 

oops

 

Another point @cjcregg

Has this entire scandal been highlighted by investigative journalists alleged of spouting conspiracy theories again and again.

.. and far into an ever growing list of evidence of conspiracy, deceit and corruption do you go before it becomes the default perception of the entire scandal? ... and it seems to unquestionably be a corrupt scandal

 

“Almost any evidence coming from the Post Office would have to start with the assumption that it’s now seriously flawed”

- Richard Moorhead, Horizon compensation advisory board

Edited January 26 by tobyjugg2

[cjcregg]

Oops indeed.

You edited out the rest of the 2nd quote that specifically referenced the evidence given in the inquiry.  

 

[cjcregg]

The inquiry has published an email exchange between some PO execs and Angela Van Den Bogerd from 2010.

POL00091384 - Email chain between John Bredeen, Angela Van-Den-Bogerd, Sue Higgins and others RE: Follow up to BIS meeting on JFSA

WWW.POSTOFFICEHORIZONINQUIRY.ORG.UK

Here's a snippet.

Quote

I found out this week that Fujitsu can actually put an entry into a branch account remotely. It came up when we were exploring solutions around a problem generated by the system following migration to HNGX. This issue was quickly identified and a fix put in place but it impacted around 60 branches and meant a loss/gain incurred in a particular week in effect disappeared form the system. One solution, quickly discounted because of the implications around integrity, was for Fujitsu to remotely enter a value into a branch account to reintroduce the missing loss/gain. So POL can't do this but Fujitsu can.

 

[tobyjugg2]

2 hours ago, cjcregg said:

Oops indeed.

You edited out the rest of the 2nd quote that specifically referenced the evidence given in the inquiry.  

 

You mean like the one liners you throw out accusing others?

- which actually was the point

 

Regarding your above post. There has been reams of actual reports that Fujitsu could manually alter/add/delete/whatever entries in SPMs accounts for years .. what isnt clear is

Whether these were logged

Whether the edits actually did as intended, let alone left a 'proper trail

Who authorised them

Why and under whos instructions these facts along with the errors the system generated were withheld in criminal cases, let alone apparently ignored when SPMs raised issues

 

Addendum

It appears there possibly is a 'location part to many of the issues:

Those locations with poor data line/internet connection - needs confirming (and that the system didn't trap connection failures properly) although certainly seems that way.

 

Hope this is visible to all

Have the landline problems at the heart of the Horizon Scandal been addressed?

WWW.COMPUTERWEEKLY.COM

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Rural sub post offices are still apparently required to use elderly (perhaps aluminium) lines from BT even when full fibre is available from alternative...

 

 

Edited January 26 by tobyjugg2

[tobyjugg2]

"Project Sparrow"

The secret plan to sack Second Sight is revealed in the minutes of two Project Sparrow meetings in April 2014.

Available to the government and investigation committee (in redacted form!!) since 2021

"Yet the Project Sparrow minutes from April 2014 show Paula Vennells, Alice Perkins and the other members discussed closing or speeding up the mediation scheme and planning to pay minimal compensation to sub-postmasters."

"Second Sight submitted a report on 8 July 2013 identifying computer bugs that raised doubts over the reliability of Horizon data used to prosecute sub-postmasters."

 

"The Project Sparrow sub-committee was led by Post Office chair Alice Perkins and included chief executive Paula Vennells, alongside the Post Office's most senior internal lawyer, general counsel Chris Aujard, and Richard Callard, a senior civil servant at UK Government Investments, then a division of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy."

 

 

Post Office accused of secret documents cover-up - BBC News

WWW.BBC.CO.UK

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BBC obtains unredacted minutes showing government knew of plan to sack experts who found Horizon IT bugs.

 

"It's a distinctly corrupt, murky story that goes right the way into government and it's deeply worrying,"

- Lord Arbuthnot

[tobyjugg2]

add Tom Wechsler to the list

https://www.crunchbase.com/person/tom-wechsler

 

(Sparrow) allegedly involved parties, including "representatives from the government's UK Government Investments division"

Edited January 26 by tobyjugg2

[honeybee13]

The Beeb has got hold of some secret POL documents talking about sacking Second Sight and about compensation.

The documents reveal the Post Office planned to pay a total of only £1m in "token payments", or compensation, to sub-postmasters as it suppressed evidence of computer bugs in 2014.

Post Office accused of cover-up over secret Horizon documents

WWW.BBC.COM

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BBC obtains unredacted minutes showing government knew of plan to sack experts who found Horizon IT bugs.

 

[tobyjugg2]

20 hours ago, tobyjugg2 said:

"Project Sparrow"

The secret plan to sack Second Sight is revealed in the minutes of two Project Sparrow meetings in April 2014.

Available to the government and investigation committee (in redacted form!!) since 2021

"Yet the Project Sparrow minutes from April 2014 show Paula Vennells, Alice Perkins and the other members discussed closing or speeding up the mediation scheme and planning to pay minimal compensation to sub-postmasters."

"Second Sight submitted a report on 8 July 2013 identifying computer bugs that raised doubts over the reliability of Horizon data used to prosecute sub-postmasters."

 

As no one else has extrapolated ..

As the senior PO staff at the meeting has been detailed and largely isnt redacted .. who would the other (5?) attendees be that have been redacted.

We have most of the PO attendees it seems, We have the PO's legal council

 

So who would the other 5 be?  - they certainly aren't representatives of the SPM victims ...

Seems to me the only answer that make sense are government representatives and/or Fujitsu staff.

 

Had a crack at AI enhanced scanning of those unredacted pages. Unsurprisingly no luck so far although for any others, font would appear to be arial for detection purposes

 

 

[tobyjugg2]

It has been reported that Richard Callard (whos linkedin profile seems to have vanished from public view) was part of the project (BBC reported) .. so he may well be one of the redacted attendees

 

lol

Richard Callard - UK Government Investments (UKGI)

WWW.UKGI.ORG.UK

Team Members Archive - Page 4 of 7 - UK Government Investments (UKGI)

WWW.UKGI.ORG.UK

 

https://www.crunchbase.com/person/richard-callard

The City grandees who let the Post Office fight to the bitter end

WWW.FT.COM

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The matter was allowed to drag on long after the Horizon accounting software was found to be fatally flawed

 

[honeybee13]

HMG has sacked the chair of POL.

Post Office chair dismissed as business reels from Horizon IT scandal | Post Office | The Guardian

WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM

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Government announces Henry Staunton will be replaced and an interim appointed shortly

 

[tobyjugg2]

and here

Post Office chairman Henry Staunton ousted amid row with government

WWW.CHANNEL103.COM

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The chairman of the Post Office is being forced out of the role amid frustration in Whitehall over the state-owned company’s governance as it...

 

most saying roughly the same thing.

Edited January 27 by tobyjugg2

[tobyjugg2]

On 16/01/2024 at 11:31, honeybee13 said:

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...

 

Either no answers or the FOI requestor not updating

 

Unless her 'charity work' is in receiving around £60,000 quid from charities ...

Paula Vennells' charity work

WWW.STANDARD.CO.UK

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There’s been acres of media coverage of the disgraced Paula Vennells in recent weeks – largely in relation to her activity on the board of the Post...

 

Edited January 27 by tobyjugg2

[tobyjugg2]

found myself running around in circles somewhat here - theres so much smoke, so I started pasting and editing bits about who dun what when - for what its worth

 

There are clearly answers needed from before/during the PO split with RM but .... In addition to EVERY minister and senior civil servant with a PO remit since at least 2008:

Sir Donald Brydon Post Office chair 2009-2011; Royal Mail chair until 2015

Sir Donald Brydon The former Barclays banker replaced Allan Leighton as chair just as the Horizon scandal was becoming public. (I've left Leighton out so far)

Paula Vennells Post Office chief executive 2012-2019

When the organisation routinely denied there were any problems with Horizon and pursued prosecutions against hundreds of sub post office operators.

During this time she collected more than £4.5m in pay, £2.2m of which was performance-related bonuses.

She told MPs in 2020 that Fujitsu had assured the Post Office board that Horizon was “not perfect” but was “fundamentally sound”.

In 2019 Vennells joined the UK Cabinet Office board and received a CBE for PO + services to charity

Alice Perkins Post Office chair 2011-2015

Alice Perkins led the board as concerns mounted about the Horizon system and the prosecutions carried out by the Post Office. She is a former senior civil servant and is the wife of former foreign secretary Jack Straw.

 

Alan Cook Post Office managing director 2006-2010

Alan Cook denied problems with Horizon during his tenure. He was criticised in 2021 by Kevin Hollinrake, now postal affairs minister, for his oversight of the business throughout the scandal.

 

Rob Wilson Head of Criminal Law at the Post Office

On receiving an internal email complained about not being invited onto a conference call (3rd March 2010) about problems with Horizon. A memo of the meeting concluded a thorough investigation of the Horizon system should be commissioned 'not only needed but is imperative'. Wilson allegedly had and continued to have a problem with this.

 

John Scott, head of PO security

 

Simon Clarke/Cartwright King

The Clarke advice was written for the Post Office in 2013 by a barrister called Simon Clarke. It contains information that a senior Fujitsu engineer failed to disclose Horizon IT errors during the prosecutions of a number of Subpostmasters. The document has yet to be made public. In 2015, the chief executive of the Post Office told Parliament that no evidence of any miscarriages of justice had been found.

The allegation of contempt for disclosing the Clarke advice was first raised by the Post Office in court on 18 November, against Flora Page. They said the document should only have been seen by the judges, appellants and their legal representatives.

On 19 Nov, the Met alerted the court to Mr Marshall's actions in sending the Clarke advice to them (for criminal investigation?)

As a result of what was said about the Clarke advice in court on 18 November, Lord Arbuthnot told the government it was clear the Post Office had "lied" to parliament in 2015, and the former Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, told me it was likely a "smoking gun".

 

 

Rod Ismay former Ernst & Young auditor joined the Post Office in 2003

Author of the first report into the Horizon IT system.

Ismay was tasked with writing the report in 2010 in response to questions being raised about the Horizon IT system by some MPs, the JFSA and the first media investigation into flaws in the system, published by Computer Weekly in 2009. The report, which became public only in 2021, determined that Horizon was “robust”.

Ismay told the public inquiry that he had not been engaged in a “whitewash” process, saying that he had been asked by bosses to only find assurances that the accounting system was working correctly. His report concluded that the Post Office could remain satisfied that “money was missing due to theft in the branch”.

 

Investigator Robert Daily and similar

 had written that ‘checks have revealed no problems’ with Horizon, but he admitted there was no paperwork to show how such  checks had been made. He said in his witness statement that he was the disclosure officer in Holmes’ case but he could not recall if data requested by Holmes’ defence team had been disclosed. 

 

Gareth Jenkins

The former chief architect at Fujitsu, which supplied the centralised computer system to the Post Office to replace paper-based accounting, gave evidence defending the Horizon computer system in a number of prosecutions.

 

Jo Swinson was postal minister from 2012 to 2015, replacing Norman Lamb, who lasted a little more than six months in the role.

This was a period when an external review of the Horizon IT system was carried out by the forensic accountants Second Sight, brought in by the Post Office as pressure mounted from a small group of MPs and the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance (JFSA) set up by victims to campaign for their innocence.

Second Sight’s interim report found evidence of flaws and bugs in Horizon. On two occasions, “defects” in the system had resulted in a shortfall of about £9,000 at 76 branches.

However, the Post Office maintained that there was “absolutely no evidence of any systemic issues with the computer system”. Swinson backed up this position in a statement to the House of Commons.

Susannah Storey Post Office board 2012-2014

Susannah Storey worked as the government’s non-executive representative on the Post Office board. She has held a series of senior civil service roles and is now permanent secretary at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

 

Richard Callard Post Office board 2014-2018

Richard Callard replaced Susannah Storey as the government’s representative on the board in 2014 and remained until 2018 as the scandal continued to unfold. He worked for the Shareholder Executive in the government business department and is an executive director of its successor body UK Government Investments.

 

Tim Parker Post Office chair 2015-2022

Tim Parker led the board as it continued to aggressively fight legal claims by sub-postmasters alleging wrongdoing. Parker, labelled the “Prince of Darkness” by trade unions after job cuts during his corporate and private equity career, was an adviser to Boris Johnson when he was mayor of London. He was chair of HM Courts and Tribunals Service from 2018-2022.

 

Carla Stent Post Office board 2016-23

Carla Stent was a non-executive director for seven years and served as chair of the board’s audit, risk and compliance committee. After executive roles at Thomas Cook, Barclays and Virgin Group she sat on several company boards, including chairing commodities broker Marex Spectron and Savernake Capital. She is on the board of Evelyn Partners, accountants to prime minister Rishi Sunak.

 

Adam Crozier Royal Mail chief executive 2003-2010

Adam Crozier chairs BT and previously led the Football Association and ITV. During his time leading Royal Mail, the Post Office was a subsidiary. Crozier was in charge when Computer Weekly first reported on the Horizon scandal in 2009. He said this week he had no involvement in the Horizon issue

 

Nick Read Post Office chief executive 2019-present

Nick Read took office in 2019, taking over day-to-day running of the Post Office as legal pressure over the Horizon scandal mounted. He has apologised for what happened to sub-postmasters and called it “unacceptable”. In 2023 Read, former boss of retailer Nisa, handed back part of his bonus that was linked to the inquiry over the miscarriage of justice.

Tom Cooper Post Office board 2018-2023

Tom Cooper former Deutsche Bank global M&A chair, was a non-executive board member representing the government. He apologised to MPs last year for his part in an error relating to bonus payments to executives for assisting the inquiry into the Horizon scandal.

 

Tom Weschler PO chief of staff 2014

 

Boris Johnson

instigated an apparent 'kick in to the long grass'  investigation which wallowed and dribbled with further abuses until the TV story.

 

Sunak - probably not at all interested until it hit the headlines - then not much

 

 

???

Zarin Patel Post Office board 2019-2023

Zarin Patel joined the board as the Post Office settled a legal claim by 555 former sub-postmasters following which there was renewed focus on the safety of the criminal convictions. She is a chartered accountant and senior independent director of retailer Pets at Home. She sits on the boards of Anglian Water Services, recruiter Hays, and the National Trust and is a member of HM Treasury’s audit and risk committee. She was previously CFO of the BBC.

Allan Leighton Royal Mail chair 2002-2009

Allan Leighton led the Royal Mail board before it split from the Post Office and while sub-postmasters were prosecuted and pressured to make payments to cover “shortfalls” that had shown up in Horizon. He departed two months before the first media report on the Horizon scandal.

Simon Blagden

a Tory donor who chairs the government’s Building Digital UK agency, was described by Fujitsu UK in 2015 as a member of its leadership team who sat on its UK and Ireland responsible business board, as well as being chair of one of its subsidiaries, Fujitsu Telecommunications, from 2004 to 2019.

Tim Franklin Post Office board 2012-2019 (??)

Tim Franklin was on the board for seven years as former sub-postmasters launched a lawsuit against the Post Office. Currently on the board of The Very Group, he has also been a non-executive at HM Land Registry. He chaired PCF Group but left in 2022 less than a year before it announced plans to cancel its Aim market listing after failing to raise capital.

 

 

Ken McCall Post Office board 2016-22 (??)

Ken McCall McCall was senior independent director on the Post Office board. He previously headed DHL Express in the UK and was deputy CEO at Paris-listed Europcar Mobility Group. He spent six years on the board of retailer Superdry.

 

 

2012–2015: Second Sight reports

The litigation between sub-postmasters and the Post Office that led to the 2019 settlement was far from the first chance for board members and the government to abandon the Post Office’s aggressive defence of the Horizon IT system. Between 2012 and 2015 forensic accountants Second Sight, appointed by the Post Office after pressure from MPs and sub-postmasters, investigated concerns over glitches in the Horizon system that may have been producing “shortfalls” in sub-postmasters’ accounts.

Its final report raised concerns that “in some circumstances Horizon can be systemically flawed from a user’s perspective”. Second Sight also said it had been unable to complete its investigation, pointing to legal challenges by the Post Office and its refusal to provide some documents.

 

 

 

 

Cant finish without (and what led to that) .. and nothing like the blame ministers and PMs since at least 2015 should shoulder

 

Tony Blair  (Actually seems more detail in this than with any other ministerial or PM interaction)

Blair: I would favour Option 1 (pressing ahead with Horizon) but for Geoff’s statement that the system itself is flawed. “Surely there must be a clear view on this. Speak to me on that: ie reading the enclosed paper, it all focuses on the financial deal.

 "Alistair Darling was against the deal, but the department for trade and industry (and Mandelson) was more supportive."

Lord Mandelson told then chief secretary to the Treasury Stephen Byers he believed proceeding with Horizon was the “only sensible choice” available.

Harriet Harman, then secretary of state for work and pensions, had written as far back as 1998 to Blair to warn him there was a risk that the project would fail to achieve its objectives, while the then prime minister also received a Treasury briefing the following year outlining a series of failures.

Ian McCartney, who was handed ministerial responsibility for the Post Office in the first weekend of Blair’s premiership, told the inquiry in September last year that he had discussed a major problem regarding the project with the then minister of welfare reform, Frank Field, who said he was “appalled” by a lack of documentation.

But McCartney told the inquiry: “To have abandoned the Horizon project would have been calamitous. There would have been no contract, so we would have had to start from the beginning again.”

 

 

 

also rans

 

Ed Davey postal affairs minister between 2010 and 2012. Davey accusing senior Post Office managers of unleashing a “conspiracy of lies” against successive ministers. Seems to me Swinson is more first port of call here.

 

Starmer - cant find anything to answer for in the sub dozen cases of his time. No indication whatsoever he would be aware of the cases, let alone any dishonesty in PO prosecution evidence/disclosure.

 

"the threshold for a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, which, they say, is committed “when two or more people agree to embark on a course of conduct which has a tendency to, and is intended to, pervert the course of public justice.“

Henry et al note that “a person may be attributed with knowledge if the evidence suggests that they “deliberately shut their eyes to the obvious, or refrained from inquiry because they suspected the truth but did not wish to have their suspicion confirmed“.”

 

 

Notes

'Corrections/changes to SPMs data were made, often apparently secretly, that do not show up in audit data. and the facts of these along with known issues with the systems NOT disclosed (if fact refuted) in court cases and to the media.

Fujitsu engineer seems to have lied in court and to parliament.

[tobyjugg2]

On 13/10/2022 at 06:54, unclebulgaria67 said:

Think we would need to see the actual government papers. Senior officials means Civil Servants and not ministers.  When it says Tony Blair was briefed in 1998 about issues with the system, I suspect this was one item within his red box full of other items.

More information is needed before any conclusion of any political cover up by the Blair Government.

I know a local couple who were wrongly accused, had their post office closed down for over 6 months, while they were under investigation regarding their accounts.  Once there was a full audit of accounts they were cleared to re-open, but they were financially impacted, so eventually had to give up their current office. 

 

The cost of compensation will run into billions and take a long time.  Agree that the Post Office management who knew the truth but allowed prosecutions to happen on false basis, should face criminal investigation and hopefully Court trials. 

 

 

 

@unclebulgaria67

Its rare to hear about audits actually being carried out, let alone which cleared SPM's

When approx was this?

Did they not get compensation when they were cleared?

[tobyjugg2]

avdb, swinson and davies

 

Post Office Trial: Project Sparrow - first board minutes released

WWW.POSTOFFICETRIAL.COM

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Reporting the High Court class action against the UK Post Office