Post Office Horizon Computer Scandal.

[Parts-King]

3 minutes ago, AndyN01 said:

A bit of  a general thought.

I'm a fan of a philosophy: Where's there's choice then there are consequences that go with it.

So, for me, I'd happily "go after" every manager etc. that said things like - you're the only one...the system is fine... etc. etc. right the way to the very top. And the consequence would be that their pension/home etc. is used to pay the compensation.

They chose to lie and the consequence of that lie is......

Oh, and it particularly applies to anyone who is an elected representative since "they" are at the very top of the tree having been put their by (and for) the people.

Maybe I'm getting too radical in my old age?

Andy.

 

All fine and good but these good people are on the bones of their a**e and not got a pot to p**s in, suing people is a very expensive game. The scandal is that it is still going on 25 years later whilst people are dying off in their old age, there won't be many people to pay out to if it goes on much longer 

[AndyN01]

Thanks for the reply.

Sorry, I should have made it clearer. The "victims" don't have to sue anyone. It's done automatically from the investigation which in itself uncovers who said what to whom and therefore who was telling lies so has the consequence of those choices.

Absolutely agree that what's happened/is happening is a scandal.

Andy.

[yossarian247]

11 hours ago, Bernard Foy said:

Cycker, in the first paragraph of the above post you have hit the nail on the head. All those national organizations who were privatized were answerable to the public and their elected representatives, now they’re only answerable to their shareholders. Therein is the real reason for a vast majority of those institutions troubles, it’s purely a profit led ethos, and the service element to the public has been thrown to the wolves of profiteering.

The irony in this case though, is that the Post Office is one of the few remaining which hasn't been privatised! It's still 100% owned by the taxpayer and controlled by the government. I suspect a private company would probably have realised that Horizon was a dead duck long ago. 

[Mjolinor]

The problem is separating the people that were untruthful from the ones who were following orders or just believing what they were told.

You cannot expect one person to have their finger on the pulse of all relevant facts in a case this big.

Thankfully it aint my job because I am damned sure they have not given all the relevant facts to the public.

If it were that black and white then all of the prosecutions could have been voided with one swoop rather than being done piecemeal.

 

 

[AndyN01]

2 hours ago, Mjolinor said:

The problem is separating the people that were untruthful from the ones who were following orders or just believing what they were told.

You cannot expect one person to have their finger on the pulse of all relevant facts in a case this big.

Thankfully it aint my job because I am damned sure they have not given all the relevant facts to the public.

If it were that black and white then all of the prosecutions could have been voided with one swoop rather than being done piecemeal.

 

 

That's perfectly reasonable.

But saying "you're the only one" when you know there's several is simply lying. And it's a very well used "cop out" that's still alive and well......

Andy.

[Haliotis]

Andy, it is a good job that Alan Bates dug in a faced up to his vile bosses, and got the victimised group of postmasters together.  I think many of us wouldn’t believe such treachery by a supposedly respectable organisation could happen in the UK.  But we know different NOW, don’t we?

[Big_D]

All I can say is that this is ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING. Excuse my "shouting", but the way these poor postmasters have been treated is awful. The people responsible should be brought to justice. 

[Mjolinor]

1 hour ago, Big_D said:

All I can say is that this is ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING. Excuse my "shouting", but the way these poor postmasters have been treated is awful. The people responsible should be brought to justice. 

Everyone should be shouting and hitting the guilty party in the pocket is the way to do it not some hotel for a few months. The government should be throwing resources at this to solve it in a reasonable time. At the rate they are going any payouts would be going to grandchildren.

Give the guilty parties the same experience that they gave to the postmasters.

 

[Cyker]

The fact that the system was faulty isn't the biggest issue - That's very common in the IT world (The NHS unified database project is another one that's turned into a total faecal fair  ).

What gets my back up and makes this so vile is the people in charge, despite seeing the patterns and getting multiple reports over years, and instead of investigating more deeply, chose to and continued to ignore the overwhelming clues something wasn't right, and instead doubled-down on prosecuting their loyal postmasters, practically all of whom who had been working for them for ages with a totally spotless record, ignoring their protests of innocence and forcing them to choose between jail or crippling fines. And they continued to do this for years because none of the postmasters had the resources to fight it and force the PO to look into it more thoroughly.

I think they even leveraged their governmental powers to bypass a lot of the checks and balances designed to prevent such things from happening in order to secure convictions faster.

This whole thing is beyond any reasonable negligence - It's borderline malicious intent to achieve that level of negligence, and even after the miscarriage of justice was exposed, instead of doing the right thing they doubled-down even more to try and absolve themselves of responsibility. They are literal psychopaths!

 

[Haliotis]

We often hear of countries with dictators in charge, and their citizens persecuted and jailed without justice.  We would like to think that could not happen in the UK.

BUT, when an organization such as the Post Office can pillory innocent sub-postmasters and get away with outright lies in order to hide their failed computer system - to the point where homes and savings are lost, and even going to jail - whilst the government sit back with indifference until one victim has the willpower to get his fellow sufferers together to fight back, then you have to wonder how close the UK has come to being a similar dictatorship where ordinary innocent folk can have their lives wrecked by bureaucratic officialdom.

[Yugguy1970]

Watching this now aye.  It's an object lesson in never believing computers are infallible, and yet another example of how horrific people can be.

Noone has been prosecuted for these falsehoods.  Yer woman still has an MBE.

It is quite horrendous.

[Rhymes with Paris]

Yes, I agree that the same penalties should be applied to the perpetrators, with no easy appeal process, same as the victims.

Financial ruin,loss of job , forced to scrabble for the means to live.

But of course, when a corporate body,or similar is found guilty of malfeasance, the huge fines and costs are paid ultimately by the taxpayer or future customers.

The individual responsibility should be borne by individuals responsible, with consequent loss of bank balance, property, and reputation.

Ie,no work,no money, and no benefits.

See how that fits.

 

[Derek.w]

I was suprised by the ending putting the blame on the wiring/internet and not Horizon computer system.

If it was wiring/internet problem then all BANKS will be having same problem.

Just maybe last digit was not used for error checking in the code!.

[Mjolinor]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67899189?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

 

 

[Haliotis]

This morning’s news.  Police investigate “possible fraud” in Post Office scandal.  Well, better late than never, I suppose!  It also revealed another 50 victims have come forward and spoken to lawyers after the TV documentary.

[Roker]

On 1/3/2024 at 8:05 PM, Haliotis said:

Just finished watching “Mr Bates v The Post Office” on TV.   it was difficult to watch how the Post Office management sadisticly persecuted hundreds of innocent sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses with lies to cover the failings of their computer system.  It was so bad that, if it had been a fictional drama, most of us would have said that no national company in the UK could get away with doing this.  How wrong in our belief that would turn out to be.  At the end of the series, all I felt was sympathy and sadness for the innocent victims, and a hatred towards the Post Office hierarchy.

I cannot understand how the computer system was not validated. I was involved on the installation of a computer system in Pharmaceuticals and the checks were extensive and took weeks of cross checking data before we could go live.

In this case it wasn't money but someone could take a of spec drug

[Haliotis]

2 hours ago, Roker said:

I cannot understand how the computer system was not validated. I was involved on the installation of a computer system in Pharmaceuticals and the checks were extensive and took weeks of cross checking data before we could go live.

In this case it wasn't money but someone could take a of spec drug

The problem is, the majority of us have limited or no technical knowledge of the inner workings of computers or how they are programmed.  So we trust implicitly the large organizations who operate these computers which control much of the business that affects our everyday lives.

Before the true facts of the Horizon scandal were exposed, how many of us would have believed that top executives of (in this case) the Post Office would embark on a serious and deliberate crime of deviousness to the point of forcing innocent employees into financial ruin and, in some cases, imprisonment for stealing money from the Post Office, and which they [the executives] knew to be untrue?

When I was a young man, the upper echelons of certain factions of society were, without exception, automatically considered to be absolutely trustworthy.  Do I now believe that those people of prominence, and to whom I “doffed my cap” were all as squeaky clean as I thought them to be at the time?   Looking back now, I think that in some cases my cap would have a brick in it!

[AndyN01]

2 hours ago, Haliotis said:

The problem is, the majority of us have limited or no technical knowledge of the inner workings of computers or how they are programmed.  So we trust implicitly the large organizations who operate these computers which control much of the business that affects our everyday lives.

Before the true facts of the Horizon scandal were exposed, how many of us would have believed that top executives of (in this case) the Post Office would embark on a serious and deliberate crime of deviousness to the point of forcing innocent employees into financial ruin and, in some cases, imprisonment for stealing money from the Post Office, and which they [the executives] knew to be untrue?

When I was a young man, the upper echelons of certain factions of society were, without exception, automatically considered to be absolutely trustworthy.  Do I now believe that those people of prominence, and to whom I “doffed my cap” were all as squeaky clean as I thought them to be at the time?   Looking back now, I think that in some cases my cap would have a brick in it!

With a bit of digging you may well find that those to whom you "doffed your cap" were, in fact, the biggest swindlers out there 🤔.

Andy.

[Stopeter44]

2 hours ago, Haliotis said:

The problem is, the majority of us have limited or no technical knowledge of the inner workings of computers or how they are programmed.  So we trust implicitly the large organizations who operate these computers which control much of the business that affects our everyday lives.

Most people that have worked in IT know that computer programs and systems work entirely by accident. I know that sounds facetious, and sounds impossible, but the number of times I fixed bugs that lay dormant because the exact conditions to bring them to light had either not been considered, or where not possible during the original implementation.

[Bper]

44 minutes ago, Stopeter44 said:

Most people that have worked in IT know that computer programs and systems work entirely by accident. I know that sounds facetious, and sounds impossible, but the number of times I fixed bugs that lay dormant because the exact conditions to bring them to light had either not been considered, or where not possible during the original implementation.

So £900 million pounds was spent to develop Horizon and it appears clear that the software was rushed to be completed and seems mainly due to it being 2 years behind schedule along with escalating costs and the threat that the project would be scrapped.

Both the Conservative and labour governments that had both been in power during this project had done what they normally do start something cut costs and corners then sit back and let the s*** hit the fan.

All parties in this project from government on both sides, Fujitsu and the post office management need to be held account for this horrendous miscarriage of justice. The problem is they won't, compensation will be paid out eventually but culpability will be swept under the carpet.

 

[Mjolinor]

2 minutes ago, Bper said:

So £900 million pounds was spent to develop Horizon and it appears clear that the software was rushed to be completed and seems mainly due to it being 2 years behind schedule along with escalating costs and the threat that the project would be scrapped.

Both the Conservative and labour governments that had both been in power during this project had done what they normally do start something cut costs and corners then sit back and let the s*** hit the fan.

All parties in this project from government on both sides, Fujitsu and the post office management need to be held account for this horrendous miscarriage of justice. The problem is they won't, compensation will be paid out eventually but culpability will be swept under the carpet.

 

No doubt a low level PO paper pusher or two will go to gaol for it

[bigblock]

If the Post Office had got a look at the TV series before it was aired I wonder if they would have tried to block it and take ITV to court. I wouldn't put it passed them. The TV series has certainly stirred up the can of worms even more now. I do hope the Postmasters get all there money back and more. I that the heads of the Post Office get sent to prison. Disgusting state of affairs.

[Mojo1010]

Have read about it in bits and pieces over the years. Binged watched it all yesterday evening, my word, it's criminal. A screen drama brings out the story of what actually happened can explained it better than reading the odd articles. Over 20 years this has been going on, compressed into 4 hours on screen. It's unimaginable what those SPMs and their families went through during this time. Many had passed away, so sad. 

Accountability of all those involved with cover ups, not just Paula Vennells. Stripping the CBE from her is just a small thing, holding her accountable is the bigger picture. The itv drama failed to mention Adam Crozier who was the CEO of Royalmail for a few years during that period why? Oh because he was the former ITV CEO? I bet he is feeling uncomfortable that his name will eventually really go into the domain. 

[Haliotis]

Well, if Adam Crozier does deserve to be pilloried along with Paula Vennells and her like, then if ITV take, or have taken, steps to protect him, that puts them on the same hypocrisy level as the BBC.

From high ranking members of the government, through all sections of prominent members of society, there seems to be a constant occurrence of links between the lot of them.  In many cases they must be aware of shady goings on - how many times have we seen instances where a scandal has broken out, and well known prominent figures suddenly try to distance themselves from prior “good buddies”? 

[Mojo1010]

Just read this article regarding a pilot Horizon scheme in 1995 and there were prosecutions for the same thing. These people need to go to jail and be made bankrupt for what they did. Read article here