mr bates vs the post office

Other companies can as can you and I (although the upfront costs would likely be prohibitive for us). It was actually suggested, semi ironically, that the SPO go after the royal mail and fujitsu employees using private prosecutions. Hopefully the headlines from this means it wont be needed though.

I’m not convinced that there’s any detriment to only having one prosectuing authority?  I’ve not heard anyone suggest that it is a problem in Scotland (where there is theoretically a mechanism for private prosecution, but only in such specific circumstances as to essentially mean there is not).

I don’t think the PO is unique in English statutory bodies with prosecuting power – e.g. MCA, CAA, HSE all employ their own prosecutors and only include the CPS if the crimes become “mainstream” (e.g. manslaughter), and I think DWP, DVLA, HMRC all prosecute in their own right too?

The PO were unusual in that they actively did so in the past due to their weird historical structure (the forerunner of their investigation department predates the police and they never gave it up).

But they also continued to get those powers, its not a legacy that was mistakenly forgotten about – someone was consciously treating them as though they should have powers no private body would have.  e.g. the Post Office Investigation Branch got powers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act in 2000 – which would let them do stuff ordinary private enterprises would not be permitted to.

I’m not convinced that there’s any detriment to only having one prosectuing authority?

Yes. My point is:
The Post Office wasnt using any special powers beyond other private companies in the majority and probably all of these cases.
It was using private prosecutions which are available to all.
Although the PO has had its wings clipped and is unlikely to be trying to use them anytime soon the use of private prosecutions is increasing elsewhere.
So for me looking at the use of private prosecutions (at the minimum having a central register where we can see how many are being run and by whom) seems a rather sensible next step to avoid some other company misusing them.

I think the RSPCA can also raise prosecutions without going through CPS

I’m still waiting to hear Venelles apology for the absolute state of her hair do.

I think the RSPCA can also raise prosecutions without going through CPS

Maybe they should use these powers to prosecute those responsible for the dog that is Horizon…?

Badoom tish etc.

Large IT systems can be almost impossible to manage at times and show me a complex one that has no bugs and I’ll show you a liar… It’s what you do with that knowledge that is the core of the issue here.

Toby Jones has just been signed up to play Michelle Mone in a drama about PPE. That’ll be a challenge for the make up department.

I believe that the difference is that the Post Office has it’s own investigatory powers above and beyond those available to other private organisations, such as being able to interview under caution and request and serve warrants.

One of the issues seems to have been that some investigators were rather too ready to use Police Stations for interviews so that interviewees would be intimidated.

Large IT systems can be almost impossible to manage at times and show me a complex one that has no bugs and I’ll show you a liar… It’s what you do with that knowledge that is the core of the issue here.

I agree to a point, but no financial system even one subject to any regulations should be capable of what was documented.
If one of our systems was found to have issues on that levels it would be shut down. We have canned vendors for less than that in our systems. This is clinical trial software.
What was done here is inexcusable from a software level and a corporate governance level too, even ignoring the perjury

Agreed. Hence:’It’s what you do with that knowledge that is the core of the issue here‘.

I didn’t just mean harassing people to repay ‘losses’ but also the decisions to take compromised software into production.

I’ve done it (as I would imagine most of the Corporate IT wallahs on here). You have the test output, you know the issues outstanding but still go live planning to manage the issues as you fix them.

In this case, they seem to have jumped to ‘blame everyone else’ as well as doing that.

Toby Jones has just been signed up to play Michelle Mone in a drama about PPE. That’ll be a challenge for the make up department.

It’ll be more of a challenge to make her look like a victim

The Post Office wasnt using any special powers beyond other private companies in the majority and probably all of these cases.

One of the defining elements of this was that the PO was suspending the SPMs and thus denying them access to documents/policies/evidence that could be required to mount a defence. This is a part of the reason why one of the Judges involved in some appeals refered a casefile to the CPS with concerns of fraud, perjury, etc.

Less about the prosecutory powers, but more about the deliberate hamstringing of the accused at the time. Utter bastards which ever way you slice it.

Anyone who followed this story knows it stank, it’s taken a TV show and an upcoming election to really kick this off at pace.

Utterly depressing but the right result.

Has anybody described what exactly the Fujitsu people were actually changing in the live data ? Surely it would be blindingly obvious to them that the sub-postmasters systems wouldn’t balance if they fiddled with payments/cash/stock and that they would notice straight away. What exactly were they trying to achieve and why ? And who told them to do that ?

And…

What obnoxious, vile creatures Paula Venelles and Angela Van Den Bogerd are/were. Jeez …… They should be in jail.

The problem now is that the attention is focused on Vennells, which is fine, but the issue at the Post Office was caused by a huge systemic and moral failure pretty much throughout the organisation, and Fujitsu.

If Vennells is offered up as a sacrifice, but the rest are allowed to carry on coining it in, that’s a failure.

The problem now is that the attention is focused on Vennells, which is fine, but the issue at the Post Office was caused by a huge systemic and moral failure pretty much throughout the organisation, and Fujitsu.

If Vennells is offered up as a sacrifice, but the rest are allowed to carry on coining it in, that’s a failure.

I was thinking the same, the CBE is simply a totem, a token, I’d like to see every member of that executive management team, including whomever was the government representative to answer questions at the inquiry.

The CEO doesn’t operate in a vacuum.

CBE

answer questions at the inquiry

I fail to see how you can preside over (Vennells) or be significantly involved in (other execs and senior people) this process, resulting in the knowing wrongful prosecution, imprisonment, financial and psychological ruin of thousands of people, and there not be a criminal charge for your actions.

Not being able to write some letters after your name and having a stern talking to doesn’t really seem an appropriate punishment.

Oh I agree, but a statutory enquiry can also unearth potential criminal wrongdoing. Either way, they all need to answer some questions to their conduct, who knew and did what and why.

Add it to the charge sheet….

Jesus **** wept, that cretin. A bitter irony that deplorable liar would have a connection to this shitstorm.

I don’t do Twitter, so can someone summarize?

Tony Blair.

I don’t really see how Blair announcing it makes him culpable? It doesn’t sound like it was a bad idea per se.

Just that it was poorly executed and then the resulting flaws were mishandled in a deeply incompetent and possibly criminal way.

What responsibility does Blair carry for that?

If Vennells is offered up as a sacrifice, but the rest are allowed to carry on coining it in, that’s a failure.

The inquiry team seem to be making a good attempt at identifying problems although they are dealing with that specialist form of amnesia which often crops up in these sort of circumstances and the PO/Fujitsu habit of losing documents until its demonstrated they exist.
It starts again this week with some of the Fujitsu bods. Given some of the questioning to date I doubt they enjoyed Christmas.

I don’t really see how Blair announcing it makes him culpable? It doesn’t sound like it was a bad idea per se.

He pushed it through for the Post Office despite being warned it was a crock of shit and half of its proposed functionality already having been scrapped. Apparently to avoid harming supplier relationships. So just business as usual for government procurement, really.

But he’s not responsible for the heartless and criminal way Horizon was used to justify the destruction of so many lives, which is the main issue here.

He pushed it through for the Post Office despite being warned it was a crock of shit and half of its proposed functionality already having been scrapped.

Can you imagine the damage caused if it had been used, as originally planned, for benefit payments?

grimepFree Member
Add it to the charge sheet….

Right wing extremist Nigel Farage/daily mail loving twitter channel.

Ive no issues with TB announcing post office plans to go digital – he was the PM at the time and PO was a public body. I’d be surprised if he didn’t announce it.

However 90,000 postoffices in the roll out in 1999!!! We are at 11500 now. I think I’ve already said this, bug I wonder how many profitable and needed offices shut directly due to issues with horizon?

Has anybody described what exactly the Fujitsu people were actually changing in the live data ?

I got the impression that Fujitsu aren’t/weren’t accused of changing the live data, rather that this undermined the legal argument for sub-post masters being made entirely responsible for their own balance sheets.

Presumably this was an important argument in the absence of evidence of a specific glitch or otherwise that had caused the discrepancies?

I got the impression that Fujitsu aren’t/weren’t accused of changing the live data, rather that this undermined the legal argument for sub-post masters being made entirely responsible for their own balance sheets.

Presumably this was an important argument in the absence of evidence of a specific glitch or otherwise that had caused the discrepancies?

I dunno, danger of taking the ITV show as “evidence”, but assuming they weren’t making bits up the impression I got was that the system had glitches, so the IT guys would log in, fix the symptom of the bug, and presumably (because I operate under the assumption that most people believe they are doing the right thing) in most cases it went unnoticed. Then every so often someone puts the wrong number in the wrong box and it makes things worse, but the IT guy doesn’t get feedback on that, it only shows up to the subpostmaster when they do their cashing up. Hence the examples of the difference doubling before their eyes, or transactions appearing twice on different terminals.

The guy who was responsible for Horizon at Fujitsu (now retired) is wanting immunity from prosecution as a condition of giving evidence to the enquiry. 

I got the impression that Fujitsu aren’t/weren’t accused of changing the live data, rather that this undermined the legal argument for sub-post masters being made entirely responsible for their own balance sheets.

Fujitsu cirtainly did have access too and could change live data with no ones knowledge to any post office across the country – they could change live data logged in under a postmasters (or anyone else’s) login details without the PM ‘s knowledge whilst the postoffice was open. They could also login over night, mess with figures and log out again. Fujitsu witnesses have stated this.

PM’s at the time were told that only they had access to their own offices systems.

Could Paula Vennels also hand back the £2m+ bonus she got when she left the PO too please

I got the impression that Fujitsu aren’t/weren’t accused of changing the live data

In several cases they were accused of it.
I would assume generally they accessed it to try and fix data but even then hitting the wrong button or the classic “what do you mean I am not in dev?” makes it rather problematic.
Especially since there is no log of it.

I dunno, danger of taking the ITV show as “evidence

The Panorama episode is quite good, corroborates some of the finer tension points of this whole mess. You also hear from the two Second Site investigators who were combined as ‘Bob’ in the drama.

The guy who was responsible for Horizon at Fujitsu (now retired) is wanting immunity from prosecution as a condition of giving evidence to the enquiry.

Sounds about right, hopefully they decide to pass on that and when it comes around to necks on blocks he’s in the queue.

Could Paula Vennels also hand back the £2m+ bonus she got when she left the PO too please

Bang on, has anyone ever put an estimated figure on the total of monies paid back by SPMs due to ‘errors’?

I assume it ended up in the profits pot and was subsequently paid out to senior leaders?

He pushed it through for the Post Office despite being warned it was a crock of shit and half of its proposed functionality already having been scrapped. Apparently to avoid harming supplier relationships

People can form a queue behind me to throw rotten tomatoes at Blair, but honestly I find it difficult to believe that he personally pushed Horizon onto the Post Office simply to maintain some sort of supplier relationship with Fujitsu/ICL. I know that Horizon was initially rolled out to Law courts and then more or less foisted on the PO to recover some of the lost investment when it was clear that it wasn’t going to work, but I find it somewhat  implausible that it was Blair that actively made that decision.

People can form a queue behind me to throw rotten tomatoes at Blair,

Fair, but I have a deep and personal hatred for that man so am openly biased. I’d blame him for almost anything with nothing but circumstantial cause as reasoning.

Seems reasonable given your previous employment  👍

Sounds about right, hopefully they decide to pass on that and when it comes around to necks on blocks he’s in the queue.

yes – a difficult decision; without his “cooperation” he may give a lot of “I don’t recall” answers.  If however he cooperates and says – I repeatedly told Fujitsu board and the PO directors about these issues, then it could be the smoking gun needed to bring down others who are being less than Frank with the enquiry.   But of course the Crown don’t know what he might say before they grant him immunity.  It’s one of the problems with public inquiries – we say we want them to get to the truth and make sure it can never happen again, but then we provide a major barrier to people telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  

Bang on, has anyone ever put an estimated figure on the total of monies paid back by SPMs due to ‘errors’?

I assume it ended up in the profits pot and was subsequently paid out to senior leaders?

Found something here: https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252511844/Post-Office-cant-access-records-of-all-money-paid-to-it-by-victims-of-the-Horizon-scandal

BEIS select committee chair Darren Jones asked: “If subpostmasters were paying back shortfalls out of their own money into suspense accounts at the Post Office, why do you know who paid in what money, when and how much to give back to them?”

Read said this is because the Post Office does not have access to some of the records that go back to before 2005. “There will be areas of evidence that won’t be possible to identify and we have made it clear to our panel that this should be taken into account,” he said, adding that information even after 2005 is incomplete due to underlying system limitations.

Another difficulty identifying payments by subpostmasters to cover unexplained shortfalls is that the money went into a general suspense account, rather than a dedicated one.

Understanding what was paid back is essential, as millions of pounds were handed over to the Post Office to cover shortfalls wrongly reported by the computer system, known as Horizon, used by subpostmasters to run Post Office branches.

In fact, the group of 555 former subpostmasters, who took the Post Office to court and succeeded in proving computer errors were to blame for losses, funded a detailed analysis to ascertain the sums they repaid, which was calculated to be £8.5m. Beyond the 555, there are thousands more subpostmasters that suffered life-changing losses, which they had to repay to the Post Office.

And listening to the Newscast podcast, the other compensation schemes have had 2000+ claimants paid out, so that figure is expected to be much higher.