mr bates vs the post office

Meaning that if all convictions overturned for that period then potentially 78 (6 x 13) guilty people cleared.

Puts numbers to the concerns of (some) SPM’s that unless their cases are individually re-examined there will always be a suspicion (and a 1/8, which is roughly 6/51 chance) against them that they actually were fiddling.

Better 78 guilty cleared than hundreds  of the innocent found guilty.  The problem of the guilty also being cleared is a consequence of the whole fiasco.

Currently watching the BBC Panorama docu. I nearly threw up when they played footage of Paula Vennels doing a speech where she said her faith informed her work at the Post Office and quoting from the bible.

Of course who is to say that the PO prosecutions were 100% accurate before Horizon?

her faith informed her work at the Post Office and quoting from the bible.

Instant red flag.

Yep, the likes of Vennels and May seem to regular fail the “what would Jesus do” approach.

Assuming there was no sudden frenzy of criminality among the country’s subpostmasters, we might reasonably assume, from those figures, that roughly 88% of those convicted were innocent.”

Having watched/read some of the inquiry where they have been asking the “investigators” and other PO staff questions I would be dubious about treating the other 12% as valid convictions.
They come across as an inept bunch of bullies so I wouldnt be surprised if a proportion of the previous cases were also badly flawed.

Better 78 guilty cleared than hundreds  of the innocent found guilty.  The problem of the guilty also being cleared is a consequence of the whole fiasco.

I agree, but that’s not my point. Which is that (some of) the Horizon SPMs don’t want the 78 guilty ones to be blanket let off, because it will always taint their true innocence knowing that there are some guilty being declared innocent as well*. To have such integrity and demand for justice when the easiest thing to do would be to suck it up and take the compensation, I’m still humbled by them.

* Which is the case anyway because of the beyond doubt principle, anyone found innocent in a trial knows there are plenty of guilty people that also were found innocent. Indeed, plenty being declared innocent who know THEY are guilty but got away with it!

I nearly threw up when they played footage of Paula Vennels doing a speech where she said her faith informed her work at the Post Office and quoting from the bible.

I take it that it wasnt one of the many verses about bearing false witness?

Given how many millions she took in (completely unjustified) bonuses, I’m guessing it wasn’t the one about rich people passing into the kingdom of God and camels and eyes of needles and all that stuff either

because it will always taint their true innocence knowing that there are some guilty being declared innocent as well*.

Possibly. It seems a bit like benefit fraud – it’s easier to taint everyone in receipt as guilty until proven innocent, leading to a societal demonising of ‘dole scum/benefit scroungers’.
Making everyone look over their shoulder for the >1% of actual fraudulance is virtually Govt policy.

I agree, but that’s not my point. Which is that (some of) the Horizon SPMs don’t want the 78 guilty ones to be blanket let off, because it will always taint their true innocence knowing that there are some guilty being declared innocent as well*. To have such integrity and demand for justice when the easiest thing to do would be to suck it up and take the compensation, I’m still humbled by them.

I wonder if that position might have shifted somewhat given the public shift of opinion.  Ultimately you can be acquitted by the appeal court and feel that you are innocent but for a lot of appeals, even when a conviction is overturned there is still a wiff about it – the law declares them not guilty because the process was wrong but society is thinking “aye, right”.  We actually have a 100% reversal of that now.  Even if someone was to have a conviction upheld, I think the majority of the public would be “you can believe that if you want”.

Is the “6 a year” prior to Horizon a “sub postmaster” type case or, because that was when Royal Mail and Post Office were together does that include posties nicking tenners out of birthday cards?   Having seen some of the amazing evidence of the “senior criminal lawyer” at the enquiry (following up on the sterling performance of the investigator yesterday) I’m surprised he had time to work a second job on the side (thats right folks they guy who was supposed to be in charge of prosecutions and so overworked he had to outsource it to private firms was running conveyancing work on the side “as a hobby”.  Its a miracle any property sold, or anyone got prosecuted at all as every simple Yes/No question got a 5 minute, incoherent waffly answer – it reminded me very much of hearing a certain former PM talk, but worse.)

I can see that just after Horizon comes in, that the PO could believe that Horizon was helping them spot dodgy postmasters who were fiddling the books and perhaps always had been, so you might not immediately be alarmed about a 10x increase BUT surely in that situation you would be “promoting” the great work of the investigation and prosecution team to the SPMs to highlight as a deterrent than dipping the till would get you caught.  Of course if you do that you can’t use “you’re the only one” as your argument.

Presumably it’s not impossible to quash the convictions of those convicted solely on the basis of Horizon “evidence”?

To separate the genuinely innocent from the regular chancers.

Presumably it’s not impossible to quash the convictions of those convicted solely on the basis of Horizon “evidence”?

To separate the genuinely innocent from the regular chancers.

This is what’s currently happening through the Criminal Case Review Board and the Appeals Court. The problem is that they’re so poorly funded it’s going to take something like a decade to get through them all at current rates.

Presumably it’s not impossible to quash the convictions of those convicted solely on the basis of Horizon “evidence”?

Pretty much every case where actual cash has gone missing in the last 24+ years would have used Horizon “evidence”. The issues come when trying to prove the glitches in the system Vs a physical theft of cash.

Presumably it’s not impossible to quash the convictions of those convicted solely on the basis of Horizon “evidence”?

To separate the genuinely innocent from the regular chancers.

You would think so – but agreeing what “solely on the basis of Horizon evidence” means is probably harder than you would think; especially when even in 2023 the PO seemed to be opposing appeals based largely on horizon evidence.  The governments solution is to say all claimants will be required to sign a declaration that they did nothing wrong.  Essentially that means any “regular chancer” is potentially able to claim just by lying again, but might expose themselves to the risk of new criminal prosecution by doing so.

irc
Full Member

Of course who is to say that the PO prosecutions were 100% accurate before Horizon?

Yup. The system problems came from Horizon but the odds that the organisational problems started at the same time are basically zero.

Whilst today trial was quieter since they had a professional lawyer in I did find it somewhat odd the PO lawyer whining about being expected to produce documents and how it was unreasonable for them to be expected to work day and night.
Which I think would have had some validity aside from the fact this is three years in and they are only now finding stuff.
Seems self inflicted.

@dissonance I thought the line of discussion about POL repeatedly sending duplicate documents was interesting. Lack of organisation or playing silly buggers?

It was a bit weird seeing one of my former business partners front and centre today. He’s actually a decent guy and Burges Salmon were only appointed in September so I have some sympathy. That said, being in big law is a 24/7 job some weeks that is what you sign up for. When it’s a big M&A deal or whatever it’s not even questioned that people have to work day and night to get the deal done,  but of course this is different because it’s not a process being driven by billionaires or huge multinationals.

Good question. It says a lot about the PO that I wouldnt rule out either option.

As an aside another corporate “security” team got somewhat held to account today.
There has been a case ongoing for ebay for a few years now where their exec security harassed a couple for having the temerity of publishing a newsletter which was less than complementary about them.
ebay have had to cough up some cash today.

It (seemingly) gets worse for Post Office Ltd.

They might want to consider employing accountants who know something about tax law.

We've a new report: the Post Office claimed £934m tax relief for its compensation payments to the postmasters it persecuted. That's outrageous. It's also unlawful – so the Post Office now faces an unexpected £100m tax bill. It may be insolvent. pic.twitter.com/aaeCrRq0iV

— Dan Neidle (@DanNeidle) January 12, 2024

It (seemingly) gets worse for Post Office Ltd.

Has their hr department had a rule of hiring village idiots and when they find someone only capable of being a hamlet idiot immediately promoted them to the board?
Read is a, newish, external hire but seems to have decided that the credit for this mess shouldnt be entirely attributed to his predecessors so is trying to make it his own as well.

martinhutch – was going to post about the PO’s tax and accounting ‘error’ but…you beat me to it.
It’s another from the ‘…you couldn’t believe it’ box.

 I did find it somewhat odd the PO lawyer whining about being expected to produce documents and how it was unreasonable for them to be expected to work day and night.

This would suggest to me that the law firm isn’t big enough, they don’t have enough people working on the case or they under quoted/budgeted for the work. Having gone from a design / construction career, with regular late nights expected and required to running my po/shop this is one of the reasons I made the career move. Running my shop is 7 days a week, but no where near the levels I used to do Monday to Friday because of miss management.

gets worse for Post Office Ltd.

Back in 2015 when the first case was brought against the po, we were told that if the PO lost they would go insolvent. The PO lost, ran to the government who paid out the compensation from taxpayer money. The PO is still 100% publicly own company – not sure if it works this way, but it’ll be odd for tax payers to bail out the PO again but this time pay the Tax shortfall back to ourselves?

There’s a bunch of scandalous things yet to be exposed that the media could latch onto, but I doubt public interest will stay with the story much over the next week, let alone months, years. Fake giro payments in the mid 2000’s being one of them. PV’s threatening letter to all postoffices in 2013/14, backing up horizon and basically saying “don’t bad mouth Horizon or we will take your business”. Etc.

This week we’ve had a noticeable drop in the sales on the postoffice, many other offices are reporting the same. Media have now been requested to throw in lines about “please continue to support your local postoffice” as people have started boycotting. For my shop a significant drop in sales could mean Ill struggle to buy stock or pay bills. But for others who’s main trade is postal, it could be wages or lively hoods.

Media have now been requested to throw in lines about “please continue to support your local postoffice” as people have started boycotting.

Just bumping this as it’s individual businesses that will be harmed the most, please support your local PO.

Article on why private prosecutions are still in general necessary but more regulation and control is needed over what is allowed and more support so that it doesn’t only become the wealthy that can use the power.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/12/top-lawyer-urges-mps-to-review-private-prosecutions-after-post-office-scandal

Interesting (for me) at the bottom –

How to bring a private prosecution
Gather evidence of the alleged crime, possibly using a private investigator.
Hand over evidence to a lawyer, who will review whether there is sufficient evidence to bring a criminal prosecution.
Make an application at a magistrates court to bring a private prosecution. This will be reviewed and either granted or rejected by a district judge.
The CPS may review the case at any time if the case is referred by the defendant, the private prosecutor or the court. The CPS can take over cases, either to proceed or discontinue.
If you proceed privately, the case will (eventually) be heard in court.
At the end of the case your lawyers can apply for costs to be reimbursed from the defendant and/or the public purse.

Not sure if that means that if CPS decides to take on to then discontinues, do you have the opportunity to pick it up again, or can the CPS kill it dead? In which case there’s two places AIUI, there or also when first reviewed by the judge to filter cases that shouldn’t have gone through.

CPS say
The CPS policy about when to re-institute proceedings is summarised at paragraphs 10.1 and 10.2 of the Code for Crown Prosecutors and is based on an undertaking given to the House of Commons on 29 March 1993 by the Attorney General. See the legal guidance on Reconsidering a Prosecution Decision for further information. The undertaking does not apply to private prosecutors, who are therefore generally free to start a private prosecution after a decision by the police or CPS not to prosecute or to stop a prosecution.
https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/private-prosecutions#:~:text=A%20private%20prosecution%20is%20a,a%20statutory%20power%20to%20prosecute.
Presumably that would also depend on what stage CPS stop it and double jeopardy laws – the changes to that arose after a failed private prosecution in the Lawrence case iirc.

Fujitsu’s CEO Nick Read and Europe Director Paul Patterson, presently being questioned by the business select committee, are hardly covering themselves in glory

“I don’t know” seems to summarise pretty much every answer

Some fujitsu bods are up for the inquiry this week unless they are all washing their hair again.
Should be interesting.

unless they are all washing their hair again

And continuing to wash their hands of it too…

Caught a bit of the current PO CEO on 5Live ‘testifying’. He is either being as evasive as he thinks is possible, or is so incurious about the history and present liabilities of the organisation he runs that he shouldn’t be in charge. I mean, when accepting the job, wouldn’t the first question you ask be ‘what did we know and when?’. It’s fundamental to the job.

The present attitude of the Post Office to providing documents to the inquiry and its labyrinthine compensation process suggests it’s pure evasion and self-interest. They have no interest in learning or changing and the entire management is not fit for its current purpose.

Fujitsu bloke is little better. They all know exactly what went on, but are claiming they need an inquiry report to tell them.

It’s obvious listening to them that there is no change in culture whatsoever and they still don’t actually give a flying ****

They’re just using the inquiry to hide behind and drag it out for as long as possible by being obstructive and evasive

Caught a bit of the current PO CEO on 5Live ‘testifying’.

I find it baffling that he has pretty much doubled down on the behaviour rather than playing the “new broom”. Trying to play games with the compensation, screwing around with documents disclosure and giving himself a nice bonus for “cooperating” with the inquiry which had the inquiry lawyers politely contact the PO pointing out that was for the inquiry team to decide.

The inquiry is a statutory enquiry which means that the Oath can (must?) be taken – is this the case because surely people could be lying under oath here and that could have consequences for them?

The strategy of the current top brass appear to be not to make any statement to the Commons committee which could then be examined further by the inquiry. They want to turn up there, full of fake contrition, and be shocked to find out just how terrible their organisation was. They’ll give ‘lessons will be learned’ a try, along with ‘the Post Office/Fujitsu is a very different place compared with back then’, and waltz off with their knighthoods and billion pound contracts intact.

Nick Read is a classic journeyman senior manager, flitting from banking, to Thomas Cook, to convenience stores, to energy. He has no grounding or actual experience in any of these businesses, he is not there to understand them. He just has the right corporate patter.

The inquiry is a statutory enquiry which means that the Oath can (must?) be taken – is this the case because surely people could be lying under oath here and that could have consequences for them?

The issue is not so much lying to the inquiry, it is Fujitsu and PO employees may have perjured themselves in the trials of subpostmasters, and the possibility that, depending on who knew what and when, and how any cover-up was organised and co-ordinated, there may be conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

I found some of Nick Reid’s answers annoying to say the least, he cirtainly doesn’t want to throw previous board members under the bus, and I can see why – PO ltd head office has had the vast majority of the same people people working there for decades. 

The question about crown offices was worrying – he didn’t know how many crown postoffices had had convictions, if any? Crown offices for those that don’t know are generally the main office for a town or city, large multi counter offices, managed directly by postoffice ltd (not private individuals). This could be key to the investigation.

Again it wasn’t asked how many offices had been affected by faults, only that 2000+ offices had been agreed compensation.

Again no one asked how many offices were operating in 1999, and how many had shut between 1999 and 2015 due to “operating losses”, and if horizon could have been a contributing factor.

The enquiry is about so much more than 900 convictions, not that they shouldn’t be investigated thoroughly. But I feel the cultural implications are far larger.

I’ve spoken to many a retailer who’ll never work with or have a post office in their shops.

Crown offices for those that don’t know are generally the main office for a town or city, large multi counter offices, managed directly by postoffice ltd (not private individuals).

It was one of the things identified by campaigners.
The crown offices and those managed by big chains although they had errors didnt get the same treatment as the individuals with one or maybe a couple of offices.

The crown offices and those managed by big chains although they had errors didnt get the same treatment as the individuals with one or maybe a couple of offices.

Crown offices losses are liable to postoffice plc as far as I’m aware, not the postmasters. The staff also are on a wage Vs commission.

When I worked for coop, we had significant backup, both in management and legal for staff members that may have found  shortfalls – as well as our own internal security investigation teams. The postoffice management within coop I’m sure we’re fully aware of issues at between 1999 and 2015. The coop postoffice area managers I worked with always dreaded Wednesday’s as they never knew which branches would call with issues.