Horizon scandal - now dramatised as Mr Bates vs The Post Office

christinaa

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Seems that Paula Vennells returned her CBE back.
 

buchansleftleg

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It sounds like this was part of a standard support script to me.
Yes, what was truly ridiculous is that Fujitsu gave it's lowest level support people access to the system to try and bug fix but this access was unmonitored and untraceable and included the ability to actually process transactions. This access was via a common login which potentially hundreds of past employees could have had access to.

Fujitsu people and Senior people at the Post Office fraud team swore on oath in court multiple times that such "remote access" was only via secure token and was monitored and severely restricted in scope. In reality this info was bascally open access for Fujitsu staff past and present.

What is also telling is that countless Judges tried to direct jury's against convicting the posties...pointing out that Royal Mail had failed to provide any evidence of the defendants making any monetary gain from this suspected fraudulent activity. No evidence of additional accounts or lavish spending, indeed many of them had ploughed in personal funds to try and cover these "shortfalls".

So these cases would probably have failed if they had been presented to a magistrate, who would have required similar levels of proof. The fact that Royal mail pursued criminal cases meant they could get away with these spurious claims of the "reliability" of Horizon evidence as uninformed Jury's would just accept the evidence of a senior Royal Mail "technical expert".

This pursuing of people through the courts - built into peoples bonus packages and performance plans - is where Royal Mail really lost the plot, given they all knew they went for the cheap (dogshit) version of an accounting package.

The "Pubco's" (big pub chain owners) have for years been harassing Pub Managers with dodgy "metered" beer systems that provide false data and make out that pub managers have been literally siphoning off profits. They have largely got away with it (apart from a few Private Eye articles) because they use this to intimidate / change ownership of the pub, but they have not been stupid enough to take this through the courts because they know their "evidence" won't stand up to scrutiny.
 

acnumber9

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Fujitsu were responsible for many of the Government systems I have used in the Civil Service. If we had to report an error, it cost the Government significant money to have it fixed. It was in their interests for it not to work properly. They should check the bank accounts of anybody responsible for handing out these contracts.
 

Drainy

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The investigator on today is a piece of work.

Still insists the post master was guilty and is pissed off he's being bothered about it
 

langster

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68079300

Another day another revelation.

Documents showing Post Office top bosses secretly decided in April 2014 to sack forensic accountants who had found bugs in their IT system have been obtained by the BBC.

The irony and stupidity of sacking forensic accountants only to be stupid enough to keep the documents showing that decision. :lol: :lol:

I shouldn't laugh because the amount of lives lost and destroyed is despicable. I know everyone wanted compensation and the truth to come out, but to me that's not even close to being enough. Enough of the innocent served jail time, now those guilty need to as well.
 

cafecillos

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The investigator on today is a piece of work.

Still insists the post master was guilty and is pissed off he's being bothered about it
Just seen that. What a fecking cnut, I hope he lives to regret being such a cnut.
 

TwoSheds

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The irony and stupidity of sacking forensic accountants only to be stupid enough to keep the documents showing that decision. :lol: :lol:

I shouldn't laugh because the amount of lives lost and destroyed is despicable. I know everyone wanted compensation and the truth to come out, but to me that's not even close to being enough. Enough of the innocent served jail time, now those guilty need to as well.
And they should serve 10 times as long.
 

Drainy

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Just seen that. What a fecking cnut, I hope he lives to regret being such a cnut.
Jason Beer's withering put downs are fantastic. 'hopefully we can improve upon it now the dog walking and carol services are out of the way' :lol:

Some of the post office investigators have been horrible, but the worst people so far have been the lawyers involved in the Lee Castleton case
 

Wilt

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Post Office enquiry ….bosses in arse protection mode, deny all knowledge seems to be the trend.

Far too late for apologies, prison is what they deserve.
 

cafecillos

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All about this is just plain infuriating. Several people should go to prison for fairly long sentences for knowingly destroying so many lives.
 

Drainy

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Complete car crash stuff today.

Solicitor advising the post office not to look into issues until after a case in case they have to disclose the problem harming their defence.

Also hilarious use of 'top bantz' by Jason Beer KC to put down this prick
 

F-Red

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Complete car crash stuff today.

Solicitor advising the post office not to look into issues until after a case in case they have to disclose the problem harming their defence.

Also hilarious use of 'top bantz' by Jason Beer KC to put down this prick
Even more worrying is that he's still head of legal at the Post Office.
 

Drainy

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What did he do/say?
From memory he messaged a colleague who had talked shit about SPMs saying 'you're the only person more cynical than me' they responded with 'I'll take it as a badge of honour ' and he responded 'as intended '

Jason Beer asked what that exchange meant, he was struggling, got pressed, 'were you mocking SPMs', more struggling, 'was it just banter?' 'top bantz?'
 

langster

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From memory he messaged a colleague who had talked shit about SPMs saying 'you're the only person more cynical than me' they responded with 'I'll take it as a badge of honour ' and he responded 'as intended '

Jason Beer asked what that exchange meant, he was struggling, got pressed, 'were you mocking SPMs', more struggling, 'was it just banter?' 'top bantz?'

Ahhh, thank you.
 

Drainy

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Susan Crichton was a much more sympathetic person than I anticipated.

After so many PO witnesses making me feel like a stroke is coming on it was weird.