Hundreds of Post Office workers ‘vindicated’ by High Court ruling over faulty Post Office IT system

[ElizabethofYork]

The former head of the Post Office has apologised, and has "stepped back" from her position as an Anglian priest.

Ex-Post Office head apologises to workers after convictions quashed | Post Office | The Guardian

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

The former head of the Post Office has apologised, and has "stepped back" from her position as an Anglian priest.

Ex-Post Office head apologises to workers after convictions quashed | Post Office | The Guardian

She should be in prison.

 

[Spymaster]

The legal bod just on the news isn't hopeful. They won't get legal aid and the cost to litigate for compensation is out of their reach.

I'd have thought the compo lawyers would be lining up to take these on no win no fee.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

I'd have thought the compo lawyers would be lining up to take these on no win no fee.

It's clear cut and the losses suffered are massive.

 

[Limejuice]

Any apologies from Fujitsu, whose crappy system managed to simply 'lose' money?

 

[Spymaster]

Any apologies from Fujitsu, whose crappy system managed to simply 'lose' money?

They're the fuckers who really need to be putting their hands in their pockets.

 

[StoneRoad]

My information from several sub-PO owners & other workers therein was that "horizon" was absolute shite to have to use. It seemed unable to add up the day's or week's totals correctly. It was a factor in at least a couple of places being shut ...

One or two of the smaller places I know used to keep "paper" ledgers for comparison / audit purposes (and to protect themselves from the PO after some of the cock-ups from a system which, self-evidently was not fit for purpose), which wasn't possible in some of the larger places.

 

[not-bono-ever]

Nice Christian sentiments behind this.

 

[not-bono-ever]

Fuckers give religion a bad name

 

[Limejuice]

They're the fuckers who need to be putting their hands in their pockets.

I'd call that a good start.

Then I'd like to see a few arrests at director level for corporate crimes including, but not limited to, perjury, false arrest and imprisonment, theft (recovering 'missing' money) and being a corporate cunt.

And I'd like to see all damages doubled by way of punitive damages, and rounded up to the nearest £5m per claim.

Then I'd like to fillet the board of directors of Royal Mail and rescind every poxy OBE those miserable bastards have been awarded.

 

[Limejuice]

If your blood isn't already at boiling point, consider the actions of Post Office managers. Does this sound like an orgaisation hiding its culpability in imprisonoing innocent people?

Form Wikipedia:

British Post Office scandal - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"In March 2015, Private Eye and other sources reported that Post Office Ltd had ordered Second Sight to end their investigation just one day before the report was due to be published, and to destroy all the paperwork which they had not handed over.[4][11] Post Office Ltd then scrapped the independent committee set up to oversee the investigation, as well as the mediation scheme for sub-postmasters, and published a report which cleared themselves of any wrongdoing.[4]

Of the 136 cases, 56 had been closed, and Post Office Ltd would put the rest forward for "mediation" unless a court ruling prevented them from doing so.[11] After ending the inquiry, Post Office Ltd said that there were no wide-scale problems, and that:[11][26]

This has been an exhaustive and informative process which has confirmed that there are no system-wide problems with our computer system and associated processes. We will now look to resolve the final outstanding cases as quickly as possible."

 

[not-bono-ever]

Show trials needed

 

[cupid_stunt]

Then I'd like to fillet the board of directors of Royal Mail and rescind every poxy OBE those miserable bastards have been awarded.

Seems a bit harsh, as this case involves the Post Office, not Royal Mai.

 

[DaveCinzano]

I'd have thought the compo lawyers would be lining up to take these on no win no fee.

The class action case on behalf of 550 people won a £58 million settlement; claimants reportedly received approximately £20k each.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Seems a bit harsh, as this case involves the Post Office, not Royal Mai.

Pour encourager les autres

 

[Louis MacNeice]

The former head of the Post Office has apologised, and has "stepped back" from her position as an Anglian priest.

Ex-Post Office head apologises to workers after convictions quashed | Post Office | The Guardian

Have a listen to today's installment of the Radio 4 documentary on this you can hear just how sorry the ex-Post Office CE0, very recently ex-company director at Morrison's and Dunelm, recipient of a CBE for services to the Post Office (I kid you not) and still Anglican priest was, when she was interviewed by a select committee of MPs. It really is worth a listen for her absolutely breath taking lack of care and honesty.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[likesfish]

should be Jailed I guess, it depends what they knew and when.

When she left the role in 2019, she had made £5m and been awarded a CBE for “services to the Post Office and to charity”. .

she was the Boss she needs to pay

 

[ElizabethofYork]

Have a listen to today's installment of the Radio 4 documentary on this you can hear just how sorry the ex-Post Office CE0, very recently ex-company director at Morrison's and Dunelm, recipient of a CBE for services to the Post Office (I kid you not) and still Anglican priest was, when she was interviewed by a select committee of MPs. It really is worth a listen for her absolutely breath taking lack of care and honesty.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

Do you have a link for this? I tried to find it but no luck.

 

[marty21]

Local to me, this is just heart breaking...

Seema Misra

Served four months of a 15-month sentence in 2011, while pregnant, after being wrongly convicted of theft and false accounting.


No amount of money can make up for the struggle I went through,' says Mrs Misra, who was suspended from her post office in 2008 after auditors found a £74,609 shortfall she couldn't explain.

Her conviction has cast a shadow over every aspect of her life since her week-long trial at Guildford Crown Court in October 2010 saw her imprisoned while eight weeks pregnant with Jairaj.

A respectable woman so ashamed of her conviction she begged a prison officer to hide her handcuffs with their coat as she was led away to jail, she would have considered suicide, were it not for the new life growing inside her.

She gave birth two months after her release, on tag, after which the shame of her conviction made life unbearable.

'People stopped talking to us,' she says, while Mr Misra adds: 'I was beaten up and called a 'f***ing P*ki, coming to this country and stealing old people's money.'

They moved house but Mrs Misra, who developed depression, still felt unable to show her face at the school gates. 'I assumed everyone knew, and they weren't talking to me because I was a criminal.'

She didn't throw a birthday party for her youngest son for eight years. 'I didn't want everyone to know that Jairaj's mum was the one who went to prison,' she explains.

Mrs Misra, who sold the post office for less than half the price she paid, started helping her husband run his taxi firm. But while she was in prison, Mr Misra had to single-parent and the business floundered. The couple's second property in London had already been seized to pay off the missing money.

Even on her release, Mrs Misra was unable to get work because of her conviction. Once a financial controller in the City, she says: 'I thought I'd be able to become an Uber driver, but couldn't. When I applied for funds to do courses to re-enter the financial industry I wasn't allowed.'

Even the most mundane activities caused pain. 'Whenever I filled out a form for something like car insurance I'd have to state my conviction. It brought the bad memories back.'

Fucking disgraceful

 

[butchersapron]

It's what jesus would have wanted.

 

[A380]

I'd call that a good start.

Then I'd like to see a few arrests at director level for corporate crimes including, but not limited to, perjury, false arrest and imprisonment, theft (recovering 'missing' money) and being a corporate cunt.

And I'd like to see all damages doubled by way of punitive damages, and rounded up to the nearest £5m per claim.

Then I'd like to fillet the board of directors of Royal Mail and rescind every poxy OBE those miserable bastards have been awarded.

Not sure any of them were arrested which would also knock the false imprisonments on the head. A big part of the problem was that Post Office used their old Georgian (?) powers carried over from
The Royal Mail to both run their own investigation - away from the old bill, and mount their own prosecution- away from the CPS. No checks or balences. Say what you like about the CPS ( like they are a bunch of underpaid second rate lawyers who couldn’t prosecute Dr Cripin for example) but this would never have seen the inside of a court and their would have been some disclosure.
Aside from that, yes go after the individuals in charge of Post Office at the time and the decision makers. Not sure it will go anywhere but at least they’d get a taste of what they did to others.

 

[LDC]

In a world where it's hard to be shocked any more following this story has been pretty jaw droppingly horrendous.

 

[alex_]

Aside from that, yes go after the individuals in charge of Post Office at the time and the decision makers. Not sure it will go anywhere but at least they’d get a taste of what they did to others.

id be interested in who cancelled the publication of the second sight review and what they knew.

The issue is that the people who you could prove knew are likely only mid level managers.

It’s all going to be circumstantial.

eg you could prove that they received an email from second sight, and shortly after cancelled the investigation - but you probably couldn’t prove they knew the court cases were totally dodgy.

 

[likesfish]

Chances are the boss had to rely on the information she got from underlings but the post office prosecuted 736 people.
That's more soldiers than the IRA killed in Northern Ireland!
They prosecuted 10% of their workforce for serious fraud! Wtf.
That would be one thing for example infantry battalion mostly young men up in front of the CO for drunkenness fighting etc but eye brows would be raised if it reached that level.and the Entire Battalion would be gated.
Subpostmasters are older respectable small business people or they wouldn't get the franchise. The odd one or two done for fraud people are people.
But 10% either your recruiting the utterly wrong people or your IT system is shite especially when none of the cash is recovered or even traced AS IT NEVER FUCKING EXSISTED.
Anyone who pushed to continue the prosecutions after doubts were raised needs to see the inside of a cell.
You fucked people over and new the system was off but did it anyway.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Do you have a link for this? I tried to find it but no luck.

Hopefully this is it: The Great Post Office Trial - 6. War of Attrition - BBC Sounds

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[Louis MacNeice]

It's what jesus would have wanted.

Weirdly that's exactly what I wanted an interviewer to ask her; had she ever thought of what Jesus would have wanted and if not then why not? For some reason her behaviour has really got to me!

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[kalidarkone]

In a world where it's hard to be shocked any more following this story has been pretty jaw droppingly horrendous.

Yes, I don't often blub at the news but I was in bits hearing about this.

 

[DJWrongspeed]

From a developer point of view this is a good read. The system was rolled out pre-Adsl days. Fujitsu bosses knew about Post Office Horizon IT flaws, says insider. Just because it’s done on computer doesn’t make it add up......

 

[philosophical]

Those in power at the post office assumed they could not be plain wrong.
In order to maintain that self delusion people were destroyed, imprisoned and some killed themselves. Most bankrupted.
When a bit of reality emerged, and the first flecks of chite hit the fan, they doubled down amd destroyed information that might've been a bit awkward, at the last minute.
From what I now understand the victims can't afford (individually) the cost of compensation litigation.
The Post Office leadership acted like cunts and they have no weasel excuse either.
They should face serious consequences if only to signal to others who land in positions of power that they're not omnipotent.

 

[stdP]

From a developer point of view this is a good read. The system was rolled out pre-Adsl days. Fujitsu bosses knew about Post Office Horizon IT flaws, says insider. Just because it’s done on computer doesn’t make it add up......

Thanks for the read, puts a lot of the dribs and drabs that have been coming out about the technical side in to one place.

I'm not an IT developer, but most of my career has been spent overseeing financial systems (mostly insurance) and everything I keep hearing about Horizon utterly stinks and goes against every established best practice going. "Not fit for purpose" by the QA guys usually ends up being shorthand for "this is a huge pile of shit and if you can't get it working, then you're not getting paid for it", so if it still went ahead even getting this sort of a tap on the shoulder then it strikes me as likely there was pressure from above to approve it - likely someone's bonus was contingent on it. At the very best it's a bunch of competent developers but with no knowledge of systems engineering (writing individual components vs. large scale systems design and integration). A custom data interchange format with no standardisation and seemingly no way of validating the data would be a horror-show even in a small-scale distributed system.

Oddly enough, it was the exact same sort of problems that came up in the disastrous NHS IT project where the money seemed to go on translating from one format to another, instead of a standardised exchange protocol that any vendor could adapt their existing systems for. I fear we've only seen the tip of the iceberg for incompetent design and management here.

All of this stuff has mostly been a "solved problem" in most systems for decades now (banks probably being one of the most prominent examples with large-scale retailers right behind them) but it seems someone decided the wheel needed re-inventing but then couldn't decide what colour it should be.

Even worse than the above newbie mistakes in systems design, according to a Fujitsu whistleblower has said that data was manipulated and unaudited changes made to the finances to "balance the books".

P.S. Naturally, the government doesn't want an inquiry because they "take too long". Because 20 years of being bankrupt and branded as a criminal isn't long at all.