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

[A380]

...

By the by, I haven't seen the tv drama, but there's a decent documentary on BBC Sounds by the jouno who broke the story.

The BBC podcasts /documentary are great, as is the ITV drama, but Nick Wallis who wrote and presented it didn't break the story. As he has explained several times. That was done by Computer Weekly roughly 20 years ago and then their story was built on by Private Eye,

 

[Nanker Phelge]

The BBC podcasts /documentary are great, as is the ITV drama, but Nick Wallis who wrote and presented it didn't break the story. As he has explained several times. That was done by Computer Weekly roughly 20 years ago and then their story was built on by Private Eye,

When the trailers for the drama dropped I was feeling quite angry that it had taken until now for this issue to be aired to a much wider audience, especially given the cast was filled out with likeable TV faces, and regional accents (I was worried it was going to be the Full Monty without the stripping or Brassed Off without the brass; light and sentimental with some swearing and a bit of social realism). I watched it begrudgingly, and thankfully it wasn't a gritty rom-com; infact I was crying with anger during the final 10 minutes because I still can't understand why it hasn't been a bigger issue for more people until now.

As you've pointed out, there have been journalists/published titles covering this for a long time. I became aware via BBC Radio London reporting over the years and have always been shocked when I mentioned it that most people I spoke to had no knowledge of it at all, and if they had heard of it they were not aware of the scale of it. It feeds in to my paranoid fear that too much self governing has been allowed throughout many industries over the past decades, and it is too easy to get away with doing nothing until something goes drastically wrong; then all the work going forward is covering up the mess, avoiding blame, but not fixing shit, or changing it, or learning from it.

It still makes me angry that all this has come to general public notice so late in the day, but It's some consolation that it has come at all and those impacted by the RM's atrocities might get some relief and, finally, they do get a voice. It won't change anything about the past 20+ years though. That is gone, and it sickens me that it has been allowed to drag on and on and on until now (and it will drag on further still as more people try and wriggle out of it!).

I hadn't realised the Adam Crozier connection until this week; perhaps that's why ITV hadn't covered it more in the past (or mention him in the drama!)

Where has the main BBC News been with it? They're not much better than the Sun these days.

 

[izz]

Whereas I heartily support stripping Vennells of her gong, it will be almost the sole, meaningful act. She wasn't alone in lying, hiding, suspecting pillars of the community of fraud etc. etc but she will be the scapegoat. The names of Fukyoutoo employees and board members responsible for insisting the system was perfect (HAH !), the PO executives that knew it was flawed, will not become known to us. We may get a governmental sacrifice in the shape of Ed Davey but truly a fuck up of this magnitude would have been a major crisis within both organisations and the government.

 

[Wilf]

the bitch with the cbe should be in the dock

Agree with the sentiment, but is that really necessary?

 

[Wilf]

A skilled CPS could rustle up some fraud and perverting the course or justice if they really wanted to. But they don't, the extent of this has been known for years and it's only cos it's been on TV that any of these cunts has been stirred to pass comment, the news cycle will move on and it will return to the back burner.

I'm sure that when the former head of the CPS assumes the mantle of Prime Minister the energy to prosecute the guilty will be... oh, hang on.

 

[Wilf]

The BBC podcasts /documentary are great, as is the ITV drama, but Nick Wallis who wrote and presented it didn't break the story. As he has explained several times. That was done by Computer Weekly roughly 20 years ago and then their story was built on by Private Eye,

Cheers, though Wallis wrote part of the Private Eye Special, apparently (just checked his website). I'm guessing they were on to the story before this, anyway?

Interesting side note, may have been mentioned in the TV version, but Wallis had to be crowd funded to attend every day of the civil trials in 2018. He was a freelance anyway, but it sort of points to the decline in the number of investigative journalists fully employed by the press and other news institutions.

Journalist crowdfunds £6,000 in nine days to cover month-long 'public interest' Post Office group action trial

A journalist who decided to crowdfund coverage of an upcoming group action trial against the Post Office was “amazed” to have doubled his original funding target in just nine days. Nick Wallis, a freelance broadcast journalist of 14 years, has raised £6,000 through crowdfunding website...

pressgazette.co.uk

 

[Chilli.s]

Private Eye was how I followed this story. All the other newspapers have let journalism down once again

 

[Chz]

Private Eye was how I followed this story. All the other newspapers have let journalism down once again

Someone posted the statistics a while back, but PE is surprisingly (or not) well in the lead for weekly magazine sales in the UK. Their print sales being roughly equivalent to the Economist's UK-only digital and print sales put together.

 

[lazythursday]

Private Eye was how I followed this story. All the other newspapers have let journalism down once again

I'm not sure this is entirely true - I read a thread on Twitter the other day from a journalist listing lots of the press / TV coverage that had been done, and it was surprisingly extensive. I think perhaps the length of time this has been going on, with one bit of media or another taking an interest from time to time means it's just not had a particular news moment that had high impact across media, until now. Perhaps there's also been a sense that things have been / are being sorted out (compensation schemes, ongoing court appeals, public inquiry) so it's not a story any more. It's very reminiscent of other scandals like cladding that get some attention then years and years later nothing much has really been done.

 

[Silas Loom]

Yeah, the problem here is the public, who don’t notice glaring abuses, however well they are covered by news media, until they are dramatised on ITV, whereupon politicians are pressurised finally to act.

Glad to see that they are forfeiting the confidence of others, and I hope we can appoint a new one soon.

 

[WouldBe]

Just been on the news that she is handing back her CBE. Now just needs to be prosecuted.

 

[brogdale]

Just been on the news that she is handing back her CBE. Now just needs to be prosecuted.

Exactly; that costs her nothing.

 

[Aladdin]

Agree with the sentiment, but is that really necessary?

It is. This is no time for politeness.

 

[Pickman's model]

It is. This is no time for politeness.

it is therefore time for the language of misogyny

 

[Pickman's model]

Exactly; that costs her nothing.

she'll have to get all her stationery redone. or take a marker pen to her headed paper

 

[WWWeed]

Better late than never? It's shame it took a drama series

 

[Aladdin]

it is therefore time for the language of misogyny

Fair enough.
Maybe better words.. would be...
Fucking pile of shite.

 

[Wilf]

Fair enough.
Maybe better words.. would be...
Fucking pile of shite.

More than happy with that.

 

[likesfish]

Evil hypocrite murderous (think at least one victim killed themselves )others died of the stress lying git I could go on sort of person who if they caught corvid you think what did the virus do to deserve her.

 

[Wilf]

Yeah, the problem here is the public, who don’t notice glaring abuses, however well they are covered by news media, until they are dramatised on ITV, whereupon politicians are pressurised finally to act.

Glad to see that they are forfeiting the confidence of others, and I hope we can appoint a new one soon.

I was, kind of, thinking about that with reference to myself. Basically, that I'm only reading up on it on the back of the ITV drama, even though I didn't actually see it. Same time, I don't agree. What's the logic of your point? We should all be chasing down every major story and ready to go when it comes to a discussion? It's the misty eyed dream of liberal democracy and not how life is.

 

[Spymaster]

Exactly; that costs her nothing.

Don't kid yourself. Her future job prospects are already fucked but for someone like her, in those circles, the reputational damage of losing the gong will be enormous. She's pre-empted that buy chucking it back voluntarily but it'll still smart.

She's almost certainly not going to prison, and any financial penalty will be water off a duck's back.

Public humiliation is the best we'll get, I reckon.

 

[Wilf]

It's nice to see Vennels get a bit of grief in her life, as she becomes an un-CBE, un-Minister, un-NHS person. Put me in mind to do a bit of 'where are they now' digging on the people who fucked us over in the 2008 crash though, not surprisingly, that's already been done:

Lehman Brothers collapse: where are the key figures now?

Ten years ago this weekend the investment bank’s bankruptcy caused panic in US and UK

www.theguardian.com

The one I was interested in was Fred Goodwin who, it turns out, isn't actually on the board of X, Y and Z, but is simply enjoying his 350 grand a year pension, amongst the Edinburgh elite. I read elsewhere he spends his time shooting and playing golf. Needless to say, all the rest of the 2008 players have fallen on their feet.

 

[Wilf]

Don't kid yourself. Her future job prospects are already fucked but for someone like her, in those circles, the reputational damage of losing the gong will be enormous. She's pre-empted that buy chucking it back voluntarily but it'll still smart.

She's almost certainly not going to prison, and any financial penalty will be water off a duck's back.

This is the best we'll get, I reckon.

Yep, none of them will go to prison, unless something truly drastic is yet to emerge.

 

[brogdale]

Don't kid yourself. Her future job prospects are already fucked but for someone like her, in those circles, the reputational damage of losing the gong will be enormous. She's pre-empted that buy chucking it back voluntarily but it'll still smart.

She's almost certainly not going to prison, and any financial penalty will be water off a duck's back.

This is the best we'll get, I reckon.

I'm figuring that we're all speculating about what counts in those circles and my guess is that the only thing that interests these corporate psychopaths is the grotesque size of their respective 'compensation' packages. I doubt they give a flying fuck about how the state 'honours' their robbery.

 

[Wilf]

I'm figuring that we're all speculating about what counts in those circles and my guess is that the only thing that interests these corporate psychopaths is the grotesque size of their respective 'compensation' packages. I doubt they give a flying fuck about how the state 'honours' their robbery.

My guess is that, given she was an ordained minister, she'll feel her 'disgrace' a bit more. Not that she'll have any obvious functioning sense of right and wrong, just that what she's done fits so badly with her (lol) public commitment to ethical business (she was on the C of E Ethical Investment Board). The likes of Goodwin don't seem to give a flying fuck about their disgrace.

 

[brogdale]

My guess is that, given she was an ordained minister, she'll feel her 'disgrace' a bit more.

Again, I see how that might appear to be the case, but I'm not really convinced. Let's not forget that in that capacity she was working for a boss with corporate oil experience and still denies knowledge of climate change when he was in post.

 

[Wilf]

Again, I see how that might appear to be the case, but I'm not really convinced. Let's not forget that in that capacity she was working for a boss with corporate oil experience and still denies knowledge of climate change when he was in post.

Oh, I agree, I don't think she's genuinely sorry about a single thing. It's just that she's positioned herself as an ethical/Christian capitalist. There's no such thing, but it provides another measure of her hypocrisy and increases the stink that will follow her around. Fred Goodwin's persona seems to have been one where he could pretty much laugh off what he'd done.

 

[brogdale]

Oh, I agree, I don't think she's genuinely sorry about a single thing. It's just that she's positioned herself as an ethical/Christian capitalist. There's no such thing, but it provides another measure of her hypocrisy and increases the stink that will follow her around. Fred Goodwin's persona seems to have been one where he could pretty much laugh off what he'd done.

Yeah, agreed; some capitalists do seek to disguise their psychopathic greed in a variety of ways.

 

[Spymaster]

I doubt they give a flying fuck about how the state 'honours' their robbery.

Sounds like you haven't met any!

The honours system is catnip to wealthy tories.

 

[izz]

Sounds like you haven't met any!

The honours system is catnip to wealthy tories.

Do they all have tiny penises ?