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Yes. I think it makes sense to retain them but it definitely needs review, as a parliament committee did a couple of years back.<br /><br />
HMRC lost its prosecutions office capability to CPS due to ineptitude and failure, didn’t have a massive effect on the business.
I see various lawyers are sucking air through their teeth about MPs voting to take short-cuts, mis out the legal route to correct itself (after years of mostly inaction) and essentially over-turning convictions on their say-so.
Let's hope that their efforts to put right this horrible mis-carriage doesn't result in some unintended consequences down the line, for the sake of political expediency, after all that's never happened before...
Couple of questions/points:
Those prosecutions were brought on the strength of investigations carried out by ex posties/post masters that had been on a three week training course and were rewarded on the numbers of prosecutions brought. Is that right? Keeping the power is one thing, using it wisely is another... (with great power brings great responsibility etc ©Spiderman).
If we were talking about the US and their equivelant of Parliament/The Lords overturning some of the actions against Trump, we'd be up in arms. There's a very good reason the Judiciary is separated from Government and the proposed route whilst expedient is also a terrible precedent to set...
ex posties/post masters that had been on a three week training course and were rewarded on the numbers of prosecutions brought.
I was under the impression that the Post Office Investigations Branch, or whatever it's called now, was the kind of place that former coppers etc landed after they left the force. I'm not sure that ex posties etc have the kind of refined skillset needed to mount a sustained harassment and intimidation campaign against innocent people.
There certainly seemed to be a 'Met in the glory days of the 80s and 90s' vibe to it.
There is absolutely no reason for the PO to retain its prosecutorial powers after such a record of abuse. In a perfect world, the whole organisation would be taken back into public control and stripped back to the core, as it's clear from their evasive behaviour even today that a rotten culture still persists.
I was under the impression that the Post Office Investigations Branch, or whatever it’s called now, was the kind of place that former coppers etc landed after they left the force. I
Thats one of the odd things which has come out of the trials. Most of them seem to be lifetime PO staff switching from counter/post delivery staff to being investigators at random.
Maybe the three weeks training was from the Met and concentrated on "culture".
In a perfect world, the whole organisation would be taken back into public control and stripped back to the core, as it’s clear from their evasive behaviour even today that a rotten culture still persists.<br /><br />
it IS in public control - it is 100% owned by HM Gov. I think the Gov quite enjoy the ambiguity created by selling off the Royal Mail (the delivery part) so much of the public think this is a symptom of private enterprise gone bad… it is not, it’s a symptom of public sector cover ups gone bad.
I see various lawyers are sucking air through their teeth about MPs voting to take short-cuts, mis out the legal route to correct itself (after years of mostly inaction) and essentially over-turning convictions on their say-so.
What could possibly go wrong? A couple of decades of studied disinterest 'corrected' in 48 hours of frenzied activity by a bunch of inept and corrupt shysters, literally sketching out changes to our legal system on the back of a fag packet?
If you missed Ian Hislop on Peston absolutely tearing Jake Berry and his newly-discovered concern a new one, its a thing of beauty. He sums it up absolutely perfectly and theres nobody more qualified to do so as Private Eye has been exposing this for years...
https://twitter.com/scottygb/status/1745246158031552635?s=20
"You can’t just talk nonsense and not be interrupted!"
"Why didn't you act sooner? You kept saying 'this is too difficult'. Suddenly you can do it all in one day."”
Indeed!
Why I'm not sure -
Is removing the PO power to prosecute just for the PO, or other similar organisations too? eg: RSPCA? Is it to punish 'The PO' by removing the powers, or after 20 odd years is it a significant warning to put things right so this never happens again. If it's a policy that organisations should not have prosecution powers, do we also remove from all the others and if so do they keep investigatorial powers still but CPS finally decides. The CPS can't keep up with their workload already, how quickly would we expect them to step into a breech?
If they lose investigatorial powers and that has to go to police forces, does that really advance things - the types of 'crime' being accused of are specialist in nature, do the police have time, expertise, do we trust them any more than the companies really.....
It's a can of worms and while the impulse is to strip them, I'm not convinced that the result is progress.
Other matters; heartbreaking story on R4 this morning, a SPM who was accused and the case was thrown out in court, but in the meantime lost her business and all she'd invested in it, and life savings making up the false discrepancies. She has been living hand to mouth now for 15 years, but because she wasn't convicted, her offer is £75K now. As she said she is now 60 and is not future proofed, no pension or savings to speak of, etc., £75K is a lot of money if it's cash in hand but goes nowhere near to putting her back where she would have been if she'd been allowed to run a successful PO and Village shop throughout.
it IS in public control – it is 100% owned by HM Gov.
You're right, it's in a kind of arms-length limbo. It needs to be taken fully into public control.
As for whether to strip them of their prosecutorial power and send that workload back to the police/CPS, I don't think you can justify them keeping it with their record. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that the workload will drastically reduce as soon as someone independent of the PO is scrutinising it, as when PO employees are not being incentivised to convict people.
Fraud in any other walk of public life is investigated by the police. I'm sure a lot of it is complex in nature, and the police have specialist teams to help them pick through it. Still an imperfect system, but I'd rather fraud was missed than invented on an industrial scale.
Thats one of the odd things which has come out of the trials. Most of them seem to be lifetime PO staff switching from counter/post delivery staff to being investigators at random.
Yeah, I may well be mistaken on that one.
I’m not convinced that the result is progress.
I think POL has burned to the ground any defence they may have had that they should be allowed to keep these sorts of powers. It may not be progress, but frankly, who'd trust any prosecution bought solely by POL? Up until the point that MPS intervened to overturn these convictions, POL lawyers were still contesting every single compensation tribunal even after the group action decided in the Postmasters favour, they've demonstrated more than comprehensively that even if you could make a case for them retaining those sorts of powers, you'd have to put in place so many safeguards and oversights so to make the point moot anyway.
Let’s hope that their efforts to put right this horrible mis-carriage doesn’t result in some unintended consequences down the line, for the sake of political expediency, after all that’s <em style="box-sizing: border-box; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; color: #000000; font-family: Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji';">never happened before…
Political Pardon's will be (another) consequence of these, as it's basically the Govt overriding the Courts decisions rather than bothering changing the laws that Courts are judging folk against - if Lady Mone is ever prosecuted & found guilty, they could just 'pardon' her.
A couple of decades of studied disinterest ‘corrected’ in 48 hours of frenzied activity by a bunch of inept and corrupt shysters, literally sketching out changes to our legal system on the back of a fag packet?
It's a nightmare. What choice have they got though? They've broken our court system, and if they don't bypass it to sort this high profile story, people might start to ask what happened to make the courts so slow and unable to deliver justice for ordinary people.
Is removing the PO power to prosecute just for the PO, or other similar organisations too? eg: RSPCA? Is it to punish ‘The PO’ by removing the powers, or after 20 odd years is it a significant warning to put things right so this never happens again. If it’s a policy that organisations should not have prosecution powers, do we also remove from all the others and if so do they keep investigatorial powers still but CPS finally decides.
I can’t see any reason why for a criminal prosecution there is any need for someone other than “the crown” to prosecute? Can anyone explain why we want RSPCA, or the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, or Big Bank Plc to lead prosecutions potentially resulting in prison sentences?
Investigational powers is a different question. If I was on the POL board I would be recommending that the PO Investigation Branch be moved to a separate arms length body, reporting to the minister not to the PO Board. If I was the minister, I would create their terms of reference to include misconduct by the Board!
Fraud in any other walk of public life is investigated by the police.
it’s not always. Benefit Fraud, and Tax Fraud are investigated by the gov depts. Bank Fraud, I believe, is mainly investigated by internal teams but with close liaison with the police.
What's the betting that any substantial compensation sum will not be tax free? Also the legal bill for righting this wrong is it obscene.
Political Pardon’s will be (another) consequence of these, as it’s basically the Govt overriding the Courts decisions rather than bothering changing the laws that Courts are judging folk against – if Lady Mone is ever prosecuted & found guilty, they could just ‘pardon’ her.
pardons are not new - gov has used them before (Scotland has pardoned those involved in miners strikes, illegal homosexuality etc). But that is not what the SPM want - a pardon is basically saying, “what you did at the time was illegal, but with the benefit of hindsight society now thinks you did nothing wrong”. Overturning a conviction is saying, “you did nothing wrong” (or at least we cannot prove you did). That is what the SPM, quite rightly, want.
I am not that comfortable with Parliament simply creating a new law to fix this and miss judges out the process. It would perhaps have been better to create a new “Postmasters appeal tribunal” which had powers to quickly review and overturn relevant convictions. The danger there for gov would be it would need to be independent and there is no way for them to instruct the judge what to do.
Ian Hislop on Peston absolutely tearing Jake Berry and his newly-discovered concern a new one
Came here to post that- feel sorry for his constituents! 😉
I can’t see any reason why for a criminal prosecution there is any need for someone other than “the crown” to prosecute? Can anyone explain why we want RSPCA, or the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, or Big Bank Plc to lead prosecutions potentially resulting in prison sentences?
It's not the ability to prosecute that's the issue, it's the misuse of that power. As noted, creating independence between the sections that do it and the 'commercial/operational' arms might be a step.
It's a weird one (to a non-lawyer at least) - part of me feels anyone should be able to bring a case against others if they so wish, and then for the courts to weigh up the evidence and decide. But it can't be without 'cost' to the accuser, you can't have spurious and made up vindictive cases being brought and then the accuser walking away - defending against accusations (from crown or civil type) is a lengthy, damaging and expensive process even if you eventually win.
That is what's happening here - there are no merits to the PO cases, anyone reviewing ALL the evidence should have killed them at the start - but the evidence was withheld, prosecutors were incentivised to prosecute, etc. A really shitty story.
it’s not always. Benefit Fraud, and Tax Fraud are investigated by the gov depts.
True, it's more a question of lack of oversight and independence. POL could investigate, interview, make a charging decision and carry on through the court process with zero oversight. I don't think there's a future for such special arrangements.
The CPS is an imperfect but important backstop against abuse, whether it's by the police or any other investigatory force. If it wasn't already hideously overstretched due to lack of funding, there wouldn't be much argument against handing them oversight of the PO's activities.
an Hislop on Peston absolutely tearing Jake Berry and his newly-discovered concern a new one
That's SIR Jake Berry to you.
Unfortunately there are multiple examples of the pointlessness of the honours system floating around at the moment.
Fraud in any other walk of public life is investigated by the police<br /><br />
Serious Fraud Office (bit of a clue in the name)
FCA
Benefits Agency
HMRC
NCA
that’s six agencies who investigate fraud who are not police forces off the top of my head.<br /><br />
the police have specialist teams to help them pick through it.
That made me laugh, thanks for brightening my morning up.
“The most robust figures currently available from the Crime Survey of England and Wales reveal there were 3.7 million incidents of fraud in England and Wales in the year ending December 2022 (ONS). 86% of fraud instances are estimated to go underreported. This means that the scale of fraud is very significant, but that under-reporting also hampers our understanding of the threat.” <br /><br />
The threat from fraud isn’t even understood.
That made me laugh, thanks for brightening my morning up.
Yeah, had another coffee now and thought about that for a minute... 🙂
I guess it's just frustration at the lack of scrutiny that could be applied to POL investigations.
Theres a po investigator giving evidence at the moment that all the statements he gave to a criminal court were in fact not his statements and were in fact statements written by someone else and handed to him to sign, and then put forward as his own statements.
'I was just following orders Guv'
if Lady Mone is ever prosecuted & found guilty, they could just ‘pardon’ her.
It's not a pardon, iirc. A pardon meams your conviction still stands, you are just excused the punishment. They need to have the convictions overturned, per an appeal.
You could, I'm sure, draft a law specifically quashing convictions for the offences where Horizon was the only evidence. I wouldn't trustbthe current legislature to leave something vague for future wiggle room/abuse. Such as getting Lady Mone off the hook
£75K is a lot of money if it’s cash in hand but goes nowhere near to putting her back where she would have been if she’d been allowed to run a successful PO and Village shop throughout.
This is where it becomes a little tricky, I run a 'successful village shop and postoffice, but it's definitely not a money maker - no pension, savings have gone into the shop in the last 12 months due to inflation etc. many village shops have shut or become 'community shops' in the last 15 years. It's a I dieing trade.
They really need to prosecute the grunts like that PO investigator above as well. The 'following orders' defence is nonsense - anyone knows signing something you didn't write and is patently untrue in an audit situation is illegal and they should face the consequences no matter how low down the food chain they were. Otherwise people in similar situations in the future will just do it again and not push back. Sure take down the big guys but take them all - they knew what they were doing was wrong.
The more people at every level that understand actions have consequences the better.
Also the legal bill for righting this wrong is it obscene.
That's one thing that shocked me, the 555 were awarded some £58m but £46m was apparently swallowed up by legal fees 😯
The more people at every level that understand actions have consequences the better.
Sadly people are motivated by money I turned down the position of technical director in my previous employment because I didn't trust the owner would have been very lucrative if I'd taken it as they got bought out not long after.
Is anyone actually listening to Stephen Bradshaw, the senior Post Office investigator being questioned by the inquiry?
Its truly staggering. He sounds like an absolute buffoon! Nick Wallis, who wrote the book on the scandal, just described him on five live as 'the most incompetent investigator on the planet'
He still seems to have no more concept of what the actual problem is then he did ten years ago and zero grasp of how the Horizon system actually works. It appears he was just signing stuff off willy-nilly that he obviously had no understanding of, most of which appears to have been total bollocks!
If this is the standard of the people making decisions then it's no wonder its such an almighty cluster****!
That’s one thing that shocked me, the 555 were awarded some £58m but £46m was apparently swallowed up by legal fees
That was because it was paid for by a litigation fund.
So it was the legal fees + the return for those fund investors (which tends to be high since they also need to cover the legal fees for the cases they lose).
Is anyone actually listening to Stephen Bradshaw, the senior Post Office investigator being questioned?
The Fujitsu bod hasnt turned up again?
If this is the standard of the people making decisions then no wonder its such an almighty cluster****!
That seems to be a trend with them. Reading the writeups from last year and skimming the recordings does show some incredible incompetence.
I am not sure how the inquiries counsel hadnt ended up with an indented forehead from facepalming.
Came here to post that- feel sorry for his constituents!
That sh!tshow goes not come close to experiencing his venal stupidity first hand. His bone headed self interest is truly staggering. And he gives not two focks for any problems his constituents have unless it furthers him. Can't wait to see the back of him.
S.Bradshaw - an example of why this has rumbled on for so long. A pathetic yes-man who questioned nothing put in front of him for 20 years and understood even less. I dread to thing how much tax money has been paid to keep him in a job and top up his sizeable pension.
Yeah, had another coffee now and thought about that for a minute… 🙂
I guess it’s just frustration at the lack of scrutiny that could be applied to POL investigations.
I think my concern is, if it’s happening at the PO how sure are we it’s not happening at the Benefits Agency, HMRC or any of the other government bodies with the power to prosecute. They might not have horizon to systematically mean there is the same impetus or dodgy evidence but are benefits claimants getting badgered into admitting guilt for things they didn’t do (or perhaps weren’t really of sound mind enough to be responsible for) etc. nobody trusts a benefits claimant so even easier to pursue?
It’s a weird one (to a non-lawyer at least) – part of me feels anyone should be able to bring a case against others if they so wish, and then for the courts to weigh up the evidence and decide.
they can, in a civil case. “I believe you lost me £20K” please repay it or we go to court. Lower burden of proof - you win you get my money (if I have any) and costs. But a civil case can never result in someone being sent to prison (or other criminal sanctions). In reality the costs of bring a prosecution as a one off against another citizen are so high that only the very richest could consider it, and if you win, likely to bankrupt most defendants so you need to be wealthy with an axe to grind to consider it. That’s not a healthy thing to encourage. If it’s in the public interest to prosecute then it should be the job of the public prosecutor.
HMRC did the opposite and loads of actual guilty people got off due to institutional failures (LCB debacle),
That’s one thing that shocked me, the 555 were awarded some £58m but £46m was apparently swallowed up by legal fees
I haven’t seen how the bill was calculated, but I saw a figure suggesting PO had spent £100M pursuing those cases….
now assuming you were a solicitor/ barrister what you have done the work for, on a no-win no-fee basis because the SPMs are all broke? I think it was five or six different appeals of various different points of law. No legal aid available for this, your only hope is to win and take a chunk of the winnings. Of course the PO could have handed over all the documents quickly etc and probably saved them a chunk of those fees which would have been spent pursuing the PO for stuff they were sitting on.
In reality the costs of bring a prosecution as a one off against another citizen are so high that only the very richest could consider it, and if you win, likely to bankrupt most defendants so you need to be wealthy with an axe to grind to consider it.
The costs can be reclaimed from the state so you "just" need to be cover the upfront cost whether they win or lose so long as it isnt too obviously dodgy.
Which makes it even more problematic in my mind. Since it means both faster "justice" for those who can afford the upfront costs but with the bill in the end coming out of the general fund.
A proper two tier system.
Is anyone actually listening to Stephen Bradshaw, the senior Post Office investigator being questioned by the inquiry?
Julian Blake KC is ripping him apart with devastating ease. If it wasn't so serious it would be entertaining.
Just watched Stephen Bradshaw answering questions.
Wow! Other than covering his own arse, with a lot of difficulty, he seems totally unbothered by what he was part of. Even with the benefit of hindsight!
I think my concern is, if it’s happening at the PO how sure are we it’s not happening at the Benefits Agency, HMRC or any of the other government bodies with the power to prosecute.
I think a quick look at the caseload would do nothing to put your mind at ease. Those who have no power or representation have always been easy pickings because they can be bullied into pleading guilty or making admissions that lead to a guilty verdict.
It's like TV Licensing going after the most vulnerable to keep their conviction rates up. eg:
https://twitter.com/kirkkorner/status/1729591348213207508
Its made for unbelievable listening. Stephen Bradshaw is an 'investigator' in name only, who seemed possessed of not a shred of curiosity or interest about anything at all
If his Post Office bosses or Fujitsu told him something, then he just accepted it without a second thought and then rubber stamped everything on their behalf
And he clearly doesn't have even the slightest bit of shame or regret about his part in ruining so many lives
What an total ****!
I think my concern is, if it’s happening at the PO how sure are we it’s not happening at the Benefits Agency, HMRC or any of the other government bodies with the power to prosecute.
Ignoring tbe prosecution aspect as that (severely) affects a minority of people, but the wider arrogance and refusal to consider an alternative option in the face of evidence is a real issue in the public sector that affects millions.
Austerity hasn't helped, maybe 15 years of it have resulted in management chains that can't think outside the austerity box. Obviously, the lead comes down from ministers/government.
The only way you scare folk like this Stephen Bradshaw is start talking about gross negligence and loss of pension, he's sat there on a full pension and can disappear without any care after this case.
Can see a few articles about him coming out now, he's making himself unpopular and newspapers love getting info on folk like this.
Ignoring tbe prosecution aspect as that (severely) affects a minority of people, but the wider arrogance and refusal to consider an alternative option in the face of evidence is a real issue in the public sector that affects millions.
It isn't just the public sector, we have for several decades moved towards a top down society where the majority of people are just disposable commodities.
I said a dozen pages back, this kind of thing happens all the time, not so "industrialized" as has happened here, but people are constantly chewed up and spat out by the system through no fault of their own.
They really need to prosecute the grunts like that PO investigator above as well.
Probably, but it needs to go top down, not bottom up. I'd rather see Paula Vennels in the dock first than Stephen Bradshaw.
Probably, but it needs to go top down, not bottom up. I’d rather see Paula Vennels in the dock first than Stephen Bradshaw.
Listening to him i'd say he's had more to do with those being jailed and charged than Vennels, he seems to have zero care for any victim and believes he's still right in what he did and said over the years, everything is blame the prosecution, i was only doing my job.
Yeah that's fair @argee, but I think that the board are responsible for setting the tone for organisations like this. Bradshaw can act like that becasue he 'knows' that's what his bosses want from him; to make sure the SPM know their place, to make sure that nothing gets in the way of POL operating in the way that it thinks is correct, and the way its wants to, You're right that without folks like Bradshaw nothing happens, but that's also true and perhaps says more so about the expectations of the folks way up the food chain. [who could've stopped it all at any point they felt like it]
Bradshaw is definitely being set up as the fall guy here.
He's actually too stupid to see it too
I'd rather we follow the evidence to identify culpability and hold to account no matter where individuals are placed in the organisation.
It's the right and proper way to do it.
Sound as if his job was as an "enforcer" not an "investigator".
Sounds like his job was to sign everything they put in front of him.
... in fact, this - https://how-i-met-your-mother.fandom.com/wiki/Provide_Legal_Exculpation_and_Sign_Everything
You go top down and you get pretty much nothing, they have several layers of protection between them and the actual workings, i've seen it in my line of work, you have to show failings in the organisation through their failure to have competent individuals carrying out the policy, processes and procedures within the appropriate organisational structure and governance structure.
It just annoys me when someone like this turns up in an inquiry, i've seen it a few times in my area as well, they're just 'doing their job' and looking for someone to blame, not for any actual issues that require fixing, then wait another few years for it to fail again and play the blame game yet again.
The costs can be reclaimed from the state so you “just” need to be cover the upfront cost whether they win or lose so long as it isnt too obviously dodgy.<br />Which makes it even more problematic in my mind. Since it means both faster “justice” for those who can afford the upfront costs but with the bill in the end coming out of the general fund.<br />A proper two tier system.
Are you saying that if XYZ Plc prosecutes me for some misdemeanour, but in the process racks up a £300K legal bill, which from my meagre assets of a couple of bikes and a laptop I can't pay that not only will I end up being declared bankrupt but the state will pay XYZ Plc the £300K?
Sound as if his job was as an “enforcer” not an “investigator”.
He does seem reliant on the lawyers which is a bit problematic when you look at how one of those lawyers performed at the inquiry.
All the PO witnesses seem to be absolute morons.
I am half expecting some HR person to turn up at the enquiry and announce their policy was if someone couldnt mop a floor without collapsing due to being unable to breath at the same time they got transferred to this team.
which from my meagre assets of a couple of bikes and a laptop I can’t pay that not only will I end up being declared bankrupt but the state will pay XYZ Plc the £300K?
Yup seems that way. Although as with most legal things I think there is some terms and conditions apply.
Is anyone actually listening to Stephen Bradshaw, the senior Post Office investigator being questioned by the inquiry?
I bet when he was bullying all those postmasters years ago he never thought he'd be interrogated live on 24 hour national news channels a decade later. 😂
"Stephen, just keep bangin' on about 'the charity'. Keep saying 'charity' and everyone will not notice you're full of vindictive shit. And dim."
Bradshaw is a prime example of someone who has exceeded his ceiling of competence. It's not surprising that people got falsely nailed to the wall if that is the standard of 'investigator'.
He's falling apart like a house of cards in a hurricane just now, and his testimony will be used against the prosecutors with the way he's throwing everyone under the bus
Bet the victims are watching this and laughing at how the boots on the other foot now!
I'll bet that some of the others who gave testimony to the enquiry previously are glad that their own pitiful performances were prior to the media focus being on it.
Also, the inquiry chair probably needs to start sending people from the Post Office to prison for slow release of documents.
Stephen Bradshaw at the end of today sounded fully like the petty, nasty little bully that many of his victims have accused him of being. He looks like the type who was properly getting off on his little power trip.
What a horrible little man.
dissonance
Full MemberThats one of the odd things which has come out of the trials. Most of them seem to be lifetime PO staff switching from counter/post delivery staff to being investigators at random.
Was much the same for the internal investigation guys in the bank I used to work for- there was basically 2 divisions, the high level guys who had more background in investigation, forensic accounting, some ex-police, and who were mostly looking at organised crime and larger scale stuff, and the everyday guys who'd be the equivalent of people dealing with postmasters, who pretty much all came through the business.
I reckon it worked tbh, theu needed a proper inside-and-out understanding of the systems but also the logic and the day-to-day culture and the opportunities and pressures and temptations. Every case I was involved in, I'm pretty certain it'd be more useful to be an ex-counter-person than ex-police or financial crime. I got tapped for the job once (because I had quote "the right nasty sort of brain", which I think really meant that I'd worked out a hundred ways how to rip off the bank but never thought it worth doing it) but it seemed an absolutely miserable job tbh.
poly
Free MemberI can’t see any reason why for a criminal prosecution there is any need for someone other than “the crown” to prosecute? Can anyone explain why we want RSPCA, or the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, or Big Bank Plc to lead prosecutions potentially resulting in prison sentences?
I don't think it should rest with corporations, but I can see a good argument with NGOs. Like, if you want serious animal abuse to be a criminal offence- and I do- do you want that to sit in with normal policing jobs? Or to have a whole separate, and presumably hopelessly underresourced Farms Squad? The NGOs are highly skilled and highly motivated and have the day-to-day involvement and eye on the crimes. In the end it's basically the same argument for having an RSPCA instead of a Department of Prevention Of Cruelty To Animals. It Just absolutely needs to be properly counterweighted with safeties and protections in the legal/court system.
In an ideal world I'd say sure make that a properly resourced police role but pragmatically, it 'd be the first to be cut. "Labour are soft on crime, they want to spend YOUR MONEY on chasing people who kicked a dog once instead of SMALL BOATS"
(another option would be to have a small "taking action" team so that basically the investigation side is all outsourced but eventually you have to go to an office of the state to actually make a prosecution. But that has potential for abuse and client policing)
Stephen Bradshaw at the end of today sounded fully like the petty, nasty little bully that many of his victims have accused him of being. He looks like the type who was properly getting off on his little power trip.
What a horrible little man.
He’s certainly done himself no favours, he just reminds me of folk I’ve worked with over the years, especially civil service, would put money on him being, or has been, a union rep in the PO
would put money on him being, or has been, a union rep in the PO
Poor management get the union officials that they deserve.
Watched most of this today. The Dunning and Kruger effect writ large, too stupid to know how stupid he is. Whilst he comes across as a nasty piece of work and a liar, with his level of incompetence, the fault has got to lie with others allowing him to do a job which he seems unqualified and unfit to do. There’s obviously been 20 years of groupthink and delusion at the PO, what’s surprising is how long it went on and that none of the number of clever people who have been involved (lawyers are generally far from stupid) seemed to have cut through the bullshit and said that the whole strategy wasn’t sustainable or ethical.
lawyers are generally far from stupid
There are always exceptions. The PO lawyer in charge of their prosecutions in the later years had a couple of days at the inquiry last month.
He didnt come across any better.
Like, if you want serious animal abuse to be a criminal offence- and I do- do you want that to sit in with normal policing jobs?
northwind - do you believe that animal cruelty is more common in Scotland or less frequently successfully prosecuted where RSPCA have no remit and SSPCA have the power to investigate and report to the COPFS but no option to prosecute in their own right?
He didnt come across any better.
He couldn’t even remember if he was head of criminal law. 🤡
the fault
has got toalso lays at the feet of thosewith othersallowing him to do a job which he seems unqualified and unfit to do
FTFY
Little man or no, he's culpable as well as the tools who hired and managed him. I know there's this innate desire for vengeance against those we see as the 'elite', or faceless leaders, but there should be no free passes because you're a bit thick, or a bit clever.
If you're deemed to have perpetrated this ****ery, no matter how great or small you should expect to answer for that. Which is what the SPM's want.
There are always exceptions. The PO lawyer in charge of their prosecutions in the later years had a couple of days at the inquiry last month. He didnt come across any better
fair point, though the solicitors and QCs involved should surely have known all this wasn’t kosher. There must be a few of them expecting a knock at the door from SRA
This is worth a read about the quality of testimony that the inquiry has been dealing with.
this would be hilarious if it wasn’t so utterly depressing:
“There followed some of the most surreal gibberish I’ve ever heard from someone under oath”
“The world is full of thick-as-mince, malevolent incompetents like Elaine Cottam. The problems start when they are promoted into positions of power, as the Post Office appears to have done with multiple idiots on multiple occasions.”
Also, the inquiry chair probably needs to start sending people from the Post Office to prison for slow release of documents.
Can they do this?
If so, levering the sobering reality of your inaction and action would perhaps really change the culture of resistance that seems to still be in the PO.
Can they do this?
Evidence in a public inquiry is requested by the Chair under s21 of the Inquiries Act.
s35 Inquiries Act state;
(1)A person is guilty of an offence if he fails without reasonable excuse to do anything that he is required to do by a notice under section 21.
You can go to prison for it but how it applies to a corporate body with the s21 request being served on the organisation rather than an individual is outside my experience (IANAL).
poly
Free Membernorthwind – do you believe that animal cruelty is more common in Scotland or less frequently successfully prosecuted where RSPCA have no remit and SSPCA have the power to investigate and report to the COPFS but no option to prosecute in their own right?
I'm not sure it makes much difference in the end tbh, in both cases the private org is building the prosecution, in principle I think it ought to just come down to where the safeguard/stopcheck is- whether it's at "the decision to prosecute" or "letting the prosecution proceed". But in practice of course not so simple. But equally my (25 years of rust) scottish vs uk law courses mostly convinced me that doing direct comparisons between the two never really works even when it looks similar.
Can they do this?
sort of. He can prosecute for failing to provide or appear etc. (Ironically in E&W it looks like he needs the permission of the DPP to do so!). He can’t send them to jail, but if convicted the Magistrates could! It looks like this applies on individuals rather than corporate bodies? But presumably that because the order to supply the documents would be served on the individuals?
If so, levering the sobering reality of your inaction and action would perhaps really change the culture of resistance that seems to still be in the PO.
ironically a corporate failure to cooperate probably does the organisation much more harm than any penalty the magistrates court would impose - the inquiry will ultimately write recommendations. A failure to recognise it’s wrong doing and poor governance must surely result in massive wholesale change, reorganisation and removal of individuals? There’s no way whichever government is in power at the time is going to want to be seen to ignore the findings of the inquiry. If they had shown they had learned/could improve by themselves it would be much harder to justify root and branch change.
I don't think I've ever seen Ian Hislop about to lose his temper before! Hislop for PM!
https://cdn.jwplayer.com/previews/g7WdbY7I
In depth report on the huge pressure and lies aimed at the BBC and Panorama back in 2015.
The PO and it's lawyers lobbied top BBC staff, threatened the BBC and Panorama witnesses/experts with litigation all the while denying that the Horizon system had any issues. Well worth a read.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67884743
A quote from the UK Cycling thread. Shocking stats. Pre - Horizon 6 postmasters convicted per year. Afterwards 51.
"Conversation on Joshua Rozenburg's blog - According to a Post Office FOI statement obtained by Nick Wallis in 2020 and passed on to me by Alan Bates, the number of subpostmasters convicted in 1991 to 1998 averaged 6 per year. After Horizon, from 2000 to 2013, that number rose to 51 per year.
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."