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Pretty much the stand-out example of corruption and malice in a 'public' body in the past few decades. An organisation which relentlessly pursued, bankrupted, prosecuted and even jailed its own workers rather than admit its computer system was flawed, then fought tooth and nail to cover it up and deny them compensation. A legacy of broken families, financial ruin, destroyed reputations and suicide.
39 people left with criminal records until today.
Anyone who wants a good summary of the sheer venality and bad faith within the Post Office should read this, from Private Eye, which has spearheaded much of the campaigning journalism on this issue.
I challenge you to get through this without your blood boiling.
How on earth this didn’t get a reply until today, I don’t know.
It (the scandal) is absolutely despicable.
The Post Office, and there really is no other way to describe this, <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;">extorted money from hundreds, possibly thousands, of sub-post masters, wrongfully dismissed at least a few hundred of them, and wrongfully convicted and sent to jail a significant proportion of those.
Then it lied and obfuscated to cover it up.
So far, no one at the Post Office has been held responsible for it.
Possibly the same people who built this forum software did the same for the Post Office. 🤣🤣🤣
Why has paula vennells - chief exec who was instrumental in the persecution and prosecution - not been held to account?
To the best of my knowledge, she hasn't appeared at the enquiry; she, IMO, should have been at or near the top of the witness list.
In December 2019, the Post Office paid out £58 million to sub-postmasters who were awarded compensation for past false prosecutions of monetary theft that had been based on faulty evidence from the Horizon IT system. The judge presiding on the case, Mr Justice Fraser, described the Post Office's approach to the case as "institutional obstinacy" that
amounted, in reality, to bare assertions and denials that ignore what has actually occurred, at least so far as the witnesses called before me in the Horizon Issues trial are concerned. It amounts to the 21st century equivalent of maintaining that the earth is flat.
Vennells subsequently issued a non-apology apology to workers affected by the scandal, saying:
I am truly sorry we were unable to find both a solution and a resolution outside of litigation and for the distress this caused.
In January 2020, as the High Court case against the Post Office ended, Vennells's tenure as CEO was strongly criticised by Conservative peer Lord Arbuthnot, who said: "The hallmark of Paula Vennells' time as CEO was that she was willing to accept appalling advice from people in her management and legal teams. The consequences of this were far-reaching for the Post Office and devastating for the subpostmasters. However, there seem to have been no consequences for her."He described the behaviour of the Post Office under her leadership as "both cruel and incompetent", and said that "she was faced with a moral choice and she took the wrong one, the one which allowed hundreds of subpostmasters to be falsely accused, humiliated and ruined by the organisation she ran".
In early March 2020, she resigned from her Cabinet Office position.
On 19 March 2020, Vennells was harshly criticised in the House of Commons, particularly by Kevan Jones, MP for North Durham, who said:
Obviously, as a board member she knew what was going on, including the strategy in the court case and the bugs in the system. What happened? She got a CBE in the new year's honours list for services to the Post Office. That is just rubbing salt into the wounds of these innocent people. There is a case for her having that honour removed, and I would like to know how she got it in the first place when the court case is ongoing. Added to that, she is now chair of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. Again, I would like to know why and what due diligence was done on her as an individual.
She has resigned from all roles but is still CBE and has not been subject to any action by the Post Office to reclaim any bonuses she received.
I followed this for years, it was clear that there was a huge trend of out of the ordinary issues across Post Offices, the PO had done their own investigation and knew as much, but all swept under the carpet, as above though, how Paula Vennells wasn't brought up on charges is beyond me, there was clear proof, from their own independent report that she had lied to a Parliamentary select committee, that the PO board had withheld evidence from the defence, and prosecution during those trials and much more.
Even more absurd, now that they have put their hands up, they are paying out compensation, which will be taxpayer funded, as earlier on they'd split the profitable bit of the PO to private industries, and kept the loss making part that had this hanging over them!
Pretty much all of them at all levels seem to have gotten away with it.
The judge at the initial trial did refer two of the Fujitsu witnesses to the DPP for potential perjury charges. The met seem to have been investigating but nothing much seems to have happened to date.
About the most that happened was Angela van den Bogerd (an exec who the judge expressed unhappiness about her testimony) being quickly given the boot from the Football Association of Wales after, for some odd reason, the members thought having someone who had helped screw over so many lives might give the wrong impression as "head of people".
The idiot who gave her the job was also shown the door.
good series on R4 about it <br /><br />
caught a bit of it when they had the fraud accountant who was brought in to investigate on. He seemed a decent guy, that the Postmasters thought would whitewash in the PO favour but was astounded at the PO behaviour.
I was aware of this quite early on as I sat on Computer Weekly's Editorial Board 2008-2010, utter travesty of justice and just shows the power of the State, even in a 'democracy'.
It also helped me personally fortify my total opposition to Capital Punishment - just can't trust the State and the people in power (not to abuse it).
Computer Weekly did such excellent work on this alongside PE during this period. Shows what dogged and expert investigative journalism should look like.
The judge at the initial trial did refer two of the Fujitsu witnesses to the DPP for potential perjury charges. The met seem to have been investigating but nothing much seems to have happened to date.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/59x7wz/fujitsu-uk-sues-department-heal
There's been some excellent coverage in Private Eye over the last 12-13 years, summarised here:
https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/justice-lost-in-the-post
Some of the case studies are utterly tragic, and make the blood boil. Mulitple governments tried to cover this up, and it cost lives and dignity. How there's been so little tangible accountability (the irony) is only explained by utter corruption from the top down.
It's a disgrace no one from the Post Office or Fujitsu management side of this is in prison as a result. To willfully allow innocent people to be wrongly convicted and imprisoned (and/or essentially made destitute) should be viewed as amongst the most heinous of crimes
Rod Ismay is finance director at the Ashgate Hospice in Chesterfield.
I wonder if they're aware of his role in the cover up?
I've not followed this closely but it seems shocking and wrong that the compensation is so little, taken so long, doesn't include an apology, and that PO covered up the problem and no one has been convicted for that is beyond belief! So sad for those affected.
It’s a disgrace no one from the Post Office or Fujitsu management side of this is in prison as a result.
I wonder this too. At some point, while post office staff members lives where being turned upside down and criminal proceedings starting, there has to be some corporate duty of care to ensure that the IT system was a 'reliable' indicator and working as intended. And if that thorough review was not conducted, why did criminal court and Post Office managers use it as irrefutable evidence with such zeal?
We have an acquaintance who was affected by this - they lost their job/post office in Killin, were centre of all sorts of rumors and so had to leave their home, and basically 'lost out' on life for about 5 years, lost financially, lost their good reputation and friends. Nothing could replace what they went through.
At some point, while post office staff members lives where being turned upside down and criminal proceedings starting, there has to be some corporate duty of care to ensure that the IT system was a ‘reliable’ indicator and working as intended. And if that thorough review was not conducted, why did criminal court and Post Office managers use it as irrefutable evidence with such zeal?
It's even worse than that.
They used illegal prosecutions to extort money from sub-post masters.
They commissioned Rod Ismay (in my post above, who seems to have had no long lasting detriment to his career) to produce what to all intents and purposes looks like a cover-up report on the system to justify their processes.
When their own internal independent investigation showed that there was an issue they suppressed it and started to attack the investigators.
When they were asked by MPs to set up a mediation scheme they used it to delay any restitution by non-cooperation.
When they were finally taken to court they tried every legal tactic under the sun to delay or avoid having to face justice, including deliberately increasing the cost of litigation, trying to get the judge recused, and getting the sub-post masters legal representation removed from the case under threat of disbarment.
And still they're resisting the reversal of miscarriages of justice, in which the Court of Appeal seems to be colluding with them.
During this time, it's unclear of the role that ministers and civil servants played in this process.
A lot of the Sub-post masters involved were also people of colour.
It’s even worse than that.
🙁
post office staff members
That's the rub. They are not direct employees of PO Ltd, they are basically self-employed but utterly dependent on the whims of head office, which clearly thought it had no duty of care towards them.
They had their own money invested in each of these businesses, and often used their own money to cover these fictitious 'shortfalls' generated by the Horizon system. The loss of their livelihoods, savings, reputation locally and even their freedom drove some to suicide. Each subpostmaster was isolated from the others. He/She often had no idea that so many other branches were being treated the same way.
The pattern of Horizon uncovering these 'frauds' in so many branches with previously spotless records should and would have been obvious to management. But the path of least resistance was to drive innocent and honest people into bankruptcy, prison and death.
The pace of the investigation, legal process and inquiry means that many will die before receiving proper compensation.
there has to be some corporate duty of care to ensure that the IT system was a ‘reliable’ indicator and working as intended. And if that thorough review was not conducted, why did criminal court and Post Office managers use it as irrefutable evidence with such zeal?
It was conducted. Both organisations identified that it didn't work and was riddled with bugs so that these 'errors' were widespread and beyond the control of the sub-PM's.
So they covered it up, and got SPM's to agree to lesser charges in the face of overwhelming evidence. Those that fought the charges generally (but not exclusively) were acquitted. But that in itself is an issue, once you're above the legal aid threshold then you have to pay to mount your own defence, so choosing to stand and fight is not always an easy choice, even if you absolutely know you have done nothing wrong.
The bit I hadn't realised is that the PO has the power to do its own investigations and mount its own prosecutions. No independent review of the evidence needed, no CPS weighing up and asking (the police) how robust their investigations were. Just a vested interest from the top to force prosecutions through as a means of 'proving' that it was theft and not a ****ed up IT debacle.
How the people involved can avoid prosecution, even if it's just for perjury or whatever, all should face proper justice over the lives ruined (and indeed in some cases, lost)
Oh yeah, forgot to add, needless to say that when prosecuting they didn't disclose their own reports showing a problem.
Also, they'd threaten a charge of theft if the Sub Postmaster didn't plead guilty to false accounting, and tell them that it would make them more likely to go to prison. Then when the sub-postmaster pleaded guilty, they'd put a Proceedings of Crime order on their house and take it off them.
For money that they couldn't even prove had existed in the first place.
The bit I hadn’t realised is that the PO has the power to do its own investigations and mount its own prosecutions.
Private prosecutions arent limited to just the PO. Any individual or company can in theory carry one out although due to their history they were better equipped than most to do so.
For the legal aid bit there was a discrepancy that the private prosecutors could recover their costs from the taxpayer whether or not the prosecution was successful and without a legal aid cap. So a pretty strong incentive for them to go ahead.
The legal rule change in 99 which created the resumption that computers were assumed to work correctly unless proved otherwise was also extremely damaging and, frankly as a software developer, nuts.
I am surprised that the PO still has this power to prosecute, given the number of miscarriages of justice that have already been acknowledged. It should have been stripped from them some time ago, but I suppose the government has boats to stop.
For money that they couldn’t even prove had existed in the first place.
Yeah, think a judge made this conclusion to the jury, regarding no evidence of actual money, goods, etc being found, only the computer system had captured this discrepancy, and it was repeated hundreds of times across the country.
You'd think Occam's Razor would come into effect, but those in charge lied, which was evidentially captured in courts, statements, etc, yet nothing happened to them.
As stated earlier though, this is all public money as well, that part of the PO is government owned, they managed to get a sack full of money to take people to court, get independent reports, etc, and now pay for all the compensation from the public purse, which makes it even worse, how do you stop this type of covering up in the future when you see the absolute maximum risk is perhaps being named and shamed, without any real punishment?
Ah yes, one of the people advising them on their (on the face of it ethically dubious) legal strategy turned out to be Baron Neuberger, the ex president of the Supreme Court.
is only explained by utter corruption from the top down.
I don't think they're corrupt, I think they're self-serving. Which sounds like I want to let them off, but in fact I think its worse. You could understand if it was backhanders, it would make sense, but in fact they were prepared for all these folks to suffer untold miseries, both financial and personal ruin, and suicide in some cases, simply because it was easier for them to do that rather than accept the difficult truth and sort it out, it was just so much more convenient.. It's the worst sort of corporate inhumanity.
and it was repeated hundreds of times across the country.
The problem being since it was private prosecutions the cps had no idea how many were going on and any random judge would just see one or maybe two cases. That with the rule change assuming computers were correct would help people assume it was a bad apple or two as opposed to when you have several hundred it might lead someone to ask the PO "are your vetting policies really shit or might there be a problem with your computers?"
When it was first explained to me what was occurring (see my post earlier) the idea that the "system was correct" was something I just couldn't keep a straight face when listening.
For the record, at the time I was an ex-Mainframe Programmer & SysProg who'd moved roles into IT Auditing and was at the time the Global IT Audit Manager for Computer Weekly's group business.
Have the postmasters done class action against Fujitsu? Absolutely outrageous, everyone involved should be banned from working in tech for life.
Have the postmasters done class action against Fujitsu?
Why would they? Fujitsu delivered a shitty IT system and refused to accept it wasn't working, but Post Office Ltd is responsible overall for their suffering and financial losses, even if Fujitsu helped them pursue this strategy.