Mr Bates vs The Post Office
Discussion
Re Fujitsu. Under EU rule brought in 2025, (which the UK still abides by) bidders for government contracts can be excluded if they had "shown significant or persistent deficiencies in the performance of a substantive requirement under a prior public contract" provided this led to early termination of that prior contract or comparable sanctions. Thus, with ample evidence of Fujitsu screwing up re the PO, cancel their contract and scrub them off the future government contract list.
I wonder if this will follow the path of the phone hacking scandal where some of the smaller parties want to court, but not the senior ones.
I just hope that those who are culpable are having their lives spoilt by the prospect of jail hanging around for a few more years. Having seen them give evidence I think that they are capable of compartmentalising it, but if it were me I’d be worrying about constantly.
I just hope that those who are culpable are having their lives spoilt by the prospect of jail hanging around for a few more years. Having seen them give evidence I think that they are capable of compartmentalising it, but if it were me I’d be worrying about constantly.
They will never get prosecuted; AVDB did a skilled job of not really being pinned down even though she was clearly at the centre of it. It was known from at least 2010 (that horizons could remotely access and change entries) and persisted all the way to 2015 yet she had various bulls
t get-outs for not knowing any of it
She had job roles of, network change operations manager, head of network services, head of partnerships, director of support services and the director of people and change, business improvement director
She held every major job going including being charge of project sparrow. Had how many meetings with the lawyers. They tried to minimise compensation payments and get SPM to sign non disclosures.
They know everything but they won’t get caught. They 100% deleted email chains off the servers.
t get-outs for not knowing any of it She had job roles of, network change operations manager, head of network services, head of partnerships, director of support services and the director of people and change, business improvement director
She held every major job going including being charge of project sparrow. Had how many meetings with the lawyers. They tried to minimise compensation payments and get SPM to sign non disclosures.
They know everything but they won’t get caught. They 100% deleted email chains off the servers.
CoolHands said:
They will never get prosecuted; AVDB did a skilled job of not really being pinned down even though she was clearly at the centre of it. It was known from at least 2010 (that horizons could remotely access and change entries) and persisted all the way to 2015 yet she had various bullst get-outs for not knowing any of it
She had job roles of, network change operations manager, head of network services, head of partnerships, director of support services and the director of people and change, business improvement director
She held every major job going including being charge of project sparrow. Had how many meetings with the lawyers. They tried to minimise compensation payments and get SPM to sign non disclosures.
They know everything but they won’t get caught. They 100% deleted email chains off the servers.
Just remind me though, was Mrs VDB on the executive board? t get-outs for not knowing any of it She had job roles of, network change operations manager, head of network services, head of partnerships, director of support services and the director of people and change, business improvement director
She held every major job going including being charge of project sparrow. Had how many meetings with the lawyers. They tried to minimise compensation payments and get SPM to sign non disclosures.
They know everything but they won’t get caught. They 100% deleted email chains off the servers.
robinessex said:
Re Fujitsu. Under EU rule brought in 2025, (which the UK still abides by) bidders for government contracts can be excluded if they had "shown significant or persistent deficiencies in the performance of a substantive requirement under a prior public contract" provided this led to early termination of that prior contract or comparable sanctions. Thus, with ample evidence of Fujitsu screwing up re the PO, cancel their contract and scrub them off the future government contract list.
Yes and no.The problem with scrubbing them off the list is there is at a minimum Horizon, and probably other proprietary systems written by Fujitsu that no other services provider will touch with a bargepole mid product life.
I suspect that they will eventually be barred from net new procurement but allowed to bid on systems maintenance for existing services. I also think that Fujitsu will look to exit the UK market (as they have in Ireland) via a sale to a competitor (Capita would be a good fit in terms of competence and culture...) or private equity.
vaud said:
robinessex said:
Re Fujitsu. Under EU rule brought in 2025, (which the UK still abides by) bidders for government contracts can be excluded if they had "shown significant or persistent deficiencies in the performance of a substantive requirement under a prior public contract" provided this led to early termination of that prior contract or comparable sanctions. Thus, with ample evidence of Fujitsu screwing up re the PO, cancel their contract and scrub them off the future government contract list.
Yes and no.The problem with scrubbing them off the list is there is at a minimum Horizon, and probably other proprietary systems written by Fujitsu that no other services provider will touch with a bargepole mid product life.
I suspect that they will eventually be barred from net new procurement but allowed to bid on systems maintenance for existing services. I also think that Fujitsu will look to exit the UK market (as they have in Ireland) via a sale to a competitor (Capita would be a good fit in terms of competence and culture...) or private equity.
vaud said:
The problem with scrubbing them off the list is there is at a minimum Horizon, and probably other proprietary systems written by Fujitsu that no other services provider will touch with a bargepole mid product life.
Show Fujitsu the door. Keep the building and staff. New management ( probably from those there who know the technical side and all the issues ) then a recovery plan put into action. Keep the new organisation as the Post Office IT department, wholly owned by the Post Office.robinessex said:
Show Fujitsu the door. Keep the building and staff. New management ( probably from those there who know the technical side and all the issues ) then a recovery plan put into action. Keep the new organisation as the Post Office IT department, wholly owned by the Post Office.
Not sure I would trust the Post Office... balise said:
I wonder if this will follow the path of the phone hacking scandal where some of the smaller parties want to court, but not the senior ones.
I just hope that those who are culpable are having their lives spoilt by the prospect of jail hanging around for a few more years. Having seen them give evidence I think that they are capable of compartmentalising it, but if it were me I’d be worrying about constantly.
I think there's a difference between this and the phone hacking scenario. Essentially the accused party here is a publicly funded organisation vs the phone hacking where the accused was News International. It's clear that Murdoch has just thrown a bundle of money to keep cases out of court, 1 billion over the years apparently. I think that no government would survive a similar strategy, the PO management might want to try that, but Murdoch tactics have resulted in the sort of situation which has resulted in such as Hugh Grant reluctantly accepting the Part36 out of court offer and not pushing on to have his day in court. Would POL have the balls and funding support to go for that, in the past probably, now not so sure.I just hope that those who are culpable are having their lives spoilt by the prospect of jail hanging around for a few more years. Having seen them give evidence I think that they are capable of compartmentalising it, but if it were me I’d be worrying about constantly.
Some explanation here for those interested.
https://www.morrlaw.com/dispute-resolution-individ...
vaud said:
robinessex said:
Show Fujitsu the door. Keep the building and staff. New management ( probably from those there who know the technical side and all the issues ) then a recovery plan put into action. Keep the new organisation as the Post Office IT department, wholly owned by the Post Office.
Not sure I would trust the Post Office... robinessex said:
vaud said:
robinessex said:
Show Fujitsu the door. Keep the building and staff. New management ( probably from those there who know the technical side and all the issues ) then a recovery plan put into action. Keep the new organisation as the Post Office IT department, wholly owned by the Post Office.
Not sure I would trust the Post Office... robinessex said:
Show Fujitsu the door.
Madness. You don't kick out the only people who know how the system works.Is there any evidence of wrongdoing by Fujitsu? Sure, many computer systems have glitches. My limited understanding here is that PO management simply didn't bother to behave sensibly in light of the knowledge they had. And this idea that all sub-postmasters must be as white as driven snow is tosh. PO had some fraud before Fujitsu and had some fraud during Fujitsu; but they chose not to manage the realities on the ground. An army of jobsworths who couldn't be bothered to find out what was really going on.
What will be the outcome? "This must never be allowed to happen again." Until next time.
Management in organisations that kill people rarely incur serious penalties so the chance of anything ground-breaking being imposed here is vanishingly small.
Panamax said:
Madness. You don't kick out the only people who know how the system works.
Is there any evidence of wrongdoing by Fujitsu? Sure, many computer systems have glitches. My limited understanding here is that PO management simply didn't bother to behave sensibly in light of the knowledge they had. And this idea that all sub-postmasters must be as white as driven snow is tosh. PO had some fraud before Fujitsu and had some fraud during Fujitsu; but they chose not to manage the realities on the ground. An army of jobsworths who couldn't be bothered to find out what was really going on.
What will be the outcome? "This must never be allowed to happen again." Until next time.
Management in organisations that kill people rarely incur serious penalties so the chance of anything ground-breaking being imposed here is vanishingly small.
Fujitsu put forward an expert witness who was massively discredited because he did not fulfill his duties. His evidence did not cover the faults or Fujitsu’s ability to change records behind the scenes. Is there any evidence of wrongdoing by Fujitsu? Sure, many computer systems have glitches. My limited understanding here is that PO management simply didn't bother to behave sensibly in light of the knowledge they had. And this idea that all sub-postmasters must be as white as driven snow is tosh. PO had some fraud before Fujitsu and had some fraud during Fujitsu; but they chose not to manage the realities on the ground. An army of jobsworths who couldn't be bothered to find out what was really going on.
What will be the outcome? "This must never be allowed to happen again." Until next time.
Management in organisations that kill people rarely incur serious penalties so the chance of anything ground-breaking being imposed here is vanishingly small.
Fujitsu are as culpable as the post office. They should not be given a pass because they were dishonest in the prosecutions of SPM’s
"POL and Fujitsu met just days prior to SPM Seema Misra’s Crown Court trial to discuss a bug named by Fraser J in the High Court litigation as the ‘Receipts and Payments Mismatch’ (RPM) which had effected 40 branches. Dr Jenkins, who was one of the main software developers of Horizon and POL’s go to expert witness in criminal prosecutions, wrote the proposal to fix that bug. Days later he attended Misra’s trial and gave allegedly independent expert evidence where he failed to disclose any bugs and asserted that though he could not exclude the possibility of errors in the system, they were incapable of causing the volume of loss recorded. The particular RPM bug only affected a version of Horizon deployed in 2010, after the indictment period for Misra’s trial ended. However, 11 years later in the Court of Appeal, all parties agreed that its existence should have been disclosed when POL repeatedly asserted there was no other explanation for the loss due to the robustness of their software."
blueg33 said:
Fujitsu put forward an expert witness who was massively discredited because he did not fulfill his duties. His evidence did not cover the faults or Fujitsu’s ability to change records behind the scenes.
Fujitsu are as culpable as the post office. They should not be given a pass because they were dishonest in the prosecutions of SPM’s
He also had a massive conflict of interest in being the expert witness.Fujitsu are as culpable as the post office. They should not be given a pass because they were dishonest in the prosecutions of SPM’s
FiF said:
balise said:
I wonder if this will follow the path of the phone hacking scandal where some of the smaller parties want to court, but not the senior ones.
I just hope that those who are culpable are having their lives spoilt by the prospect of jail hanging around for a few more years. Having seen them give evidence I think that they are capable of compartmentalising it, but if it were me I’d be worrying about constantly.
I think there's a difference between this and the phone hacking scenario. Essentially the accused party here is a publicly funded organisation vs the phone hacking where the accused was News International. It's clear that Murdoch has just thrown a bundle of money to keep cases out of court, 1 billion over the years apparently. I think that no government would survive a similar strategy, the PO management might want to try that, but Murdoch tactics have resulted in the sort of situation which has resulted in such as Hugh Grant reluctantly accepting the Part36 out of court offer and not pushing on to have his day in court. Would POL have the balls and funding support to go for that, in the past probably, now not so sure.I just hope that those who are culpable are having their lives spoilt by the prospect of jail hanging around for a few more years. Having seen them give evidence I think that they are capable of compartmentalising it, but if it were me I’d be worrying about constantly.
Some explanation here for those interested.
https://www.morrlaw.com/dispute-resolution-individ...
SydneyBridge said:
The operators do put security codes on voicemail, but no one ever changes them from the default code, so hacking is very easy
Thing is though the allegations against News International included not just, just!? phone hacking, but illegal data gathering for example obtaining private medical records, tapping private landlines and burglary.This is way off topic though so leaving it.
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