Mr Bates vs The Post Office

[ClaphamGT3]

Smollet said:

Outstanding mini series. How the management of the PO have escaped jail time especially the odious witch who was CEO(later awarded a damehood for her services iirc) is something that should be addressed ASAP.

Her Wikipedia entry makes interesting reading. I suspect that it was written by someone with a fairly firm view of her role in the Horizon scandal.

[freakybacon]

Watched first episode last night, binged the rest today. An excellent series.

[leef44]

Seasonal Hero said:

98elise said:

IT department normally have far greater power to access and change stuff. It's what their job is.

Someone with live database access can alter just about anything on most systems.

Who is disputing that?

What's at issue here is the unaudited changes, the lies to cover them up afterwards, the impact those changes had on people, and who told them to do it.

Try updating live data in a banking environment without a stack of approvals and audits and find that out fast.

That's the whole point. Fujitsu and Horizon were the ones disputing that. They didn't need audit of changes because they were saying it was not possible to make changes remotely.

[SpeedBash]

Rushjob said:

Mrs RJ applied for a job with one of our local sub Post Offices in mid 2008, part of a group of extremely well known shops with SPO's in store.

During the interview it was mentioned that if at the end of the day her cash etc was not balanced, she would be personally responsible for making up the shortfall.

Came home and spoke to me about it, saying with that in mind she wouldn't accept the job if offered.

Next day she gets a call saying she's got the job and apparently the manager was really surprised when she turned it down and told them why.

Dodged a bullet there maybe?

Nurburgsingh said:

Indeed, our office was one of the ones that was closed down in the early phases of reducing the network, I look back now and count my lucky stars.

Likewise - my late father was a sub post master for about 20 years - very responsible in his role much like the ones depicted in this drama - retired just before Horizon was implemented - absolute blessing as he would have been devastated if caught up in this.

[98elise]

Bonefish Blues said:

98elise said:

Digger said:

Is there a detailed & in-depth article anywhere that goes some way to explain what the bugs & errors were within the Horizon/Fujitsu software to cause these fk ups?

Also the section where it seemed to have been discovered that Fujitsu staff could gain direct access to any SPM's Horizon terminal was astonishing (Remote Access?) which was then swiftly swept under the carpet via spurious reasoning from Vennells herself!

IT department normally have far greater power to access and change stuff. It's what their job is.

Someone with live database access can alter just about anything on most systems.

But they always leave an audit trail, of course. Not here though, seemingly (or at least the Defendants were denied access to anything aiui)

You should (through change management) but it's not a given. You can change data with no trail, turn off any automated trails, even manipulate the data in audit trails. I've legitimately done that as regularly on our business systems.

My point is it's not a revelation that some people have far reaching access on IT systems. It's part of the job when you're the admin.

In addition systems are often wrong. I doubt a bug free system exists. Finding as fixing bugs and errors is a matter of routine in IT.

I've not seen the drama yet so thus is just a general comment rather than specific to fujistu/Horizon.

[tamore]

98elise said:

You should (through change management) but it's not a given. You can change data with no trail, turn off any automated trails, even manipulate the data in audit trails. I've legitimately done that as regularly on our business systems.

My point is it's not a revelation that some people have far reaching access on IT systems. It's part of the job when you're the admin.

In addition systems are often wrong. I doubt a bug free system exists. Finding as fixing bugs and errors is a matter of routine in IT.

I've not seen the drama yet so thus is just a general comment rather than specific to fujistu/Horizon.

https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/livetweets/fujitsu-whistleblower-richard-rolls-evidence-session/

they knew the system was st.

[Seasonal Hero]

98elise said:

You should (through change management) but it's not a given. You can change data with no trail, turn off any automated trails, even manipulate the data in audit trails. I've legitimately done that as regularly on our business systems.

My point is it's not a revelation that some people have far reaching access on IT systems. It's part of the job when you're the admin.

In addition systems are often wrong. I doubt a bug free system exists. Finding as fixing bugs and errors is a matter of routine in IT.

I've not seen the drama yet so thus is just a general comment rather than specific to fujistu/Horizon.

I think you should either watch the drama or familiarise yourself with the specifics of this case. Once you've done that you might view things differently, and to be frank it's a bit off to leap in with general IT commentary and ignore those specifics.

[MesoForm]

SydneyBridge said:

The PO also had prehistoric rights of prosecution

That’s not technically true - they have the same rights to prosecute as the rest of us, the confusion comes about as they were prosecuting people before the CPS came into being. The Law Society are having meetings about what the PO legal team were up to and my wife’s part of that.

I can’t find the show on ITVX?

[Nurburgsingh]

98elise said:

You should (through change management) but it's not a given. You can change data with no trail, turn off any automated trails, even manipulate the data in audit trails. I've legitimately done that as regularly on our business systems.

My point is it's not a revelation that some people have far reaching access on IT systems. It's part of the job when you're the admin.

In addition systems are often wrong. I doubt a bug free system exists. Finding as fixing bugs and errors is a matter of routine in IT.

I've not seen the drama yet so thus is just a general comment rather than specific to fujistu/Horizon.

For a LOT of SPM the idea of audit logs and IT systems was and remains to be completely alien. The introduction of Horizon IIRC remains to be the singel largest change in the modern Post Office and was at the time the largest IT project in the UK ( maybe Europe ?) The deployment of more than 20,000 terminals to more than 15,000 sites nationwide. To train people that have been used to doing manual double entry ledgers for decades and never used a computer in their lives.

These people lived and breathed the Post Office and if POCL said "It cant be wrong" then thats all they needed to hear, the majority knew no better.


As for finding bugs and fixing them being routine.... ppfff... In the iron triangle of Project Delivery 'quality' ALWAYS comes last.

[skwdenyer]

Nurburgsingh said:

For a LOT of SPM the idea of audit logs and IT systems was and remains to be completely alien. The introduction of Horizon IIRC remains to be the singel largest change in the modern Post Office and was at the time the largest IT project in the UK ( maybe Europe ?) The deployment of more than 20,000 terminals to more than 15,000 sites nationwide. To train people that have been used to doing manual double entry ledgers for decades and never used a computer in their lives.

These people lived and breathed the Post Office and if POCL said "It cant be wrong" then thats all they needed to hear, the majority knew no better.


As for finding bugs and fixing them being routine.... ppfff... In the iron triangle of Project Delivery 'quality' ALWAYS comes last.

Back in the 1990s, Indian Airways (internal carrier) decided to computerise. Possibly a similar number of terminals. Custom software running on custom hardware. Years of testing. Nonetheless every bespoke terminal had to be accompanied by a floor fan, as the bespoke hardware couldn’t stay cool in the only intended use case - air travel bureaux.

Never underestimate the myopia and pig headed stupidity of major projects.

[Digger]

MesoForm said:

SydneyBridge said:

The PO also had prehistoric rights of prosecution

That’s not technically true - they have the same rights to prosecute as the rest of us, the confusion comes about as they were prosecuting people before the CPS came into being. The Law Society are having meetings about what the PO legal team were up to and my wife’s part of that.

I can’t find the show on ITVX?

https://www.itv.com/watch/mr-bates-vs-the-post-off...

[520TORQUES]

MesoForm said:

That’s not technically true - they have the same rights to prosecute as the rest of us, the confusion comes about as they were prosecuting people before the CPS came into being. The Law Society are having meetings about what the PO legal team were up to and my wife’s part of that.

I can’t find the show on ITVX?

I binged the rest last night on ITVX, it is the main program on the home page.

[MesoForm]

Digger said:

https://www.itv.com/watch/mr-bates-vs-the-post-off...

Well that’s odd, I can’t find it via the Sky ITVX app but I can on my FireTV stick

[Zag_a_muffin]

Same for me but then entered a postcode and it was there.

[520TORQUES]

Zag_a_muffin said:

Same for me but then entered a postcode and it was there.

It asked me to confirm my postcode before getting to the main page.

[Eric Mc]

Just watched the first episode- excellent and surprisingly moving.

I’ve been following this story for years so it is great to see it being portrayed this way.
Toby Jones is great.

[Seasonal Hero]

Just watched ep.2. Jesus.

[MrAndyW]

Just finished episode 3. How the hell do these people live with themselves. Unbelievable

[tele_lover]

Sign and share the petition:

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/strip-paula...

[Eric Mc]

Signed - absolute bds.

Fighting the establishment is bloody hard.