Post Office Trial Compensation

[Cold]

Remember the recent trial of postmasters who were wrongly accused of pilfering money from the Post Office due to the defective Horizon IT system? (Many are still ongoing)
Well, the PO has declared that it can't afford to pay the compensation ordered by the court nor can it afford to pay to sort out the mess left behind.

So the taxpayer is going to.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/14/u...

[anonymous-user]

At least the people wronged will get something after having been completely and utterly dragged through the mud for doing nothing wrong.

Apparently the Post Office behaved so badly over this that Fujitsu have managed to escape from any financial liability for their computer system that created the mess. That is another scandal that should be investigated and means UK.gov picks up the bill as the only shareholder.

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252509066/Fuji...

[irc]

700 Postmasters prosecuted. Did nobody at the top of the Post Office stop to ask themselves why all of a sudden previously honest Postmasters had turned into criminals in vast numbers?

Did nobody ask why not a single one admitted guilt when "caught".

Edited by irc on Tuesday 14th December 20:55

[loughran]

There's a very good podcast on BBC Sounds by Nick Wallis who started investigating this travesty 10 years ago.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/m000jf7j

[Gareth79]

irc said:

700 Postmasters prosecuted. Did nobody at the top of the Post Office stop to ask themselves why all of a sudden previously honest Postmasters had turned into criminals in vast numbers?

I think it started out as "oh wow this new computer system is picking up all sorts of dodgy stuff we never would have known about" and then it was quickly "oops, it was due to some bugs, hopefully we can cover it up and fix the bugs and nobody will notice" but they kept going. IIRC there were many whistleblowers but it was a huge steamroller and it took a huge and very expensive legal effort to start having an effect.

It has been going since I started working in IT, and I remember the press articles at the time where the reporters clearly had done extensive research to know that there were serious problems and the person had not stolen anything.

[dudleybloke]

Is there any way the victims could go for who was the post office bosses at the time?
Would be good karma to bankrupt them.

[HRH2009]

I'm surprised there are no perjury charges being brought to some of senior members of the Post Office. Internally there was a known issue, but they still presented evidence to court, leading to this gross miscarriage of justice.

[eliot]

loughran said:

There's a very good podcast on BBC Sounds by Nick Wallis who started investigating this travesty 10 years ago.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/m000jf7j

+1 I listened to that too.

[vikingaero]

HRH2009 said:

I'm surprised there are no perjury charges being brought to some of senior members of the Post Office. Internally there was a known issue, but they still presented evidence to court, leading to this gross miscarriage of justice.

That's simply not the British way anymore to accept responsiblilty. They've hoovered up fat paypackets and pensions and are living the quiet life hoping it all blows away.

[BIRMA]

vikingaero said:

HRH2009 said:

I'm surprised there are no perjury charges being brought to some of senior members of the Post Office. Internally there was a known issue, but they still presented evidence to court, leading to this gross miscarriage of justice.

That's simply not the British way anymore to accept responsiblilty. They've hoovered up fat paypackets and pensions and are living the quiet life hoping it all blows away.

I agree, I've followed this from day one and can not believe how the two prominent females and a few others have got away with it, including the computer giant. The Union supposed to help them didn't and left them high and dry.
I have contributed money to the Postmasters cause on several occasions. And it seems now that I have to contribute to the problem caused by others again.

[Lotobear]

Did I not read recently that the Post Office posted recorded profits due to the pandemic by delivering parcels of tat to folk 'battling' lockdown?

They should use that windfall to fund to compensation should they not?

[TwigtheWonderkid]

irc said:

Did nobody ask why not a single one admitted guilt when "caught".

Edited by irc on Tuesday 14th December 20:55

Some of them did plead guilty, on advice of lawyers, to bring the whole thing to an end, out of fear of a facing a full trial, they felt intimidated, for a whole host of reasons.

This will be another Windrush. Most who deserve compo will never see a penny. It'll drag on for years.

[Lotobear]

brickwall said:

Don’t confuse Royal Mail with The Post Office.

Ah, mea culpa!

[Ian Geary]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

This will be another Windrush. Most who deserve compo will never see a penny. It'll drag on for years.

Quite, especially as some have sadly since passed away.

[Vipers]

Having just finished reading a book about it, it was absolutely shocking, every time a post office complained about the totals being wrong, they were told to ignore it, and when eventually the crap hit the fan, the post office workers were told it had never been happened before.

Total corruption, and yet no one in the post office has ever been prosecuted for this. Between 2000 - 2015 over 700 sub-postmasters had been prosecuted using Horizon evidence, doesn’t take a genius to figure they can’t all be lying, and it may be the software.

Paula Vennells should be prosecuted.

Edited by Vipers on Wednesday 15th December 19:02

Edited by Vipers on Wednesday 15th December 19:09

Edited by Vipers on Wednesday 15th December 19:10

[james-witton]

eliot said:

loughran said:

There's a very good podcast on BBC Sounds by Nick Wallis who started investigating this travesty 10 years ago.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/m000jf7j

+1 I listened to that too.

Very well put together. I seem to remember an episode with a Regional Manager trying to get a confession from someone and saying that no-one else has such cash discrepancies- when he knew full well that there were numerous other similar cases.

Quite shocking what happened. People should be held accountable.

[Vipers]

Anyone interested in reading the book by Nick Wallis “The Great Post Office Scandal”, got mine on Kindle, £8.99 from Amazon.

[BIRMA]

Vipers said:

Having just finished reading a book about it, it was absolutely shocking, every time a post office complained about the totals being wrong, they were told to ignore it, and when eventually the crap hit the fan, the post office workers were told it had never been happened before.

Total corruption, and yet no one in the post office has ever been prosecuted for this. Between 2000 - 2015 over 700 sub-postmasters had been prosecuted using Horizon evidence, doesn’t take a genius to figure they can’t all be lying, and it may be the software.

Paula Vennells should be prosecuted.

Edited by Vipers on Wednesday 15th December 19:02

Edited by Vipers on Wednesday 15th December 19:09

Edited by Vipers on Wednesday 15th December 19:10

And Angela van den Bogerd deserves to be prosecuted too, I remember hearing a recording of her court appearance where her entire attitude towards a witness was something else.
And the Union that was supposed to help really didn't.

Edited by BIRMA on Wednesday 15th December 21:48

[eliot]

BIRMA said:

And the Union that was supposed to help really didn't.

Oh they were shocking - unbelievable considering they are there to protect the staff.

[Nurburgsingh]

The union has always been a joke, and as for the “staff” label, there’s staff and there’s effectively franchisee’s - and the Post Office decide which one they want to class you as depending on which one gets the stest deal in the situation.
Staff work in the regional offices and the ‘main’ post offices of which there are precious few these days.

I spent nearly 12 years as a subpostmaster -saw the introduction of Horizon, saw the lack of integrity in the testing and QA process and was “fortunate” to have had my office closed down in one of the many culls that they had.

The numbers that they’ve been talking about for compensation for the innocent postmasters is a joke. I know families that have been defeated by this - people have lost their businesses, their houses, their freedom, and I know at least one family where the accused took their own life because of this.