Mr Bates v's The Post Office

[klondike]

Well I binge watched all 4. So long and still going on. What a disgrace.

The actual Horizon bugs are still a mystery to me. Having spent a working life in IT in one way or another I must say that bugs are common enough but get ironed out for the most part in testing plus any properly designed system is self auditing, There should never be the possibility of errors like those described. That's independent of the overall business accounting which should in no way have allowed the spurious profits from clawback of fictitious theft to have gone through.

I'll be interested to hear the eventual outcome of the just announced criminal investigation but think there  must be some deliberate criminality involved that syphoned money off in addition to the criminal behaviour of the Post Office revealed in the cover up and prosecutions.

[Sheila]

We watched the follow on programme (the real story, I think) with the actual postmasters and postmistresses.  It was very good and made me even more annoyed with the post office bosses who should be in prison.

[JBR]

I'll be interested to hear the eventual outcome of the just announced criminal investigation but think there  must be some deliberate criminality involved that syphoned money off in addition to the criminal behaviour of the Post Office revealed in the cover up and prosecutions.

So will I.  However, for some reason I fully expect that we'll be offered yet another cover-up or an under the carpet brushing in the hope that the whole matter will soon be forgotten.
And at the same time, more innocent victims will die whilst feeling sadness and, possibly, even undeserved guilt.

[klondike]

I gave some thought to how these shortfalls could occur. Obviously a guess but the only way I can see is if transactions recording a payment were lost to the system so the money went out but wasn't dedected from the supposed cash balance. That would tie in with the suggested hardware failures but is difficult to believe could happen in a properly designed system.

Lets make a cash machine analaogy.

You ask the machine for money
It pays out,
It asks for authorisation
You walk away
The system shrugs its electronic shoulders

I can't see the provider of that service lasting long

The way the transactions should have gone is..
Pensioner asks for money by showing book
Pensioner ID and amount is sent to system
System records trasaction
System authorises payment
Payment is made
Payment is confimed to system.

No money gets handed over until recorded and authorised by the system. Like a cash machine does it.

[Alex]

I watched three episodes yesterday, it's just unbelievable how this has gone on for so long.  One of the sub post offices I used regularly was Hope Farm, obviously the shop shown wasn't the real shop.  I was totally gob smacked though, as I didn't know that Martin Griffiths had committed suicide.  Truly awful.

I've still got one to watch, but my thoughts so far, apart from the scandal of the whole thing, is why isn't action being taken against Fujitsu ? and why was The Post Office able to themselves, prosecute their employees ? 

[Cassandra]

... and why was The Post Office able to themselves, prosecute their employees ? 

As I said, anyone can sue anyone for anything, you simply swear an originating affidavit and await the court date to hear it's claims. You may remember recently the idiot Prince Harry expected the court to have the proof as he had none himself to substantiate his allegations when questioned against 'News International'.

The basic premise as a 'plaintiff' (originator) is that you have proof to 'validate' your claim. The Post Office' lied as they had no such proof at all, outside Fujitsu saying so, which was later proven to be false.

Their claim against the Post Masters was in two parts viz:

1) They alleged theft and 2) They claimed false accounting - both being unprovable, were scams.

The Postmaster's were at this time, exhausted, mentally shocked and aware they were inevitably fighting the Government machine with huge pockets and no vision for equity.

Where the Post Office were in my opinion particularly schematic was to offer a 'plea bargain' (deal) to the defendants suggesting they would drop the more senior crime of 'Theft' with an almost certain custodial sentence attached and only proceed with 'false accounting' a lesser charge. So many defendants 'caved in' at this stage. At least two however were jailed by 'enthusiastic' judiciaries! They also had to pay costs, in one of the suicides case's amounting to £321,000, for pursuing a debt of less than £10k - flagrantly disgusting and nothing short of savage revenge for daring to challenge a now clearly frivolous allegation.

The plaintiff (Post Office) was clearly obsessed with protecting it's crook 'Horizon' computer system and crassly accepted it's creator's, Fujitsu's worthless claims to it's infallibilities, without question.

In the inevitable wash-out of the truth the proof of both Theft or False accounting was not there, hence all these rulings against the defendants were seen as 'unsafe' and squashed. Here the case went through 180 degrees and the Defendants became the plaintiffs. Despite the Government serial attempts to cover ups fortunately enough decent honest people exist, even in politics today, to create the structure of an official enquiry. Now the Politicians are queuing up to coalesce. Only the now Lord Arbuthnott, formerly an MP possessed the humanity to stand out bravely and support those pillaged by his Government's flagrant disinterest in common justice.

The loathsome and shameful disclosures to date are beyond anything I've ever witnessed against the Crown.

[GrannyMac]

Lord Arbuthnott, who was an MP at the time, was the only person with any influence who took the sub post masters seriously. In contrast to the justifiably criticised Ed Davey, he stood out for me.  He featured in the drama, and the documentary, but I haven't heard any of the pundits on the media give him a mention. 

[Diasi]

I have always regarded Ed Davey as a snivelling little duplicitous shit.

He should be kicked out by the LibDems & lose his Knighthood & there are growing calls for this among members of the public.

[Ruthio]

13.46pm

"In the last hour, the former Post Office boss has confirmed she's handing back her CBE with immediate effect, apologising for the "devastation" caused by the Horizon IT scandal."

[JBR]

13.46pm

"In the last hour, the former Post Office boss has confirmed she's handing back her CBE with immediate effect, apologising for the "devastation" caused by the Horizon IT scandal."

Very belatedly, but at least she's been 'persuaded' to do it.
I'd love to be around where she's seen by large numbers of the public.  I bet she keeps well out of the public eye now.  No appearing on a TV discussion programme, I'm sure, unless she's very brave and apologetic.
In fact, I think that's the best thing she could do now.

[dextrous63]

"building trust" eh?  How's that going nowadays?????

[Scrumpy]

It has taken a TV series to bring it to the public's attention.. 
All of a sudden , after two decades, government is getting off its arse and moving (swiftly) to get compensations paid..
 Suicide.. Deaths.. Imprisonments.. Shame.. these people have suffered.. 
Meanwhile Fujitsu is still being paid millions by taxpayers..
 Bloody shameful..

[Diasi]

Well I binge watched all 4. So long and still going on. What a disgrace.

The actual Horizon bugs are still a mystery to me. Having spent a working life in IT in one way or another I must say that bugs are common enough but get ironed out for the most part in testing plus any properly designed system is self auditing, There should never be the possibility of errors like those described. That's independent of the overall business accounting which should in no way have allowed the spurious profits from clawback of fictitious theft to have gone through.

I'll be interested to hear the eventual outcome of the just announced criminal investigation but think there  must be some deliberate criminality involved that syphoned money off in addition to the criminal behaviour of the Post Office revealed in the cover up and prosecutions.

As an ex-fraud investigator there has to be criminal collusion by senior members of the Post Office because, as you have said previously, if £50,000 is alleged to have been stolen when it wasn't & is then clawed back, the Post Office accounts would be £50,000 more than they should be.

It can only have been covered up by someone very senior having a 'back door' into the Horizon system to the fudge way the £50,000.

I wrote the first programme for my Department that digitised our complete operating functions & I made sure it was watertight & no one could alter things, after they'd been entered, without leaving a trail.

Well, that's not quite true, as I wrote in a 'back door' that didn't leave a trail & could only be accessed by me.

[dextrous63]

How is your mansion in the Maldives going Diasi?  How many beds and swimming pools have you now got??😬

[Diasi]

How is your mansion in the Maldives going Diasi?  How many beds and swimming pools have you now got??😬

Shush, not on a forum, send me a private message. 

I did say that Horizon would have a 'back door' for this scandal to have been made possible & it's been confirmed in today's media.

The Telegraph understands that Mr Jenkins, who was chief Horizon architect at Fujitsu, told investigators as early as 2012 that the IT system designed for the Post Office could be accessed remotely by Fujitsu at its headquarters in Bracknell, Berks. But it would take until 2019 for the Post Office to admit that sub-postmasters' computer systems could be accessed remotely, blowing a hole in the key prosecution argument that the system could not be tampered with and was failsafe.