Mr. Bates v Post Office
 

Four parter starting on NYD - one part on eachh day or ITVX all together.
Can highly recommend it
Post Office Facebook https://www.facebook.com/postoffice/

:wot:

Agreed; it's very disturbing.

Simon

As someone who has had to fight the "County Council", I sympathise with anyone fighting the establishment. They settled out of court at the last minute but my mental and physical health was shattered by the experience. A colleague who took it "all the way" won 20 times more than I did for the same claim. I just couldn't hack any more hassle after two years of being "sent to Coventry", harassed, bullied, controlled and ignored by people who should have been looking after me in the first place. Soon after the claim was settled, my position (not me personally!!!) was made redundant! Within a couple of months, my old job (with a different title) was being done in the same room, doing the same things, with the same outcome!

I notice it is not a state media production i.e. a BBC channel! Those shysters sure stick together ;-)

I donated to the crowdfunding project when this issue became obvious it was not a couple of bad apples (out of 46,000) and a massive miscarriage of justice was being perpetrated by two "not on my watch" entities (the Post Office and Fujitsu, aka ICL).

The magistrates and judges were out of their depth (they did not know about systems, their implementation and the maintenance of them) and the accused did not seek better lawyers. They never called expert witnesses who could have stated that the equipment installed by the PO (really by Fujitsu) could be controlled remotely and that no large application software is without "bugs". That is how IBM and Microsoft (amongst others) could install FixPaks remotely. What is a FixPak (IBM speak but MS has their version)? It addresses bugs, implements upgrades and installs new applets.

Looking forward to parts 3 and 4 but as far as I'm aware the issue is still not fully resolved. Why this Government has allowed this I do not know. I do know, however, that it is another fall in the standards, whether moral or legal of this country.
Kev

I take it this is a "employment" issue by and with the CC and not the PO?

Again though, it boils down to people (often faceless) not having enough (any) moral fibre. These people have adopted the Global Company or entity shark attack. One's good name gone in an instance whilst theirs remain intact. We have been in a reversed virtual world since the 70's.
Kev

Private Eye were writing about it 10 years ago. Great shame no press took it up seriously then.

Yeah, Private Eye have always been at the forefront of pointing to scandals. More power to the pen I say.
Kev

Have just started watching it on catch up. Both my wife and I feel sick to the core. I have been disgusted by the way the Post Masters have been treated for years. The way those in charge seem to stay quiet while the Post Masters suffer is outrageous.

I hope all get their convictions overturned and they and their families compensated. It will not make things right.
Those in charge should loose their jobs and any bonuses and pensions gained. I'd like to see them prosecuted and sent to jail.

I watch this guy, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmS3ACKobjc


macafee2

I’ve watched it and knew about it anyway, quite honestly you couldn’t make it up until you realise it’s a true story , hopefully things will gather enough momentum now to get these postmasters and postmistresses the justice they deserve and given the cover up by senior people in both the Post Office and Fujitsu heads should roll and some should be behind bars
But when does anyone at that senior level be held accountable for their actions, Paula Vennells was paid off with £400k and received a CBE and also walked into a top job with an NHS Trust after leaving the Post Office , it’s the same in government nobody carries the can for major NAUGHTY WORD-NAUGHTY WORD-NAUGHTY WORD-NAUGHTY WORD- ups they just move to another top job , once you are in that club performance doesn’t matter and it seems that you are always looked after
If we never prosecute the real guilty then it will keep happening

When companies are outed for such poor performances and disgusting activities, I do not understand why any company would then give people such as Paula Vennells a job. It cannot be a good reflection on the company.

macafee2

Watched the last episode last night.
My wife was supprised that ANYONE would have access to the individual accounts, whereas I wasn't.
Quite clearly Fujitsu had supplied a bag of balls and the postoffice NEVER tested it properly.
For me there should be procecutions for corporate manslaughter on behalf of those that took their own lives, both from the postoffice and fujitsu.


Then there is the issue of compensation, why is this NOT been paid out?? The gov' has agreed to it, but are stalling on paying it out.


I have signed this petition:
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitio...ource=homepage

and this one:
https://www.change.org/p/biztradegov...accountability

What I can't understand is why a whole bunch of post masters would all suddenly become
dishonest :shrug:. Surely someone in authority must have asked the question of whether there is a common denominator to all of this. There was,the introduction of Horizon. Or am I missing something.

Don’t forget when this started computers were the wonder machines of the age and (everyone thought) they couldn’t make mistakes. That and your average Post Office manager probably had about as much understanding of nuclear physics as they did about computers. There would be a point where the connection was made but rather than admit the problem and face the consequences the post office went into denial and carried on blaming the individuals.

And the Federation
 

The PO's main thrust was that "you're the only one" but there was, and maybe still is, a Federation of Sub Postmasters. They should have been collecting complaints and circulating, BUT here's the rub, the Fed was entirely in the pockets of the PO and were not remotely independent. If they had been doing their job then surely this would have been quickly nipped in the bud years before it got out of hand?

I see the press are all for removing her CBE! That's an irrelevant bauble: we want to see her in the dock and then in an appropriate place. Together with her predecessor Adam Crozier, another overpaid CEO, who was probably instrumental in starting this mayhem. And pops up on all sorts of other PLCs.

Can't wait for The Revolution . . .

Still find it incredible that word didn't get round that large numbers of previously 'honest'
Post masters/mistresses were suddenly being accused of stealing money and nobody found this suspicious. You really can't make it up that 700 of them suddenly became dishonest without explanation.

Could this drama documentary finally get the convictions overturned?

macafee2

Apparently there was one lady who did but she found herself quickly disassociated from the organisation.

Paula Vennells has announced she is handling her CBE back with immediate effect.

Before it is taken from her? There must be a reason for that and I doubt it is because she feels she does not deserve it.

macafee2

Giving in to pressure springs to mind.

There is so much more to this debacle, I doubt we will ever know the truth.

Part of the problem, and it is prevalent throughout business, is the appointment of unqualified or otherwise unskilled friends and relatives being awarded grandiose placement into positions that give them supposed social position and status.

The meaningless gong will now be returned and the individual will retire from business to a rather quieter life more suitable to their talents. They leave behind suicides, impoverishment and undeserved disgrace. Who pays? The rest of us do in our already outrageous taxes. The interminable lawyers fees will buy many a small country.

As far as I'm aware Ray, the witch is still coining it in with a NHS Trust. Sinecure's have always been the remit of Kings, Queens, Government or Quango's. Difference is there is a hell of a lot more since WW2.
Kev

Spot on. The Fed rep in one of the series is shown going into Fujitsu and seeing the "covert" staff altering the figures. He then found himself being one of the "found to have shortfalls" and thus eliminated from any Federation action. I don't know under what articles the Federation was formed but it sounds like they should have appointed a full time officer who was not a Sub-postmaster.

Totally agree that there should be criminal charges brought against quite a few who work for the Post Office and Fujitsu. In America (and once upon a time in England) this behaviour would have been called conspiracy to defraud.
Kev

If she had a moral compass she would have given it back long ago without any prompting.
It speaks volumes about the woman's true character.

Alan Bates deserves a CBE?

https://www.thegazette.co.uk/awards-...content/103372

What prompted ITV to make the documentary, it deserves recognition and encouragement to make more such dramas.


macafee2

The days of the sign on the desk reading "The buck stops here" are long gone. The obscene amounts of money doled out to 'skilled' executives these days are more than enough to crush integrity even if it existed in the individual in the first place.

We just watched the whole run of programmes. Very powerful television & who knew that Paula Vennels is a C of E priest. That's how much industry Mammon is paid these days. Enough that a consecrated person of the cloth can feel comfortable enough to deny knowledge of such wrongdoing being inflicted in their charge. I didn't know they could hold such powerful jobs beside their 'calling'.
I find it fairly appalling and l'm not even religious.

[QUOTE]]

Hi Kevin.
Check her out properly she had her fingers in a lot of pies, Morrisons, Dunelm, NHS, Church, post office, all of which i think she as resigned from now because of this miscarriage of justice, brought on by her incompetence and those working below her for the post office, i also see that lib dem leader Ed Davey, is trying to distance his self from this outrage.

There will be other setting out their stalls now on how to get out of this, which have not even come into the limelight yet.

So much for Christian ethics and values :shrug: but was she not a "Lay-Preacher?"
Kev

[QUOTE=Arctic;2986633]Glad to hear she has "left" the NHS Artic but with the enhanced pay-out (both pension and leaving handshake) from the PO (and probably others from that list) she is certainly not wondering if the State Pension needs to be upped. :-)
Kev

C of E minister, at one point considered for the Bishop of London.

In the documentary that accompanied drama series they showed emails from her to advisers asking what she should say in front of the parliamentary committee.

This journalistic podcast on the matter is well worth listening to, particularly episode 11:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000wl4b

PO knew about problems with the prosecutions by at least 2012 yet carried on until 2015 and never attempted to put things right of their own volition.

Based on my own experience of public bodies this sounds like par for the course......

It's a shame it's took an ITV programme to get the government to act on this.

Sent from my SM-G780G using Tapatalk

Just been reading the questioning under oath of Steve Bradshaw the PO investigator in many of the "fraud" cases. His response is that lawyers drafted his letters and he just signed them. I always thought that the person signing a letter is responsible for the contents.

"Not me your Worship, it was all the fault of lawyers".
Kev

I'm not a lawyer but.... The signing defines the act. The lawyers, being what they are, are acting behind the defence wall of advisory only. So they get the big bucks without the risk. Send your kids to law school and make 'em rich.

Trikey, I thought this and posted such a view earlier. However, have since learned that Panorama were onto the case as early as 2005 (maybe prompted by Computer Weekly) but the PO disinformation machine threw dampers on it especially when PO threatened legal action.

So, I salute the efforts of the programme makers and the BBC for continuing the quest for the truth. They were instrumental in keeping the issue alive and gave hope to those effected.

Go to BBC/news and press the play button for live proceedings of the inquiry and check the links for the stories Panorama was responsible for and the PO response.
Kev

Actually the inquiry was set-up in 2019, well before the ITV docu-drama.
Kev

Hi Kev,

There seem to be various dates given for when the inquiry started depending upon which website is consulted :o but I understand that it is unable to award compensation and is still ongoing!

The great thing about the ITV drama is that, being available on a public service channel, it can reach potentially a huge audience. That publicity is what has resulted in the government taking the immediate extraordinary steps we've seen this week which I think everyone agrees were urgently needed. Today's article in Computer Weekly is worth reading.

The question is, would that have happened without the ITV drama's assistance? Personally, I don't believe it would.

Simon

Kev the Panorama was 2015, but PO knew in 2003 that Horizon was duff, they asked someone independent and he reported as such, so they sacked him and discredited the report.

And then got someone else to make a one-sided report outlining why it could be trusted.

Shocking cover-up whilst innocent folk were subjected to a witch-hunt for 12 more years.

I'll have to double check the Panorama aspect as I believe they did more than one investigation and programme. 2015 is about right for when I donated to the crowdfunding to take the PO to court.

Guess what, Tony Blair is also in the frame for giving the go-ahead to the project after concerns were raised it was a bag of nails even then. Mandleson and others gave assurances that it was "robust". "Teflon" Tony is being given a "clean bill of health" by his spokesperson and other apologists. Read the story on the BBC web site.
Kev

Actually before that. The original Fujitsu program was designed for the Benefits Agency but they decided quite quickly that it was too full of holes so they ditched it. Along came the PO who wanted to put everything on computer - a reasonable aim - so IT firms were asked to submit proposals. Fujitsu bid and were the cheapest so they were taken on.


Incidentally I know someone whose job was to contract IT and he said Fujitsu were awful to deal with so it came as no surprise to him it all turned belly up.

Fujitsu admissions shown on BBC news at the inquiry are staggering.
They knew there were bugs in the system but this was not disclosed at the prosecutions.

staggering, absolutely staggering

macafee2

There is bugs in ALL systems. Microsoft, IBM, Linux, Unix et al. It is how they are addressed that matters as well as the users to expect them. That is why in an earlier post of mine I said the Bench was out of their depth as they should have thrown out the assertion that there was no known bugs. And robust is a state of mind which may or may not apply to a system but it does not mean no bugs.
Kev

Derisory offer? Classic tactics of large entity versus the man in the street! :shrug:

Seems it is true, a leopard does not change it's spots. ;-)
Kev

I have been watching the Enquiry live feed with my engineering and legal hat on. All witnesses on the Post Office side are a bunch of *******.


Not doing a proper job, full of assumptions etc.


Still many heads to fall.

Agree. There will alway be bugs in complex software. A good reporting and rectification process is a must. Not recognising and doing this effectively is where the PO’s problems started.

How do you compensate the family of a loved one who has taken their own life due to theworry and stress.It's outrageous the length of time it's taking to clear these poor people and pay them out.Governments should hang their heads in shame.As I've said before,how did it get to this stage in the first place when hundreds of of postmasters of previous good character suddenly become dishonest.It was absolutely obvious there must have been a common denominator.There was,Horizon.You couldn't make this up scandelous!

As MissMoppet stated, the original system was, I believe, designed to ensure absent fathers paid for their offspring. There was such a large number of "miscalculated" forced payments that the government agency scrapped the system.

I think the present government has acted as quickly as possible given the legal ramifications. Agreed it took the TV airing for it to become front bench requiring action rather than some back bencher voicing their concern to a dozen people on the comfy green seating having a snooze.

Also there is the issue that a percentage of postal staff did defraud the PO even before computerisation. So, in the stampede to clear everyone there will be the guilty getting a "free pass". I guess the "better to let one criminal go free than to convict an innocent person" criteria will have to be accepted.
Kev

BBC Radio 4 did a weekly programme on this issue about three years ago.

It seems if you believe the news that it's still happening now, so Horizons broken why keep using it, the powers that be will drag this out has long as possible hoping some will give up. :eek:

Post Office (or any big entity) do not have the means or timescale to jump to another system quickly. Because of this the PO have issued two contracts to Fujitsu to keep this "legacy" system afloat until a new system is in place which, by the way, is scheduled to be "cloud" based. Why that is good or noteworthy I do not know as it just means some third party company provides 'on the day' service from the servers in some desert and/or in an ex-nuclear bunker to an operating system and database which could be virtual on the day as a cloud but must still be saved to physical servers.

Fujitsu could be the cloud provider as it just means another layer between physical server farms and the end user. A question of money and subterfuge.

Kev

https://www.change.org/p/biztradegov...te&utm_term=cs

macafee2

The actions of the Post Office are quite rightly being questioned but another elephant in the room seems to be getting off quite lightly if not escaping completely. What about the characters who presided over this under the guise of being members of the legal gang? Where was the scrutiny and the question on their part? I do not know if courts are subjected to random and incognito quality inspections but I would expect that they are more so than any other establishment. :rolleyes:

Post #4 is highlighting the issue that the legal profession do not have the knowledge to try these sort of cases. As a judge I would not have accepted the assertion that the system was "robust". Just think Microsoft as an example and that is a far bigger entity than Fujitsu.

As for the accountants not raising concerns I do have some sympathy there as they had to take the PO's word for figures in the loss adjustment account. i.e. if the PO posts, say, 700k as a loss due to fraud then the accountant will check the fraud posted amounts and total them up and check that the correct figure is posted in the accounts. They cannot check that the figures are true, only Fujitsu can but the PO investigators should have spotted the discrepancies but preferred to protect the system.

Little people trying to be big, earn mega bucks but having to jettison any morals to achieve that. The people need to take the decision makers to court to obtain compensation. They will soon change tack when their house and pension pot is at risk of being used for compensation purposes.
Kev

If the prosecution lawyers or POST office staff were aware that a 3rd party could update post office Horizon information but kept it a secret, should the lawyers be disbarred and the staff prosecuted for perverting the course of justice?

macafee2

If they "knew" about the reality I would totally agree. But these waters are so muddy it makes the Ganges delta clear by comparison. They will have been, let's say, economical with the truth with every party involved and thus to many went to sleep with a clear conscious. :shrug: I guess many of us would take that course of action after any questions we made were smoothed over.
Kev

Yeah, Willy I've been panning the legal profession for not being up to IT speed. However, not all are in that basket.

Apparently an eminent KC, Sir Jonathan Swift, compiled a report in 2016 with regard to the software and the treatment of sub-postmaster's. Such was the contents of that report that the Chairman of the PO, Tim Parker, quietly archived it and never allowed members of the PO Board to see/read it.

Again, I've panned the board for not being aware or ignoring issues but with this sort of action of information being withheld it gives them a get out of gaol ticket! No doubt Tim Parker will be in the Lords. :devil:

Information taken from the Sunday Telegraph business section dated 31 March 2024.
Kev

Seems we have another Post Office/Royal Mail "Problem" some new stamps are being said to be fake and customers have been called upon to pay £5 for delivery.

Would not surprise me. The criminal fraternity even stooped so low as to counterfeit ONE pound coins. A stamp is near to that now so it might be targeted but I would suspect RM/PO scanners can't cope (software bugs)?
Kev

A common theme seems to be that victims were led to believe that they were the only one at the time. Someone must have known that was not the case and I would expect those involved of the legal trade to be aware of it. I don't think that decency should afford discretion to complicity in this injustice. It is a national disgrace.
:smilie_re: ... :dung:

So the PO is saying the producer of fake stamp only produced ONE. :shrug:
You couldn't make it up.......ooops, apparently you can. ;)
Kev