Post Office - Horizon scandal

[ExRabbit]

1,000,330

 

[Voyager EMH]

1,007,124

 

[HomerJSimpson]

Turns out one of our past captains worked at Fujitsu at the time, although in defence and not on this account but he knew not only most of those that did but the Fujitsu legal team. Suffice to say there was an interesting discussion around the programme and scandal yesterday and it would seem there may be more to this that has yet to come out.

 

[Hobbit]

Someone at the club posed a few questions yesterday. Has the Horizon software issue been corrected? The obvious answer, I hope, is yes. But this then posed more detailed questions. When was it identified as a software issue? When was it put right? Who escalated that identification, and who allocated the resources to fix it? Who scheduled the roll out of the fix? Who was involved in the discussions between Fujitsu & the PO in this, and when did it get escalated to the PO board?

There‘s a massive audit trail to follow here, akin to an 8 lane motorway, that will make identification of the key players easy. I wonder if a thorough investigation of the obvious facts will take place, or whether it will be smoke and mirrors? I wonder if this will become the UK’s Enron scandal? It should.

 

[Voyager EMH]

There is a False Accounting charge that the Post Office should face.

After taking, for example, £36,000 from one individual, this should have shown up on their books as money they should not have.

It is estimated that around 2,500 people who paid varying amounts to the Post Office. We are talking about a huge amount of money here.
Where did all this money go? Why did it not show up as an unjustified excess? Why have forensic investigating accountants not been able to find it's trail?

It will be simply added to profits, but at some point before getting there, it should have been a glaring anomaly.

Another minor point that I heard yesterday.
Any serving sub-postmaster who has been untouched by the scandal and approaching retirement, has seen the potential selling-up-value of their business drop due to the bad publicity.
Either right at the back of the queue for compensation or, more likely, no place on the queue ever.

 

[Hobbit]

There is a False Accounting charge that the Post Office should face.

After taking, for example, £36,000 from one individual, this should have shown up on their books as money they should not have.

It is estimated that around 2,500 payments of varying amounts were paid to the Post Office. We are talking about a huge amount of money here.
Where did all this money go? Why did it not show up as an unjustified excess? Why have forensic investigating accountants not been able to find it's trail?

It will be simply added to profits, but at some point before getting there, it should have been a glaring anomaly.

Another minor point that I heard yesterday.
Any serving sub-postmaster who has been untouched by the scandal and approaching retirement, has seen the potential selling-up-value of their business drop due to the bad publicity.
Either right at the back of the queue for compensation or, more likely, no place on the queue ever.

Second Sight, the forensic accounts brought in by the PO, were sacked just before they were due to submit their final report. The PO stopped sharing documents with Second Sight, citing data protection. There’s a great clip from a Commons Select Committee in which an MP asks Vennells why this was happening. She asks the head of Second Sight, who was sat next to her, then she goes into waffle mode.

 

[Voyager EMH]

Second Sight, the forensic accounts brought in by the PO, were sacked just before they were due to submit their final report. The PO stopped sharing documents with Second Sight, citing data protection. There’s a great clip from a Commons Select Committee in which an MP asks Vennells why this was happening. She asks the head of Second Sight, who was sat next to her, then she goes into waffle mode.

Yep. I posted video of that Select Committee meeting above.
I feel the dramatized version had to be scaled down to make it believable. The real version is the more difficult to believe.

 

[Hobbit]

Yep. I posted video of that Select Committee meeting above.
I feel the dramatized version had to be scaled down to make it believable. The real version is the more difficult to believe.

Vennells surprised me as to just how poor she was. Her responses were disjointed and shallow, and she was a CEO. Who appointed her? She was awful.

 

[Doon frae Troon]

As an aside, I thought the acting in the series was quite brilliant. [well apart from the real politician ]

 

[Robster59]

We watched all the 4 episodes last night. My missus had to tell me to stop shouting at the TV. I was absolutely appalled. For someone to have to fight for 20 years to get to where they are now is a scandal. Lesser people would have given up but thank goodness for people like these who will not be run roughshod over.
Not only should Paula Vennells lose her CBE (the fact she received the CBE in 2019 is an indication of what "the establishment" thought of the situation), she should also be prosecuted for the obstruction of justice and witholding evidence. Fujitsu should be investigated more thoroughly as they seem to have got off relatively lightly over this, and all other people involved in this process who basically tried to bully away the issues with no thoughts whatsoever of the impact on the Postmasters or their families. It is one of the biggest public scandals that has been in the UK for a long time and yet nobody has been prosecuted.
Looking at the signature progression, the impact of the programme has been immense.

• 3 years ago - 1,000 signatures
• 8 days ago - 5,000 signatures
• 5 days ago - 10,000 signatures
• 4 days ago - 20,000 to 100,000 signatures
• 3 days ago - 150,000 to 300,000 signatures
• 2 days ago - 400,000 to 800,000 signatures
• 1 day ago - 700,000 to 950,000 signatures
• Today - 1,028,876 signatures

I wonder if the government or Met Police would have bothered to do anything if the programme had not been aired? The power of the media.

 

[Voyager EMH]

The word "compensation" is being used too loosely on the telly.

A small number of those who went to prison have been given an interim payment of £100,000 while their full compensation is negotiated.
Those who did not go to prison, but have a criminal record found it hard to get employment. They will be due compensation for this.

Of the 555 case, where Post Office were forced to pay out £millions, this went to giving back money that was theirs - reimbursement - or payment of debt.
This was not "compensation" and for very many it did not even meet that debt in full.

Giving people their own money back and compensation are two different things.
The news broadcasts should make this clearer than they have been doing so far.

When you hear something like, "Post Office have paid out £86 million in compensation so far" this might not be true. Much of that could merely be giving people their own money back.

1,050,232 signatures

 

[Steve Wilkes]

There is a False Accounting charge that the Post Office should face.

After taking, for example, £36,000 from one individual, this should have shown up on their books as money they should not have.

It is estimated that around 2,500 people who paid varying amounts to the Post Office. We are talking about a huge amount of money here.
Where did all this money go? Why did it not show up as an unjustified excess? Why have forensic investigating accountants not been able to find it's trail?

It will be simply added to profits, but at some point before getting there, it should have been a glaring anomaly.

Another minor point that I heard yesterday.
Any serving sub-postmaster who has been untouched by the scandal and approaching retirement, has seen the potential selling-up-value of their business drop due to the bad publicity.
Either right at the back of the queue for compensation or, more likely, no place on the queue ever.

I reckon the corresponding balances in other Post Offices where the was an error in saying you have too much cash and stock was just pocketed to make their records balance

 

[Doon frae Troon]

I reckon the corresponding balances in other Post Offices where the was an error in saying you have too much cash and stock was just pocketed to make their records balance

As I said earlier the PO were trying to over fund the two small rural PO's where my wife worked.
She was continually returning excess cash only for them to send it back the following week.
It was the only problem she had with Horizon/PO.
She did have lengthy 'discussions' with the 'helpline' when balancing end of day but she always balanced before going home, many did not.

 

[Tashyboy]

Turns out one of our past captains worked at Fujitsu at the time, although in defence and not on this account but he knew not only most of those that did but the Fujitsu legal team. Suffice to say there was an interesting discussion around the programme and scandal yesterday and it would seem there may be more to this that has yet to come out.

Hmm I said as much in post 75 Homer. Hope alls well me man.

 

[Tashyboy]

The word "compensation" is being used too loosely on the telly.

A small number of those who went to prison have been given an interim payment of £100,000 while their full compensation is negotiated.
Those who did not go to prison, but have a criminal record found it hard to get employment. They will be due compensation for this.

Of the 555 case, where Post Office were forced to pay out £millions, this went to giving back money that was theirs - reimbursement - or payment of debt.
This was not "compensation" and for very many it did not even meet that debt in full.

Giving people their own money back and compensation are two different things.
The news broadcasts should make this clearer than they have been doing so far.

When you hear something like, "Post Office have paid out £86 million in compensation so far" this might not be true. Much of that could merely be giving people their own money back.

1,050,232 signatures

A very good post, but one which had me asking questions during the programme. Postmasters were jailed for “ stealing”. Money, only there were not. So will anyone from Fujistu or the post office be jailed.

 

[Billysboots]

I’ve just watched what I believe is the most recent Panorama detailing this scandal, available on BBC IPlayer. Oh my God. It has been sixty minutes spent during which my blood pressure must have been absolutely sky rocketing.

Setting aside the issues with Horizon, which Fujitsu were made aware of by one of their own engineers before it was even rolled out to the PO, what absolutely leapt out at me, more so than during the ITV drama, was the investigation of alleged wrongdoing by those ultimately prosecuted.

As a trained and experienced investigator, I can tell you one of the underpinning principles EVERY investigator should adhere to, when conducting any investigation, is to pursue all lines of enquiry, regardless of whether they point towards the guilt of a suspect or, indeed, towards them being innocent. In short, you don’t just follow the lines of enquiry which suit your agenda.

I know it has been referred to on these pages, but for the Post Office to be the alleged victim in these cases, and then act as the investigative body AND prosecutor, is clearly absolutely unacceptable. The Panorama investigation only referred to a handful of documents, but if what they reported is true it is quite clear, if ever there was any doubt, that the PO investigations have been very selective, and hugely weighted towards them proving guilt and ignoring evidence of innocence, whilst at the same time suppressing evidence and being very lax in their adherence to the rules of the criminal justice system. Their focus was protecting the Post Office brand.

I have read here varying suggestions of offences those attached to the PO and Fujitsu should be prosecuted for, notably theft, fraud and false accounting themselves, relating to how they obtained monies from the sub postmasters. It would seem far more appropriate, based on what I have just seen, for any police investigation to focus primarily on offences of perverting the course of justice.

The word scandal does not come close to describing what has gone on.

 

[IanM]

The spike in cases following the system going in should have been obvious.

I worked with far too many fraud investigators in my time who assumed guilt and set out to prove it. (I said "Too many," not all)

This coupled with monumental arse covering resulted in this tragedy.

Folk need jailing for their part in it.

 

[Hobbit]

@Billysboots

I posted up a link to the Jeremy Kyle hour long news piece. I thought it was better than the Panorama documentary.

 

[AmandaJR]

I've been thinking about Fujitsu's role in this. By no means inncocent but those of us who have specified and introduced new systems know the onus is on us to test the new software thoroughly. To try to break it. To find all the bugs - of which there are always many. Test, test, test and ONLY introduce when satisfied it's at the very least secure. In the early days keep an open mind and look for bugs which may not have been identified during the testing phase. Ask users to report any anomolies and take them up with the developer.

Clearly the PO didn't do that.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

I've been thinking about Fujitsu's role in this. By no means inncocent but those of us who have specified and introduced new systems know the onus is on us to test the new software thoroughly. To try to break it. To find all the bugs - of which there are always many. Test, test, test and ONLY introduce when satisfied it's at the very least secure. In the early days keep an open mind and look for bugs which may not have been identified during the testing phase. Ask users to report any anomolies and take them up with the developer.

Clearly the PO didn't do that.

I’m wondering where the pressure on the PO Project team was coming from to accept the system into operation. I don’t know enough about this yet, but were the acceptance timescales in any way defined by any specific business driver or constraint. It doesn’t seem to be aligned with privatisation - though any subsequent ‘cover-up’ of system problems and miscarriages of justice may have been?

I’ll add that having worked for a major global IT company building and delivering complex systems for UK government how difficult the government customer can be with changing requirements and priorities, plus problematic accountability in their senior management team. As a supplier PM I was often at the pointy end with the programme and account directors trying to sort these things out…with the customer managers being often quite scarily open about significant ministerial pressure being applied to ‘get it sorted and done’.