AussieKB
Well-known member
Unbelievable......when is she going to be charged ?
Post Office - Horizon scandal
- Thread starter Jensen
- Start date
4LEX
Well-known member
Helen Rose had no relevent qualifications in auditing or investigation and no experience on the Horizon IT System. Yet her report was used as a evidence that resulted in numerous prosecutions. Yet now she can't recall anything. You can't even make this up!
What a truly horrible creature.
What a truly horrible creature.
Just a quick snip of Steven Dilley, external solicitor working for the PO in the trial of Lee Castleton. Another who has vivid recollections until it gets a bit sticky.
The week 49 comment is put to bed by Fiona Paige when she brings up the telephone record. Dilley then says he said it but didn’t record it… make your own mind up…
Fabulous interruption by Sir Wyn.
The full session could have you tearing your hair out.
The week 49 comment is put to bed by Fiona Paige when she brings up the telephone record. Dilley then says he said it but didn’t record it… make your own mind up…
Fabulous interruption by Sir Wyn.
The full session could have you tearing your hair out.
Following the news that Lee Castleton is to prosecute the PO for fraud, I’ve looked at the circumstances surrounding his prosecution and the main players involved. One of those central to that prosecution was Stephen Dilley, a solicitor acting for the PO. Dilley has come in for a lot of stick, many of the comments paint him in a very poor light.
His 3 sessions giving evidence to the Inquiry were in September ‘23. The sessions are a very tough watch. My brain is fried trying to see the nuances in the questions, and the (word soup) answers. The guy is a very smooth operator, often very subtly circumspect with his answers, even looking to nudge the questions towards something different. He plays with words with tremendous subtly and, in a perverse way, it’s impressive to watch but the reality is that, metaphorically, he needs a punch on the nose.
The PM session, day 65, sees Mr Blake getting more direct with his questions, occasionally saying that the question asked is what he wants to focus on.
Focussing on the case, Dilley says on numerous occasions that the PO wanted to settle the case out of court in Lee Castleton’s favour. Why??? They were concerned that full Disclosure of the technical evidence they had would not only blow the case out of the water, it would also destroy the 4 other cases they were prosecuting at that time.
How on earth did the PO win a case that they should have lost???
Two reasons; 1) they decided not to Disclose all the evidence as it would have almost guaranteed a loss, and b) the PO conducted a war of attrition, basically draining Lee Castleton of money and the ability to win. Justice didn’t win the case, the deepest pockets did.
As a footnote, two different locum SubPostmasters covered the 5 weeks following Lee Castleton’s suspension. All 5 weeks showed issues with balancing the accounts. Dilley often says that there were very few branches with discrepancies as if to excuse Horizon. Personally, I see the issue as a ‘go-no go’ in terms of prosecutions.
For those that choose to dip into the 3 sessions, watch out for the occasional “oh gosh” from Dilley. It’s his tell when he’s caught out.
Edit; Fiona Paige, Lee Castleton’s solicitor, catches him out on a number of occasions about Disclosure. His word soup replies don’t hide the fact that Disclosure didn’t happen.
His 3 sessions giving evidence to the Inquiry were in September ‘23. The sessions are a very tough watch. My brain is fried trying to see the nuances in the questions, and the (word soup) answers. The guy is a very smooth operator, often very subtly circumspect with his answers, even looking to nudge the questions towards something different. He plays with words with tremendous subtly and, in a perverse way, it’s impressive to watch but the reality is that, metaphorically, he needs a punch on the nose.
The PM session, day 65, sees Mr Blake getting more direct with his questions, occasionally saying that the question asked is what he wants to focus on.
Focussing on the case, Dilley says on numerous occasions that the PO wanted to settle the case out of court in Lee Castleton’s favour. Why??? They were concerned that full Disclosure of the technical evidence they had would not only blow the case out of the water, it would also destroy the 4 other cases they were prosecuting at that time.
How on earth did the PO win a case that they should have lost???
Two reasons; 1) they decided not to Disclose all the evidence as it would have almost guaranteed a loss, and b) the PO conducted a war of attrition, basically draining Lee Castleton of money and the ability to win. Justice didn’t win the case, the deepest pockets did.
As a footnote, two different locum SubPostmasters covered the 5 weeks following Lee Castleton’s suspension. All 5 weeks showed issues with balancing the accounts. Dilley often says that there were very few branches with discrepancies as if to excuse Horizon. Personally, I see the issue as a ‘go-no go’ in terms of prosecutions.
For those that choose to dip into the 3 sessions, watch out for the occasional “oh gosh” from Dilley. It’s his tell when he’s caught out.
Edit; Fiona Paige, Lee Castleton’s solicitor, catches him out on a number of occasions about Disclosure. His word soup replies don’t hide the fact that Disclosure didn’t happen.
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Ref the post above, the witness that followed Stephen Dilley to give evidence at the Inquiry was Anne Chambers, Fujitsu engineer.
Just a few quick points;
I’m jumping ahead by several leaps but bearing in mind how Horizon requires SubPostmasters to accept balances before it will allow the next day’s/week’s trading, it would appear that the cause of huge balance mismatches has been identified to the Inquiry. Sadly, the receipts and mismatch bug had already been identified by Fujitsu, and shared with the PO, yet prosecutions continued.
I’ve got an Anne Chambers session running in the background. It would appear that once the ‘receipts and mismatch bug’ was more widely known by the Fujitsu support staff, none of them were asked to give evidence either by a statement or in person - Anne Chambers had revealed the bug from the witness box but by a fluke the PO still won that case. If you look back several posts you’ll see Lisa Allen, PO investigator, also gets excluded from evidence. Conspiracy?? There’s actually an email string stating that technical & support staff must not be identified nor put forward to give evidence. Conspiracy nailed???
OMG, Anne Chambers admits that technical & support staff did use SubPostmasters ID’s to enter transactional data into their terminals!
Just a few quick points;
- She was referred to in an email as an expert witness. However, like Jarnail Singh, Dilley said that reference was wrong, and that she was a witness with expertise, not an expert witness. Once again a question is asked about why then a witness of fact would be given expert witness instructions if they were not an expert witness. Mmm, coincidence??
- Further into her evidence she says that the method used to unlock a frozen Horizon terminal was to delete the error message associated with the transaction that led to the terminal freezing. She admits that this would then show as an account balance mismatch. She went on to give an example of the most catastrophic outcome of deleting the error message, including its associated transaction. If the error occurred during a bank transfer, either in or out of an account, then the potential account mismatch could be huge and there would be no error log for that transaction, nor would it alert the SubPostmasters of the mismatch!
I’m jumping ahead by several leaps but bearing in mind how Horizon requires SubPostmasters to accept balances before it will allow the next day’s/week’s trading, it would appear that the cause of huge balance mismatches has been identified to the Inquiry. Sadly, the receipts and mismatch bug had already been identified by Fujitsu, and shared with the PO, yet prosecutions continued.
I’ve got an Anne Chambers session running in the background. It would appear that once the ‘receipts and mismatch bug’ was more widely known by the Fujitsu support staff, none of them were asked to give evidence either by a statement or in person - Anne Chambers had revealed the bug from the witness box but by a fluke the PO still won that case. If you look back several posts you’ll see Lisa Allen, PO investigator, also gets excluded from evidence. Conspiracy?? There’s actually an email string stating that technical & support staff must not be identified nor put forward to give evidence. Conspiracy nailed???
OMG, Anne Chambers admits that technical & support staff did use SubPostmasters ID’s to enter transactional data into their terminals!
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A duplicate entry into a branch account.
Anne Chambers explains a mind boggling spreadsheet showing transactional data in Lee Castleton’s branch, and in so doing spots another known error. The spreadsheet shows a number of open transactions ‘authored’ by Lee Castleton on terminal 1 in his branch. He then moves across to terminal 2 and works from there. As he’s logged into terminal 2 with his user I.D. the transactions are copied from terminal 1 to terminal 2.
When he shuts off both terminals at the end of the day the value of those transactions on both terminals is added to the branch accounts. In effect, a doubled value added to the branch accounts. Anne Chambers goes on to say that she’d seen this at 4 other branches, and it happened on the same day/month every year for several years till it was included in a bug fix.
I wonder how many other branches had experienced this?
Anne Chambers explains a mind boggling spreadsheet showing transactional data in Lee Castleton’s branch, and in so doing spots another known error. The spreadsheet shows a number of open transactions ‘authored’ by Lee Castleton on terminal 1 in his branch. He then moves across to terminal 2 and works from there. As he’s logged into terminal 2 with his user I.D. the transactions are copied from terminal 1 to terminal 2.
When he shuts off both terminals at the end of the day the value of those transactions on both terminals is added to the branch accounts. In effect, a doubled value added to the branch accounts. Anne Chambers goes on to say that she’d seen this at 4 other branches, and it happened on the same day/month every year for several years till it was included in a bug fix.
I wonder how many other branches had experienced this?
The utter stupidity of one of the compensation schemes.
One of the schemes has a fast track settlement process in which a flat rate figure is offered. Actually, two of the schemes have a fast track settlement process, but the one that is beyond stupid sees an offer of £75,000 irrespective of how much the PO has ‘recovered’ for a perceived shortfall.
I saw one example last week in which a SubPostmaster had paid the PO £400 but is now eligible for a payment of £75,000. Their contract wasn’t cancelled, they are still a SubPostmaster….
On a separate note the Commons Select Committee for Business & Trade has submitted its report on the handling of the scandal. There are 17 recommendations contained within the report. Only 3 have been adopted.
A quick read of the first few pages lays out the disappointment of the Committee. It’s an easy 5 minute read.
One of the schemes has a fast track settlement process in which a flat rate figure is offered. Actually, two of the schemes have a fast track settlement process, but the one that is beyond stupid sees an offer of £75,000 irrespective of how much the PO has ‘recovered’ for a perceived shortfall.
I saw one example last week in which a SubPostmaster had paid the PO £400 but is now eligible for a payment of £75,000. Their contract wasn’t cancelled, they are still a SubPostmaster….
On a separate note the Commons Select Committee for Business & Trade has submitted its report on the handling of the scandal. There are 17 recommendations contained within the report. Only 3 have been adopted.
A quick read of the first few pages lays out the disappointment of the Committee. It’s an easy 5 minute read.
Tony Hibberd, an 84 year old ex-SubPostmaster, was dismissed by the PO 14 years ago for a shortfall. He submitted his claim 4 years ago. His claim is via the HSS scheme, a scheme that is, supposedly, reconciling claims within 96 weeks.
In an effort to speed the reconciliation of claims the scheme has been revamped - pardon me whilst I swear!
Just how does the revamped scheme work? Claimants must waive all rights to reject an offer nor seek redress via the courts. The claims will be assessed by the same PO led team that has been offering 17% of the value of the claims - bear in mind those claims have been put together for the claimants by solicitors and accountants following strict criteria laid down by the PO.
Nothing has changed…
In an effort to speed the reconciliation of claims the scheme has been revamped - pardon me whilst I swear!
Just how does the revamped scheme work? Claimants must waive all rights to reject an offer nor seek redress via the courts. The claims will be assessed by the same PO led team that has been offering 17% of the value of the claims - bear in mind those claims have been put together for the claimants by solicitors and accountants following strict criteria laid down by the PO.
Nothing has changed…
Betty Brown has received a revised offer. The offer has been upped from 29% of the value of the claim to 60%. I know that Betty & her husband paid over £50,000 to cover a shortfall, but beyond that I don’t know what loss of earnings, expenses and compensation would come to.
Just for a bit of fun on a slow Friday afternoon, a few figures to give a feel for it. I know that one of the highest payouts to date is around £1,000,000. Betty, thankfully, didn’t experience prison. With that in mind, let’s grab a figure out of the air, say £800,000.
- £800,000 - 60% gives us £480,000 offered.
- Solicitors, based on the standard fee of 25% gives us £280,000.
- The shortfall paid to the PO was >£50,000.
- That leaves £230,000
- There will have been a number of other accepted expenses, e.g. accountants & medicals. £220,000
- Loss of earnings based on average £40,000 per year that a subbie earned back then, inc the shop attached. I factored in her age and when she may have retired, a very conservative estimate of £160,000. That leaves £60,000 as compensation for hardship, distress & reputational damage.
‘You’re the only one with a problem…”
Many, many SubPostmasters were told they were the only one experiencing issues. The following numbers, as of the 31st March 2025, paint a very different picture.
Many, many SubPostmasters were told they were the only one experiencing issues. The following numbers, as of the 31st March 2025, paint a very different picture.
- There has been over 11,000 claims made by SubPostmasters.
- There are over 4,000 outstanding claims.
- Over £892m has been paid out in compensation.
- The above figure does not include monies paid to legal firms representing the PO, e.g. Herbert, Freehills, Smith have been paid £162m.
- At the current rate it will take another 39 months to pay all claimants, assuming no offers are contested. To be fair, a number of extra staff have been brought in, and the new fixed sum payments, are expected to speed up the process.
Ernst Young, who have carried out a number of (questionable) audits of the Post Office, have been fined £4.9m for…. Shock of shocks, questionable audits of Thomas Cook.
Time and again, the evidence presented to the Inquiry, both financial & operational, ‘suggests’ a number of questionable audits.
Time and again, the evidence presented to the Inquiry, both financial & operational, ‘suggests’ a number of questionable audits.
A (bombshell) new charge being considered against both the PO & Fujitsu. Conspiracy to falsify accounts. This relates to actions or omissions detailed in communications between Fujitsu & and the Post Office - doesn’t it just amaze you how stupid people are in putting questionable stuff in print.
The gist of it is that Gareth Jenkins authored a document which was shared by senior managers at Fujitsu with senior managers at the PO. It acknowledges the balance mismatches, and offers three solutions.
Conspiracy to pervert the course of justice has pretty much been shown numerous times but the issue of knowing there were account mismatches and then allowing those figures to go onto the accounts…
The gist of it is that Gareth Jenkins authored a document which was shared by senior managers at Fujitsu with senior managers at the PO. It acknowledges the balance mismatches, and offers three solutions.
- Remotely access the branch accounts and manually adjust the numbers so that the account balances. And in so doing, notify the SubPostmasters.
- Remotely access the branch accounts but not tell the SubPostmasters.
- Leave the mismatch in place.
Conspiracy to pervert the course of justice has pretty much been shown numerous times but the issue of knowing there were account mismatches and then allowing those figures to go onto the accounts…
GreiginFife
Money List Winner
Said this a few times last year, PO knew there were bugs and therefore knew the balances were incorrect but took money and accounted for it knowing that it was incorrect.
I’d also like to see charges of extortion with menace being brought as well.
Unfortunately, U.K. law says that menace must instigate a feeling of physical harm. However, a more appropriate charge might be extortion with criminal intimidation - sentence guideline is up to 14 years.
GreiginFife
Money List Winner
That would do nicely. Although I reckon some of the SPMs might have felt physically threatened by imprisonment.
How and why did ICL(Fujitsu) win the tender to supply the IT system for the PO?
Nick Wallis, journalist, was working for the Beeb when he became involved in reporting the scandal. His book, The great British Post Office Scandal(?), details his comprehensive research. Its a cracking piece of work.
How did ICL win that tender? Its shocking. Of the 11 criteria laid down in the tender ICL came bottom in 8 of them. They won on price. And typically of any govt contract the price quoted is millions of pounds short of what was paid.
There were 350 sub-metrics used by the PO to measure the fit for purpose of horizon in the run up to its launch. It failed 327. Those sub-metrics formed up into 25 metrics, all of which had a traffic light light go, no-go categorisation. All 25 had the red catastrophic designation.
The PO made (by then) Fujitsu aware of their concerns. Fujitsu stopped reporting failings.
With 3 months to go till launch discussions were being had to dump it but, equally, too much had been spent to shelve it. The PO expected the launch date to be pushed back but were caught out by the government announcing the launch date.
With one month to go, no trainers had been trained, no help desk staff had been employed/trained and no subpostmasters had been trained.
A sample of Nick Wallis's book, the first few chapters, give far more detail than I have, and can be downloaded from Apple books free.
It's absolutely shocking...
Nick Wallis, journalist, was working for the Beeb when he became involved in reporting the scandal. His book, The great British Post Office Scandal(?), details his comprehensive research. Its a cracking piece of work.
How did ICL win that tender? Its shocking. Of the 11 criteria laid down in the tender ICL came bottom in 8 of them. They won on price. And typically of any govt contract the price quoted is millions of pounds short of what was paid.
There were 350 sub-metrics used by the PO to measure the fit for purpose of horizon in the run up to its launch. It failed 327. Those sub-metrics formed up into 25 metrics, all of which had a traffic light light go, no-go categorisation. All 25 had the red catastrophic designation.
The PO made (by then) Fujitsu aware of their concerns. Fujitsu stopped reporting failings.
With 3 months to go till launch discussions were being had to dump it but, equally, too much had been spent to shelve it. The PO expected the launch date to be pushed back but were caught out by the government announcing the launch date.
With one month to go, no trainers had been trained, no help desk staff had been employed/trained and no subpostmasters had been trained.
A sample of Nick Wallis's book, the first few chapters, give far more detail than I have, and can be downloaded from Apple books free.
It's absolutely shocking...
Bunkermagnet
Journeyman Pro
Why the Post Office paid £600m to stay shackled to the faulty Horizon system
Not owning crucial code has meant it has been unable to replace the system that led to a scandal.
www.bbc.co.uk
Fujitsu are just as culpable as the PO it seems.
All Quiet on the Western Front… what’s happening with the Inquiry?
- The first volume of the report is due to be published in the summer. This volume will focus on Impact Statements & the performance, or otherwise, of the 4 compensation schemes. In some respects, parts of the review of the compensation schemes will be out of date before the report is published as those schemes continue to be tweaked. However, those tweaks are already experiencing severe criticism as the govt & the PO are accused of making lots of noise but achieving very little.
- The Legacy Project. Mmm…. A group made up of SubPostmasters & a team from the Inquiry has been created to look at putting together some sort of permanent memorial highlighting what the SubPostmasters & their families have gone through.
- Evidence is still being sifted, looking at relevant material for inclusion in the final report.
- Maxwellisation of the final report. Rule 13 of the Inquiry’s Act allows those that are to be criticised in a report the right of reply. Those replies may lead to some changes and a further review by those criticised.
Something untoward going on?? And not a fault of the PO…
A bit of a hazy story starting to break about the fees a solicitor has invoiced to 3 of the victims of the scandal. From what I’ve been able to pull together a solicitor agreed to do pro bono work for 3 of the victims. Having completed the initial tranche of work, he had them sign a retainer for his services with a fee cap of £60,000 each.
All seems fair and above board.
All 3 have received interim compensation payments, and at this point the solicitor issued a bill for circa £60,000 to each of them. All 3 have made a part payment towards the bill, and all 3 have asked for the bill to be broken down into line items so they can see what they are paying for.
It’s at this point that things appear to go a little unsavoury. The solicitor replies that he’s surprised to be asked for an itemised bill, doesn’t send one and after a bit of back and forth he threatens to engage a debt recovery company.
One the journalists who follows the scandal closely has got involved. He wrote to the law firm, for a comment, who replied with a very strongly worded threatening letter. Not to be deterred he wrote to them again explaining how journalism worked. He shared with them concerns, including that the 3 were vulnerable victims with a question mark surrounding whether or not they were being taken advantage of.
The reply he got back was the solicitor no longer worked at the firm but could be contacted via ‘x’ firm. Further to that, the solicitor is, allegedly, under investigation by the Solicitor’s Regulatory Authority (SRA). Whether it’s in connection to the above or over a separate issue I don’t know.
Apologies for some of the vagueness above but as there appears to be ongoing investigations I’ve deliberately left names out. If you want more detail, Google Nick Wallis journalist.
A bit of a hazy story starting to break about the fees a solicitor has invoiced to 3 of the victims of the scandal. From what I’ve been able to pull together a solicitor agreed to do pro bono work for 3 of the victims. Having completed the initial tranche of work, he had them sign a retainer for his services with a fee cap of £60,000 each.
All seems fair and above board.
All 3 have received interim compensation payments, and at this point the solicitor issued a bill for circa £60,000 to each of them. All 3 have made a part payment towards the bill, and all 3 have asked for the bill to be broken down into line items so they can see what they are paying for.
It’s at this point that things appear to go a little unsavoury. The solicitor replies that he’s surprised to be asked for an itemised bill, doesn’t send one and after a bit of back and forth he threatens to engage a debt recovery company.
One the journalists who follows the scandal closely has got involved. He wrote to the law firm, for a comment, who replied with a very strongly worded threatening letter. Not to be deterred he wrote to them again explaining how journalism worked. He shared with them concerns, including that the 3 were vulnerable victims with a question mark surrounding whether or not they were being taken advantage of.
The reply he got back was the solicitor no longer worked at the firm but could be contacted via ‘x’ firm. Further to that, the solicitor is, allegedly, under investigation by the Solicitor’s Regulatory Authority (SRA). Whether it’s in connection to the above or over a separate issue I don’t know.
Apologies for some of the vagueness above but as there appears to be ongoing investigations I’ve deliberately left names out. If you want more detail, Google Nick Wallis journalist.
Yet another SubPostmaster, Olga Kelly, dies before receiving compensation!!
Depending under which compensation scheme she was under her family are likely to get nothing.
Forget politics, if only, this is about people knowing right from wrong, and then correcting it.
Disgusting!
Depending under which compensation scheme she was under her family are likely to get nothing.
Forget politics, if only, this is about people knowing right from wrong, and then correcting it.
Disgusting!
