Post Office. The biggest miscarriage of justice in UK

[Eric J (Viking)]

Hi Folks

I have been following this for a while now. This will make you sick to the core with what happened to these poor people that have been innocent all these years….

The Post Office is under criminal investigation over “potential fraud offences” committed during the Horizon scandal, the Metropolitan police have confirmed for the first time.

Officers are “investigating potential fraud offences arising out of these prosecutions”, for example “monies recovered from sub-postmasters [operators] as a result of prosecutions or civil actions”, Scotland Yard said on Friday evening.

It is not clear whether the investigation relates to individual staff members or the Post Office as a corporate entity.

Between 1999 and 2015, more than 700 post office branch managers were wrongly handed criminal convictions after faulty Horizon accounting software made it appear as though money was missing from their outlets.

Under the terms of their contracts, operators were liable for the financial losses and the Post Office demanded they repay the money or face closure, prosecution or a civil claim.

Hundreds were jailed or left bankrupted and at least four people took their own lives.

It is not known how much cash was paid back for imaginary shortfalls but so far £151m has been paid in compensation. Operators claimed that tens of millions of pounds wrongly clawed back went into Post Office profits.

The Met is already investigating two former Fujitsu experts, who were witnesses in the trials, for perjury and perverting the course of justice. Fujitsu is the company behind the Horizon software.

The force said in the statement: “These potential offences arise out of investigations and prosecutions carried out by the Post Office.

“The investigation was launched in January 2020 following a referral from the DPP.

“Two people have been interviewed under caution. Nobody has been arrested.”

Earlier this week, ITV began broadcasting Mr Bates vs the Post Office, a four-part drama charting the scandal and the fight for justice by wrongly prosecuted branch owner-operators.

Since the start of the broadcasting, 50 new potential victims have contacted lawyers, including five who wish to appeal against their convictions.

The Criminal Cases Review Commission, which refers cases to the court of appeal, has since urged more potential victims to come forward. In a statement issued on Friday, it said it “might be able to help if your appeal was unsuccessful, or if you pleaded guilty in a magistrates court, or if you are a close relative of a former sub-postmaster who has died”.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/05/post-office-criminal-investigation-potential-horizon-accounting-fraud


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aw_x1lscRk?si=GomY9LxMwBR-3sLH

Eric

[Eric J (Viking)]

Brief insight of the background of the story


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP2M9Nvjsjg?si=xwbyBl8qdNmnZpEt

Eric

[Matthew]

Software glitch? It really doesn't look like it.


...

But Mr Rudkin then interrupts to tell them that they may face a greater challenge than first anticipated.

He recalls visiting the Fujitsu HQ in Bracknell, the home of the company that was behind the Horizon IT system.

Mr Rudkin had been called in to sort out a problem with foreign exchange stock control that subpostmasters were dealing with.

After assuming he was there for some extra training, he ends up meeting the covert operations team who show him how to manually adjust the problem at a Horizon terminal.

As he is shown how to adjust the accounts, he tells the Fujitsu worker: 'Excuse me? I've been telling my members for years no one else has access to their branch accounts.'

Between 2000 and 2014, an average of one Post Office worker a week was prosecuted, for theft, false accounting and other offences, by the Post Office

The revelation sparks anger among the crowds because he can access a subpostmaster's branch account and alter their figures without the knowledge of the postal worker. Horizon had claimed that no one could access their accounts.

The next morning, Mr Rudkin wakes up at home with his wife and an auditor standing by his bed.

He is told that their post office is £44,000 in deficit, which his wife is convicted over because she was running the site while Mr Rudkin was away on Federation business.

...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12921833/itv-drama-mr-bates-vs-post-office-horizon-subpostmasters-scandal.html


So the person who was accidentally shown how Post Office figures could EASILY be changed, when everyone was told it simply was not possible, and it was a 'glitch', becomes an overnight victim of this 'glitch'.

Add to this that each of the hundreds of Post Office workers who were also victims of this 'glitch' were each told that they were the only ones this had happened to, by internal Post Office auditors. I put it to everyone that in all cases there was no glitch, and the figures were manipulated by hand in the way that Rudkin was accidentally shown by technical staff at Fujitsu.

All traces of his visit to Fujitsu were subsequently lost or denied. But he had some of his own evidence to prove that he was in fact visiting them on that day.

Now, and this is subtle, the Post Office can act as the sole prosecutor when it brings cases against its sub-postmasters. It has unusual power in England and Wales to do so, and its appointed lawyers present the evidence in court (the situation is different in Scotland and Northern Ireland). (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67908791.)

So don't fall for the 'oops a glitch' story. All I want to know is who wants to get rid of our Post Offices again? A few thousand pounds here and there doesn't feel like a crime worth corrupting Post Office internal auditors over. They almost got clean away with it. But it does ruin the Post Office, because staff are highly trained specialists, it's very complicated.

The speed and brutality of the retribution software glitch against Rudkin, once he found out, shows the true character of this story.

My step-mum read Nick Wallace's book The Great Post Office Scandal (below), and I learnt what I have from her. I am guessing that the newspaper article takes from the book although the TV series is being pushed. And we'll see how far the TV show stretches this 'glitch' story?

Nick Wallace's book The Great Post Office Scandal:

https://bathpublishing.com/products/the-great-post-office-scandal

https://bathpublishing.com/products/the-great-post-office-scandal

The extraordinary story behind the major ITV drama series

About the book

On 23rd April 2021, the Court of Appeal quashed the convictions of 39 former Subpostmasters and ruled their prosecutions were an affront to the public conscience. It is a scandal that has been described as one of the most widespread and significant miscarriages of justice in UK legal history.

The 39 were just a few of the 738 people who, between 2000 and 2015, had been prosecuted by the Post Office for theft, false accounting and fraud. The prosecutions were based largely on evidence drawn from Horizon, the Post Office’s deeply flawed software system that threw up duplicate entries, lost transactions and made erroneous calculations. If these errors resulted in apparent losses, Subpostmasters were forced to settle the discrepancies from their own pockets, sometimes for tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds. Those who could not pay were sacked and taken to court. Proud pillars of their communities were stripped of their jobs and livelihoods. Many were forced into bankruptcy and or borrowed from friends and family to give the Post Office thousands they did not owe. The really unlucky ones were sent to prison.

This is the story of how these innocent people fought back to clear their names against a background of institutional arrogance and obfuscation, a fight dragged out by the Post Office’s refusal to accept responsibility for its failings.

Nick Wallis, an award-winning freelance journalist and broadcaster, has been pursuing this story since 2010 when he met a taxi driver who told him his pregnant wife had been sent to prison for a crime she did not commit. Since then, he has recorded interviews with dozens of victims, insiders and experts, uncovering hundreds of documents to build up an unparalleled understanding of the story.

Using these sources, Nick has been instrumental in bringing the scandal into the public eye. He broadcast his first investigation for the BBC in 2011. In the same year that he took the story to Private Eye. He has subsequently made two Panoramas, a Radio 4 series, and raised thousands of pounds to crowdfund his own court reporting for the Post Office Trial website.

Nick has now written the first definitive account of the scandal. He takes us from the ill-fated deal that brought Horizon into existence, through years of half-truths and obstruction, to the tearful scenes at the Court of Appeal this year. He exposes the secrecy and mistrust at the heart of the story, and the impact that had on the victims. He also chronicles how this story’s hero, Alan Bates, started as a lone public voice of dissent but went on to beat the Post Office - against overwhelming odds – at two of the highest courts in the land and win some redress for the victims.

[sunwings]

Private Eye has been writing about this for 12 years! Heads need to roll.....

DZP0Ffw6ky0

[Paul D.]

This is Sonia Poulton take on it . She gives a brilliant & empassioned summary of events & calls for those responsible, who she names with certainty, to face justice .
She's a journalist who has been specialising in this sort of thing for decades, so seeing her outrage at this highlights the magnitude of what occurred.


Journalist & Broadcaster Sonia Poulton
on the TV drama about the Post Office scandal
that destroyed lives & says people responsible
must be held accountable - not given more high
paid & influential leading roles. / soniapoulton

19.53
0-mFOJ8l82c

[Eric J (Viking)]

Former Post Office boss Paula Vennells to hand back her CBE


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfQoekc6axc?si=al3oIRKcNT0i2d-K


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-67922410

[Phoenix1304]

This is Sonia Poulton take on it . She gives a brilliant & empassioned summary of events & calls for those responsible, who she names with certainty, to face justice .
She's a journalist who has been specialising in this sort of thing for decades, so seeing her outrage at this highlights the magnitude of what occurred.


Journalist & Broadcaster Sonia Poulton
on the TV drama about the Post Office scandal
that destroyed lives & says people responsible
must be held accountable - not given more high
paid & influential leading roles. / soniapoulton

19.53
0-mFOJ8l82c

Excellent reporting from Sonia Poulton as ever, she sums up the whole thing beautifully. I just watched Mr Bates vs Post Office last night and felt it was a very shortened version of the whole thing and Sonia fills in some of the gaps. Like her, I feel that Fujitsu should should be investigated and pay the costs, not the taxpayer (again) and that in itself was another shock that the £58 million awarded to the 550 victims by the judge was reduced to £12 million after ‘costs’. What?? That right there is another crime. How dare they be allowed to cream off 46 million?. Aye, I’ll have the sick bag after you Sonia.

Anyway, I’m glad it’s got an airing and caused some slight discomfort to the scumbags involved. I can only applaud Alan Bates’ determination and resilience after twenty years having to deal with the pit of vipers that are controlling British institutions. He found it easier to accept the lawyers robbery because if they hadn’t worked the case on a no win, no fee basis, there wouldn’t have been even this modicum of justice. Ordinary folk have no way to get justice from the endemic corruption in high places.

‘Expose and depose’ has been my mantra for decades now, I take some comfort in seeing it happen little by little.

[Brigantia]

So don't fall for the 'oops a glitch' story. All I want to know is who wants to get rid of our Post Offices again? A few thousand pounds here and there doesn't feel like a crime worth corrupting Post Office internal auditors over. They almost got clean away with it. But it does ruin the Post Office, because staff are highly trained specialists, it's very complicated.t what I have from her. I am guessing that the newspaper article takes from the book although the TV series is being pushed. And we'll see how far the TV show stretches this 'glitch' story?

Thanks Matthew for your insightful post, and your question that I've highlighted is very pertinent. For all its faults the Post Office and Royal Mail are trustworthy on the whole, they rarely let me down and our regular postie is wonderful. The Post Office has long been an essential part of the community in Britain but many have been closed in rural areas. Many villages now don't have this service that has long been at the centre of village life, providing not only postal services but also services such as vehicle tax renewal, savings accounts, foreign currency exchange and passport renewal.

Having been used to village life for a long time I know that in those villages that were lucky to have one, it was also partly a community service that was very central to the community, where you got to see others and you could find out about events in the area. The elderly and less well-off could access services without the need and expense of travel to a town.

So, there is this aspect of eroding community life, but could this also be leading to what was a nationalised service being either withdrawn altogether or put into the hands of a for-profit company? Cui bono?

[Matthew]

...

Thank you. Fujitsu are being setup as the scapegoat for this.

The rest of the facts around this Post Office scandal point to wider corruption. The irregular and suspicious behaviour by the Post Office had naff-all to do with Fujitsu. If anything Fujitsu blew the whistle, be it accidentally.

It reminds me of the NASA Challenger investigation, where software engineers were initially blamed. But Richard Feynman looked more closely at the detail and exonerated software faults in favor of the O-ring excuse. Because people are bamboozled by software production it becomes a place to dump all suspicion. Please, I beg everyone to look more closely at this Post Office scandal.

[Eric J (Viking)]

Well looks like this isn’t going anywhere, more and more post office workers coming forward wanting answers.



Money wrongfully taken from victims of the Horizon scandal may have gone into the pay of Post Office executives, MPs have been told.

Nick Read, chief executive of the Post Office, said the company has still "not got to the bottom of" what happened to the cash paid by sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses in a bid to cover the false financial black holes created by the faulty Horizon software.

He said it has been investigated two or three times by external auditors, but it is something "we have struggled to uncover" due to various issues, including a low quality of data.

https://news.sky.com/story/post-office-scandal-fujitsu-admits-it-was-involved-from-the-very-start-and-helped-prosecute-sub-postmasters-13048987

Eric

[Matthew]

Well looks like this isn’t going anywhere,
...
Nick Read, chief executive of the Post Office, said the company has still "not got to the bottom of" what happened to the cash paid by sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses in a bid to cover the false financial black holes created by the faulty Horizon software.
...

It is going somewhere! It's going straight to scapegoating Horizon, while the real details are ignored even by most on this forum. If anyone hasn't heard this story from the point of view of Michael Rudkin then in my strong opinion you're being fooled and propagating a lie.

[Bill Ryan]

This post is for the many non-Brits here who may not have properly understood what this very major story is all about.

Here's a new Wikipedia page, which (it seems to me!) does quite a good job of at least laying out the basic issue:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal

The British Post Office scandal is a miscarriage of justice which, between 1999 and 2015, saw over 900 subpostmasters prosecuted for theft, false accounting, and fraud for shortfalls at their branches when these shortfalls were in fact due to errors of the Post Office's Horizon accounting software.

While some subpostmasters almost immediately noticed the new system reporting false shortfalls, sometimes for thousands of pounds, the Post Office insisted that the system was robust and, when shortfalls occurred, prosecuted the subpostmasters or forced them to make up the amount.

The impact of court cases, criminal convictions, imprisonment, loss of livelihood and homes, debt and bankruptcy took a heavy toll on victims and their families, leading to stress, illness, divorce and, in at least four cases, suicide.

In May 2009, Computer Weekly broke the story about problems with Horizon software and in September 2009 subpostmaster Alan Bates set up the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance (JFSA).

In 2012, as a result of pressure from campaigners and Members of Parliament, the Post Office appointed forensic accountants Second Sight to conduct an investigation into Horizon. The investigators concluded that Horizon contained faults that could result in accounting discrepancies, but the Post Office insisted that there were no systemic problems with the software.

In 2017, a group of 555 subpostmasters led by Bates brought a group action in the High Court against the Post Office. After the judge ruled in November 2019 that Horizon contained bugs, errors and defects, the case was settled out of court for £58 million, which left the claimants with about £20,000 each after legal costs.

The government later agreed to supplement their awards. In February of 2020 the prime minister said that the government would establish an inquiry into the scandal. Courts began to quash convictions from December 2020.

As of January 2024, most of those wrongly convicted are still waiting to have their convictions overturned, the public inquiry is ongoing, and the Metropolitan Police is investigating the Post Office for potential fraud offences.

[jaybee]

This is Sonia Poulton take on it . She gives a brilliant & empassioned summary of events & calls for those responsible, who she names with certainty, to face justice .
She's a journalist who has been specialising in this sort of thing for decades, so seeing her outrage at this highlights the magnitude of what occurred.


Journalist & Broadcaster Sonia Poulton
on the TV drama about the Post Office scandal
that destroyed lives & says people responsible
must be held accountable - not given more high
paid & influential leading roles. / soniapoulton

19.53
0-mFOJ8l82c

Thanks...


I am belatedly catching up with this monumental scandal - just watched Sonia Poulton talking about it on the above video - 20 minutes well spent for anyone wanting to learn more....

Key to all this is..... Tony Blair and his government - Tony Blair is a key Globalist beavering away for the One World Authoritarian (fascist~like) Government 'cause' ....lording it over people here there and everywhere - and was even recently awarded the Knight of the Garter from Charles the 3rd - an extremely prestigious knighthood - there's only a few of them allowed - but the Globalist Cabal look after their own and have their backs covered - so in spite of his deep unpopularity he carries on at the Top of the Game ...

@ 12:35 - we see the man Blair appointed as CEO of the Post Office - Adam Crozier - one look at him and you can see he was up to no good and in actual fact presided over more than 7,000 Post Office closures...and was in the senior position when much of the evil shenanigans against innocent sub Postmasters and Mistresses went on - Crozier is obviously one of the Billionaire/Trillionaire Cabal's minions... doing their bidding -

Tony Blair didn't (doesn't) like the British People - and has been active destroying Britain for decades - this, IMO, is one of his avenues of attack as he does the bidding of the Globalist Cabal.... to destroy British Society as we know it and prepare the country for (eventual) Global Dictatorship......... for our own good of course...... :rolleyes:

Getting rid of the Community Post Offices and eventually the Post Office completely was and is, the aim - never mind who gets hurt - destroyed, imprisoned and even dies..... Sonia Poulton gives us the picture of those at the 'top' involved in the scandal.... and that includes the then Chairman and Chief Executive of Fujitsu UK.. Michael Keegan - who must have colluded with the whole sorry business in some way - 'top' players swimming in a swamp of corruption..... different levels of minion being held in position and colluding in various ways, I suppose.... money? power? top jobs? bribery? blackmail? - who knows what motivates these people to do what they do...


If the British People in general get a whiff of this being more than just a computer 'glitch' and part of a wider conspiracy to destroy Britain as we know it (getting rid of the Post Office being a part of that)..... they will be so incensed I don't know what will happen....



Tony Blair today refused to answer any questions on the Horizon scandal and whether he regretted not 'killing' the software when his Labour government had the power to do so.

The former prime minister was warned in 1998 the software could be 'flawed' but allowed for it to be rolled out.

It would go on to play a central role in wrongfully convicting more than 700 subpostmasters when it imagined thousands of pounds worth of missing money, causing decades of anguish and anger in what has been described as one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in UK history.

source - dailymail (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12972927/tony-blair-horizon-scandal-refuses-answer-questions.html)