What is the UK’s Post Office IT scandal about and who is involved?

[CharlieH]

 

 

It is a scandal that has rumbled for years, and yet it is suddenly dominating UK politics. Here is a guide to the saga of the Post Office and its Horizon IT system.

 

What is it all about?

It has been described without exaggeration by the British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, as one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in UK history: the hounding and prosecution of thousands of people who owned and ran smaller post offices for alleged fraud between 1999 and 2015, the overwhelming majority of whom were falsely accused.

The initial fault was with Horizon, a digital accounting system installed by the IT multinational Fujitsu, which wrongly said post office branches had cash shortfalls. This was then compounded by the Post Office, the company behind the network, which rejected any fault with Horizon and insisted operators must have taken the money, to the extent of covering up the real problem.

Overall, 3,500 branch owner-operators were wrongly accused and more than 900 prosecuted, with many of these jailed and ruined. Some suffered significant ill health, local ostracism and family breakup, and in a handful of cases, suicide.

Who were the people wrongly accused?

These were, in the traditional job description, subpostmasters and postmistresses, who owned and ran smaller post offices as franchises.

While they were independent, often owning the building where the business was based, they were part of the Post Office system, which handles not just letters and parcels but services including banking, bill payments, money transfers and applications for documents.

The Post Office, which has about 11,500 branches across the UK, was formerly part of Royal Mail, but was split off in 2012 when the mail service was privatised.

 

FULL STORY

 

[BE88]

Welcome to the cashless digital world

[Daffy D]

Mr. Bates vs The Post Office The Real Story. -  BBC TV documentary

 

Mr Bates vs The Post Office (TV Mini Series 2024) - which kicked the whole scandal off after 15 years of inaction.

 

Both available on Tgx.

 

 

[OJAS]

4 hours ago, CharlieH said:

The initial fault was with Horizon, a digital accounting system installed by the IT multinational Fujitsu, which wrongly said post office branches had cash shortfalls. This was then compounded by the Post Office, the company behind the network, which rejected any fault with Horizon and insisted operators must have taken the money, to the extent of covering up the real problem.

 

Heads should now roll ASAP at both Fujitsu and the Post Office IMHO.

 

[stratocaster]

This is a link to  what Sunak calls the greatest injustice in the UK's history but is in reality the greatest traveristy committed in the UK's justice system.

Nothing new you may think, but look at the date. 2009.

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/1280090846/Post-masters-form-action-group-after-accounts-shortfall

 

I have followed the inquiry for the past year and one of the most standout things is that the police or Crown prosecution service play no part only the bully boy PO investigators and the Post office in house lawyers.

Could you imagine having to sign a confession on the steps of a Royal Mail sorting depot because they have no wheelchair access, no legal representative present and only one Post office investigator present.

If these victims had been taken to the old bill cop shop they would,  I believe, been in front of at least two policemen and a tape machine and would never confess to criminal behavior. "No comment I want my brief" would have been the standard reply to the police. Maybe the victims dropped their guard when faced with a person they regarded as a non authoritarian figure.

One of the "investigators" went in six months, from a postie to a crime investigator overseeing a multi thousand pound fraud. ( No disrespect to postmen)

Yesterdays witness was Post office  Inspector Bradshaw a person described in the press as acting like a mafia hit man and and a person who bullies females and in particular Asians. His attitude appeared, that as he had worked for PO for 20 years the PO will protect him.

Sorry but the directors and senior management are going to hang him out to dry and claim he was a rogue operator working outside of the Post office's remit. Hopefully he realizes this and turns whistle blower.

PS

If you are ever accused of a crime in the UK, your defense,  as shown at the inquiry is  "I don't recall" "I can't remember" "My memory is not what it was" "I have no recollection of that". All the mentioned can be used under oath without jeopardizing a perjury charge . (Or can it?)

[quake]

4 people have committed suicide over this.

some are all ready dead of old age.

The post office, hang your heads in shame over this.

We need names to be named .

absolutely disgraceful.

 

 

[Daffy D]

A couple of disturbing things stand out from all this.

 

In all the years that this has been going on It took a TV miniseries, not even a documentary just a TV mini series to finally get the British Justice system off their asses. But even them it wasn't till the intervention of the Prim Minister and Parliament that finally got some real action.

 

The other point worth noting is that the computer company Fujitsu, for years denied that there was any problem with their Horizon system, yet the government has and is still awarding them multibillion pound contracts.

 

Hope non of them are for defense system 

 

[Georgealbert]

Thought we could get some inside info on the Post Office, thought someone high up on this forum worked there. 555555

 

https://theweek.com/law/how-the-post-office-got-its-prosecution-powers

[stratocaster]

Yesterdays inquiry was a little dry as it focused on the failure by the POL to release any material that would show the sub post masters in a better light. They have never disclosed any relevant material in the last 23 years either to the courts, MP's or the committee. In May 23 a court order was issued to the inquiry that documents had to be released. So far a request for 400,000 documents only 1.3% have been sent.

Did you know post office inspectors can interrogate a suspect under caution with no other persons present. They can access the police national computer. They can access the national credit rating site. The can enter your premises with no search warrant.

There is definitely a pattern emerging. The post office keep releasing witness statements and e mails to the committee that show the inspectors in very bad light with their bullying and intimidating interrogation methods. An e mail was shown from an inspector Gary Thomas that says. " I am fffffing pissed off with these guys always blaming the computer. I know they stole it as do you. Bunch of thieves."

So you know who is going to take the can for this and it ain't going to be the directors and upper management.

[Chomper Higgot]

A few things come to my mind.

 

The script of the TV show was written in 2019, therefore everything the drama brought to the public attention was already in the public domain by that date.

 

Government are only responding now because of the public outcry.

 

The second issue is while the Government has very rightly acted swiftly to exonerate the victims there is of yet no indication that criminal proceedings will be brought against the individuals and corporation that lied, committed perjury and did so in the unquestionable knowledge that their lies were sending innocent people to prison, indeed costing some their lives.

 

Exonerating and compensating the victims is not enough, the perpetrators of this injustice need to do prison time.

 

There is another issue, to their credit,  Government ministers and individual MPs did attempt to find the truth of what was going on, they too were lied too, evidence they requested was withheld or its existence denied.

 

These crimes are not simply a perverting the course of justice, they are also perverted the course of Governance.

 

Those responsible need to be identified and brought to justice, moreover Businesses need to also be accountable under the law. 
 

The gloves need to come off.

 

RIP the innocent victims and condolences to their families.

 

 

 

 

[stratocaster]

An interesting fact that becomes apparent is that all the emails so far released all stop at the section line managers level. I find it impossible to believe that the file on a SPM  accused of stealing 282,000 pounds would not be copied all the way to the CEO's desk. It is suspected that a two tier email system is used at the post office. Upper management and directors use a system called Microsoft 365 exchange. So far no emails from this system have been released to the inquiry.

[noobexpat]

On 1/12/2024 at 4:08 PM, stratocaster said:

 

Yesterdays witness was Post office  Inspector Bradshaw a person described in the press as acting like a mafia hit man and and a person who bullies females and in particular Asians. His attitude appeared, that as he had worked for PO for 20 years the PO will protect him.

 

 

I know him. 

He used to work for tv licencing, trying to catch those who didn't pay their license. 

[peter zwart]

A similar case has also occurred in the Netherlands. People were falsely accused of defrauding the tax authorities and were required to repay significant amounts that they often did not owe. The tax authorities then seized houses, cars, etc., and even children were taken away and placed in foster care (with the parents not being informed of their whereabouts) because the parents could no longer properly care for their children due to these actions. All of this resulted from a poorly calibrated algorithm that the government sought to conceal its shortcomings. Naturally, no one has been held accountable, and the affected individuals are still waiting for compensation. This has been going on for years. It can be said that the entire system we are in is completely unhinged and sick.

[cmjl]

On 1/13/2024 at 1:16 AM, stratocaster said:

Yesterdays inquiry was a little dry as it focused on the failure by the POL to release any material that would show the sub post masters in a better light. They have never disclosed any relevant material in the last 23 years either to the courts, MP's or the committee. In May 23 a court order was issued to the inquiry that documents had to be released. So far a request for 400,000 documents only 1.3% have been sent.

Did you know post office inspectors can interrogate a suspect under caution with no other persons present. They can access the police national computer. They can access the national credit rating site. The can enter your premises with no search warrant.

There is definitely a pattern emerging. The post office keep releasing witness statements and e mails to the committee that show the inspectors in very bad light with their bullying and intimidating interrogation methods. An e mail was shown from an inspector Gary Thomas that says. " I am fffffing pissed off with these guys always blaming the computer. I know they stole it as do you. Bunch of thieves."

So you know who is going to take the can for this and it ain't going to be the directors and upper management.

I'd like to know who trousered all the money fraudulently taken off the postmaster/mistresses.Before any compensation is paid out to these unfortunate people the people at the top who were paid millions in bonuses should be in the dock and made to pay back everything they were paid then hand it over plus interest to the postmasters/mistresses,only then should compensation be worked out - but nothing will ever compensate them for up to 25years of the shame,disgrace and humiliation they have suffered.

 

What isn't widely known is that Fujitsu had a back door into the computer system,they knew what was going on but chose not to do anything.

 

A certain elevated sanctimonious hypocritical MP needs to search his conscience-IF he has one-and step down,never mind blaming others for telling him lies, his job as minister of postal policy should have been to investigate the many complaints,he chose to take the easy way out and believe what he was told.

 

With the weak-kneed,spineless politicians of all colours in parliament today there will be a lot of wriggling and hand wringing and the poor tax payer will end up footing the bill-again.Welcome to gone to the dogs Britain-we've lost the Great.

 

 

 

 

[stratocaster]

Nothing to do with the post masters versus the post office but the 2015 select committee meeting featuring then CEO Paula Vennells, which unfortunately, I only have a 5 minute clip. She is adamant to the point of boredom that every postmaster conviction were safe and that the Horizon software was, as she said “flawless”.

The point of the committee hearing was to discuss the changes in bonuses that had occurred in the upper management and executive levels in the post office. Again almost to the point of boredom she apologizes for “confusing” the government over the way bonuses were calculated.

In a nutshell the government assumed that there were 8/9 segments where ALL the targets had to be met to pay out bonuses. In reality this is what it meant in the post offices eyes.

A score of 30% worker satisfaction was the human resources target. (A pretty low bar in my opinion). The actual figure for 2022 was 28%. Target not met, no bonus you would think. Wrong. Because the target was 2% short instead of paying nothing, they paid 84.7% of the bonus allocation.

Dangerous goods act. Target was 85% compliance. Actual target was 95% so a bonus for that section was paid at 107%

I am sure the select committee meeting with the Fujitsu and head of the post office yesterday was well publicized. It was a cracker. Especially the head of the post office saying that the conduct of their inspectors will be looked at seriously. If I were Mr's Bradshaw, Possnet or Thorpe I would have the ticket to Pattaya booked already.