Judge DESTROYS Post Office Expert

Mr Justice Fraser tore apart the expert testimony of Dr Worden, expert for the Post Office, in the Bates v Post office case in the High Court.
Check out more from @artmedialaw : • Want to know what the ...
)
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:
I'm a Barrister of England and Wales.
Videos for educational guidance only, Always seek advice before taking action. Videos on my channel are not legal advice and should not be taken as such. I accept no liability for any reliance placed upon the content of these videos or references, therein.
#blackbeltbarrister #lawyer #barrister
Description contains affiliate links; I will occasionally earn commissions from qualifying purchases or leads generated. Description may contain affiliate or sponsored links, for which we may receive commissions or payment.

[@lordcustard-smythe-smith9153]

That is a mighty slap down from the judge! I used to work on a large government database involving money, and the idea that bugs can't cause losses or be manually adjusted is pure crap. There are multiple layers of coding in these systems, often involving hundreds of thousands or millions of lines of code. You end up with manual interventions to fix things because the bugs can't always be found before the code becomes live. It's not even always your code. We had an error caused by an update to a library function provided by the makers of the coding language. We didn't find it for months as it was a random error that appeard only after a particular sequence of events where a buffer wasn't properly zeroed out from a previous transaction. That produced random credits, and we had to go back and manually adjust hundreds of them. If Fujitsu and the post office had a system that was bug free, needed no manual corrections, and never made mistakes, they had achieved a level of coding perfection never before seen in the real world. Trying to use statistics to say that because most transactions are ok means they all are is simply B.S. That's not how coding bugs manifest in financial software.

[@tttt4029]

Yep, was impressed that the Judge saw through the so called expert's amateur attempts to say otherwise.

[@PsychicLord]

@@tttt4029 Indeed, just the fact that there was a team of 30 individuals on the 'Suspense' account would indicate a large and reoccurring issue.

[@user-kg1od9es5d]

the idea that any system is bug free is the first red flag of any software-based situation LOL, particularly one created in the environment of legacy systems. Its absolutely disgusting how this mis-carriage of justice has happened. Furthermore, this strengthens the need and importance of software-backed intelligence folks who are advising these legal matters - not a bunch of jokers who are tech illterate.

[@peterw4338]

Most of the issues originate form poor comms. If there is a brown out or cut, the transactions get messed up. One part of evidence was when reporting a £14000 shortfall, the postmistress was asked to switch the computer off and restart. It then doubled to a £28000 shortfall.

[@user-kg1od9es5d]

that is absolutely ridiculous. why wasnt there independent intervention by the state to review the proper fitness and use of these systems? good lord.@@peterw4338

[@GodMother.]

It has not taken a tv documentary for this to come out. Its just took a tv documentary for some people to notice what has been going on for 20yrs. Some people need to pay more attention to the real world.

[@forsdykemontague1017]

There was a Panorama documentary on this back in 2015, back then the PM David Cameron call for it to be quickly resolved without a judicial inquiry.

[@victorsauvage1890]

It’s a matter of ethos - We ought to reflect that this same sort of callousness exists in the EXECUTIVE and LEGISLATIVE side of government which has tragic consequences not for INDIVIDUAL citizens but for the MASS OF THE POPULATION

[@geoffcampbell7846]

Brilliant! Thanks.👋

[@jamescoburn6789]

This has boggled my mind. They couldn't have allocated any transactions to the missing money or explained in detail what the missing money was related to. A perfect system does not exist and it would defy plausibility that the gov bought one. The only evidence was a vague computer printout. How that made it through the legal system is beyond me.

[@mike7002]

This case is a good example of the type of "Lawfare" that large organisations use to crush whistle blowers, as the University of Oxford's business school tried to do to my wife. The final appeals Judge in the Rolls building scolded Oxford for their approach to the litigation :)

[@liamobrian9642]

how dose some thing like this happen

[@ericgriffin6698]

Really enjoyed 👍👍

[@bordersw1239]

I’ve been mad about this for years, I can’t even bring myself to watch the TV show.

[@trevorlandy152]

Suspense account! - nail biting horror accounting.

[@ownyourworld]

Why have they not gone after the softwares programmers and developers ? So they get off Scott free so they ?

[@judithparker4608]

Depleted Fuel For Fantasy Covert NPD

[@BDX55]

I sometimes receive payments from customers that they have erroneously paid me. I tell them and refund it back to their bank account. If, instead, I didn’t say anything and kept the money and put it towards my business profits, I would be prosecuted for fraud. This is exactly what should happen with the executives of the Post Office.

[@markcallaghan8389]

well put lets see if they are prosecuted for fraud

[@paulphillips675]

NVM fraud, they should be prosecuted for corporate manslaughter - SPMs would not have committed suicide had the malevolent charges been made against them

[@user-kg1od9es5d]

precisely.

[@IceAce1]

Well, that's not the same. Neither PO central nor the branch would know, customers because it's about cash transactions. Discrepancies can happen, it's profit or loss. Same as inventory taking at year end, just that cash registers are balanced each day.

[@BDX55]

@@IceAce1what I was referring to was the money that the sub-postmasters paid to the Post Office for their fictitious deficits in their accounts was put into an holding account and after three years that money was transferred into the Post Office accounts generating additional profits on which executives bonuses were based. That is fraud.

[@sydsaturn3337]

What I cannot understand is why did the lawyers tell so many post masters to plead guilty to a crime they hadnt committed hoping to get a lenient sentence ? Will the top executives at the P.O. be doing the same

[@sirrodney3443]

I have a nephew who is a barrister, No one in the family wants to know him. They are rotten to the core with an obsession for money. Sad but true.

[@markphillips2076]

Money. To defend yourself against a government-funded entity is tantamount to financial suicide. They have deeper pockets than you have and if you were a sub-postmaster already ruined trying to make good losses reported by Horizon, you'd rather plead guilty and suffer the consequences. Only the rich get to defend themselves adequately.

[@johnholkham2420]

Because they were threatened with prison but by pleading guilty they often escaped prison. These Sub PMs were ordinary law abiding citizens and the though prison scared them to death. Those with the balls to plead not guilty did go to prison lost there houses and businesses. The Laws for rich people not ordinary people.

[@stephenwabaxter]

It's a flawed system where, from the prosecution point of view, there is a presumption of guilt. The prosecution will proceed with as many counts of guilt as they can think of. The earlier a defendant pleads guilty the more lenient a sentence is likely to be. Defence lawyers are paid whether their client is found guilty or innocent so they often take the easy route.

[@kevint3845]

Most are rotten to the core, they will throw anyone under the bus for money and promotions

[@alexstewart9747]

So The Post Office knew that the software was faulty. Victims were imprisoned, took their own lives. Families, Marriages and reputations were destroyed. Heartbreaking.

[@ganndeber1621]

More than heart breaking. A corruption of the legal process, why did the PO not disclose this?

[@alidabotes6264]

I certainly hope they will be compensate these poor people.

[@MovingMad]

@@alidabotes6264there is no compensation enough for a lot of the victims !!

[@crivsmum4820]

my son's colleague identified a flaw in the Horizon system when they were doing work for them. The company director reported it to the Post Office, I think in 2016 and they were supposedly looking into it

[@frankspeakmore7104]

@@alidabotes6264 I do as well, but how much do you give for this? 20 years these victims have had to live under this cloud. And the Post Office did everything it could to kick this into the long grass.

[@mikepembo8297]

Those who benefitted from this (Post Office, Fujitsu) need to be in prison and fined heavily. Some people have been made homeless by this - they need to be recompensed fairly to restore their lives. However no amount could make up for the damage done here.

[@kesamek8537]

150mil each would be a start.

[@Songbirdstress]

Good point, all the money they extorted from the Post Masters is theft no?

[@rogerphelps9939]

Fujitsu fulfilled the terms of the contrs=act. If the terms were wrong then that is the PO's fault.@@kesamek8537

[@jimmyroberts9528]

Nobody from the post office or Fujitsu will even see inside a police interview room. They should But they won’t.

[@catherine7484]

The protracted and pig-headed defense of this terrible system seems suspicious to me. Who was originally responsible for contracting with Fujitsu and signing off on the contract? Did they profit privately, or from steering other government contracts to Fujitsu? Rotten as this is so far, the rot may go much deeper.

[@kirkhamandy]

Holy fuck... a judge that actually understands probabilities. If only Sally Clark had that judge, she may well still be with us today.

[@davidhowe6905]

Very good point! Was this the case where an 'expert witness' made mathematically spurious arguments for her guilt, while the judge excluded contrary mathematical evidence for the defence, on the grounds it was too complicated for a jury to understand?l

[@kirkhamandy]

@@davidhowe6905Not sure. The Sally Clark case hinged on the expert witness testimony, given that the chance of two SIDS deaths was 1 in 73 million. And then that was conflated with "her chance of being innocent" by the "prosecutor's fallacy". The fact is it's only 1 in 73 million if both SIDS are statically independent. However, they occurred in the same family, so technically, they could have been related. The real problem here was that no one, not the judge, defense, jury member, or media reporting, understood the mistake. She was eventually released on appeal, but her life was destroyed; she was a broken woman and died just a couple of years after release. Awful case. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Clark

[@user-kg1od9es5d]

the fact the joker attempted to fool the judge with his use of probablities should lead to some form of punishment... deliberately misleading the entire case.

[@another3997]

​@@davidhowe6905Giving a jury complicated evidence that a lay person is unlikely to understand, is counter productive. If jurors don't understand it, they will either ignore it or perhaps turn it in to a 'negative'. Unfortunately that's the way most humans minds work. Of course, if you have TWO expert witnesses saying TWO different things, you can only choose one to believe. They're both supposed to be experts.

[@davidhowe6905]

I understand but, unfortunately. in this case, I think the judge had allowed one 'expert' witness to present a mathematical argument which misled the jury, making them think there was a very small chance of innocence, then he disallowed arguments explaining why this was misleading.@@another3997

[@tdoubt100]

Well done Mr Justice Fraser for cutting through the lies and demostrating a strong level of understanding of the situation.

[@andydudley1775]

only now

[@richarddixon7276]

Credit where it's due . Rather belated , but who knows the outcome, had this judge been the one assigned to the original cases against the Sub Postmasters in the first place . He may not even have been senior enough back then and possibly not even a judge at the time . Lets just hope that the compensation settlement isn't some derisory offer which the Govt deems to be In full & Final then refuses to reconsider making a fair settlement .

[@richarddixon7276]

@@MrBollocks10 With the first few cases I can believe the judges would be likely to believe the evidence the PO presented . A new computer system had managed to snare a few dishonest Sub Postmasters appears to be believable , as the sheer number of SPM's being incriminated and the fact that a significant number of them indicated that the Horizon system was at fault should have made them take more notice and demand Proof from the PO & Fujitsu that the system was not flawed rather than simply swallowing every word they said , the problem is that judges are for the most part trained in Law , not computer sciences so therefore relied on "Expert" testimony's . The fact that those representing the PO simply lied or had failed to do a competent job , or as was recently announced on the news an expert analyst from a Preston based company who actually raised such concerns was sacked and discredited for questioning the system . Means the bosses from Fujitsu or the Post Office or both are Guilty of perjury which carries a hefty sentence in itself . Lets hope that one day soon they will face a court of justice and pay the price for the damage they caused . In My opinion collectively they should spend at least the same amount of time in the cells as the hundreds of innocent victims did , eg. 900+ victims at 5 years apiece= 450+ years of jail time , Divide that by the number of complacent Directors/bosses , who should also loose their homes to bankruptcy to repay the cash wrongfully claimed from the SPM's & the remainder put towards their compensation claim would make those in power pull their socks up and actually Earn their inflated salaries .

[@another3997]

​@@MrBollocks10If you think it was all so simple, why did nobody else, obviously including "experts" such as yourself, sort the problems out earlier? It's easy to criticise the legal system, but it relies on actual evidence from all parties, some of which will we highly technical and some of which may be incorrect or misleading. Sometimes deliberately so. If things were so obvious, there wouldn't have been so many unwarranted prosectuions. 🙄

[@another3997]

​@@MrBollocks10Ah yes, blame it on the judges. Apparently it has nothing to do with the evidence presented and arguments put forward from both sides. You do realise that in criminal cases, outside of the magistrates court (and magistrates are NOT judges), there are these things called juries? In individual postmaster/post office cases, lawyers presented arguments to the court, and if the defence lawyers didn't do their job properly, that isn't the fault of the judge or the jury.

[@andrewgilbertson5356]

After reading this short part of the Judges findings one realises just how much work went into his judgement . Well done Judge.

[@simonjess8471]

Does it come as a shock to you that judges are sharp?

[@andrewgilbertson5356]

Not really, but as a manual worker I’ve never really thought of paper work as work. However, trying to really understand this and other vids makes me realise just how hard it to think deeply about things. Since I retired I’ve been trying to get my brain working.@@simonjess8471

[@davidgay1z]

Here is the thing- apart from all the other aspects of this affair the role of Lord Neuberger in the Recusal seems to have escaped attention. I have therefore pasted the following ‘The role of Lord Neuberger in the recusal fiasco (Justice Fraser) should be investigated’ on as many KZbin articles as I could, about ten, but when I checked to see if there was any response I discovered they had all been taken down including Talktv This Kafkaesque episode staggers one at every turn, even when Big brother has been outed he seems to be still working away! I really want to know why Lord Neuberger interfered , if the recusal had succeeded the whole noble attempt at taking on the stinking system would have failed

[@dardobartoli]

It's going to take a monumental amount of time, effort and money to get this all sorted .... yet I am confident that it will never actually make all those responsible pay for their crimes. There will be a few, I am sure, scapegoats and token amounts paid back by a few guilty parties, but few if any of the MP's, PO mgt, PO 'police' and Fujistu will truly be held accountable. As is the case with these high end crimes, they are only ever sorry for being caught.

[@brightonbabe2139]

Crime, conspiracy or cock up. Probably a combination. Its really down to not wanting to deal with the situation properly. With the number of cases, everything should have been suspended and then another software company bought in to look at the applications and check the code. ...not Fujitsu. Its hard to find your own bugs in a programme after awhile, another pair of eyes will find it.

[@crivsmum4820]

my son's colleague did find a flaw when doing contract work for the Post Office in 2016 and his Director reported it @@brightonbabe2139

[@foxstrangler]

Now watch. Fujitsu will conveniently go bust to avoid making payments.

[@spodula]

@@foxstrangler RM or more precisely, the Government are on the hook for payments. Fujitsu will only be on the hook only for prosecution depending on their actions in covering it up, or if by some chance, there is a clause in the contract for incompetence. Personally however, i think that the reason so many of these government contracts are "Commercially confidential" is so the general public dont find out just how useless the officials in charge of negotiating them actually are. See the PPE contracts.

[@CareyEvans]

@@foxstrangler "Fujitsu" in this case is just the remains of International Computers Limited (ICL), renamed in 2002 after Fujitsu become the sole shareholder in 1998. They'll give it a new name and hope everyone forgets who's who without anyone even needing to declare bankruptcy.

[@Adam_Le-Roi_Davis.]

Thankfully the Judge didn't take take things at face value and looked into the methodology of both expert witnesses and discovered the biases on behalf of the Post Office witness, others may have missed this, but due to the diligence of this Judge the truth was unearthed.

[@alidabotes6264]

He deserves kudos!

[@Adam_Le-Roi_Davis.]

@@alidabotes6264 Yes, 100% so, if it hadn't shown due diligence the result could have been bad and caused more suffering for the poor victims whom have already suffered enough.

[@alidabotes6264]

@@Adam_Le-Roi_Davis. Cheers.

[@user-kg1od9es5d]

i mean yeah the judge did his job, right? lol. its sad we are applauding that when the others failed to do their job ultimately.

[@michaelney7006]

Part 35 of the Civil Procedure Rules is quite clear, an expert owes his duty to the Court, not to the party paying him. An expert signs that declaration of truth and his understanding of his duty. In terms of elements of uncertainty, an expert must rehearse all the points in favour and all those adverse and explain why he comes down on favour of one or the other.

[@Youtube_deleted_my_favourites]

Imagine, at your place of work, some money goes missing. You get blamed. If you deny it you are threatened with court resulting in prison. Or if you admit it you just get a suspended sentence or community punishment. So to avoid prison you admit guilt. Over and done with you think. Then your company sues you for court costs because you were found guilty, you owe £350,000 in court costs. Your life ruined. This company is called the Post Office. There logo is " whatever you need us for, we're here for you"

[@BanzaiBob272]

The most basic book keeping course would teach you how and when to use a suspense account as well as that being unable to balance off that account means you still have a problem somewhere. You also dont get to just claim the account balance as "a nice little bonus" after a couple of years as you still have no idea where it came from.

[@brightonbabe2139]

In fact, if you have not resolved what is in the suspese account from one audit to another, it should be an audit point from the external auditors. Where were the auditors?

[@markevans2294]

Would a small business be able to, legally, claim an unexpected credit to an account as a "gift" after three years?

[@waltermcphee3787]

​@@markevans2294or is it theft.

[@alantheinquirer7658]

Ultimately, the victims were threatened with legal action to make up the shortfall of money that didn't exist! Even the ones that suffered in order to pay the Post Office to avoid prosecution have been damaged by this!

[@davidjones6779]

And even not guilty were advised to plead guilty and still got a prison sentence.

[@alantheinquirer7658]

@@davidjones6779 The wondrous world of the plea deal. :(

[@dansmith1763]

Yes as well as those prosecuted just paid up as they felt bullied so £ that was never really missing goes into PO profits and senior managers paid bonus on basis of fake profits.

[@simonjess8471]

@@alantheinquirer7658 No such thing in the UK. You are confusing us with the US.

[@RayIrvine]

Makes you wonder, like which fool did not even think there was something amiss, after the 100th, the 200th, the 300th discrepancy! Utter madness, those poor people!

[@hairyairey]

It transpires today that there were bonuses for Post Office investigators for every sub-postmaster convicted. To my mind this is confirming that this was an underhanded method of closing post offices. I hope I don't get called for jury duty in this case (but if I did I would have to ignore all I know about this subject so far).

[@veryhappychappy12]

Those that had a direct financial interest perhaps?

[@alantheinquirer7658]

Also, each court case had to be taken on it's own merit - sound evidence or not. It's not the judges job to pronounce in court that "this case must be withdrawn because there's been hundreds of other, similar cases."

[@hairyairey]

@@alantheinquirer7658 the cases were heard all over the country it is unlikely that any judge spotted a pattern. MPs did, but that's because they represent a highly statistical group of roughly 65,000. About 0.1% of the UK population.

[@brightonbabe2139]

I did when I heard about it. As an IT person I know how flawed or buggy IT systems can be, and that the bugs can show up long after the system has been deployed. To see this many cases, I thought that there was something wrong with the system. To find it, you need someone with logic and coding expertise to debug it. You also need to want to find it. It looks like senior PO personnel made the mistake of many non IT people. They think the system is right. This one is squarely at the feet of the people running the PO and Fujitsu. Fujitsu itself should have raised the potential of a bug or series of bugs based on the numbers of errors that were coming up. They also had the expertise to find the bug/s. A judge can only manage his or her case, they my not have the expertise to understand the likely source of the problem.@@hairyairey

[@AlecFlackie]

The Post Officer and their 'expert' come across as total shysters.

[@catinthehat906]

Sadly this is not uncommon amongst expert witnesses, in my own area of mental health historically there were well known 'guns for hire' who were well known for taking a particular partisan view (at both ends of the spectrum) and would be taken on recurrently to deliver it in court- and the worst offenders for hiring these individuals were the CPS and London based Chambers specialising in Human Rights law.

[@hairyairey]

As a Mathematics graduate rather pleased to see a Judge understanding probability 😁

[@GrahamtheWood1]

Yes, that was exactly my view when I listened to the transcript!

[@Paul-FrancisB]

The judge also goes on to concede that if either of the two independent initiating events lead to the outcome then the result of the calculation was correct but criticised the expert for not showing his working properly. i.e. pointing out the difference between rolling a 6 AND 6 again, or rolling a 6 OR 6 on the second throw. That was glossed over in the video

[@highpath4776]

Are judges supposed to be ignorant of everything , until it is placed (and explained before them) or supposed to take a view of " a reasonable, enquiring, "man on the clapham omnibus"

[@guywilletts2804]

​@@highpath4776the man on the Clapham omnibus is the old way of anthropomorphising the legal meaning of "reasonableness". The relevant idea here is a judge "taking judicial notice" of something. To answer your question, a judge is not allowed to take judicial notice of anything that could be contentious or challenged in any way by either party. This is due to our legal system being adversarial. Especially civil litigation, which is what is being discussed here. The question isn't "what is the right legal answer" or "what is the truth". It is "who wins", with the judge as the impartial umpire. That is the system we have had for almost a millennium. Hope that explains why things end up as they do.

[@highpath4776]

@@guywilletts2804 I dont think any of the POL claims were civil claims, which is interesting , as balance of probabilities might have given both a better defence , (rebutting the original claimants contentions ) and a weaker prosecution . ( the unsafe conviction work indeed I think was a civil claim). The PO went for criminal charges, which I find odd to prove False Accounting (if Horizon was correct how could the accounting be in error)?

[@tullochgorum6323]

The fact that a so-called "expert" witness doesn't know how to calculate a basic probability is jaw-dropping. This is something I quite literally learned in primary school. The PO putting up such a clown to justify their position tells us all we need to know. Bet he didn't expect to run into a judge who was mathematically literate!

[@tttt4029]

To be fair, that may be an understandable mathematical error but what's not acceptable is the partisan way he presented his "evidence" in order to mislead the court. The whole thing stinks of corruption, people obviously knew of the issues but let innocent people suffer for their own selfish greed.

[@tisme1105]

Wait - are you saying trying to roll a 6 on a normal die, and you have 2 chances isn't 2 out of 6? Surely if you have 6 chances it's 100% right???? This is such basic stuff it's mind blowing.

[@derekp2674]

@@tisme1105 If you roll a normal die six times there is no guarantee that you will get at least one 6. If I have applied the Binomial Theorem correctly, there is a 33.5% change of never getting any 6s and 66.5% chance of getting at least one 6. The chance of getting six 6s is tiny - roughly 0.002%

[@Kromaatikse]

@@tisme1105 The principle at issue is whether you're looking for both dice coming up sixes, or *at least one* of the dice showing a six. The former would require multiplying the probabilities, ie. 1/6 * 1/6 = 1/36. The latter is almost, but not quite, found by adding the probabilities, ie. 1/6 + 1/6 = 1/3. In practice you must also correct for the possibility of two sixes counting as "at least one six", and you do this by multiplying the probabilities of each die NOT showing a six - so 5/6 * 5/6 = 25/36, so there's an 11/36 chance of at least one six. As a check, 11/36 is the same as 1/3 (from the addition method) minus 1/36 (the chance of getting two sixes at once). When dealing with extremely small probabilities, simple addition gets you a "close enough" answer but you have to be careful about your error analysis.

[@thomaspickin9376]

​@@derekp2674 In two rolls the chance should be 11/36 ~ 30.6% of getting at least one 6 and 25/36 ~ 69.4% for 0 sixes. Just think of it this way, there's 'one way' to not get two sixes, don't roll a six on both tries with (5/6) probability each roll. (5/6)*(5/6) = 25/36. 1-25/36 = 11/36 (the probability of NOT not getting two sixes, i.e getting at least one six).

[@alanwiltshire2272]

Surely the suspense account should only be used to hold amounts collected from sub post masters until the correct destination in the accounts were identified. The fact that no such transfer occurred implies the loss never occurred. Transferring such sums to Post Office profits is surely a fraudulent act.

[@GrandpaTig]

Very true

[@brightonbabe2139]

It was obvious to me, and most other people in IT, that the systems were buggy. Just the wholesale nature of the so called fraud tells you that the software was at fault. There is not that much criminality in the post office professional community. It is common sense.

[@foxstrangler]

What was worse was allowing 'fine tuning' on live accounts and not telling the account hoders it was being done, changing amounts and balances. Aside from having the convictions quashed, and compensation payment, the affected Sub PMs need to be credited with the amounts of fanciful 'shortfalls' they had to pay for.

[@GrandpaTig]

@@foxstrangler And how was this recorded by the PO/Fujitsu when making direct changes in a Production System! Also did the auditors find this out or have been informed by the PO... So MANY questions still to get answered...

[@spodula]

@@GrandpaTig It definitely does smell of second-rate program management. If we were fiddling with production systems back when i was doing development, i doubt my feet would have touched the ground on the way out. Complete lack of testing and code review also. Then again, in second rate outfits, testing is the second thing that gets cut after documentation.

[@markphillips2076]

The fact that the post office expert used probability to confirm the guilt of the SPMs rather than actual logs from the software shows a complete disregard for the truth. Probability doesn't prove guilt. System logs do. I thought the standard for conviction was beyond reasonable doubt, not based on some spurious claim based on probability. "They were probably guilty but we can't supply any actual proof" is not sufficient enough to send someone to prison.

[@gregarnold9244]

Exactly, far too many "caught" for it not to be wrong.

[@walterwings2222]

Brilliant summary of the original case. I worked in I.T. at the time this was going on and it was well known in the industry that the Fujitsu system was inherently flawed. Fujitsu were also employed by the Government to provide other systems such as Work and Pensions that had equally fundamental issues.

[@ianhunter2374]

This whole saga just shows that evidence presented in court will be automatically accepted by judges without scrutiny therefore guilty before innocent

[@alantheinquirer7658]

I'm no expert but aren't the judges expected to take the presentation of both prosecution and defence in good faith? They might suspect that something fishy has gone on but they cannot halt a trial based on suspicion, not fact.

[@ianhunter2374]

@@alantheinquirer7658 if what you saying is true then why did the post office scandal happen in the first place ? Wasn't it judges that found guilt when there was none ?

[@hairyairey]

See my other post about probability. Remember Roy Meadows presenting his "expert" evidence that three unexplained deaths were very unlikely but never produced any mathematical evidence to back up his claims? Those that have studied statistics could see right through it, but of course he was the "expert".

[@alantheinquirer7658]

@@ianhunter2374 They could only find guilty based on the evidence presented. If they're lied to then that's all they have. They aren't investigators.

[@vatsmith8759]

@@ianhunter2374 No, it would have been the jury that found guilt, not the Judge.

[@lyndseyb4852]

If nobody goes to prison for this that will be another injustice!

[@stephenhall9251]

Couldn’t agree more. Whether it’s because the Inquiry is still in progress I’m not sure, but there seems to be almost a conspiracy of silence amongst informed commentators as to the likelihood, or otherwise, of Prosecutions amongst the ranks of the Post Office and Fujitsu managers and investigators who permitted this travesty to occur 🤷‍♂️

[@mikemclean516]

They will face imprisonment. The optics of not being so would not be tolerated. Claw backs on bonuses for all and criminal charges for 5 at least.

[@keithbennett1656]

If the flaws in this case are so obvious to this Judge why weren't they picked up at the time of the original prosecutions ?

[@alidabotes6264]

Exactly.

[@sunlover20007]

I should imagine that the post masters couldn't afford to hire the kind of legal counsel that would understand all the double talk.

[@keithbennett1656]

@@sunlover20007 Isn't it scary that the quality of justice you receive varies according to how much money you have ? Does such a system deserve the respect of the people ?

[@Nickcooper625]

Because each of those was pursued by the Post Office itself in isolation of each other, while steadfastly maintaining that Horizon was "robust" and could not be the cause of the "shortfalls."

[@keithbennett1656]

​@@Nickcooper625 You know the phrase ' justice has to be seen to be done ' ? Do you think it means in order for justice to be done it has to be open & visible for all to see or does it just mean it has to look as if justice was done even if it wasn't?

[@mikehipperson]

I watched the first episode of 'Mr Brown v The Post Office' and saw that the accused were not allowed to question the accuracy of the Horizon software and that if they did, they would be imprisoned for a trumped up charge of 'misrepresentation of the truth'! What a horrific way for a once reputable company and it's investigative agents to act when it knew all along that the system had failed the people who depended upon it's accuracy?

[@johnnyonenote376]

Agree Mike, absolutely horrific conduct over two decades (slight typo by the way - Mr Bates v P.0). If anyone deserves a CBE or knighthood it is him, not the corporate crooks.

[@kesamek8537]

Post Office was never reputable it has been a spy agency for 300 years.

[@jeremypnet]

@@johnnyonenote376he refused an OBE because Paula Vennells had an honour. Now she’s given it back, he might reconsider.

[@johnnyonenote376]

@@jeremypnet Yes Jeremy, I understand that and think that the whole honours system has been debased for a very long time. I know that Toby Jones tried to have some conversations with him as Toby was playing him in the series. His basic initial position was on the lines of 'why do you want to talk to me, I'm nothing particularly special etc. He is a very dedicated and humble man indeed, but I think that he will be glad that the drama series has really brought this appalling miscarriage of justice to the attenton of the wider public.

[@EdMcF1]

Turns out you can't BS your way past a High Court judge, who knew?

[@andrewbyrne2173]

Apparently doctor warden didn’t.

[@joshua6244]

But the Post Office did, numerous times. Hence, the problem.

[@simonjess8471]

@@joshua6244 Incorrect. They were not High court judges and in any case, they were not hoodwinked. The defendants plead guilty! If you present a crown court judge with a guilty plea, you kind of tie his hands.

[@joshua6244]

@@simonjess8471 Incorrect. Some did plead not guilty and got longer sentences as a result. Eg Harjinder Butoy pleaded not guilty and was given a sentence of 3 years. .

[@joshua6244]

@@simonjess8471 Incorrect. Many pleaded guilty. But not all. Eg Harjinder Butoy was a sub postmaster who pleaded not guilty. He was found guilty and sentenced to three years imprisonment. Janine Powell was another one who pleaded not guilty.

[@Nuts-Bolts]

It’s a wonder that Bill Gates didn’t buy the Post Office for his son who said he wanted a ‘real cowboy outfit’ for Christmas.

[@DJWESG1]

I think the bank of America bought the royal mail

[@stephenwabaxter]

The Post Office's reputation is badly damaged and I expect they will loose business as a consequence. There are competing companies like DPD, Evri etc so that is one example where business can be redirected. There are many banks to choose from instead of using the Post Office. PO needs to get to grips with IT be that with Fujitsu or a new supplier. Fujitsu is a damaged brand.

[@terminusaquo1980]

@@stephenwabaxter Not just The Post Office but Fujitsu, who have £50m of government contracts, as well

[@johne7100]

Just don't tell Elon.

[@Nickcooper625]

@@stephenwabaxter "DPD, Evri etc" are delivery companies. They don't compete with the Post Office (owned by the government), as the Royal Mail is a separate privatised delivery company.

[@DJDJ-fl2nv]

So how did the same judiciary send so many to prison and destroy lives...they would have know about other cases when checking sentencing....the courts were happy to do nothing until the issues became extensive and more significant into the public domain...disgraceful in all respects , trying to row back now, speaks more than words ...

[@mistahsusan2650]

yeah, how did they?

[@mikehipperson]

These 'trials' were held all over the country and so there was no pattern to follow as each court is only interested in which 'crime' falls in its area, not on the rest of the country.

[@brightonbabe2139]

The post office itself knew how many they were prosecuting, and that should have been a red flag if they weren't so niave and greedy.

[@scorpionking7454]

Absolutely the most important point you have raised in all the comments- the same judiciary that found each innocent individual are now backed tracked after innocent people committed suicide, marriage brake downs , community turning on innocent people who were telling the truth! The loss of freedom ( prison sentences) etc etc and what about the police role and the CPS who a certain Labour leader was in charge of ? What the judges and barristers and solicitors who made money from this miscarriage of justice? , and then of the government who have not got back involved only after public outrage they also know the situation from the start and now they have taken the “ power “ away from the courts” exposing the complete corruption in the courts , the police the CPS and of course the post office and no amount of money will get back the lives all of above have ruined I’d be interested as a avid fan of this channel what the BBB has to say about the level of corruption in the whole system and for which he as a barrister is part of tho I have stress I am a avid fan and no judgement on him personally

[@ferney2936]

@@brightonbabe2139 They weren't prosecuting many. They had a small investigations team who didn't seem to investigate much in each case, they were junior employees going through tick box exercises because to them it was always an open & shut case: 'computer says you owe £xxx' Requests from defendants to produce Horizon logs were stonewalled as that cost the Post office money & even logs of relevant helpline calls weren't requested through what looks to me like apathy. But back to your point, they didn't need to double or triple the size of the investigations team or anything like that. What seems to us now as a tidal wave of prosecutions seemed to them like a steady stream of work. I also get the impression from watching the enquiry videos that the SPMs were not held in high regard either for intelligence or for honesty.

[@roncouch]

IT engineers can “interfere” with terminals remotely. Have seen this in totally unrelated industry - aerospace design - and seen this remote accessibility “demonstrated” at first hand and that was over thirty years ago.

[@brightonbabe2139]

We did a lot of that kind of thing in the past. We used to build back doors in systems so we could get in and fix them. Its a bit more difficult now.

[@fnordianslippers]

Presumably this Dr Warden chap should be found to be in contempt of court or something similar. Kudos to the judge for recognising the lack of rigor in Dr Wardens reports. Thanks, BBB, for summarising this for us.

[@DJ-Daz]

I've followed this case on Radio 4, and it's been terrifying and horrific to hear the story over the past few years. The ITV drama was incredible too. But out of curiosity... If the post office senior managers knew that Horizon was faulty and providing incorrect data, and they then prosecute post masters to pay out of pocket the funds that WERE NOT missing, and using the threat of legal action to force payment from others. How serious and how many crimes were committed?

[@GrandpaTig]

Yes we would love to the know honest truth on this front... But how long will this take!!!

[@jeffknott1975]

Sounds like Dr Warden was either incompetent or fraudulent. Certainly was bias and not impartial!

[@kevint3845]

And paid how much ?

[@ordesolomons9545]

Now you know the modus operandi of 'climate scientists'.

[@andykrykant5378]

The biggest and most terrifying failure here is the judiciary. Who is going to fix that?

[@davidvanderklauw]

Vote for candidates who will and never vote for the old parties who did not.

[@Festiv-Col-130]

You and Alan have been exemplary in identifying the main points in this case and highlighting the most egregious testimony given in a clear attempt to hide the truth.

[@sharonharrison7131]

Nothing will happen to all the government post office high up staff. And company who own the faulty?? Machines.. Life of luxury they all had , except for the poor postmasters and families.x

[@stephenwabaxter]

This whole issue should have been worked through by Engineers at the time. A competent Engineer would interrogate both the IT system (Horizon) and the sub postmasters and seek to find the root cause of the problem. These matters could have been resolved relatively quickly and resulted in changes to Horizon to prevent reoccurrence. This approach keeps cost to a minimum and can be handled internally without any need for legal costs or press investigations. I will also say that Government IT projects are often poorly managed with old technology used and ease of use for the user often poor. For example the Tax Credit system that was introduced while Gordon Brown was Chancellor - the system was so heavily flawed that it could never work.

[@ac1646]

I think the mindset was wrong. It wasn't in IT and managements'' mind to look for bugs in the software, but to look at the grand achievement of implementing a software that would prove an effective barrier to fraud. Hence why the the PO got caught up in a 'ha ha, we've got you,' vortex of small-minded vindictiveness.

[@user-kg1od9es5d]

we know why this didnt happen though - there was deliberate intent on PO's behalf not to uncover the truth, but to invent a lie.

[@markevans2294]

I wonder if this might be a project management issue of too little systems analysis to understand the kind of tools required. Along with being too quick to pick specific hardware and software.

[@stephenwabaxter]

If you read the book (Post Office Scandal) it’s right at the beginning how software Engineers knew the system was flawed but ultimately they were over ruled by management.

[@angr3819]

Is a pardon the same as overturning a wrongful conviction! No. Nor does it overturn wrongful admissions made under extreme duress with lies told the victims.

[@DavidBrown-sr8di]

You are absolutely correct, why did the original Judges not take this stance

[@tomround8271]

Remember when Tommy Robinson got sent to prison by a judge for asking a convicted pedo about his sentence and nobody cared🤷‍♂️

[@stephenwabaxter]

I've been listening to the inquiry today live on KZbin. They presented cases of sub postmasters being questioned by PO investigators without legal representation. This is a major error to make as anything they said could and was used against them.

[@adenwellsmith6908]

Pardons can be complete in a morning. 700 letters, signed Charlie Rex. That takes a morning. Nothing stopping that extending to being overturned. Nothing stopping the pardon being for the reason of exoneration. I would suggest not sending them by post.

[@angr3819]

​​@@adenwellsmith6908Same as his mother, Charles forfeited the right to refuse to sign anything. He didn't take all the correct oaths to protect us, either. He did accept the archbishop referring to him as "lord of lords and king of kings" prior to crowning him. He has also accepted all the "goodies" he possibly could. Incidentally, the Queen's signature was merely copies by a machine.

[@ChangesOneTim]

Thanks for this. HHJ Fraser's judgment has to be one of the biggest exposures of corporate obstruction of justice. By far the most serious misconduct for me in all this is Post Office's contempt from the top down. Yet despite that landmark judgment, Post Office IS STILL AT IT TODAY! Various POL witnesses at the Public Inquiry have clearly been 'coached' by lawyers to tell as far short of the truth as they think they'll get away with, along with old favourites "I cannot recall" and/or "I wasn't involved". Utterly sickening. There is now surely enough for police and CPS to pin some criminal charges against POL (and Fujitsu) senior managers. No use getting at corporate entities - there are identifiable 'directing mind' individuals. Attempting to perverting the course of justice would be a start.

[@srh1957]

The suspense account part of this is quite damning of the PO. The system was trying to maintain a system in an accounting double entry balance. By generating losses at the SPM level the system generated a balancing gain to the suspense account. Quite why external and internal audit didn’t pick this up is surprising

[@valeriecherylirving4048]

Well I’m late to the party so to spk .. am currently watching the enquiry ..( not the select committee) ..still streamed on KZbin .. apparently the so called Auditers in house . Were not trained on any level ., it appears they were at the level of mere stock takers ., astonishing!! On their own admission they did not receive training and learned on the job !

[@DJDJ-fl2nv]

So how did the same judiciary send so many to prison and destroy lives...they would have know about other cases when checking sentencing....the courts were happy to do nothing until the issues became extensive and more significant into the public domain...disgraceful in all respects , trying to row back now, speaks more than words ...

[@4ebees]

Because the courts are going on the information provided to them. What would you suggest they do? Launch their own investigation of the defendant and plaintiff? That's not their job and they've no authority to do so.

[@DJDJ-fl2nv]

@@4ebees Thank you for your reply, it would seem that within this Post Office scandal the judiciary failed to follow an analytical process of discovery as they have wide discretion to request further information when uncertainties exist, this would include calling for either the IT department of the post office or Fujitsu to account for the alleged changes to the accounts and Horizon systems, that had not been progressed by the sub postmasters...this in and of itself, when combined with the post office never presenting any evidence trail or audit to show where the alleged money had gone...in terms of it being taken from the post office and in simpleTerms the post office could not show the sums of money they were claiming ever existed, the judiciary failed the sub postmasters on many levels, but the two examples above demonstrate this point where they could and should have intervened to follow the case to a ‘beyond all reasonable doubts conclusion, had they done so this entire scandal would not have been able to continue over decades and at great expense to the public purse !

[@claudebylion9932]

Fujitsu MUST be fined £100,000,000 and the top people at the Post Office liable for these crimes to pay back ALL monies paid during this time and also be liable for ALL the monies stolen plus MASSIVE fines and prison sentences to the families of the sub postmasters who committed suicide because of these despicable bosses of the Post Office. Th3 Post Office to be put back into public control.

[@rjs_698]

The Post Office is already under public control and always has been. This is public sector dishonesty and cover-up at its very worst.

[@le13579]

It is in public control. That was the problem. Imagine what the NHS is like...

[@andljoy]

Judges tend to get quite pissed off when you lie to them :P

[@walrus10001]

As you rightly say, fascinating! 😂 Except it’s not funny at all.

[@maryearll3359]

Paragraph 809 ! That just shows what a dreadful miscarriage of justice these postmaster and postmistresses suffered. I am so pleased their moment has arrived. PS Toby Jones gave a heartfelt performance ❤

[@frankspeakmore7104]

Actually they all gave a good performance, they presented the postmaster and wives as decent ordinary people who helped their community and their lives were turned upside and destroyed. The actress who played the female postmistress nearly had me in tears at times. This series should have a clean sweep at any awards ceremony.

[@bobbyladd]

I'll bet those that lied for the Post office/Fujitsu must have done other dodgy acts in their private lives to think they could get away with doing this just for their employer. eg Insurance firms should re-examine their past claims to look for anything suspicious.

[@nickclinton7661]

But this doesn’t answer the question “how did so many cases find every defendant guilty with no more than the same software evidence every time?” Over 500 cases, possibly thousands, all wrongly decided How? Why are the courts not under investigation?

[@davidvanderklauw]

Because most people vote for candidates who are happy with the status quo and can't be bothered changing what works for them.

[@shauntaylor6040]

Because Post Office didn't disclose properly and the judge and juries also believed computers cannot make errors.

[@starfireiii2536]

As an American, these are exactly our concerns with voting machines in the past 16 years of elections.

[@ganndeber1621]

Sshhhhhh you cant say that. It was the most heavily scrutinised election in US history and can not be questioned. You are a threat to democracy if you question an election.

[@alidabotes6264]

I would be very antsy if I were American.

[@starfireiii2536]

With the landscape of identity politics, judicial tyranny, hyper race theories and economic collapse the existence of an independent investigation into any serious crime is an obsolete option. Good on this Judge using deductive reasoning to shut down that evidence.

[@TheFridge0x]

i wonder how easy they are to hack too,

[@thesaltybrit9321]

Well both republicans and democrats have complained about how easy they are to rig/hack, however both parties refuse to acknowledge this when they won their elections.

[@user_unknown1488]

i dont believe any of this was accidental, imagine still having any trust in these governments, big business and court systems when so much injustice has been dished out to so many.

[@stephenhargreaves9011]

But, nowithstanding my question, I am a specialist tax accountant, and the accountancy profession generally has been aware of this miscarriage for several years (long before the ITV drama), and so the follow up question is, why has it taken a TV drama to prompt action? Why have the poor, ordinary people at the sharp end not had full and proper recompense long before now, and why has no-one responsible not already been brought to justicer?

[@issigonis975]

Because they knew it would be damaging so had two choices sweep it under the carpet or pass the book. Now there is interest because of a TV drama and an election is coming, they had no choice and here we are. Expect a nice bit of political mudslinging but not what they should be looking at and that is big companies going after Joe public with private prosecutions. This is where it all went wrong notwithstanding the pound shop accounting software known as Horizon.

[@davidvanderklauw]

Voters are happy to vote the same way each time and not "rock the boat". Politicians are happy to get re-elected each time effortlessly. Why rock the boat? It's working well for lazy thoughtless voters and for lazy politicians. Justice doesn't come into it.

[@cdtowell]

i hope all the barristers judges that are involed in convicting the innocent people are locked up but thats not how uk law works if you are rich you can do what you want

[@angr3819]

I read that Fujitsu warned the then Royal Mail that more than one terminal together would not work properly.

[@dardobartoli]

Wow this is fabulous stuff, thank you. If only all the judges had been so diligent in their duties (not blaming them). I now think you, Alan Bates and Nick Wallis should run this whole project.

[@spodula]

They probably where, but they can only judge on the evidence put before them. some of which seems to have been withheld. It also appears that the defendants were forbidden from asking about the reliability of the system. As cases are assigned to magistrates more or less randomly, chances are any individual magistrate only had one or two of them. They also held these trials in private, presumably so people couldn't figure out there was a widespread problem they were covering up.

[@DavidWilliams-qk8vm]

Thank you for explaining something that we laymen would never have heard had it not been for you (in my case anyway) The Post Office have proved themselves a shoddy and corrupt business and must be held responsible for the damage they have done. Heads should roll. To be blunt, not only should those responsible, even by ignorance, be allowed to quietly disappear and keep their pensions, they should be be charged and made to pay the price.

[@anoyakashi8775]

It is not entirely fujitisu faults. It was the purchaser’s fault. THERE MUST A COMPUTER TEAM IN THE POST OFFICE? IT WAS THEIR FAULT NOT TO TAKE THIS WITH FUJITSU. So it was Post office computer team’s fault also. Fujitsu can create the software but will not know it if post office computer team did not report. Just like when you purchase a hand phone, there is always an update by feedback given to the developer.

[@divadaedalus]

The overturning of their sentences for those that were incarcerated, and compensation for the money people paid to keep from being jailed or to mitigate their sentences is appropriate. But it will not give the time spent in prison back to them. It may help heal the trauma they and their families faced when they were found guilty but it will never fully erase what happened to them. I truly hope those responsible will have to face what they have done in a court of law and not just get a telling off. The following is added to the original. I’m in the US so saw this on different sites. I did not realize people took their lives. There will never be full justice for them or their families. Praying they found peace and wholeness in God’s Kingdom and that God will heal and bless those who were left behind.

[@johnholkham2420]

The cases had already been taken up by journalists , some MPs and the BBC long ago. The Government has jumped on the bandwagon not because of injustice but because they feared the public reaction. I suspect the government would love to have kept this buried

[@hlwhhlwh2351]

And the opposition. This all started on Labour's watch. Stammer is up to his neck in this debacle.

[@davidpereira9238]

Why do you think nobody's talking about going after PO bosses, but instead making "big" gestures of compensation, and scapegoating Fujitsu and minor PO staff? Regardless of their part in this, it was the bosses that decided to keep on prosecuting when there were (at the least) suspicions of problems with the software

[@mattm8870]

@@hlwhhlwh2351 What is Starmer meant to have done? it started in 2000 at that time Starmer was a human right lawyer sure he became Director of Public Prosecutions but the Post Office carried out the Prosecutions themselves so the CPS wasn't involved.

[@shauntaylor6040]

Blair agreed it.

[@raycorrigan3297]

@@hlwhhlwh2351no he’s not 😅😅😅😅

[@roderickmain9697]

Excellent,Dan. Answered a few of my questions. There is for me the question of how Fujitsu management were supporting the Post Office even though they were aware of bugs in the system and/or were aware of what the support team were doing. It is clear (to me) that the employees of Fujitsu knew they were using the live system to make changes. It concerns me that they were changing live data. Were they attempting to reproduce a fault by injecting data to the system? Its a fair enough way to test a trial/backup/test system so why into the live system? There are so many "it shouldnt be done this way" moments. But if you have to "do it that way", there is a lack of reporting of what has been done to the PO and their subpostmasters which should have been done as a courtesy if nothing else. Still not sure how Fujitsu could set up the system like this without PO agreement, why the PO accepted it and why Fujitsu management seem to be obfuscating the procedures once the bugs and changes have become known. There is an implication that the PO havent been reporting the bugs to fujitsu properly given that they were overly keen to say "no one else was having a problem", not taking SubPostMasters seriously and utlitmately prosecuting them rather than acknowledge a fault.

[@keithbennett1656]

A commentator on tha Andrew Marr LBC show said some victims of this scandal had already appealed their convictions but had been unsuccessful.How is this possible ?

[@lesmaybury793]

Good report. Will we ever see the trials of those who lied andfailed to do their jobs?

[@RunnerBeanzDad]

I keep thinking to myself - did nobody learn anything from the Haddon-Cave investigation and subsequent report into the RAF Nimrod crash in Iraq? Management failings involving complacency, analysis by copy-and-paste, box-ticking, hand-waving, simply assuming it would just turn out all right. OK it's a different industry and technology but the failings are eerily similar, with the front-line workers paying the price.

[@Dilbert-o5k]

In Britain at any rate it is often management to blame, somewhere in the process . Too many managers come from outside and don't understand the business. There are too many who think a manager can manage anything.

[@markevans2294]

Very often claims that "lessons will be learned" turn out to be hollow platitudes.

[@sevans4292]

Based on the Suspence account, there should not have been any money in that account if the SPM had lost money, it would have been accrued against that loss. So by using that account for profits, that's fraud. They knew that the money was illegal gains and reported them as profits.

[@HeLaHu]

I wish people would stop saying "pay back". That implies something was taken that needed to be returned and as we now know that's not what happened. The post office operators in effect had money extorted from them.

[@anoyakashi8775]

It is difficult to teach the Post Office. THESE DAYS ARE DIFFERENT, THEY JUST LEFT YOUR PARCEL IN FRONT OF YOUR DOOR AND LEFT. They have no common sense? Anybody can pick it up.

[@owenorders5202]

The judges who saw that there was no corroborative evidence or independent proof, but only took the Post Office's word for it are also at fault when they should either have thrown the cases out or directed the juries to acquit. Nor did the defence lawyers do their job properly, to act in the best interests of their clients. There must have been mentions in legal journals of the hitherto unprecedented number of Post Office cases alleging frauds, or heard about it on the legal grapevine, and they should have investigated what was going on.

[@db7314]

Fujitsu need to cough up

[@DJDJ-fl2nv]

So how did the same judiciary send so many to prison and destroy lives...they would have know about other cases when checking sentencing....the courts were happy to do nothing until the issues became extensive and more significant into the public domain...disgraceful in all respects , trying to row back now, speaks more than words ...

[@Bob-_-Smith]

I watched the series tonight, and have never been so disgusted at the way these poor people were treated. Just another example of how people in positions of power stamp all over ordinary people. I wonder if any of them will serve time or will they buy their way out.

[@garymelnyk7910]

Buy their way out!

[@davidvanderklauw]

And the ordinary people vote the same scoundrels back into power time and time again.

[@highmyope-ps2by]

Why is a High Court judge's factual, moderate language so much more interesting and impressive than journalistic hyperbole? This is excellent. Just going to watch Mr Robertshaw's videos.

[@Jan-sn5tk]

Seems to me that the ones on the top of the pile only have the qualifications for posting letters through letterboxes in the rain snow wind and occasionally burning heat. Seems that they were quite happy to sit on their backsides and do nothing except accept large bonuses provided by other peoples misery and dire circumstances

[@mrhuffler9791]

That was truly amazing!

[@Sidistic_Atheist]

Will any of this NEW information. Result in criminal charges, in relation to those *innocent postmasters* that took their own lives.????? (ie) Did anybody know, that the Postmasters were completely innocent, but kept quiet for the sake of the Fujitsu and it's reputation.

[@johnbowkett80]

Any 'decent' Lawyer would have smelled a rat in over 700 prosecutions ..... But as usual their 'so called morals' went out the window at the thought of easy money . Shame on them . 😠🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

[@doctor_gee]

You have to remember that the Post Office had prosecution powers itself at the time, so the corruption or incompetence did not extend to the general justice system.

[@johnbowkett80]

​@@doctor_geeThey must have still used Lawyers to present evidence ........ Unles they used counter staff , the ones who give out the stamps eh ? 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

[@palemale2501]

I remember when my firm introduced a computer stock control and issuing system 32 years ago, to replace the antiquated manual item-card system - only 7 years before Horizon was introduced in the Post Office in 1999. The accepted knowledge then, was to run the old manual system alongside for 3 months, extra work but to verify the new system. Prudent common sense.

[@markevans2294]

The additional costs of parallel running are effectively an insurance premium against the new system being, seriously, defective.

[@Dalesmanable]

Fujitsu monitored every keystroke on the system. They could easily have done a reconciliation. The PO could have asked for one. So many people preferred to ruin innocent peoples’ lives for personal profit.

[@BeeLane-qr9fn]

Suspence accounts? And the Post Office HO doesn't know what they are, come off it. One of the first things in understanding accountancy and writing up a set of books is opening a suspence account. This case smacks of fraud.

[@philjameson292]

What I find totally indefensible is the total lack of UK MSM attention about this subject until the drama was shown on UK TV

[@Tim.Weaver]

To be fair, it *has* been reported in various news programmes on BBC 1 and ITV Meridian over the past 15 years. In 2015 the Daily Mail ran a story "Decent Lives destroyed by the Post Office", but in general the press seemed more interested in writing about celebs, the royals, and culture wars. However there have been 3 Panorama TV documentaries (in 2015, 2020 and 2022), 2 Radio 4 documentaries (in 2020 and 2022) and a BBC podcast series which started in 2020. Sadly none of this had any impact on the general public, who prefer to settle down in front of the telly with an "entertainment" show. Thank heavens for Gwyneth Hughes whose amazing screenplay finally brought this scandal to a mass audience!

[@philjameson292]

@@Tim.WeaverIronically it was Computerweekly that really followed the story You can't blame the public for a lack of interest, but like you say the press are only interested in celebs Perhaps if Harry had been a postmaster to the press would have had a different attitude Let's hope that lessons are learned to like only the DPP can bring criminal prosecutions

[@neillp3827]

​@@philjameson292private prosecutions are possible, Stephen Lawrence's family did against the perps. We need grand jury

[@oxyseptpbh]

Fascinating story, it highlights so many text book problems of large organizations. I have worked on large systems implementation & enhancement in large multinational there are somany basic errors here by the company that it is incredible & all the more so by the fact the company has special powers of prosecution. A suspense account is just a place to park a reconciling error while its cause is investigated & resolved. It can be useful to accumulate the errors in one place, but you have to do true root cause fixes . In almost all projects I was in we refused to use suspense accounts instead we prefer the error to sit in its original place so it would be more obvious & need proper investigation & fixing. Use of suspense accounts my be valid in the circumstances but there use also shows the system & the process is not robust & especially with the fact that the company could not produce the transaction logs / registrars backing up the errors. That should have been a major red flag to their own legal people that the cases were unsound but yet Management & company legal proceeded with the prosecutions.

[@cindyfaulkner5725]

What I don't understand is how the Post Office explained why they had so much unaccounted for money that they must have had in their bank. This is part of our problem we rely on computers so much and no human does spot checks to make sure the computor is correct. The Post Office went down hill after it was privatised.

[@grissom2023]

They prob added it to their profits. 👍🇮🇪🇯🇴🇨🇳🇷🇺

[@cindyfaulkner5725]

@@Cader-ce6bv thank you for the information, I honestly thought they had sold the lot but the if the government is still involve with the post office counters that probably explains why it is so crap and they closed down hundreds of small post office. Perhaps the government of the time that this happened should be investigated as to their knowledge and involvement in this travesty of justice and that they should make an acception and declare all those who were prosecuted over this innocent and compensated them for not only the losses they had to pay back but also for the harm it caused these people and their families and get it fone ASAP with a publice appology clearing their names of any wrong doing, with the exception of the small minority that were guilty of misdeeds. It is an exceptional case so requires exceptional remedies to resolve the issue and make these people whole again or as whole as they are ever likely to be after the trauma they have suffered.

[@chriswright3179]

Thank you for that detailed explanation of where the money the postmasters were forced to 'pay back' went. As a retired bookkeeper, i am interested in what the other half of the dounle entry that created the alleged shotfall was. The Horizon system was built to balance as a whole. If a branch showed a shortfall, then somewhere else in the system there must have been an overage. If Fujitsu or Post Office were able to enter these journals, then what happened in the account on the other side of the double entry is of interest. If someone in the Post Office or Fujitsu could somehow access that account, there are all sorts of possibilities for fraud and collusion. Follow the money and ask who could have benefitted from such a transaction.

[@_chrisr_]

I think there would be a good case for the accountants involved in hiding the excess money or turning a blind eye to where it came from to face penalties from their professional organisation for breach of ethics.

[@brightonbabe2139]

And the external auditors to pay a fine unless they did raise these audit points and were ignored.

[@_chrisr_]

@brightonbabe2139 would be good if that could happen, but there have been quite a few cases where auditors have failed and faced little or no consequences.

[@markphillips2076]

I would hope that those who testified on behalf of the Post Office will face charges of purjury. The judge has effectively called them liars in court. The PO case was built on lies and mistruths. It cannot go unpunished.

[@concernedindividual7056]

IMHO Having been involved in some systems testing work, I can't even begin to understand the gross negligence and corruption that has had to take place for such monumental gross incompetence that would have to be present in all three areas post office, fujitsu and the legal process. For the head of the post offuce, Section 26 abuse of office also should be pursued against her. Everyone from the programmers, development staff, systems testers, systems analysts, operating staff, managers, supervisors of fujitsu and the post office. Barristers, solicitors and investigators and auditors acting for the post office, need to all face the music. Corrupt and collusion seems the only way such abysmal injustice could take place.

[@GrandpaTig]

And the KEY thing I would like to see is 'what process and by who in the PO' made the decision to "Go-Live" with this system in the first place? To go-live for such a key system must have been "signed off" by someone or the board to do that!!! What on earth were they "shown/told" by Fujitsu and their own IS people to make this decision to use this new system with obvious major issues?

[@ObiePaddles]

Suspense account is a standard term for ‘I’m not sure about this transaction and I’ll sort it out later’.

[@jtlon1]

I just love BBB !

[@lesjones471]

A claim should be made to the Horizon software company, not just money wrongly collected but compensation too for the suffering those working for postmasters.Why was the software changed when nothing was wrong in the past?

[@lesjones471]

Fujitsu software YES it had nothing to do with anyone in the UK,it was Fujitsu software at fault,I think this is in proccess

[@ReaperMan1010]

That was brutal, you can hear the judge’s anger as he wrote it.

[@palemale2501]

I reckon up to 950 were prosecuted, 750 convicted, and I guess maybe another 2,000 innocents may have paid out for years to offset the false losses to avoid investigation, making 3,000 out of 6,700 sub postmasters operating 9,700 post offices now (12,000 post offices in the UK in 2010). OR MAYBE A THIRD TO A HALF SUFFERED - CRAZY !

[@glencoe8251]

Liked the way the judge just nailed Warden. The post office must have been over the moon to find such a tame expert.

[@chrisfrost8456]

Where is FUJITSU IN THIS SHIT SHOW ANYONE??

[@davidjoyce4458]

This highlights even more floors within our justice system. After all, now we have judges who gave out those unjustified prison sentences. Will they be punished, too? I'm sure the compensation process will drag this out enough to cover up a lot of the nasty, curupt people blinded by all this greed

[@robertburrows6612]

You obviously do not understand the judges roll. His job is to insure and case before them is dealt in accordance with laws . Most of theses case would be before a jury. I suggested you do more research before you open your mouth. Even calling a judge involved in these cases corrupt, can land you in court on contempt charges. Even those you were involved in the case

[@hairyairey]

@@robertburrows6612 agreed. I expect a lot of Judges are disgusted they were hoodwinked by the PO. But to accuse them of being corrupt needs cogent evidence.

[@davidjoyce4458]

@robertburrows6612 Correct me if I'm wrong. Doesn't the judge have full disclosure of the case before hand?

[@doctor_gee]

You have to remember that the Post Office had prosecution powers itself at the time, so the corruption or incompetence did not extend to the general justice system.

[@hairyairey]

@@doctor_gee I still don't know whether the Post Office had statutory powers to prosecute or whether they brought a private prosecution like anyone else can. In the latter case the CPS can intervene to take over the case and drop it.