Horizon scandal: Call for all Post Office convictions to be overturned

[Nearly Sane]

If there wasn't people's lives affected, it would make great television.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68411615

[jeremyp]

If there wasn't people's lives affected, it would make great television.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68411615

Arguably it will make great television because people's lives are affected.

[Nearly Sane]

Unbelievable


https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/other/post-office-boss-threatened-to-resign-over-1m-salary-dispute-report-claims/ar-BB1jfXfb

As is this, if for slightly different reasons.

https://www.msn.com/en-ph/news/world/post-office-scandal-victim-makes-plea-at-brits/ar-BB1jg6aJ

[jeremyp]

Unbelievable


https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/other/post-office-boss-threatened-to-resign-over-1m-salary-dispute-report-claims/ar-BB1jfXfb

As is this, if for slightly different reasons.

https://www.msn.com/en-ph/news/world/post-office-scandal-victim-makes-plea-at-brits/ar-BB1jg6aJ

I think I'd want a million pounds if I was being asked to clean up the Post Office mess. It's a poisoned chalice.

Of course, whether it was deserved or not doesn't really matter. It looks really bad, given that a lot of post masters are still waiting for their compensation, which will not amount to £1 million.

[Nearly Sane]

I think I'd want a million pounds if I was being asked to clean up the Post Office mess. It's a poisoned chalice.

Of course, whether it was deserved or not doesn't really matter. It looks really bad, given that a lot of post masters are still waiting for their compensation, which will not amount to £1 million.

And if you are the govt, you now have a CEO who tgreatened to resign over wanting a salary increase that in a cost of living crisis will be seen as obscence, even leaving aside the mess of the Post Office, and you are now seen as having been unable to sack him which woild have been the long term politic thing to do because you've fucked this up so badly, and you've just sacked the chairman, who is in lart behind the information about the CEO, and after 14 years of being in charge of this mess which you only focussed on after a TV programme you still have no grip on what's hapoening, and are years from any form of justice.

[Nearly Sane]

Incredible stuff on the cover up from Channel 4

https://www.channel4.com/news/covert-recordings-obtained-by-c4news-prove-post-office-covered-up-scandal-for-years

[Nearly Sane]

More on the cover up, this time from the BBC, which seems to completely ignore the Channel 4 stuff.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68663750

[Nearly Sane]

Amazingly, it seems to keep getting worse

https://www.channel4.com/news/exclusive-paula-vennells-was-briefed-about-covert-operations-team-that-could-alert-subpostmaster-accounts-two-years-before-parliamentary-appearence

[jeremyp]

Amazingly, it seems to keep getting worse

https://www.channel4.com/news/exclusive-paula-vennells-was-briefed-about-covert-operations-team-that-could-alert-subpostmaster-accounts-two-years-before-parliamentary-appearence

I wouldn't trust that lawyer to be telling the truth in that recording. The hesitancy in her voice says to me that she is talking about what she should have been doing, not what she has actually done.  "We mentioned it", "we had a chat about it". Not convinced.

I'm not trying to excuse anybody here, but the recording is not the bombshell Channel 4 is making it out to be and a lot of their report is just rehashing stuff we already knew.

[Nearly Sane]

I wouldn't trust that lawyer to be telling the truth in that recording. The hesitancy in her voice says to me that she is talking about what she should have been doing, not what she has actually done.  "We mentioned it", "we had a chat about it". Not convinced.

I'm not trying to excuse anybody here, but the recording is not the bombshell Channel 4 is making it out to be and a lot of their report is just rehashing stuff we already knew.

I think.some of it is 'colouring in' things that were presumed but I don't think it was known that the investigations clearly revealed the knowledge in the Post Office 2 years before Vennells lied to parliament.

[Nearly Sane]

The weird world of the HoP


https://www.channel4.com/news/post-office-people-are-furious-in-the-house-of-commons-that-parliament-has-been-misled-labour-mp-says

[Nearly Sane]

'Alan Bates says Post Office was run by 'thugs in suits'"

Pretty much

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68769090

[Nearly Sane]

Fascinating stiff at the inquiry with Lord Arbuthnot.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-68775287

[Nearly Sane]

Sub-postmistress jailed while pregnant rejects ex-Post Office boss' apology - quite right too.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68787990

[splashscuba]

Comment by the BBC on todays evidence from Alan Cook. Just wow.

"It is impossible to overstate how extraordinary this morning's admission was.

The man who was in charge of the Post Office at the height of this scandal was unaware his own organisation had the power of prosecution.

Alan Cook says he assumed when he heard people mention "going to court" that the police or Crown Prosecution Service were involved. Generally, they were not.

That remained the case, he says, for three years.

Cook has pointed the blame for that lack of knowledge on the unclear wording used on certain documents, the structure of the business and his own assumptions."

[Nearly Sane]

Comment by the BBC on todays evidence from Alan Cook. Just wow.

"It is impossible to overstate how extraordinary this morning's admission was.

The man who was in charge of the Post Office at the height of this scandal was unaware his own organisation had the power of prosecution.

Alan Cook says he assumed when he heard people mention "going to court" that the police or Crown Prosecution Service were involved. Generally, they were not.

That remained the case, he says, for three years.

Cook has pointed the blame for that lack of knowledge on the unclear wording used on certain documents, the structure of the business and his own assumptions."

it's interesting this. In one sense, I'm terms of the ignorance, it's really damning about anyone at that level not knowing what's going on. On another level, though it seems the implication that it being done by a 'third party' would somehow reduce your accountability for making sure you were right which is an odd and dangerous mindset to have.

[splashscuba]

it's interesting this. In one sense, I'm terms of the ignorance, it's really damning about anyone at that level not knowing what's going on. On another level, though it seems the implication that it being done by a 'third party' would somehow reduce your accountability for making sure you were right which is an odd and dangerous mindset to have.

He's either wilfully ignorant or he's lying. Either way he's culpable for the SPMs misery over the years.

[Dicky Underpants]

Comment by the BBC on todays evidence from Alan Cook. Just wow.


The man who was in charge of the Post Office at the height of this scandal was unaware his own organisation had the power of prosecution.

Even though he received monthly reports on headed notepaper which clearly indicated that this was the case.

[Nearly Sane]

Even though he received monthly reports on headed notepaper which clearly indicated that this was the case.

I'm not sure that it would be obvious that it was the Post Office doing that without the CPS. If you wrote reports about it, even if the organisation didn't have the power to prosecute, you could write it as if it did 'We are pursuing the protection...'. The problem is that in terms of whether any third party was doing the prosecution then that doesn't remove the duty to ensure the prosecution is fair from the Post Office.

The prisecutions at this stage seem more based on incompetence rather than actively conspiratorial. Cook does not seem to have been aware of the problems with horizon. Indeed the most damning parts of his emails seem to bear that out.

That's of no solace to those prosecuted and defamed at the time though.

[Dicky Underpants]

I suspected that those being interrogated would rely on two main tactics: extraordinary bouts of amnesia, and then, when their backs were against the wall, attempts to pass the buck ("Please sir, it wasn't me, it was him/her").
In the case of Cook, after a raft of memory lapses, he did rely on the latter. And he named her: Paula Vennells.

[Nearly Sane]

I suspected that those being interrogated would rely on two main tactics: extraordinary bouts of amnesia, and then, when their backs were against the wall, attempts to pass the buck ("Please sir, it wasn't me, it was him/her").
In the case of Cook, after a raft of memory lapses, he did rely on the latter. And he named her: Paula Vennells.

In terms of the timeline that we have, it does seem clear that Cook wasn't in charge when it was known that the system was a problem, and that changes could be made by Fujitsu. That doesn't mean he's without blame but that the issues are different.

[Nearly Sane]

Ffs, as so many times in this.

[Nearly Sane]

In danger of doing some permanent damage by shaking my head so hard with some of this.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68792637

[splashscuba]

Really damning testimony today from Jarnail Singh today.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1d4j5m3l08o

[Nearly Sane]

Really damning testimony today from Jarnail Singh today.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1d4j5m3l08o

It wisnae me, a big boy did it and ran away, the dog saved it on my computer.