I’ve been following this story for a while and seen the excellent drama depicting the events. This is absolutely appalling and hope the victims of this are compensated and exonerated as soon as possible. Would also like to see that Paula Vennells stripped of her CBE and all those responsible subject to criminal investigation.
It is absolutely scandalous. They have apparently taken money from the victims but nobody is explaining how they can get this money back. People have committed suicide, lives have been ruined and there has been cover up after cover up. These people were providing a public service. The victims should be given honours.
Strange, how it takes a TV show to alert folks as to what happened a couple of decades ago!
Weren’t folks listening to the news then?
For the first time I heard a victim of this say what occured all those years ago, she said, we have to be careful in blanket exoneration, there may be some fraud caught up in this, a timely investigation needs to be done, well said that Lady.
Yes, we were listening to the lies the post office were spewing out because the expensive hi tech computer system was flawed and they could not see/ or admit that.
So called experts testified in court, did anyone verify their claims. Why did post office take out private prosecutions? Director of Public Prosecutions from 2008 to 2013. Keir Starmer, was he listening?
Some may indeed have been involved in fraud but most were not.
it’s impossible to tell though isn’t it? I can’t see them bothering to trawl through every single case again. It’s not the way things are done in Britain.
The post office HQ have been found guilty of fraud - they have taken monies from innocent people. So will they go to prison? Fat chance.
He was. But I believe the issue is the Post Office is unique in that it can prosecute without the need of the Crown Prosecution Service by some quirk of an old law which was obviously abused to great effect in this case. There was an interview with Starmer (I think it was on Good Morning Britain) where he said that this anomaly needs to be rescinded and any prosecutions should be referred to the CPS - as with any other body. Had that been the case, the nature and number of intended prosecutions would have raised alarm bells as to what is going on and the chances are many cases would not have gone as far as they did.
The Royal Mail should lose this. Justice.
Blanket exoneration is the only way to clear the names of innocent victims, those who are not may well have some sleepless nights.
I was .
This has been ongoing for years it’s just they were ‘little people ‘ powerless against the battery of lawyers employed by the PO aid the government .
An admission of sorts.
Could all have been avoided, this is just the beginning of computer errors, programmers make mistakes not computers. Scrutiny of Fujitsu and their part in the prosecutions should be a top consideration in any future investigation.
I’ve seen this behaviour before (much lower consequences of course). A company hires an IT provider to build a system. They both work on designing the system. The client, the company buying the system, has to sign off on every design and every version developed. The client now owns the responsibility. But the IT provider is also culpable. And both know they are both culpable. So when an issue arises they both decide that they cannot either be wrong - so its someone else who is wrong. The more wrongs that appear, the closer the client and the IT provider get in their defense of the system. That means IT provider, IT buyer, IT managers, finance managers are all aligned to find fault in someone else.
This Paula Vennells person failed to be the oversight across her team. She sided with them and not the postmasters. She got paid to oversee and do right by the postmasters as well as by Post Office. In fact that goes for the whole board - chairperson, all the directors and all the non-exec directors. Name them and shame them. Then charge them. And Fujitsu.
You have to ask, if the IT crowd can’t sort the Post Office out, what chance with AI?
What I can’t understand is why no one after so many seemed to be taking money it wasn’t investigated, with it happening so many times someone must have wondered why so many were doing it.
I would like to think that during the upcoming investigation and enquiry that this will be answered. I guess at the time, the PO was so invested in the system that they didn’t want to see what was wrong with it, even though it’s faults were apparent. I guess they thought they could white-wash away any reported errors and blame the end-user for any mistakes.