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No I’m not. This was helped put together by a reporter who covered it for years. They even had Alan Bates in the studio when it was happening.
You've got to accentuate the positive.
Eliminate the negative.
Latch on to the affirmative.
Don't mess with mister in between.Takes a lot to make me angry but this certainly did. This didn’t affect a few people it was a nationwide scandal resulting in catastrophic outcomes for many people, it should have been front page news.
This involved a Government owned concern, considered by many to be a national institution and run by a group of corporate people who did their utmost to blame innocent people because to them they were insignificant numbers, not people. Corporate run companies are dangerous you mean absolutely nothing to them regardless of your position.The more I know the less I understand.
There is currently a petition to strip Paula Vennells of her CBE, not likely to happen but is has exceeded 900k signatures in a matter of days.
https://www.itv.com/news/2024-01-07/petition-to-strip-former-post-office-boss-of-cbe-passes-900000-signaturesThe more I know the less I understand.
If she had a shred of decency left in her she’d hand it back tomorrow. I have absolutely zero interest in the honours system but nonetheless it does mean something to many people. I’d much rather see those responsible in the dock however, that’s where real justice will be done.
It’s certainly something I was aware of but I hadn’t quite grasped the extent of it or the blatant lies that were told by the PO and Fujitsu. The ‘you’re the only one’ line that everyone was fed is particularly sickening. They damn well knew there were hundreds, if not thousands, of cases and instead of conducting a thorough investigation into the system and warning the entire organisation that issues were occurring they threw their employees under the bus. I don’t say this lightly but some of these people should rot in jail.
This is exactly my position too. Don’t know if anyone will be held responsible for it. They should. The will be an investigation by the police for fraud. They did receive 56 million for their troubles as a group, but after court expenses they got £20,000 (each) which in my view is a joke. The decision helped them overturn their false criminal charges and receive compensations but for some who have died it’s too little too late.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67892045
You've got to accentuate the positive.
Eliminate the negative.
Latch on to the affirmative.
Don't mess with mister in between.Hear, hear Richard. Very well said.
They (Fujitsu) knew full well that their Horizon system was causing the shortfalls to double and just sat back and lied through their teeth. The Sub Post Offices were hacked into and nobody investigated why that was happening, it was obvious Fujitsu were to blame and I hope they are called to account for what they did.
Absolute scandal.
JacThings turn out best for those who make the best of how things turn out...I was vaguely aware of the Horizon issue, but after watching the first episode of the itv drama this week, my blood was boiling so much I signed the ‘strip the CBE’ petition, which was a few thousand, today it has reached over 950,000 signatures, so the drama has definitely raised awareness of this scandal!
It’s an utter disgrace that this has gone on for so long.
Those responsible, PO management, Futjitsu, need to be penalised and their innocent victims compensated.Makes you wonder why since 2000 the cost of a first class stamp has increased by 24%. The public paying their compensation?
The more I know the less I understand.
My hope with the omission of some names and lack of focus on Fujitsu in the show is that they did not want to prejudice any future trials. It did mainly focus on those whose cases have been concluded.
The omission of Crozier does come across as very cynical though, probably the only serious blot on its copy book.
“The omission of Crozier does come across as very cynical though,…”
Yep, he’s ex-ITV.
The other omission(s) from the drama (which both my wife and I thought was damned good drama), were the number of political connections where Alan Bates was ignored.
The most high profile (currently) is the LD leader, Ed Davey.
The Mirror reports that letters between Sir Ed Davey, then-Minister for Postal Affairs, and Alan Bates reveal Davey’s willingness to believe the Post Office and a refusal, on a number of occasions to meet F2F with Bates.Now, on BBC news tonight they never even mentioned the Davey refusal, when reporting on the PO scandal.
If the Postal Affairs minister in the Coalition had been a Tory you can bet your house that the Beeb, ITV, etc would’ve been all over it this weekend.Davey should be absolutely hammered this week.
Back to the scandal.
My biggest takeout from it is the way large public sector organisations and their private counterparts effectively close ranks, when faced with these sort of accusations.
They strive to make it difficult for accusers.
We’ve seen it in the NHS
The Fire Service
The Water Co.s (private co.s)
Delaying tactics abound, silence, dragging things out.
Endemic in organisations who think the public’s support for them (Post Office, NHS and Fire), means they’re untouchable.Footnote re The press – The Daily Mail were the first, nationally, to run with the PO scandal, a few years back.
Actually (if I read you right) it runs deeper than that.
I think any business, should be open and transparent about it’s business. All businesses have a non disclosure policy, where if you say anything against that firm it could be dismissal.
Which is why whistleblowers do things anonymously.
You've got to accentuate the positive.
Eliminate the negative.
Latch on to the affirmative.
Don't mess with mister in between.It was painful viewing, and infuriating to watch the way those at the head of the Post Office lied continually
I worked for Royal Mail at the time, and the problem with the sub post offices and this crap new software they had introduced, was common knowledge.
Long before the financial discrepancies caused by the new software started to kick in, there were major issues from the outset. On rollout, the software wasn’t “talking” to Parcelforce systems, and there were serious issues with “Switch” machines. The problem with “Switching” was a fairly significant one, as this was the time where electronic transactions were becoming as common as cash transactions. By all accounts, it was chaos, and cost millions to rectify.
The idea the media did cover this story extensively but somehow I missed it is not credible.
From an article today by Andrew Bridgen MP, approached by two sub-postmasters shortly after he was first elected in 2010:
“I spoke to all the major media outlets. I briefed journalists at the BBC, Sky News, Channel 4 and ITV as well as all the national newspapers that I had all the proof that the Horizon scandal was the biggest miscarriage of justice in UK history. Journalists were keen and excited, BUT NONE WERE ALLOWED BY THEIR EDITORS OR EXECUTIVES ABOVE THEM TO RUN THE STORY (my emphasis). ITV, the BBC and the rest of the MSM have no excuse for this omission, indeed dereliction of their duty.”
There is also this article from “Spiked”. The media did not give this story the prominence it merited and were in fact part of the problem:
The Post Office scandal and the shameful silence of the media
‘Journalists need to get their priorities straight. They need to start discriminating between what matters and what doesn’t. They need to start holding power to account.’
Some of us have been saying this for years. I am sure it’s a coincidence that this is being said shortly before the Tories are about to be kicked out 😉
Those in the media loudly calling for Davey to face more scrutiny (quite rightly) haven’t been quite so quick to point the finger when it’s their own lot caught in scandals. Get used to it folks.
Interesting to hear from VTC who clearly has more direct experience of this than the rest of us. I am not remotely surprised to hear that it was common knowledge. I fail to see how it couldn’t have been and it only makes the PO’s lies worse.
The more this goes on, the more I think this is only the beginning. A beginning that probably should have been 10-15 years ago but at least we are getting somewhere.
It seems to me that it was well known that there were serious problems. Why did top brass allow literally hundreds upon hundreds of innocent people to take the fall when they could and should have gone after Fujitsu? We’re not talking minor disciplinaries here, it’s lives ruined and ended. That’s why this truly disgusts just about everyone.
Complete dereliction of duty by the national broadcast and print media too (and I mean all of it) although nothing new there.
“Complete dereliction of duty by the national broadcast and print media….”
Not strictly correct.
The Mail picked up on it about 5 years ago when the compensation delay aspect really kicked in. And The Mail ran a campaign demanding payment to the victims. The Telegraph also had some coverage around that time.Davey! You’re fired!
2012 – When MPs began asking awkward questions about the Horizon scandal, Post Office Chair Alice Perkins was called upon to allay their concerns.
‘Old’ New Labour connection:
Alice Perkins is the wife of Jack Straw.
In May 2012 she travelled to Post Office HQ to discuss the escalating scandal with two concerned Parliamentarians: James (now Lord) Arbuthnot, and Oliver Letwin, then Minister of State for Government Policy.
The crucial meeting, at which Paula Vennells was also present, mirrored several depicted in ITV’s drama (in which Arbuthnot is a prominent character) by turning into an exercise in bluster and obfuscation.
At one point, Perkins and her chief executive promised to be ‘open and transparent’ over the affair. At another, they reassured the MPs that Horizon had the ‘full support’ of the National Federation Of SubPostmasters.
A judge later pointed out that both claims were untrue. Arbuthnot and Letwin had been ‘entitled to expect accurate information’ at the meeting, he said, but ‘did not receive it’, describing the promise of transparency made by Perkins and Vennells as ‘not accurate’.
Oxford-educated Perkins, now 74, laughably claimed on her departure that the Post Office was ‘more capable and confident’ than when she’d joined. After leaving, this recipient of the Companion of the Order of the Bath took her talents to the BBC, where she enjoyed a non-executive directorship.
It wasn’t until April 2021 that she finally issued an apology for the ‘deep distress’ her stewardship of the Post Office had caused. (The D Mail)
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