Post Office scandal

max wartbug said:
Cheers, but, haven't the spm's said they'd phone up with a, say, £2k shortfall and then in front of their eyes the shortfall would double or whatever on the system. So the adjustments were the wrong way!

Seems a bit ad-hoc to me. Plus, that guy who visited the "bunker" ( although they denied he was there) intimated he watched someone change figures and it seemed it wasn't part of an ongoing call. Could be wrong there though.
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I don't think the back end entries were being made by call handlers in the contact centre in real time while calls were ongoing though.

I think the shortfall was doubling as the SPMs were executing processes that the call handlers were talking them through via the user interface, and the system (and it's bugs) were causing the errors.

Then if the SPM was lucky someone in the back office was fixing them, and if they were unlucky they were pressured into signing off numbers that were wrong and then prosecuted for fraud and/or false accounting by the investigators later on.
 


soapster said:
I have watched the last couple of days and really been slightly amazed. I do not know if it is credible that people must have banded together (or conspired) to keep the information re backroom entry, away from the board.

yesterday it seemed to be pushing the fact that the legal dept would have been the ones in the know, yet it appears they did not pass it on.

Sir Win even asked yesterday why, when the post office had to pay substantial damages ( undisclosed amount but thought to be about £250,000) was not sanctioned at board level. This was for a court case that the POL lost.

It does appear that the inquiry barristers or legal team are playing a canny game of extracting specific details and a number of people will be totally boxed in, when they are hit with lie after lie and they will have no where to run.

legal dept are certainly in for it. but they need evidence that the main board knew about it.
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In any criminal matter if you kowingly present false evidence you are perverting the course of justice. If a group of people sit down and agree between themselves to present false evidence that's a conspiracy. It is so serious that the maximum sentence for conspiracy is life imprisonment.

This is a case in which a lot of totally innocent people have been sent to prision as a result of lies & false evidence of Post Office executives. They need to be hit with the full weight of the law especially as they showed no mercy to thoes they falsely prosecuted
 
max wartbug said:
Cheers, but, haven't the spm's said they'd phone up with a, say, £2k shortfall and then in front of their eyes the shortfall would double or whatever on the system. So the adjustments were the wrong way!

Seems a bit ad-hoc to me. Plus, that guy who visited the "bunker" ( although they denied he was there) intimated he watched someone change figures and it seemed it wasn't part of an ongoing call. Could be wrong there though.
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On the shortfall doubling I think that was the bug in the system making it worse when they're trying to help the SPM re enter the numbers hence they decided to just frig the records offline

On the changes when it's not part of an ongoing call my suspicion would be that's one it was clear they had a problem and they were routinely going in and covering their tracks
 
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max wartbug said:
Cheers, but, haven't the spm's said they'd phone up with a, say, £2k shortfall and then in front of their eyes the shortfall would double or whatever on the system. So the adjustments were the wrong way!
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The ITV dramatisation of a shortfall doubling was more than likely a result of the helpline agent (a glorified tele sales operator following a script) telling them the wrong thing and will have had no bearing on the actual loss in the office
 
Lord Potts said:
In any criminal matter if you kowingly present false evidence you are perverting the course of justice. If a group of people sit down and agree between themselves to present false evidence that's a conspiracy. It is so serious that the maximum sentence for conspiracy is life imprisonment.

This is a case in which a lot of totally innocent people have been sent to prision as a result of lies & false evidence of Post Office executives. They need to be hit with the full weight of the law especially as they showed no mercy to thoes they falsely prosecuted
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that has not been proved as yet.

If there was a conspiracy, I find it hard to believe that nobody has yet spilled it out.

Yet I also find it hard to believe that none of the top people did not know about the horizon problems and it now appears the top people did not know about the prosecution details. Just being told general details as opposed to specific.

It was said this morning that the post office was a £80 billion a year business

That is a lot of governance.

I wonder if the line of bosses below kept it from the top directors for whatever reason.

One thing said this morning is that the legal costs re the lee ????? amounted to 320,000. (approx I think). Sir Win asked about this, and was told, not discussed at board but would have been authorised most likely by Paula Vennels.

I still find it inconceivable that nobody went to a top top boss and said " Boss we have a problem, a big problem"".

maybe that was the culture. Problems dont bring them to me, bring me solutions, type of management
 
Fujitsu will also be in the firing line, as there is evidence that they deliberately tried to cover up the visit to the "bunker", they said there was no evidence of meeting invitation and the visitors log of the day was no longer available, but the day before and after was....
It was only the chap finding an old email confirming the meeting that helped to expose the whole thing, and that is entirely a Fujitsu cover up.
 
On the Lee Castleton case. Every Wednesday night ( that was the night the weekly summary was generated by Horizon), he would have his own balance at the branch. The Horizon figure in front of him would be higher than the actual balance , thus creating a shortfall. He would then sign the required form to confirm the H figure , thenn get straight onto the helpline to report it and was told it would be rectified at POL end.
When the hardline barrister in court produced the signed forms as evidence that Castleton agreed Horizon totals , so the difference was owed. Castleton tried to argue that he was signing off the figures to show that they were incorrect and then was reporting it instantly via the help line.
The barrister wouldn’t have it and in fact the same barrister yesterday at the enquiry continued to argue that Castleton’s signature on the weekly Horizon figure was evidence that he , Castleton agreed that those figures were correct . Ridiculed the calls to the help line.
deep south said:
Fujitsu will also be in the firing line, as there is evidence that they deliberately tried to cover up the visit to the "bunker", they said there was no evidence of meeting invitation and the visitors log of the day was no longer available, but the day before and after was....
It was only the chap finding an old email confirming the meeting that helped to expose the whole thing, and that is entirely a Fujitsu cover up.
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Incredibly , Fujitsu have in the last month been awarded another multi million£ government contract 🙈🙈
 
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LondonBlackCat said:
That Stephen Bradshaw comes to mind too, what a slimy shit he came across as.
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I'm not a violent person but would happily kick fuck out of that odious little twat. Even when confronted with evidence that he failed his duty as disclosure officer, it was someone else's fault/responsibility. I think it's a fairly damning indictment of the Post Office, that he is still employed by them.
Svarta katten said:
The ITV dramatisation of a shortfall doubling was more than likely a result of the helpline agent (a glorified tele sales operator following a script) telling them the wrong thing and will have had no bearing on the actual loss in the office
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Or a programming error. I'm sure one of the errors eventually found was a small routine that was supposed to change the sign of a figure, from plus to minus or vice versa, was doing the opposite.
soapster said:
that has not been proved as yet.

If there was a conspiracy, I find it hard to believe that nobody has yet spilled it out.

Yet I also find it hard to believe that none of the top people did not know about the horizon problems and it now appears the top people did not know about the prosecution details. Just being told general details as opposed to specific.

It was said this morning that the post office was a £80 billion a year business

That is a lot of governance.

I wonder if the line of bosses below kept it from the top directors for whatever reason.

One thing said this morning is that the legal costs re the lee ????? amounted to 320,000. (approx I think). Sir Win asked about this, and was told, not discussed at board but would have been authorised most likely by Paula Vennels.

I still find it inconceivable that nobody went to a top top boss and said " Boss we have a problem, a big problem"".

maybe that was the culture. Problems dont bring them to me, bring me solutions, type of management
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It sounds like there could be a bit of this gone on. Jason Beer mentioned on Tuesday that they have covert recordings of people (as yet unnamed) discussing what they should and shouldn't be telling Paula (Vennells).
 
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Beau Tye said:
I'm not a violent person but would happily kick fuck out of that odious little twat. Even when confronted with evidence that he failed his duty as disclosure officer, it was someone else's fault/responsibility. I think it's a fairly damning indictment of the Post Office, that he is still employed by them.

Or a programming error. I'm sure one of the errors eventually found was a small routine that was supposed to change the sign of a figure, from plus to minus or vice versa, was doing the opposite.

It sounds like there could be a bit of this gone on. Jason Beer mentioned on Tuesday that they have covert recordings of people (as yet unnamed) discussing what they should and shouldn't be telling Paula (Vennells).
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I wonder if that was going on, these recordings must have taken place at time of occurrence. So it is a puzzle as to why covert recordings were taking place. Was an individual (s) taking out an insurance plan.
 
soapster said:
that has not been proved as yet.

If there was a conspiracy, I find it hard to believe that nobody has yet spilled it out.

Yet I also find it hard to believe that none of the top people did not know about the horizon problems and it now appears the top people did not know about the prosecution details. Just being told general details as opposed to specific.

It was said this morning that the post office was a £80 billion a year business

That is a lot of governance.

I wonder if the line of bosses below kept it from the top directors for whatever reason.

One thing said this morning is that the legal costs re the lee ????? amounted to 320,000. (approx I think). Sir Win asked about this, and was told, not discussed at board but would have been authorised most likely by Paula Vennels.

I still find it inconceivable that nobody went to a top top boss and said " Boss we have a problem, a big problem"".

maybe that was the culture. Problems dont bring them to me, bring me solutions, type of manageme
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The public enquiry and Channel 4 News have unearthed a considerable amount of damming evidence. The emails and recoded conversations that they have uncovered (and published) suggests a consipracy among senior executives within the Poste Office. The law makes no allowance for those involved who think all they were involved in was just a bit of a "cover up" to save the Post Office embarrassment.This is therefore not simply a case of a bureaucratic system has failing a no one is really to blame its a question of people in positions of responsibility wilfully misusing their power.

Lord Arbuthnot who gave his evidence to the enquiry this week and for a number of years has played a pivitol role in getting justice for the sub-postmasters has publically accused the Post Office of conspiracy. His opinion is based on several years of having meetings & correspondence with Post Office executives involved this case and being a wittness to their organised deceptions. He was also practicing Barrister for many years so I believe that his opinion is fairly well informed.

Only the police can actually charge anyone with any offence in this case and they are proposing not to do anything until the end of the public enquiry. They are however under increasing pressure from a number of quarters to take action now. Its is very likely that they are at least already paying very close attention to what is being said at the public enquiry and evaluating what charges can be made.
 
LondonBlackCat said:
That Stephen Bradshaw comes to mind too, what a slimy shit he came across as.
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Ah yes, Stephen Bradshaw. Totally devoid of any moral responsibility or integrity, but he has one thing in abundance and that's arrogance. A bully who played the victim when giving his "evidence" (I use the term lightly) and didn't care about the many lives he had ruined.

I have little doubt that when Alan Bates referred to "thugs in suits" during his own evidence, he had Bradshaw and his cohorts at the front of his thoughts.

Employed by the Post Office for over 20 years and STILL there! That tells you all you need to know.

It will be interesting to see if the police investigate further the possibility that any of those called to the public enquiry gave false evidence under oath and/or knowingly signed false witness statements because both are serious criminal offences if they are found to have taken place.
 

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