Justice for Post Office managers

I was pleased to learn that at last the Post Office accepts its accounting software was faulty and led to wrongful accusations and cases against Post Office managers. Various MPs took up these matters without success, as in this 2014 debate to highlight the problem:

Post Office Mediation Scheme, 17 December 2014

Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for leading on this issue and for bravely taking the case of many people in the postal sector to the management. From his discussions with the senior management of the Post Office, is there any sign that it now recognises that it made mistakes? Is there any willingness on its part to recognise that at least some of those people are completely innocent and deserve an apology and compensation for the way that their lives and businesses have been wrecked?

Mr Arbuthnot: That is a very difficult question to answer, because the Post Office pleads secrecy. It will not tell us what is happening in the mediation scheme. We asked in July how the mediation scheme was going, but it refused to tell Members of Parliament because it was all confidential.

67 Comments

  1. Alan Jutson
    April 23, 2021

    Agree it’s an absolute disgrace that totally innocent, hardworking, honest people were convicted for fraud, and in turn lost not only their livelihoods, but also had their reputations trashed by the local population who believed they were guilty, having been found so in court.

    The Post office, the Prosecution Barristers and Solicitors should be absolutely ashamed of themselves.
    We hear now that the Post Office knew they had a problem with their software at the time, but refused to accept such, and instead decided that hundreds of small businesses, all decided at the same time to commit fraud, in the same way, for the first time in their lives.

    Will anyone at the Post office get sacked for this cover up, of course not, because in our society that never seems to happen, should the people wrongly convicted get compensation, of course they should, and it should be exceedingly generous and substantial, and the Post Office should be bought to book to make sure that happens, and rapidly too before many others die.

    1. No Longer Anonymous
      April 23, 2021

      Sacked ? They deserve to be tried for this.

      1. MiC
        April 23, 2021

        And what should happen to the people whose cynical falsifications reportedly led to countless buildings being turned into fire death traps with flammable cladding?

        We do indeed appear to have a very serious problem with endemic impunity in a certain tier of society, yes. It is made all the more egregious by – on the other hand – the victimisation of certain others too.

        1. No Longer Anonymous
          April 24, 2021

          What are you insinuating ?

          You do realise that many convicted postmasters were ethnic minority too – have you not seen the photos ?

          If there is falsification in anything then prosecution should follow. And that cladding was put up to satisfy the tastes of the London elite that viewed the towers from without – not for the benefit of the people living in them looking over the roof tops of the London elite… who tended to vote Remain.

          And very many white people have been killed trying to get to work because they could not get funded to live there.

          None of it has anything to do with race so why insinuate it ?

      2. Alan Jutson
        April 23, 2021

        Agree absolutely, but they will not even be sacked, let alone something rather more deserving and fitting..

        1. jerry
          April 24, 2021

          @Alan Jutson; The problems with the New Horizon system has been simmering to the boil for so long I suspect few of the ordinal decision makes are still in post to be sacked, of course that should not stop them being prosecuted if the evidence exists. More important is for, govt, regulators and the corporate world to learn the lessons from these scandals.

          1. Alan Jutson
            April 24, 2021

            jerry

            “…to learn from theses scandals…”

            Unfortunately they never seem to !

      3. Lynn
        April 24, 2021

        They must be tried. We all need justice and the Government machine need to understand that they are personally responsible for mal-functioning software. That lesson needs to be hammered home regarding the Covid scandal and any thought of digital currencies etc must be buried here and now. The Government does not have the technological capability to control every or even any aspect of the lives of free people.

        1. jerry
          April 25, 2021

          @Lynn; “and the Government machine need to understand that they are personally responsible for mal-functioning software.”

          This had nothing to do with the govt, “Post Office Ltd” is at arms length from govt and has been for decades, I think you’ll find John Stonehouse (remember him?) was the last Postmaster general, back in 1969 when the GPO was abolished.

          As some have pointed out, there are more questions for the private company who designed the software than there is govt, but the main blame must lie with senior management within the “Post Office Ltd”, software errors happen, but to carry on allowing the use of a system suspected of being faulty is beyond reproach.

    2. Peter2
      April 23, 2021

      Well said Alan

    3. Mike Wilson
      April 23, 2021

      No, the people responsible knew there was a problem with the software but still persisted in locking up innocent people. So, never mind being sacked – they should be charged with perverting the course of justice, tried and imprisoned. I heard a woman on the radio today, whose conviction has just been quashed and who spent years in prison, say that she would have committed suicide if it wasn’t for the fact she was 8 weeks pregnant when she was sent to prison. Until today she was ashamed and did not want her children to have to admit she was their mother. The bastards responsible for this injustice need to be locked up so they can see what they caused.

      1. Zorro
        April 24, 2021

        Exactly – I expect that we might see something similar when the public accounting of the government response to C19 cones to pass….. we are already seeing the first signs.

        zorro

      2. Dennis
        April 24, 2021

        Locked up? Didn’t the PO CEO get a CBE for services to the PO and a £400,000 pa off?

        1. Al
          April 26, 2021

          No lessons will be learned until there are actually some consequences to those people responsible.

          For a start if they can discuss removing Philips Green’s knighthood, they should, at the least, remove Paula Vennells’ C.B.E. It seems she has lost the NHS job she held while people were falsely imprisoned under her watch as well as a number of other positions, but her ‘never working again’ means nothing when she is already 61. MPs could at least force the release of the “smoking gun” document that may open her to public accountbility (and which the court blocked in December 2020).

          People went to jail for years when it seems they were known to be innocent. If this is the case, those responsible should be imprisoned for their actions or laid open to civil action to make what restitution they can.

  2. jerry
    April 23, 2021

    From what has been said by and to the MSM over the years about this disgusting scandal there appears to be some real and serious questions asked of Post Office Ltd. Another failed quasi-privatisation…

    Reply This was nothing to do with privatisation.

    1. Pdb
      April 23, 2021

      All these grounded planes have thousands of chemical oxygen generators on them; rip them out & send them to India, quick.

      Albeit this is off topic; but relevant in regards private industry, it will spur them on to make more. Which we might/will likely need.

    2. jerry
      April 23, 2021

      @JR reply; You’re correct, it is nothing to do with privatisation, that is why I said quasi-privatisation

      As much as the original issues behind the New Horizon system, the real problem here has been the apparent attitude of senior management, I doubt these problems would have taken so long to resolve had there been either a named elected senior politician (answering to Parliament as the “Postmaster General”) or were there a proper set of shareholders and directors at the “Post Office Ltd”, especially should their own careers, money, and perhaps even personal reputations/freedoms been at stake.

    3. Lynn
      April 24, 2021

      Reply to reply: I agree. Technological incompetence is terrifyingly rife in the state institutions.

  3. Lifelogic
    April 23, 2021

    The whole thing is a total outrage. Surely some people on the prosecution side or at Royal Mail must have known the real position and be guilty of abusing the system or even of perverting the course of justice. Nearly everyone pleaded guilty on legal advice, this despite knowing they were innocent. So stacked against them it seems was system. Rather like motoring tickets yes you can appeal but the process costs more in time and hassle than paying up, even if you win. But far, far worse for these poor victims.

    They were unable to access the information they needed about the software issues until whistle blowers came forwards it seems.

    1. Zorro
      April 24, 2021

      It is the worst of the worst – bearing false witness against someone deserves exemplary punishment.

      zorro

  4. Know-Dice
    April 23, 2021

    Now the Government needs to step up to the mark and ensure that these people who have suffered get full legal support to take their cases for compensation to court. The suggestion is that the Post Office will defend any case and only those that qualify for legal aid will get support. This needs to be a case action supported by Government funds against the Post Office.

    Also, I understand that out of the £50+ million given previously only £12 million ended up with the those that were affected and the rest went to legal costs…that is just wrong…

    1. Qubus
      April 24, 2021

      As these people were found innocent, why didn’t the other guilty party have to pay their legal costs?

  5. X-Tory
    April 23, 2021

    It is astonishing – and terrifying – that these people were convicted on computer evidence alone. What the hell was the jury thinking??? I can assure you that if I am ever called up to a jury again I will need concrete evidence in order to find someone guilty, not stupid computer nonsense. Has nobody heard of hacking, or viruses, or malware, or faulty programming, or piggybacking, or any of the other 1,001 ways in which your computer, or the information thereon, can be corrupted? No: computer evidence is NO evidence.

  6. Fred.H
    April 23, 2021

    OFF TOPIC.
    BBC website.
    An MP has highlighted “widespread outrage” over the failure to prosecute anyone over a funeral allegedly attended by up to 150 mourners. The event took place at a church in Kettering, Northamptonshire, during the second lockdown in November. A man was charged with a breach of Covid rules, but the case was this week dropped due to lack of evidence.
    Speaking in Parliament, Kettering MP Philip Hollobone called it “a clear and flagrant breach” of regulations. The funeral for 47-year-old Joe Rooney, who had died in a crash, was held at a Catholic church in the town centre on 9 November. It was described by Northamptonshire Police at the time as showing a “blatant disregard” for the 30-person limit, with officers sent to the funeral procession and road blocks put in place.
    Police said they would issue a £10,000 fine, with Chief Constable Nick Adderley commenting that he sympathised but “no-one is above the law”. The man charged appeared at Northampton Magistrates’ Court on Monday.
    The Crown Prosecution Service said it received the case file that morning and “after careful review” could not prosecute for any offence due to a lack of evidence from police.
    So tens of thousands of very sad mourners missed attending their loved ones’ funerals, were not allowed to walk the streets behind the cortege, but in this case – no action.
    Just about sums up Britain today …….pathetic.

    1. SM
      April 23, 2021

      I have just read that article on the BBC website, and would ask how the police had ‘no evidence’ despite providing officers to install road blocks, and there is a clear photograph of the procession, including the fact that many of the (non-socially distancing) mourners were not masked.

      1. Dennis
        April 24, 2021

        The ‘no evidence’ is correct – there was no evidence that the police had any competence in their work.

    2. Zorro
      April 24, 2021

      I am afraid that it is all bluff – very few cases will go to court because they have a very weak legal basis. I think that when people wake up they will be furious at the games this government has played over the last year and its impact on normal life. We are seeing the start of it now…..

      zorro

      1. No Longer Anonymous
        April 24, 2021

        Definitely.

        Many more ordinary and decent people are flouting the ‘rules’, I see.

        The Government and authorities are fast losing credibility.

  7. steve
    April 23, 2021

    Fully agree JR

    What happened to these people is nothing short of scandalous and puts the Post Office and the justice system to the highest shame possible.

    My own view is that the matter should now progress to prosecution and incarseration of those who developed, implemented and signed off such a flawed computer system.

    Concerning Mr Arbuthnot’s response: I don’t think it is acceptable that the Post Office should be allowed to claim any privilege of secrecy. That has come from cowardly executives at Post Office wishing to protect their pensions and jobs.

    It is not good enough, heads need to roll.

    1. Mike Wilson
      April 24, 2021

      Whoa, hold on there. It would be absurd to prosecute the software writers. Reconciling millions of transactions across thousands of sub post offices, with cash and card payments, is a hugely complex system. An error in the software is a mistake. I can tell you from my 30 years writing software that no amount of testing by a few testers will ever pick up what happens when a system with thousands of users and millions of transactions goes live.

      The people who should be prosecuted are those who knew there was something wrong with the system but who then decided to blame and prosecute innocent sub postmasters.

      1. Zorro
        April 24, 2021

        Exactly
        zorro

      2. kb
        April 24, 2021

        Huge amounts are spent on ridiculous software across the economy. The people writing it don’t seem to have the sense they are born with. The software companies are getting away with it. Anyone else who sold a different product with a “mistake” in it like this would be finished. They need to spend much more on validating the software before they sell it I’m afraid. It needs testing on real people.

      3. Mike Cross
        April 24, 2021

        Having worked for Fujitsu-ICL who wrote Horizon, it is clear that the design brief was totally inadequate. When, as a programmer, I complained that the design of an MOD system I was writing was inadequate, my manager told me “It’s been signed off. We can’t change it now.” In the same way, hundreds of people worked on a system they knew to be rubbish because that’s what they were paid to produce. When it went into service they all knew it was rubbish, but the Post Office persisted because they had brain-dead management who quite obviously understood nothing about computers.

        Computer Weekly magazine published an article on May 11, 2009 (“Bankrupcy, prosecution and disrupted livelihoods – Postmasters tell their story”) listing case after case of people prosecuted by the Post Office after the Horizon system claimed their accounts did not balance by thousands of pounds. Computer Weekly, a trade paper for programmers, proceeded to publish similar articles about every one or two months (possibly about 200 articles in all), and it was blatantly obvious that the computer system was the cause of the discrepancies, but the Post Office chose just to crush Post Office staff one after another just like like the Chinese Government did the demonstrators in Tiananmen Square. No compassion. No reflection. No examination. Any person working on the project could have told them that Horizon was a heap of junk, just like loads of other government computer systems have been in the past.

        And so the Post Office rumbled on, destroying people’s lives, because they could, and the corporate management could never suffer like the people they persecuted, because the law in this area is immoral and therefore illegal by definition.

        1. ukretired123
          April 26, 2021

          Agree 100% from my knowledge too cleaning up broken systems And companies.
          And they try to pass the buck to the programmers as they could not defend against senior directors more interested in their reputation and the next big Govt IT contract.
          Computer Weekly was vital reading highlighting the disastrous IT projects to avoid and lessons to be learned. It would not be read by most Directors who could have effected change.
          Thanks for your insight on this sorry saga.

        2. ukretired123
          April 27, 2021

          People hate change and especially when there is a lot at stake many Luddites plot against it.
          There are proven cases of some saying “This will never work!” …
          Then move heaven and earth to prove it.
          Sounds familiar with recent referendums
          Dinosaurs still exist in the digital age.

  8. agricola
    April 23, 2021

    Typical monopoly, covering its arse with no concern for the people they were wrongly accusing, and knowingly putting people through hell in the hope of getting away with it. Penalties in compensation should be exemplary.

    1. Zorro
      April 24, 2021

      Are talking about this government or the Post Office 😁

      zorro

  9. ukretired123
    April 23, 2021

    It was not a surprise to me having been asked to look at many old fashioned financial systems that could not adapt to change and one non-financial system of the Post Office several years before this scandal. The move from central control mainframes to smaller point of sale systems needing daily rapid responses and daily financial reconciliation across thousands of outlets was mastered by Tesco etc but the Post Office hampered by unions with its USP being the long A trailer in its wake.
    All it takes is 1 Day of a discrepancy to snowball unmanaged and someone covers up to save their job. In Rolls Royce it started with the Monthly rising costs being put down to “an obvious mistake” misinterpreted that snowballed out of control.
    Once it becomes “hot potatoes all round” …….only Senior Management find out too late.
    However even when you go beyond your hired brief the messenger or whistle blower will not be appreciated and often loses jobs and future prospects too!

    1. ukretired123
      April 23, 2021

      When I first heard about this scandal I felt gutted for all the Sub Post Masters on the receiving end of this disgusting affair as it was obvious to most finance and IT professionals that something basic and catastrophic had gone wrong with the system rollout.
      There used to be a standing joke in one large organisation – don’t believe:-
      1. I love you and
      2. I’m from Head Office and I’m here to help you!!!
      These people’s very integrity was trashed and were shunned by their own communities enough stress to kill anyone.
      In addition to compensation they should be awarded survival medals because they thoroughly deserve our deep respect. I salute them all.

  10. Fred.H
    April 23, 2021

    OFF TOPIC.
    BBC website.
    Six Extinction Rebellion protesters have been cleared of causing criminal damage, despite jurors being told by the judge there was no defence in law. Climate activists targeted oil company Shell’s London headquarters on 15 April 2019, claiming the company was directly contributing to climate change.
    It was part of wider demonstrations across the capital on that day.
    Judge Gregory Perrins said that even if the actions were “morally justified”, that did not provide a lawful excuse. The six acquitted at Southwark Crown Court were:

    (Listed ed)
    The court had heard that each of the defendants deliberately sprayed graffiti or smashed windows at the Shell building in Belvedere Road, central London.

    The World has gone mad.

    1. Fred.H
      April 24, 2021

      So what is wrong with this post? I even xxxx out surnames that are revealed in the BBC website post?

      I take it you are in favour of those who vandalise property?

    2. Zorro
      April 24, 2021

      The right kind of protest for the New Normal/Great Reset crew…..

      “You will own nothing, and you will be happy” 😒

      zorro

  11. ukretired123
    April 23, 2021

    Error above The Post Office USP Unique selling point :
    PO = Long Queues
    Typified the attitude to customers and loyal Staff at POs

  12. formula57
    April 23, 2021

    And when will justice be visited upon the Post Office chiefs who were responsible? Gaol time ought to be served but that is less likely to befall them than a bauble in the Honours List. What a country we have become!

  13. forthurst
    April 23, 2021

    Did the Post Office have internal or external auditors? As a computer professional, I had not infrequently to assist both. Properly run businesses do not assume the computer is correct. There should be an audit trail of all transactions which can be independently verified. I’m joking, an properly qualified auditor would find the PO system was full of holes on day one.

    1. ukretired123
      April 23, 2021

      Unfortunately many Senior Managers lacked both basic Financial skills and obviously little or zero IT knowledge and relied heavily on Fujitsu. The Post Office still ran as a Top-Down command and control historical dinosaur. Listening was not in its DNA.
      UQ or else….

      1. forthurst
        April 24, 2021

        Fujitsu in this context means ICL which was taken over by Fujitsu when the Horizon project was already well underway. ICL was the Herman Munster of the computer world created in the laboratory of ‘technology ministers’ with Arts degrees out of an assortment of English computer companies to be the ‘British champion’ to take on IBM.

  14. Sir Joe Soap
    April 23, 2021

    Strangely the CPS can demand to take over a private prosecution if you or I take an employee to court for say theft, yet the post office is apparently beyond reproach and the CPS stands clear.
    Whatever the rights or wrongs of the software anybody covering up whistleblower evidence in such a case or declaring it commercially secret without offering it under NDA should Go Straight to Jail.

    1. Dennis
      April 24, 2021

      If the US judicial system can be corrupt (note how even their Attorneys General can obstruct justice, even lie and get away with it why can’t ours?

      Give us a break.

  15. ChrisS
    April 23, 2021

    This is the largest judicial scandal in British legal history. I understand that the Post Office may ask the Government to assist in paying compensation.

    However, there are many people in Post Office Management and their legal teams at the time who knew that the software and therefore the prosecutions were dodgy, yet they allowed the cases to go ahead with such tragic results.

    It seems completely wrong that nobody within the Post Office and its legal teams has been held accountable for their actions. This was no less than perverting the course of justice and those responsible should most definitely go to jail.

  16. Peter2
    April 23, 2021

    I actually know a really nice couple who ran a post office in a village near me.
    They were suddenly told they had misplaced tens of thousands of pounds.
    To keep this post small…eventually he ended up in prison.
    Their lives, their reputation in the area and even their own relationship was ruined.

    I think they deserve a very large sum in compensation.

    1. Old Salt
      April 23, 2021

      Peter2
      No money can ever turn back the clock or bring back those lives lost.

      Nevertheless those concerned should be made to pay and handsomely as they must have known about the issue arising. Rabbits and headlights come to mind.

      Not forgetting the way other businesses were treated intentionally by the GRG.

      Just what is it with some people in this country?

      1. Zorro
        April 24, 2021

        I would be happy to provide the perpetrators with a bottle of whisky to assist their penance.

        zorro

      2. Dennis
        April 24, 2021

        No one guilty/responsible for this horror in the PO will pay a penny of compensation – all, whatever it is will be paid by the taxpayer.

  17. Nig l
    April 23, 2021

    A CBE to the woman that led it for services to the Post Office plus millions earned including large bonuses over her nine year tenure. She should pay but of course she won’t.,there is a government inquiry due to report, I think in September.No doubt it will be a whitewash.

  18. ukretired123
    April 23, 2021

    Another basic problem I came across involved translation to and from English to foreign languages in this case a Japanese – Fujitsu even with native English speakers and Americans can misinterpret as we know too well!

  19. Tom
    April 23, 2021

    On a different subject. SIR John can our country please do something to help Indian with there covid crisis, they are in desperate need of oxygen. As you know we have a close history with our Indian friends.

  20. oldtimer
    April 23, 2021

    The wrongful convictions and, for some, imprisonment was a perversion of the course of justice. Did not the PO do test runs and parallel runs of thei new systems before implementation? This sounds like the University of East Anglia which introduced a new temperature recording system without testing it against the old system – result an unreliable basis for calculating temperature series. There should be consequences for those responsible.

  21. Lindsay McDougall
    April 23, 2021

    What is now important is that the Post Office Executives who took the decision to prosecute, and steadfastly refused to change their minds in spite of mounting evidence, are now punished severely, even if they no longer work for the Post Office. Also, the people who have suffered should be encouraged, with legal aid, to sue the Post Office out of sight. If that entails Post Office Limited becoming insolvent, so be it. A new Post Office company will rise like a phoenix from the ashes. There must be NO taxpayer bail out of Post Office Limited. There is no such thing as ‘too big to fail’.

    1. ukretired123
      April 24, 2021

      Spot on with the reason why they covered IT up because it would have collapsed without a postal service for the country instant chaos like a corporate Denial of Service, no internet now.
      That will be their defence. National security.

  22. Sea_Warrior
    April 24, 2021

    This scandal is an indictment of the Post Office’s inability to look at numbers – in this case, the staggering number of vetted employees thought to be engaging in theft and false accounting – and deduce that something in the perceived situation wasn’t making sense. The same failing was evident at Barings when massive quantities of money WERE gushing out the bank and no-one thought to ask what was going on there. (‘All That Glitters’, by Gapper is recommended.) Too few of those in high places seem to have inquiring minds.

  23. dixie
    April 24, 2021

    Justice? Not yet.

    And what justice will there be after for the taxpayer who bears the cost?

  24. Rhoddas
    April 24, 2021

    1) PO Board & Investigation Division Managers need to be identified & charged with perverting the course of justice and locked up.

    2) Reparations and compensation to all the victims or their immediate families if deceased.

    3) Lessons learnt – Fujitsu software – well the specification/testing wasn’t rigourous enough and hence the accounting part remained substandard & false output. An external forensic audit should have picked this up, mandatory imho.

    1. Al
      April 26, 2021

      The problem with 3) is that the software testing was rigorous enough, audit did pick it up, and they knew about the bug. That is why in 2010, only days before Seema Misra’s prosecution, the Post Office Security Team warned their Criminal Law Team by email that there was a bug “making money disappear” and that the bug will have “repercussions in any future prosecution cases”. (Reported 8th June 2020, BBC, “Postmasters were prosecuted using unreliable evidence”).

      Which makes performing your first suggestion, charges for perverting the course of justice for all responsible, all the more important.

  25. Dennis
    April 24, 2021

    There will be taxpayer bailout in the way of printing out more cash so diminishing the value of everyone’s cash assets- problem sorted.

  26. Malcolm White
    April 25, 2021

    Dear Sir John,

    I know this topic is now a day or so old, but I have to say that I’m quite incensed about the whole affair. Especially, the apparent fact that Post Office Ltd’s management clearly knew that there was a problem with the system, yet continued to prosecute Postmasters and Postmistresses regardless.

    This must also have been obvious to the legal teams who were presenting the cases to the courts and the courts themselves after the first half dozen or so. Nevermind the 700 or so that were eventually prosecuted over a long period. The lawyers and their offices were clearly happy to trouser the legal fees and milk what they saw as a cash cow. I wonder how many hundreds of thousands/millions of pounds they made out of it? And they wonder why the legal profession and these parasites, in particular, are held in such low esteem.

    Where was the oversight? Those involved within the Post Office Ltd whether or not they are still in post should be prosecuted for this outrage.

  27. Iain Gill
    April 25, 2021

    nobody from Fujitsu the IT outsourcer running the Post Office systems, and claiming that all was well, or the senior Post Office directors… have been in court for the lies..

    why not?

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