Post office farce

There are many unforgivable aspects to this apalling case, and among the worst, I think, is that each accused postmaster was made to believe they were the only one experiencing accounting discrepancies, so they felt they were utterly alone whilst knowing they were innocent of any wrongdoing.

The Post Office must have been fully aware that this was not the case, but persisted with this reprehensible persecution of innocent people.

To put Paula Vennells in context-

^She is a Non-Executive Director of Morrisons Plc, a member of the government’s Financial Inclusion Policy Forum and of the Ethical Investment Advisory Group for the Church of England. She’s been a Trustee for the Hymns Ancient and Modern Group and a member of the Future High Street Forum. She served as a Non-Executive Board Member at the Cabinet Office between February 2019 and March 2020.
She received her CBE in the 2019 New Year Honours List for services to the Post Office and to charity^
www.gov.uk/government/people/paula-vennells

She is also, apparently, an Anglican priest. (Wikipedia).
?‍♀️

The circumstances of this case have been diabolical. Lives ruined and reputations destroyed, suicides, breakdowns and people sent to prison. Heads really must roll for this - it must have been obvious to those in the know that there was a problem with the Horizon system, yet they doggedly persisted in persecuting innocent people, demanding that they make up the non-existent shortfalls, that they plead guilty to financial mismanagement or be prosecuted for theft and sent to prison. Nothing can compensate for the nightmare these people have endured, but I hope that they get massive payouts. And yes, there should be a proper enquiry into exactly who knew what at the Post Office, and why on earth this was allowed to happen.

I absolutely have no faith whatsoever that anyone will be held publicly accountable for this.

ixion I’ve just read her whole Wiki entry - wow. She sounds nice . ?

So, will those who made up non-existent shortfalls now get the money back, plus interest?

I'm just reading about this but the figures are horrendous: Between 2000 and 2014, the Post Office prosecuted 736 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses - an average of one a week - based on information from a recently installed Fujitsu computer system called Horizon.

I can't really understand how in 2019 when 555 subpostmasters took the Post Office to court and won a multimillion-pound case, that the £57.75m damages they received was then reduced to £11m after costs were taken out. This left the victims with compensation payments that didn’t even scratch the surface of their losses, never mind their suffering. One subpostmistress who was wrongly convicted of theft was sent to prison and lost her livelihood, but received only £8,000.

The number of applications received from current and former Postmasters is sitting at 2,478 and it's looking like the PO doesn't have the means to pay compensation that could amount to more than £300m.

So far, nobody at the Post Office or Fujitsu has been held accountable, although the High Court judge said he would refer Fujitsu to the Director of Public Prosecutions for possible further action because he had "grave concerns" about the evidence of the company's employee.

So much suffering, mentally and financially for so many people, really angers and saddens me.

That woman ignored the problem when it was brought to her attention, I believe ixion.
How could anyone believe that so many people were defrauding the Post Office? Did it not occur to her or anyone else that there was something amiss.

How they have suffered and some will never know that their names have been cleared.

We had very pleasant people running our local Post Office years ago then they disappeared overnight - there were mutterings of wrong doing. I wonder if they will be amongst those who were accused and have been totally exonerated?

Unforgiveable. An appalling MOJ.

I cannot understand how this iniquitous situation was allowed to go on for so long with so many innocent subpostmasters being prosecuted and convicted!Why did no one start to notice a pattern?

They did know but they ignored it.

The computer system must be right.
Shocking

Listening to R4 on this atm - both rhe PO and the Govt have refused to provide anyone for the programme. The biggest miscarriage of justice ever and they hide away. I really wonder how committed anyone is to sorting out compensation and really finding out what went wrong? Back to wallpaper and leaks

This was indeed a huge miscarriage of justice. I wept when I saw those people outside of the Courts on TV last night.
Why oh why, did the Post Office not think if so many people were telling them things were wrong, that they didn't investigate.
Didn't it ever occur to someone at the top of the organisation that how could so ......many staff be being investigated or prosecuted, or imprisoned over the same issue.
Somewhere I hope that people who were in senior positions throughout this debacle, are feeling shame this morning when they read the press.

faringdon59

This was indeed a huge miscarriage of justice. I wept when I saw those people outside of the Courts on TV last night.
Why oh why, did the Post Office not think if so many people were telling them things were wrong, that they didn't investigate.
Didn't it ever occur to someone at the top of the organisation that how could so ......many staff be being investigated or prosecuted, or imprisoned over the same issue.
Somewhere I hope that people who were in senior positions throughout this debacle, are feeling shame this morning when they read the press.

Over 900 people were prosecuted ( most of them wrongly). The woman at the top who left with £millions has been forced to resign from subsequent ( well paid positions) but is still coining it in on the boards of Morrison’s and Dunelm as well as an ordained vicarage. The C of E have refused to remove her from one of their boards dealing with ethics ( yes really). I doubt she feels shame .

This whole case is absolutely appalling from start to finish.
I fervently hope those innocent people get generous compensation, although I doubt they will.
I worked in a sub post office in the 1970's for such nice people.
I am so glad they retired before this nightmare began.

It has been disgusting the way these innocent people have been treated because of a computer glitch, I hope they are given hefty compensation and it is quickly and they don’t drag it out , these people have waited long enough for justice . I work in a post office and know how awful it must of been for them to be accused as word gets round the local community even when it wasn’t true !

It’s been a long time coming. So many have lost their jobs, their confidence, and sadly some have lost their lives.

So hope that they get adequate compensation, but it will take many years to resolve the hurt.

Susiwooz Sent to a youth offenders prison at age 38? Must be a lot more to her story.
For the Post Office worker's don't think any compensation will wipe out the awful blight on their lives.

4allweknow

Susiwooz Sent to a youth offenders prison at age 38? Must be a lot more to her story.
For the Post Office worker's don't think any compensation will wipe out the awful blight on their lives.

She’s 38 now . Sorry you couldn’t join the fits - why did you need to be so sarky such a sad story ?

Whilst there is blame to be attached to those who continued with the persecution and prosecutions even though there were so many previously honest postmasters involved, surely the most compensation should come from the software developer. There was obviously something in their coding which was not working as it should and affected post offices which used certain elements of that coding. It is up to the software company to properly test their systems to avoid such problems. It is also up to them to alert their customers when things go wrong. Most of the Post Office personnel would have limited understanding of the software and are very much at the mercy of the software company. Their clients often have Managers who have no coding/software development training whatsoever. This happens in so many of the Public Services in this country, most of which we don't ever get to hear about. Millions of pounds are lost every year because of this and the software companies get away with it. This is a problem which must be addressed because we all pay for it with our taxes.
I hope those affected by this software scandal get adequate compensation, paid out mainly from the software company.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

I'm not a lawyer, icanhandthemback, but I would have thought the sub-postmasters involved have a claim against the Post Office and the Post Office has a claim against the tech company - if they still exist.

I knew someone who replaced the missing money with her own.
What about the people who have committed suicide because of these discrepancies in the accounting and couldn't handle the stress? And the ones who died through other causes? And been convicted of theft and gone to prison?
The lives that have been ruined through the post office's handling of this is appalling and can never be made right. It was the post office's lies and covering up the truth that has caused all this. Shame on you!

my opinion
this is shameful, I am not usually into public enquiries, but this one should be,, and those responsible should received adequate punishment, and those who suffered adequate,, not that there is any, recompense..

However, the UK Legal System is busted,, corruption, is what I think.

Sure our local PO was affected by this. It was a lovely corner shop run by an Asian family and their son who was the post master. He was fantastic behind the counter, so fast and thorough and friendly. Then we read in the local paper he had gone to prison for fraud.
People avoided the PO and shop after that and went elsewhere. The PO moved to a different shop in that road and new owners took over the Asian shop. So the parents lost their business and reputation as did the son. They had been there for years too. So very sad.