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British Post Office Scandal

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Re: British Post Office Scandal

#81

Post by csan »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #65
pipes wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ian hislop mentioned yesterday that computer weekly ran it in 2009. He implied private eye picked it up after that. I've been reading about probably once every two years in the guardian. The thing that is so upsetting about all of this is that it's been pretty much ignored by government since 2009, the post office systematically lied and covered this up while knowing it was destroying innocent people. And the only re…

The cover-up is at least as dangerous as the original incompetence. It was a heavy-handed, conscious, legally aggressive cover-up. The people responsible knew exactly what was happening, and they were more than happy for the blame to fall on innocent sub-postmasters. Horizon cost £2.4bn and was apparently developed by a team of eight, three of whom were described by the team lead as "incompetent." Fujitsu also screwe…

Procurement is indeed broken/corrupt. See also the recent £1.4 HMCTS reform programme.

https://csan149.substack.com/p/justice-at-risk

Re: British Post Office Scandal

#82

Post by lawtalkinghuman »

mjburgess wrote: post #30

To clarify how this happened: in the UK anyone can bring a private prosecution where they effectively act as the prosecutor . This is usually used by charities who take on laws to prosecute (eg., crimes against animals). Here the post office used the law to prosecute its own staff in alleged crimes against the post office . So they were both the prosecutor and the victim. This gave them overwhelming incentives not to…

In addition to the RSPCA example, banks/financial institutions bring a fair number of complex fraud prosecutions because it is in their financial interest to prosecute people who've defrauded them. But private prosecutions are indeed an anomaly and can lead to some weird outcomes.

A few years ago, someone brought a crowdfunded private prosecution of Boris Johnson for "misconduct in public office". The whole thing was incredibly silly and a massive waste of time. (MIPO isn't there for politicians lying/misleading people, though that does indeed suck.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_v_Johnson

Also, following the murder of Stephen Lawrence, the CPS decided to not prosecute for lack of evidence. The Lawrence family brought a private prosecution which failed. Jeopardy attached at that point.

Later evidence emerged which made the case a lot stronger, but had the Criminal Justice Act 2003 not been passed allowing limited exceptions to the double jeopardy rule, it would not have been possible to bring much stronger cases against the perpetrators.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Stephen_Lawrence

The CPS have the power to take over and stop an ongoing private prosecution, but the ability to bring private prosecutions sits really uncomfortably with the principle of double jeopardy. Like, someone could do a bad job of bringing a prosecution in a case where the CJA2003 double jeopardy exception doesn't apply and then the person can't be retried by the CPS.

Re: British Post Office Scandal

#83

Post by zzbn00 »

NolF wrote: post #75
zzbn00 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private prosecutions like this are specific to England & Wales (Scotland has a separate legal system where I believe they are extremely rare; Northern Ireland is also a separate legal system). While the incentives are not to reveal evidence the law is absolutely clear that all evidence identified must be revealed. The difficulty is that forcing and unlimited discovery to identify the evidence would break the whole le…

The Courts already have mechanisms to limit "unlimited" subpoenas or requests for discovery. Requests for the software source code or similar, bug reports, and other reports of issues are or would largely not be unreasonable where the key issue is reported thievery, fraud, and mismatched data based on software as the basis for the allegations and prosecution.

They do, but applications on these matters can easily overwhelm the financially weaker opponent. Interesting comment in one of the Post Office judgements:

"10. Finally, disclosure is very expensive. The court will be astute to guard against it becoming either satellite litigation or a weapon in the interlocutory arsenal."

https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2019/3408.html

Re: British Post Office Scandal

#84

Post by makomk »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #16
sdflhasjd wrote: post #3

Is there any actual technical report of what's wrong with the Horizon system? This feels like a weirdly long Wikipedia article that only touches on legal points and that somewhat lacks in real substance.

There's some more detail here: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/09/how-the-post... It only mentions a few bugs out of the hundreds that were discovered (a full list hasn't been published), but it appears that the bugs weren't the only issue: > In 2015, for instance, the Post Office told the House of Commons inquiry: “There is no functionality in Horizon for either a branch, Post Office or Fujitsu to edit,…

The Met's had an investigation open over this since 2020, all that seems to have happened as a result of this popular four-part series is that they've confirmed they're looking into specific possible criminal offences by the Post Office or its employees that we didn't know they were looking in to before. It's not clear that this is something which started investigating because of the popular TV series, but most likely not and they were just pressured into revealing more about the existing investigation - the police here don't generally give running updates on criminal investigations to the media.

Re: British Post Office Scandal

#85

Post by ss64 »

ChrisKnott wrote: post #28
mjburgess wrote: post #19

In middle of this it's obscene how the media neglects to mention who did most of the actual investigative journalism: https://www.private-eye.co.uk/ -- for years on end, whilst the issue was ignored by the rest of the press. They all now jump in on it and elide the years of work put in by the PE. This is a common tactic in media outlets, esp. here, for the major sources to try to "own" issues with nearly zero work pu…

I think that Computer Weekly were at the forefront of it

But behind a paywall, so few people would have read it.

Re: British Post Office Scandal

#86

Post by resolutebat »

The article seems to consist mostly of abstruse legal wrangling, is there a TL:DR of the actual bug(s) at hand? There was some mention of Fujitsu rabidly denying remote access only for it to be revealed they actually did have this, was it some kind of sync error or something more malicious?

Re: British Post Office Scandal

#87

Post by toyg »

MarcusE1W wrote: post #14
smcl wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just reading the other day that some MP was calling for those who were affected to have their names cleared. It's fucking astounding that this hasn't been a priority until the recent TV series on it has come out.

This skandal is 6 years old. I find it hugely concerning that someone has to make a TV play that resonates with the public for politicians or anyone responsible really to show any interest in resolving this. The current activities and proposals probably have to be seen as crowd management and might not be an honest attempt for a solution, again.

The current interest will wane too, once journalists tire of mentioning that the two leaders of the opposition are tangentially involved (Davey arguably more than Starmer).

Re: British Post Office Scandal

#88

Post by FerretFred »

cpach wrote: post #32
pmx wrote: post #2

My wife was watching the ITV drama on this last night and I had to leave the room. It was making me so incredibly angry that such huge injustices can be allowed to take place. I recommend the show to anyone with better control of their emotions that me!

Sounds horrible. Link, if anyone is curious about the production: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr_Bates_vs_The_Post_Office

It is horrible! You should really visit the Justice For Subpostmaster Alliance web site for the nitty-gritty https://www.jfsa.org.uk - there are some very interesting reports to view/download.

Re: British Post Office Scandal

#89

Post by csan »

toyg wrote: post #78
csan wrote: post #66

Further IT related miscarriages of justice are a likely consequence of the recent 'digital transformation' of the UK's courts service - see https://csan149.substack.com/p/justice-at-risk The case management software now used within the justice system itself is deeply flawed and poses a risk to large numbers of cases including child protection, benefit appeals, divorce and probate.

I wish that were the only cause of miscarriages of justice in the UK... The whole British justice system is now beyond farcical. A quick read of The Secret Barrister [1] will leave one despairing for the state of the country. [1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Barrister-Stories-Law-Broken...

Agreed, these broken software systems are a symptom and cannot be treated solely as a technical problem to be fixed in isolation.

HMCTS is spending ~50 - 100x the amount required (on private consultants) to create these broken IT systems whilst other parts of the justice system are starved of resources.

A radical change in culture and leadership is required.

Re: British Post Office Scandal

#90

Post by toyg »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #65
pipes wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ian hislop mentioned yesterday that computer weekly ran it in 2009. He implied private eye picked it up after that. I've been reading about probably once every two years in the guardian. The thing that is so upsetting about all of this is that it's been pretty much ignored by government since 2009, the post office systematically lied and covered this up while knowing it was destroying innocent people. And the only re…

The cover-up is at least as dangerous as the original incompetence. It was a heavy-handed, conscious, legally aggressive cover-up. The people responsible knew exactly what was happening, and they were more than happy for the blame to fall on innocent sub-postmasters. Horizon cost £2.4bn and was apparently developed by a team of eight, three of whom were described by the team lead as "incompetent." Fujitsu also screwe…

> But Fujitsu still keep getting government contracts.

The brand is getting a bit too tarnished though. I wouldn't be surprised to see them rebranding soon.

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