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British Post Office Scandal

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Re: British Post Office Scandal

#91

Post by toyg »

nness wrote: post #71
jl6 wrote: post #63

This thing has layers. It's scandalous that a £billion computer system had basic accounting errors. It's scandalous that Fujitsu pressured the government to accept the system, and scandalous that the government gave in to this pressure. It's scandalous how the private prosecution hid evidence. It's scandalous how long it takes the courts to rectify miscarriages of justice. It's scandalous that it took a popular TV sh…

The cynic in me says that the Government only took notice to shift the narrative from the fact that they've pushed the election until later in the year, when everyone expected it to be in May (where it was predicted that they would meet a resounding defeated.) I'm glad the victims are getting justice, but I hate that it might only have gotten this level of scrutiny because it's a fight that makes the Government look…

And it allows them to throw mud at current leaders of the opposition, who were then in positions with tangential responsibility (well, Davey arguably had real responsibility, and his defence that he was lied-to is weak).

Re: British Post Office Scandal

#92

Post by nelox »

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.

The technical appendix to the judgement in Bates v Post Office:

https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/bates-v-...

The judgement in question: https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/bates-v-...

[edit: added judgement proper]

Re: British Post Office Scandal

#94

Post by bmoxb »

nness wrote: post #71
jl6 wrote: post #63

This thing has layers. It's scandalous that a £billion computer system had basic accounting errors. It's scandalous that Fujitsu pressured the government to accept the system, and scandalous that the government gave in to this pressure. It's scandalous how the private prosecution hid evidence. It's scandalous how long it takes the courts to rectify miscarriages of justice. It's scandalous that it took a popular TV sh…

The cynic in me says that the Government only took notice to shift the narrative from the fact that they've pushed the election until later in the year, when everyone expected it to be in May (where it was predicted that they would meet a resounding defeated.) I'm glad the victims are getting justice, but I hate that it might only have gotten this level of scrutiny because it's a fight that makes the Government look…

I would say that's more 'realistic' than 'cynical'. The current government is incredibly unpopular so it's no suprise that they'd latch on to something that will be universally seen in a positive light when resolved.

Re: British Post Office Scandal

#95

Post by postexitus »

drumhead wrote: post #57
hashtag-til wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly curious: can you expand a bit on why subscribe? I live in the UK, but never heard about Private Eye before?

Its the best source of investigative journalism in the Uk, generally you'll hear about a story in Private Eye years before it gets to the national press or the BBC. Its a great souce for stories of wrong doing in national and local government, business, schools, the NHS, transport, farming and the Media. They regularly report on miscarriages of justice which you'll never usually hear about and get to the root of cert…

I would highly recommend Byline times as well. They also do a digital edition on top of a print one.

https://bylinetimes.com/

Re: British Post Office Scandal

#96

Post by Mashimo »

> Post Office Ltd had ordered Second Sight to end its investigation just one day before the report was due to be published, and to destroy all the paperwork that it had not handed over.

Gosh dang it.

Re: British Post Office Scandal

#97

Post by UglyToad »

arethuza wrote: post #45
xarope wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this Mr Bates vs the Post Office? Worth watching? I am just finishing up the latest season of The Crown, and was looking for some other british docudrama to watch (sometimes it's nice to watch a show without a mandated sex scene, car chase, etc)

Yes, I would recommend it and I had previously read the "The Great Post Office Scandal" book (which I would also recommend). Edit: My wife who is a pretty hard nosed commercial litigation lawyer was thoroughly shocked by it - so much so that she actually went off and read the court judgements to get more details.

Can wholeheartedly add my recommendation for the book. In fact I think it should be required reading for anyone in the business of software. While I felt it was a bit over-long it is incredibly thorough and well told and covers multiple different aspects of the scandal while making the human cost obvious in a way that aggregate facts and figures don't.

Re: British Post Office Scandal

#98

Post by smcl »

defrost wrote: post #20
smcl wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private Eye is a publication that Ian Hislop from Have I Got News For You edits. It's often quite funny, it tends to hold government, corporations and public figures to account much better than most newspapers. It's generally pretty good, but it's tarnished a bit by backing Andrew Wakefield when he made up the MMR/autism connection

Hislop quietly rolled back his Wakefield support, sadly not in a front page apology as he should have: https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2010/feb/05/pri... He may have been smitten by Heather Mills who was the journalistic driving force behind that crusade. FWiW when I see Private Eye I still think Peter Cook.

Even there they try to downplay it, to be honest:

> ... when we wrote about the concerns of Wakefield

This really undersells the situation, it suggests he was just a concerned doctor who innocently pursued a theory that turned out to be wrong. You're likely aware of how it went down but for everyone else: Wakefield completely fabricated some evidence to raise fears that a combined measles/mumps/rubella vaccine was causing autism via some hitherto unknown gastro-intestinal disease (giving some pretty invasive and unnecessary procedures on kids in the process) with the intent of profiting from a vaccine of his own. He was struck off and prevented from practicing medicine in the UK (still active in the USA) but the damage had been done and he basically laid the groundwork for modern day antivax movement.

This doesn't discredit Private Eye altogether, of course. It's just a bit annoying that they have this. A reminder, perhaps, that nobody's perfect?

Re: British Post Office Scandal

#99

Post by phkahler »

So.... In a lot of these cases the system wrongly reported money missing at these lower levels. It seems these numbers should have rolled up into sums at a higher level that also showed losses and they prosecuted people. But the money was never actually missing so where did it go? Hmmm?

Re: British Post Office Scandal

#100

Post by razakel »

pipes wrote: post #52
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…

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…

Yeah, this is a huge ongoing scandal, and you'd only know about it if you were in tech or a politics nerd. 750 victims, including bankruptcies, prison sentences and suicides, and just one week after a TV drama something is actually being done about it. (That it can be used to attack Starmer and Davey is, I'm sure, unrelated.)

Heads need to roll over this. Can you believe the woman responsible nearly became a bishop?

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