The post office edited witness statements to secure prosecutions?
Every single prosecutor needs to be considered for perverting the course of justice.
Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known "from the start"
241–250 of 276 posts
Re: Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known "from the start"
#242"I [Paul Patterson, co-CEO of Fujitsu's European division] am surprised that that detail was not included in the witness statements given by Fujitsu staff to the Post Office and I have seen some evidence of editing witness statements by others" How does this scandal keep getting worse and worse when the only thing to cover up is a contract for some poorly written software? At this point I'm starting to suspect some u…
I found that interesting as well. It shifts the blame away from software and a cover up by Fujitsu to more of a perception/reputation/political cover up by the Post Office. Fujitsu still has some blame, but if their statements were being modified by the post office, who's responsibility is it to review that? If I gave a written statement to a police officer, is it my responsibility to follow up and make sure they did…
> but if their statements were being modified by the post office, who's responsibility is it to review that?
From what I can tell from the inquiry testimony, the witness statements weren't exactly modified by the PO; they were effectively drafted by the PO's legal team. The lawyers produced pro-forma template statements, such that witnesses only had to fill in the blanks for names, dates and so on.
Some witnesses balked at some of the language used in the template, e.g. words to the effect of "I believe the Horizon system was working completely correctly". In response, the legal team amended the template.
The evidence produced to the inquiry can be viewed here:
https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/
The inquiry has a youtube channel, where videos of the public hearings can be found:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgijUpaux8X4Nvjx3TmrHhg
For what it's worth, I've never given a statement to police that was in my own words. In every case, the police interviewer led me through my testimony by asking a series of questions, and writing down my answer (in his own words).
Re: Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known "from the start"
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the UK, private parties can prosecute people. The Post office was doing this. As a citizen of the USA, this is a completely alien concept to me. How can a corporation put a person in prison?
> In the UK, private parties can prosecute people. [...] How can a corporation put a person in prison? On criminal trial, not in prison. (Prosecute, not convict.) In theory, this sounds like it could somewhat mitigate the phenomenon where a law is on the books but the DoJ or whoever employs public prosecutors decides to just ignore it. (Whether that’d be a good thing or a bad one from a separation of powers perspecti…
> this sounds like it could somewhat mitigate the phenomenon
Wouldn't work in the UK; the Director of Public Prosecutions (a member of the government) has the power to take over a private prosecution, and then drop all charges.
Re: Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known "from the start"
#244The Wikipedia article on Paula Vennells tells me that the Post Office prosecuted 700 subpostmasters between 1999 and 2015 [0]. That works out to about one prosecution every 8 days. I do not know the baseline rate at which postmasters commit fraud or are prosecuted, but isn't one prosecution every 8 days an awfully high number? Shouldn't the Post Office have conducted some sort of internal investigation as soon as the…
One possibility is that the PO bosses thought that there had always been a high level of theft and that Horizons system was finally uncovering it. The ultimate case of projecting your own failings onto others by grasping and immoral execs? I mean seriously, if you were a criminal, would you go to all the trouble to run a post office for years?
> PO bosses thought that there had always been a high level of theft
From the testimony, it seems that is rather likely. PO managers seem to have had a pretty bad attitude to subpostmasters in general. I think the general view was that subpostmasters are essentially village shopkeepers, drawn from a population that would happily engage in grift if the opportunity presented itself, and therefore needed close monitoring.
Re: Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known "from the start"
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
As of 2023, there were 6727 subpostmasters. So about 10% committed fraud. Seems a little high - but I could believe it if the subpostmasters are the local "boss", handling cash, and are supposed to pay 'the blokes in London' who they never meet. Also, most subpostmasters had many employees - and I believe if any one of their employees was commiting fraud/stealing money, then it was the sub postmaster responsible - so…
It was the arrogance that they thought that these subpostmasters had been doing this for years, and just been caught out by their new computer system. The contempt for their staff is insane
> The contempt for their staff is insane
Subpostmasters are not Post Office staff; they are self-employed shopkeepers, who sign a contract with the PO to run the office in a part of their shop. I suspect that part of the contempt is precisely because the subpostmasters are not PO managers who have struggled up the greasy Post Office management pole. They are "civilians", and bureaucrats often despise civilians.
Re: Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known "from the start"
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
witness statements are frequently collaboratively written/edited and then signed by the witness... I don't think collaboration or editing is in itself a crime - the crime is to sign a statement which you know to be untrue or deceiving.
But it seems pretty obvious these lawyers were covering up for their customers. That would fall under being fraudulent, no?
The lawyers produced "template" statements, that witnesses were supposed to complete by filling in the blanks. These templates included various forms of words that they wanted included, e.g. to avoid having to prove in court, for each case, that the Horizon software was behaving correctly. I don't think that amounts to "covering up" - after all, these lawyers were paid advocates for their client, the Post Office.
The real covering-up was the PO lawyers' failure to hand over to the defence evidence that might support the defence case. That's criminal (perverting the course of justice), and also, in the words of the appeal court judge, "an affront to justice".
Re: Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known "from the start"
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why stop at the Post Office directors? Because the principal and agent aren't the same thing. If an agent commits a crime without the knowledge of the principal, then only the agent should have criminal liability.
Is that how English law works, or is that your moral opinion? IANAL so genuinely curious
IANAL also; but I don't believe English law works like that. The actions your agent performs while acting under your instructions are, on the face of it, your actions. That doesn't protect your agent from liability, but you may have to defend allegations that you were e.g. recklessly negligent.
Re: Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known "from the start"
#248"Patterson also told Parliament members that Fujitsu has "a moral obligation" to contribute to the compensation for victims." How often do you hear a suit talk of their "moral obligation"? That really struck me. So true So often we (computer programmers) get to walk away free and clear from the cluster fucks that arrive from our mistakes
talking about a "moral obligation" usually means there's no legal obligation, so people don't start down that route until they've exhausted all other obligations. unfortunately, a moral obligation is about the least powerful type of obligation there is.
I suspect that Fujitsu (the company, not the EU CEO) won't be coughing up any cash until lawyers have picked over the contracts and determined that the company is liable.
Apart from anything else, this is a diplomatic issue: the Japanese ambassador to the UK make representations to the responsible minister, threatening serious diplomatic consequences if Fujitsu kept being criticized.
Re: Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known "from the start"
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
Clearly, there must have been systemic issues at Fujitsu which allowed the accounting software to fail so spectacularly.
Horizons was based on a failed benefits system and it was widely known that the quality of the software team was not good. IIRC it didn't even use ACID transactions, so glitches and power outages could cause big problems. What sort of company would put their Z team on a multi-billion pound contract?
The "A" team is the Sales Support team. Once the deal has been reeled in and the contract is signed, that's a sale, and the team moves on, to be replaced with whatever can be cobbled together.
Re: Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known "from the start"
#250How material were the post offices “overbooking” of profits by false sales registered via this bug ? How plausible is it that in-fact the internal narrative was that the post office was wildly more profitable than it was, but that they just need to crack down on this minor theft problem that they have via prosecutions while at the same time padding their figures a bit via postmasters money ?
It's worse than that. Post Office investigators got performance-related bonuses for every successful prosecution. They were chomping at the bit to prosecute anyone who showed the slightest discrepancy, and all their Christmases came at once after Horizon was installed. Moral hazard, cobra effect, if all you have is a hammer, etc. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/10/post-office-exec...
To be fair, Sewell (Fujitsu security team manager) was asked about these bonuses, and denied that they related to prosecutions; they were just for doing their job well.
To be unfair, the job they were tasked with was providing evidence to support the prosecutions. And Sewell was a strikingly unconvincing witness; "It was 2008. I don't remember." Apparently he remembered almost nothing that might have a bearing on the inquiry.