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At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

nytimes.com

151–160 of 585 posts

Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#151
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they're arguing that the headline should be "13 UK postmasters murdered by the state", just that the extremely passive "died by suicide" lacks context and largely leaves out the UK Post Office's role in their death. I think they would prefer some thing along the lines of "At Least 13 People Killed Themselves After False Accusations From U.K. Post Office, Report Says".

I’m fine with that. And I agree with the sentiment, just not the conclusion that we should be reporting these as not-suicide. If the original comment was indeed that tempered then I have no issue.

It is the passive voice, not the word suicide that is the issue.

Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#152
post #19

To the NY Times: please don't say they died by suicide. The passive voice makes it sound like some act of God, something regrettable but unavoidable that just somehow happened. It's important not to sugarcoat what happened: the postmasters killed themselves because the British state was imprisoning them for crimes they didn't commit, based on evidence from a buggy financial accounting system. Don't blur the details o…

>if software developers screw up Well, yes, they did screw up, but the fallout was amplified 100x by bad management.

Indeed. This is not about Horizon's bugs. It is about management that was incurious and perhaps politically and financially motivated to ignore Horizon's shortcomings, enough so to knowingly destroy lives. Charges of murder should be laid.

Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#153

To the NY Times: please don't say they died by suicide. The passive voice makes it sound like some act of God, something regrettable but unavoidable that just somehow happened. It's important not to sugarcoat what happened: the postmasters killed themselves because the British state was imprisoning them for crimes they didn't commit, based on evidence from a buggy financial accounting system. Don't blur the details o…

> Some glitches were of their time and wouldn't occur these days, e.g. malfunctions in resistive touch screens that caused random clicks on POS screens to occur overnight. These still occur on modern touchscreen laptops (work-provided Dell Latitude 7450 and mandated to use Windows with a lot of restrictions). It's not an everyday issue, but a once a month one. Other than that, completely agree with your assessment: t…

Arguably, it happens today on a modern iPhone capacitive screen. I've had issues where the UI performs a "bait and switch" and swaps a target that I inadvertently press. ios26 is worse because of some lag at certain times.

Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#154
post #140

This was depressing to read. Failures at so many levels. 1. Immediately after Horizon was rolled out, issues were reported. But ignored 2. Prosecutors didn't bother to verify if there is another explanation before accusing thousands of people of stealing? Isn't it common sense to pause for a second and think, "could we please double check the evidence? how can thousands of postal workers suddenly turn into thieves?"…

I suggest you keep an eye on what's being published in Private Eye and Computer Weekly if you have access to those where you are. They're holding feet to the fire on all these points.

One thing I would say is that if somebody is convicted in the UK, it's acceptable legally and culturally to call them by the crime they committed.

The problem is that in this case the Post Office had unique legal powers, and was being run by people who did not want to "harm the brand" by admitting they had made mistakes, so kept digging.

There is also a fundamental flaw in how the courts - and the Post Office prosecutors - were instructed to think about the evidence in common law.

Bizarrely, it was not (and may still not), be an acceptable defense to say that computer records are wrong. They are assumed correct in UK courts. IT systems were legally considered infallible, and if your evidence contradicts an IT systems evidence, you were considered a liar by the court, and a jury might be instructed accordingly.

Yes, that's awful. Yes, it's ruined lives.

But also, I think all involved have realised pointing fingers at one or two individuals to blame hasn't really helped fix things. Like an air accident, you have to have several things go wrong and compound errors to get into this amount of trouble, normally. There were systemic failing across procurement, implementation, governance, investigations, prosecutions, within the justice system and beyond.

I already know people who have worked for Fujitsu in the UK are not exactly shouting about it. And yet, they're still getting awarded contracts before the compensation has been paid out...

Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#155
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK law said that there was a presumption that computer systems were working correctly unless there was evidence to the contrary. That’s not inherently nuts. It makes roughly as much sense as assuming that, say, a dishwasher is in working order unless there’s evidence to the contrary. This presumption in and of itself could just as well aid a person’s defense as hinder it (e.g. if they have an alibi based on computer…

>UK law said that there was a presumption that computer systems were working correctly unless there was evidence to the contrary. Defense had to prove that only one Horizon/Fujitsu accounting software was buggy and the whole prosecution falls apart e.g. If John's Horizon/Fujitsu accounting software has bugs then Peter's Horizon/Fujitsu accounting software most probably has bugs too.

IIRC one issue was that every time someone advanced the theory something was wrong with Horizon, the Post Office kept claiming that nobody else was experiencing any issues. They also lied under oath, claiming no bugs that could cause such situations were known. Given this most the of defence lawyers abandoned that line of inquiry (they were nothing special, seeing as village postmasters aren't rich).

Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#156
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they're arguing that the headline should be "13 UK postmasters murdered by the state", just that the extremely passive "died by suicide" lacks context and largely leaves out the UK Post Office's role in their death. I think they would prefer some thing along the lines of "At Least 13 People Killed Themselves After False Accusations From U.K. Post Office, Report Says".

I’m fine with that. And I agree with the sentiment, just not the conclusion that we should be reporting these as not-suicide. If the original comment was indeed that tempered then I have no issue.

It's the lack of clarity in what happened. I think the rephrasing mike suggested is much clearer:

> The postmasters killed themselves because the British state was imprisoning them for crimes they didn't commit, based on evidence from a buggy financial accounting system.

That's just better writing!

Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#157
Effectively tortured to death.

One of the things that frustrates me with how ethics is taught in computer science is that we use examples like Therac 25, and people listen in horror, then their takeaway is frequently "well thank god I don't work on medical equipment".

The fact that it's medical equipment is a distraction. All software can cause harm to others. All of it. You need to care about all of it.

Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#158

To the NY Times: please don't say they died by suicide. The passive voice makes it sound like some act of God, something regrettable but unavoidable that just somehow happened. It's important not to sugarcoat what happened: the postmasters killed themselves because the British state was imprisoning them for crimes they didn't commit, based on evidence from a buggy financial accounting system. Don't blur the details o…

While there is no real doubt that most, if not all, of these suicides were a direct consequence of the appalling way this monumental failure and its investigation was handled, reporting the news responsibly has become a minefield in which any deviation from what is strictly known is liable to be exploited by those who do not want their role in events to become public. As you want to call a spade a spade, can we agree…

He should be charged with perjury and sued by the families.

Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While there is no real doubt that most, if not all, of these suicides were a direct consequence of the appalling way this monumental failure and its investigation was handled, reporting the news responsibly has become a minefield in which any deviation from what is strictly known is liable to be exploited by those who do not want their role in events to become public. As you want to call a spade a spade, can we agree…

> Perhaps also on the software engineer who testified repeatedly under oath that the system worked fine, even as the bug tracker filled up with cases where it didn't I don't think you needed to ask for agreement.

Partly on account of the "perhaps" in the original, and partly because I have seen (elsewhere) "just doing his job" defenses.

In corner cases, culpability for uncertain expertise can be a tricky issue - you may recall the case of the Italian geologists, a few years back, indicted for minimizing the risk of an earthquake shortly before one occurred - but the case here seems pretty clear-cut (again, I'm speaking morally, not legally.)

Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#160
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes “committed suicide” any more plain or honest than “died by suicide”?

It assigns agency to the person who died. Think about it this way: I have relative who is vegan, so she has been trying to convince me to kill myself for many years now. I can still choose whether I do it though, and obviously I chose not to so far, although during COVID I didn’t have much other social interaction, so I nearly went through with it. I had agency throughout though. I’m not dead because I chose not to g…

What?
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