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

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

#171

Post by Nasrudith » Fri, Jul 11, 2025, 2:39 PM UTC

ignoramous wrote: post #5

Another post office operator, Seema Misra, was pregnant when she was sent to prison. She said in testimony that the local newspaper had published a photo of her and labeled her the "pregnant thief." While she was in prison, her husband was beaten up and subjected to racist insults, she testified. The tidal wave of fascist & far-right grievances are so hard to contain and fight against in the moment. Multi-cultural so…

Blaming the grievances on multiculturalism is yet another lie on the never-ending pile of lies that is fascism. If everyone was a literal clone from the same insular culture, fascism will invent new distinctions to create outgroups to oppress.

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

#172

Post by renewiltord » Fri, Jul 11, 2025, 2:40 PM UTC

RedShift1 wrote: post #41

What was the actual bug in the software that caused the accounting errors?

From the wording of the description of the programmer who failed to debug and labeled it user error it appears that it is fairly typical Accenture-grade software where there is no single bug so much as the program itself approximates the correct result.

Their data model appears to have been akin to having a single accumulator sum up things rather than to use something like double-entry bookkeeping or an account graph so that the source of errors could be traced.

It’s less “a bug” and more a coincidence that the application worked when it did.

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

#173

Post by jekwoooooe » Fri, Jul 11, 2025, 2:42 PM UTC

mrkramer wrote: post #27

I thought British legal system and computer forensics were serious but this case is just a travesty of justice.

[flagged]

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

#174

Post by whycome » Fri, Jul 11, 2025, 2:42 PM UTC

ThisNameIsTaken wrote: post #43

throw0101c wrote: post #12

The four-part mini-series Mr Bates vs The Post Office is worth checking out: > A faulty IT system called Horizon, developed by Fujitsu, creates apparent cash shortfalls that cause Post Office Limited to pursue prosecutions for fraud, theft and false accounting against a number of subpostmasters across the UK. In 2009, a group of these, led by Alan Bates, forms the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance. The prosecutions…

What is particularly striking about the scandal is the impact of the mini-series. From what I understand (as a foreigner to the UK) is that it was the mini-series that sparked national interest in the case. Without it, those involved would still be in a bureaucratic and legal nightmare, in which all institutions rejected their innocence claims, and hardly anyone would have been held accountable. See also the "Impact"…

> It leaves me wondering how the situation would have been if it would have been a (dramaturgically) 'bad' series. It might have left those involved even worse of.

Holy shit. You might see big corps like the post office fund big dramas as a way to sway public opinion. A tool in the pr playbook.

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

#175

Post by justin66 » Fri, Jul 11, 2025, 2:42 PM UTC

duncans wrote: post #143

What is amazing is the engineers the Fujitsu employed would testify in court against some of the subpostmasters saying "there were no faults" where in unearthed evidence of their support logs they could be clearly acknowledging bugs that could create false accounts, manually updating records and audit logs to balance it out (and also sometimes screwing that up). See Nick Wallis' coverage: * https://www.postofficetria…

Pretty sure I can guess the answer, but: does the UK have professional licensure for "software engineers?"

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

#176

Post by foldr » Fri, Jul 11, 2025, 2:43 PM UTC

DaveLond wrote: post #137

tialaramex wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So long as the jury understands this, it's all fine. If you're on trial for doing X and your jury is told by a prosecution witness "mrkramer did X" and under cross they admit that's based on computer records which are often bogus, inconsistent, total nonsense, it doesn't take the world's best defence lawyer to secure an "innocent" verdict. That's not a fun experience, but it probably won't drive you to suicide. One o…

It's worse than that - in UK law you cannot question the evidence produced by a computer unless you can prove the computer is not operating correctly - it's an inversion of the normal burden of proof. They've started the process of thinking about if that law makes sense given this case: https://www.gov.uk/government/calls-for-evidence/use-of-evid...

It’s only an inversion of the usual burden of proof if you assume that evidence from a computer can only ever be used to aid the prosecution. It can also be used to aid the defense, in which case this presumption makes it harder to convict someone, not easier.

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

#177

Post by whycome » Fri, Jul 11, 2025, 2:45 PM UTC

SCdF wrote: post #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.

That’s why the “died by suicide” language can be problematic. These people were driven by several factors and they were left with no choice.

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

#178

Post by s_dev » Fri, Jul 11, 2025, 2:46 PM UTC

akudha wrote: 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?"…

>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?"

They genuinely thought that the new software was uncovering a lot of theft that previously went undetected. This actually spurred them on even further thinking that the software was a godsend.

The sickening part is the people responsible won't ever see the inside of a prison cell despite sending many to prison for their failures.

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

#179

Post by dagmx » Fri, Jul 11, 2025, 2:48 PM UTC

mike_hearn wrote: post #8

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…

Well said. I really wish we had a better word for someone who is bullied into suicide. It’s tantamount to manslaughter imho.

Recently, a snark/bullying community on Reddit resulted in the suicide of their target (a woman responsible for rescuing foxes).

That kind of targeting and bullying is horrific for any individual to process, let alone people who don’t have the press teams and training that celebrities do.

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

#180

Post by whycome » Fri, Jul 11, 2025, 2:48 PM UTC

closewith wrote: post #62

mathiaspoint wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That mess inspired the American legal system though, which is probably one of if not the best in the world. IMO common law is still better than case law at least.

> That mess inspired the American legal system though, which is probably one of if not the best in the world. Poe's Law strikes again. The American legal system isn't even the best legal system in the US.

How dare you. Do you want to get sued?

/s