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

nytimes.com

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

#241

Post by helloguillecl »

arrowsmith wrote: post #203
PaulRobinson wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 r…

> if somebody is convicted in the UK, it's acceptable legally and culturally to call them by the crime they committed. Is this not the case in other countries?

In Germany, calling someone by a crime they have been sentenced of, constitutes defamation.

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

#242

Post by masfuerte »

cedws wrote: post #233
rwmj wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual answer to this is terrible. Courts had to trust the computer was correct. There was a common law presumption that a computer was operating correctly unless there is evidence to the contrary (and getting that evidence is basically impossible for the individuals being charged who were post office workers, not computer experts, and the source code was a trade secret). This might change, partly in response to…

I was not aware of this. Wow. I hope they're taking a hard look at past cases where they've done this.

No chance. The article concludes with the depressing statement that the government has no plans to reform the law, so the injustices will continue. They certainly won't be spending money on digging up old injustices.

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

#243

Post by loeg »

XTXinverseXTY wrote: post #228
jordanb wrote: post #191

I went on a deep dive on this scandal about a year or so ago. One thing that struck me is the class element. Basically, the Post Office leadership could not understand why someone would buy a PO franchise. It's a substantial amount of money up front, and people aren't allowed to buy multiple franchises, so every PO was an owner/operator position. Essentially people were "buying a job". The people in leadership couldn…

Forgive my indelicate question, but why would someone buy a PO franchise?

Nevermind sibling comment about money-losing businesses, there are many small business operations like this where a substantial amount of capital buys a relatively moderate paying retail job. Think things like Subway franchises, or gas stations.

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

#244

Post by jen20 »

Maxious wrote: post #231
jen20 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect there's more to it in than that. I'd wager there was a solid amount of general incompetence involved at the PO "corporate" - management politically couldn't admit that their consultingware could be anything other than perfect, because they signed off on the decision to buy it, and probably on all the work orders that got them to that point. If anyone from PO management or that of the consulting firm (Fujits…

I regret to inform you that not only is Fujitsu not banned from UK government work, they're not even banned from continuing the same project https://www.publictechnology.net/2025/03/17/business-and-ind...

Wow. That is the kind of thing that every reasonable person should be calling their MP's office about daily.

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

#245

Post by jordanb »

XTXinverseXTY wrote: post #228
jordanb wrote: post #191

I went on a deep dive on this scandal about a year or so ago. One thing that struck me is the class element. Basically, the Post Office leadership could not understand why someone would buy a PO franchise. It's a substantial amount of money up front, and people aren't allowed to buy multiple franchises, so every PO was an owner/operator position. Essentially people were "buying a job". The people in leadership couldn…

Forgive my indelicate question, but why would someone buy a PO franchise?

1) The franchise actually does represent a decent amount of stability and financial security for the franchisee. Well-run locations typically could clear a modest profit for the owner. These were not money losing franchises for the most part (until the prosecutions started of course).

2) The post offices were geographically distributed pretty evenly throughout the UK so there were positions in far-flung locations well outside London. In many of these communities it was a good and stable job compared to what else was available.

3) Many of the postmasters reported liking working retail positions where they get a lot of face time with customers. In many small towns the post office was a central part of the community.

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

#246

Post by skywhopper »

arrowsmith wrote: post #202
dagmx wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish someone had the political capital to do something about the tabloids. They’re really a detriment to society.

I don't like the tabloids either but what exactly do you propose we do? Are you sure it's a good idea to undermine the freedom of the press? A government with the power to censor the tabloids is also a government with the power to censor the news outlets that you do like. I'd be careful about opening that can of worms.

No other country has as toxic a press culture as the UK. Addressing that doesn’t have to mean restricting press freedom. If something is a destructive cancer on society, you can’t just ignore it, or eventually it will destroy those freedoms for everyone else.

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

#247

Post by nwienert »

tokai wrote: post #230
nwienert wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s incredible utility to the term. It refers to people in the government with a lot of power and little public exposure, and perhaps some indication of using their power against the will of the general public, and yes there’s tons of these people, and it’s quite good to have the public generally worried about them. American political history is littered with deep state plots that turned out to be true - Iraq war…

Iraq war was definitely not the work of any deep state, if you follow your definition. It was pushed by the president and his government, not faceless bureaucrats.

Certainly the pressure on them and the “intel” they saw on WMD was in part the work of the deep state, that the president was captured by them is sort of the point.

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

#248

Post by xbryanx »

lanfeust6 wrote: post #77
xbryanx wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> please don't say they died by suicide I encourage you to read the current thinking on this evolving language, which offers some explanation as to why we're moving away from damaging language like "committing" suicide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_terminology#%22Committ... https://www.iasp.info/languageguidelines/

"damaging", in no quantifiable way whatsoever. It's just the euphemism treadmill at work, nothing more.

> in no quantifiable way whatsoever

You may disagree with my assertion, but there has been considerable research into the role of media and reporting in suicide, indicating that contagion is real and that words matter when reporting on these issues.

Source: https://reportingonsuicide.org/research/

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

#249

Post by marcosdumay »

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…

> Horizon is the case that should replace Therac-25 as a study in what can go wrong if software developers screw up.

Hum, no. Horizon had nothing to do with problems of software development.

It's a case of unaccountable judges, lying attorneys, and the entire police system acting in a conspiracy to hide information and gaslight the society at large. The fact that there is a software error there somewhere isn't relevant at all.

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

#250

Post by jordanb »

ionwake wrote: post #236
jordanb wrote: post #191

I went on a deep dive on this scandal about a year or so ago. One thing that struck me is the class element. Basically, the Post Office leadership could not understand why someone would buy a PO franchise. It's a substantial amount of money up front, and people aren't allowed to buy multiple franchises, so every PO was an owner/operator position. Essentially people were "buying a job". The people in leadership couldn…

I found this comment insightful but I feel I must itirate ( maybe its not needed), that it is not "clear" if leadership were ignorant, as you said, ( though Im sure you are part right ), I have read that it was malicious leadership trying to protect their own asses as per another comment.

I don't mean to let the leadership off the hook. What they did was profoundly wrong and they have blood on their hands.

There were two phases though: the initial rollout, and sometime later the coverup.

If they had asked very reasonable questions about the software during the rollout there would have been no need for a coverup. No software rolls out without any bugs and it's really reasonable to ask why so many post offices had missing funds and if they were sure if it was real or not. The PO leadership basically ignored all evidence that there were bugs from the very beginning, and that makes no sense until you realize that they were starting from the premise that the postmasters are thieves and this software is going to catch them.

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