21–30 of 42 posts
You can subscribe to Private Eye here for £38 a year with an issue through your letterbox every fortnight https://checkout.private-eye.co.uk/singleitem?item=PEY&prom=...
Real investigative journalism, holding politicians to account, all whist taking the piss in classic British style.
If Private Eye hadn't investigated this, who would have?
I've followed this matter a little bit as I work in the I.T. industry. I don't live in the UK and have no knowledge of the actors. The government response, including this announcement is shockingly deficient and on the low side of the impact. For a start - it only targets those who were convicted. It does not take into account all actors adversely impacted including falsely accused but not convicted. It doesn't take…
I live in the UK. It's bizarrely barely news. The scale of it is staggering yet the media coverage is small. Well it feels small to me. I don't see any public outrage about this. Part of me thinks it's because it's sort of an institution like the NHS and critisizing it is a no no (though it has been privitized). I want to see heads roll at the post office. As far as I can remember staff knew about the software issues…
Seconded.
I'm willing to bet only Private Eye readers (where to story broke and who continue to demand justice) are aware of this debacle and the shear scale of misery it has caused; all due to software being considered infallible.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in the UK. It's bizarrely barely news. The scale of it is staggering yet the media coverage is small. Well it feels small to me. I don't see any public outrage about this. Part of me thinks it's because it's sort of an institution like the NHS and critisizing it is a no no (though it has been privitized). I want to see heads roll at the post office. As far as I can remember staff knew about the software issues…
The Post Office hasn't been privatised. The company is still owned by the state. Individual subpostmasters run their branches as their own semi-independent businesses using the Post Office brand - but it has always been this way in most of the country. It's Royal Mail (the letters and parcel delivery side of things) that was privatised.
What I can't comprehend is the scale of the failure of the justice system here. Unless I am mistaken there were hundreds of victims over more than a decade. So 700 trials, in which the judges and the juries failed these people. How can such a systemic failure happen? It paints a very poor picture of the justice system in the UK ...
It's because Post Office bosses failed to disclose the facts. This was/is a systematic cover-up. What I don't understand is why the people responsible for this, such as then CEO Paula Vennells, do not face criminal charges. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/18/post-o... https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/apr/23/post-office... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Vennells
There is an enormous amount of incredible litigation behaviour by the post office in this case. The problem for them is: it all came to trial in the end and its there for everyone to read in painful detail.
Here is, for example, the post office trying to remove the judge in the case after it all started unraveling:
https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2019/871.html
And in 929 of https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2019/3408.html the Judge writes of Post office senior officers refusal to accept to flaws of Horizon even very late in the game:
"This approach by the Post Office has amounted, in reality, to bare assertions and denials that ignore what has actually occurred, at least so far as the witnesses called before me in the Horizon Issues trial are concerned. It amounts to the 21st century equivalent of maintaining that the earth is flat. "
You can subscribe to Private Eye here for £38 a year with an issue through your letterbox every fortnight https://checkout.private-eye.co.uk/singleitem?item=PEY&prom=...
+1 for Private Eye. Real investigative journalism, holding politicians to account, all whist taking the piss in classic British style. If Private Eye hadn't investigated this, who would have?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in the UK. It's bizarrely barely news. The scale of it is staggering yet the media coverage is small. Well it feels small to me. I don't see any public outrage about this. Part of me thinks it's because it's sort of an institution like the NHS and critisizing it is a no no (though it has been privitized). I want to see heads roll at the post office. As far as I can remember staff knew about the software issues…
> I live in the UK. It's bizarrely barely news. Seconded. I'm willing to bet only Private Eye readers (where to story broke and who continue to demand justice) are aware of this debacle and the shear scale of misery it has caused; all due to software being considered infallible.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/30/fujitsu_japan_micjet_...
Some were able to do bank related activities as unrelated people because their cards were issued around the same time, and this thing will be our medical insurance ID at the end of 2024
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I live in the UK. It's bizarrely barely news. Seconded. I'm willing to bet only Private Eye readers (where to story broke and who continue to demand justice) are aware of this debacle and the shear scale of misery it has caused; all due to software being considered infallible.
Shearing is for sheep
:-)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's because Post Office bosses failed to disclose the facts. This was/is a systematic cover-up. What I don't understand is why the people responsible for this, such as then CEO Paula Vennells, do not face criminal charges. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/18/post-o... https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/apr/23/post-office... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Vennells
This is the key. The prosecutions were all "private prosecutions" by the post office, in which a private entity begins (and sometimes carries through to end) a prosecution _on behalf of the people_. There is an enormous amount of incredible litigation behaviour by the post office in this case. The problem for them is: it all came to trial in the end and its there for everyone to read in painful detail. Here is, for e…
And to top it all off, this particular "private entity" is state owned.