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UK Post Office: 700 Horizon software scandal victims to receive £600k each

theguardian.com

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Re: UK Post Office: 700 Horizon software scandal victims to receive £600k each

#31

Post by tentacleuno »

darkclouds wrote: post #8
edandersen wrote: post #6

Any prosecutions yet for the people behind the scandal?

Get real, this is the UK, in fact if you follow the progression of some of the key players, they are now manipulating politicians. So once politicians learn to give the bird to the media headlights, you might start to see this country cleaned up, ironically I think Russell Brand can probably do more to clean up the media and their witch hunts than any member of the Royal Family or Govt. Personally I think £600k is an…

Russel Brand? Isn't his career practically over now, after the recent allegations?

Re: UK Post Office: 700 Horizon software scandal victims to receive £600k each

#32

Post by AnthonyUK »

PaulKeeble wrote: post #14
rajandatta wrote: post #9

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 agree. There are a lot more victims of the Post offices crimes who paid the difference or were fired from their jobs that are not being compensated, the true scale of the problem is much larger than just those convicted. What astonishes me about this response is that we have clear criminal action by executives in the Post Office, they knew the system was faulty and they still went ahead with the legal cases. These…

I agree. One point that is often missed is that those same executives were financially incentivised for Horizon to work by having their £1m+ bonuses tied to it.

They need to be held accountable and jailed if found guilty.

Re: UK Post Office: 700 Horizon software scandal victims to receive £600k each

#33

Post by benj111 »

thmsths wrote: post #10

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 ...

My current theory is that the 'justice' system is set up basically to punish a 'criminal' class, often overlapping with the lower class.

The middle and upper class don't really have much interaction, they just fondly imagine that the justice system upholds the values it espouses.

The 'criminal' class aren't so much identified by a fair trial, or evidence, but by what sounds about right.

This system may work well for moving actual criminals through the sausage factory, but falls down spectacularly in cases like this, where the 'obvious' or most likely gut feeling isn't correct.

Re: UK Post Office: 700 Horizon software scandal victims to receive £600k each

#34

Post by Daviey »

pipes wrote: post #11
rajandatta wrote: post #9

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…

> the media coverage is small

I was mostly driving yesterday, and it had significant radio coverage. LBC even interviewed a former 'post-mistress' that suffered a custodial prison sentence, and was furious this compensation wasn't sufficient. She was convicted of taking £59k and she got a 9 month term (half of which was released with tag).

Considering people who lost their career, marriages, houses etc. I get it! Imagine your children thinking you are a convicted thief.

This was her, https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2021-04-23/never-thought-t...

Re: UK Post Office: 700 Horizon software scandal victims to receive £600k each

#35

Post by Daviey »

thmsths wrote: post #10

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 ...

The thing that confuses me... where did the supposedly lost money go? From my very basic understanding, the computer system said there was a gap in accounting, so it was assumed to be the operator that took it. There must have been millions of £ in "lost" money, but actual accounts couldn't have shown the loss, because there wasn't. Were these convictions purely based on the data from a computer system, with no forensics accounts of the theft or where the proceeds ended up?

Re: UK Post Office: 700 Horizon software scandal victims to receive £600k each

#36

Post by psd1 »

toyg wrote: post #13
pipes wrote: post #11

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 think part of the reason for relative quietness is: after 30 years of privatisation drives, what is left of the Post Office is just another business with some extra regulatory burden. "Business Screwing Up" happens every day and is hardly news. This said, thank goodness some free press still exists in the UK. Without Private Eye, these folks would never have seen even the little justice they received.

I don't think that's really it - the public has some appetite for corporate scandal, modulo short attentive spans, and the human element really sells the story.

Unfortunately, we absolutely do have a free press here, it's just been captured by bastards who use their freedom to aid and abet other bastards. I hope hell is inventing new tortures for Murdoch and the dead Barclay.

Re: UK Post Office: 700 Horizon software scandal victims to receive £600k each

#37

Post by psd1 »

valdiorn wrote: post #18
darkclouds wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get real, this is the UK, in fact if you follow the progression of some of the key players, they are now manipulating politicians. So once politicians learn to give the bird to the media headlights, you might start to see this country cleaned up, ironically I think Russell Brand can probably do more to clean up the media and their witch hunts than any member of the Royal Family or Govt. Personally I think £600k is an…

Wait until you read about this guy https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/27/innocent-andrew-... The maximum compensation you can get in the UK is around 1.1 million IIRC. They were going to deduct several hundred thousand pounds from that for "room and board" while he was in jail, leaving him with just over 700k

I don't think you read TFA, which anyway had a misleading title. He would not be charged for his prison costs. It appears to be a factor in determining compensation.

It looks to me like they are basing it on how much he would have earned had he been free to work, in which context you can see the logic of deducting costs he would have incurred. I find this callous and despicable, but the problem is related to determining the value of a human life - there isn't really an answer, yet guidance is needed for consistency between cases.

How would you approach it?

I think £2m should be enough for a reasonably comfortable retirement in most of the UK, and that over 10 years is enough of a person's liberty taken to warrant providing that.

Should someone get more if they were a high earner?

I'd like compensation to come out of the DPP budget, to align incentives properly, but starving that department might result in less justice instead of more.

Re: UK Post Office: 700 Horizon software scandal victims to receive £600k each

#38

Post by 15457345234 »

Daviey wrote: post #35
thmsths wrote: post #10

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 ...

The thing that confuses me... where did the supposedly lost money go? From my very basic understanding, the computer system said there was a gap in accounting, so it was assumed to be the operator that took it. There must have been millions of £ in "lost" money, but actual accounts couldn't have shown the loss, because there wasn't. Were these convictions purely based on the data from a computer system, with no foren…

From reading the trial notes listed below I'd genuinely be astonished if they could answer that question. The 3rd line support staff (!!!) were literally inserting records into the database to balance transactions (!!!) using the command line client and stored procedures. Also, they were doing that based on their own understanding of the issue which had occurred and the action that needed to be taken to remedy the issue, and the records that were being inserted were indistinguishable from 'conventionally entered' transactions. In addition, some other level of staff - it seems like yet another layer of DBAs - had root on the database with no audit trail beyond logon/logoff.

The sheer number of routine failures that appear to have been accepted as part of the normal operation of the system is astonishing.

Re: UK Post Office: 700 Horizon software scandal victims to receive £600k each

#39

Post by 15457345234 »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #19
thmsths wrote: post #10

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

What I don't understand is why a drop-in CEO decides to go to bat so relentlessly for a system that they didn't select and a vendor they have no prior connection to.

It's the sort of thing you'd expect from the chairman of a 15 generation family company, not some walk-in recruitee.

Re: UK Post Office: 700 Horizon software scandal victims to receive £600k each

#40

Post by [deleted] »

FridayNightTV wrote: post #21
walthamstow wrote: post #16

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?

[deleted]
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