Mr Bates V's the Post Office

[Taunton Blue Genie]

Re: Mr Bates V's the Post Office

I wonder if libel claims can be made against newspapers that ran with "sub-postmistress stole money from pensioners".

“We were ostracised in Bridlington," he told Times Radio recently. "We were abused in the streets. Our daughter was bullied. She was on the school bus and spat on by a young boy because [they thought] her father was a thief, and he’d take money from old people.”

Although the convictions may have been or may still be overturned, the newspapers would have been reporting the findings of the court at the time and which were not their responsibilty. It's heart-breaking for the poor souls that suffered from the ineptitude and viciousness of the Post Office but newspapers would be open to libel cases every time any conviction of any kind reported by them was overturned across the board.

By the way, although I watched the TV drama about it (and when I was doing something else at the time and may have missed some fine detail) how did the convictions take place without the Post Office presenting to the court a complete breakdown of the supposed takings, which could be audited in detail?

I did listen to the podcast a while ago but my memory of the detail on this front is hazy too.

[life on mars]

Re: Mr Bates V's the Post Office

The analysis
A plague on all their houses

Rishi Sunak today announced unprecedented legislation to pardon en masse those victims of the Post Office scandal who have spent years waiting for justice. It was a mere day ago that his Justice Secretary, Alex Chalk, told MPs that the government wanted to exhaust all other options before taking the ‘radical’ step of overruling multiple courts. It must have been an exhausting 24 hours, then. The precedent set by the legislation is the reason Chalk wasn’t quite so gung ho yesterday: the government has never overruled the verdicts of multiple courts before, and MPs and legal experts are concerned that this could have long-term implications that aren’t ideal. But the legislation that Sunak announced at Prime Minister’s Questions (and that Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake then elaborated on in answer to an urgent question in the Commons afterwards) is going to pass. Labour has been clear that it will support the bill when it comes before MPs because there needs to be unprecedented (that word again) action in response to such a serious scandal.

No political party really benefits from the heat of the past few days, despite attempts from all sides to blame the others. Voters see this as a plague on all houses given the problems with the Horizon IT system started in 1999. The Tories, Labour and SNP are taking aim at Ed Davey, while Conservative chairman Lee Anderson told the Lib Dem leader to ‘clear off’ at Prime Minister’s Questions today. The Lib Dems are arguing that Oliver Dowden has questions to answer – a pretty unconvincing deflection – and are instructing their MPs to send out standard answers to constituents which argue the focus on Davey is unfair as all governments elected since the scandal began had oversight of the Horizon system. Davey’s party, along with Labour, is arguing that not enough was done quickly enough. Sunak is accusing others of trying to politicise the issue. As I say in this review of PMQs, though, the reason the government has moved at pace in the past couple of days is precisely because the scandal became political.

Oh and there was fraud bouncing around hence the need for an IT solution and pen and paper was very difficult to audit, just needed the IT system to be audited at the time by the government of the time

[life on mars]

Re: Mr Bates V's the Post Office

The moral of the story is simple: the rich, powerful and prominent members of the establishment are anathema to democracy and can and will wreck lives and livelihoods

Added to which the innocent are always adversely effected by the dodgy guilty ones ,which result in new systems and mistakes

[North Cardiff Blue]

Re: Mr Bates V's the Post Office

I think they said the people wrongly convicted have been offered £163K interim payment and the ability to pursue a larger payout, or they can take a full and final offer of £600K, others affected but not wrongly convicted £75K.

[nomad blue]

Re: Mr Bates V's the Post Office

I would hope Fujitsu would be liable for compensating/repaying back part of their contract, but I'd guess that it was too long ago now, and the software/project was signed off by the customer so no recourse.

Having said that, they may pay the Govt/PO back what looks like a large sum, and get more than that back through other Govt contracts.

[Rjk]

Re: Mr Bates V's the Post Office

https://twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1745206563097227495?t=B5UU1HhIFx-b1-UHJ4Mz_g&s=19

[Robin Friday's Ghost]

Re: Mr Bates V's the Post Office

I would hope Fujitsu would be liable for compensating/repaying back part of their contract, but I'd guess that it was too long ago now, and the software/project was signed off by the customer so no recourse.

Having said that, they may pay the Govt/PO back what looks like a large sum, and get more than that back through other Govt contracts.

The time line and a suggestion of why they seem to have got off lightly so far.

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252509066/Fujitsu-escaped-huge-lawsuit-because-Post-Office-behaved-so-badly-in-Horizon-scandal?fbclid=IwAR2iDDkqFeskVObGjbFuS5ojR6FbQXMdsa2NCmMXD_VP2ZjmXYvIMU6FYF0

[ninian opinian]

Re: Mr Bates V's the Post Office

Alan Bates comes across as humble and the show captured that so well, that is what has helped to get the public behind them. I understand how angry they must be but I think some need to learn from his approach and remain humble, they will start to lose some public sympathy if they start shouting at ministers and demanding millions and saying £600K is not enough. They should leave the solicitors play hardball and get maximum payouts, and continue to portray the hard done by quiet little sub-postmaster image who were smashed by a massive government-backed organisation.

Your take from all this is that postmasters vilified and jailed should remain humble? Bollox to that, I’d be absolutely frothing at the mouth until all those who covered up this scandal are brought to book and I received millions in compensation.

[ninian opinian]

Re: Mr Bates V's the Post Office

The boss of Fujitsu at the time of the Horizon scandal was useless Tory Minister Gillian Keegan's husband.

HE knew. SHE knew. THEY knew. A criminal Investigation is required.

[Elwood Blues]

Re: Mr Bates V's the Post Office

I saw the Panorama program on the scandal today. I see it was made in 2022 but I missed it then ( due to my health problems that year I don't remember much of it!) but I found it just as powerful as the drama,perhaps even more so as it showed the real people behind the story.

Leaving aside the appalling behaviour of the Post Office the performance of Fujitsu is obviously dreadful. I am a former computer professional myself (with the Civil Service, BT and the Health Service ) and wonder who on earth designed, wrote and crucially tested this system ( I would say Mickey Mouse,but that is probably an insult to Mickey!)

[Loramski]

Re: Mr Bates V's the Post Office

I saw the Panorama program on the scandal today. I see it was made in 2022 but I missed it then ( due to my health problems that year I don't remember much of it!) but I found it just as powerful as the drama,perhaps even more so as it showed the real people behind the story.

Leaving aside the appalling behaviour of the Post Office the performance of Fujitsu is obviously dreadful. I am a former computer professional myself (with the Civil Service, BT and the Health Service ) and wonder who on earth designed, wrote and crucially tested this system ( I would say Mickey Mouse,but that is probably an insult to Mickey!)

There must've been a moment very early on in this when the Post Office had a choice of trusting the subpostmasters and investigating Fujitsu (and then suing them if the system was found to be faulty) or trusting Fujitsu and going after the subpostmasters instead. I wonder if we'll ever find out who made that call. It puts trusting Runnarsson over Alnwick into perspective.

[North Cardiff Blue]

Re: Mr Bates V's the Post Office

I saw the Panorama program on the scandal today. I see it was made in 2022 but I missed it then ( due to my health problems that year I don't remember much of it!) but I found it just as powerful as the drama,perhaps even more so as it showed the real people behind the story.

Leaving aside the appalling behaviour of the Post Office the performance of Fujitsu is obviously dreadful. I am a former computer professional myself (with the Civil Service, BT and the Health Service ) and wonder who on earth designed, wrote and crucially tested this system ( I would say Mickey Mouse,but that is probably an insult to Mickey!)

The post office counters system would have to be pretty good, they do so many services, the platform would have to be very robust, It was a difficult task, but yes if they got the contract it should have had to work and should have been fit for purpose, the government should definitely do whatever it takes to get some of the money back from them.

Nice one I'll look up the panorama episode

[the other bob wilson]

Re: Mr Bates V's the Post Office

There's a link to a Panorama episode from nine years ago below.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67884743

[Cyclops]

Re: Mr Bates V's the Post Office

By the way, although I watched the TV drama about it, how did the convictions take place without the Post Office presenting to the court a complete breakdown of the supposed takings, which could be audited in detail?

This comment ties in with my earlier post about why the sub-postmasters and mistresses didn't appear to do their own basic booking for say 24 hours which would have proved that their Horizon account was being skewed - and then presented this evidence to the courts.

I haven't seen much mention of something that featured prominently in the ITV series, the deliberate manipulation of Horizon by Fujitsu to manufacture deficits. We hear about gliches in the software, but this was deliberate invasive action and it could only be called a gliche because Fujitsu created a back-door whereby individual accounts could be altered.The purpose being to increase Post Office (and presumably their own) profits

[North Cardiff Blue]

Re: Mr Bates V's the Post Office

There's a link to a Panorama episode from nine years ago below.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67884743

Nice one