At last :xmasthumbup:
https://apple.news/A8nDKMzGcRYC0UbEbuye_HA
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At last :xmasthumbup:
https://apple.news/A8nDKMzGcRYC0UbEbuye_HA
The Post Office is under criminal investigation over the wrongful prosecution of hundreds of sub-postmasters, Scotland Yard confirmed for the first time on Friday evening.
Metropolitan Police detectives are looking at “potential fraud offences” committed in the handling of the Horizon IT scandal.
Between 1999 and 2015, the Post Office prosecuted at least 700 postmasters over allegations of fraud, theft and false accounting based on evidence from the faulty Horizon computer system. Hundreds were bankrupted or jailed and at least four people took their own lives.
Postmasters claimed that tens of millions of pounds wrongly clawed back went into Post Office profits.
On Friday, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police told The Times that officers were “investigating potential fraud offences arising out of these prosecutions”, relating to “monies recovered from sub-postmasters as a result of prosecutions or civil actions”.
It is not clear whether the investigation relates to individual staff members or the Post Office as a corporate entity. The Met is already investigating two former Fujitsu experts, who were witnesses in the trials, for perjury and perverting the course of justice. Fujitsu is the company behind the Horizon software.
Victims of the Horizon scandal have been put in the spotlight this week as ITV aired a four-part drama about the miscarriage of justice called Mr Bates vs The Post Office. Fifty new potential victims have contacted lawyers after the drama was broadcast, including five who wish to appeal their convictions.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission, which refers cases to the Court of Appeal, has urged more potential victims to come forward. It issued a statement on Friday saying that it “might be able to help if your appeal was unsuccessful, or if you pleaded guilty in a magistrates’ court, or if you are a close relative of a former sub-postmaster who has died”.
A postmistress who played a chief role in the fight for justice said she “hopes there will be criminal prosecutions”.
Jo Hamilton, 66, from Hampshire, who led fellow postmasters in a historic Court of Appeals case in 2021, told The Times: “They’ve made people’s lives a misery and they’ve committed crimes. It’s not just a computer problem — this is absolute corruption at its worst, state-sponsored corruption.”
Since the landmark Court of Appeal judgment, more than 90 sub-postmasters have had their convictions quashed, but more than 550 are yet to come forward. A public inquiry is expected to conclude this year.
The scandal started in 1999 when glitches in new £1 billion accounting software, Horizon, led to unexplained shortfalls across the network’s 20,000 branches. Under the terms of their contracts, the postmasters were liable for the losses and the Post Office demanded that they repay the money or face closure, prosecution, or a civil claim.
The High Court ruled that the Post Office’s IT experts were aware of bugs in the system from the early 2000s, but its legal team continued to prosecute and chase losses. It is not known how much cash was paid back for imaginary shortfalls but so far £151 million has been paid in compensation.
Paul Marshall, a barrister who represents several of the wrongly convicted postmasters, said that “the emergence of information suggesting that the Met police is looking at fraud in connection with the Post Office’s conduct is wholly unsurprising”.
He added: “Once it is accepted that postmasters were not experiencing real shortfalls at their branches, the money that the Post Office obtained from them, through demands … were themselves improper demands for money and money that was received unlawfully.”
In an interim report in 2013, Second Sight, the company appointed by the Post Office to conduct an independent investigation into Horizon, found large amounts of unidentified credits in Post Office suspense accounts and raised the question of where the money came from.
Marshall added: “The reality therefore appears to have been that the Post Office obtained large sums of money from its postmasters on grounds that were false and that were known by it to be false.”
Tom Little, KC, a senior treasury counsel for the Crown Prosecution Service, has been advising the police during the inquiry. He is part of a team of six barristers — described as the “brightest and the best” — who prosecute the most serious and complex cases for the CPS.
Sources said he would be the “point man” in deciding who, if anyone, would be investigated and prosecuted, although the CPS has no formal involvement until after someone is charged.
“The police will be watching each and every day of this phase. The inquiry is asking the same questions as the police would ask at interview,” an inquiry source told The Times last month.
The Post Office has refused to give a specific figure for how much money was clawed back from sub-postmasters. A spokesman said: “We share fully the aims of the public inquiry to get to the truth of what went wrong in the past and establish accountability. It’s for the inquiry to reach its own independent conclusions after consideration of all the evidence on the issues that it is examining. It would be inappropriate for the Post Office to comment on any police investigation.
“We are doing all we can to put right the wrongs of the past, including providing full and fair compensation for those affected and offers of more than £138 million have been made to around 2,700 postmasters, the vast majority of which are agreed and paid.”
There have also been repeated calls for professional watchdogs to investigate the role of Post Office lawyers in the scandal.
A spokesman for the Solicitors Regulation Authority said on Friday that it had been “investigating this matter since 2021 and the conclusion of the civil case. However, our work is on hold at the public inquiry’s request and will resume once the inquiry has concluded”.
Thanks Bluetit :thumbup:
There'll be some nervous people in the PO and Fujitsu.
Hea
It's also outrageous that Fujitsu (who made the dodgy Horizon software then lied about it) have been awarded hundreds of millions of pounds worth of government contracts since the scandal broke.
I just read an article that asked how has Adam Crozier avoided the spotlight being shone on him during the recent programme on the subject as he was head of the Royal Mail at the time.
Turns out he is now head of the company that made/ commissioned the series
Just signed having watched the final episode. Now on 802,000+
It gets worse
https://www.theguardian.com/business...s-over-horizon
signed 1,026,271
Post Office suspected of more injustices over Horizon pilot scheme
Exclusive: software believed to have resulted in prosecutions even before full system rollout in 1999
The Post Office is suspected of wrongly prosecuting dozens more operators who took part in a pilot scheme of the faulty Horizon system, the Guardian has been told.
Amid growing anger over the treatment of postmasters whose lives have been ruined in the scandal, Whitehall sources have confirmed that a precursor scheme was rolled out in 1995 and 1996 to hundreds of branches in north-east England.
After taking part in the pilot, at least two branch managers were prosecuted despite protesting that there was a glitch in the system, a senior Labour MP has claimed.
The development comes after a national outcry over the treatment of post office operators between 1999 and 2015 after faulty Fujitsu software made it appear as though money was missing from their outlets.
That petition reaching one million signatures will have enormous symbolic value and an awful lot of people with a normal set of values would bow to the pressure. However, if she's anything like the way she was portrayed in last week's drama, she doesn't have a normal set of values - I'm not sure whether she was genuinely crooked or she just couldn't see what the Post Office was doing wrong.
she did seem to be institutionalised
Wait till people find out that Fujitsu sued the NHS for £700 million in 2014 after its IT contract was cancelled due to it being a "train wreck".
Watched the four episodes yesterday and was appalled by the story - of which I was aware.
The flashing Horizon router lights were particularly sinister.
One thing I don't understand is why the postmasters didn't run a manual audit for 24 hours and compare it to Horizon's figures.
All they needed was an opening balance (ie £0.00), a note of incomings and outgoings (ie stamps - £1.00) and a closing balance. That could then have been checked against the actual cash for accuracy.
Assuming everything balanced, that would have immediately proved there was a problem with the computer program.
Alan Bates has become an overnight success (after 20 years), yesterday he was on this morning, and Richard Branson gave him a holiday on his Island with first-class travel, and a top-end cruise on one of his ships, he was on all news stations and Newsnight. He was also being discussed in Westminster.
This story is going to run and run, and no doubt a lot more Fujitsu and post office Management are going to get dragged in.
Paula Vennells must be bricking it, up to 1,202,707, she would have got away with it if it wasn't for that pesky Alan Bates.
Talk is - 2 weeks there will legislation on the floor of the commons. I personally think there will be 1 test case - with no evidence being offered by the prosecution and all subsequent cases then dropped. Govt cant be seen to be interfering with the law - but implicit intent is clear.
Then there will come the counter claims. Fujitsu got a massive contract handed to them as part of the NHS Npfit program under Gordon Brown. The largest IT project failure in Europe if not globally. 6 billion on the project that over ran to 9 billion - before being scrapped by Cameron / Clegg in 2010. Fujitsu were removed from the project along with Accenture.
That's why large scale public sector contracts never work - they are simply to wide , too much scope and not enough responsible people to care. As they know the Govt will usually either walk away - or bail them out.
I worked on part of that project - for another IT contractor - the difference - we delivered.
Paula Vennells, earned £4.500,000 in the 8 years she was in office, £2,200,000, of it in performance enhanced bonuses !!!!!!
The Great Train Robbers got 30 year sentence’s, she should get the same, the hypocritical bitch
Isn't it strange that after 20 years, several of which this scandal has been in the public eye, after 20 years of the PO and successive governments actively fighting against all appeals, it is only now that politicians from all sides are suddenly scrambling to "put it right" and support the wrongly accused?
I wonder if I'm too cynical in thinking it's only because we're in an election year??
:shrug:
Simon Blagden, Chairman of Fujitsu, donated £376,000 to the Conservatives
So they made him a member of UKHSA which advises the Department of Health on hundreds of Billions of spending, a nice VIP lane for Fujitsu.
They now get £10bn a year in Government contracts.
Mmmmmmmm
Twas ever the way.
Do people really give parties lots of cash just out of the goodness of their heart, particularly huge donations from individuals in charge of big companies and corporations? The whole thing is utterly corrupt and not just on the side of the Conservatives. If Labour get into power there'll be people wanting to make donations that will help them get on the ladder.
Money talks. Always will do.
She's "voluntarily" given up her CBE.
Obvious jump before push.
She avoided the ignominy of having it taken away, thinking she'll come out of this smelling of roses.
Now for the petition to reclaim her bonus.
I hope her giving her cbe back doesn't overshadow the need for others to be held to account, including criminal charges if appropriate.
Use 12ft Ladder to access it: https://12ft.io/
There's a strata/level of society that's conveniently out of reach for all but the best-connected. The UK has been criminally corrupt since WW2. Residences in London worth £50 million+ unoccupied for years, and lower down the sewer of greed, the proliferation of Turkish retail businesses in S.E UK, not to mention 'cash only' establishments. It's endemic...