Without stiff jail sentences to the bosses , this scandal will be repeated in a culture where the small people are punished for the mistakes of the rich and powerful.
Had Horizon been working as claimed, then there would have been no incentive for sub-postmasters to steal as it would have been impossible to get away with it long term. The last thing a thief would do is phone a help line and draw someone's attention to the discrepancy.
Exactly! That’s what I’ve been saying throughout this whole saga. Why would the SPMs advertise that they have extorted any sum of money and think somehow this would cover their tracks? Another key fact staring POL in the face what that NONE of the money which was alleged to have been stolen was ever traced. They searched their homes, investigated bank accounts, their lifestyles and spending patterns - no exotic holidays, cars, fancy restaurants and lavish spending etc etc were ever identified or uncovered. NONE! So where had this money gone? They could find no answers, yet prosecutions and convictions continued.
Fujitsu has apologised for the great harm that it caused to hundreds of people. HOWEVER, Fujitsu's silence has been deafening when it comes to the matter of ensuring that it will never repeat its malevolent behaviour. Edit: please remind me to never again purchase any Fujitsu products.
Fujitsu will try to ensure they don't get caught in future. Despite all their claims to the contrary, Fujitsu have no intentions of properly servicing any contract they undertake. I can tell you from personal experience once that contract is signed they give not a solitary toss about anything other than being paid. Company culture is generated at the top of the company, Fujitsu is rotten to the core and has lost a plethora of contracts due to their own dire standards of operation.
Yep. Nothing like this at all, nowhere near but working at the NHS back in the day in IT I bought up the issue of the new background image they used for Windows. It was white background with an NHS local in the corner. It was impossible to read anything on it, all the icon text blended into the background. I pointed this out, but being a contractor was told to shut up, quite literally. I started to tell users to complain themselves as no one was listening to me. More users complained, so they were forced to change it.
Imagine if you'd lost a decade or more of your life. Done jail time. Had your family ruined. Been unable to work. Lost earnings. Lost your home. Missed the best years of your children's childhoods. Probably had a bad knock on effect on THEIR prospects. How much compensation would be enough? Surely we're talking in the millions per postmaster.
I still don't understand why people are talking such low figures for " compensation". Individuals should sue Fujitsu and the post office for millions and millions. So many charges apply. Stop asking for an offer and start to sue one by one. If necessary find an American lawyer who is also qualified to practice law in the UK because there is no way that this would be happening in the US. Fujitsu would have filed a bankruptcy by now to protect their assets. They absolutely would be found guilty in America..not sure why it is so hard in the UK
@@daviddowsett1658 That's compensation for the future impact though; harder to quantify, and I would suggest in reality likely far less damaging than what's happened to these postmasters if you look at relative outcomes ten years later.
It’s a shame that this inquiry will drag on . Yet the post office could prosecute and destroy these postmasters lives in a matter of months🙁 They should nerved have been able to prosecute 🙁 This was a job for the police to conduct the investigations into these so called fraudulent losses . I am livid that now we know that no postmasters were to blame for those massive losses . Get on and settle this pronto 🙏🏼
"It’s a shame that this inquiry will drag on" NO it's not a shame, the shame is why it's dragged on and on ! The shame is where most people believe it originates from.
You idiots the purpose of the inquiry is to lift up every rock and expose everything that was done wrong. That’s why it has “dragged on”. The amount of evidence that can be used to hold those responsible to account is invaluable but you simpletons want every thing done in a couple of days 😂
Everyone who has worked with computer systems knows that they have bugs. That does not mean they should not be used, but that the fact should be recognised and allowed for, and the bugs sorted out. Funny that any error used to be (like 20-30 years ago) blamed on "the computer", it used to be a standing joke, yet now what the computer says is taken as gospel, even by high court judges.
I did warranty incoming here in Canada for a Japanese car company and was fired for OKing a guy visiting another dealer, because he insisted he was being lied to by small town bullies. I was dressed down like id been caught committing insider trading and FIRED ON THE SPOT. Company first, and company only.
Shouldn't be any BS about Fushitsu going to contribute to the damages ... needs a massive class action against them and the Post Orifice ... AND it needs to include punitive damages ... or they will do it again and again ... then go hunting for the cowardly management that spent their time hiding all this from the legal system ... and some gaol time ... Apologies are just hollow now ... Fushitsu are only saying that because they have been completely caught out with no where to hide ...
I've worked for two companies (and left) which have collapsed because they would not spend the time fixing software and gradually their reputation caused their demise. In both cases this was because the CEO wanted to "save" money and do other things instead (like paying themselves bonuses). In both cases, the CEO did not really understand the software process either and it seems Fujitsu and certainly the PO had no clue either. Meanwhile, post the damning 2019 verdict on Horizon, Rishi Sunak continued doling out over a £billion to Fujitsu. Surely all the Fujitsu contracts and software will have to be examined and audited and possibly ditched - at great cost to the taxpayer as always. But hey! The Tories are past masters at wasting shed loads of money and running up debts.
@@scudger99 Fujitsu Japan is very well operated full of lovely people and good work ethic. Fujitsu uk on the other hand is run completely different (since originally it was ICL). I actually feel sorry for Fujitsu because it was ICL which originally created Horizon but Fujitsu got dragged into the mess. Your experience of Fujitsu uk depends on which team and office you’re in. Crewe and Slough - amazing. Bracknell - terrible. I was there in the early 2000s, very young. It’s probably changed now but they clearly didn’t like younger people working there, it was a significantly older demographic there. They didn’t like me and wanted me to know it. Workeise very toxic, they always gave me the rubbish work, even had someone say I had to “pay my dues” which I don’t think would go down well today
@@CodingAbroad I worked mainly out of Stevenage and had dealings with Wakefield. Considering I came from one Japanese giant to another, I was shocked at the disparity in cultures. Right from the get go Fujitsu were only interested in cutting corners and blatantly ignoring their own procedures. Myself and several colleagues tried to warn them repeatedly that the company involved wouldn't tolerate those standards, we were told to pipe down as we didn't know what we were talking about. That large retailer got out of that contract less than halfway through due to Fujitsu's appalling attitude and service levels which I've never heard happening before or since. Worst company I've worked for in my adult life, and by a long way too.
According to Computer Weekly there was a bunch of PO staff, investigators etc. who received boosts to their bonuses based on successful convictions! That reduced incentives for those people to look for the truth… didn’t it?
A lady in charge of a sub post office where she has worked all her life has now retired, she was not accused but now is scared to continue. Now the post office will shut for good in a remote village in Scotland, no one will take it over, leaving the small hamlet further cut off. Cheers Post Office then you wonder why you are loosing trade.
We have one po here on the Isle of Yell. And they 2 are considering closing because of this scandal, they are scared that even after the inquiry the po will not change its ways.
Beats me why anyone at all would take on SPM job now. Wonder if PO have changed their disgraceful so-called contract that no-one should have signed and if any legal person said they could safely sign it, what on earth kind of legal person is that - they should be sued. It's blatantly obvious the contract was a trap.
Fujitsu employees should have blown the whistle about this. They could have done it anonymously too. Especially the programmers who knew the software was broken before release. How the Post Office did not put two and two together to question how so many postmasters were facing shortfalls is crazy. I heard the government were pressured to sign off on the release of Horizon. Pressured or paid off? I think the public need to know of EVERY contract our government has with Fujitsu at present and potential contracts pending approval. I get the feeling we will discover contracts were granted after the Horizon scandal came to light. It is clear Fujitsu and Post Office are being handled with kid gloves. Exonerate and pay out all the compensation owed to the victims. Split the bill between Fujitsu and Post Office as a huge fine. The last thing these victims need is for their government to fail them too.
Makes me wonder what other software govt may have accepted even when knowing it was unsatisfactory. We hear now and then about software that's been accepted and shown to be inadequate. And who in govt is doing the accepting? Does anyone in govt have the requisite knowledge of software? Sounds unlikely seeing we now know the legal profession on the whole were fooled by the "Horizon is robust" statements. We are all very lucky the judge in the SPMs' case against the Post Office did understand the issues. It is well worth reading his long report if you have the time and energy. You will see what kind of knowledge is needed. Is part of the issue that govt won't pay enough for software so they don't get the best. I used to hear that. Good systems require much expertise and ARE expensive. And much expertise needed by those who want to use those systems, frankly.
Fairly certain the call handlers weren't well paid so why not come clean to the post masters at the time? Especially when they must have known people were being sent to jail. Given they had post masters numbers, why not inform them anonymously outside of working hours?
@@spartacusforlife1508 Having worked in tech call centres you very naive about the details of the UK post office scandal and the how technical call centres work. First off its viturally impossible to provide useful information about the details one of these miscarriages of justice the Sub postmasters faced and not have that highly traceable info through a large tech company like Fujitsu call logging systems not revealed the identify of the leaker to the company within hours. The sort of generalised leaking which was much harder to trace was happening -hence the sources of the excellent reporting the ComputerWeekly and later Private Eye were doing - but as we know despite them publishing many many articles on this since the early 2000s when the system rolled out, it had little effect on the issue. Almost all whistleblower legislation I've seen, including in the uk, requires undergoing a complex legal verification (so false claims don't derail legitimate investigations) which by in large requires the services of lawyers to negotiate the whistleblower through. As being a whistleblower, even in this case where the person is 100% justified in doing so, will end you career in IT in working for large IT corporations. You simply will not get employed again by large a IT corporate where the vast bulk of jobs, particularly well paying ones are in. As you rightly point out the front line help desk call takers aren't being paid well, so how likely is that someone working in this environment which at the beginning of their IT career give that all up, pay the expensive lawyers fees and go through the very time consuming whistleblower investigation system, while they are trying to change career while earning no income. This becomes even harder as the Post Office organisation had quasi prosecution powers it was exercising in these cases so the normal whistlebower legal process won't apply as it would be not clear who would be granting formal whistlebower status. As pretty much all of the UK government from the courts through to Parliament deferred to the Post Office organisation through almost all this saga, I highly suspect the Post Office senior exec team would be the ones with power to grant whistlebower status. What are the chances these people were we now know were covering up the whole thing, be the ones organising the downfall of themselves?
The Post Office,the Government and Fujitsu are rotten to the core knowing there was an on going problem and sending innocent people to prison. People have been left mentally scared for life.
The Post Office NOR Fujitsu should NOT be allowed ANYWARE NEAR the Compensation Scheme, It should Be An Independant Body who ACTUALLY SPEAKS to the Postmasters BEFORE deciding on Compensation
It over 700 sub post masters were prosecuted and another potentially 2-2500 falsely accused then the same prosecution system policy must be used against the post office and this company.
The inquiry has brought to light (Winter's evidence) at least one case where the Horizon system was crediting money, as well as debiting it, but the PO didn't include that in their prosecution evidence.
These were the workers told to say no one was having issues with horizon? If so they should be held responsible along with everyone if they knew better.
That took courage - I understand Nate Orrow is the first Fujitsu whistleblower since Richard Roll (via reporter Nick Wallis) in 2015. Maybe the floodgates will open now, with the "sanctity and integrity" of employment NDAs rightly trampled.
In every workplace one encounters middle management who ignore stonewall or blame those who draw attention to faults or bad practice. But the Post Office had top management who conspired to perpetuate bad practice. The guy on the helpline has now come out and spoken about his knowledge of a faulty system. He also knew people were being sent to prison and bankrupted based on that system. He had to. I’m sorry but he shrugged “felt bad” . No he did bad. He could have found a new job and given the callers that information, it would have all come out sooner. If I was a sub postmaster he’d get no forgiveness from me. Too little too late. See something say something. Not think of your own financial security. Yes I have lost a job for speaking out. I gave information and had my contract withdrawn.
people at the top set the standards more call centre staff please come out and help get to the bottom of this saga. well done for coming out now maybe Paula Vennells the boss should maybe follow the example - will she though ?
The call centre staff are complicit, they knew what was happening but they shut their mouths and kept cashing the cheques. They could have blown the whistle but none of them had the courage.
Can anyone believe, that as of right now, today, there are many of these poor postmasters are still in jail or have not been given the opportunity to have their conviction overturned !!! I would think any "justice" system would have everyone immediately released while the system sorts through this. Unbelievable.
"employees 'dragged over coals' if they admitted issues " with anything in the UK. Employees are exactly that, they are paid to do a job and ask NO questions !
And companies want to replace this minimum level of 'support' from people who buy design are not allowed to know the depths of the system they are working on with LLMs. Goooooood luck everyone. Worse is to come.
The management knew full well, that was the problem. Do these news presenters have a brain? The Fujitsu call handles certainly didn't have much of a conscience. All well and good showing some remorse now, a decade or two overdue. This kind of turning a blind eye has been a feature of so many scandals. It's amazing what people will accept as a norm in return for a monthly pay packet.
There's more real emotion and genuine regret from this guy, than we've seen in any of the hard faced PO lot. For his tiny role in this, working in a call centre for maybe 25-30K, and no huge bonuses.
I don't know how he could sleep at night doing that. Those call handlers are partly to blame. They were not being forced to do their jobs. Surely you would leave and whistle blow
If you know there is something criminal going on...Report it !!! Call centre ....Good grief...... It's pathetic to think you could also laugh... In a response to what these poor people went through....
Every lawyer in the US right now is wishing that they could practice law in the UK. While I am not fond of America as whole ( yes I am American) I can say that at least with situations like this we have the opportunity to sue for negligence, wrongful harm, defamation of character, inflicted trauma,etc. If American lawyers were on this case Fujitsu would be paying out hundreds of millions of pounds and probably go bankrupt which is what should happen. In fact they would have already filed for bankruptcy if this were the US...just to avoid the inevitable and try to say they have no money to pay out. Can someone please explain why individual victims in this scandal cannot sue the post office, the post office leaders like Paula, Fujitsu and the individuals who harassed and investigated them? Not as a class action suit but individually. Is it just that they didn't have evidence before? Well Now we know Fujitsu lied. That is fraud and willful neglect ...they should pay out millions just for that alone. There are so many charges to be brought against them in a court of law but I am wondering if the British don't really know that they can sue. It is crazy that anyone went to jail with zero evidence to prove their guilt. It is like a dystopian film 😢
What a rubbish system. If you work somewhere and call a work helpline they are normally always able to access your screen so they can see for themselves what's wrong. If they can't, then they are part of the problem 😂😂
Well this is part of the issue, the Sub-Postmasters were responsible for any discrepancies, so it's like they hire the software from the PO for their shop's PO, so the call centre should not have access to "take control of their screen", the issue was they were accessing there system without the Subs knowledge and making changes to fix bugs BADDY
Horizon software cost the British Taxpayer over 1.2 billion pounds and never worked properly even now. Amazingly even after this failure Fujitsu were given another IT contract by the Government for the NHS which cost 6 billion pounds and was NEVER DELIVERED! The money was just written off.
@@fredsmith1970I think all of it was written in VB certainly the core cash handler and the message store. one of the developers stated they wrote the Spec documents after the system had been built and they built the real system on top of the prototype code.
@@daviddowsett1658I read that it was designed/intended as a joint project between the DWP and PO (to manage benefit payments by the PO) But the DWP dropped the software (due to misgivings) which was then dumped on the PO so not to "loose" the £700 million spent on it. So it was flawed for it's original purpose from the outset 🤦
Senior Fujitsu and post office management, stonewalling and plane lying to post office workers, and government, and union officials failing to back them. It's hard to see how it could be any clearer, authority is untrustworthy
Yeah you're right I hadn't picked this up from the enquiry. How did the situation arise where the SPM has to prove innocence rather than the other way round?
Is Horizon software still being used. Has it been fixed or are there still problems? Looking in on this from another country, I am confused, though I am assuming that those tragic scenarios have come to an end.
They were alllooking for bugs that was in fact the access to Fujitsu to access and alter computers. Theywill freely admit to errors to avoid discovery of computer fraud. by Fujitsu. I wonder how many other systems they have access to ??
Politicians repeating the same BS over and over again when responding to a simple question. Fujitsu needs to cough up and the Post Office managers that knew what went on, jailed.
Which politicians were involved, other than the ones that gave their support to the Post masters? It was a group of mp’s that pressed on the ‘problem’ their postmaster constituents were suffering.
This whole episode is abhorrent. From beginning to end top to bottom. Complacency negligence and lies. Fujitsu and the PO. managers, Directors and laywers should be prosecuted and some - a great many - jailed. Fujitsu should be made to pay up in some cases individuals should receive many millions plus interest. Ultimately it shows our legal systems flaws. Adversarial? Bull. The law was not followed. The Judges (hundreds of them) if they had looked through the papers properly they would have realised that the 'Expert' was biased and not Independent. They also assumed that individuals were lying not the lawyers who were. In some cases they cut off the very lifeline the defence had. The whole debacle is being relived through no compensation. An independent compensation board should have been set up years ago and payments made. I'm pretty certain if the perpetrators had been jailed then compensation would go through imnediately.
So why didn't these call center people go to the press, why didn't they go over to the Post Masters and Mistresses and tell them what he knew.A job is just a job, but your conscience means much more than a damn job.
The Fujitsu service desk were not the people sending postmasters to court. That would be Royal Mail's team. The Fujitsu service desk knew the application was rubbish but I doubt they knew how the data generated by the system was being used. I suspect the Fujitsu engineers would have raised red flags if they had known what Royal Mail was doing with the obviously faulty data.
But it is his fault that it happened. He stayed silent in the face of all that suffering when he should have said something. SOMEBODY HAS TO GO TO JAIL OVER THIS... FOR A VERY LONG TIME!!
Withdraw the PO right to take out independant prosecutions! Too much money involved to keep people honest. Fujitsu will have been working with PO seniors to keep a wrap on it as all their careers depended on it.
Just as thousands of individual companies have the right to take out a private action, so did the PO. The whole small claims court also operates on that basis. What does need investigating is the financial and resource disparity of the plaintiff and the defendant in this case .
The government, post office and Fujitsu sicken me with their dishonesty, but most of all Fujitsu who were aware their system was faulty and still hiding behind the enquiry. That in my mind even worse that their faulty software that they failed to admit to. Fujitsu ought to be putting up millions of pounds now, right now, to right their terrible wrongs. I thought Japanese company’s were honest and they had very high moral values, but not this company. The U.K. should stop all contracts with Fujitsu as soon as is reasonable possible because they can’t be trusted..
Is admirable for him to come out, but is a bit too late isn't it? Personally I wouldn't have the conscience to let it go for so long. Is like standing next to a hole people keep falling into it and you simply stand on the side talking to them when they were trapped in the hole in pain and about to die.
They properly have a non-disclosure claim in the employment contract, these sorts of IT companies (information is power) do and that means even after you leave, you could be sued ... however they could have made an anonymous tip-off, perhaps some did but whet nowhere for lack of proof. Who knows ... not me not you.
@@daviddowsett1658 dead right tips were being made - where you think all the Commputerworld magazine and Private Eye sourced articles were coming from - and what happened from that?
@@I_like_YT_lots Sure, but large IT companies with very very deep pockets for legal action, and employ very very good legal firms in one of the worlds most expensive legal systems, make proving that said company in a very complex legal case broke laws is so beyond the resources of even quite senior IT execs, let alone a low level help desk operator, close to impossible practically. As the UK Post office had quasi prosecution powers under which they were taking these cases it not at all clear if UK whistleblower processes would apply and by in large in reality the UK governments and Courts just deferred to the Post Office practically at every turn for almost 2 decades. If you had lost you career (I've work in IT across the world and there no way even a lowly call taker ever works again for a large IT company), had no income, were trying to get a new career going and facing a massively expensive legal case against a huge IT corporate with a top legal firm representing them, I think you might park your conscience for a while as well.
Does anyone in govt have the requisite knowledge of software? Sounds unlikely seeing we now know the legal profession on the whole were fooled by the "Horizon is robust" statements. We are all very lucky the judge in the SPMs' case against the Post Office did understand the issues. It is well worth reading his long report if you have the time and energy. You will see what kind of knowledge is needed. Is part of the issue that govt won't pay enough for software so they don't get the best. I used to hear that. Good systems require much expertise and ARE expensive. And much expertise needed by those who want to use those systems, frankly.
Here is the thing, apart from all the other aspects of this affair the role of Lord Neuberger in the Recusal seems to have escaped attention. I have therefore pasted the following ‘The role of Lord Neuberger in the recusal fiasco (Justice Fraser) should be investigated’ on as many TH-cam articles as I could, about ten, but when I checked to see if there was any response I discovered they had all been taken down. This Kafkaesque episode staggers one at every turn, even when Big brother has been outed he seems to be still working away! I really want to know why Lord Neuberger interfered , if the recusal had succeeded the whole noble attempt at taking on the stinking system would have failed
Thank you David for commenting. Sometimes if you post things en masse, it gets regarded as spam. It has happened to me - but only when I’ve posted on one video. Anyway, I have just done a google search using keywords relating to what you are talking about. There are quite a number of matches, mainly from 2022. Nick Wallis, who wrote the book on which the TV programmes were based (I think) has a post on his Linked In account. Several members of the law profession have responded to him. I can’t see how any of this can now be covered up. I shall certainly acquaint myself with the matter that you have highlighted here. Let’s hope the Inquiry unearths some more facts.
I still have the nagging feeling...have you ever watched those guys who hack the hackers, and get them busted...i think this is a lot bigger for 2 background entities here than we even speak of yet. The helpline guy's computer was still in the hands of others...could we have a more "robust" investigation, please..
Who knew Fujitsu even wrote software? And if you imagined what type of software they would be capable of producing it's this mess of enterprise software.
The lawyer's will keep the inquiry alive ,till they made enough money out of it ,or until the government can find a big enough carpet to sweep it under
Yet this government is giving them contracts and yet isnt prosecuting Fujitsu at all How the PO is allowed to do what they are now doing with compensation etc is an absolute joke, british justice at its best again huh its a laughing stock
The level of sheer wickedness of those responsible for knowingly sending innocent people to prison is difficult to comprehend.
The answer is simple: such people are sociopaths. Society's problem is that it permits sociopaths to be in positions of power.
Without stiff jail sentences to the bosses , this scandal will be repeated in a culture where the small people are punished for the mistakes of the rich and powerful.
Fukusu should be held as accountable as the PO and decision makers in this scandal should be behind bars.
That includes the 1997 to 2010 politicians who were eager to push out horizon from the top of Government.
Poo-jitsu and the Poos-toffice are both responsible and equally evil.
You can still see the pain in this chap. It’s still so very raw. I feel for him.
3 years of his life he will never get back, disgusting
Had Horizon been working as claimed, then there would have been no incentive for sub-postmasters to steal as it would have been impossible to get away with it long term. The last thing a thief would do is phone a help line and draw someone's attention to the discrepancy.
Exactly! That’s what I’ve been saying throughout this whole saga. Why would the SPMs advertise that they have extorted any sum of money and think somehow this would cover their tracks? Another key fact staring POL in the face what that NONE of the money which was alleged to have been stolen was ever traced. They searched their homes, investigated bank accounts, their lifestyles and spending patterns - no exotic holidays, cars, fancy restaurants and lavish spending etc etc were ever identified or uncovered. NONE! So where had this money gone? They could find no answers, yet prosecutions and convictions continued.
Fujitsu Management Should ALSO be in Court
Fujitsu has apologised for the great harm that it caused to hundreds of people.
HOWEVER, Fujitsu's silence has been deafening when it comes to the matter of ensuring that it will never repeat its malevolent behaviour.
Edit: please remind me to never again purchase any Fujitsu products.
Fujitsu will try to ensure they don't get caught in future.
Despite all their claims to the contrary, Fujitsu have no intentions of properly servicing any contract they undertake. I can tell you from personal experience once that contract is signed they give not a solitary toss about anything other than being paid. Company culture is generated at the top of the company, Fujitsu is rotten to the core and has lost a plethora of contracts due to their own dire standards of operation.
@@scudger99 Thanks for sharing that insight.
This happens all the time in companys, you bring up a issue about bad work practises and you get treated like enemy number 1
Yep. Nothing like this at all, nowhere near but working at the NHS back in the day in IT I bought up the issue of the new background image they used for Windows. It was white background with an NHS local in the corner. It was impossible to read anything on it, all the icon text blended into the background. I pointed this out, but being a contractor was told to shut up, quite literally. I started to tell users to complain themselves as no one was listening to me. More users complained, so they were forced to change it.
You’re so right take a look across the pond at Boeing, profit at all cost and in their case several hundred lives.
@@wobby1516 True. Including the suspicious sudden death of a whistleblower.
@@TheStevenWhitingyou didn't happen to mention contaminated blood did you?
If I knew I was partly responsible for people going to jail I could not live with myself. I find this so hard to believe and take in.
Imagine if you'd lost a decade or more of your life. Done jail time. Had your family ruined. Been unable to work. Lost earnings. Lost your home. Missed the best years of your children's childhoods. Probably had a bad knock on effect on THEIR prospects.
How much compensation would be enough? Surely we're talking in the millions per postmaster.
Well you get £264,650 for the loss of both your legs.
I still don't understand why people are talking such low figures for " compensation". Individuals should sue Fujitsu and the post office for millions and millions. So many charges apply. Stop asking for an offer and start to sue one by one. If necessary find an American lawyer who is also qualified to practice law in the UK because there is no way that this would be happening in the US. Fujitsu would have filed a bankruptcy by now to protect their assets. They absolutely would be found guilty in America..not sure why it is so hard in the UK
@@daviddowsett1658 That's compensation for the future impact though; harder to quantify, and I would suggest in reality likely far less damaging than what's happened to these postmasters if you look at relative outcomes ten years later.
@daviddowsett1658 Sometimes I delve into the comments on TH-cam just to find the most stupid comment i can. You have won.
Because people in this country have a lay down and take it approach sadly.@@faraboverubieskerry
It’s a shame that this inquiry will drag on .
Yet the post office could prosecute and destroy these postmasters lives in a matter of months🙁 They should nerved have been able to prosecute 🙁 This was a job for the police to conduct the investigations into these so called fraudulent losses . I am livid that now we know that no postmasters were to blame for those massive losses . Get on and settle this pronto 🙏🏼
"It’s a shame that this inquiry will drag on" NO it's not a shame, the shame is why it's dragged on and on ! The shame is where most people believe it originates from.
You idiots the purpose of the inquiry is to lift up every rock and expose everything that was done wrong. That’s why it has “dragged on”. The amount of evidence that can be used to hold those responsible to account is invaluable but you simpletons want every thing done in a couple of days 😂
I doubt the police would have done better, in Northern Ireland and Scotland, the police where Co opted bythe Post Office.
I am so glad that I decided not to take a senior IT role at Fujitsu in the early noughties.
Thank God you didn’t, probably would have worsened the situation. Fujitsu also saved from wasting their money ❤
@@CEO786 mean
@@CEO786or he could've had balls and been a whistle blower.
Everyone who has worked with computer systems knows that they have bugs. That does not mean they should not be used, but that the fact should be recognised and allowed for, and the bugs sorted out.
Funny that any error used to be (like 20-30 years ago) blamed on "the computer", it used to be a standing joke, yet now what the computer says is taken as gospel, even by high court judges.
I did warranty incoming here in Canada for a Japanese car company and was fired for OKing a guy visiting another dealer, because he insisted he was being lied to by small town bullies. I was dressed down like id been caught committing insider trading and FIRED ON THE SPOT.
Company first, and company only.
Britain needs to see arrests now not tomorrow.
The government Post office / Fujitsu come forward now & confres.
AND CONVICTIONS with PAYOUTS
Shouldn't be any BS about Fushitsu going to contribute to the damages ... needs a massive class action against them and the Post Orifice ... AND it needs to include punitive damages ... or they will do it again and again ... then go hunting for the cowardly management that spent their time hiding all this from the legal system ... and some gaol time ... Apologies are just hollow now ... Fushitsu are only saying that because they have been completely caught out with no where to hide ...
I've worked for two companies (and left) which have collapsed because they would not spend the time fixing software and gradually their reputation caused their demise. In both cases this was because the CEO wanted to "save" money and do other things instead (like paying themselves bonuses). In both cases, the CEO did not really understand the software process either and it seems Fujitsu and certainly the PO had no clue either. Meanwhile, post the damning 2019 verdict on Horizon, Rishi Sunak continued doling out over a £billion to Fujitsu. Surely all the Fujitsu contracts and software will have to be examined and audited and possibly ditched - at great cost to the taxpayer as always. But hey! The Tories are past masters at wasting shed loads of money and running up debts.
It's not wasted if it ends up in your mates pockets.
I am too a former Fujitsu employee. I’m happy to answer any questions you may have
How did you find the overall company culture ?
@@scudger99 Fujitsu Japan is very well operated full of lovely people and good work ethic. Fujitsu uk on the other hand is run completely different (since originally it was ICL). I actually feel sorry for Fujitsu because it was ICL which originally created Horizon but Fujitsu got dragged into the mess.
Your experience of Fujitsu uk depends on which team and office you’re in. Crewe and Slough - amazing. Bracknell - terrible. I was there in the early 2000s, very young. It’s probably changed now but they clearly didn’t like younger people working there, it was a significantly older demographic there. They didn’t like me and wanted me to know it. Workeise very toxic, they always gave me the rubbish work, even had someone say I had to “pay my dues” which I don’t think would go down well today
@@CodingAbroad I worked mainly out of Stevenage and had dealings with Wakefield. Considering I came from one Japanese giant to another, I was shocked at the disparity in cultures. Right from the get go Fujitsu were only interested in cutting corners and blatantly ignoring their own procedures.
Myself and several colleagues tried to warn them repeatedly that the company involved wouldn't tolerate those standards, we were told to pipe down as we didn't know what we were talking about.
That large retailer got out of that contract less than halfway through due to Fujitsu's appalling attitude and service levels which I've never heard happening before or since.
Worst company I've worked for in my adult life, and by a long way too.
I cant belive that BT have not sacked Adam Crozier he was up to his neck in this as Post Office CEO.
According to Computer Weekly there was a bunch of PO staff, investigators etc. who received boosts to their bonuses based on successful convictions! That reduced incentives for those people to look for the truth… didn’t it?
A lady in charge of a sub post office where she has worked all her life has now retired, she was not accused but now is scared to continue. Now the post office will shut for good in a remote village in Scotland, no one will take it over, leaving the small hamlet further cut off. Cheers Post Office then you wonder why you are loosing trade.
We have one po here on the Isle of Yell. And they 2 are considering closing because of this scandal, they are scared that even after the inquiry the po will not change its ways.
Beats me why anyone at all would take on SPM job now. Wonder if PO have changed their disgraceful so-called contract that no-one should have signed and if any legal person said they could safely sign it, what on earth kind of legal person is that - they should be sued. It's blatantly obvious the contract was a trap.
Why are people not being properly compensated right now. They don’t have anything to prove.
It's corruption and extortion on the part of Fujitsu and post office senior management.
Fujitsu employees should have blown the whistle about this. They could have done it anonymously too. Especially the programmers who knew the software was broken before release. How the Post Office did not put two and two together to question how so many postmasters were facing shortfalls is crazy. I heard the government were pressured to sign off on the release of Horizon. Pressured or paid off? I think the public need to know of EVERY contract our government has with Fujitsu at present and potential contracts pending approval. I get the feeling we will discover contracts were granted after the Horizon scandal came to light. It is clear Fujitsu and Post Office are being handled with kid gloves. Exonerate and pay out all the compensation owed to the victims. Split the bill between Fujitsu and Post Office as a huge fine. The last thing these victims need is for their government to fail them too.
Makes me wonder what other software govt may have accepted even when knowing it was unsatisfactory. We hear now and then about software that's been accepted and shown to be inadequate. And who in govt is doing the accepting? Does anyone in govt have the requisite knowledge of software? Sounds unlikely seeing we now know the legal profession on the whole were fooled by the "Horizon is robust" statements. We are all very lucky the judge in the SPMs' case against the Post Office did understand the issues. It is well worth reading his long report if you have the time and energy. You will see what kind of knowledge is needed. Is part of the issue that govt won't pay enough for software so they don't get the best. I used to hear that. Good systems require much expertise and ARE expensive. And much expertise needed by those who want to use those systems, frankly.
I want the source code for Horizon to be released so Fujitsu’s gross incompetence can be on full display. What an awful organisation.
Fairly certain the call handlers weren't well paid so why not come clean to the post masters at the time? Especially when they must have known people were being sent to jail. Given they had post masters numbers, why not inform them anonymously outside of working hours?
Fair point.
Because they would have been fired on the spot.
I mean REALLY.
@@Exiled.New.Yorker not if they informed anonymously. Also we have protection for whistlebowers here
@@spartacusforlife1508 Having worked in tech call centres you very naive about the details of the UK post office scandal and the how technical call centres work.
First off its viturally impossible to provide useful information about the details one of these miscarriages of justice the Sub postmasters faced and not have that highly traceable info through a large tech company like Fujitsu call logging systems not revealed the identify of the leaker to the company within hours.
The sort of generalised leaking which was much harder to trace was happening -hence the sources of the excellent reporting the ComputerWeekly and later Private Eye were doing - but as we know despite them publishing many many articles on this since the early 2000s when the system rolled out, it had little effect on the issue.
Almost all whistleblower legislation I've seen, including in the uk, requires undergoing a complex legal verification (so false claims don't derail legitimate investigations) which by in large requires the services of lawyers to negotiate the whistleblower through. As being a whistleblower, even in this case where the person is 100% justified in doing so, will end you career in IT in working for large IT corporations. You simply will not get employed again by large a IT corporate where the vast bulk of jobs, particularly well paying ones are in.
As you rightly point out the front line help desk call takers aren't being paid well, so how likely is that someone working in this environment which at the beginning of their IT career give that all up, pay the expensive lawyers fees and go through the very time consuming whistleblower investigation system, while they are trying to change career while earning no income.
This becomes even harder as the Post Office organisation had quasi prosecution powers it was exercising in these cases so the normal whistlebower legal process won't apply as it would be not clear who would be granting formal whistlebower status. As pretty much all of the UK government from the courts through to Parliament deferred to the Post Office organisation through almost all this saga, I highly suspect the Post Office senior exec team would be the ones with power to grant whistlebower status.
What are the chances these people were we now know were covering up the whole thing, be the ones organising the downfall of themselves?
The Post Office,the Government and Fujitsu are rotten to the core knowing there was an on going problem and sending innocent people to prison. People have been left mentally scared for life.
Well! This disgraceful saga just gets better each day eh!
The Post Office NOR Fujitsu should NOT be allowed ANYWARE NEAR the Compensation Scheme, It should Be An Independant Body who ACTUALLY SPEAKS to the Postmasters BEFORE deciding on Compensation
Whistle blowing is healthy , and should be freely expressed .No person should ever except any contract which restricted their honesty and concern.
Will the Enquiry ask Fujitsu bosses about the team that worked in the basement who were observed remotely changing data? It’s a simple yes/no answer.
More service desk people need to stand up and be counted. They should also be held responsible for lying on behalf of the company/institution.
Managers get paid to take responsibility. Only a dirty manager would point the finger at his subordinates. Does the hat fit ?
It over 700 sub post masters were prosecuted and another potentially 2-2500 falsely accused then the same prosecution system policy must be used against the post office and this company.
This is just so awful!
The inquiry has brought to light (Winter's evidence) at least one case where the Horizon system was crediting money, as well as debiting it, but the PO didn't include that in their prosecution evidence.
These were the workers told to say no one was having issues with horizon? If so they should be held responsible along with everyone if they knew better.
Are you a perfect person? Wow.
That took courage - I understand Nate Orrow is the first Fujitsu whistleblower since Richard Roll (via reporter Nick Wallis) in 2015. Maybe the floodgates will open now, with the "sanctity and integrity" of employment NDAs rightly trampled.
In every workplace one encounters middle management who ignore stonewall or blame those who draw attention to faults or bad practice. But the Post Office had top management who conspired to perpetuate bad practice. The guy on the helpline has now come out and spoken about his knowledge of a faulty system. He also knew people were being sent to prison and bankrupted based on that system. He had to. I’m sorry but he shrugged “felt bad” . No he did bad. He could have found a new job and given the callers that information, it would have all come out sooner. If I was a sub postmaster he’d get no forgiveness from me. Too little too late. See something say something. Not think of your own financial security. Yes I have lost a job for speaking out. I gave information and had my contract withdrawn.
people at the top set the standards more call centre staff please come out and help get to the bottom of this saga. well done for coming out now maybe Paula Vennells the boss should maybe follow the example - will she though ?
The call centre staff are complicit, they knew what was happening but they shut their mouths and kept cashing the cheques. They could have blown the whistle but none of them had the courage.
These peoples lives just got destroyed. This is hard to watch.
Can anyone believe, that as of right now, today, there are many of these poor postmasters are still in jail or have not been given the opportunity to have their conviction overturned !!! I would think any "justice" system would have everyone immediately released while the system sorts through this. Unbelievable.
I cannot understand why it was not always known that a 'supervisor' control on the software, because there always is!
"employees 'dragged over coals' if they admitted issues " with anything in the UK. Employees are exactly that, they are paid to do a job and ask NO questions !
And companies want to replace this minimum level of 'support' from people who buy design are not allowed to know the depths of the system they are working on with LLMs. Goooooood luck everyone. Worse is to come.
You can be the nicest person in the world, but without courage, it doesn't matter.
yup, he could have manned up years ago.
Sorry, disagree. The risk of being sued pre-Mr Bates would have been too great. But the floodgates are open now.
The management knew full well, that was the problem. Do these news presenters have a brain?
The Fujitsu call handles certainly didn't have much of a conscience. All well and good showing some remorse now, a decade or two overdue.
This kind of turning a blind eye has been a feature of so many scandals. It's amazing what people will accept as a norm in return for a monthly pay packet.
There's more real emotion and genuine regret from this guy, than we've seen in any of the hard faced PO lot. For his tiny role in this, working in a call centre for maybe 25-30K, and no huge bonuses.
I don't know how he could sleep at night doing that. Those call handlers are partly to blame. They were not being forced to do their jobs. Surely you would leave and whistle blow
Hauled over the coals? The Navy keel-hauls such
Fired on the spot.
If you know there is something criminal going on...Report it !!! Call centre ....Good grief...... It's pathetic to think you could also laugh... In a response to what these poor people went through....
Every lawyer in the US right now is wishing that they could practice law in the UK. While I am not fond of America as whole ( yes I am American) I can say that at least with situations like this we have the opportunity to sue for negligence, wrongful harm, defamation of character, inflicted trauma,etc. If American lawyers were on this case Fujitsu would be paying out hundreds of millions of pounds and probably go bankrupt which is what should happen. In fact they would have already filed for bankruptcy if this were the US...just to avoid the inevitable and try to say they have no money to pay out. Can someone please explain why individual victims in this scandal cannot sue the post office, the post office leaders like Paula, Fujitsu and the individuals who harassed and investigated them? Not as a class action suit but individually. Is it just that they didn't have evidence before? Well Now we know Fujitsu lied. That is fraud and willful neglect ...they should pay out millions just for that alone. There are so many charges to be brought against them in a court of law but I am wondering if the British don't really know that they can sue. It is crazy that anyone went to jail with zero evidence to prove their guilt. It is like a dystopian film 😢
So true. I agree 100%. I don’t know how these people can live with themselves knowing this. Utterly shameful
They weren't sorry when we didn't know about it
Mr.Bates went into his system records , found the mistakes and deleated them. Everyone needed to be shown how to do that every day.
What a rubbish system. If you work somewhere and call a work helpline they are normally always able to access your screen so they can see for themselves what's wrong. If they can't, then they are part of the problem 😂😂
Well this is part of the issue, the Sub-Postmasters were responsible for any discrepancies, so it's like they hire the software from the PO for their shop's PO, so the call centre should not have access to "take control of their screen", the issue was they were accessing there system without the Subs knowledge and making changes to fix bugs BADDY
This was decades ago. You couldn't do that then
Where else is the software used😢
It was designed for the Post Office, for a lot of £ so it's properly not been used anywhere else.
Some of it was built using visual basic 5 !
Horizon software cost the British Taxpayer over 1.2 billion pounds and never worked properly even now. Amazingly even after this failure Fujitsu were given another IT contract by the Government for the NHS which cost 6 billion pounds and was NEVER DELIVERED! The money was just written off.
@@fredsmith1970I think all of it was written in VB certainly the core cash handler and the message store. one of the developers stated they wrote the Spec documents after the system had been built and they built the real system on top of the prototype code.
@@daviddowsett1658I read that it was designed/intended as a joint project between the DWP and PO (to manage benefit payments by the PO) But the DWP dropped the software (due to misgivings) which was then dumped on the PO so not to "loose" the £700 million spent on it. So it was flawed for it's original purpose from the outset 🤦
Senior Fujitsu and post office management, stonewalling and plane lying to post office workers, and government, and union officials failing to back them. It's hard to see how it could be any clearer, authority is untrustworthy
I like the Bee Keepers response to issues like this, trouble is petrol is so expensive
So, how long did he lie until blowing his whistle? Watch his facial language: why the constant smirk.. !?
Yeah you're right I hadn't picked this up from the enquiry. How did the situation arise where the SPM has to prove innocence rather than the other way round?
Is Horizon software still being used. Has it been fixed or are there still problems? Looking in on this from another country, I am confused, though I am assuming that those tragic scenarios have come to an end.
They should have come forward sooner😮
Fujitsu just bought an English company. It was this English software company’s designed, installed and operated by English staff .
They were alllooking for bugs that was in fact the access to Fujitsu to access and alter computers. Theywill freely admit to errors to avoid discovery of computer fraud. by Fujitsu. I wonder how many other systems they have access to ??
Politicians repeating the same BS over and over again when responding to a simple question. Fujitsu needs to cough up and the Post Office managers that knew what went on, jailed.
Which politicians were involved, other than the ones that gave their support to the Post masters? It was a group of mp’s that pressed on the ‘problem’ their postmaster constituents were suffering.
This whole episode is abhorrent. From beginning to end top to bottom. Complacency negligence and lies. Fujitsu and the PO. managers, Directors and laywers should be prosecuted and some - a great many - jailed. Fujitsu should be made to pay up in some cases individuals should receive many millions plus interest. Ultimately it shows our legal systems flaws. Adversarial? Bull. The law was not followed. The Judges (hundreds of them) if they had looked through the papers properly they would have realised that the 'Expert' was biased and not Independent. They also assumed that individuals were lying not the lawyers who were. In some cases they cut off the very lifeline the defence had. The whole debacle is being relived through no compensation. An independent compensation board should have been set up years ago and payments made. I'm pretty certain if the perpetrators had been jailed then compensation would go through imnediately.
So why didn't these call center people go to the press, why didn't they go over to the Post Masters and Mistresses and tell them what he knew.A job is just a job, but your conscience means much more than a damn job.
The Fujitsu service desk were not the people sending postmasters to court. That would be Royal Mail's team. The Fujitsu service desk knew the application was rubbish but I doubt they knew how the data generated by the system was being used. I suspect the Fujitsu engineers would have raised red flags if they had known what Royal Mail was doing with the obviously faulty data.
But it is his fault that it happened. He stayed silent in the face of all that suffering when he should have said something. SOMEBODY HAS TO GO TO JAIL OVER THIS... FOR A VERY LONG TIME!!
How about the PO immediately pays "provisional" damages, while waiting for the final amount to be sorted out?
Poor fella, 3 years in prison for no reason.
Withdraw the PO right to take out independant prosecutions! Too much money involved to keep people honest. Fujitsu will have been working with PO seniors to keep a wrap on it as all their careers depended on it.
Just as thousands of individual companies have the right to take out a private action, so did the PO. The whole small claims court also operates on that basis. What does need investigating is the financial and resource disparity of the plaintiff and the defendant in this case .
The government, post office and Fujitsu sicken me with their dishonesty, but most of all Fujitsu who were aware their system was faulty and still hiding behind the enquiry. That in my mind even worse that their faulty software that they failed to admit to. Fujitsu ought to be putting up millions of pounds now, right now, to right their terrible wrongs. I thought Japanese company’s were honest and they had very high moral values, but not this company. The U.K. should stop all contracts with Fujitsu as soon as is reasonable possible because they can’t be trusted..
You would be shocked if you knew just how rotten Fujitsu is.
Is admirable for him to come out, but is a bit too late isn't it? Personally I wouldn't have the conscience to let it go for so long. Is like standing next to a hole people keep falling into it and you simply stand on the side talking to them when they were trapped in the hole in pain and about to die.
They properly have a non-disclosure claim in the employment contract, these sorts of IT companies (information is power) do and that means even after you leave, you could be sued ... however they could have made an anonymous tip-off, perhaps some did but whet nowhere for lack of proof. Who knows ... not me not you.
@@daviddowsett1658 is pretty much a default to sign an NDA when you join a company. But NDA is not valid if laws have been broken
@@daviddowsett1658 dead right tips were being made - where you think all the Commputerworld magazine and Private Eye sourced articles were coming from - and what happened from that?
@@I_like_YT_lots Sure, but large IT companies with very very deep pockets for legal action, and employ very very good legal firms in one of the worlds most expensive legal systems, make proving that said company in a very complex legal case broke laws is so beyond the resources of even quite senior IT execs, let alone a low level help desk operator, close to impossible practically.
As the UK Post office had quasi prosecution powers under which they were taking these cases it not at all clear if UK whistleblower processes would apply and by in large in reality the UK governments and Courts just deferred to the Post Office practically at every turn for almost 2 decades.
If you had lost you career (I've work in IT across the world and there no way even a lowly call taker ever works again for a large IT company), had no income, were trying to get a new career going and facing a massively expensive legal case against a huge IT corporate with a top legal firm representing them, I think you might park your conscience for a while as well.
@@user-uy6uc5ey5q That makes a lot of sense. Nearly 15 years of Computerworld coverage!
It also appears to be about the unforeseen consequences of the privatisation of the PO and them keeping powers to do criminal investigations.
This country has no moral compass.
From the very top, the corrupt government, to the very bottom, those plebs that keep voting for them. No moral compass, no compassion, no sense.
Why didnt he report his bosses to thd media? How could hs sleep at night?
So many criminals in this web of deceit and deception
All you needed was a good forensic accountant, he'd prove that they didn't have the damned the money.
Another person trying to make money off the poor postmasters/postmistress.
Shame this guy didn't speak out years ago
Where's the $$. If this was just a 'bug', why were the errors always in the PO favour?
And the length of time is seen where legals are trawling through witness statements.
The corporate sector today is the modern equivalent of plantation owners.
Does anyone in govt have the requisite knowledge of software? Sounds unlikely seeing we now know the legal profession on the whole were fooled by the "Horizon is robust" statements. We are all very lucky the judge in the SPMs' case against the Post Office did understand the issues. It is well worth reading his long report if you have the time and energy. You will see what kind of knowledge is needed. Is part of the issue that govt won't pay enough for software so they don't get the best. I used to hear that. Good systems require much expertise and ARE expensive. And much expertise needed by those who want to use those systems, frankly.
People commited suicide! Ffs!
Isn't this tantamount to heinous criminal behaviour on the part of those who gave the order to lie to subpostmasters?
Here is the thing, apart from all the other aspects of this affair the role of Lord Neuberger in the Recusal seems to have escaped attention.
I have therefore pasted the following ‘The role of Lord Neuberger in the recusal fiasco (Justice Fraser) should be investigated’ on as many TH-cam articles as I could, about ten, but when I checked to see if there was any response I discovered they had all been taken down.
This Kafkaesque episode staggers one at every turn, even when Big brother has been outed he seems to be still working away!
I really want to know why Lord Neuberger interfered , if the recusal had succeeded the whole noble attempt at taking on the stinking system would have failed
Thank you David for commenting. Sometimes if you post things en masse, it gets regarded as spam. It has happened to me - but only when I’ve posted on one video.
Anyway, I have just done a google search using keywords relating to what you are talking about. There are quite a number of matches, mainly from 2022. Nick Wallis, who wrote the book on which the TV programmes were based (I think) has a post on his Linked In account. Several members of the law profession have responded to him. I can’t see how any of this can now be covered up. I shall certainly acquaint myself with the matter that you have highlighted here.
Let’s hope the Inquiry unearths some more facts.
I still have the nagging feeling...have you ever watched those guys who hack the hackers, and get them busted...i think this is a lot bigger for 2 background entities here than we even speak of yet. The helpline guy's computer was still in the hands of others...could we have a more "robust" investigation, please..
It happened at the Stevenage site !!!!!
What did ?
What is the betting that Fujitsu 'phoenix' before liability is apportioned?
Who knew Fujitsu even wrote software? And if you imagined what type of software they would be capable of producing it's this mess of enterprise software.
He should feel guilty!
The lawyer's will keep the inquiry alive ,till they made enough money out of it ,or until the government can find a big enough carpet to sweep it under
Sad little henchmen for going along with this
Now look at our national lottery software, you will also find the issues
Time to remove Fujitsu from all UK Government contracts now
On another topic Paul Brand really is the snakiest of snakes. He makes my skin crawl the lows he will go to get the big scoop
easy to find people that wish they had not worked on a project / client / employer - who has not?
was in post man patters bright red van 🤣 had a black ann white cat holic in there as well 🤣🤣🤣
Did you have a head injury when you typed that ?
then missis goggins turned up with the scottish accent 😘😅😋🤣
When will heads roll???
When hell freezes over.
Yet this government is giving them contracts and yet isnt prosecuting Fujitsu at all
How the PO is allowed to do what they are now doing with compensation etc is an absolute joke, british justice at its best again huh its a laughing stock
looks like chocolate candles 🤣🤣