The political party in Government is irrelevant , it's the fact the Post Office is allowed to police itself , that is the problem . When i joined in 1984 i had to sign the official secrets act , the job is termed as a civil servant . I've seen , who we used to call ......" The men in Black " .....swoop in with no explanation and take their victim away , you never saw them there again , even the office manager was in the dark . You get the same type of ethos at the BBC .....thats what needs to change , get rid of all the protection they have and FORCE them to be ACCOUNTABLE . @@IggyGoesPop666
And they won’t be held to account. It’s not hyperbole when it’s said that this current Tory government is by far the most corrupt, inept, self-serving collection of wankers ever assembled in the history of British politics. They do not care about injustice.
@johnshaw4140 I think the post office itself planned to steal the money,and then setup those innocent post office workers,it looks so obvious especially knowing that any investigations were going to be held through the post office only. This is absolutely disgusting.
I've rarely felt such anger when watching a television programme. The fact that so many of these unfortunate individuals were convicted and robbed by the Post Office and that so far nobody from the Post Office Management has suffered any consequences whatsoever is astonishing.
I felt that anger. I don't really watch TV, but this got my attention. I know the story from previous articles that I have read etc., but on seeing this scandal as a TV series made my blood boil. Scandal doesn't begin to describe the events. My heart goes out to all of those affected by this miscarriage of justice. I expect they are delaying as much as possible, in the hope that some will die before getting their money back (it is their money, not compensation.)
@@Stan_55UK lie at them poor people ( want the post office pay up i.t systern broken down pay £m did not work alan bates keep do let them win as ceo post office hand back cbe right )
NEVER been so angry at such an injustice, these Post office bosses MUST go to jail A " CBE" for a criminal, possibly a murderer makes a mockery of the British award system
@@IlkleyscotShe was in charge, the buck stops with her. Four people committed suicide because of the damage caused under her stewardship. Has she no shame?
Honours are given to all sorts of dodgy people. A CBE is relatively minor, when you consider that Evgeny Lebedev - son of a Russian oligarch - who has presided over the decline of the Evening Standard newspaper (effectively bought with Dad's money), was given a peerage and is now a Lord. It goes on all the time.
Getting people to pay back funds that were never missing, sending them to prison for thefts never committed and refusing to display any level of decency when the facts slowly begin to be revealed. This is a crime so great that restitution in full is demanded. But the dead cannot be returned to life and the years and dignity lost, pain and suffering endured cannot be mitigated. Shameful, shameful organisation.
This shows the depth of 'public /government bodies" of morality and greed. Governments over the years have shown no respect for the nation, just their pockets.Both Labour and Tories.
These people should be in prison for their dubious and unethical and fraudulent treatment of these hard working innocent people in defence of a computer system.
Public private indemnity should not protect Fujitsu from the crimes they committed to hide the failures of their system. They need to be made an example of too.
It’s hard to imagine how this must have felt when running a post office and being accused of stealing large amounts of money, this should have been sorted out by now, incredibly sad.
Having followed the Post Office Horizon scandal for many years ,I just cannot understand why Post Office officials have not been prosecuted having been complicit in the knowingly wrongful prosecution of innocent Post Masters and Mistress.
I agree but probably through lack of concrete evidence. It seems it will be Autum 2024 at the earliest before The Inquiry finishes and all evidence is considered. We have not heard from the principal characters yet and it remains to be seen what role Senior Civil Servants or Government officials have had in all this. I look forward to the day when the first prosecution starts.
They have all been hiding in the shadows, faceless and nameless. Someone needs to expose all of them with photos and names. The Met Police involvement might do this with regards to the fraud aspect. I wish someone would write a book about these people to show it was not just Vennells who has teamed up with the devil.
The postmasters were tried in a court of law and were found guilty of stealing money. Read the evidence given in court by these postmasters, it points to their guilt. There were no wrongful convictions. Later, some of the postmasters found guilty actually admitted to stealing, some as much as £200,000! So, what is the justification for this media interference in the judicial process ? There has been a long running problem of theft, post office was loosing money and it was being wrongly put down to computer error. A new system therefore was installed to fix the problem and it did, it caught those trying to steal either knowingly or by not being aware of the multiple safety checks built into the new computer system. Btw, there are 11,000 terminals connected to the computer systems. Those found guilty of stealing numbered around 700, the rest 10,300 postmaster using the same computer system were said to have no such complaints.
They have had years to build a defence , and a government that will do everything possible to keep face and reputation . Only when Vennells and her team are convicted , jailed , had their pensions removed and handed back their golden goodbyes and honours and All those who were Post Office victims fully compensated can this be put to bed .
I speak as someone who managed a wide variety of technical development projects over many years. The sad thing is that the technical issues could have been fixed quite easily. The project concerned the gathering, collation and presentation of data and that’s it. It wasn’t like landing a rover on Mars for crying out loud. I would also have hoped/expected that the technical bods would have had sufficient technical pride to positively WANT to fix any problems encountered. An horrendous failure of corporate governance and oversight by over promoted incompetents 😡.
Agree, as an IT person in Financial Services throughout my working life I feel let down by the layers of incompetence and dishonesty by fellow IT workers. There should have been double entry systems and audit logs - all the discrepancies should have been glaringly obvious and each should have been tracked down and sorted out. Lives were being ruined, the people responsible should be losing their pensions, their houses and their liberty.
Actually, some of the technical bods involved who have Professional Registration with the UK Engineering Council (CEng, IEng, EngTech) may be in breach of the Code of Conduct of the Council and/or their Professional Engineering Institution, e.g. the BCS or IET. It is open to anyone to make a complaint to relevant Institutions about any of their members, for example those whom the Horizon Inquiry shows to have been complicit. Professional Registration can be cancelled if a breach has occured.
@@andrewharrison8436they were that’s why they had a team that was constantly fixing issues. The audit logs that showed every keystroke that was made by a postmaster weren’t checked when the investigator got involved.
The system design of Horizon seems flawed since the contract of the sub postmasters says they are responsible for the accounts, yet the horizon system allowed remote access which undermines the contract of the sub postmasters. And that is before you even get to the faults in the accounting of the transactions.
There must be prosecutions of senior staff. They lied and lied and lied again. Blatant fraud. They told numerous subpostmasters that they were the ONLY one who had a problem. They knew there was a problem. Compensation is not enough. There MUST be prosecutions.
And after they lied, they lied, and lied, and lied, and lied and lied. And after that, they lied and lied and lied and lied, and lied and lied and lied, and lied and lied......
This hurts even more when you actually know a Victim and his wife of this. When you walk into a Post office and can’t understand why that wife is in floods of tears. Or that the husband has suddenly turned from a nice friendly guy into someone who is deeply troubled. Then months later they have left the Post office and end up living in Assisted Housing. Then died before all this came to light!
It has been the most shocking thing I’ve seen .I’ve cried while watching this and I’ve felt their frustration .what it must have felt like ,the post office didn’t care a bit and to ring up for help only to be told it’s your fault ,the system is robust and can’t be wrong I felt like screaming 😩😩🤯
Surely there HAS to be criminal charges against someone for this appalling miscarriage of justice? The people forced to sell their homes etc to pay back money that was never missing…that is surely a case of theft? Absolutely disgusting. Alan Bates literally deserves to be knighted for what he has done, the man is a national treasure in my opinion.
There is no doubt in my mind that Post Office management were aware that the system wasn't fit for purpose or at least they weren't 100% confident in it. Despite this doubt in the system, they extorted money out of these people and pursued them in court (to devastating consequences in some cases). If this doesn't represent criminal activity on the part of the organisation, then I don't know what does. Organised crime has nothing on these guys - at least gangsters are honest about their methods.
Public private indemnity should not protect Fujitsu from the crimes they committed to hide the failures of their system. They need to be made an example of too.
You could maybe understand 4 or 5 postmasters being dishonest and stealing (apologies to all postmasters for this comment), but for irregularities to be found to be made by 700 of them, yet NOBODY in the Post Office had the sense to investigate the possibility of a flaw in the system is astounding. To make it worse, each of those postmasters was told that they were the only person that was experiencing these discrepancies. We can't assume that everything in the dramatised TV version was actually true, but it is clear that there was a directive from top management to continue to pursue the innocent postmasters. I cannot believe that not a single other employee suggested that there could be a a problem with the system, but was ordered not to pursue an investigation. The board of directors should be prosecuted for their role in ruining the lives of so many innocent people and their families.
It is not compensation but restitution. Post Office contracts were shocking for years. There is some justice but it seems slim. My best wishes for the future to all sub post masters. Criminal charges need to be brought against post office and fujitsu employees who are culpable.
Having worked in a govt sector as a lead investigator on discipline..it should have been obvious to any disciplinary team that these errors where of such a frequency of and with similiar circumstances surrounding them that they should have been directing the organistion into investigating the IT system
I believe investigations into the software were asked for, but refused by senior PO management. They, and the software developers were adamant there were no glitches in the software.
This is disgusting and shocking. This scandal is the Post Office's own PPI and PPE shocker. And they can't even accept responsibility. What had happened to simple moral justice in our country. Shame on the Post Office.
How typical of Government today. Don't hold your breath for decency and honesty from those in power. So very heartbreaking to see what those hard working decent people went through.
It’s interesting that when this system was introduced, the Post Office was run by and fundamentally still is run by the same shambolic civil servants we have in place today, gong happy with utter distain for the people they are meant to serve. Incompetence is an understatement.
It's not the civil servants or incompetence. It was lack of will by the post office leaders and the government to disclose the truth and bring about redress for the victimised sub-postmasters. The reason for this was that the government wanted to sell off the post office but it needed to be profitable for that to happen and they knew that no one would want to buy it with a faulty IT system. I'm sure that came out in a Panorama documentary about it which can still be found on BBC iplayer.
@@heliotropezzz333 agreed and this is in addition to my previous comment. By the actions taken by those in charge of the Post Office and those within the Post Office (all Civil Servants at the time) a great miscarriage has taken place. They were not automatons, they understood their actions and done it anyway believing they were above reproach. We may forget that the government will give direction but the Civil Service will apply the task.
Listening to this guy I realise how brilliant toby jones is as an actor, he really got the essence of the guy and the nauces of his mannerisems, speech inflections……. This is a scandal, they should all just be given millions in compensation and a criminal inquiary should be started for thiose responsible.
Alan Bates should be given a seat in the House of Lords, there are too many cronies in there it's time for real (Honest) people to have a voice! if there's anyone out there who could start a petition for this please go for it
I have been following the BBC podcast of this story for the last three years, it is even more astonishing than the excellent ITV showings. There was a deliberate decision by Vennels and her underlings to bury evidence of a faulty system and to prosecute innocent people as part of that cover up. All the people from vennels downward must be prosecuted for this hideous behaviour, they should suffer the same stress and disruption of a normal life as the Postmasters.
Given the importance that the Japanese place on honourable behaviour it would be interesting to understand the attitude of top management at Fujitsu in Japan to what their U.K. subsidiary was up to 🤔?
I watched this series, and i was both heartbroke and very angry with how the post office treated these poor people, I'm really glad the people are going to investigate this case and i hope and pray they get the justice they truly truly deserve, and my sincere condolences to the families of the people that didn't make it. R,I,P.
@@gordonaliasme1104 First, my name came about by chance and it's acronym is pure happenstance. You will affect not to believe this because it doesn't suit you to. Second, I never bait for Likes. Never. The term "hands up" is nothing more than a common turn of phrase. I think you go looking for patterns and consequently will always find them.
If you look at the Post Office web-site it says this- "What has become known as the ‘Horizon IT Scandal’ involves a dispute, between Post Office and a group of Postmasters, which took place over many years. It primarily concerned the reliability of the Horizon computer system used in post offices and issues related to Postmasters’ contracts and the culture of Post Office at the time." "dispute"? The PO are still trying to downplay this huge miscarriage of justice"
Agree completely, public private indemnity is being used to protect Fujitsu from the crimes they committed, hiding the failures of their system. They need to be made an example of too.
The UK is a plutocracy, verging on a kleptocracy..........it's utterly broken. There are no credible politicsl parties and rampant greed, lies and corruption is rampant. It's utterly heartbreaking.
What are the lawyers and judges doing? Judges could make these cases settle if they wished. The legal gravy train requires the slowest possible process
Imagine being able to destroy lives, reputations, imprison people, steal their money and livelihoods with complete impunity. Go well Alan. I wish you well and that one day you finally get the justice that you all deserve. Your determination is inspirational.
Some of the victims of the Post Office scandal have argued that the judiciary of England and Wales should account for its role in the scandal, as it accepted the evidence presented by the Post Office without sufficient scrutiny, and failed to protect the rights and interests of the defendants
They should be charged with manslaughter if one committed suicide, and sadly there was. Shows what those we are supposed to trust actually think of us. Stop their Welfare Checks.
It just lacks words to describe what all those people has gone through in their lives... Alan Bates a true hero encouraged people to write to local MPs about the case. This is the least we all can do trying to help.
It reminds me of the Hillsborough scandal and the cover up there. What has the country come to? These chiefs and corporations have no moral compass or humanity.
How in Heavens name could this happen in what is supposed to be a democratic country? Those accused had no access to the justice system, because the Post Office acted as their own judiciary. How could this be legal - that these innocent people accused could not appeal to any system of actual justice because the Post Office acted as their own law courts.
Fujitsu needs to answer for their crimes also. Their faulty system, their lies, their deception. This is not all on the post office, don't let public private contractual indemnity let them get away with the crime itself.
One of the minor things that strikes me is that the post office’s hierarchy, who were repeatedly made aware of the problems with the Horizon software, still went ahead and prosecuted post masters and fined these people. If the money wasn’t missing in the first place, these fines were added to the total profits of the post office and the people in charge were awarded bonuses on the basis of these increased profits. So if 30 thousand pounds wasn’t missing, and hundreds of people were forced to “payback” 30 thousand pounds, those in charge profited personally.
I was aware of this but until I saw the drama/ documentary did not fully realise the terrible damage both financial and psychological it reck on the poor inviduals.
Fujitsu is the devil of the story here. Knowingly releasing and selling faulty software to people has to be some sort of crime - and not even bothering to release a patched version free of such devastating bugs is also disgusting. But why anyone decided that the Post Office should have private prosecution powers outside of the Met and CPS is beyond me. I mean what happened in a flipping Post Office that requires and allows them to randomly arrest their own employees and land them behind bars without any actual evidence apart from what they think is sufficient. The whole "private prosecution" law seems shady to me anyway.
WHERE IS THE MINISTRY OF JUSTICE IN ALL OF THIS DISGRACEFUL MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE? ALL LEGAL REPRESENTATIVES AND STAFF ARE ACCOUNTABLE AND SHOULD BE INVESTIGATED, INCLUDING THE JUDICIARY.
Royal Mail what else would you expect , I had my mail stolen for three years , when I complained I was told I was the only one complaining ,till it all came out .
I Saw that TV Mini Serious Mr Bates Verses the Post office and I was Shocked and Horrafide by what was going on by the Postoffice and this has Convinced me that those Men and Women were used as Scapegotes by the Postoffice and it has also Convinced me that we need strong Unions to Prevent Organisations from treating Men and Women like these
The whole system is corrupt. Those unfortunate sub postmasters should not only get back the money they lost but compensation for all the heartache they went through for so many years. Paula Vennells still has her CBE, a former Priest too, disgusting!!! Whatabout holding her accountable, shouldn't she be in prison???
One problem is that the post office is in a position where they assume the country needs them and there could be a postal disaster should they go under. So they think they have the power to behave as they wish. Ebay and amazon should start looking elswhere for a suitable delivery company. Why don't all the post office staff around the country join up with a notable delivery company. Form a cooperative and leave the post office standing.
@@tonykirk1966 I agree they should be on trial. I initially felt the same about not using the Post Office, but all that would achieve is putting more people out of work. My conscience won't allow me to do that. I believe that pushing for justice is the best way forward.
If this goes unpunished and the victims are not substantially compensated, we will know for sure that the establishment are contemptuous of the the public ! They were quick enough to destroy peoples lives when they thought the boot was on the other foot ! It is a national disgrace and under no circumstances should there be a " get out of jail free card " - let's see how they deal with being the victims ! The difference is that they are culpable ! Remember, people died as a direct result of this.
When the employees of massive state controlled institutes cannot trust the directors, management ,or even the owners the government to tell the truth its time for radical change and personal accountability to be insisted on . No limitation of culpability over time, if it happened on your watch you answer for it. Fast tracking through the courts instead of decades of denial. Enough lip service more action required.
Make those responsible for this travesty of justice pay for their corporate cover up. These are, by its definition, criminals. The police MUST take action.
I don't think I've ever felt such anger and frustration whilst watching a TV programme - such shameful and ruthless pursuit of quite obviously genuine people is horrendous and unforgivable. And to think that they were actually demanding money back from these people, financially ruining them, whilst knowing that the system was responsible is criminal!! There must be some accountability here, but I fear that there won't be, just a slow grind to allow the public too lose interest -- I hope that we don't let that happen
I find it curious that Andrew Bridgen worked for a decade to bring this to light an was instrumental in the getting to the truth yet has not figured at all, in the media.
This needs to be properly investigated and I don’t think the police can do this. Independent lawyers overseen by a non UK Judge is the only way to get this independently investigated and the right people prosecuted. Compensation needs to be paid within weeks not months and years and public apologies must be made individually and in the house now.
A non-UK judge? Interesting. Maybe someone from Russia, say, or the Palestinian Authority, maybe? Possibly even Zimbabwe, if the budget will run to it....
@@smhorse uk judges are another part of the establishment so maybe a New Zealand one otherwise there will just be another whitewash see it all too often before
it made me so angry that an establishment like the post office can treat anyone like they did , as for those involved it the legal action , shutting down post master etc ALL need procecution , they knew they were wrong , and thats a fact
People went to prison.so the top people who were in charge should serve a prison sentence and all the money that they got paid in there time should be used towards completion
What is utterly disgusting is that NOBODY has been prosecuted even though people have died and had their lives destroyed
Its yet another Tory cover up
@@IggyGoesPop666 Indeed. Rotten to the core.
The political party in Government is irrelevant , it's the fact the Post Office is allowed to police itself , that is the problem . When i joined in 1984 i had to sign the official secrets act , the job is termed as a civil servant . I've seen , who we used to call ......" The men in Black " .....swoop in with no explanation and take their victim away , you never saw them there again , even the office manager was in the dark . You get the same type of ethos at the BBC .....thats what needs to change , get rid of all the protection they have and FORCE them to be ACCOUNTABLE .
@@IggyGoesPop666
And they won’t be held to account. It’s not hyperbole when it’s said that this current Tory government is by far the most corrupt, inept, self-serving collection of wankers ever assembled in the history of British politics. They do not care about injustice.
@johnshaw4140 I think the post office itself planned to steal the money,and then setup those innocent post office workers,it looks so obvious especially knowing that any investigations were going to be held through the post office only.
This is absolutely disgusting.
I've rarely felt such anger when watching a television programme. The fact that so many of these unfortunate individuals were convicted and robbed by the Post Office and that so far nobody from the Post Office Management has suffered any consequences whatsoever is astonishing.
The Tory way
I felt that anger. I don't really watch TV, but this got my attention. I know the story from previous articles that I have read etc., but on seeing this scandal as a TV series made my blood boil. Scandal doesn't begin to describe the events. My heart goes out to all of those affected by this miscarriage of justice. I expect they are delaying as much as possible, in the hope that some will die before getting their money back (it is their money, not compensation.)
@@Stan_55UK lie at them poor people ( want the post office pay up i.t systern broken down pay £m did not work alan bates keep do let them win as ceo post office hand back cbe right )
100% agreed
It seems to be the age we live in, must be like the days before democracies came about.
ALAN BATES what a man , a HEROE .
NEVER been so angry at such an injustice, these Post office bosses MUST go to jail
A " CBE" for a criminal, possibly a murderer makes a mockery of the British award system
Give back that honour.you do not deserve it as you are definitely not honourable
The Baroness Owen of Alderney Edge has already done that, to be fair.
Paula it’s only YOU! Should be put in jail and her OBE taken of her and her minions sacked Beyond despicable!!
@@IlkleyscotShe was in charge, the buck stops with her. Four people committed suicide because of the damage caused under her stewardship. Has she no shame?
Honours are given to all sorts of dodgy people. A CBE is relatively minor, when you consider that Evgeny Lebedev - son of a Russian oligarch - who has presided over the decline of the Evening Standard newspaper (effectively bought with Dad's money), was given a peerage and is now a Lord. It goes on all the time.
Getting people to pay back funds that were never missing, sending them to prison for thefts never committed and refusing to display any level of decency when the facts slowly begin to be revealed. This is a crime so great that restitution in full is demanded. But the dead cannot be returned to life and the years and dignity lost, pain and suffering endured cannot be mitigated. Shameful, shameful organisation.
This shows the depth of 'public /government bodies" of morality and greed. Governments over the years have shown no respect for the nation, just their pockets.Both Labour and Tories.
this was nothing short of corporate fraud and perjury...
These people should be in prison for their dubious and unethical and fraudulent treatment of these hard working innocent people in defence of a computer system.
Indeed.
So should those who gave the main criminal woman a CBE in 2019. The was to help trick the public into believing that she wasn't bent.
Public private indemnity should not protect Fujitsu from the crimes they committed to hide the failures of their system. They need to be made an example of too.
I am a member of the labour party. Credit where credit is due. Thumbs up for Arbuthnot.
It’s hard to imagine how this must have felt when running a post office and being accused of stealing large amounts of money, this should have been sorted out by now, incredibly sad.
Having followed the Post Office Horizon scandal for many years ,I just cannot understand why Post Office officials have not been prosecuted having been complicit in the knowingly wrongful prosecution of innocent Post Masters and Mistress.
I agree but probably through lack of concrete evidence. It seems it will be Autum 2024 at the earliest before The Inquiry finishes and all evidence is considered. We have not heard from the principal characters yet and it remains to be seen what role Senior Civil Servants or Government officials have had in all this. I look forward to the day when the first prosecution starts.
They have all been hiding in the shadows, faceless and nameless. Someone
needs to expose all of them with photos and names. The Met Police involvement might do this with regards to the fraud aspect. I wish someone would write a book about these people to show it was not just Vennells who has teamed up with the devil.
That is a scandal in itself.
@@doughill1945I confidently predict that they will either claim that they "Can't recall" or "They don't know nuthin'."
The postmasters were tried in a court of law and were found guilty of stealing money. Read the evidence given in court by these postmasters, it points to their guilt. There were no wrongful convictions. Later, some of the postmasters found guilty actually admitted to stealing, some as much as £200,000! So, what is the justification for this media interference in the judicial process ?
There has been a long running problem of theft, post office was loosing money and it was being wrongly put down to computer error. A new system therefore was installed to fix the problem and it did, it caught those trying to steal either knowingly or by not being aware of the multiple safety checks built into the new computer system.
Btw, there are 11,000 terminals connected to the computer systems. Those found guilty of stealing numbered around 700, the rest 10,300 postmaster using the same computer system were said to have no such complaints.
The people who led the post office at that time should be prosecuted and put to jail. They made this mess.
Those in charge are probably up for gongs and titles soon……
The woman in charge is now Chair of Imperial College London. One of the worlds top Science Universities. You couldn’t make it up
@@eastwest1362 The woman in charge has already been awarded a CBE some years ago.
@@onthenewsuk3681 Starmer was head of the CPS through this and he got a knighthood.
every one of them chose entitlement .who did they get that from.
Shocking mismanagement by the post office those who tried to cover it up and lied should face criminal proceedings
When will people be held accountable?
They have had years to build a defence , and a government that will do everything possible to keep face and reputation . Only when Vennells and her team are convicted , jailed , had their pensions removed and handed back their golden goodbyes and honours and All those who were Post Office victims fully compensated can this be put to bed .
I agree they should all pay with their pensions
Knowing this counties justice system. Never.
They're all in it together.
It will take many years to get to that stage, by which time there'll be a carpet available, under which the whole thing can be swept.
I speak as someone who managed a wide variety of technical development projects over many years. The sad thing is that the technical issues could have been fixed quite easily. The project concerned the gathering, collation and presentation of data and that’s it. It wasn’t like landing a rover on Mars for crying out loud. I would also have hoped/expected that the technical bods would have had sufficient technical pride to positively WANT to fix any problems encountered. An horrendous failure of corporate governance and oversight by over promoted incompetents 😡.
Agree, as an IT person in Financial Services throughout my working life I feel let down by the layers of incompetence and dishonesty by fellow IT workers.
There should have been double entry systems and audit logs - all the discrepancies should have been glaringly obvious and each should have been tracked down and sorted out.
Lives were being ruined, the people responsible should be losing their pensions, their houses and their liberty.
Actually, some of the technical bods involved who have Professional Registration with the UK Engineering Council (CEng, IEng, EngTech) may be in breach of the Code of Conduct of the Council and/or their Professional Engineering Institution, e.g. the BCS or IET. It is open to anyone to make a complaint to relevant Institutions about any of their members, for example those whom the Horizon Inquiry shows to have been complicit. Professional Registration can be cancelled if a breach has occured.
Yes but an independent expert not Fujitsu they should be taken to task for failure and made To pay their fees back
@@andrewharrison8436they were that’s why they had a team that was constantly fixing issues. The audit logs that showed every keystroke that was made by a postmaster weren’t checked when the investigator got involved.
The system design of Horizon seems flawed since the contract of the sub postmasters says they are responsible for the accounts, yet the horizon system allowed remote access which undermines the contract of the sub postmasters. And that is before you even get to the faults in the accounting of the transactions.
There must be prosecutions of senior staff. They lied and lied and lied again. Blatant fraud. They told numerous subpostmasters that they were the ONLY one who had a problem. They knew there was a problem. Compensation is not enough. There MUST be prosecutions.
And after they lied, they lied, and lied, and lied, and lied and lied. And after that, they lied and lied and lied and lied, and lied and lied and lied, and lied and lied......
@@raybo64thanks for your thoughts on this matter. Insightful
This hurts even more when you actually know a Victim and his wife of this. When you walk into a Post office and can’t understand why that wife is in floods of tears. Or that the husband has suddenly turned from a nice friendly guy into someone who is deeply troubled.
Then months later they have left the Post office and end up living in Assisted Housing.
Then died before all this came to light!
How terrible 😞
Its incomprehensible why no one has been held to account for this travesty of justice and flagrant abuse of power.
They're in a club and we're not in it.
Look up and research the network of chums.
A CBE for "services to the Post Office" in these circumstances shows that the British honours system is nothing but a joke
It has been the most shocking thing I’ve seen .I’ve cried while watching this and I’ve felt their frustration .what it must have felt like ,the post office didn’t care a bit and to ring up for help only to be told it’s your fault ,the system is robust and can’t be wrong I felt like screaming 😩😩🤯
Surely there HAS to be criminal charges against someone for this appalling miscarriage of justice? The people forced to sell their homes etc to pay back money that was never missing…that is surely a case of theft? Absolutely disgusting. Alan Bates literally deserves to be knighted for what he has done, the man is a national treasure in my opinion.
Vennells , Crozier and many others should be behind bars!
There is no doubt in my mind that Post Office management were aware that the system wasn't fit for purpose or at least they weren't 100% confident in it. Despite this doubt in the system, they extorted money out of these people and pursued them in court (to devastating consequences in some cases). If this doesn't represent criminal activity on the part of the organisation, then I don't know what does. Organised crime has nothing on these guys - at least gangsters are honest about their methods.
In the programme they refer to cover ups and files being shredded at the time of prosecutions. Of course they know.
👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼
Public private indemnity should not protect Fujitsu from the crimes they committed to hide the failures of their system. They need to be made an example of too.
You could maybe understand 4 or 5 postmasters being dishonest and stealing (apologies to all postmasters for this comment), but for irregularities to be found to be made by 700 of them, yet NOBODY in the Post Office had the sense to investigate the possibility of a flaw in the system is astounding. To make it worse, each of those postmasters was told that they were the only person that was experiencing these discrepancies.
We can't assume that everything in the dramatised TV version was actually true, but it is clear that there was a directive from top management to continue to pursue the innocent postmasters. I cannot believe that not a single other employee suggested that there could be a a problem with the system, but was ordered not to pursue an investigation.
The board of directors should be prosecuted for their role in ruining the lives of so many innocent people and their families.
I'm so glad this drama was shown. I've never felt such anger and how these people were treated and still being treated. Justice needs to be done
It is not compensation but restitution. Post Office contracts were shocking for years. There is some justice but it seems slim. My best wishes for the future to all sub post masters. Criminal charges need to be brought against post office and fujitsu employees who are culpable.
Having worked in a govt sector as a lead investigator on discipline..it should have been obvious to any disciplinary team that these errors where of such a frequency of and with similiar circumstances surrounding them that they should have been directing the organistion into investigating the IT system
Discipline ?
I believe investigations into the software were asked for, but refused by senior PO management. They, and the software developers were adamant there were no glitches in the software.
This is disgusting and shocking. This scandal is the Post Office's own PPI and PPE shocker. And they can't even accept responsibility. What had happened to simple moral justice in our country. Shame on the Post Office.
Don't forget the Crown Prosecution Service's role in this, they were prosecuting postmasters with zero evidence.
How typical of Government today. Don't hold your breath for decency and honesty from those in power. So very heartbreaking to see what those hard working decent people went through.
the people involved should be brought to account in the courts
It’s interesting that when this system was introduced, the Post Office was run by and fundamentally still is run by the same shambolic civil servants we have in place today, gong happy with utter distain for the people they are meant to serve. Incompetence is an understatement.
It's not the civil servants or incompetence. It was lack of will by the post office leaders and the government to disclose the truth and bring about redress for the victimised sub-postmasters. The reason for this was that the government wanted to sell off the post office but it needed to be profitable for that to happen and they knew that no one would want to buy it with a faulty IT system. I'm sure that came out in a Panorama documentary about it which can still be found on BBC iplayer.
@@heliotropezzz333 agreed and this is in addition to my previous comment. By the actions taken by those in charge of the Post Office and those within the Post Office (all Civil Servants at the time) a great miscarriage has taken place. They were not automatons, they understood their actions and done it anyway believing they were above reproach. We may forget that the government will give direction but the Civil Service will apply the task.
The perpetrators and those in charge need to go to jail for a very long time
Listening to this guy I realise how brilliant toby jones is as an actor, he really got the essence of the guy and the nauces of his mannerisems, speech inflections……. This is a scandal, they should all just be given millions in compensation and a criminal inquiary should be started for thiose responsible.
Alan Bates should be given a seat in the House of Lords, there are too many cronies in there it's time for real (Honest) people to have a voice!
if there's anyone out there who could start a petition for this please go for it
The Great Britain of 2023.. a fish rotting from the head!
Well said.
I have been following the BBC podcast of this story for the last three years, it is even more astonishing than the excellent ITV showings.
There was a deliberate decision by Vennels and her underlings to bury evidence of a faulty system and to prosecute innocent people as part of that cover up. All the people from vennels downward must be prosecuted for this hideous behaviour, they should suffer the same stress and disruption of a normal life as the Postmasters.
Given the importance that the Japanese place on honourable behaviour it would be interesting to understand the attitude of top management at Fujitsu in Japan to what their U.K. subsidiary was up to 🤔?
I watched this series, and i was both heartbroke and very angry with how the post office treated these poor people, I'm really glad the people are going to investigate this case and i hope and pray they get the justice they truly truly deserve, and my sincere condolences to the families of the people that didn't make it. R,I,P.
Wouldnt hold your breath!
Yes, there should be consequences.
Hands up everyone who thinks there will be.
Your name means lol, and you are click baiting for likes
@@gordonaliasme1104 First, my name came about by chance and it's acronym is pure happenstance. You will affect not to believe this because it doesn't suit you to.
Second, I never bait for Likes. Never. The term "hands up" is nothing more than a common turn of phrase.
I think you go looking for patterns and consequently will always find them.
they can not let this carry on like this.there is people in the postoffice need to face justice and go jail for a long time it is discusting
If you look at the Post Office web-site it says this-
"What has become known as the ‘Horizon IT Scandal’ involves a dispute, between Post Office and a group of Postmasters, which took place over many years. It primarily concerned the reliability of the Horizon computer system used in post offices and issues related to Postmasters’ contracts and the culture of Post Office at the time."
"dispute"? The PO are still trying to downplay this huge miscarriage of justice"
Miscarriage is too mild a word. This was an ABORTION of Justice.
Everything that was privatised seems to be utterly corrupt!
Don't pretend government & council offices aren't corrupt either.
The Post Office has not been privatised the Royal Mail was privatised two different things entirely.
The Royal Mail was privatised by Vince Cable, LibDem. The Post Office is not privatised.
Please keep up the post office isn't privatised
Agree completely, public private indemnity is being used to protect Fujitsu from the crimes they committed, hiding the failures of their system. They need to be made an example of too.
it is not compensation...it is renumeration of money that the post office stole from these people
Agreed. Any compensation should come on top of the money they are owed.
Certain high up people who worked or the Post Office and Fujitsu need to face criminal charges.
Those from management level who is proven they lied should be sent to prison. No if’s and butts
The CBE should be taken away from Paula Vennels and given to Alan Bates
Fennel in church today ,Sunday, praying this will go away .
No-one, no nobody will ever be held responsible or prosecuted. I will bet my house on that!
Give me a thumbsup if you agree 👍
The UK is a plutocracy, verging on a kleptocracy..........it's utterly broken. There are no credible politicsl parties and rampant greed, lies and corruption is rampant. It's utterly heartbreaking.
As Arbuthnot says, " One of the largest and best regarded organisations ". And then it got privatised.
When?
Royal Mail, maybe, but the Post Office?
What are the lawyers and judges doing? Judges could make these cases settle if they wished. The legal gravy train requires the slowest possible process
Imagine being able to destroy lives, reputations, imprison people, steal their money and livelihoods with complete impunity.
Go well Alan. I wish you well and that one day you finally get the justice that you all deserve. Your determination is inspirational.
Some of the victims of the Post Office scandal have argued that the judiciary of England and Wales should account for its role in the scandal, as it accepted the evidence presented by the Post Office without sufficient scrutiny, and failed to protect the rights and interests of the defendants
The people who committed these acts need to face the law
Paula Bennells needs locking up for this.
Agreed.
They should be charged with manslaughter if one committed suicide, and sadly there was. Shows what those we are supposed to trust actually think of us. Stop their Welfare Checks.
Post should be sued for interest on the money from the original date of judgement, minster responsible should be held to account for delays in payment
It just lacks words to describe what all those people has gone through in their lives... Alan Bates a true hero encouraged people to write to local MPs about the case. This is the least we all can do trying to help.
The Great Post Office Trial podcast is well worth a listen
You guys need to give Private Eye some credit.
1 Word: Punitive/Exemplary Damages incl. criminal charges, obstruction, concealing, deceiving, ...
They were framed and the people that did that should be put on trial.
Why don’t they take private prosecutions out on Fugitsu and the CEO of the post office and everyone who lied and perverted justice
The legal expenses are usually prohibitive. Though given the ire and outrage of the public at large, many of us would be willing to donate.
Fujitsu, who wrote the software should be fined billions
This is a really important story to highlight. Shame you didn't tag on the Ed Davey interview as well.
I agree. Bet he choked on his back peddling!
It reminds me of the Hillsborough scandal and the cover up there. What has the country come to? These chiefs and corporations have no moral compass or humanity.
Who were the 96 crushed by?
I'll wait...
@waynegoldpig2220 You could always look at he TH-cam evidence from the inquiry.
I'll wait fir you to do so.
@@waynegoldpig2220 Who gave them access to do so ?
I'll wait...
How in Heavens name could this happen in what is supposed to be a democratic country? Those accused had no access to the justice system, because the Post Office acted as their own judiciary. How could this be legal - that these innocent people accused could not appeal to any system of actual justice because the Post Office acted as their own law courts.
WHEN will VENNELLS be punished ?
Fujitsu needs to answer for their crimes also. Their faulty system, their lies, their deception. This is not all on the post office, don't let public private contractual indemnity let them get away with the crime itself.
One of the minor things that strikes me is that the post office’s hierarchy, who were repeatedly made aware of the problems with the Horizon software, still went ahead and prosecuted post masters and fined these people.
If the money wasn’t missing in the first place, these fines were added to the total profits of the post office and the people in charge were awarded bonuses on the basis of these increased profits.
So if 30 thousand pounds wasn’t missing, and hundreds of people were forced to “payback” 30 thousand pounds, those in charge profited personally.
I was aware of this but until I saw the drama/ documentary did not fully realise the terrible damage both financial and psychological it reck on the poor inviduals.
Fujitsu is the devil of the story here. Knowingly releasing and selling faulty software to people has to be some sort of crime - and not even bothering to release a patched version free of such devastating bugs is also disgusting. But why anyone decided that the Post Office should have private prosecution powers outside of the Met and CPS is beyond me. I mean what happened in a flipping Post Office that requires and allows them to randomly arrest their own employees and land them behind bars without any actual evidence apart from what they think is sufficient. The whole "private prosecution" law seems shady to me anyway.
WHERE IS THE MINISTRY OF JUSTICE IN ALL OF THIS DISGRACEFUL MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE? ALL LEGAL REPRESENTATIVES AND STAFF ARE ACCOUNTABLE AND SHOULD BE INVESTIGATED, INCLUDING THE JUDICIARY.
Royal Mail what else would you expect , I had my mail stolen for three years , when I complained I was told I was the only one complaining ,till it all came out .
Pay them now
Hope real truth comes out as my mum used to work in post ofice
Mr Alan Bates is a star. Yes compensation and money owed are not the same thing. Alan, keep going. Anastasia ♥️🌻🙏🧑🏻🦼
Sir Alan Bates
People responsible must be prosecuted !!!!!
Does this scandal make Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey unelectable at a General election as a result of his ministerial activities / lack of intervention
The Post Office must have its right to prosecute directly removed, and go through the Crown Prosecution Service like the other agencies.
Corporations with judiciary power... sounds.. fascist...
I Saw that TV Mini Serious Mr Bates Verses the Post office and I was Shocked and Horrafide by what was going on by the Postoffice and this has Convinced me that those Men and Women were used as Scapegotes by the Postoffice and it has also Convinced me that we need strong Unions to Prevent Organisations from treating Men and Women like these
The whole system is corrupt. Those unfortunate sub postmasters should not only get back the money they lost but compensation for all the heartache they went through for so many years. Paula Vennells still has her CBE, a former Priest too, disgusting!!! Whatabout holding her accountable, shouldn't she be in prison???
Surrly all those i n th Post Office that tried to hide this Must and I repeat Must be taken to court for the crime of Perverting The Cause Of Justice.
One problem is that the post office is in a position where they assume the country needs them and there could be a postal disaster should they go under. So they think they have the power to behave as they wish. Ebay and amazon should start looking elswhere for a suitable delivery company. Why don't all the post office staff around the country join up with a notable delivery company. Form a cooperative and leave the post office standing.
I think eBay and others have kept them afloat.
@@SueN13 oh yeh totally agree.
I will never use post office services again. Paula Vennells & Angela van den bogerd should be put on trial!!
@@tonykirk1966 That's exactly how I feel. I can't get this 3evilness out of my mind.
@@tonykirk1966 I agree they should be on trial. I initially felt the same about not using the Post Office, but all that would achieve is putting more people out of work. My conscience won't allow me to do that. I believe that pushing for justice is the best way forward.
If this goes unpunished and the victims are not substantially compensated, we will know for sure that the establishment are contemptuous of the the public ! They were quick enough to destroy peoples lives when they thought the boot was on the other foot ! It is a national disgrace and under no circumstances should there be a " get out of jail free card " - let's see how they deal with being the victims ! The difference is that they are culpable ! Remember, people died as a direct result of this.
This woman made a mockery of the judicial system,all those judges passed guilty verdicts on innocent people ,over 700, she should be in jail
Send the compensation bill, current estimate £1,450,200,000 to her, not the taxpayer.
Brilliant.
When the employees of massive state controlled institutes cannot trust the directors, management ,or even the owners the government to tell the truth its time for radical change and personal accountability to be insisted on . No limitation of culpability over time, if it happened on your watch you answer for it. Fast tracking through the courts instead of decades of denial. Enough lip service more action required.
Make those responsible for this travesty of justice pay for their corporate cover up. These are, by its definition, criminals. The police MUST take action.
I don't think I've ever felt such anger and frustration whilst watching a TV programme - such shameful and ruthless pursuit of quite obviously genuine people is horrendous and unforgivable. And to think that they were actually demanding money back from these people, financially ruining them, whilst knowing that the system was responsible is criminal!! There must be some accountability here, but I fear that there won't be, just a slow grind to allow the public too lose interest -- I hope that we don't let that happen
'Our Purpose is to make the world more sustainable by building trust in society through innovation.'
Fujitsu...
Royal Mail are also a corrupt company that prioritise tracked parcels over letters, which is completely against the Universal Service Obligation
before christmas my postman told me that all cards and letters were being held back to prioritise parcels....
Doubt it
@@stevesteve2837In the era of email I would rather my parcels be given priority over junk letters.
Prosecution and jail for these people ASAP
A good and smart man….
Where is government in this rishi
It's now well known and agreed that this has happened.....so sort it out.... NOW!!!
I think "as soon as possible", at this stage, means "NOW, WITOUT ANY FURTHER DELAY".
This is exactly how life for ordanery black folks in Britain.
I find it curious that Andrew Bridgen worked for a decade to bring this to light an was instrumental in the getting to the truth yet has not figured at all, in the media.
This needs to be properly investigated and I don’t think the police can do this. Independent lawyers overseen by a non UK Judge is the only way to get this independently investigated and the right people prosecuted. Compensation needs to be paid within weeks not months and years and public apologies must be made individually and in the house now.
Good luck with that.
A non-UK judge? Interesting. Maybe someone from Russia, say, or the Palestinian Authority, maybe? Possibly even Zimbabwe, if the budget will run to it....
@@smhorse uk judges are another part of the establishment so maybe a New Zealand one otherwise there will just be another whitewash see it all too often before
Totally agree with Alan Bates. Honestly it does not make sense
it made me so angry that an establishment like the post office can treat anyone like they did , as for those involved it the legal action , shutting down post master etc ALL need procecution , they knew they were wrong , and thats a fact
People went to prison.so the top people who were in charge should serve a prison sentence and all the money that they got paid in there time should be used towards completion