And 4 people have committed suicide ! I live in West Byfleet where the subpostmistress went to prison!! British institutions need to get a better grasp of responsibility and professionalism. Paula Vennells should really hand back her CBE also as a Christian she should look at herself and her incompetent actions. The Post Office scandal is a national disgrace of the worst proportion, absolutely shocking and appalling. The board of directors of the post office and Fujitsu really ought to consider their actions and act in the best interests of both themselves, the post office and the victims of their crimes. This will only rumble on and will haunt, not only the victims, but also the perpetrators, who will be forever tainted by the crimes committed. Furthermore we need to UP the quality of management in the UK. The time when a CEO can obfuscate the truth, duck responsibility "because it's IT" are OVER. NO more gravy trains! If you don't know how the IT system works or its issues/errors you really should not be a CEO. The buck stops with CEOs .
@@johnackers6311 perjury and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice would be a good start. The Post Office are known to have withheld vital evidence from defence barristers in at least one case, and probably many more
So the question must be why the court system and judges failed to find the truth. This same situation continues today within civil ligation , the rigorous judicial reasoning and forensic examination continues to be absent, without the ability of individuals representing themselves to be heard as the system is opaque and biased in favour of companies ( using lawyers is too expensive for all but the few with considerable financial means to pay) within a system that allows such iniquities throughout the ‘legal process ‘ that facilitates lawyers using the system to ‘spin’ events without risk to claimants or consequence...root and branch reform within a court system that is overwhelmingly unable to meet demand and dispense ‘justice ‘in a timely and robust search for the truth...
Im observing this catastrophe from afar … as a retired leader in a massive company I have to say im deeply deeply concerned that no one currently seems to be putting effort into REALLY understanding what the IT system ACTUALLY did to create these errors. This system still exists I understand so who is FIXING it now? I dont for a second believe the local postmasters were guilty and dont want to imply that - but to simply dismiss the Horizon system as a black box and not even forensically investigate what went wrong leaves the impression that its unknowable. If the Post Office leaders knew how to track transaction data they would likely know the areas of weakness and common denominators. Just seems to be a complete lack of ownership and leadership not only historically but currently. Some IT leaders need to be in the mix …
I've been following the Inquiry for some time with increasing difficulty in fathoming the depths of dishonesty and depravity to which their leadership community is prepared to descend. The bonus scheme fiasco shows Post Office sees no problem with continuing with the same poor behaviours, meanwhile the Government remains at arms' length and refuses to exercise its right as a shareholder to insist that the Board pulls its socks up.
He could not have described the PO any better "Rotten to the core" no ethics flippant attitude to everyone looking into them and their bully buster ways.
The computer systems of Internet and mobile network suppliers is another potential scandal. How many people have been charged for things that they have neither ordered nor received. I took V to the county court but lost the case. I was denied the right to appeal, i was not told why i lost and, although i could pay for a transcript, this would be useless without the audio file to check it against. I have been denied a copy of the audio file with no explanation. If judges have been told to believe the lie that computer systems are infallible, this would provide an explanation!
I have been watching the inquiry for some time. Then compared it with the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the crash of a DC10 aircraft in Antarctica, admittedly in 1979. The single Inquiry Chairman was a New Zealand High Court Judge - Hon. Peter Mahon. He was the best judge at sniffing out liars giving evidence. Air New Zealand provided executive witnesses who basically lied about low flying over a mountain, Mt Erebus an active volcano. In his judgment, Peter Mahon blamed the Airline, Air New Zealand for incompetence and for trying every way to cover up that incompetence. In his judgment, he said “ I have been force to listen to an Orchestrated Litany of Lies”. For this statement, he was taken to court in a judicial review, to have those words removed. He lost, appealed that judgment to the Privy Council, and again he lost. Gradually over the years, further evidence came to light until in 2019, the then New Zealand prime minister apologised for Air New Zealand’s bad behaviour. The airline was state owned. But even now, the executives still alive and their supporters still claim Peter Mahon was wrong and nothing has been done to rectify the compensation cut short under the then Warsaw Convention for the passengers families. There were 237 passengers and 20 crew. We are all watching the Post Office Horizon inquiry. Just imagine that if WYN Williams decides that the Post Office executives, lawyers and staff who took a part in the false prosecutions of the sub postmasters, are still lying or saying they cannot remember etc., and WYN decides to say so in his report, is he likely to be treated the same as Peter Mahon was by the Privy Council, which was then the Supreme Court for New Zealand? The privy councils decision in 1983 was one of the most appalling miscarriages of justice and I fear that the inability of WYN Williams to say during the hearings that he finds it hard to believe some of the PO witnesses, is likely to lead to the same trouble as in the Mount Erebus scandal. The chair of the Privy Council was Lord Diplock, who just eight years earlier supported Dennings 1974 judgment against a certain Robert Maxwell about “Natural Justice” claims. The whole thing developed into a farce. Lessons from the Erebus scandal inquiry need to be learnt now in the Horizon inquiry and those in the Post Office holding back documentation need to be held to account. The current New Zealand prime minister, Chris Luxon, is a former CEO of Air 40:55 New Zealand. The Prime Minister who apologised in 2019 Jacinda Ardern of the Labour Party, had not even been born in 1979. The parallels with the current inquiry into the PO horizon affair are clear cut. The liars in New Zealand were orchestrated. Some people within the PO Executive were clearly covering up knowingly sending innocents to prison on false charges. Too many are now saying they do not remember, even when the documentation is in front of them showing how badly they behaved. Society cannot tolerate this.
I too have been tuned in to the inquiry mainly because of my employment as a Technical Officer in the Property Services Agency until the mid-70's. My job involved working with PO snr management, in London & Birmingham. What stands out in my mind is this: since the change in PO status, the people running it aren't PO people, they are corporate chancers out to get whatever they can, hence getting a bonus, & some, for attending the inquiry, OK, the CEO handed his back, all of it eventually, for example. One suggestion from a pardoned sub-postmaster is not to consider jail time for the culprits, but to confiscate their property, just as they did to Mr & Mrs Rudkin, who ran the PO at Ibstock, nr where I live. This followed, you may have read, a visit to Fujisu HQ by Mr Rudkin, a trade union rep, who was shown how a Fujitsu operative could access the Horizon account of any PO. On seeing this, Mr Rudkin was aghast, said so in no uncertain terms & was promptly escorted from the building. The following morning a shortfall of £44k appeared in the PO account & they were almost escorted from their branch & home forthwith. No record of Mr Rudkin's visit to Bracknell exists. Retired judge Wyn Williams has got a job on his hands, let's hope he doesn't suffer as Peter Mahon did.
Surely, once the number of post master prosecutions went a standard deviation beyond the historical mean then it should have told them that something else was going on? Clueless Post Office senior management.
I've heard it said that they may have been relying internally on the view that this fantastic and faultless new technology was simply uncovering more fraud. A circular and self-sustaining myth
Well may be not, they had a paper based system, then a shiny new computer system which probable at some level was justified on enhanced compliance & fraud detection - may be not a main goal but I’d be surprised if not in a “pros “ list for the project. So initially the increased number of cases were probably put down to the new system doing its job. They only saw what they were looking for. However there appears to have been enough of other red flags that should asked them to question the increase in incidents & prosecutions.
Don’t forget the new system was questionable as a project from the very start so their egos couldn’t afford to have it questioned it’s integrity impugned . This can also be seen in the decision not to admit that anyone else’s was having a problem when a post master complained asked for help. So I would guess if they told post master that they also said similar up the line to management. Tell people what they want to hear makes life easier !!!!
Just like any big corporation, wont accept any wrong doings and just walk all over innocent ordinary people, they need to be held accountable and admit the system had flaws, i would have more respect as im sure others would as well
Its a case of poor quality leadership leading to poor management of the situation. So my question is why did the Post Office recruit poor quality Leaders ?
Very good video. I hope you all keep up the good work. May be also do a short spiel on your organization in each video as have not seen it heard of you before.
Also, a video on TH-cam changing typed text in comments during typing after after typing when comments are posted and appears different to what was there after pressing the reply button.
Hello as people must say in the UK 'in my opinion it seems to me that' Horizon by definition is a SIGINT system - wiki it if you don't know what this means - and throwing regular people under the bus to protect GCHQ/other intelligence agency interests 'must surely be in my opinion' business as usual. If you were thinking about why this scandal was allowed to happen, and for so long, the answer might not be 'incompetence' or 'arrogance' etc. eh.
No one can tell me that Paula Vennells was totally to blame, it appears that she was the "fall-guy" at the time she was brought in, the Horizon problem was already very "robust", and the P.O boardroom knew there was a big fan that was going to hit bigtime, they neatly introduced Paula to the $hitstorm, and bless her she didn't have a clue she was manoeuvred so? Then there is the Fujitsu staff, their conduct is also criminal, if it can be shown that they guided some funds into associates or family accounts?
I do think she should return her CBE? but out of disgust at the way she has been made a scapegoat? my sympathy for her is only by fact of this scenario, she is guilty of abhorrent behaviour none the less.@mollienight
Fall guy? You are the CEO of a company. So you see unforseen problems. She would have access to information. You either take the bull by the horns and show leadership to put things right, or you leave. She chose to stay and concentrate of making the post office profitable.
She’s not totally to blame. She can’t be because it started long before she joined, but she was either complicit or somehow unaware of a major scandal going on in the organisation of which she was chief executive. I find the latter hard to believe and, if true, she was utterly incompetent. And, as of today, she has handed back her CBE.
And 4 people have committed suicide ! I live in West Byfleet where the subpostmistress went to prison!! British institutions need to get a better grasp of responsibility and professionalism. Paula Vennells should really hand back her CBE also as a Christian she should look at herself and her incompetent actions. The Post Office scandal is a national disgrace of the worst proportion, absolutely shocking and appalling. The board of directors of the post office and Fujitsu really ought to consider their actions and act in the best interests of both themselves, the post office and the victims of their crimes. This will only rumble on and will haunt, not only the victims, but also the perpetrators, who will be forever tainted by the crimes committed. Furthermore we need to UP the quality of management in the UK. The time when a CEO can obfuscate the truth, duck responsibility "because it's IT" are OVER. NO more gravy trains! If you don't know how the IT system works or its issues/errors you really should not be a CEO. The buck stops with CEOs .
Criminal charges should be brought against the people at the top !!!!
Agree with the sentiment. But charged with what?
@@johnackers6311 perjury and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice would be a good start. The Post Office are known to have withheld vital evidence from defence barristers in at least one case, and probably many more
Perjury?@@johnackers6311
@@johnackers6311 Fraud, perjury, conspiracy-related charges, etc etc? And involuntary manslaughter?
Great Interview Thanks to everybody in this stream
Sign the online petition against Paula Vennells to strip her of her CBE.
Signed and shared!
@@JeffsWig 👍
She should have the decency to hand it back of her own free will, I would suggest.
Thanks for that. But it won't make any difference to her until she is asked to give a load of money back
At 22:00 he's absolutely right about the weird "over-lawyerfication" that the PO chose over decency and common sense.
Brilliant! Thank you!
So the question must be why the court system and judges failed to find the truth. This same situation continues today within civil ligation , the rigorous judicial reasoning and forensic examination continues to be absent, without the ability of individuals representing themselves to be heard as the system is opaque and biased in favour of companies ( using lawyers is too expensive for all but the few with considerable financial means to pay) within a system that allows such iniquities throughout the ‘legal process ‘ that facilitates lawyers using the system to ‘spin’ events without risk to claimants or consequence...root and branch reform within a court system that is overwhelmingly unable to meet demand and dispense ‘justice ‘in a timely and robust search for the truth...
Im observing this catastrophe from afar … as a retired leader in a massive company I have to say im deeply deeply concerned that no one currently seems to be putting effort into REALLY understanding what the IT system ACTUALLY did to create these errors. This system still exists I understand so who is FIXING it now? I dont for a second believe the local postmasters were guilty and dont want to imply that - but to simply dismiss the Horizon system as a black box and not even forensically investigate what went wrong leaves the impression that its unknowable. If the Post Office leaders knew how to track transaction data they would likely know the areas of weakness and common denominators. Just seems to be a complete lack of ownership and leadership not only historically but currently. Some IT leaders need to be in the mix …
I've been following the Inquiry for some time with increasing difficulty in fathoming the depths of dishonesty and depravity to which their leadership community is prepared to descend. The bonus scheme fiasco shows Post Office sees no problem with continuing with the same poor behaviours, meanwhile the Government remains at arms' length and refuses to exercise its right as a shareholder to insist that the Board pulls its socks up.
MHP Group deserves more subscribers!
He could not have described the PO any better "Rotten to the core" no ethics flippant attitude to everyone looking into them and their bully buster ways.
The computer systems of Internet and mobile network suppliers is another potential scandal. How many people have been charged for things that they have neither ordered nor received. I took V to the county court but lost the case. I was denied the right to appeal, i was not told why i lost and, although i could pay for a transcript, this would be useless without the audio file to check it against. I have been denied a copy of the audio file with no explanation.
If judges have been told to believe the lie that computer systems are infallible, this would provide an explanation!
I have been watching the inquiry for some time. Then compared it with the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the crash of a DC10 aircraft in Antarctica, admittedly in 1979. The single Inquiry Chairman was a New Zealand High Court Judge - Hon. Peter Mahon. He was the best judge at sniffing out liars giving evidence. Air New Zealand provided executive witnesses who basically lied about low flying over a mountain, Mt Erebus an active volcano. In his judgment, Peter Mahon blamed the Airline, Air New Zealand for incompetence and for trying every way to cover up that incompetence. In his judgment, he said “ I have been force to listen to an Orchestrated Litany of Lies”.
For this statement, he was taken to court in a judicial review, to have those words removed. He lost, appealed that judgment to the Privy Council, and again he lost. Gradually over the years, further evidence came to light until in 2019, the then New Zealand prime minister apologised for Air New Zealand’s bad behaviour. The airline was state owned. But even now, the executives still alive and their supporters still claim Peter Mahon was wrong and nothing has been done to rectify the compensation cut short under the then Warsaw Convention for the passengers families. There were 237 passengers and 20 crew.
We are all watching the Post Office Horizon inquiry. Just imagine that if WYN Williams decides that the Post Office executives, lawyers and staff who took a part in the false prosecutions of the sub postmasters, are still lying or saying they cannot remember etc., and WYN decides to say so in his report, is he likely to be treated the same as Peter Mahon was by the Privy Council, which was then the Supreme Court for New Zealand?
The privy councils decision in 1983 was one of the most appalling miscarriages of justice and I fear that the inability of WYN Williams to say during the hearings that he finds it hard to believe some of the PO witnesses, is likely to lead to the same trouble as in the Mount Erebus scandal. The chair of the Privy Council was Lord Diplock, who just eight years earlier supported Dennings 1974 judgment against a certain Robert Maxwell about “Natural Justice” claims. The whole thing developed into a farce. Lessons from the Erebus scandal inquiry need to be learnt now in the Horizon inquiry and those in the Post Office holding back documentation need to be held to account.
The current New Zealand prime minister, Chris Luxon, is a former CEO of Air 40:55 New Zealand. The Prime Minister who apologised in 2019 Jacinda Ardern of the Labour Party, had not even been born in 1979. The parallels with the current inquiry into the PO horizon affair are clear cut. The liars in New Zealand were orchestrated. Some people within the PO Executive were clearly covering up knowingly sending innocents to prison on false charges. Too many are now saying they do not remember, even when the documentation is in front of them showing how badly they behaved. Society cannot tolerate this.
I too have been tuned in to the inquiry mainly because of my employment as a Technical Officer in the Property Services Agency until the mid-70's. My job involved working with PO snr management, in London & Birmingham. What stands out in my mind is this: since the change in PO status, the people running it aren't PO people, they are corporate chancers out to get whatever they can, hence getting a bonus, & some, for attending the inquiry, OK, the CEO handed his back, all of it eventually, for example. One suggestion from a pardoned sub-postmaster is not to consider jail time for the culprits, but to confiscate their property, just as they did to Mr & Mrs Rudkin, who ran the PO at Ibstock, nr where I live. This followed, you may have read, a visit to Fujisu HQ by Mr Rudkin, a trade union rep, who was shown how a Fujitsu operative could access the Horizon account of any PO. On seeing this, Mr Rudkin was aghast, said so in no uncertain terms & was promptly escorted from the building. The following morning a shortfall of £44k appeared in the PO account & they were almost escorted from their branch & home forthwith. No record of Mr Rudkin's visit to Bracknell exists. Retired judge Wyn Williams has got a job on his hands, let's hope he doesn't suffer as Peter Mahon did.
Surely, once the number of post master prosecutions went a standard deviation beyond the historical mean then it should have told them that something else was going on? Clueless Post Office senior management.
I've heard it said that they may have been relying internally on the view that this fantastic and faultless new technology was simply uncovering more fraud. A circular and self-sustaining myth
Well may be not, they had a paper based system, then a shiny new computer system which probable at some level was justified on enhanced compliance & fraud detection - may be not a main goal but I’d be surprised if not in a “pros “ list for the project.
So initially the increased number of cases were probably put down to the new system doing its job. They only saw what they were looking for. However there appears to have been enough of other red flags that should asked them to question the increase in incidents & prosecutions.
Don’t forget the new system was questionable as a project from the very start so their egos couldn’t afford to have it questioned it’s integrity impugned . This can also be seen in the decision not to admit that anyone else’s was having a problem when a post master complained asked for help. So I would guess if they told post master that they also said similar up the line to management. Tell people what they want to hear makes life easier !!!!
It's highly probable that the PO had always thought the SPMs were crooks, and Horizon just confirmed their prejudice
Just like any big corporation, wont accept any wrong doings and just walk all over innocent ordinary people, they need to be held accountable and admit the system had flaws, i would have more respect as im sure others would as well
ABOLISH THE POST OFFICE!
Its a case of poor quality leadership leading to poor management of the situation. So my question is why did the Post Office recruit poor quality Leaders ?
Vennells is beyond salvation.
Very good video. I hope you all keep up the good work. May be also do a short spiel on your organization in each video as have not seen it heard of you before.
Also, a video on TH-cam changing typed text in comments during typing after after typing when comments are posted and appears different to what was there after pressing the reply button.
Hello as people must say in the UK 'in my opinion it seems to me that' Horizon by definition is a SIGINT system - wiki it if you don't know what this means - and throwing regular people under the bus to protect GCHQ/other intelligence agency interests 'must surely be in my opinion' business as usual. If you were thinking about why this scandal was allowed to happen, and for so long, the answer might not be 'incompetence' or 'arrogance' etc. eh.
Oh Nick, look into how the Anglican Church behaves, then you’ll understand the pious reaction of venelle
Plenty of lawyers and journalists and actors making money out of this…
Great book. Shame he presents on Talk TV
The great work f corporate psychopaths
Post Office replies! Duno cant remember , oh did not know there was a search filter! cant remember, what's your name? cant recall
Backed by stakeholders..question is WHO are they?
25:40. Exactly.
God will strike Vennells down when she reaches the pearly gates.
Is Natasha Brown the RM press officer?
The nhs ate doing the same thing arent they??
Could horizon do this to other services and is anyone in jail after yhis has come out
Horizon is the name of the PO system. The company is Fujitsu but the answer is yes it could.
I wonder just how many Nick Reid’s are out there?
You couldn't make this sh_t up. 👿
It was not Nick it was Bates
Paula vennells looks like gonch gardner from 1980s Grange hill
Living of my blood money
Garcia Amy Wilson Ronald Miller Jose
No one can tell me that Paula Vennells was totally to blame, it appears that she was the "fall-guy" at the time she was brought in, the Horizon problem was already very "robust", and the P.O boardroom knew there was a big fan that was going to hit bigtime, they neatly introduced Paula to the $hitstorm, and bless her she didn't have a clue she was manoeuvred so? Then there is the Fujitsu staff, their conduct is also criminal, if it can be shown that they guided some funds into associates or family accounts?
I do think she should return her CBE? but out of disgust at the way she has been made a scapegoat? my sympathy for her is only by fact of this scenario, she is guilty of abhorrent behaviour none the less.@mollienight
Fall guy? You are the CEO of a company. So you see unforseen problems. She would have access to information. You either take the bull by the horns and show leadership to put things right, or you leave. She chose to stay and concentrate of making the post office profitable.
Thank you for name checking crozier. He should get the boot from his current employers...guess who?!
She’s not totally to blame. She can’t be because it started long before she joined, but she was either complicit or somehow unaware of a major scandal going on in the organisation of which she was chief executive. I find the latter hard to believe and, if true, she was utterly incompetent.
And, as of today, she has handed back her CBE.