Mr Bates vs the Post Office

mosssideblue said:
So does manslaughter and I hope those responsible have the keys thrown away
Click to expand...
That would be an interesting trial. I don’t think there have been any corporate manslaughter convictions following employee suicide, so there is no precedent.

I think morally they should be held accountable if they knew the Horizon system was faulty and have pursued their employees for money they hadn’t stolen.

It does sound like corporate manslaughter. Whether they could be convicted, I don’t know.
 
Alan Harper's Tash said:
That would be an interesting trial. I don’t think there have been any corporate manslaughter convictions following employee suicide, so there is no precedent.

I think morally they should be held accountable if they knew the Horizon system was faulty and have pursued their employees for money they hadn’t stolen.

It does sound like corporate manslaughter. Whether they could be convicted, I don’t know.
Click to expand...
I don’t know either but I’m sure there are reasonable grounds to suggest the actions of the PO caused several to take their own life
 
Alan Harper's Tash said:
That would be an interesting trial. I don’t think there have been any corporate manslaughter convictions following employee suicide, so there is no precedent.

I think morally they should be held accountable if they knew the Horizon system was faulty and have pursued their employees for money they hadn’t stolen.

It does sound like corporate manslaughter. Whether they could be convicted, I don’t know.
Click to expand...

I think whether or not they knew Horizon was fundamentally flawed, the lies the PO told as part of covering up the situation could be interpreted as directly contributing to the suicides of several postmasters. Had these people been correctly informed that others were having similar issues, or as was often the case no evidence of theft was found in their audits, would they have taken such drastic action?

I don’t know, and I don’t know if that stands up in court but it feels like - as the story goes - the cover up was every bit as bad as (if not worse than) the initial problem. That’s where this went from straightforward incompetence and negligence to mendacious and cruel.
 
SkyBlueFlux said:
I think whether or not they knew Horizon was fundamentally flawed, the lies the PO told as part of covering up the situation could be interpreted as directly contributing to the suicides of several postmasters. Had these people been correctly informed that others were having similar issues, or as was often the case no evidence of theft was found in their audits, would they have taken such drastic action?

I don’t know, and I don’t know if that stands up in court but it feels like - as the story goes - the cover up was every bit as bad as (if not worse than) the initial problem. That’s where this went from straightforward incompetence and negligence to mendacious and cruel.
Click to expand...
Totally agree, but like you, I’m not sure how that would stand up legally. It might be enough, but I guess the defence could ask whether the suicide was 100% down to their job.

They should never be allowed to be responsible for managing staff again, whatever happens.
 
Alan Harper's Tash said:
Totally agree, but like you, I’m not sure how that would stand up legally. It might be enough, but I guess the defence could ask whether the suicide was 100% down to their job.

They should never be allowed to be responsible for managing staff again, whatever happens.
Click to expand...

Sub masters are not classed as employees.

There's two challenges, breach of duty of care threshold and causality. My instinct is that first is too high and the second is harder to prove because unfortunately those who did commit suicide will have underlying vulnerabilities.

I'm not sure it would be worth pursuing. It's far better for the current government and management of Post Office to issue a full public apology and admission of responsibility.
 
Mr Kobayashi said:
Sub masters are not classed as employees.

There's two challenges, breach of duty of care threshold and causality. My instinct is that first is too high and the second is harder to prove because unfortunately those who did commit suicide will have underlying vulnerabilities.

I'm not sure it would be worth pursuing. It's far better for the current government and management of Post Office to issue a full public apology and admission of responsibility.
Click to expand...
Makes sense. Hopefully they can be charged with something. Not sure how you compensate a death though.

The rest should be recompensed.

I wasn’t aware they were technically self employed, but again it makes sense in this climate. As little corporate responsibility as possible.

The postmaster called Jo in the programme ran the PO in my in-laws’ village.
 
Mr Kobayashi said:
Sub masters are not classed as employees.

There's two challenges, breach of duty of care threshold and causality. My instinct is that first is too high and the second is harder to prove because unfortunately those who did commit suicide will have underlying vulnerabilities.

I'm not sure it would be worth pursuing. It's far better for the current government and management of Post Office to issue a full public apology and admission of responsibility.
Click to expand...
What makes you so sure?
 
mosssideblue said:
Some utube clips showing Sunak being asked that very question. An embarrassment of a PM
Click to expand...

Unless someone can show me quotes from any of our political leaders they’ve been on this crusade for years I’ll have them all marked as chancers.

Just shows the state of our politics today really mate. These fuckers are there for us, about time they remembered that.
 
mosssideblue said:
What makes you so sure?
Click to expand...

I'm not completely sure.

One who died had issues with alcoholism, a new thing or something under the surface brought on by stress?

It's not a judgement of them btw. It just looks very hard to legally prove that the Post office caused their death because of issues of causality.
 
Alan Harper's Tash said:
Makes sense. Hopefully they can be charged with something.
Click to expand...
At the very least, we need a system that's able to bar people like this from being a CEO in the future. It can't be right that someone can come in, completely ruin a company and the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, and leave with a big bonus before going on to the next high-paying corporate job.

We have a system that rewards this kind of behaviour, and that's why these people are always far more concerned with their own personal performance and the short-term reputation of the organization, than the effect they are having on everyone else.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top