cheekybids
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 18 Sep 2009
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Did Elaine sign it off?
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Mr Bates vs the Post Office
- Thread starter bluethrunthru
- Start date
Did Elaine sign it off?
mosssideblue
Well-Known Member
She can’t rememberDid Elaine sign it off?
cheekybids
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 18 Sep 2009
- Messages
- 10,451
She can’t remember
‘It was the husband but she doesn’t want to say it’
sir baconface
Well-Known Member
Does it strike anyone else as slightly convenient that the outcome of this looks like the financial ruin, closure or selling off of the post office/royal mail?
Oh yes. The scheme was initially dreamed up by Tony Blair, then passed surreptitiously to his Tory successors at a clandestine, sweaty meeting at the Pizza Express in Woking.
Incompetent and malevolent Post Office management were instructed by persons unknown to dry-bum and bankrupt upstanding employees, redact inspection records, commit perjury, falsify accounts, underpay Corporation Tax and run up liabilities to the Treasury amounting to hundreds of millions.
As an incentive they would enjoy swollen pay packets, knighthoods and lifetime invitations to Boris Johnson’s sex parties. If rumbled they could always turn Scouse and blame Sir Ed Davey, Hamas or VAR.
Meanwhile, unscrupulous claret-swilling lawyers would fill their boots while fat capitalist bastards from Fujitsu pressed the mute button.
Then, thanks to some short arsed ex-detectorist on ITV, a shit-storm would descend on toss-pot politicians of every hue in the lead-up to a general election.
Thus were created the ideal conditions to denationalise the Post Office.
It was a cunning stunt that played out brilliantly.
mosssideblue
Well-Known Member
In the library with an iron bar‘It was the husband but she doesn’t want to say it’
Prestwich_Blue
Well-Known Member
That's the way many systems work, including the core systems most of the big banks and government departments run. I worked on one of the latter, one of the biggest, yet it was reliable, with the only mistakes coming from incorrectly input data. Most were written in Cobol many years ago but they work, which is the main thing.The sensible option would have been starting the software build from scratch rather than using "stick tape" and "super glue" methods to keep what had already been developed together.
I'm not a software engineer, have never written code other than basic commands following instructions for things like emulation with limited success. But I understand that computers can be wrong and it only takes a few things or even one thing to be wrong to throw a complex system out of sync.
If the software doesn't work with physical inputs, and the reality of existing technology infrastructure then it isn't a viable system.
An accounting system that needs IT to have a backdoor to correct the transactions records in real time just to keep it functioning isn't flawed, it's non viable.
The problem is ensuring you have the skills to maintain them. I had a 'virtual coffee' with Simon McKinnon, the head of the DWP Digital division that managed all the technology. We were of a similar age and had not dissimilar career paths, both starting writing Cobol programmes in the 1980's. We also had about half a dozen apprentices in the session, who were all being trained in Cobol. This caused Simon & I no end of amusement but all the old Cobol programmers have retired or are close to retiring.
It's generally safer not to write from scratch but to use a package like Oracle. The reason for that is they've already built much of the financial and other specialist functionality and it's reliable. You'll inevitably have to do some configuration, to set all the accounting structures up on the system, and probably a bit of customisation (although the more you do, the more the risk of fucking something up).
I've no idea whether the functionality provided by Horizon could have been done via something like Oracle but writing a big system from scratch is incredibly risky.
Prestwich_Blue
Well-Known Member
I've just been for a longish walk and have been listening to more episodes of the BBC Sounds podcast by Nick Wallis. It just gets worse, the more you hear. The sub-postmasters took the PO to the Commercial Court in 2013. They had to raise a lot of money to do that but the Post Office tried to make things as difficult as possible as they could easily outspend them. In fact the Chief Financial Officer at the PO allegedly told a union official that this was their strategy.
There were about 5 cases in all, as there was too much for one single case. Alan Bates was the first to go, and he won pretty comprehensively. The second case was about the reliability of the system and the PO got shredded in that one. That revealed the infamous Clark Memo, which was prepared by a QC and said that the Horizon system was flawed and that convictions based on it were inherently unsafe. The PO never disclosed that externally (although from a purely technical legal point of view they didn't have to) but they didn't even share it with their own General Counsel or board.
They then held a series of internal meetings reviewing the cases they'd prosecuted but stopped, with their Head of Securtoy ordering the notes from those meetings to be shredded. An anonymous lawyer (who was clearly close to the proceeding) said that was an egregious case of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, as the documents were effectively part of the series of cases that were going on back in 2014.
They've known for 10 fucking years that people were wrongly convicted and while some convictions (the 39 that were the subject of the Clark memo) have been overturned, many others haven't and the innocent victims are still waiting for proper compensation. It made me so angry.
Prison isn't adequate punishment for Vennells and the others involved. They should be in front of a firing squad or dangling on the end of a rope.
There were about 5 cases in all, as there was too much for one single case. Alan Bates was the first to go, and he won pretty comprehensively. The second case was about the reliability of the system and the PO got shredded in that one. That revealed the infamous Clark Memo, which was prepared by a QC and said that the Horizon system was flawed and that convictions based on it were inherently unsafe. The PO never disclosed that externally (although from a purely technical legal point of view they didn't have to) but they didn't even share it with their own General Counsel or board.
They then held a series of internal meetings reviewing the cases they'd prosecuted but stopped, with their Head of Securtoy ordering the notes from those meetings to be shredded. An anonymous lawyer (who was clearly close to the proceeding) said that was an egregious case of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, as the documents were effectively part of the series of cases that were going on back in 2014.
They've known for 10 fucking years that people were wrongly convicted and while some convictions (the 39 that were the subject of the Clark memo) have been overturned, many others haven't and the innocent victims are still waiting for proper compensation. It made me so angry.
Prison isn't adequate punishment for Vennells and the others involved. They should be in front of a firing squad or dangling on the end of a rope.
Last edited:
Great post, thank you for having the patience to explain how it worked, I was having trouble working it out :)Oh yes. The scheme was initially dreamed up by Tony Blair, then passed surreptitiously to his Tory successors at a clandestine, sweaty meeting at the Pizza Express in Woking.
Incompetent and malevolent Post Office management were instructed by persons unknown to dry-bum and bankrupt upstanding employees, redact inspection records, commit perjury, falsify accounts, underpay Corporation Tax and run up liabilities to the Treasury amounting to hundreds of millions.
As an incentive they would enjoy swollen pay packets, knighthoods and lifetime invitations to Boris Johnson’s sex parties. If rumbled they could always turn Scouse and blame Sir Ed Davey, Hamas or VAR.
Meanwhile, unscrupulous claret-swilling lawyers would fill their boots while fat capitalist bastards from Fujitsu pressed the mute button.
Then, thanks to some short arsed ex-detectorist on ITV, a shit-storm would descend on toss-pot politicians of every hue in the lead-up to a general election.
Thus were created the ideal conditions to denationalise the Post Office.
It was a cunning stunt that played out brilliantly.
Stoned Rose
Well-Known Member
How long is longish?I've just been for a longish walk and have been listening to more episodes of the BBC Sounds podcast by Nick Wallis. It just gets worse, the more you hear. The sub-postmasters took the PO to the Commercial Court in 2013. They had to raise a lot of money to do that but the Post Office tried to make things as difficult as possible as they could easily outspend them. In fact the Chief Financial Officer at the PO allegedly told a union official that this was their strategy.
There were about 5 cases in all, as there was too much for one single case. Alan Bates was the first to go, and he won pretty comprehensively. The second case was about the reliability of the system and the PO got shredded in that one. That revealed the infamous Clark Memo, which was prepared by a QC and said that the Horizon system was flawed and that convictions based on it were inherently unsafe. The PO never disclosed that externally (although from a purely technical legal point of view they didn't have to) but they didn't even share it with their own General Counsel or board.
They then held a series of internal meetings reviewing the cases they'd prosecuted but stopped, with their Head of Securtoy ordering the notes from those meetings to be shredded. An anonymous lawyer (who was clearly close to the proceeding) said that was an egregious case of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, as the documents were effectively part of the enquiry that was going on back in 2014.
They've known for 10 fucking years that people were wrongly convicted and while some convictions (the 39 that were the subject of the Clark memo) have been overturned, many others haven't and the innocent victims are still waiting for proper compensation. It,ace me so angry.
Prison isn't adequate punishment for Vennells and the others involved. They should be in front of a firing squad or dangling on the end of a rope.
bluethrunthru
Well-Known Member
and of course the great unanswered question is why did it take Govts and Ministers - of all hues - until a TV drama shook the nation to act? And act within a week !!!!!
The thing with it is its all well and good doing TV drama's about bombings or the Police or deaths on army bases but this was the post office. A tiny fraction of the population will have been on a sealed army base - every fucker has been to a post office. Everyone knows people who worked there and so it was so relatable.
My Mrs worked at a SPAR shop where they brought in a PO Counter. She refused to train on Horizon and work behind it and so was managed ( ie hounded ) out of the shop. Her Dad had 3 SPAR shops and he packed up when they were starting to foist PO Counters on them. This was all known - it was bubbling just under the surface with various documentaries being done from time to time. Big - no massive - question is WHY was it allowed and ignored for so long - and why are Fujitsu evading being in the frame still?
The thing with it is its all well and good doing TV drama's about bombings or the Police or deaths on army bases but this was the post office. A tiny fraction of the population will have been on a sealed army base - every fucker has been to a post office. Everyone knows people who worked there and so it was so relatable.
My Mrs worked at a SPAR shop where they brought in a PO Counter. She refused to train on Horizon and work behind it and so was managed ( ie hounded ) out of the shop. Her Dad had 3 SPAR shops and he packed up when they were starting to foist PO Counters on them. This was all known - it was bubbling just under the surface with various documentaries being done from time to time. Big - no massive - question is WHY was it allowed and ignored for so long - and why are Fujitsu evading being in the frame still?