[News] Post Office Scandal -

[Talby]

Interesting to note the Albion club employee briefly referenced earlier in this thread has removed his 'Post Office Investigations Manager' role from his LinkedIn at some point over the last two weeks

And what should we deduce from that?

 

[rippleman]

You get that impression, sure. But he's working for the Post Office which is(was?) a high profile reputable organisation, not some fly-by-night tin-pot local firm. You'd think he'd have been trained as to how to go about his job properly.

Really I am just not entirely sure that word was used although equally I can believe he did say it. But in an environment where the lady from Wales was stressed from being put under undue and extreme pressure through absolutely no fault of her own, it's possible that maybe she didn't hear him properly.

But hold up. In the video, the scumbag investigator refers to "a criminal interview under PACE". Then those interviews MUST be recorded. So how can there possibly be any doubt what was said? Unless the investigators were conducting interviews into a "criminal offence" WITHOUT the interviews being recorded. Then surely that "evidence" would be inadmissable?

I think it's time to crowd fund so The Clamp can purchase the necessary hardware to dig the requisite number of ditches.

 

[rippleman]

And what should we deduce from that?

Plenty!!!

 

[beorhthelm]

The Post Office was reducing the number of sub offices as the business model did not call for the existing (at the time ) number of offices to remain open. How convenient that a computer system would bring into discredit a large number of sub postmasters/mistresses and the closing of those offices plus the prosecutions and the monies that were confiscated at the time. So instead of paying out redundancy money they actually managed to get vast sums off the incumbent managers. Well it looks that way, does it not!
Yes , I was a sub postmaster but before the prosecutions started.

sub-postmasters are self employed though right? so no redundancy. would seem a convoluted way to reduce the number either way, spending thousands on legal cases (rising to millions in the end).

 

[Lyndhurst 14]

Paula Vennels returning her CBE at the Post Office

 

[Thunder Bolt]

The investigator is clearly not a nice man and seriously incompetent, but I still question this. The only witness was the woman's husband. Surely it's possible to have misheard? For a start, surely nobody remotely professional considers it appropriate to use the word "bitch" in that context?

I agree but it was a sworn statement used in a court of law.

 

[maffew]

From that report it would appear there was an Architecture failing with the lack of a 2 phased commit across multiple data sources to handle any issues with connectivity and consequential data corruption. This was quite a common 'backstop' to multiple data source systems at the time. I remember having to build one when building a new system 'integrating' a third party package with an in house system about 1995 for a financial firm in Brighton, that I believe is still running their core business on it.

It could have been problematic to identify as it appears the failings in connectivity may have been related to traffic peaks and this can be hard to recreate. However, the fact that there were discrepancies between the data sources should have pointed them in that direction immediately. This wasn't helped by what seemed to be a chaotic environment for changes, testing and release control, and the unaudited access directly to live data from large numbers of people.

They obviously found the core issue, as they said it would be fixed in a future release, but didn't put in place any sort of work around or auditable correction procedure and, the key thing, they then hid it, lied and prosecuted people they knew were innocent

Bates -v- Post Office appendix 1 - Courts and Tribunals Judiciary https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/bates-v-post-office-appendix-1-1.pdf

There's more on the infrastructure here, not read it all but it's complex, mix of bespoke, running on some sap and oracle and quite early xml I think

 

[Lyndhurst 14]

One of the biggest things that strikes me is that this Paula Vennels believes she is a christian!!!

When there is a huge financial scandal in the States and the ne'er do wells involved want to be accepted back into polite society they normally embrace religion and become born agains. Seems to work

 

[jessiejames]

Presumably, yes - although I haven't heard that one.

I have no wish to argue this one really - just that in this clamour to ensure this waste of skin "inspector" is held to account, it's possible that some things are being attributed to him that he's not guilty of.

He guilty until he can prove otherwise, if he try to prove his innocence beat him, in other words act like the post office did with its sub post masters.

 

[Talby]

He guilty until he can prove otherwise, if he try to prove his innocence beat him, in other words act like the post office did with its sub post masters.

That’s the sorry truth of it now. yesterday’s proceeding at the Inquiry has left the investigation team’s reputation in tatters. The more that comes out, the more damaging.

We have been asked to be fair and balanced on here in respect of the reputation of BHAFC.

I completely agree that the reputation of the Club is critical and should be protected. But therein lies the dilemma.

 

[Chicken Run]

When there is a huge financial scandal in the States and the ne'er do wells involved want to be accepted back into polite society they normally embrace religion and become born agains. Seems to work

However in this horrible woman’s case I’m more than certain she a Reverend during her time at the PO

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Post Office lied and threatened BBC over Horizon whistleblower​

This was back in 2015 when the BBC interviewed the Fujitsu whistleblower.

Post Office lied and threatened BBC over Horizon whistleblower

The firm smeared postmasters in a failed bid to suppress evidence of their innocence, the BBC reveals.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

Bates -v- Post Office appendix 1 - Courts and Tribunals Judiciary https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/bates-v-post-office-appendix-1-1.pdf

There's more on the infrastructure here, not read it all but it's complex, mix of bespoke, running on some sap and oracle and quite early xml I think

For the less familiar, at that time, SAP with Oracle as the back-end database were the "Rolls-Royce" tools of choice for enterprise solution systems development.
Doubt there'll be any fingers pointed at them.

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

From that report it would appear there was an Architecture failing with the lack of a 2 phased commit across multiple data sources to handle any issues with connectivity and consequential data corruption. This was quite a common 'backstop' to multiple data source systems at the time. I remember having to build one when building a new system 'integrating' a third party package with an in house system about 1995 for a financial firm in Brighton, that I believe is still running their core business on it.

It could have been problematic to identify as it appears the failings in connectivity may have been related to traffic peaks and this can be hard to recreate. However, the fact that there were discrepancies between the data sources should have pointed them in that direction immediately. This wasn't helped by what seemed to be a chaotic environment for changes, testing and release control, and the unaudited access directly to live data from large numbers of people.

They obviously found the core issue, as they said it would be fixed in a future release, but didn't put in place any sort of work around or auditable correction procedure and, the key thing, they then hid it, lied and prosecuted people they knew were innocent

I sussed that when it mentioned a central datacentre hosted database and a local mirror server to support synchronicity. Systems like this are architecturally sub-optimal and would likely be at much higher risk of data corruptions where connectivity between the two are flaky / lost. Transaction completion / commit timing is the key, without this, errors would be inevitable.

I recall one of the SPM on the ITV drama talked about connection being lost many time a day from her PO - would love to see the Fujitsu Help Desk case logs for that day.

There are so many lessons to be learnt and people to be identified for wrong-doing - I do worry that it will all lead to a great expense with the only real winners being the lawyers, barristers and solicitors - their hourly rate will see to that.

 

[Eric the meek]

and as if we're not already shocked if you've got a few minutes to waste this article by Nick Wallis too is just jaw dropping:

More Singh’d against than Singh-ing

There has been some rank incompetence on display from various Post Office witnesses over the course of this inquiry, but I think we’ll have to go some way to find a worse performance than thi…

www.postofficescandal.uk

Thanks for posting this link. It's far from a waste of time.

It's a 15 minute read, and if anyone hasn't read it already, I thoroughly recommend it. It's quite, quite extraordinary.

Within it, there is a link to a video of the two days that Mr. Singh was being questioned for ten hours, which is the basis of the article above. It was Mr. Singh who gave the go-ahead for the private prosecutions.

TL/DR? Mr. Singh, as head of Criminal Law at the Post Office, the role and responsibilities of which he tried to play down, spent much of the time giving long, rambling answers to the questions put to him. A subsequent CV revealed that during his time at the Post Office, he was running his own private law consultancy, and having complained that he didn't have enough time to carry out his P.O. duties, managed to outsource much of them to a third party law firm, who raised concerns with him that some of the prosecutions were unsafe. Those were prosecutions which he had overseen, and didn't revisit when the concerns were raised to him.

His subsequent apology to the postmasters, under questioning, was an exercise in 'sorry, not sorry', an attempt at 'I was given the wrong information'.

Hey, we all make mistakes eh?

 

[Bodian]

and as if we're not already shocked if you've got a few minutes to waste this article by Nick Wallis too is just jaw dropping:

More Singh’d against than Singh-ing

There has been some rank incompetence on display from various Post Office witnesses over the course of this inquiry, but I think we’ll have to go some way to find a worse performance than thi…

www.postofficescandal.uk

That's a fascinating read / listen. Having taken part in public inquiries, I can really engage with this. I have been on all sides - as supporter, and expert witness, and the main objector asking the questions of the witnesses. In one inquiry the questioner accused me of being 'clever' in a pejorative term - as she considered I was avoiding answering the questions in a 'professional' fashion - whereupon the barrister on our side pointed out that not only had I answered the direct question she had asked me, but I had gone on to clearly explain why I considered that the question was misplaced, and what the real significance of the evidence she was asking about was. That's what Public Inquiries are meant to be for - interrogative/investigative and fact-finding. Not adversarial.

However - this witness you have linked to seems quite incredible - and a forerunner of Trump & Johnson in the ability to evade answering direct questions and trying to play games with the questioner. The KC questioning him is excellent - and I particularly liked this in the comments.

But overall - it's a very painful watch.

 

[El Presidente]

This sums up the state of things

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

We watched three episodes of the TV programmes last night. Stunning. Being a subscriber to Private Eye I had long been aware of what was going on, but to see it portrayed so brilliantly and vividly took it to a much higher level. If it doesn’t win all the best TV drama series awards at the end of the year………
I had long thought this was more about chaos than conspiracy, but that is so clearly not the case. I can’t help thinking that Paula Vennells, far from giving her CBE back, should be prosecuted for corporate manslaughter - the portrayal of the bloke who stepped in front of the bus and then their treatment of his wife was horrifying in so many ways.
And James Arbuthnot may have surprised a few people as a decent Tory MP. There are such animals.
My sister-in-law used to live in South Warnborough, and says the portrayal of Jo, the postmistress there, was spot on.
The only reservation is that the scenes in South Warnborough WERE NOT SHOT in South Warnborough. Shameful!!!

 

[Jim in the West]

To add to the "worth a quick read" list, I can recommend David Allen Green's latest blog post: https://davidallengreen.com/ (David Allen Green is a constitutional lawyer who writes for the FT....he's good at explaining legal technicalities to non-experts, and in this case highlights some basic issues at the core of our legal syatem, which the Post Office abused to an astonishing level).

 

[tedebear]

That's a fascinating read / listen. Having taken part in public inquiries, I can really engage with this. I have been on all sides - as supporter, and expert witness, and the main objector asking the questions of the witnesses. In one inquiry the questioner accused me of being 'clever' in a pejorative term - as she considered I was avoiding answering the questions in a 'professional' fashion - whereupon the barrister on our side pointed out that not only had I answered the direct question she had asked me, but I had gone on to clearly explain why I considered that the question was misplaced, and what the real significance of the evidence she was asking about was. That's what Public Inquiries are meant to be for - interrogative/investigative and fact-finding. Not adversarial.

However - this witness you have linked to seems quite incredible - and a forerunner of Trump & Johnson in the ability to evade answering direct questions and trying to play games with the questioner. The KC questioning him is excellent - and I particularly liked this in the comments.

View attachment 172627

But overall - it's a very painful watch.

Exactly, its enourmously painful that people died and this is the sort of individual who played "god" essentially...the credibility of the post office surely has to be completely gone now.