So, this post office palaver then

[RedMogg]

Yeah majority of sub postmasters have had diddly squat in compensation still, most are getting on/elderly now most will likely have expired by the time they ever get around to it

And this government will blame the previous, who blamed the previous, who ignored/gaslit/covered up the previous government's conspiracies...

It doesn't matter which party is "in power", nor which politician holds the ministerial position - they're just figureheads/puppets, parroting whatever "line to take" they're fed by the unelected, nepotistic Old Boy's Club that is our Civil Service...

We now have Chris Wormald as Cabinet Secretary & Head of the Civil Service - who only recused himself from the Blood Inquiry FOUR YEARS after it was reported that his Dad was heavily involved in the decisions that led to the genocide*:

Who is new chief civil servant Chris Wormald?

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer says his new pick will be able to re-wire the British state.

www.bbc.co.uk

(*I can't think of any more appropriate word to describe the systematic and deliberate infection with known deadly pathogens of our cohort, that would have put Josef Mengele to shame).

 

[JonRGV250]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1877356975589134485

 

[Dis86]

But...the grown ups are in charge.

 

[hurfdurf]

And this government will blame the previous, who blamed the previous, who ignored/gaslit/covered up the previous government's conspiracies...

It doesn't matter which party is "in power", nor which politician holds the ministerial position - they're just figureheads/puppets, parroting whatever "line to take" they're fed by the unelected, nepotistic Old Boy's Club that is our Civil Service...

We now have Chris Wormald as Cabinet Secretary & Head of the Civil Service - who only recused himself from the Blood Inquiry FOUR YEARS after it was reported that his Dad was heavily involved in the decisions that led to the genocide*:

Who is new chief civil servant Chris Wormald?

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer says his new pick will be able to re-wire the British state.

www.bbc.co.uk

(*I can't think of any more appropriate word to describe the systematic and deliberate infection with known deadly pathogens of our cohort, that would have put Josef Mengele to shame).

I’m so sorry. It is naked corruption at its highest level.

We (Tainted Blood community) waited over 40 years just to be acknowledged and not called Conspiracy Nuts.

Civil Service corporate memory loves to play the "Let's Just Ignore Them Until Everyone's Dead" game.

Indeed. The late stages of unfettered capitalism we are in, be it war crimes through to negligence, loved nothing more than to Deny, Dementia, Die away a problem over 20-60 years until any compensation or justice is long passed the point of being viable.

You have my deepest sympathies.

 

[GreatAuk]

Post Office had deal with Fujitsu to fix Horizon errors 19 years ago

The emergence of a document contradicts claims made by the Post Office over bugs in its IT system during criminal prosecutions.

www.bbc.co.uk

More proof, as if it were needed, of the scale of the coverup.

I feel like this whole scandal has blackpilled me a bit when it comes to conspiracy theories. Here's a huge conspiracy that was running for decades, there must have collectively been hundreds of people at the very least who knew at least part of what was going on. And yet it's proved to require an almighty effort to actually prove what was going on. And significant pieces of the puzzle like the existence of this contract (to perform work which the post office claimed was both impossible and completely unnecessary) are only just being made public (although apparently first referenced in evidence in 2024).

There must have been loads of people down to quite junior admin type roles at fujitsu involved in this particular bit of the scheme, and yet almost none of them have spoken out. I often feel like to get the real story on how things went down you need to talk to junior members of staff, who know what actually happens (how 'process' and 'guidance' which may be written one way is either followed or ignored in certain situations etc, what managers told them to do etc), and also don't have the same incentives to keep quiet about certain things or present things in a certain way that more senior staff might. And yet we're missing that bit of the story from the relevant fujitsu employees as well as people on the post office side.

Thinking about this kind of thing is making me increasingly uneasy with modern 'records management' and 'data protection' practices. Huge amounts of information are deleted wholesale every year, and as everything moves to the cloud with most offices being paperless, there must be a lot of things happening as part of everyday business that it would be very difficult to 'prove' 10 years down the line. Thinking both from the point of view of a future historian and an investigator trying to uncover wrongdoing this feels like a problem.

 

[Mr Badger]

Post Office had deal with Fujitsu to fix Horizon errors 19 years ago

The emergence of a document contradicts claims made by the Post Office over bugs in its IT system during criminal prosecutions.

www.bbc.co.uk

More proof, as if it were needed, of the scale of the coverup.

I feel like this whole scandal has blackpilled me a bit when it comes to conspiracy theories. Here's a huge conspiracy that was running for decades, there must have collectively been hundreds of people at the very least who knew at least part of what was going on. And yet it's proved to require an almighty effort to actually prove what was going on. And significant pieces of the puzzle like the existence of this contract (to perform work which the post office claimed was both impossible and completely unnecessary) are only just being made public (although apparently first referenced in evidence in 2024).

There must have been loads of people down to quite junior admin type roles at fujitsu involved in this particular bit of the scheme, and yet almost none of them have spoken out. I often feel like to get the real story on how things went down you need to talk to junior members of staff, who know what actually happens (how 'process' and 'guidance' which may be written one way is either followed or ignored in certain situations etc, what managers told them to do etc), and also don't have the same incentives to keep quiet about certain things or present things in a certain way that more senior staff might. And yet we're missing that bit of the story from the relevant fujitsu employees as well as people on the post office side.

Thinking about this kind of thing is making me increasingly uneasy with modern 'records management' and 'data protection' practices. Huge amounts of information are deleted wholesale every year, and as everything moves to the cloud with most offices being paperless, there must be a lot of things happening as part of everyday business that it would be very difficult to 'prove' 10 years down the line. Thinking both from the point of view of a future historian and an investigator trying to uncover wrongdoing this feels like a problem.

It seemed evident from when things first broke that plenty of people must have been in the know. For example when postmasters called the support line and were told they were the only one experiencing problems with the system. The staff answering those calls must have known that the script they were using was a lie. You know, when you tell the twentieth person reporting problems that day that they are the only person having issues with Horizon. Then you do the same the next day and the next day and the next day...

 

[GreatAuk]

It seemed evident from when things first broke that plenty of people must have been in the know. For example when postmasters called the support line and were told they were the only one experiencing problems with the system. The staff answering those calls must have known that the script they were using was a lie. You know, when you tell the twentieth person reporting problems that day that they are the only person having issues with Horizon. Then you do the same the next day and the next day and the next day...

Yeah those are the exact sort of people I have in mind who must know a lot about what was happening... and yet as far as I know we haven't heard anything from people at that level, none of them were trial winesses etc. Are they all just happy avoiding personal risk abiding by an NDA? Embarrassed about what they did and hoping no one finds out their name? Drank the koolaid and believe the postmasters are all thieves and deserve what happened? Tried telling their story but not believed or listened to because they weren't senior enough? Idk. But whatever the reason, they must have some really important stories to tell.

 

[Rroff]

One of the problems with that kind of situation - a lot of people are incurious and don't care *not my problem* - I've had it before where I've punted things up the chain which aren't welcome news but because they don't want to hear it and no one else is complaining it falls on deaf ears.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

I'm amazed they are still using Horizon, there is many money anomalies but they take no notice now.

 

[Dis86]

An awful lot of people need to be jailed over that latest revelation

 

[tom_e]

An awful lot of people need to be jailed over that latest revelation

I bet no one will be though, or it'll be one or two people from the bottom of the totem pole

 

[Jokester]

I did see a report a few weeks back that police were considering manslaughter charges, though I doubt they'll be able to make a case stick for those that killed themselves off the back of this.

 

[Werewolf]

I'm amazed they are still using Horizon, there is many money anomalies but they take no notice now.

One of the things that utterly blew my mind was when it turned out the system IIRC at one point made zero allowances for the variation in the value of foreign currency, so would look at how much the branch had at todays exchange rate and signal a discrepancy because it would not allow for that change since the currency was ordered in.
It didn't matter the amount in the safe was still the same, it had lost or gained value so obviously the manager had made a mistake or stolen some as it was no longer the same value in pounds as the day before.