So, this post office palaver then

ubersonic · 10 Jan 2024 at 23:30

Just seen the The Times interview with that IT consultant the PO hired in 2000 to independently verify the reliability of Horizon's functions/data so they could use his testimony in court to convict SPMS. Who basically reported to them back in 2000 that it was unreliable, buggy, and that the errors could not be attributed to the SPMs. Whichever person or persons at the PO who got that report and decided to fire him and shred the report because it wasn't helpful to their legal case should be in prison.

Participant said:
Rishi is the most credible Prime Minister we've had for a very long time.

I wouldn't say a very long time, things move fast in the world of politics but the 24th July 2019 isn't even five full years ago yet.

SpellowHouse · 11 Jan 2024 at 02:04

The stupid thing is that it shows remarkable stupidity on the part of the managers. Anyone knows that there is always the possibility that a problem is a bug. The onus should be to prove it's not a bug, not that it is.

Rroff · 11 Jan 2024 at 04:26

Jokester said:
Certainly I think it's a bit suspicious that this has blown up now, given it has been known that a massive miscarriage of justice occurred for years.

Certainly interesting how this has blown up now when on multiple levels it works for the Tories - can appear to be doing something and an attack vector against Starmer.

jeffk said:
I've never worked for Fujitsu but I've worked for a company very similar to Fujitsu who did similar projects for the public sector. I'm surprised that Horizon-level scandals aren't more common. Perhaps there are other examples but they haven't come to light yet.

These outsourcing companies are absolute ghouls that farm work out to inexperienced graduates and overseas developers. No-one is interested in doing the work, only winning the initial bid and climbing the corporate ladder.

It's so weird that this story has been reported on for years but it's taken a TV show for it to gain any traction in the public imagination.

I interviewed at https://www.facebook.com/groups/216984958485647 when I lived in London - didn't go ahead with it partly due to being tricky transport wise from where I lived but it seemed a really soulless place to work (though looks OKish in the one picture on there of around about that era) when I had the tour.

Apparently I aced the IT test with the highest scores they'd ever seen :s which wasn't really that difficult (like why would a compute use an 169.254.x.x IP address [DHCP failure]).

Slap · 11 Jan 2024 at 04:48

I cannot imagine the suffering the victims and there families went through....
Why did our government/PM only react when this went public in the press/tv show?
Where they now aware this many years ago?

adam cool dude · 11 Jan 2024 at 05:56

Slap said:
I cannot imagine the suffering the victims and there families went through....
Why did our government/PM only react when this went public in the press/tv show?
Where they now aware this many years ago?

I really hope that is a rhetorical question. The government couldn't give a rats arse but because their party is in tatters and it is 99% likely they will lose the next election which will only be months away. This is a perfect position to blame Starmer and do a thing for the public to gain much needed votes. It is almost similar to Thatcher and the gulf war just not on the same level for turning around public opinion.

JonRGV250 · 11 Jan 2024 at 06:59

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1745335461982138877

jeffk · 11 Jan 2024 at 07:09

JonRGV250 said:
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1745335461982138877

Farage is such an opportunist. Why has it taken a TV show for him to champion the cause? The story has been out in the public for years.

Diddums · 11 Jan 2024 at 07:20

jeffk said:
Everyone is such an opportunist. Why has it taken a TV show for them to champion the cause? The story has been out in the public for years.

Fixed. Farage might be a prat at times but that argument applies to pretty much everyone, including you and me.

Diddums · 11 Jan 2024 at 07:21

Who's gonna end up paying for all this? Us I assume?

JonRGV250 · 11 Jan 2024 at 07:22

Hopefully Fujitsu after the public enquiry has concluded.

Hades · 11 Jan 2024 at 08:27

I think it's disgusting that this was allowed to drag on for so long, until a TV series reawakened attention to it. Suddenly the government are running scared in an election year so want to be seen to do the right thing. Why didn't they, or previous governments, do the right thing years ago? They were all hoping it would go away, until the ITV series drew attention to it again.

willhub · 11 Jan 2024 at 08:30

No one is safe in this corrupt country, is there any country that isn't as corrupt as us?

n111ck · 11 Jan 2024 at 08:30

jeffk said:
Farage is such an opportunist. Why has it taken a TV show for him to champion the cause? The story has been out in the public for years.

Surely the whole point of the show was to raise awareness.. which it has..

Either way Starmer has to go his lack of judgement is staggering - first supporting that nutter Corbyn twice, corrupting that old lady running the covid enquiry, then his links to Epstein via Mandelson and now we hear he was in charge of the CPS when some of these poor people were hounded and convicted, despite his denials.

Similarly Ed Davey has to take his own advice and quit for his role (or lack of it) in this.

n111ck · 11 Jan 2024 at 08:31

JonRGV250 said:
Hopefully Fujitsu after the public enquiry has concluded.

Surely if PO signed off on the crap code it's on them not Fujitsu?

n111ck · 11 Jan 2024 at 08:33

Hades said:
I think it's disgusting that this was allowed to drag on for so long, until a TV series reawakened attention to it. Suddenly the government are running scared in an election year so want to be seen to do the right thing. Why didn't they, or previous governments, do the right thing years ago? They were all hoping it would go away, until the ITV series drew attention to it again.

Wasn't it actually the case that a lot pf previously convicted postmasters didn't want to come forward and appeal which has massively delayed things?

JonRGV250 · 11 Jan 2024 at 08:39

n111ck said:
Surely if PO signed off on the crap code it's on them not Fujitsu?

I recall Fujitsu telling the PO that the machines weren’t at fault and it was down to the sub postmasters making mistakes or worse, fraud.

Nasher · 11 Jan 2024 at 08:42

The people who knew about this and covered it up should be done for fraud and obstruction of justice TBH.

This isn't the only time Fujitsu did dodgy stuff either. They were black listed by the cabinet office for a while, as they were considered too high risk for IT projects. I think they were also involved in the IT disaster at the NHS.

It's an example of what happens when you dont hire qualified/experienced IT staff in-house. Outsourced companies will take on the lowest paid staff possible to manage complex systems.

n111ck · 11 Jan 2024 at 08:42

JonRGV250 said:
I recall Fujitsu telling the PO that the machines weren’t at fault and it was down to the sub postmasters making mistakes or worse, fraud.

But PO would have been responsible for designing and signing off any user testing - I suspect Fujitsu will have a water tight contract so any legal case will go on for years.

Shadowness · 11 Jan 2024 at 08:47

willhub said:
No one is safe in this corrupt country, is there any country that isn't as corrupt as us?

Pretty sure we rank pretty well in the corruption ratings.

In our anti bribery and corruption training (yearly boredom), when our trainer asked us what countries we thought would be high on the list of corrupt countries, after I replied 'the UK!', he didn't look too impressed! :cry:

JonRGV250 · 11 Jan 2024 at 08:47

Probably, but if the government starts pulling their contracts or not renewing them (£2B) then they may be forced to cough up.