In one of the most shameful scandals in the history of Information Technology, the British Post Office deployed a bug-ridden system
called “Horizon” for the use of its sub-postmasters (post office
branch managers) to report their accounts. Then, when it started
producing completely false results, often with discrepancies amounting
to thousands of pounds, and those sub-postmasters tried complaining
and seeking corrections, it insisted there were no such flaws in the
system, telling each one of those complaining that there had been no
other complaints, and demanded those branch managers, as per their
contracts, must make up the discrepancies out of their own pockets.
This miserable saga continued from 1999 to 2015. Over this time, many
of those sub-postmasters were driven to ruin. Some were prosecuted and jailed, their stories simply disbelieved. Some even committed suicide.
ITV broadcast a four-part docudrama
<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27867155/> about the scandal back in
January, and it has just made its way to us in NZ. If it comes to your
town or country, it’s worth a watch.
The Register has done a number of articles as the story has come to
light, as far back as 2019 <https://www.theregister.com/2019/03/15/post_office_horizon_it_system_initial_judgment/>,
right up to this year <https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/17/post_office_inquiry_latest/>, <https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/01/fujitsu_finance_chief_apologises_horizon_inquiry/>.
Ian Hart, who plays Rutherford (the forensic accountant), looks the
spitting image of Paul Whitehouse.
The saga is still ongoing. There were a massive number of wrongful prosecutions and convictions, and it will take years to overturn them
all.
There is also a proper documentary, "Mr Bates vs The Post Office: The
Real Story", playing next weekend on TV One (8:30pm, Sunday, 7 April).
Ian Hart, who plays Rutherford (the forensic accountant), looks the
spitting image of Paul Whitehouse.
The saga is still ongoing. There were a massive number of wrongful prosecutions and convictions, and it will take years to overturn them all.
follow-ups trimmed to comp.misc
In comp.misc Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
Ian Hart, who plays Rutherford (the forensic accountant), looks the
spitting image of Paul Whitehouse.
The saga is still ongoing. There were a massive number of wrongful
prosecutions and convictions, and it will take years to overturn them all.
It is a sad situation that it took a TV show to get justice
for these people. Same is true here in the US these days :(
I remember hearing about this ages ago, but the people affected
were pretty much "screaming in the wind" back then. I then
started seeing news everywhere and I heard it was due to a
documentary aired on TV. Crazy times.
On Mon, 01 Apr 2024 09:50:35 +0000, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
Ian Hart, who plays Rutherford (the forensic accountant), looks the
spitting image of Paul Whitehouse.
The saga is still ongoing. There were a massive number of wrongful
prosecutions and convictions, and it will take years to overturn them
all.
Well, there is supposed to be an Act of Parliament to do most of them in
one go.
I thought the recreation of the Parliamentary hearing,
where Vennells refused to give a straight answer as to whether she would cooperate with the accountant’s investigation, had been spiced up a bit
for dramatic effect, but it was practically a word-for-word recreation
of the actual scene.
On Tue, 9 Apr 2024 23:56:02 -0000 (UTC), I wrote:
I thought the recreation of the Parliamentary hearing,
where Vennells refused to give a straight answer as to whether she would
cooperate with the accountant’s investigation, had been spiced up a bit
for dramatic effect, but it was practically a word-for-word recreation
of the actual scene.
Going beyond that, something I found even more incredible: the guy playing
MP Nadhim Zahawi, who was refusing to take crap from Vennells was ...
Nadhim Zahawi.
... yet stupidly everyone is solely blaming UK Post.
On Fri, 19 Apr 2024 19:58:14 +1200, BungleBob wrote:
... yet stupidly everyone is solely blaming UK Post.
They were the ones prosecuting and jailing their own franchisees, ruining their lives and driving some to suicide, on what turned out to be a
complete lie. Like claiming they had evidence of wrongdoing when they hadn’t.
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