Why the handwringing over parliament/the government working to exonerate
the wrongfully convicted postmasters ?
Surely *even* James Cleverly could get a cab to Buck House and ask for a signature ?
Why the handwringing over parliament/the government working to exonerate
the wrongfully convicted postmasters ?
Surely *even* James Cleverly could get a cab to Buck House and ask for a signature ?
Jon Ribbens wrote:
On 2024-01-10, Jethro_uk <jethro_uk@hotmailbin.com> wrote:
Why the handwringing over parliament/the government working to exonerate >>> the wrongfully convicted postmasters ?
Surely *even* James Cleverly could get a cab to Buck House and ask for a >>> signature ?
A pardon means that the people in question are guilty of crimes, but the
state in its infinite munificence has magnanimously forgiven them. These
people are not guilty of crimes. The only existing way to fix that is to
appeal the cases and have a court overturn the conviction - but there are
too many people involved here for that to be feasible in a reasonable
timescale.
Only recently courts were approving forced prepayment meters at the
rate of dozens per hour - couldn't a similar approach be taken with
these exonerations?
On 2024-01-10, Jethro_uk <jethro_uk@hotmailbin.com> wrote:
Why the handwringing over parliament/the government working to exonerate
the wrongfully convicted postmasters ?
Surely *even* James Cleverly could get a cab to Buck House and ask for a
signature ?
A pardon means that the people in question are guilty of crimes, but the state in its infinite munificence has magnanimously forgiven them. These people are not guilty of crimes. The only existing way to fix that is to appeal the cases and have a court overturn the conviction - but there are
too many people involved here for that to be feasible in a reasonable timescale.
On 2024-01-10, Jethro_uk <jethro_uk@hotmailbin.com> wrote:
[quoted text muted]
A pardon means that the people in question are guilty of crimes, but the state in its infinite munificence has magnanimously forgiven them.
On Wed, 10 Jan 2024 23:48:00 +0000, Jon Ribbens wrote:
On 2024-01-10, Jethro_uk <jethro_uk@hotmailbin.com> wrote:
[quoted text muted]
A pardon means that the people in question are guilty of crimes, but the >>state in its infinite munificence has magnanimously forgiven them.
How did that work for Timothy Evans ?
A pardon means that the people in question are guilty of crimes, but the state in its infinite munificence has magnanimously forgiven them. These people are not guilty of crimes.
On 11/01/2024 in message <uno6d2$g4q$50@dont-email.me> Jethro_uk wrote:
On Wed, 10 Jan 2024 23:48:00 +0000, Jon Ribbens wrote:
On 2024-01-10, Jethro_uk <jethro_uk@hotmailbin.com> wrote:
[quoted text muted]
A pardon means that the people in question are guilty of crimes, but the >>>state in its infinite munificence has magnanimously forgiven them.
How did that work for Timothy Evans ?
That's a very good point of course. With so many miscarriages of justice coming to light many years too late I really can't understand why we have people clamouring for the return of the death penalty.
On Wed, 10 Jan 2024 23:48:00 +0000, Jon Ribbens wrote:
On 2024-01-10, Jethro_uk <jethro_uk@hotmailbin.com> wrote:
[quoted text muted]
A pardon means that the people in question are guilty of crimes, but the
state in its infinite munificence has magnanimously forgiven them.
How did that work for Timothy Evans ?
On 10/01/2024 23:48, Jon Ribbens wrote:
A pardon means that the people in question are guilty of crimes, but the
state in its infinite munificence has magnanimously forgiven them. These
people are not guilty of crimes.
I rather suspect a great many of them are guilty of crimes, but an unreasonable system caused the crimes.
On 2024-01-11, Pancho <Pancho.Jones@proton.me> wrote:
On 10/01/2024 23:48, Jon Ribbens wrote:
A pardon means that the people in question are guilty of crimes, but the >>> state in its infinite munificence has magnanimously forgiven them. These >>> people are not guilty of crimes.
I rather suspect a great many of them are guilty of crimes, but an
unreasonable system caused the crimes.
Eh? What crimes do you think they're guilty of? I mean, some of them are almost certainly guilty of crimes because if you take *any* group of 700 people then some of them will be guilty of something, but "a great many"?
On Thursday 11 January 2024 at 11:58:10 UTC, Jon Ribbens wrote:
On 2024-01-11, Jethro_uk <jeth...@hotmailbin.com> wrote:
On Wed, 10 Jan 2024 23:48:00 +0000, Jon Ribbens wrote:Not very well? That's the point? He was also not guilty
On 2024-01-10, Jethro_uk <jeth...@hotmailbin.com> wrote:
[quoted text muted]
A pardon means that the people in question are guilty of crimes,
but the state in its infinite munificence has magnanimously
forgiven them.
How did that work for Timothy Evans ?
twelve members of the jury thought he was.
He was certainly involved in an armed robbery / burglary and whilst
opinions differ about common purpose he partly convicted due t that.
These days he could probably have copped a plea of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, but not 70 years ago.
and shouldn't
have received a pardon but an acquittal instead, but the court system
decided it couldn't be bothered to do that becuase it's a lot of effort.
and er he was dead...
Which is exactly the same problem with the postmasters, except saying
"can't be bothered" is not good enough because most of them aren't dead.
On 2024-01-11, Pancho <Pancho.Jones@proton.me> wrote:
On 10/01/2024 23:48, Jon Ribbens wrote:
A pardon means that the people in question are guilty of crimes, but
the state in its infinite munificence has magnanimously forgiven
them. These people are not guilty of crimes.
I rather suspect a great many of them are guilty of crimes, but an
unreasonable system caused the crimes.
Eh? What crimes do you think they're guilty of? I mean, some of them
are almost certainly guilty of crimes because if you take *any* group
of 700 people then some of them will be guilty of something, but "a
great many"?
On Thursday 11 January 2024 at 11:58:10 UTC, Jon Ribbens wrote:
On 2024-01-11, Jethro_uk <jeth...@hotmailbin.com> wrote:
On Wed, 10 Jan 2024 23:48:00 +0000, Jon Ribbens wrote:Not very well? That's the point? He was also not guilty
On 2024-01-10, Jethro_uk <jeth...@hotmailbin.com> wrote:
[quoted text muted]
A pardon means that the people in question are guilty of crimes, but the >>>> state in its infinite munificence has magnanimously forgiven them.
How did that work for Timothy Evans ?
twelve members of the jury thought he was. He was certainly involved in an armed robbery / burglary and whilst opinions differ about common purpose he partly convicted due t that.
twelve members of the jury thought he was. He was certainly involved in an armed
robbery / burglary and whilst opinions differ about common purpose he partly convicted due t that.
It would be interesting to know the average number of subpostmasters prosecuted each year prior to the Horizon scandal.
Unfortunately I can't see any stats.
On 11:59 11 Jan 2024, Jon Ribbens said:
On 2024-01-11, Pancho <Pancho.Jones@proton.me> wrote:
On 10/01/2024 23:48, Jon Ribbens wrote:
A pardon means that the people in question are guilty of crimes, but
the state in its infinite munificence has magnanimously forgiven
them. These people are not guilty of crimes.
I rather suspect a great many of them are guilty of crimes, but an
unreasonable system caused the crimes.
Eh? What crimes do you think they're guilty of? I mean, some of them
are almost certainly guilty of crimes because if you take *any* group
of 700 people then some of them will be guilty of something, but "a
great many"?
It would be interesting to know the average number of subpostmasters prosecuted each year prior to the Horizon scandal.
Unfortunately I can't see any stats.
It's the sort of thing a Parliamentary overview or scrutinee committee
may have discussed in past years.
On Thursday 11 January 2024 at 11:58:10 UTC, Jon Ribbens wrote:
[quoted text muted]
twelve members of the jury thought he was. He was certainly involved in
an armed robbery / burglary and whilst opinions differ about common
purpose he partly convicted due t that.
On 2024-01-10, Jethro_uk <jethro_uk@hotmailbin.com> wrote:
Why the handwringing over parliament/the government working to exonerate the wrongfully convicted postmasters ?
Surely *even* James Cleverly could get a cab to Buck House and ask for a signature ?
A pardon means that the people in question are guilty of crimes, but the state in its infinite munificence has magnanimously forgiven them. These people are not guilty of crimes. The only existing way to fix that is to appeal the cases and have a court overturn the conviction - but there are
too many people involved here for that to be feasible in a reasonable timescale.
On 2024-01-11, Pancho <Pancho.Jones@proton.me> wrote:
On 10/01/2024 23:48, Jon Ribbens wrote:
A pardon means that the people in question are guilty of crimes, but the >>> state in its infinite munificence has magnanimously forgiven them. These >>> people are not guilty of crimes.
I rather suspect a great many of them are guilty of crimes, but an
unreasonable system caused the crimes.
Eh? What crimes do you think they're guilty of? I mean, some of them are almost certainly guilty of crimes because if you take *any* group of 700 people then some of them will be guilty of something, but "a great many"?
Jon Ribbens <jon+usenet@unequivocal.eu> wrote:
On 2024-01-10, Jethro_uk <jethro_uk@hotmailbin.com> wrote:
Why the handwringing over parliament/the government working to exonerate >> > the wrongfully convicted postmasters ?
Surely *even* James Cleverly could get a cab to Buck House and ask for a >> > signature ?
A pardon means that the people in question are guilty of crimes, but the
state in its infinite munificence has magnanimously forgiven them. These
people are not guilty of crimes. The only existing way to fix that is to
appeal the cases and have a court overturn the conviction - but there are
too many people involved here for that to be feasible in a reasonable
timescale.
Another problem is that the Court of Appeal doesn't always overturn the convictions if they aren't strictly about Horizon: https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Hamilton-Others-v-Post-Office-judgment-230421.pdf
"415. We conclude, in the circumstances, that this is not a case in which Horizon can properly be regarded as having been essential to the case which POL brought against Mr Fell. It follows that his is not one of those exceptional and rare cases in which it would be appropriate to conclude that his conviction is unsafe on either of the abuse of process grounds which are advanced. We should add in this context that we reject Mr Stein’s submission that, were we to decide that this is not a category 1 abuse case, we could nonetheless decide that it is a category 2 abuse case. We see no basis on which it would be appropriate so to decide, as Mr Moloney correctly concedes in Mrs Cousins’ case. Mr Fell’s appeal must, therefore, also be dismissed."
and two others in that hearing.
On 11/01/2024 11:59, Jon Ribbens wrote:
On 2024-01-11, Pancho <Pancho.Jones@proton.me> wrote:
On 10/01/2024 23:48, Jon Ribbens wrote:
A pardon means that the people in question are guilty of crimes, but the >>>> state in its infinite munificence has magnanimously forgiven them. These >>>> people are not guilty of crimes.
I rather suspect a great many of them are guilty of crimes, but an
unreasonable system caused the crimes.
Eh? What crimes do you think they're guilty of? I mean, some of them are
almost certainly guilty of crimes because if you take *any* group of 700
people then some of them will be guilty of something, but "a great many"?
I think they are probably guilty of fraudulent reporting, fudging the
books. Some bureaucratic systems are impossible to work with honestly,
the only way to survive is to misrepresent things.
We see this in the practice of having to sign off the previous day's
accounts before they could start trading the next day. What do you do if Horizon keeps giving you wrong figures? You can only sign off, or go out
of business. If management catch that you have misreported, it is a
crime, even if it is understandable why these people did it.
On 2024-01-11, Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
Jon Ribbens <jon+usenet@unequivocal.eu> wrote:
On 2024-01-10, Jethro_uk <jethro_uk@hotmailbin.com> wrote:
Why the handwringing over parliament/the government working to exonerate >>> > the wrongfully convicted postmasters ?
Surely *even* James Cleverly could get a cab to Buck House and ask for a >>> > signature ?
A pardon means that the people in question are guilty of crimes, but the >>> state in its infinite munificence has magnanimously forgiven them. These >>> people are not guilty of crimes. The only existing way to fix that is to >>> appeal the cases and have a court overturn the conviction - but there are >>> too many people involved here for that to be feasible in a reasonable
timescale.
Another problem is that the Court of Appeal doesn't always overturn the
convictions if they aren't strictly about Horizon:
https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Hamilton-Others-v-Post-Office-judgment-230421.pdf
"415. We conclude, in the circumstances, that this is not a case in which >> Horizon can properly be regarded as having been essential to the case which >> POL brought against Mr Fell. It follows that his is not one of those
exceptional and rare cases in which it would be appropriate to conclude that >> his conviction is unsafe on either of the abuse of process grounds which are >> advanced. We should add in this context that we reject Mr Stein's
submission that, were we to decide that this is not a category 1 abuse case, >> we could nonetheless decide that it is a category 2 abuse case. We see no >> basis on which it would be appropriate so to decide, as Mr Moloney correctly >> concedes in Mrs Cousins' case. Mr Fell's appeal must, therefore, also be
dismissed."
and two others in that hearing.
That may not be wrong, of course. *Some* of the convicted subpostmasters
are probably guilty. But going through the whole laborious appeal process
for every single one in order to weed them out would simply take too long
and cost too much money. So a few guilty people will receive compensation
and apologies they're not entitled to. But that's far better than leaving hundreds of people with wrongful convictions, and if the Post Office is unhappy about it then it shouldn't have abused the legal system in the
first place.
I think they are probably guilty of fraudulent reporting, fudging the
books. Some bureaucratic systems are impossible to work with honestly,
the only way to survive is to misrepresent things.
We see this in the practice of having to sign off the previous day's
accounts before they could start trading the next day. What do you do if
Horizon keeps giving you wrong figures? You can only sign off, or go out
of business. If management catch that you have misreported, it is a
crime, even if it is understandable why these people did it.
Hmm. I'm pretty sure that isn't or shouldn't be a crime, especially
if they've been instructed to do it by the company they're reporting to.
On Thu, 11 Jan 2024 05:26:16 -0800, notya...@gmail.com wrote:
On Thursday 11 January 2024 at 11:58:10 UTC, Jon Ribbens wrote:
[quoted text muted]
twelve members of the jury thought he was. He was certainly involved in
an armed robbery / burglary and whilst opinions differ about common
purpose he partly convicted due t that.
I was very very careful to chose a case that wasn't ambiguous.
Bentley probably shouldn't have hanged.
And Ruth Ellis was pretty much the poster child for the death penalty. Calculated murder with no care for innocent civilians.
I am sure that the PP was referring to the offence of "false
accounting", done in order to get the books to temporarily balance so
that the sub-PO could open for business the next morning. Just such a
case was presented in some detail in the recent ITV drama.
The offence exists and is real. The sup-postmasters/mistresses ought to
have declined to open the next day and taken the matter to the Post
Office for investigation, but some of them did the "work around" which involved false accounting. Not that it caused any losses to anyone at
all, of course.
My assumption is that in order to sign off, you have to state your
accounting matches Horizon. e.g. The cash you have in the cash draw
matches Horizon's expectation. The crime would be to misreport your
accounts to match Horizon.
On 11/01/2024 06:54 pm, Jethro_uk wrote:
On Thu, 11 Jan 2024 05:26:16 -0800, notya...@gmail.com wrote:
On Thursday 11 January 2024 at 11:58:10 UTC, Jon Ribbens wrote:
[quoted text muted]
twelve members of the jury thought he was. He was certainly involved
in an armed robbery / burglary and whilst opinions differ about common
purpose he partly convicted due t that.
I was very very careful to chose a case that wasn't ambiguous.
Bentley probably shouldn't have hanged.
According to the law as it stood, it was mandatory (subject to medical examination and Home Secretary discretion).
And Ruth Ellis was pretty much the poster child for the death penalty.
Calculated murder with no care for innocent civilians.
She has got away without too much public distaste for her actions,
hasn't she?
On 11/01/2024 19:24, Jon Ribbens wrote:
I think they are probably guilty of fraudulent reporting, fudging the
books. Some bureaucratic systems are impossible to work with honestly,
the only way to survive is to misrepresent things.
We see this in the practice of having to sign off the previous day's
accounts before they could start trading the next day. What do you do if >>> Horizon keeps giving you wrong figures? You can only sign off, or go out >>> of business. If management catch that you have misreported, it is a
crime, even if it is understandable why these people did it.
Hmm. I'm pretty sure that isn't or shouldn't be a crime, especially
if they've been instructed to do it by the company they're reporting to.
My assumption is that in order to sign off, you have to state your
accounting matches Horizon. e.g. The cash you have in the cash draw
matches Horizon's expectation. The crime would be to misreport your
accounts to match Horizon.
The correct thing would be to report the discrepancy, at which point you would be blocked from trading the next day.
On 2024-01-12, Pancho <Pancho.Jones@proton.me> wrote:
On 11/01/2024 19:24, Jon Ribbens wrote:
I think they are probably guilty of fraudulent reporting, fudging the
books. Some bureaucratic systems are impossible to work with honestly, >>>> the only way to survive is to misrepresent things.
We see this in the practice of having to sign off the previous day's
accounts before they could start trading the next day. What do you do if >>>> Horizon keeps giving you wrong figures? You can only sign off, or go out >>>> of business. If management catch that you have misreported, it is a
crime, even if it is understandable why these people did it.
Hmm. I'm pretty sure that isn't or shouldn't be a crime, especially
if they've been instructed to do it by the company they're reporting to.
My assumption is that in order to sign off, you have to state your
accounting matches Horizon. e.g. The cash you have in the cash draw
matches Horizon's expectation. The crime would be to misreport your
accounts to match Horizon.
The correct thing would be to report the discrepancy, at which point you
would be blocked from trading the next day.
Exactly, hence why I'm saying I don't think it's a crime, since that
isn't an option. Plus I bet you if they called the head office helpline
they would have been explicitly instructed to do that, in which case
it's definitely no crime.
On 12/01/2024 12:18, Jon Ribbens wrote:
On 2024-01-12, Pancho <Pancho.Jones@proton.me> wrote:
On 11/01/2024 19:24, Jon Ribbens wrote:
I think they are probably guilty of fraudulent reporting, fudging the >>>>> books. Some bureaucratic systems are impossible to work with honestly, >>>>> the only way to survive is to misrepresent things.
We see this in the practice of having to sign off the previous day's >>>>> accounts before they could start trading the next day. What do you
do if
Horizon keeps giving you wrong figures? You can only sign off, or
go out
of business. If management catch that you have misreported, it is a
crime, even if it is understandable why these people did it.
Hmm. I'm pretty sure that isn't or shouldn't be a crime, especially
if they've been instructed to do it by the company they're reporting
to.
My assumption is that in order to sign off, you have to state your
accounting matches Horizon. e.g. The cash you have in the cash draw
matches Horizon's expectation. The crime would be to misreport your
accounts to match Horizon.
The correct thing would be to report the discrepancy, at which point you >>> would be blocked from trading the next day.
Exactly, hence why I'm saying I don't think it's a crime, since that
isn't an option. Plus I bet you if they called the head office helpline
they would have been explicitly instructed to do that, in which case
it's definitely no crime.
I wonder whether the public inquiry ought to take evidence from some of
the lawyers who were briefed to defend the sub-postmasters in prosecutions.
Did they accept unquestioningly the evidence from the prosecution that
the Horizon system was working properly or did they doubt it? If they
doubted it, did they consider obtaining expert accounting or computing evidence and if not, why not? If there was no money available to pay an expert did they complain about this?
Did those lawyers actually believe that there was no defence and that
any protestations of innocence were probably lies, and that the task was
to plea-bargain and get the lowest penalty available?
https://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240089230/Bankruptcy-prosecution-and-disrupted-livelihoods-Postmasters-tell-their-story
It was interesting that in the plea bargaining contract the post masters
were obliged to sign a disclaimer that Horizon had worked correctly
which to me is a smoking gun that the PO knew damn well that it didn't.
Prosecutions of senior individuals might just make a difference.
Unless and until some big wigs get prosecuted and jailed as the guiding
minds behind perpetrating this massive injustice ruining innocent
peoples lives nothing will change. The enquiry is a complete waste of
time. Prosecutions of senior individuals might just make a difference.
Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
https://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240089230/Bankruptcy-prosecution-and-disrupted-livelihoods-Postmasters-tell-their-story
It was interesting that in the plea bargaining contract the post masters
were obliged to sign a disclaimer that Horizon had worked correctly
which to me is a smoking gun that the PO knew damn well that it didn't.
But isn’t that disclaimer essentially worthless?
The SPMs were doubtless trained in how to send the data, and surely that would be all?
It’s rather like a stoker on the Titanic signing a declaration that the ship was unsinkable; such things are far beyond his knowledge.
“We loaded the data, pressed the Send button, it stopped half way through, so we sent it again” is about all they could say of the system.
The disclaimer ploy smacks more of a very heavy-handed PO trying to keep a lid on things.
Prosecutions of senior individuals might just make a difference.
What’s the betting it will never happen.
Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
https://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240089230/Bankruptcy-prosecution-and-disrupted-livelihoods-Postmasters-tell-their-story
It was interesting that in the plea bargaining contract the post masters
were obliged to sign a disclaimer that Horizon had worked correctly
which to me is a smoking gun that the PO knew damn well that it didn't.
But isn’t that disclaimer essentially worthless?
The SPMs were doubtless trained in how to send the data, and surely that would be all?
It’s rather like a stoker on the Titanic signing a declaration that the ship was unsinkable; such things are far beyond his knowledge.
“We loaded the data, pressed the Send button, it stopped half way through, so we sent it again” is about all they could say of the system.
The disclaimer ploy smacks more of a very heavy-handed PO trying to keep a lid on things.
Prosecutions of senior individuals might just make a difference.
What’s the betting it will never happen.
Right until the very last possible moment the Post Office was
threatening to sue anyone who told the truth about Horizon.
On 12/01/2024 12:18, Jon Ribbens wrote:
On 2024-01-12, Pancho <Pancho.Jones@proton.me> wrote:
On 11/01/2024 19:24, Jon Ribbens wrote:
I think they are probably guilty of fraudulent reporting, fudging the >>>>> books. Some bureaucratic systems are impossible to work with honestly, >>>>> the only way to survive is to misrepresent things.
We see this in the practice of having to sign off the previous day's >>>>> accounts before they could start trading the next day. What do you
do if
Horizon keeps giving you wrong figures? You can only sign off, or
go out
of business. If management catch that you have misreported, it is a
crime, even if it is understandable why these people did it.
Hmm. I'm pretty sure that isn't or shouldn't be a crime, especially
if they've been instructed to do it by the company they're reporting
to.
My assumption is that in order to sign off, you have to state your
accounting matches Horizon. e.g. The cash you have in the cash draw
matches Horizon's expectation. The crime would be to misreport your
accounts to match Horizon.
The correct thing would be to report the discrepancy, at which point you >>> would be blocked from trading the next day.
Exactly, hence why I'm saying I don't think it's a crime, since that
isn't an option. Plus I bet you if they called the head office helpline
they would have been explicitly instructed to do that, in which case
it's definitely no crime.
I wonder whether the public inquiry ought to take evidence from some of
the lawyers who were briefed to defend the sub-postmasters in prosecutions.
Did they accept unquestioningly the evidence from the prosecution that
the Horizon system was working properly or did they doubt it? If they
doubted it, did they consider obtaining expert accounting or computing evidence and if not, why not? If there was no money available to pay an expert did they complain about this?
Did those lawyers actually believe that there was no defence and that
any protestations of innocence were probably lies, and that the task was
to plea-bargain and get the lowest penalty available?
Maybe I am legally naive but I thought that in criminal investgations:
You had to look for a motive? e.g. gambling addiction, debts, etc
and prove it?
I also thought you also have to look for corroborating evidence
to prove the "loss"...
It appears the prosecution was relying on just one piece of evidence,
that being the Horizon report that states XXX pounds and YY pence
is missing.
In the case of Alan Bates, his Horizon terminal presented himwith a shortfall of 6,000.
He printed off a receipt of the entire day's transactions and worked
through it.
In so doing, he managed to find that 5,000 of the "missing" 6,000
was due to a series (but not all) of Giro payments having gone through
the system twice.
In the case of Alan Bates, his Horizon terminal presented him with a shortfall of £6,000.
He printed off a receipt of the entire day's transactions and worked
through it.
In so doing, he managed to find that £5,000 of the "missing" £6,000 was
due to a series (but not all) of Giro payments having gone through the
system twice.
However, despite his best efforts, an explanation for the remaining
£1,000 was never discovered.
And, in the name of completeness, the contract between the Post Office
and the sub postmasters stated that the sub postmaster was responsible
for any losses caused through their own "negligence, carelessness or error". Additionally, any shortfalls had to be "made good without delay".
"Simon Parker" <simonparkerulm@gmail.com> wrote in message news:l0m15eFqsa2U2@mid.individual.net...
.
snip
with a shortfall of Ł6,000.
In the case of Alan Bates, his Horizon terminal presented him
He printed off a receipt of the entire day's transactions and worked
through it.
In so doing, he managed to find that Ł5,000 of the "missing" Ł6,000
was due to a series (but not all) of Giro payments having gone through
the system twice.
But surely if the transactions had gone through twice - the till showed
a total of Ł10,000 having been paid instead of Ł5000 then that would
have given him a surplus of Ł5000
The point was made earlier, by GG, that most sub PO business was paying
out. In which case if there was a tendency for Horizon to "ignore"
such payments, after a break in transmission, rather than double count
them, then this alone might account for the preponderance of losses
over surpluses.
FWIW, I had an argument with an accountant, about my business accounts,
circa 2000. It was like getting blood from a stone to get them to give
me a breakdown, they did in the end, but in a most unhelpful way, an >unformatted printout. Hopefully software has improved since then.
On 12/01/2024 13:59, The Todal wrote:
On 12/01/2024 12:18, Jon Ribbens wrote:
On 2024-01-12, Pancho <Pancho.Jones@proton.me> wrote:
My assumption is that in order to sign off, you have to state your
accounting matches Horizon. e.g. The cash you have in the cash draw
matches Horizon's expectation. The crime would be to misreport your
accounts to match Horizon.
The correct thing would be to report the discrepancy, at which point you >>>> would be blocked from trading the next day.
Exactly, hence why I'm saying I don't think it's a crime, since that
isn't an option. Plus I bet you if they called the head office helpline
they would have been explicitly instructed to do that, in which case
it's definitely no crime.
I wonder whether the public inquiry ought to take evidence from some of
the lawyers who were briefed to defend the sub-postmasters in prosecutions. >>
Did they accept unquestioningly the evidence from the prosecution that
the Horizon system was working properly or did they doubt it? If they
doubted it, did they consider obtaining expert accounting or computing
evidence and if not, why not? If there was no money available to pay an
expert did they complain about this?
Did those lawyers actually believe that there was no defence and that
any protestations of innocence were probably lies, and that the task was
to plea-bargain and get the lowest penalty available?
I cannot commend to you in strong enough terms the following article
from The Lawyer which gives an overview of the saga from a legal
perspective.
https://www.thelawyer.com/how-justice-done-in-post-office-scandal/
I find the depths to which the Post Office's legal teams sank at times
to be breathtaking.
A communication fail can lead to double processing, for instance an acknowledgment may get lost, causing the local system to resend data.
Really speaking, they should make transactions idempotent. Meaning,
applying the same transaction multiple times is the same as applying it
once. The fact that software developers have a term for this,
idempotent, shows it is a common problem.
[SNIP]
Google "Dalmellington Bug" if you want to read the tale of woe of the
SPM involved and how a known bug was dealt with by Post Office and
Fujitsu tech support. (Spoiler alert: It was an intermittent bug so
they initially denied there was a problem, despite there being clear
evidence of it having happened in Dalmellington and elsewhere. When
they eventually acknowledged that there was a bug, they resolved to
issue a fix to the affected software in five month's time!)
Additionally, if no bug was acknowledged, and a SPM reported a
discrepancy, the Post Office "investigators" were grossly miss-named.
They were not there to "investigate" the discrepancy. The default
position was that Horizon was correct and the SPM had stolen the
money. As I've said previously, they were paid bonuses dependent upon
how much money they "recovered" rather than on how many queries they resolved.
A case where Horizon was at fault meant no money to repay and
therefore no bonus.
The "investigators" were not there to investigate. Their role was to
get the SPM to return the money, not first ensuring that the money had actually been taken.
On 17/01/2024 12:17, Pamela wrote:
On 09:11 17 Jan 2024, Simon Parker said:
[SNIP]
The "investigators" were not there to investigate. Their role was to
get the SPM to return the money, not first ensuring that the money had
actually been taken.
You appear to still have stamina to still look into these cases but I'm
reaching a stage where I'm numbed by the scale of the Horizon scandal
with a near-endless succession of outrages each enabled by utterley
appalling behaviour of those in authority as they deliberately subverted
justice by pinning blame on innocents.
Yet news of more Horizon injustices keep coming like some sort of
production line.
I am keenly interested in what is often termed the greatest miscarriage
of justice in British history and have been watching it since the early reports in Computer Weekly and The Register.
I am disappointed it has taken this long to finally gain widespread
notice and wait to see how things transpire from this point forward.
What did the Post Office think it as doing as it hid excess money
received from false "reimibursements" and unjustified fines? Their
internal accounts could not have balanced and the accountants must have
magicked away the surpluses.
Not necessarily. Take the Dalmellington Bug as an example mentioned previously. Customer deposits £250 cash but the Horizon system records this multiple times, (lets say three to keep the next bit easy).
According to the Horizon system, the post office counter in question has received £750 in cash as three separate transactions of £250 each.
However, there's only an additional £250 in the cash drawer.
If the SPM puts £500 of their own money in so that the money in the cash drawer balances with what Horizon claims should be there, (either when Horizon advises them is necessary at the end of the day, or when "investigators" advise them that they are being investigated for the
missing £500), there is no "surplus". The cash in the drawer now
balances with what Horizon claims should be there.
It was easy to spot in the original Dalmellington case because it was an £8,000 deposit and was recorded 4 times giving rise to Horizon claiming
a shortfall of £24,000 so the SPM was aware of the issue immediately and could inform the Horizon Help Desk, (and post about it on the various discussion groups frequented by SPMs), and got the Union involved, who generated a front-page headline in Computer Weekly.
Personally, I'd expect a shortfall of that nature to have been passed
off to someone more senior that a front-line tech support call handler
but that isn't what happened.
Excuse me while I sit down at the scale of this scandal.
I am interested in not only the behaviour of the Post Office and Horizon
but also of the underlying legislation, principally the Criminal
Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 [1], but also the seeming
inability of the judiciary to do anything about the matter despite
holding grave reservations concerning disclosure.
Rather than make a lengthy post on the subject, this article by Neil
Hawes KC at Crucible chambers covers all the salient points:
https://crucible.law/insights/fault-lines-exposed-in-the-criminal-justice-system-the-post-office-horizon-scandal
The judgment discussed in the article, is simply referred to as
"Hamilton" but the full title and neutral citation is Hamilton & Ors v
Post Office Ltd [2021] EWCA Crim 577 [1]
Consider, for example, the advice of Simon Clarke, a barrister employed
by a firm of solicitors which was instructed by POL in relation to prosecutions, given in paragraphs [88-89] of the judgment.
<Begin quote>
88. Mr Clarke wrote a further advice on 2 August 2013. From this it is apparent that, before sending his earlier advice, he had advised POL in conference on 3 July 2013. At that conference he had advised the
creation of a single hub to collate all Horizon-related defects, bugs, complaints, queries and Fujitsu remedies, so there would be a single
source of information for disclosure purposes in future prosecutions.
POL had accepted his advice and had set up a weekly conference call,
three of which had taken place by the time Mr Clarke wrote his later
advice. After the third, he said, the following
information had been relayed to him:
"(i) The minutes of a previous call had been typed and emailed to a
number of persons. An instruction was then given that those emails and minutes should be, and have been, destroyed: the word 'shredded' was
conveyed to me.
"(ii) Handwritten minutes were not to be typed and should be forwarded
to POL Head of Security.
"(iii) Advice had been given to POL which I report as relayed to me
verbatim: 'If it's not minuted it's not in the public domain and
therefore not disclosable.' 'If it's produced it's available for
disclosure - if not minuted then technically it's not.'
"(iv) Some at POL do not wish to minute the weekly conference calls."
89. Mr Clarke then set out the relevant provisions governing disclosure.
He emphasised the seriousness of any attempt to abrogate the duty to
record and retain material, observing that a decision to do so may well amount to a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. He ended with
the following:
"Regardless of the position in civil law, any advice to the effect that,
if material is not minuted or otherwise written down, it does not fall
to be disclosed is, in the field of criminal law, wrong. It is wrong in
law and principle and such a view represents a failing to fully
appreciate the duties of fairness and integrity placed upon a
prosecutor’s shoulders."
<End Quote>
Reading the text of Mr Clarke's advice in full [2], it is clear that the
Post Office were not complying with the rules for disclosure.
Similarly, in an earlier advice [3], Mr Clarke gave strongly worded
advice to the Post Office about their apparent lack of understanding and compliance with the rules for disclosure.
The SRA is a core participant in the Horizon Inquiry and so cannot being regulatory action against its members until the inquiry is complete.
Chair of the Bar Council Nick Vineall KC has said similar.
"The Post Office scandal was a catastrophic miscarriage of justice, and
it is important that we understand how and why the justice system wasn't working, and the role played by lawyers throughout the process. There
are bound to be important lessons for us to learn.
"We anticipate that some lawyers will come out of it well and some
lawyers will face heavy criticism. Ultimately, the assessment of
whether individuals' actions fell short of their professional
obligations will be matters for the BSB or the SRA or other front-line regulators, who will need to understand exactly what the lawyers were instructed to do and what information was available to them.
"There will rightly be continued intense interest in the hearings, but
it would no t be appropriate for the Bar Council to give a running commentary. However, we will be following the proceedings carefully and
will give anxious scrutiny to the conclusions which the inquiry
eventually reaches on the role of lawyers."
See also the column by Nick Vineall KCs in the July 2023 issue of
Counsel in which he comments on the appropriateness of private
prosecutions being brought by corporate bodies. [4]
"The ongoing enquiries into the Post Office Horizon scandal have
highlighted the critical importance of the independence of lawyers. It
is often easier for external lawyers to be independent of their client
than internal lawyers, but it is just as important that in-house lawyers
are independent. This is most acutely the case when the lawyer's
employer can bring prosecutions. The scandal will surely bring into
question the appropriateness of private prosecutions brought by
corporate bodies."
In short, I don't see this just being about the Post Office and Horizon.
On 17/01/2024 12:17, Pamela wrote:
On 09:11 17 Jan 2024, Simon Parker said:
[SNIP]
Google "Dalmellington Bug" if you want to read the tale of woe of
the SPM involved and how a known bug was dealt with by Post Office
and Fujitsu tech support. (Spoiler alert: It was an intermittent
bug so they initially denied there was a problem, despite there
being clear evidence of it having happened in Dalmellington and
elsewhere. When they eventually acknowledged that there was a bug,
they resolved to issue a fix to the affected software in five
month's time!)
Additionally, if no bug was acknowledged, and a SPM reported a
discrepancy, the Post Office "investigators" were grossly
miss-named. They were not there to "investigate" the discrepancy.
The default position was that Horizon was correct and the SPM had
stolen the money. As I've said previously, they were paid bonuses
dependent upon how much money they "recovered" rather than on how
many queries they resolved.
A case where Horizon was at fault meant no money to repay and
therefore no bonus.
The "investigators" were not there to investigate. Their role was
to get the SPM to return the money, not first ensuring that the
money had actually been taken.
You appear to still have stamina to still look into these cases but
I'm reaching a stage where I'm numbed by the scale of the Horizon
scandal with a near-endless succession of outrages each enabled by
utterly appalling behaviour of those in authority as they
deliberately subverted justice by pinning blame on innocents.
Yet news of more Horizon injustices keep coming like some sort of
production line.
I am keenly interested in what is often termed the greatest
miscarriage of justice in British history and have been watching it
since the early reports in Computer Weekly and The Register.
I am disappointed it has taken this long to finally gain widespread
notice and wait to see how things transpire from this point forward.
What did the Post Office think it as doing as it hid excess money
received from false "reimbursements" and unjustified fines? Their
internal accounts could not have balanced and the accountants must
have magicked away the surpluses.
Not necessarily. Take the Dalmellington Bug as an example mentioned previously. Customer deposits 250 cash but the Horizon system
records this multiple times, (lets say three to keep the next bit
easy).
According to the Horizon system, the post office counter in question
has received 750 in cash as three separate transactions of 250 each. However, there's only an additional 250 in the cash drawer.
If the SPM puts £500 of their own money in so that the money in the
cash drawer balances with what Horizon claims should be there, (either
when Horizon advises them is necessary at the end of the day, or when "investigators" advise them that they are being investigated for the
missing 500), there is no "surplus". The cash in the drawer now
balances with what Horizon claims should be there.
It was easy to spot in the original Dalmellington case because it was
an 8,000 deposit and was recorded 4 times giving rise to Horizon
claiming a shortfall of 24,000 so the SPM was aware of the issue
immediately and could inform the Horizon Help Desk, (and post about it
on the various discussion groups frequented by SPMs), and got the
Union involved, who generated a front-page headline in Computer
Weekly.
Personally, I'd expect a shortfall of that nature to have been passed
off to someone more senior that a front-line tech support call handler
but that isn't what happened.
Excuse me while I sit down at the scale of this scandal.
I am interested in not only the behaviour of the Post Office and
Horizon but also of the underlying legislation, principally the
Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 [1], but also the
seeming inability of the judiciary to do anything about the matter
despite holding grave reservations concerning disclosure.
Rather than make a lengthy post on the subject, this article by Neil
Hawes KC at Crucible chambers covers all the salient points:
https://crucible.law/insights/fault-lines-exposed-in-the- criminal-justice-system-the-post-office-horizon-scandal
The judgment discussed in the article, is simply referred to as
"Hamilton" but the full title and neutral citation is Hamilton & Ors v
Post Office Ltd [2021] EWCA Crim 577 [1]
Consider, for example, the advice of Simon Clarke, a barrister
employed by a firm of solicitors which was instructed by POL in
relation to prosecutions, given in paragraphs [88-89] of the judgment.
<Begin quote> 88. Mr Clarke wrote a further advice on 2 August 2013.
From this it is apparent that, before sending his earlier advice, he
had advised POL in conference on 3 July 2013. At that conference he
had advised the creation of a single hub to collate all
Horizon-related defects, bugs, complaints, queries and Fujitsu
remedies, so there would be a single source of information for
disclosure purposes in future prosecutions. POL had accepted his
advice and had set up a weekly conference call, three of which had
taken place by the time Mr Clarke wrote his later advice. After the
third, he said, the following information had been relayed to him:
"(i) The minutes of a previous call had been typed and emailed to
a number of persons. An instruction was then given that those
emails and minutes should be, and have been, destroyed: the word
'shredded' was conveyed to me.
"(ii) Handwritten minutes were not to be typed and should be
forwarded to POL Head of Security.
"(iii) Advice had been given to POL which I report as relayed to
me verbatim: 'If it's not minuted it's not in the public domain
and therefore not disclosable.' 'If it's produced it's available
for disclosure - if not minuted then technically it's not.'
"(iv) Some at POL do not wish to minute the weekly conference
calls."
89. Mr Clarke then set out the relevant provisions governing
disclosure. He emphasised the seriousness of any attempt to abrogate
the duty to record and retain material, observing that a decision to
do so may well amount to a conspiracy to pervert the course of
justice. He ended with the following:
"Regardless of the position in civil law, any advice to the effect
that, if material is not minuted or otherwise written down, it does
not fall to be disclosed is, in the field of criminal law, wrong. It
is wrong in law and principle and such a view represents a failing
to fully appreciate the duties of fairness and integrity placed upon
a prosecutor's shoulders." <End Quote>
Reading the text of Mr Clarke's advice in full [2], it is clear that
the Post Office were not complying with the rules for disclosure.
Similarly, in an earlier advice [3], Mr Clarke gave strongly worded
advice to the Post Office about their apparent lack of understanding
and compliance with the rules for disclosure.
The SRA is a core participant in the Horizon Inquiry and so cannot
being regulatory action against its members until the inquiry is
complete.
Chair of the Bar Council Nick Vineall KC has said similar.
"The Post Office scandal was a catastrophic miscarriage of justice,
and it is important that we understand how and why the justice
system wasn't working, and the role played by lawyers throughout the
process. There are bound to be important lessons for us to learn.
"We anticipate that some lawyers will come out of it well and some
lawyers will face heavy criticism. Ultimately, the assessment of
whether individuals' actions fell short of their professional
obligations will be matters for the BSB or the SRA or other
front-line regulators, who will need to understand exactly what the
lawyers were instructed to do and what information was available to
them.
"There will rightly be continued intense interest in the hearings,
but it would no t be appropriate for the Bar Council to give a
running commentary. However, we will be following the proceedings
carefully and will give anxious scrutiny to the conclusions which
the inquiry eventually reaches on the role of lawyers."
See also the column by Nick Vineall KCs in the July 2023 issue of
Counsel in which he comments on the appropriateness of private
prosecutions being brought by corporate bodies. [4]
"The ongoing enquiries into the Post Office Horizon scandal have
highlighted the critical importance of the independence of lawyers.
It is often easier for external lawyers to be independent of their
client than internal lawyers, but it is just as important that
in-house lawyers are independent. This is most acutely the case
when the lawyer's employer can bring prosecutions. The scandal will
surely bring into question the appropriateness of private
prosecutions brought by corporate bodies."
In short, I don't see this just being about the Post Office and
Horizon.
Regards
S.P.
[1] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1996/25/contents
[2] https://www.postofficescandal.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/ 10/20130802-Clarke-advice-re-shredding-1.pdf
[3] https://www.postofficescandal.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/ 10/Clarke-advice-re-Jenkins.pdf
[4] https://www.counselmagazine.co.uk/articles/engaging-with- lawyers-legislation-reform
The SRA's reluctance to act quickly in all this but instead
wait until the end of the inquiry, shows a startling lack
of responsiveness.
I'm told Britain has an
enviable reputation for justice,
which results in many international cases being heard here
but the Horizon scandal is giving this reputation
a good hard knock at a time we're trying get over the unedifying Parliamentary shenanigans over Brexit which so many foreigners
laughed at.
On 23/01/2024 12:46, Pamela wrote:
On 16:39 18 Jan 2024, Simon Parker said:
[big snip]
Thanks for those links and quotations.
You're welcome.
Simon Clarke's advice to the Post Office to shred or generally not
retain minutes is shocking.
I fear you have misunderstood Mr Clarke's advice, which was at all
times, to the best of my knowledge, fully compliant with the rules of disclosure, something he went to great lengths on a number of
occasions to point out to the Post Office that their current policies
and procedures were not compliant.
Summarising as best as I can, Mr Clarke advised the Post Office to
create a central hub to collate and disseminate information (including
'bug reports') relevant to the Horizon prosecutions. As part of this process, weekly meetings were held. It had come to Mr Clarke's
attention that some within the Post Office did not want the minutes of
these meetings recording so that there was no evidence that the
meetings had taken place and therefore no duty to disclose the
contents thereof.
He made it clear that the Post Office's understanding did not accord
with the rules of disclosure and that it is the fact that the
information is 'known', regardless of whether or not it is recorded,
that necessitates disclosure.
You may be well served to re-read the advice from that perspective.
(Mr Clarke quotes throughout what has been said by the Post Office or
matters that have "come to his attention". They are not part of his
advice but form the basis for why he felt it necessary to give the
advice he did.)
The SRA's reluctance to act quickly in all this but instead wait
until the end of the inquiry, shows a startling lack of
responsiveness.
Again, I fear you misunderstand the situation. The SRA was
investigating potential misconduct by some of its members prior to the inquiry starting and also whilst it was progressing. (For example,
the SRA had agreed a disclosure order from the Post Office for certain documents relating to the Horizon prosecutions.) As the inquiry
progressed, the inquiry recommended that the SRA become a 'core
participant' so it had unfettered access to all documents available to
the inquiry. The SRA subsequently applied for and was granted 'core participant' status. This would make the SRA's investigations much
easier as the documents available to core participants in the inquiry
was far more wide ranging than the previously agreed disclosure order.
The SRA's status as a core participant also allows them to feed into
the inquiry so that the inquiry can follow certain lines of
investigation proposed by the SRA as it progresses.
It should be borne in mind that the inquiry has statutory powers to
compel participants both to appear and to answer questions so this
will inevitably grant the SRA access to more information than they
would otherwise have been able to gather without being a core
participant.
However, the quid pro quo for being a core participant is that the SRA
cannot bring forth any prosecutions until after the inquiry has
concluded, likely to be during the summer of this year.
The SRA isn't displaying "reluctance to act quickly" nor is it showing
"a startling lack of responsiveness".
Rather it has taken a pragmatic and practical decision, and what I
consider to be an eminently sensible decision, to become a core
participant, at the inquiry's suggestion, so that it may assist in
steering certain elements of the inquiry and gain unfettered access to
the documents available to the inquiry.
[SNIP]
On 23/01/2024 16:20, billy bookcase wrote:
"Pamela" <uklm@permabulator.33mail.com> wrote in message
news:XnsB10281FE733E45D4AM2@135.181.20.170...
The SRA's reluctance to act quickly in all this but instead
wait until the end of the inquiry, shows a startling lack
of responsiveness.
The SRA's primary responsibility is to the "clients of
solicitors" who may have been guilty of malpractice. As
the primary duty of a solicitor is to protect the
interests of their own client. Not worry overmuch about the
interests of the clients of other solicitors.
<SFX: Buzzer>
The primary duty of a solicitor is NOT to protect the interests
of their own client.
Solicitors are officers of the court and their overriding duty
is to the rule of law and the administration of justice.
[...]
I'm told Britain has an
enviable reputation for justice,
Only among the well heeled who can afford the best QC's
<cough>ITYM KCs<cough> :-)
On 23/01/2024 16:20, billy bookcase wrote:
"Pamela" <uklm@permabulator.33mail.com> wrote in message
news:XnsB10281FE733E45D4AM2@135.181.20.170...
The SRA's reluctance to act quickly in all this but instead
wait until the end of the inquiry, shows a startling lack
of responsiveness.
The SRA's primary responsibility is to the "clients of
solicitors" who may have been guilty of malpractice. As
the primary duty of a solicitor is to protect the
interests of their own client. Not worry overmuch about the
interests of the clients of other solicitors.
<SFX: Buzzer>
The primary duty of a solicitor is NOT to protect the interests of their
own client.
Solicitors are officers of the court and their overriding duty is to the
rule of law and the administration of justice.
As officers of the court, solicitors should never put other interests - including but not limited to the interests of their client - above the
law and the proper administration of justice.
[...]
Why the handwringing over parliament/the government working to exonerate
the wrongfully convicted postmasters ?
[3] https://www.postofficescandal.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Clarke-advice-re-Jenkins.pdf
"Simon Parker" <simonparkerulm@gmail.com> wrote in message news:l0t2irF5u7U5@mid.individual.net...
[3]
https://www.postofficescandal.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Clarke- advice-re-Jenkins.pdf
In respect of the above advice, which I must admit I've only just read,
and which offers a forensic examination of the inconsistencies in the evidence provided by one expert witness as it evolved over time, (and assuming the document is genuine) does it not disturb you nevertheless,
that while the advice supposedly concerns expert evidence provided by Dr Gareth *Jenkins*
there are numerous references to a Dr *Jennings* in the latter part of
the document ?
"Simon Parker" <simonparkerulm@gmail.com> wrote in message news:l0t2irF5u7U5@mid.individual.net...
[3]
https://www.postofficescandal.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Clarke-advice-re-Jenkins.pdf
In respect of the above advice, which I must admit I've only
just read, and which offers a forensic examination of the
inconsistencies in the evidence provided by one expert witness
as it evolved over time, (and assuming the document is genuine)
does it not disturb you nevertheless, that while the advice
supposedly concerns expert evidence provided by Dr Gareth *Jenkins*
there are numerous references to a Dr *Jennings* in the latter
part of the document ?
On 26/01/2024 10:19, billy bookcase wrote:
"Simon Parker" <simonparkerulm@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:l0t2irF5u7U5@mid.individual.net...
[3]
https://www.postofficescandal.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Clarke-advice-re-Jenkins.pdf
In respect of the above advice, which I must admit I've only
just read, and which offers a forensic examination of the
inconsistencies in the evidence provided by one expert witness
as it evolved over time, (and assuming the document is genuine)
does it not disturb you nevertheless, that while the advice
supposedly concerns expert evidence provided by Dr Gareth *Jenkins*
there are numerous references to a Dr *Jennings* in the latter
part of the document ?
Transcripts made from dictaphone or meeting tapes often have phoneme equivalence
mistakes in the draft documents. It isn't at all uncommon.
"Martin Brown" <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote in message news:up0lpl$2u33v$3@dont-email.me...
On 26/01/2024 10:19, billy bookcase wrote:
"Simon Parker" <simonparkerulm@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:l0t2irF5u7U5@mid.individual.net...
[3]
https://www.postofficescandal.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Clarke-advice-re-Jenkins.pdf
In respect of the above advice, which I must admit I've only
just read, and which offers a forensic examination of the
inconsistencies in the evidence provided by one expert witness
as it evolved over time, (and assuming the document is genuine)
does it not disturb you nevertheless, that while the advice
supposedly concerns expert evidence provided by Dr Gareth *Jenkins*
there are numerous references to a Dr *Jennings* in the latter
part of the document ?
Transcripts made from dictaphone or meeting tapes often have phoneme
equivalence
mistakes in the draft documents. It isn't at all uncommon.
Except that this a not transcript from a meeting tape nor a draft document but (supposedly)* an opinion sought of a barrister to which his name is appended at the bottom
selected quotes
quote:
Expert evidence relied upon by POL in prosecuting offences. 14. For many years both RMG and latterly POL has relied upon Dr. Gareth *Jenkins* for the provision of expert evidence as to the operation and integrity of Horizon.
15. Dr. *Jenkins* has provided many expert statements in support of POL (& RMG)
prosecutions; he has negotiated with and arrived at joint conclusions and joint-reports with defence experts' and has attended court so as to evidence on oath in criminal trials.
unquote:
In all Dr *Jenkins* is mentioned 26 times
While as to Dr Jennings
quote:
26. This report is based upon a series of email passing between Helen
Rose, a POL Security Fraud Analyst. The emails appear to have been sent/received over the period 30th January 2013 to 13th February 2013.
The essence of the contact is a 'question-and-answer'
process between Helen Rose and Dr. *Jennings* in circumstances where
Helen Rose is enquiring into a reversals issue at the Lepton SPSO.
I again extract a number of paragraphs:
On 30/1/2013 Dr. *Jennings* tells Helen Rose that: "It isn't clear what failed..." "...the counter may have rebooted and so perhaps may have
crashed. in which case the clerk may not have been told exactly what
to do the system is behaving as it should" "It is quite easy
for the clerk to have made a mistake....",
unquote:
While here there are references to both Dr Jenkins and Dr Jennings
in the same paragraph
quote:
The 9 report however does allude to Horizon issues: the 30th January
email is suggestive of the proposition that Dr. *Jennings* does not
know what went wrong; and the 13th Februarycomment is suggestive of
the fact that Dr. *Jenkins* knows of other Horizon issues.
:unquote
selected quotes
quote:
Dr. *Jennings* told us that the extant bug affects Horizon to a limited degree and at specific post office locations only.
c. Whilst is certain that Dr. *Jennings* was aware of B14 in January 2013,
Helen Rose's comment to Dr. *Jennings* of the 13th February 2013 reinforces the point: "I know you are aware of all the Horizon integrity :issues...."
:unquote
Etc etc. In all Dr Jennings is referred to 11 times in the document
Which as stated above, is appended
Simon Clarke Barrister,
Senior Counsel
Cartwright King Solicitors
I say "supposedly" above, because possibly this would be a way of bringing all the salient points to public attention of the public which strictly speaking would be unethical while giving the appearance of it being a
crude forgery which clearly no Senior Counsel would ever permit to be
issued in his name.
Dunno
bb
On 26 Jan 2024 at 20:52:27 GMT, ""billy bookcase"" <billy@anon.com>
wrote:
"Martin Brown" <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote in message
news:up0lpl$2u33v$3@dont-email.me...
On 26/01/2024 10:19, billy bookcase wrote:
"Simon Parker" <simonparkerulm@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:l0t2irF5u7U5@mid.individual.net...
[3]
https://www.postofficescandal.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Clarke- advice-re-Jenkins.pdf
In respect of the above advice, which I must admit I've only just
read, and which offers a forensic examination of the inconsistencies
in the evidence provided by one expert witness as it evolved over
time, (and assuming the document is genuine) does it not disturb you
nevertheless, that while the advice supposedly concerns expert
evidence provided by Dr Gareth *Jenkins*
there are numerous references to a Dr *Jennings* in the latter part
of the document ?
Transcripts made from dictaphone or meeting tapes often have phoneme
equivalence mistakes in the draft documents. It isn't at all uncommon.
Except that this a not transcript from a meeting tape nor a draft
document but (supposedly)* an opinion sought of a barrister to which
his name is appended at the bottom
selected quotes
quote:
Expert evidence relied upon by POL in prosecuting offences. 14. For
many years both RMG and latterly POL has relied upon Dr. Gareth
*Jenkins* for the provision of expert evidence as to the operation and
integrity of Horizon.
15. Dr. *Jenkins* has provided many expert statements in support of POL
(& RMG)
prosecutions; he has negotiated with and arrived at joint conclusions
and joint-reports with defence experts' and has attended court so as to
evidence on oath in criminal trials.
unquote:
In all Dr *Jenkins* is mentioned 26 times
While as to Dr Jennings
quote:
26. This report is based upon a series of email passing between Helen
Rose, a POL Security Fraud Analyst. The emails appear to have been
sent/received over the period 30th January 2013 to 13th February 2013.
The essence of the contact is a 'question-and-answer'
process between Helen Rose and Dr. *Jennings* in circumstances where
Helen Rose is enquiring into a reversals issue at the Lepton SPSO.
I again extract a number of paragraphs:
On 30/1/2013 Dr. *Jennings* tells Helen Rose that: "It isn't clear what
failed..." "...the counter may have rebooted and so perhaps may have
crashed. in which case the clerk may not have been told exactly what to
do the system is behaving as it should" "It is quite easy for the clerk
to have made a mistake....",
unquote:
While here there are references to both Dr Jenkins and Dr Jennings in
the same paragraph
quote:
The 9 report however does allude to Horizon issues: the 30th January
email is suggestive of the proposition that Dr. *Jennings* does not
know what went wrong; and the 13th Februarycomment is suggestive of the
fact that Dr. *Jenkins* knows of other Horizon issues.
:unquote
selected quotes
quote:
Dr. *Jennings* told us that the extant bug affects Horizon to a
limited
degree and at specific post office locations only.
c. Whilst is certain that Dr. *Jennings* was aware of B14 in January
2013,
Helen Rose's comment to Dr. *Jennings* of the 13th February 2013
reinforces the point: "I know you are aware of all the Horizon
integrity :issues...."
:unquote
Etc etc. In all Dr Jennings is referred to 11 times in the document
Which as stated above, is appended
Simon Clarke Barrister,
Senior Counsel Cartwright King Solicitors
I say "supposedly" above, because possibly this would be a way of
bringing all the salient points to public attention of the public which
strictly speaking would be unethical while giving the appearance of it
being a crude forgery which clearly no Senior Counsel would ever permit
to be issued in his name.
Dunno
bb
Standards of typing and proof-reading may not be so high as you
apparently suppose. Your average millennial will probably tell you
there is not much difference between Jennings and Jenkins, and you know
what they meant.
On 26 Jan 2024 at 20:52:27 GMT, ""billy bookcase"" <billy@anon.com> wrote:
"Martin Brown" <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote in message
news:up0lpl$2u33v$3@dont-email.me...
On 26/01/2024 10:19, billy bookcase wrote:
"Simon Parker" <simonparkerulm@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:l0t2irF5u7U5@mid.individual.net...
[3]
https://www.postofficescandal.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Clarke-advice-re-Jenkins.pdf
In respect of the above advice, which I must admit I've only
just read, and which offers a forensic examination of the
inconsistencies in the evidence provided by one expert witness
as it evolved over time, (and assuming the document is genuine)
does it not disturb you nevertheless, that while the advice
supposedly concerns expert evidence provided by Dr Gareth *Jenkins*
there are numerous references to a Dr *Jennings* in the latter
part of the document ?
Transcripts made from dictaphone or meeting tapes often have phoneme
equivalence
mistakes in the draft documents. It isn't at all uncommon.
Except that this a not transcript from a meeting tape nor a draft document >> but (supposedly)* an opinion sought of a barrister to which his name is
appended at the bottom
selected quotes
quote:
Expert evidence relied upon by POL in prosecuting offences. 14. For many
years both RMG and latterly POL has relied upon Dr. Gareth *Jenkins* for the >> provision of expert evidence as to the operation and integrity of Horizon. >>
15. Dr. *Jenkins* has provided many expert statements in support of POL (& RMG)
prosecutions; he has negotiated with and arrived at joint conclusions and
joint-reports with defence experts' and has attended court so as to evidence >> on oath in criminal trials.
unquote:
In all Dr *Jenkins* is mentioned 26 times
While as to Dr Jennings
quote:
26. This report is based upon a series of email passing between Helen
Rose, a POL Security Fraud Analyst. The emails appear to have been
sent/received over the period 30th January 2013 to 13th February 2013.
The essence of the contact is a 'question-and-answer'
process between Helen Rose and Dr. *Jennings* in circumstances where
Helen Rose is enquiring into a reversals issue at the Lepton SPSO.
I again extract a number of paragraphs:
On 30/1/2013 Dr. *Jennings* tells Helen Rose that: "It isn't clear what
failed..." "...the counter may have rebooted and so perhaps may have
crashed. in which case the clerk may not have been told exactly what
to do the system is behaving as it should" "It is quite easy
for the clerk to have made a mistake....",
unquote:
While here there are references to both Dr Jenkins and Dr Jennings
in the same paragraph
quote:
The 9 report however does allude to Horizon issues: the 30th January
email is suggestive of the proposition that Dr. *Jennings* does not
know what went wrong; and the 13th Februarycomment is suggestive of
the fact that Dr. *Jenkins* knows of other Horizon issues.
:unquote
selected quotes
quote:
Dr. *Jennings* told us that the extant bug affects Horizon to a limited
degree and at specific post office locations only.
c. Whilst is certain that Dr. *Jennings* was aware of B14 in January 2013, >>
Helen Rose's comment to Dr. *Jennings* of the 13th February 2013 reinforces >> the point: "I know you are aware of all the Horizon integrity :issues...." >>
:unquote
Etc etc. In all Dr Jennings is referred to 11 times in the document
Which as stated above, is appended
Simon Clarke Barrister,
Senior Counsel
Cartwright King Solicitors
I say "supposedly" above, because possibly this would be a way of bringing >> all the salient points to public attention of the public which strictly
speaking would be unethical while giving the appearance of it being a
crude forgery which clearly no Senior Counsel would ever permit to be
issued in his name.
Dunno
bb
Standards of typing and proof-reading may not be so high as you apparently suppose. Your average millennial will probably tell you there is not much difference between Jennings and Jenkins, and you know what they meant.
On 26/01/2024 10:19, billy bookcase wrote:
"Simon Parker" <simonparkerulm@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:l0t2irF5u7U5@mid.individual.net...
[3]
https://www.postofficescandal.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Clarke-advice-re-Jenkins.pdf
In respect of the above advice, which I must admit I've only
just read, and which offers a forensic examination of the
inconsistencies in the evidence provided by one expert witness
as it evolved over time, (and assuming the document is genuine)
does it not disturb you nevertheless, that while the advice
supposedly concerns expert evidence provided by Dr Gareth *Jenkins*
there are numerous references to a Dr *Jennings* in the latter
part of the document ?
Let's deal with your parenthetic statement first...
The advice is genuine,
as are the other "Clarke Advice" notes that have been produced. We know this to be
true because of the circumstances in which they entered the public domain and the
consequences thereof.
The documents came to light during Seema Misra's case before the Court of Appeal.
During discovery for the trial, several tranches of documents were requested from the
Post Office by Seems Misra's legal team, which included barrister Paul Marshall and his
junior, Flora Page. The Clarke Advice was included in those documents, the significance
of the document was immediately recognised with Lord Falconer himself describing it as
a "smoking gun".
On the 18th November 2020 the Post Office raised in court an allegation of contempt in
that the Clarke advice had been disclosed to parties other than the judges, appellants
and their legal representatives.
Mr Marshall's junior, Flora Page, had already exited the trial as she admitted passing
them to her brother who works as a journalist.
On 19th November, the Met alerted the court that Mr Marshall had sent the Clarke advice
to them and a hearing on 3rd December led the Court of Appeal to order a different
"constitution" of judges to consider whether a contempt had taken place.
Mr Marshall subsequently sent a letter to the Court of Appeal which said, in part:
"Having carefully and anxiously reviewed the proceedings on the 18 November, 19
November and 3 December 2020, and the terms of the order made on 3 December 2020, I
consider that I am inhibited from continuing fearlessly to represent my clients before
this court. I am consequently disabled from discharging my professional duty to my
clients. Accordingly, it is in my clients' best interests to be represented in these
appeals before this court by other counsel.. It is most unfortunate for my clients that
they are deprived of representation by both counsel of their choice as a consequence of
events of 18 - 19 November and 3 December 2020.""
Applications were later made to have the Clarke advice made public and it has featured
in the Inquiry too and is now in the public domain.
Timeline wise, (for those keeping track), it was shortly after the Clarke advice was
made public that Paula Vennells resigned. It is also noteworthy that at the time the
Post Office would have received the advice, there was a noticeable drop in the number
of cases they prosecuted.
Now to your question as to whether I am disturbed by the advice referring to Dr Gareth
*Jenkins* and also making numerous references to a Dr *Jennings* (highlighting yours).
The short and simple answer is no, I am not in the slightest bit disturbed by this. It
is clearly an error made at the time the advice was created that was not picked up
prior to it being sent to the Post Office.
The point was actually dealt with during the Inquiry on the 12th October 2022 and can
be found on page 114 of that day's transcript. [1]
What I am 'disturbed' by is *Mr* Jenkins titling himself *Dr* Jenkins in the Witness
Statements submitted on behalf of the Post Office when there is no evidence of him
holding a relevant qualification which would entitle him to refer to himself as Doctor.
[2] (emphasis mine)
In fact, in witness statements and other submissions made to the Inquiry, he is plain
old *Mr* Jenkins which leads me to ask: Did he style himself "Doctor Jenkins" in the
earlier Witness Statements to add weight and credibility to what he was saying and so
that every time he was addressed or referred to in court, everybody would be reminded
what a clever fellow he was? If so, I find that far more disturbing than a barrister's
secretary miss-typing a surname on an advice note.
Regards
S.P.
[1] https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/file/652/download?token=JRSwiSNU
[2] He was a Chartered Engineer (CEng) and Chartered IT Professional (CITP) registered
via the British Computer Society, and he was a member of the British Computer Society
(MBCS).
On 26/01/2024 20:52, billy bookcase wrote:
"Martin Brown" <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote in message
news:up0lpl$2u33v$3@dont-email.me...
On 26/01/2024 10:19, billy bookcase wrote:
"Simon Parker" <simonparkerulm@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:l0t2irF5u7U5@mid.individual.net...
[3]
https://www.postofficescandal.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Clarke-advice-re-Jenkins.pdf
In respect of the above advice, which I must admit I've only
just read, and which offers a forensic examination of the
inconsistencies in the evidence provided by one expert witness
as it evolved over time, (and assuming the document is genuine)
does it not disturb you nevertheless, that while the advice
supposedly concerns expert evidence provided by Dr Gareth *Jenkins*
there are numerous references to a Dr *Jennings* in the latter
part of the document ?
Transcripts made from dictaphone or meeting tapes often have phoneme
equivalence
mistakes in the draft documents. It isn't at all uncommon.
Except that this a not transcript from a meeting tape nor a draft document >> but (supposedly)* an opinion sought of a barrister to which his name is
appended at the bottom
IME, barristers frequently dictate advice notes to be typed by the clerk
/ secretary rather than typing them themselves. Some use old-fashioned dictating machines with mini cassettes although the majority use
electronic ones which create a computer file which can be emailed and is therefore much more convenient.
selected quotes
quote:
Expert evidence relied upon by POL in prosecuting offences. 14. For many
years both RMG and latterly POL has relied upon Dr. Gareth *Jenkins* for the >> provision of expert evidence as to the operation and integrity of Horizon. >>
15. Dr. *Jenkins* has provided many expert statements in support of POL (& RMG)
prosecutions; he has negotiated with and arrived at joint conclusions and
joint-reports with defence experts' and has attended court so as to evidence >> on oath in criminal trials.
unquote:
In all Dr *Jenkins* is mentioned 26 times
While as to Dr Jennings
quote:
26. This report is based upon a series of email passing between Helen
Rose, a POL Security Fraud Analyst. The emails appear to have been
sent/received over the period 30th January 2013 to 13th February 2013.
The essence of the contact is a 'question-and-answer'
process between Helen Rose and Dr. *Jennings* in circumstances where
Helen Rose is enquiring into a reversals issue at the Lepton SPSO.
I again extract a number of paragraphs:
On 30/1/2013 Dr. *Jennings* tells Helen Rose that: "It isn't clear what
failed..." "...the counter may have rebooted and so perhaps may have
crashed. in which case the clerk may not have been told exactly what
to do the system is behaving as it should" "It is quite easy
for the clerk to have made a mistake....",
unquote:
While here there are references to both Dr Jenkins and Dr Jennings
in the same paragraph
quote:
The 9 report however does allude to Horizon issues: the 30th January
email is suggestive of the proposition that Dr. *Jennings* does not
know what went wrong; and the 13th Februarycomment is suggestive of
the fact that Dr. *Jenkins* knows of other Horizon issues.
:unquote
selected quotes
quote:
Dr. *Jennings* told us that the extant bug affects Horizon to a limited
degree and at specific post office locations only.
c. Whilst is certain that Dr. *Jennings* was aware of B14 in January 2013, >>
Helen Rose's comment to Dr. *Jennings* of the 13th February 2013 reinforces >> the point: "I know you are aware of all the Horizon integrity :issues...." >>
:unquote
Etc etc. In all Dr Jennings is referred to 11 times in the document
Which as stated above, is appended
Simon Clarke Barrister,
Senior Counsel
Cartwright King Solicitors
I say "supposedly" above, because possibly this would be a way of bringing >> all the salient points to public attention of the public which strictly
speaking would be unethical while giving the appearance of it being a
crude forgery which clearly no Senior Counsel would ever permit to be
issued in his name.
Dunno
If you are alleging the Clarke advice notes (Mr Clarke issued multiple
advice notes to the Post Office so they're often referred to by the
advice given in them to differentiate between them. e.g. The Clarke
Advice re: shredding, or by the order in which they were issued, e.g.
The first Clarke Advice) are anything but authentic then your I am sorry
to inform you that you are wrong.
I've outlined in a previous post in this sub-thread how the advice came
to light and the consequences that arose therefrom.
But they've also been used within the Inquiry and have been referenced
there too. If they were not genuine, the Post Office have had ample opportunity to challenge them and would surely have done so, including
in the various appeals in which they've featured at the Court of Appeal.
Regards
S.P.
I think he is suggesting that they are typo-ridden including getting names wrong (but not very ambiguously) and therefore cannot be a serious and thoughtful contribution to the PO's advice. Time was when I would have tended to agree, but it these times of post-imperial decadence I realise that no-one tries to write properly anymore.
He started out as an HGV driver. He's now co-founder of and senior partner at Smith
Bowyer Clarke, was elected a Master of the Bench at Lincoln's Inn in July 2018, and at
Furnival Chambers recently secured the acquittal of a defendant found to be carrying
140kgs of cocaine and heroin in his vehicle with the jury taking less than an hour to
acquit.
Do you want to compare that with your track record?
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