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Re: Post Office Horizon system prosecutions
Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2022 10:39 pm
by Gfamily
Lew Dolby wrote: ↑Sun Feb 13, 2022 9:50 pm
What I don't understand (part 93): how come in all this there was never an audit between what the computers said and how many stamps, etc were left in the sub=office ?? !!
Much of the money paid out was for pensions etc, so it wasn't a simple case of double entry book keeping for a straightforward income/outgoings system.
Re: Post Office Horizon system prosecutions
Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2022 6:47 am
by DJL
It does strike me as the underlying systems provide a massively stacked deck, in that there are no reliable audit trails available to demonstrate that the things have worked as designed but that what data are available can be presented to demonstrate fraud on the part of the users.
Re: Post Office Horizon system prosecutions
Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2022 9:31 am
by Lew Dolby
Yeah, thanks - I'd forgotten about all the new machine printable stuff.
Re: Post Office Horizon system prosecutions
Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2022 7:30 pm
by Fishnut
First day of witness evidence.
Baljit Sethi was overcome by emotion on several occasions as he gave evidence to an independent inquiry looking into how hundreds of Post Office workers were wrongfully accused of theft, fraud and false accounting as a result of computer errors.
The 69-year-old and his wife, Anjana, who have three children, successfully ran a Post Office branch near Romford in Essex for several decades, and took on another branch near Brentwood in 2001. A year later, the Horizon computer system showed a £17,000 hole in the Brentwood branch’s account, which the Sethis were asked to cover out of their own pocket.
The article also notes that the Post Office has paid compensation to
less than a third of the victims and that the Post Office claims it
can't afford the compensation so when it does eventually get paid it will be taxpayers who foot the bill. Can someone explain to me how privatisation is better again, I keep forgetting.
Re: Post Office Horizon system prosecutions
Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2022 8:07 pm
by Sciolus
The Post Office is publicly owned. It's Royal Mail that was privatised.
Re: Post Office Horizon system prosecutions
Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2022 8:32 pm
by Fishnut
Sciolus wrote: ↑Mon Feb 14, 2022 8:07 pm
The Post Office is publicly owned. It's Royal Mail that was privatised.
Ah, of course. The closure of so many post offices made me think they've been privatised too.
Re: Post Office Horizon system prosecutions
Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2022 8:57 pm
by sTeamTraen
Sadly, I doubt if any of the people whose decisions were responsible for this will be seeing any kind of justice this side of hell. The UK taxpayer will pick up the tab, "lessons will be learned", and in some other corner of the world, egos with power will conspire to f.ck over another set of innocent people.