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How to Watch Mr Bates vs The Post Office | Official Site | PBS
On in England on ITV and it was on PBS in April.
How computer bugs were swept under the rug and blamed on the Postmasters.
Classic big computer software project that went bad and no one would take accountability for the issues.
Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher
Thanks for posting that Susan
Wikipedia has the full story (here) for anyone interested. It’s a story I’ve been following for a while now, having once lived in the UK. Note that it dates back to at least 2009
Personally I think it has less to do with technology per se and more to do with people. In particular how nowadays people are able to hide under the cloak of large corporations to evade responsibility and accountability, and how the rest of us are at their mercy, and are usually utterly powerless
The SubPostmasters involved had their lives ruined through no fault of their own. They’ve received some monetary compensation, but that’s no real repayment for the stress and reputational damage they suffered. Those responsible for the fiasco, in the Post Office and Fujitsu/Horizon, have not, as yet, had to suffer any consequences at all
Between 1999 and 2015, the Post Office took many cases to court, prosecuting 700 people. More than 900 sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted for stealing due to incorrect information from Horizon. Another 283 cases were brought by other bodies, including the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Many sub-postmasters went to prison for false accounting and theft, and several were financially ruined. Why all this hasn’t been resolved after all this time is a national disgrace here in the UK.
In 2017, a group of 555 sub-postmasters took legal action against the Post Office. In 2019, it agreed to pay them UK£58 million in compensation, but much of the money went on legal fees. The Post Office spent UK£100 million fighting the group in court despite knowing its defence was untrue. The Post Office is owned by the UK Government (through the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) so this was our tax payer’s money! And it goes on…..
The Metropolitan Police based in London, is also investigating the Post Office over potential fraud offences.
Computer Weekly magazine and long-standing satirical magazine Private Eye (which has a ‘serious’ section at the back of the mag) have been covering this scandal since… 2007. That’s 17 years ago.
Yet, the Post Office, Fujitsu (developers of the Horizon system), politicians, Civil Servants and, crucially, the mainstream media all collaborated in a conspiracy of silence – the same mainstream media now trying to claim credit for a rather tacky re-enactment of (part of) the scandal and its latter-day coverage. It is that conspiracy of silence that is as much of a scandal as the Horizon system itself.
So, it is indeed an issue of both people and technology. In this era of AI, where all manner of snake-oil salesmen (not least Microsoft themselves) are telling us to let AI do all our thinking and writing for us, any sensible person that trusts this technology to such an extent really should give their heads a wibble.
And, no, I’m not some kind of tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracy theorist.
Just ask Alan Bates.
It is also downright scary. If one gets caught in this type of trap, how does one get out? The fact that this effected hundreds of people with out a speedy resolution (or any really) makes me wonder how a single individual would fare.
Things are gonna get worse before they get better.
We don’t even need REAL Baddies to screw with our digital essence, just incompetence on the part of functionaries.
The fact that this effected hundreds of people with out a speedy resolution (or any really) makes me wonder how a single individual would fare.
A big part of why the malicious prosecutions persisted for so many years was that virtually every individual was told by “investigators” that they were the only one having computer issues which caused apparent cash shortfalls. This delayed the victims discovering the truth, until Alan Bates drew them together.
My point! A single individual would not stand a chance! And until they realized each was not alone (Thanks Mr. Bates!) but part of a group was any progress start in rectifying the unfortunate situation.
(Thanks Mr. Bates!)
Sir Alan Bates (since last week).
IIRC the USPS has gone in the opposite direction, NOT making window clerks responsible for cash drawer discrepancies. Likely a move too far, I have wondered if this UK situation was responsible for this CYA stance.
For anybody following this scandalous story, there’s an ITV interview with two of the forensic accountants who helped uncover the truth, despite attempted harrassment and intimidation by the Post Office (who had called them in ostensibly to look into the affair). It’s a chilling tale of a large corporation completely out of control, and can be found on YouTube: here
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