Open question to those in the UK closer to this - How do you see the government's response? What is the public sentiment on the matter. Does anyone have any insight why charges are not being pursued against Post Office Management in light of substantial evidence of wrong doing?
I want to see heads roll at the post office. As far as I can remember staff knew about the software issues but covered them up. Also why wasn't the burden of proof on the software developers to prove to the court it was correct? Can the vendor be held accountable?
And lastly, the bonuses the board have paid themselves for cooperating with the enquirey, that's truly sickening. It's rotten on so many levels. It's money for sending innocent people to prison.
It's Royal Mail (the letters and parcel delivery side of things) that was privatised.
I was mostly driving yesterday, and it had significant radio coverage. LBC even interviewed a former 'post-mistress' that suffered a custodial prison sentence, and was furious this compensation wasn't sufficient. She was convicted of taking £59k and she got a 9 month term (half of which was released with tag).
Considering people who lost their career, marriages, houses etc. I get it! Imagine your children thinking you are a convicted thief.
This was her, https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2021-04-23/never-thought-t...
This said, thank goodness some free press still exists in the UK. Without Private Eye, these folks would never have seen even the little justice they received.
Seconded.
I'm willing to bet only Private Eye readers (where to story broke and who continue to demand justice) are aware of this debacle and the shear scale of misery it has caused; all due to software being considered infallible.
What astonishes me about this response is that we have clear criminal action by executives in the Post Office, they knew the system was faulty and they still went ahead with the legal cases. These executives have crimes they need to be tried for in court. This is a criminal matter against the staff of the Post office and its just not being dealt with correctly at all. The Post Office should be paying a lot of people accused compensation.
They need to be held accountable and jailed if found guilty.
https://checkout.private-eye.co.uk/singleitem?item=PEY&prom=...
Real investigative journalism, holding politicians to account, all whist taking the piss in classic British style.
If Private Eye hadn't investigated this, who would have?
"The government said the new compensation offer was in addition to paying for all reasonable legal fees, and any post office operator who does not want to accept it can continue with the existing legal process."
Though that's talking about the prior monies paid, and not specifically this.
I remember David blunket introducing this ghastly mechanism and being shocked that no one cared. He was an awful home secretary.
So once politicians learn to give the bird to the media headlights, you might start to see this country cleaned up, ironically I think Russell Brand can probably do more to clean up the media and their witch hunts than any member of the Royal Family or Govt.
Personally I think £600k is an insult!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/27/innocent-andrew-...
The maximum compensation you can get in the UK is around 1.1 million IIRC. They were going to deduct several hundred thousand pounds from that for "room and board" while he was in jail, leaving him with just over 700k
https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/30/fujitsu_japan_micjet_...
Some were able to do bank related activities as unrelated people because their cards were issued around the same time, and this thing will be our medical insurance ID at the end of 2024
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/18/post-o...
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/apr/23/post-office...
There is an enormous amount of incredible litigation behaviour by the post office in this case. The problem for them is: it all came to trial in the end and its there for everyone to read in painful detail.
Here is, for example, the post office trying to remove the judge in the case after it all started unraveling:
https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2019/871.html
And in 929 of https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2019/3408.html the Judge writes of Post office senior officers refusal to accept to flaws of Horizon even very late in the game:
"This approach by the Post Office has amounted, in reality, to bare assertions and denials that ignore what has actually occurred, at least so far as the witnesses called before me in the Horizon Issues trial are concerned. It amounts to the 21st century equivalent of maintaining that the earth is flat. "
It's the sort of thing you'd expect from the chairman of a 15 generation family company, not some walk-in recruitee.
The sheer number of routine failures that appear to have been accepted as part of the normal operation of the system is astonishing.
The middle and upper class don't really have much interaction, they just fondly imagine that the justice system upholds the values it espouses.
The 'criminal' class aren't so much identified by a fair trial, or evidence, but by what sounds about right.
This system may work well for moving actual criminals through the sausage factory, but falls down spectacularly in cases like this, where the 'obvious' or most likely gut feeling isn't correct.
Unfortunately, we absolutely do have a free press here, it's just been captured by bastards who use their freedom to aid and abet other bastards. I hope hell is inventing new tortures for Murdoch and the dead Barclay.
It looks to me like they are basing it on how much he would have earned had he been free to work, in which context you can see the logic of deducting costs he would have incurred. I find this callous and despicable, but the problem is related to determining the value of a human life - there isn't really an answer, yet guidance is needed for consistency between cases.
How would you approach it?
I think £2m should be enough for a reasonably comfortable retirement in most of the UK, and that over 10 years is enough of a person's liberty taken to warrant providing that.
Should someone get more if they were a high earner?
I'd like compensation to come out of the DPP budget, to align incentives properly, but starving that department might result in less justice instead of more.
And to top it all off, this particular "private entity" is state owned.
:-)