The Post Office Scandal

Jesus Bob, you really listen to loons like him?

You have to properly inquire into the facts before you can charge and prosecute anybody - if the Post Office had done that in the first place there would not have been a scandal at all!!!

Yet you've just put a video of this clown basically saying forget about inquiring after the facts and simply get everybody in jail now because they are all guilty - Ed Davey and all!

We've not even heard Davey's side of the story yet ffs!

This clown, Professor Tim, is basically saying do exactly what the post office did with the sub-postmasters, namely they thought they were guilty without doing any due diligence to ensure they were, and the nutty professor is shouting that we should do the same to everyone involved, including Davey, because he thinks they are all guilty without bothering to do any due diligence (ie the Inquiry) to establish what really happened and by who, before they are charged and prosecuted.

I really don't get you Bob - you have a fit about people who post on WanderersWays that Anderson was a crook at BWFC based on what they believed rather than the actual facts, yet you, yourself, fully believe Blairs government and later Tory ones (that included Ed Davey) are guilty of a cover-up WITHOUT ANY PROOF whatsoever - and all the facts showing that it was an in-house Post Office EXECUTIVE led cover-up.

Can't you see your own hypocrisy?

Hypocrite

A person whose actions contradict their stated beliefs or feelings. hypocritical.

Bob, this is a FORUM.

I don't know about anyone else but I'm sick to death of you thinking you can avoid answering any reasonable questions or points made by continual use of posting up a quote as your 'get out of jail free' card.

I can equally carry on posting up my two questions to you that you refuse to answer (because you can't - you aren't following the facts and a government that was in office from 1996 to 2010 can't have covered something up that only became known about to have happened in 2013).

So I give you fair warning that if you persist on continuing this childish behaviour of yours (that none of us want to read) then I will ban you.

I trust I've made myself perfectly clear.

Kia ora.

Here's a bit more for fans of Prof Tim. Its well worth a listen and the comments well worth noting.

I'll tell you what is "well worth a listen and well worth noting" and it isn't some crank on YouTube it is a chap called Ron Warmington, who is one of the blokes with Ian Henderson who did the Second Sight forensic examination of what went on at the post office Horizon system which led to the ultimate uncovering of the scandal and reported to the Inquiry that the Horizon system was actually a very good system indeed, and the problem wasn't the system per se but was the failure to comprehend that there were a very small number of bugs in the system that led to devastating life changing effects on the sub-postmasters that encountered them - not because of the bugs - but because the Post Office did no due diligence to ensure that it wasn't the bugs that caused the shortfalls and not the sub-postmasters themselves - and went on to wrongly prosecute them - and then when known about this following what Warmington and Henderson reported, went on to conceal all information now knowing people had wrongly been convicted and imprisoned...

Sluffy wrote:I'll put up another confirmed FACT...namely that the Horizon systems were both very good systems with extremely few bugs in them.

The extremely few bugs though caused ruined life's to the sub-postmasters who were unfortunate to encounter one though.

The person who CONFIRMS what I was saying is none other than Ron Warmington who Bob emailed his best wishes too!

You can find it shortly after the 36 minute mark on here -

Why would you want to watch what some random NUTJOB on 'social media' thinks, when you can watch the bloke who uncovered the truth and tells the whole world THE ACTUAL FACTS???

A Blairing Mistake?

Origins of a Disaster by Eleanor Shaikh
After many months of detailed research, long-time supporter of the Subpostmaster campaign, Eleanor Shaikh, has very kindly allowed her recently completed report into the early history of how Post Office's flawed Horizon computer system came into existence to be made available from the JFSA website.

At almost 600 pages, 'Origins of a Disaster' gives an in depth analysis of the discussions and decisions taken from 1998-2000, heavily referencing Government documents, naming all those involved and the 'hands on' approach adopted by the Prime Minister Tony Blair at the time the final decision to proceed was taken.

Eleanor has also produced a six page summary of her report which she has made available.

'The reconfigured Horizon, presented by Ministers in May 1999 as a pristine, state-of-the-art
triumph, was in fact the product of a last-ditch, fourth-choice deal in which the Government
knowingly accepted a sub-optimal system; it knew Horizon had always been subject to accounting integrity issues, both before and after reconfiguration', recorded Eleanor Shaikh.

Eleanor is one of the 'little people'. You know the type, the ones with their feet on the ground and summat going on between their ears.

Are you for real, Bob???

Have you even read Origins of a Disaster?

Because if you had it actually states the Blair government foisted a crappy computer system on the Post Office (nothing unusual in that, Councils were doing the same things on the Town Halls the length and breath of the country) then ran a mile in order not to have anything else to do with it!!!

How the fuck is that a government cover-up???

Poor saps like me had to do our best to get the computer systems to work as well as they possibly could - what other choice did we have?

What the following (below) is saying is that the 'Blair' government (and all successive future governments) effectively stepped away from Horizon issues and left Royal Mail/Post Office to sort things out themselves AND (this is the key thing) did in effect stopped scrutinising the running of Royal Mail/Post Office due to how it set up the corporate guardianship - see the paragraph's below that I've highlighted.

The upshot of all this was that it was the responsibility of the Royal Mail/Post Office to ensure that the system was run as properly as it could be done - and as Don Warmington's forensic examination of the system he undertook in 2012 found and which he reported to by means of Second Sight's, Interim Report to the Post Office and with his evidence to the Inquiry that the systems (the legacy Horizon and the 2010 update, 'new' Horizon), both worked extraordinarily well!!!

There were a tiny amount of bugs in the system - so few as to be deemed insignificant BUT it was these few that caused the tragedy for those sub-post offices that encountered them because no one checked out if the bugs caused the short falls, and Fujitsu staff prosecution witness statements were non disclosing of the bugs or unilateral remote access.

The scandal is all about when it became known that bugs and remote access did exist and not disclosed at trial - and thereafter covered-up which all took place in 2013 (Clarke advice) by the Post Office EXECUTIVES (led by questionable legal advise)!


All that was left for Horizon’s perfect storm was for the Government to divest itself of any
responsibility of ‘operational’ oversight. Within a year the Post Office’s corporate structure had been
radically redefined to accommodate new commercial freedoms and an Arm’s-Length status. The
seismic shift was engineered by HM Treasury, the Ministry which had enjoyed the clearest line of sight
into Horizon’s heart of darkness and into the weakness of the Post Office leadership. It was a move
which even Blair’s Principal Private Secretary foresaw was conceptually flawed:

‘...to give the Post Office management both more freedom from its only shareholder (HMG) and more
freedom to do what it likes commercially is a recipe for disaster which we would never advocate in any
other context. All managers need some effective external scrutiny from somewhere!! They cannot
simply be left to get on with whatever they want, free from any effective accountability’.

In 2000 the Government who had overseen the disastrous origins of the Horizon project now
laid the flawed foundations for its corporate guardianship. The Post Office’s restructure was as ill-conceived as the reconfiguration. Under the pretext of ‘operational independence’, a logic to which it
clung to the bitter end, the Shareholder refused to acknowledge that gross operational failure could in
itself pose an existential threat.

It was a foreseeable disaster. In June 2000 the Chairman of what was by then Consignia, had
written to the Minister seeking clarity on the relationship between the Government shareholder and
the Board. The reply, which he received ten months later, was considered both inadequate and
unacceptable: ‘...leaving Consignia without an agreed governance framework in place in respect of its
dealing with the shareholder’

By the following year, the Chairman was resigned to the permanent lack of definition
surrounding the Government’s role within the Post Office’s governance structure, reporting:
‘He had had an unsatisfactory exchange with officials about producing an agreed memorandum of
understanding about the Board’s and Government’s respective roles in terms of Corporate
Governance. He now intended to let the matter lie for the time being’.

And there the matter lay, in all its contradiction and obscurity until, in March 2020, the
Government deigned to deliver a Post Office Shareholder Relationship Framework, some twenty years
too late. In the intervening years, the spectre of an unparalleled and invincible corporate absolutism
had asserted itself through the fault lines of the company’s Arm’s-Length governance structure.
Behind the facade of its public-spirited purpose and its royal association, the Post Office’s alter ego
was given the freedom to spread its insidious wings. The absence of Shareholder oversight in all
matters operational became its greatest facilitator; the indifference of successive Postal Ministers gave
tacit approval to the Post Office’s reign of terror, whilst all the time Horizon’s trail of destruction was
never entirely hidden from their view.

The Shareholder’s inertia in addressing the root causes of Horizon issues has yet to be
examined. The Shareholder’s failure to avert an existential threat to the Post Office before it had
materialised has yet to be explained. But given the role the Government played in Horizon’s genesis,
and given its knowledge of severe technical and operational problems 1998-2000, it would appear to
have displayed a breath-taking abnegation of responsibility for two decades.

It was, after all, the Shareholder which forced an IT timebomb onto an unwilling Post Office. It
trusted Horizon, which was known by the Shareholder to be subject to issues of data integrity, to a
corporate leadership which was known to be belligerent and inept. The Shareholder subsequently
granted that leadership Arm’s-Length autonomy and proceeded to untether all stays of operational
control under a nebulous corporate structure which was wholly unsuited to an enterprise of such
weighty social purpose


It is worth noting that Eleanor Shaikh seems to be under the impression that the following seemed to somehow mean that what the computer says cannot be questioned...

One day before the Horizon contract was signed, the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act
was passed, on July 27 1999. It determined that: ‘Section 69 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act
1984 (evidence from computer records inadmissible unless conditions relating to proper use and
operation of computer shown to be satisfied) shall cease to have effect’.

...it DOESN'T.

What it actually means is that...

Section 69 of PACE refers to the admissibility of evidence from a computer, and requires assurances about whether the equipment was being used properly and was functioning normally at the time. The implication of Section 69 is that any party relying on computer evidence has to provide oral or written certification of the reliability of the computer, or for each computer if a number have been involved.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199798/ldselect/ldsctech/064v/st0503.htm#:~:text=Box%203%3A%20Police%20and%20Criminal,functioning%20normally%20at%20the%20time.

...and that was being provided by the expert witnesses statements from Fujitsu staff - these statements as we now KNOW had been manipulated by Post Office staff and/or the expert witnesses not trained to give FULL disclosure which Gareth Jenkins was NOT doing - and which Post Office EXECUTIVES seemingly withheld and/or covered up on the unsafe legal advice given to them.

THIS IS THE NUB OF THE SCANDAL and bugger all to do with a non existent 20 year continual sequential cover up by multi government, conspiracy theory, started by Tony Blair!!!

We are going to have to wait a fortnight before the government's officials are questioned by the Inquiry and not until 18 July will Pat McFadden and Sir Ed Davey turn up. Davey's falling into pools reminds me of Owen Oyston but you can guarantee that they will both be well-briefed on their excuses and 'crocodile tear' tactics.

This week its Gareth Jenkins turn. He is set to be grilled all week and it will doubtless kick-off with a self-incrimination warning. Dodgy lawyers have plunged him well and truly into the brown stuff.

Bob, why would McFadden and Davey not simply tell the truth?

The government's corporate guardianship had been defined and established in 2000, TEN YEARS prior to McFadden and Davey taking office, Royal Mail/ Post Office had long since given up on seeking "definition surrounding the Government’s role within the Post Office’s governance structure" and prosecutions were being undertaken on unsafe expert witness statements that nobody at that time knew were 'unsafe' - so on the face of it there was nothing to seek to change in the role of the job?

It wasn't until THREE YEARS LATER (2013) that the Post Office EXECUTIVES were made aware of the balls up (Clarke advice) and everything was immediately covered up on the advice given by PO's legal advisors (both internal and external).

As for Jenkins, he's definitely in the shit (ignorance of the law is no excuse) but there is some mitigation for him that he hadn't been trained to give expert witness testimony.

I would have thought though that he must have known that his evidence would convict people and surely he would have known that bugs were occurring throughout the system, and some of them may have played a part in creating the shortfalls?

If so he deserves to be suitably punished.

Apart from crowing how 'switched-on' and smart they were, it seems plain enough that the government 'sat on its hands' after deciding in 1999 that it would spend half a billion quid on Horizon but what were MPs doing as the Post Office robbed hundreds of victims all around the country?



Filling their pockets with dubious expenses was one thing a few of them were doing, of course, but Nick Wallis' book doesn't seem to provide many answers on this point. David Jones (Conservative) was Sir Alan Bates' MP from 2005 and gets a bit of a mention when he and James Arbuthnot eventually team up in 2009 but what about his predecessor Gareth Thomas, Labour MP for Clwyd West until 2005. Not a dickie bird! 

Quite often the bits that are left out are every bit as interesting as the bits that are not.

e.g. Gareth Jenkins. He didn't exactly forget to mention the bugs, errors and defects. He didn't mention them because POL and its lawyers didn't want them mentioned and they have landed him up sh!t creek without a paddle.

Jesus Bob, do you even realise that you are a mentalist?

Yes there was a scandal over MP's expenses but that had no connection whatsoever with what was happening at the Post Office - it's a bit like saying Gartside received £365,000.  for being a Director and it was his fault Diouf got sent off for spitting - the two things are not connected at all other than both being under the BWFC brand.

As for Jenkins, as I said, ignorance is no defence in law.

Yes he did what the lawyers advised but he must have known his testimony would be key in locking people up - and he knew that there were bugs in the system and unilateral access.

And he even may have known some cases had been thrown out because of questions over how 'robust' Horizon was.

It's easy for me to say but even knowing what my lawyers wanted me to say OR NOT, I like to think I would have given full disclosure on what I knew, if I were in his shoes.

I like to think you would too - but with your clear hatred of Blairs government I very much now believe you would not have.

I would be quite interested to know whether Sir Alan Bates raised his concerns about the conduct and probity of Post Office management with either of the two MPs for Clwyd West between 1999 and 2010. If so with what result, if not why not?

The two MPs were:

Gareth Thomas (Labour) 1997 to 2005
David Jones (Conservative) 2005 to 2024


David Jones was seeking a Commons debate in 2009. Did he get one?

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/1280090684/MP-seeks-answers-over-Post-Office-IT-system

Look it up in Hansard if you're that eager to know...

https://hansard.parliament.uk/search#EndDate

What is that saying about people in glass houses should throw no stones...?

Ten Bobsworth wrote:...what were MPs doing as the Post Office robbed hundreds of victims all around the country?

Filling their pockets with dubious expenses was one thing a few of them were doing...

MPs' expenses: Senior Tory James Arbuthnot charged taxpayer for pool cleaning

James Arbuthnot MP claimed from the public finances for cleaning his swimming pool at a country residence.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5309732/MPs-expenses-I-made-an-error-and-will-repay-pool-money-says-James-Arbuthnot.html

MPs' expenses: James Arbuthnot claimed £2,750 for tree surgery at £2m home

A senior Conservative MP claimed £2,750 in expenses for tree surgery at his £2m Berkshire mansion, despite the work being carried out during the previous financial year.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/6781375/MPs-expenses-James-Arbuthnot-claimed-2750-for-tree-surgery-at-2m-home.html


So how do you square in that head of yours with the hatred you have for expenses fiddling, corrupt, MP's - as you've clearly on several occasions now have shown and with James Arbuthnot, one of the standout hero's in bringing an end to Post Office scandal to light - who is one of them???

Could it be that sometimes honest mistakes are made - say for example, the Post Office prosecutions on the genuine belief that the Horizon system was bug free with no unilateral remote access, or an MP genuinely believing he could claim expenses for his swimming pool to be cleaned and his trees lopped - but once the mistake is noticed it is quickly put right - which Arbuthnot did (and the PO DIDN'T!)

Or in that head of yours, do you believe no mistakes are ever made and EVERYTHING is done on purpose by corrupt governments and all MP's have had their snouts in the expenses trough and Blairs government and every other one since has corruptly covered-up the Post Office scandal since 1999 to date???

The scandal started in 2013 when the Clarke advice informed the PO legal executives of Jenkins being an unsafe witness (and the PO covered everything up since up to Bates v The Post Office) and had fuck all to do with the Blair government...

...no matter how much you wish it was Tony's fault.



Unfortunately for me I have prior commitments for the rest of this week and so will miss following Jenkins at the Inquiry, so will probably have to rely totally on the daily press coverage - fwiw I believe Jenkins has already resigned from his professional body -

Post Office expert IT witness Gareth Jenkins resigns BCS membership

The IT expert at the centre of the Post Office Horizon scandal has resigned as a member of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, after he was informed the professional association could investigate his part in the widest miscarriage of justice in history.

Gareth Jenkins, who was chief architect at Fujitsu and acted as an expert witness for the Post Office when it prosecuted subpostmasters based on computer evidence, also relinquished his Chartered IT Professional Status.

The BCS said: “[Our] CEO Rashik Parmar wrote to Jenkins earlier this month to advise him that investigative action under our code of conduct was a potential outcome, pending evidence due to be heard from him at the inquiry.

“In his reply, Jenkins resigned his membership of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, which includes Chartered IT Professional Status (CITP) .”

He is currently under investigation by the Metropolitan Police for potentially committing perjury during the prosecutions of sub-postmasters. The police launched its investigation into Jenkins and former Fujitsu colleague Anne Chambers in November 2020, after High Court judge Peter Fraser referred them to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Full article here -
https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366589563/Post-Office-expert-IT-witness-Gareth-Jenkins-resigns-BCS-membership

In December 2009, David Jones (MP) called the Post Office to a meeting at the House of Commons, inviting James Arbuthnot along. During the exploratory meeting the Post Office representatives insisted Horizon was 'robust'. The MPs smelt a rat and four days later Arbuthnot told Jones, 'I feel a campaign coming on'. (Page 105 The Great Post Office Scandal by Nick Wallis).

But how come it took so long to 'smell a rat'? The rats that ran the Post Office had been using this same feeble excuse for nine years by then whilst they treated the amounts they had stolen from SPMs as profits which could be used to pay bonuses to senior management.

David Jones was the Conservative MP for Clwyd West and Alan Bates' MP.

David Jones MP, eh?

This one you mean...

Welsh Secretary David Jones repays £81k expenses profit

Welsh Secretary David Jones paid back £81,000 to the taxpayer on profits made on his second home in London with parliamentary expenses.
Parliament's spending watchdog has revealed he is amongst 29 politicians due to repay a total of £484,000.
The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) moved to ban mortgage interest cost claims in May 2010.
Transitional rules allowed MPs elected before then to claim until August 2012 if they returned any capital gain.
During the transition period 71 members received nearly £1m in allowances for mortgage interest.
The properties were formally valued at the beginning and the end of the period, and the MPs were given until 31 November 2012 to repay the difference.
Ipsa has arranged longer repayment schedules extending to 2015 where returning cash quickly would "create hardship".
Mr Jones, Conservative MP for Clwyd West, has paid back the largest sum of £81,000 made from the sale of his London flat.

Full article here -
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-22464815


But.. but... but it can't be him because he was working together with James Arbuthnot in supporting Alan Bates with his campaign to get justice for sub-postmasters.

Might it be that David Jones MP made a mistake with his expenses claims (just like James Arbuthnot did too) and put things right when the mistake was discovered?

Might it be the Post Office made a genuine mistake in believing Fujitsu staff like Gareth Jenkins final testimony (not knowing it had been (shall we say 'doctored')) when they prosecuted sub-postmasters up to 2013, when the genuine mistake was finally discovered (Clarke Advice).

I wonder why Fujitsu staff seem to be heading for prosecution, when it's all a Tony Blair cover-up...?

Sluffy wrote:He [Jenkins] is currently under investigation by the Metropolitan Police for potentially committing perjury during the prosecutions of sub-postmasters. The police launched its investigation into Jenkins and former Fujitsu colleague Anne Chambers in November 2020, after High Court judge Peter Fraser referred them to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

How do explain that Bob?

Bob I thought it might interest you to refresh your memory about Blairs deeply imbedded agent, Anne Chambers (the one on behalf of Tony's, Mr and Mrs Jack Straw, Peter Mandelson, etc, etc, government) who single headedly brought down the vicious, sub-postmaster malcontent, Lee Castleton.

Hand on heart Bob, do you HONESTLY still believe all this is about something the Blair government knew all about and covered it up, when it is as clear as the nose on your face that up until 2013 nobody had any idea that the likes of Chambers, Jenkins and Graham Ward (Post Office) et al, were telling the courts utter bollocks and ruining peoples lives?

This isn't about a government cover-up at all (at least until the PO knew about it in 2013) and probably not at all until Bates v The Post Office 'hit the fan' (subject to the loose thread that is annoying me in respect of what part did Alice Perkins play in this (she who had Susan Crichton sit outside of the PO Board meeting the day AFTER she received the Clarke advice about all the unsafe prosecutions due to Jenkins non disclosure of bugs and remote access)?

You are in total denial of the now huge mountain of facts that clearly contradict your barking mad conspiracy theory of TPTB having their hands all over this from the very start.


Anne Chambers’ evidence at the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry yesterday.
https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/ecce-chambers/

We have seen what the NFSP was up to from the very beginning but without knowing precisely why except that they plainly were financially 'in bed' with the Post Office. It was obvious that the Post Office needed to change but the alarm bells were ringing loud and clear to the guinea pig SPMs when Horizon was trialled in the North East in 1999 and ringing every bit as loud in North and West Lancs when it was rolled out nationwide not much later.

The performance of the NFSP General Secretary on Friday may well have sealed the fate of Paula Vennells etc although it is clearly the case that the rot had set in long before Ms Vennells was appointed Chief Rat.

Anyway here is the NFSP apology:

https://nfsp.org.uk/news/view?name=statement-from-nfsp-ceo-calum-greenhow-following-todays-evidence-at-the-horizon-inquiry