The Post Office Scandal

Seema Misra and Nick Wallis were on Radio 4 yesterday morning in advance of Gareth Jenkins' four day appearance at th'Inquiry. As I listened I couldn't help thinking that a pregnant Mrs Misra might not have been falsely imprisoned and the 'distinguished engineer/gullible fool, Jenkins, might not be facing the prospect of perjury charges if 'the powers that be' in Parliament had not continued to ignore what was really going on at t'Post Office.

It might be thought that, with a general election looming, TPTB may have concluded that public debate of yet another scandal could be one scandal too many. I don't think that was the case though. Covering up and spinning was merely standard practice and TPTB believed that the public were too stupid or disinterested to notice. They may have been right about that. I don't think much has changed.

Christ on a bike Bob...???

How would your Powers That be, know that it was the minions at Fujitsu that falsely CAUSED the persecution, prosecution and imprisonments that were occurring by presenting testimony in criminal courts that convinced the judges and juries to find them guilty???

WHY would ANYONE let alone your imaginary Powers That Be, even think there was anything to hold a parliamentary debate about???

And if they did would it have made any difference bearing in mind there was a Public Parliamentary Committee in 2015 (SIX YEARS AFTER the MP called for the parliamentary debate) and NOTHING arose from that because Vennells etc, told them there was the Second Sight report that stated there was NO systemic failure with Horizon!!!

You are consumed in your hatred of these mythical Powers That Be / Deep State actors, who once pissed on your chips in respect to the goings on at your local Health Authority twenty odd years ago and it has totally effected your reasoning.

You are consumed with anger and hatred and it clearly shows.

Do you honestly think back then that anyone was in the least bit interested in Blairs government introducing a computer into the Post Office and because it was a bit naff would have voted for the Conservatives???

Would they fuck.

You've lost all your reasoning, Bob.

Your bitterness can't be good for your health.

You probably need some professional help in respect of your anger issue, I suggest.

There's no shortage of gullible twerps in the world but Jackass Jenkins, the distinguished engineer and blockhead from Bracknell, is right up there.

He'll be on again in half an hour. Hot off the press, here is Nick Wallis' take on Jenkins' first day at th'Inquiry.

https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/gareth-jenkins-the-incredible-witness/

 I am not sure I'd recommend watching it today; its about as exciting as watching Southgate's soldiers in action but it has to be done.

Regardless of compensation there will never be closure until those responsible at Post Office, Civil service, Government Ministers (from whatever party), NFSP and Fujitsu are held to account.
"Julian was a pillar of the local community, well-liked at the Astwood Bank Post office, a job that he loved doing.


"He loved so many things in life his music and singing and acting as well as a fan of the cricket to name but a few. Musical theatre was a real love, but sadly he had to resign his chairmanship of the local musical group. Many painful consequences made him feel humiliated, as a victim of this scandal.
"The social implications for him and his family, as with so many who were victims of this scandal can inflict so much pain and lead people down a lonely and dark place.
"You start to withdraw from society as depression takes hold. Being a victim of this certainly affected his health".
Mr Hill has also thanked those in the Astwood Bank community who supported the family at the time.
He added: "Thank you to those who supported Julian and Karen through such a difficult time.
"Thank you to Astwood Bank Cricket Club and many friends and customers who always believed in him. Thank you to the local MPs who tried to help including Jacqui Smith and Karen Lumley.


https://www.redditchadvertiser.co.uk/news/24038337.post-office-scandal-tragic-sub-postmaster-pillar-community/


Julian Wilson was, without doubt, one of hundreds. Pat McFadden and Sir Ed Davey, in particular, have questions to answer. It must be hoped they get asked robustly.

Ten Bobsworth wrote:
Pat McFadden and Sir Ed Davey, in particular, have questions to answer. It must be hoped they get asked robustly.

McFadden already made a statement about this.
Basically, every time he raised an issue on behalf of an MP, the PO management "emphatically" responded that there were no issues with the system.

In the light of that I'm not sure what else he could have done. Perhaps if there had been a deluge of MPs asking questions, he might have considered an inquiry - however only a handful of MPs flagged up a potential issue over a 3 year period.

Ultimately it was a judgement call and I think that in light of the information he was given, not many would have called it differently.

That said, the outstanding reputation of the PO at the time probably had some influence on all parties when it came to deciding whether or not to pursue sporadic individual complaints. It required the momentum gained through the grass roots collective action for complaints to be taken seriously and that didn't reach critical mass until much later.

wanderlust wrote:

Ten Bobsworth wrote:
Pat McFadden and Sir Ed Davey, in particular, have questions to answer. It must be hoped they get asked robustly.

McFadden already made a statement about this.
Basically, every time he raised an issue on behalf of an MP, the PO management "emphatically" responded that there were no issues with the system.

In the light of that I'm not sure what else he could have done. Perhaps if there had been a deluge of MPs asking questions, he might have considered an inquiry - however only a handful of MPs flagged up a potential issue over a 3 year period.

Ultimately it was a judgement call and I think that in light of the information he was given, not many would have called it differently.

That said, the outstanding reputation of the PO at the time probably had some influence on all parties when it came to deciding whether or not to pursue sporadic individual complaints. It required the momentum gained through the grass roots collective action for complaints to be taken seriously and that didn't reach critical mass until much later.

Bob will be calling you a numpty now you do realise don't you as the scandal is all about Blair, Mr and Mrs Jack Straw and all the rest of the Blair government covering something up (I've not idea what as Bob refuse to tell us!) from 1998/9 until Bates v The Post Office verdict was announced.

In short Fujitsu employees had given false assurances to the Post Office that shortfalls shown in the Horizon system could only have originated from the sub-postmasters branches, and the Post Office prosecuted on that basis until the truth came out in 2013 (see the Clarke advice) being that the main Fujitsu 'expert' on the Horizon system, Gareth Jenkins had not given full disclosure and prosecutions involving him were now unsafe.

The ACTUAL scandal (which Bob refuses to face up to - he clearly has a major personal issue with the Blair government - and in his head they are to blame no matter what) is that noting was done about these unsafe convictions from when it first became known until it all came out during the Bates v PO, High Court trial in 2019.

Fwiw you are correct in everything you say above.

I've been saying similar for months now but Bob refuses to accept all the facts shown to be the actual truth emerging from the Inquiry and believes he knows better than you me, Jason Beer or no doubt Wyn Williams too...

...and that it was all Blair's fault!!!

(and all ways will be!).

wanderlust wrote:
McFadden already made a statement about this.
Basically, every time he raised an issue on behalf of an MP, the PO management "emphatically" responded that there were no issues with the system.

In the light of that I'm not sure what else he could have done. Perhaps if there had been a deluge of MPs asking questions, he might have considered an inquiry - however only a handful of MPs flagged up a potential issue over a 3 year period.

Ultimately it was a judgement call and I think that in light of the information he was given, not many would have called it differently.

That said, the outstanding reputation of the PO at the time probably had some influence on all parties when it came to deciding whether or not to pursue sporadic individual complaints. It required the momentum gained through the grass roots collective action for complaints to be taken seriously and that didn't reach critical mass until much later.

So despite the hundreds of red flags going up all around the country from 1999 onwards, and the despair, imprisonments and suicides of SPMs only a small number of MPs bothered to ask questions and, when they did, they were easily fobbed off with feeble excuses from Post Office management and blind civil servants. Is that it? If it is it, ain't good enough, is it?

Some of them may be as close to useless as makes little difference but I don't believe that's it.
McFadden and Davey must answer questions and they must be asked robustly.

Told you so that Bob would consider you are a numpty for not 'understanding' that all this was a Blair government cover-up, continued by ALL successor governments comprised of opposition political parties!?!

He's totally in denial that 'people', such as MP's Ministers, Civil Servants or every man woman and child on this planet, can't cover-up something that nobody knows had even happened yet - yes prosecutions and imprisonment happened based on the the evidence of 'expert' witnesses, who simply DID NOT act in the way they were required to do so.

Maybe that was because they had not been trained in their duties properly - see this in respect of Barrister Warwick Tatford who claims he did train Jenkins properly but the following casts doubts that he did...

Barrister in the spotlight for Post Office errors
https://www.rollonfriday.com/news-content/barrister-spotlight-post-office-errors

...or maybe he didn't - but as we know from so many TV courtroom dramas, witnesses swear to tell the truth, THE WHOLE TRUTH and noting but the truth.

Anyway the point I made a hundred times before to Bob, which he refuses to even talk with me about is that what exactly were people like Pat McFadden supposedly covering-up if he, his civil servants, the MP's writing to him, the judges and juries at the trials and even the PO prosecutors simply didn't even know about - namely the expert witness statements that put people into prison and ruined lives weren't as truthful as they should have been - and directly caused the devastating mess.

So how the fuck did Tony Blair know that that Gareth Jenkins would testify in court without giving full disclosure???

How Bob?


Between 1999 and 2015 more than 700 sub-postmasters were prosecuted for fraud and theft by the Post Office based on faulty data from Fujitsu's Horizon accounting system.

In its prosecutions, the Post Office had argued that Horizon could not be accessed remotely by any other party.

This showed that accused subpostmasters must have been responsible for the shortfalls in their accounts, it said.

But this turned out to be untrue, depriving those accused of an important line of defence.

Remote access was not only possible by Fujitsu's engineers, it could be done without leaving any trace, in a way that was indistinguishable from changes made by subpostmasters.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4nngyn24eqo




No point waiting for an answer from him because he hasn't got one.

He's just an utter moonman who blames Blair for everything without any proof to back his mad cap belief up with.

At least with you we BOTH knew that you were lying but Bob clearly believes in the bonkers that he spouts presumably due to intense personal hatred of some injustice he believes Tony or his government did unto him (or family?).

Bob's apparent hatred has clearly sent him round the bend (in my opinion) with anything to do with Blair / his government - seeing that the Blair/Brown government left office in 2010 and the discovery of the unsafe testimonies were discovered by Barrister Simon Clarke THREE YEARS LATER in 2013.

Seems today, just catching up on Day 2 of Jenkins testimony - that he was indeed given instructions of how to be an expert witness (I think there is little doubt now that Jenkins will soon be being detained my his majesty's pleasure)

On Tuesday Gareth Jenkins was quite certain he had no idea what the duties of an expert witness were until 2020. Today we discovered he was sent an email in 2006 explaining what the duties of an expert witness were, whilst he was being asked to provide evidence to the Post Office in preparation for the criminal trial of a Subpostmaster.

Jenkins went on to be described as the Post Office’s expert witness in several prosecutions, including that of Seema Misra in 2010.

The first half hour of Jenkins’ evidence today was taken up with Jason Beer taking him through the document chains which proved Jenkins was sent an email relating to the criminal prosecution of a Subpostmaster, in which the responsibilities of an expert witness were laid out in an attached letter in some detail.

Having established that this document did reach him, Jenkins apologised. Counsel to the Inquiry, Jason Beer KC, was not satisfied:

JB: You said yesterday that had you received the letter, you would have done things differently, certainly in later cases, if you’ve been aware of the responsibilities set out in this letter.
GJ: Maybe I need to qualify that to say if I’d received and understood the detail of the letter.
JB: That’s not what you said.
GJ: I accept that and I was mistaken.
JB: Why were you mistaken? That you think that yesterday you thought had you received the letter you would have certainly done things differently in later cases. Today you don’t think, now you know you received the letter, that you would have done things differently in later cases.
GJ: I think the difference is in terms of understanding what it was all about. What I was thinking of yesterday was, with my knowledge now of what’s in that letter, then I would have done things differently. If I’d just skimmed through it and not made too much attention to what it actually said, and it had then gone from my mind when I was busy concentrating on the other attachment, then clearly I’d not remembered anything about it much beyond those couple of days…. Where I’m coming from is that I know that I acted honestly at all times and therefore the only way that I can explain that is by the fact that I just had no recollection of this letter.

Where we are now then, is that Gareth Jenkins was used as an Expert Witness, knew he was being described as an Expert Witness, had read a letter describing the duties of an Expert Witness, had seen the work of two other Expert Witnesses and yet did not comply with his duties as an Expert Witness because he thought he was on the prosecution team for the Post Office and self-evidently biased because he worked for Fujitsu.

In mitigation, he was never sat down by the Post Office and formally told about the specific duties of an Expert Witness, that he was one and how the rules therefore applied to him, though Warwick Tatford, the Post Office barrister in the Seema Misra case claims he did something very similar. This again, is something Gareth Jenkins has no recollection of (see yesterday’s evidence).

Gareth Jenkins also appeared to have a habit of providing false information which ended up being put into various witness statements on the basis that he believed the information to be true. Jason Beer raised the infamous issue of remotely injecting transactions into branch data.

We were shown an internal Fujitsu document from 2002, which noted its technical teams had “Unrestricted and un-audited privileged access (system admin) to all systems including Post Office counter PCs”. The teams has the ability “to distribute diagnostic information outside of the secure environment; this information can include personal data (as defined by the data protection act), business sensitive data, and cryptographic key information” and that there were “no automatic controls in place to audit and restrict user access.”

At first the Post Office said remotely accessing branches was impossible. By 2017 they acknowledged it was possible, but only happened rarely and with the full knowledge of the Subpostmaster. By 2019 this had been proved wrong in the High Court, despite the evidence of Fujitsu’s (then) Chief Horizon Architect, Torstein Godeseth, who claimed otherwise. Jenkins had provided evidence to the criminal courts and via Torsten Godeseth to the High Court on a very important point, which was wrong.

“I accept now that I’ve misunderstood things”, said Jenkins.
“What enquiries had you made in order to provide the answer that you did at the time?” Beer asked.
“None,” replied Jenkins, “I was relying on what I thought I knew.”
“Is that your reflective of a general approach when involved in threatened or possible court proceedings or court proceedings themselves? You work on the basis of what you had understood from conversations and what you thought you knew rather than probably researching an issue?”
“Yes,” said Jenkins “I guess that has been the case.”

Full article here -

https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/gareth-jenkins-day-2-the-god-complex-unravels/

That oleaginous lickspittle, Sir Ed Davey, was on't telly tonight doing what oleaginous lickspittles do best. Who would vote for a creep like that?

Is Gareth Jenkins a scoundrel or a twerp? Its a question that might be asked of a lot of those providing evidence to the Post Office Inquiry. Plainly there have been scoundrels (to put it mildly) but Cambridge graduate Jenkins seems to be coming across as a bit of a twerp.

Its a shame that we are going to have to wait until after the election to hear about the miserable efforts of Messrs Davey and McFadden in their respective contributions to this woebegone saga but here's Nick Wallis' take on Day 2 of the evidence of 'Distinguished Engineer', Gareth Jenkins.

https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/gareth-jenkins-day-2-the-god-complex-unravels/

The comments on Nick's reports are often interesting.


Mike Dickson wrote:


I think it sounds like GJ is a tech who was then placed into a world in which he had no experience and maybe got a bit of a throw out of the sense of importance that it gave him.


David Cantello noted that:


Sir Wyn chopped him (Jenkins) off at the knees.

(Sir Wyn and Jase the Ace are doing a good job so far. I do hope it lasts).

Peter Burfitt  thought that Jenkins might be:


'An innocent in the scheme of high ‘ politics ‘ and completely unaware of dirty deeds'.

Gareth Jenkins is clearly a total cretin and was led by people who were too stupid and selfish to think about the subpostmasters, wrote Scott Tracy on the Scandal blog this morning.

But 'total cretins' and 'people who were too stupid and selfish to think about the subpostmasters' weren't by any means confined to the Post Office, Fujitsu and their legal teams, were they?

Jenkins is getting well and truly skewered by Jason Beer today. I do hope he gets to question McFadden and Davey.

Have you not been following the testimony of Jenkins over the last three days, Bob?

I only ask because a massive chunk of it is all about how utterly useless his so called 'expert' witness statements were, in particular the one he was in attendance for to provide expert evidence for the prosecution in the Seema Misra trial in OCTOBER 2010.

In his testimony he revealed today, he said he was relying on previous prosecution evidence statements provided by a previously Fujitsu 'expert' witness, Andy Dunks (which also turned out to be a load of crap) - see here -

https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/why-hasnt-fujitsu-sacked-andy-dunks/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=why_hasnt_fujitsu_sacked_andy_dunks&utm_term=2023-03-11

This was going on - and continued going on for another 5 years (to 2015) until the Post Office started to understand the enormity of the hole they found themselves in due to unsafe convictions basically perpetrated jointly (knowingly so or not?) by themselves and Fujitsu staff.

Why then are you continually banging on about Pat McFadden knowingly undertaking a Blair government cover-up when he was in office which ended when the Labour government was defeated in MAY 2010???

It is impossible to cover-up something that isn't known to exist - and McFadden (Tony Blair, et al) had all left office by the time of the now infamous Misra trial FIVE MONTHS LATER (OCTOBER 2010) and Jenkins live testimony at it.

It's clear to everyone by now that you are utterly stark raving bonkers in your unshakable belief that Tony Blair and his government had covered up something for ELEVEN YEARS up to that point, that hadn't even been known to have happened for a FURTHER THREE MORE YEARS TO COME - until the Clarke Advice in 15th July 2013.

If you don't want to listen to me, then that's up to you - but check out the time-lines for yourself, and ask yourself what exactly do you believe Blair was covering-up because it certainly can't have been knowledge of unsafe prosecutions because no-one knew that was even happening.

Yes Perkins was warned by the auditor in 2010, to ensure the Horizon system was 'robust' and she didn't - but that's still ELEVEN YEARS AFTER you believe your conspiracy theory of Blair's government 'scandal' concealment started in 1999.

Day3 of th'Inquiry focussed on Jackass Jenkins role in the Seema Misra stitch-up. This was all taking place whilst Postal Affairs Minister, Pat McFadden, wouldn't hear the protestations of ex-Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and couldn't smell the rats that MPs James Arbuthnot and David Jones smelt when the latter invited Post Office management to Parliament. The stench of Post Office management had been circulating all around the country for nearly ten years by then but McFadden, just like his predecessors, would do nothing but continue to sit on his hands.



Here's one of the comments on th'Inquiry blog last night:

Kay FJ wrote:

I was genuinely astonished when, upon returning from the second break this afternoon, Sir Wyn asked Gareth Jenkins if he’d had a long enough break to which Jenkins replied “Yes, I just want to get today over with”. This was akin to Vennells crying and Perkins looking bored and irritable. Are they all tone deaf? Do they really think they deserve (or will get) our sympathy because they’ve had such a trying time of it at the hands of the inestimable Jason Beer KC? Unlike Seema Misra, when these appalling people finish giving oral testimony, they can return to their comfortable homes and put their feet with a nice glass of wine. Ms Misra left Guildford Crown Court in handcuffs bound straight for Bronzefield Prison, no doubt terrified and deeply distressed.
Their ill-judged self-pity sickens me. And if Jenkins thinks he’s had a hard time of it over the last three days, wait ’til the core participants’ lawyers get their hands on him tomorrow ….. I can hardly wait.


I do hope that it will be Jason Beer KC that gets the chance to question McFadden and Davey when they finally appear but will half a day each be enough?


https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/gareth-jenkins-day-3-criminal-stupidity-or-helpful-fool/#comments

What 'stench' was this then Bob as you continue to REFUSE what it is you are talking about.

There was allegations of Horizon not working properly but the evidence presented to Criminal Courts were good enough for the judges and juries to convict the sub-postmasters on.

So how exactly were McFadden, Davey or anyone else to think there was a 'stench' at all?

Do you think the judges and all those jurors were in on the state-wide cover-up too???

You're just completely bonkers.

The scandal started when it became known that the evidence given in court was not 'safe' and this only surfaced in 2013 (Clarke advice) and it was not revealed to the proper authorities for them to review the convictions and ultimately squash them.

Blair / McFadden had left office in 2010, so how were they to know there was a 'stench' and not just some sort of do-gooders trying to change the world like the Just Stop Oil people are attempting to do these days?

McFadden, Davey and Swinson only have a half-day at the Inquiry because it's clear from the research undertaken by the forensic lawyers in preparation for the Inquiry that they didn't have much input into covering anything up - contrary to your batshit crazy belief that they did and had done so for the previous TEN YEARS or more, along with their predecessors in post.

Th'Inquiry today was a bit like watching England play footie. It got off to a promising start tbf with Flora Page attacking Jackass Jenkins' defence to good effect. Jenkins displayed little, if any, compassion, understanding or remorse and largely relied on their being nowt wrong with Horizon for his defence and it were t'Post Office to blame not him. The latter seems about right if you ignore the roles of Fujitsu, the lawyers, the government and the civil servants.

Seema Misra seemed quite pleased with Ms Page's efforts but it all then turned into slow tedious build-up to not very much effect after that.

How did the government and civil servants know that Jenkins was causing sub-postmasters to be found guilty due to his dodgy expert witness testimony?

He (and it) was only discovered to be 'unsafe' in 2013 - THREE YEARS AFTER Blair and McFadden left government office.

The Misra trial in which she was imprisoned occurred FIVE MONTHS AFTER Blair and McFadden left government office.

How was Blair, McFadden or any of the civil servants know that Jenkins was 'stitching-up' the sub-postmasters with his testimony that convicted them?

They couldn't - no one could until Jenkins himself let it slip in 2012.

I thought with being an accountant that you were a man that dealt in fact not fiction...?

Clearly I was wrong in this as you clearly demonstrate in every post you continue to post on this thread.

Turns out that you really are a conspiracy theory nutjob, after all!

Poor Sluffy.

'I am not the only victim, if you look hard enough you will find the country is littered with bodies' and 'this has been a case of state sponsored corporate theft', wrote (Sir) Alan Bates after he had been dismissed in 2003.

He was right but what happened between 2003 and 2010 other than the continuance of the 'state sponsored corporate theft' and the countrywide accumulation of 'bodies'. Why were McFadden, Davey and the rest of them only interested in the accounts of overpaid, over-promoted fakers? The Inquiry must find out.

Ten Bobsworth wrote:Its quite simple, if McFadden and Davey had been interested in the whole truth, they would have listened to the accounts of the hundreds of wronged SPMs not just the lying toerags that ran the Post Office with massive amounts of taxpayers money. But neither were at all interested in any of that nor, it seems, were their contemporaries, predecessors or successors.

I don't wish to be personal but Sluffy is either deranged, an asshole or a deranged asshole. There are quite a lot of assholes about and, although they are not exclusive to the Civil Service, the NHS and  local government, they do seem to congregate in large numbers in those environments. A bit like slugs around Bobsworth's hostas. Something in the water, maybe?

Something wrong with your head more likely.

Ok, McFadden and Davey listens "to the accounts of the hundreds of wrong SPM's".

Let stop there a minute.

There seems to be something like 950 wrongful prosecutions during the period of the 'unsafe' convictions from 1999 to 2015 (16 years) that averages out at to just under 60 cases per year.

There were approximately 11,500 sub-post offices.

So that equates to there being (on the face of it) an issue in 0.52% of the sub-post office branches and the remaining 99.48% of the branches working perfectly.

Viewing this reasonably why would anyone, let alone a Minister or the civil servants suspect there was anything particularly wrong at the Post Office to look into?

Let's say they did have enough of a concern to look deeper, what evidence would they find?

Would it not be the exact evidence that criminal courts heard, would they not be reading the defence and prosecuting summaries presented to the juries and the judges  summaries of each case - where nearly ALL of them were ultimately found guilty by a jury of their peers?

If I was the Minister instead of McFadden and Davey what would be there for me to think there was anything to cover-up???

If anyone (but you - because you think you know everything) was sat in McFadden's and Davey's chair, what would they think?

Would it not be, 'we've heard what the SPM's are saying' we've contacted the PO and Fujitsu who refute there is unilateral remote access to Horizon, or there are any bugs that effect it in the system, the issue must therefore be at the branch end.

We've looked at all the prosecution cases and all the defence and prosecutions summaries, we've read all the judges case summing up's - they have all read and relied on the testimony of the expert witness that Horizon is bug free and there is no remote access to the sub-postmasters terminals.

We finally note that in all 0f the 950 cases that were taken to court  only TWO were found to be not guilty (2 out of 950).  

The juries returned a guilty verdict on 948 of the 950 cases (99.8%)

We can see no issue here to be concerned about'.

What other conclusion would any other reasonable person come to????