UK Post Office Executive Suspended Over Allegations of Destroying Software Scandal Evidence (computerweekly.com) 24
The British Post Office scandal "was first exposed by Computer Weekly in 2009, revealing the stories of seven subpostmasters and the problems they suffered due to Horizon accounting software," remembers Computer Weekly, "which led to the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history."
But now the Post Office "is investigating allegations that a senior executive instructed staff to destroy or conceal documents that could be of interest to the Post Office scandal public inquiry," Computer Weekly writes. A company employee acknowleged a report in an internal whistleblower program "regarding destroying or concealing material... allegations that a senior Post Office member of staff had instructed their team to destroy or conceal material of possible interest to the inquiry, and that the same individual had engaged in inappropriate behaviour." The shocking revelation echoes evidence from appeals against wrongful convictions in 2021. During the Court of Appeal trials it was revealed that a senior Post Office executive instructed employees to shred documents that undermined an insistence that its Horizon computer system was robust, amid claims that errors in the system caused unexplained accounting shortfalls.
But now the Post Office "is investigating allegations that a senior executive instructed staff to destroy or conceal documents that could be of interest to the Post Office scandal public inquiry," Computer Weekly writes. A company employee acknowleged a report in an internal whistleblower program "regarding destroying or concealing material... allegations that a senior Post Office member of staff had instructed their team to destroy or conceal material of possible interest to the inquiry, and that the same individual had engaged in inappropriate behaviour." The shocking revelation echoes evidence from appeals against wrongful convictions in 2021. During the Court of Appeal trials it was revealed that a senior Post Office executive instructed employees to shred documents that undermined an insistence that its Horizon computer system was robust, amid claims that errors in the system caused unexplained accounting shortfalls.
fujitsu needs to go to court as well (Score:2)
fujitsu needs to go to court as well.
The UK Post Office Executives are covering for fujitsu shit software.
Hearings (Score:5, Interesting)
There are inquiry videos on Youtube, and they are maddening. Apparently, nobody is in charge of, nor responsible for, anything at the Royal Mail. The chief legal council was not involved in any way, shape or form regarding the charges against the employees. He also wasn't in charge of investigating mail fraud or other criminal activity involving the mail. When pressed, he couldn't really articulate what his job actually was nor what he was responsible for.
A straight answer was never given as to whether or not audits were done to ensure the software was working properly. They were supposed to have been done, but nobody could say whom was in charge of them, if they were done or not, nor what the results were.
Re:Hearings (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Hearings (Score:4, Insightful)
No chance these gimps will ever see justice. Too many important people with too much to lose if the whole truth comes out.
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Wait until you read about Jimmy Savile. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Quick summary (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Quick summary (Score:4, Informative)
Important part of the summary: More than one of these falsely prosecuted postmasters ended up committing suicide.
Watch Mr Bates vs the Post Office: The Real Story (Score:3)
Re: Watch Mr Bates vs the Post Office: The Real St (Score:2)
The post office is government owned. There are a lot of powerful people who helped sweep this scandal under the carpet over the years and the less that comes out the happier they are. Ergo a lot of people will get away with crimes that would have got them banged up years ago if theyd done them anywhere else.
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No it's not.
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The general post office was privatised in 1969. The correct name is "Post Office Ltd". This has zero to do with the government.
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The Post Office is 100% owned by the UK government. It is everything to do with them.
Shocking revelation (Score:2)
I'd be more shocked if evidence didn't get destroyed. I'm still shaking my head from when my company was deleting all email beyond 2 months old. It's hard to believe that was either legal or we had lawyers that bad.
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"Most widespread miscarriage..." (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone has a pretty strange definition of "justice" or "miscarriage" thereof, or a VERY short conception of British history.
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I think his definition includes only charges and convictions through the court system. Over 900 postal workers convicted for a crime they did not commit. So it's a single type of charge (fraud against the post office) and an identifiable group of people (postal workers). That gives you a finite number to compare against.
Systemic injustices (colonial abuses, etc.) are not part of that.
Re: "Most widespread miscarriage..." (Score:1)
How many Indians did they throw in jail for their words?
A troika of thugs in politics ... (Score:2)
... and official positions has been for years preventing this legal battle from reaching its only morally acceptable conclusion:
Serious jailtime for quite a few responsible for this hideous crime.
They let regular clerks and local post office employees go to jail, get suspended, fired, their pensions cancelled and damages pulled out of their salaries and their lives ruined to protect unbelievably shitty software with fundamentally flawed and amateurish feature-implementations all while a slew of spineless mi
Innocent people went to prison (Score:1)
Innocent people went to prison so suspending the actual criminal from their job seems fair I guess the matter is fully resolved now.