Mr Bates vs The Post Office

[glow worm]

My Brother has now received TWO "Final Settlement Payments" .... I wonder how many more Final Payments he'll receive before the end of this saga. He's now 73 years old , I tell him to keep taking the money , many who stick it out for more will die without receiving anything. My Brother paid all his Horizon discrepencies from his own pocket.
I also think FIJITSU should be paying not just the TAXPAYER, they made £millions from the contract originally awarded to ICL (international Computers) before they were taken over. Being an IBM Sys prog I always thought ICT.ICL were crap (George 3) .

Edited by glow worm on Wednesday 3rd January 14:36

[Bonefish Blues]

jameschristie said:

FiF said:

Is the problem there the PO's right to prosecute, I know we complain about CPS but would much of this ever have got to court?

Equally the scene against Lee from Bridlington who defended himself, (fool for a client?) hit with 321k legal fees on top of what fictitious losses were claimed on the back of false evidence from Fujitsu etc.

Side issue, many thanks to various posters for the input and links to various pieces of detailed background. Lots of reading, much appreciated.

The PO right to prosecute was a huge part of the problem. They abused this power shamelessly.

Lee Castleton was stitched up. He had legal expenses insurance. The PO did not contest his case. Castleton's funds were burned up by preparing for that first case. The PO then appealed and threw everything at Castleton. Money was no object. Castleton had no option but to try and defend himself alone. He couldn't afford a lawyer. ITV did not explain that fully. The Post Office wanted to make an example of him and destroy him to intimidate others.

That's an outrageous abuse of legal process.

[biggbn]

jameschristie said:

FiF said:

Is the problem there the PO's right to prosecute, I know we complain about CPS but would much of this ever have got to court?

Equally the scene against Lee from Bridlington who defended himself, (fool for a client?) hit with 321k legal fees on top of what fictitious losses were claimed on the back of false evidence from Fujitsu etc.

Side issue, many thanks to various posters for the input and links to various pieces of detailed background. Lots of reading, much appreciated.

The PO right to prosecute was a huge part of the problem. They abused this power shamelessly.

Lee Castleton was stitched up. He had legal expenses insurance. The PO did not contest his case. Castleton's funds were burned up by preparing for that first case. The PO then appealed and threw everything at Castleton. Money was no object. Castleton had no option but to try and defend himself alone. He couldn't afford a lawyer. ITV did not explain that fully. The Post Office wanted to make an example of him and destroy him to intimidate others.

I thought it came over quite well that in Castleton's case they wanted to exemplify him to dissuade others. Perhaps they didn't go into the ins and outs but I remember it mentioned several times. Shocking abuse of power and trust.

[FiF]

jameschristie said:

FiF said:

Is the problem there the PO's right to prosecute, I know we complain about CPS but would much of this ever have got to court?

Equally the scene against Lee from Bridlington who defended himself, (fool for a client?) hit with 321k legal fees on top of what fictitious losses were claimed on the back of false evidence from Fujitsu etc.

Side issue, many thanks to various posters for the input and links to various pieces of detailed background. Lots of reading, much appreciated.

The PO right to prosecute was a huge part of the problem. They abused this power shamelessly.

Lee Castleton was stitched up. He had legal expenses insurance. The PO did not contest his case. Castleton's funds were burned up by preparing for that first case. The PO then appealed and threw everything at Castleton. Money was no object. Castleton had no option but to try and defend himself alone. He couldn't afford a lawyer. ITV did not explain that fully. The Post Office wanted to make an example of him and destroy him to intimidate others.

Thanks for that extra explanation around Lee Castleton. That would have certainly added to ITV's telling of the story.

[SpeedBash]

Wills2 said:

It's a private club and they all have empathy for each other being cut of the same cloth, only when the heat is too much do they exclude one of their own as a form of self preservation.

The Baroness Mone PPE scandal comes to mind.

[119]

LeighW said:

A couple of my clients were victims in this. I obviously can't go into detail, but the harm, both mental and physical that this has caused them is quite incredible. No amount of compensation will make up for it.

What's even more incredible is that the government still continues contracts with the company responsible. Rotten to the core.

Yep, and people still want to vote labour.

Madness.

[520TORQUES]

[redacted]

[alangla]

jameschristie said:

It is absurd. The law in England & Wales presumes that computer evidence is reliable unless the other party can show why it is not. In effect that flips the burden of proof. Defendants have to prove they are innocent, and how they did not commit the crime. There is a long backstory to this. See this link.
https://clarotesting.wordpress.com/2023/10/19/the-...

I live in Scotland, and the English presumption seems particularly crazy to me because under Scots Law evidence offered by the prosecution requires corroboration. If the only evidence is "the computer says so" then prosecutions won't proceed. It was revealed during the public inquiry that the Post Office got narked by Scottish prosecutors telling them to take a hike.

They did manage to get significant numbers of convictions in the Scottish courts though, didn’t they?

[119]

[redacted]

[LeighW]

[redacted]

[mooseracer]

glow worm said:

My Brother has now received TWO "Final Settlement Payments" .... I wonder how many more Final Payments he'll receive before the end of this saga. He's now 73 years old , I tell him to keep taking the money , many who stick it out for more will die without receiving anything. My Brother paid all his Horizon discrepencies from his own pocket.
I also think FIJITSU should be paying not just the TAXPAYER, they made £millions from the contract originally awarded to ICL (international Computers) before they were taken over. Being an IBM Sys prog I always thought ICT.ICL were crap (George 3) .

Edited by glow worm on Wednesday 3rd January 14:36

George 3 has a special place in my heart!

[119]

glow worm said:

I also think FIJITSU should be paying not just the TAXPAYER, they made £millions from the contract originally awarded to ICL (international Computers) before they were taken over. Being an IBM Sys prog I always thought ICT.ICL were crap (George 3) .

It would be interesting to know why they haven't even been in court.

[Nurburgsingh]

[redacted]

[Mont Blanc]

glow worm said:

I also think FIJITSU should be paying not just the TAXPAYER, they made £millions from the contract originally awarded to ICL (international Computers) before they were taken over. Being an IBM Sys prog I always thought ICT.ICL were crap (George 3) .

This is the bit that absolutely amazes me.

The Horizon system cost £900m.

The CEO of Fujitsu UK should be dragged into the Prime Ministers office, forced to stand in front of the PM's desk, and told in no uncertain terms that Fujitsu are to hand over £900m to the British Government within 6 months or they will never, ever be allowed to do business in the UK again.

Of course this is Britain, and our government rarely challenges corruption and incompetence, they reward it. Fujitsu have been given a further £3.2 billion of UK government contracts since 2013, and almost £500m in 2022 alone.

[AB]

I'll start watching this tonight when the kids are in bed I think. A guy we used to employ as Finance Manager who is now in his 70's spent 18 months in prison over this. He was a sub-postmaster locally.

He never did go into the ins and outs of what happened but I know it cost him his wife, his house and a small fortune at the time. He was open with us at interview about his prison time but we didn't hold it against him and he was OK at his job.

[glow worm]

The current PO CEO Nick Read received a bonus of £445,000 this year for his performance in the inquiry , which he has now been shamed to return .

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/aug/23/p...

[Bonefish Blues]

glow worm said:

The current PO CEO Nick Read received a bonus of £445,000 this year for his performance in the inquiry , which he has now been shamed to return .

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/aug/23/p...

I think he only actually gave back a small amount didn't he?

[jameschristie]

alangla said:

They did manage to get significant numbers of convictions in the Scottish courts though, didn’t they?

That's not clear. There were certainly many victims, but it's not been established how many were subjected to criminal prosecutions and how many were fleeced by the Post Office under threat of prosecution. The PO had a track record of threatening prosecution when they knew they had no evidence that would stand up in court, in the hope the victim would cave in and pay up rather than risk prison.

The prosecution records don't flag Horizon cases, so someone would have to go through thousands of cases over maybe 15 years to try and identify how many there were in Scotland.

Edited by jameschristie on Wednesday 3rd January 16:56

[Seasonal Hero]

glow worm said:

The current PO CEO Nick Read received a bonus of £445,000 this year for his performance in the inquiry , which he has now been shamed to return .

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/aug/23/p...

In what fking world does a CEO get any sort of bonus for giving evidence to a statutory inquiry which came about because of the actions of the company he now leads.

These people are out of their minds.

[Bonefish Blues]

Bonefish Blues said:

glow worm said:

The current PO CEO Nick Read received a bonus of £445,000 this year for his performance in the inquiry , which he has now been shamed to return .

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/aug/23/p...

I think he only actually gave back a small amount didn't he?

Yes, only 54,400 of the total amount