Horizon victim sues Post Office and Fujitsu for £4m
Horizon victim sues Post Office and Fujitsu for £4m
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Discussion

Southerner

Original Poster:

2,141 posts

68 months

Wednesday 6th August
quotequote all
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c30zq28v0dlo

Let’s hope this is the start of the Post Office and Fujitsu actually paying some sort of price for the devastation they caused. I very much hope this man succeeds and that there are many, many other very expensive claims to follow; god knows every single victim very much deserves it.

Nigel_O

3,358 posts

235 months

Wednesday 6th August
quotequote all
...devastation they knowingly caused - that's the real injustice here.

I too hope that this is the first case of many. Interestingly, it's going to make public at least one calculation method for compensation which if proven, may form the basis for further claims

Super Sonic

9,892 posts

70 months

Wednesday 6th August
quotequote all
It may make the PO get their arse in gear and pay out the compensation before more people start these actions.

Southerner

Original Poster:

2,141 posts

68 months

Wednesday 6th August
quotequote all
Super Sonic said:
It may make the PO get their arse in gear and pay out the compensation before more people start these actions.
Indeed. Might also encourage the government to show some interest at long last and hurry it up, seeing as it’ll be they who have to bail them out if this financially breaks the PO. I can’t say I’d shed a tear for them if they vanished forever personally, but it’d probably be bad thing for the UK overall I suppose.

Mont Blanc

2,020 posts

59 months

Wednesday 6th August
quotequote all
What I don't understand in this whole saga is this:

Fujitsu are actively still working on government contracts, and still actively bidding to get more and more, to the tune of hundreds of millions worth of new business. With that in mind, why on earth hasn't the Prime Minister (either this one or the previous one) summoned the MD of Fujitsu UK into their office for a private meeting, and said to them "You fked up big time, sold us a defective product, lied about it, people went to jail, people died, and now you are going to hand over £300 million as compensation within the next 3 months, that will we use to pay the victims, and cover the cost of the damage, or you will never, ever earn earn penny from this country"

I simply cannot wrap my tiny head around why such a thing hasn't happened. Desperate times call for desperate measures and all that.

Southerner

Original Poster:

2,141 posts

68 months

Wednesday 6th August
quotequote all
Mont Blanc said:
What I don't understand in this whole saga is this:

Fujitsu are actively still working on government contracts, and still actively bidding to get more and more, to the tune of hundreds of millions worth of new business. With that in mind, why on earth hasn't the Prime Minister (either this one or the previous one) summoned the MD of Fujitsu UK into their office for a private meeting, and said to them "You fked up big time, sold us a defective product, lied about it, people went to jail, people died, and now you are going to hand over £300 million as compensation within the next 3 months, that will we use to pay the victims, and cover the cost of the damage, or you will never, ever earn earn penny from this country"

I simply cannot wrap my tiny head around why such a thing hasn't happened. Desperate times call for desperate measures and all that.
Presumably something along the lines of:

- the Gvmnt are balls deep in stuff that only Fujitsu can run/repair/maintain

- the Gvmnt have limited outfits interested in their IT requirements and can’t afford to lose a major bidder for contracts

- the Gvmnt are invested in keeping compensation payouts down to a glacially slow trickle, as one way or another they might end up on the hook if the PO can’t pay

- some fingers are knuckles deep in some pies…

There’ll be a reason/reasons, personally I find successive governments’ silence and lack of intervention nothing but hugely suspicious.

bad company

20,685 posts

282 months

Wednesday 6th August
quotequote all
A friend of mine ran our village post office. He pleaded guilty to theft from the post office to avoid being jailed. He then moved away to avoid the shame. He’s since had the conviction quashed but no compensation yet.

Fujitsu seems to have got away with it. evil

Southerner

Original Poster:

2,141 posts

68 months

Wednesday 6th August
quotequote all
bad company said:
A friend of mine ran our village post office. He pleaded guilty to theft from the post office to avoid being jailed. He then moved away to avoid the shame. He’s since had the conviction quashed but no compensation yet.

Fujitsu seems to have got away with it. evil
Have we even reached the basic milepost of actually establishing exactly which people from either organisation were responsible for creating the lies, maintaining the lies and perpetuating the whole rotten situation?

Fujitsu didn’t continue to hammer people whom they knew very well may have been innocent in court, for example, and that’s by far the most abhorrent aspect of it all in my mind. The IT lot might have lied to their client at the PO, but from what I’ve seen the PO merrily carried on with the prosecutions even when they knew that Fujitsu weren’t playing an honest game. People need to be looking at prosecutions for doing that, to my mind. And not “the Post Office”, but the actual human beings who made the conscious choice to continue destroying people’s lives for god knows what utterly twisted reason.

Edited by Southerner on Wednesday 6th August 18:56

Mont Blanc

2,020 posts

59 months

Wednesday 6th August
quotequote all
Southerner said:
Mont Blanc said:
What I don't understand in this whole saga is this:

Fujitsu are actively still working on government contracts, and still actively bidding to get more and more, to the tune of hundreds of millions worth of new business. With that in mind, why on earth hasn't the Prime Minister (either this one or the previous one) summoned the MD of Fujitsu UK into their office for a private meeting, and said to them "You fked up big time, sold us a defective product, lied about it, people went to jail, people died, and now you are going to hand over £300 million as compensation within the next 3 months, that will we use to pay the victims, and cover the cost of the damage, or you will never, ever earn earn penny from this country"

I simply cannot wrap my tiny head around why such a thing hasn't happened. Desperate times call for desperate measures and all that.
Presumably something along the lines of:

- the Gvmnt are balls deep in stuff that only Fujitsu can run/repair/maintain

- the Gvmnt have limited outfits interested in their IT requirements and can’t afford to lose a major bidder for contracts

- the Gvmnt are invested in keeping compensation payouts down to a glacially slow trickle, as one way or another they might end up on the hook if the PO can’t pay

- some fingers are knuckles deep in some pies…

There’ll be a reason/reasons, personally I find successive governments’ silence and lack of intervention nothing but hugely suspicious.
Those are indeed the most likely explanations, I agree.

As for our infrastructure being balls deep in Fujitsu stuff, thats fine, we can keep paying them to run and maintain what is already in place, but I see very little reason to award them another £500m+ of new business unless they want to hand over a vast sum of compensation first. Sure, Fujitsu could threaten to walk away from everything and let our systems collapse rather than pay compensation, but ultimately they are a business, and if paying compo allows them to keep snapping up hundreds of millions in new business, they may well pay.

It just seems like we haven't even attempted to strong-arm them, which IMO, we absolutely should.

bigmowley

2,326 posts

192 months

Wednesday 6th August
quotequote all
Delighted that he has taken this step, and given the amount of information that is now in the public domain I hope that he succeeds with this action. Will he get a fair hearing I wonder or will the snouts in the trough wriggle out of it again. Assuming he wins his case then I expect the PO to be in serious trouble of collapse. Bailed out by the taxpayers obviously. Grrrrr

808 Estate

2,425 posts

107 months

Wednesday 6th August
quotequote all
Shame he cant target the individuals running the corps at the time. Would be far better to see them lose their personal fortunes.

cptsideways

13,744 posts

268 months

Wednesday 6th August
quotequote all
A good friend of mine, whos since passed, his family were postmasters and this was all ongoing. My girlfriend used to house sit for the then post office boss who lived near Guildford, I'm glad to say we used his pool for some youthful activities 😂


mikeiow

7,192 posts

146 months

Wednesday 6th August
quotequote all
808 Estate said:
Shame he cant target the individuals running the corps at the time. Would be far better to see them lose their personal fortunes.
Indeed, but regardless: the PO & Fujitsu are absolute fkers for not sorting this out before now.

Good luck to him

Murph7355

40,382 posts

272 months

Wednesday 6th August
quotequote all
808 Estate said:
Shame he cant target the individuals running the corps at the time. Would be far better to see them lose their personal fortunes.
Those responsible in Fujitsu, the Post Office and govt who lied and buried this stuff, and who have dragged their feet in sorting it out should all be going to jail. "fkers" doesn't even start to cover it.

Boringvolvodriver

10,509 posts

59 months

Wednesday 6th August
quotequote all
Murph7355 said:
808 Estate said:
Shame he cant target the individuals running the corps at the time. Would be far better to see them lose their personal fortunes.
Those responsible in Fujitsu, the Post Office and govt who lied and buried this stuff, and who have dragged their feet in sorting it out should all be going to jail. "fkers" doesn't even start to cover it.
Agree - despite what they claim, there must be many who knew that the system was flawed and yet kept on lying. One would have thought that a charge of perjury at the very least should be applicable for them.

I too hope that Lee Castleton wins his case and that all the others who suffered then follow suit.

However, I have a suspicion that the PO will delay and obstruct yet again. Maybe, they will see sense and make an out of court settlement although based on previous experience perhaps not.

Southerner

Original Poster:

2,141 posts

68 months

Wednesday 6th August
quotequote all
Boringvolvodriver said:
Agree - despite what they claim, there must be many who knew that the system was flawed and yet kept on lying. One would have thought that a charge of perjury at the very least should be applicable for them.

I too hope that Lee Castleton wins his case and that all the others who suffered then follow suit.

However, I have a suspicion that the PO will delay and obstruct yet again. Maybe, they will see sense and make an out of court settlement although based on previous experience perhaps not.
If they offer him an out of court settlement I hope he tells them to stick it. He commented that he doesn’t want the money, he wants to be heard in court. I’d very much agree with that sentiment in his shoes, I think.

macron

11,923 posts

182 months

Wednesday 6th August
quotequote all
cptsideways said:
A good friend of mine, whos since passed, his family were postmasters and this was all ongoing. My girlfriend used to house sit for the then post office boss who lived near Guildford, I'm glad to say we used his pool for some youthful activities ?
Are you saying she needs compensation?

Otherwise what the actual has this ste got to do with this subject? Literal willy waving...

Austin_Metro

1,399 posts

64 months

Wednesday 6th August
quotequote all
Southerner said:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c30zq28v0dlo

Let’s hope this is the start of the Post Office and Fujitsu actually paying some sort of price for the devastation they caused. I very much hope this man succeeds and that there are many, many other very expensive claims to follow; god knows every single victim very much deserves it.
This could well be quite tricky for the PO and Fujitsu:

1. The sum claimed is significantly larger than the compo scheme sums - so if they try to settle above 2m, there will be outcry that others should get more

2. Even if Mr Castleton would settle, I don’t think he would accept a confidentiality gag - it’s also against the current trend against NDAs.

3. It’s not clear how this relates to claim he has previously settled as one of the 555 post masters. Fraud may vitiate that settlement, but didn’t they know the shenanigans by that stage?

greygoose

9,060 posts

211 months

Thursday 7th August
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The compensation scheme should be settled by now and the criminal trials of PO executives and investigators and Fujitsu staff involved should be underway, sadly I suspect we are still years away.

dcb

5,990 posts

281 months

Thursday 7th August
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This scandal has been running 20+ years and should have been
resolved years ago. Some folks should be in prison by now.
The infected blood scandal, that has been running
multiple decades, comes to mind.

I now avoid using the Post Office and Fujitsu and will happily pay more
to use other providers.

The lawyers have done well out of all this.