Post Office Workers Convicted of Theft Due To Faulty Software Have Names Cleared (bbc.com) 49
Britain's Court of Appeals has cleared a group of 42 sub-postmasters and postmistresses for theft, fraud and false accounting. They were convicted, with some imprisoned, after the Post Office installed faulty software in the branches where these office operators worked. The BBC reports: Following the convictions - including theft, fraud and false accounting -- some former postmasters went to prison, were shunned by their communities and struggled to secure work. Some lost their homes, and even failed to get insurance owing to their convictions. Some have since died. They always said the fault was in the computer system, which had been used to manage post office finances since 1999.
The Horizon system, developed by the Japanese company Fujitsu, was first rolled out in 1999 to some post offices to be used for a variety of tasks including accounting and stocktaking. But from an early stage it appeared to have significant bugs which could cause the system to misreport, sometimes involving substantial sums of money. Horizon-based evidence was used by the Post Office to successfully prosecute 736 people. But campaigners fought a long and series of legal battles for compensation in the civil courts, which have been followed by referrals by the Criminal Cases Review Commission. A Post Office spokesman said: "We sincerely apologize to the postmasters affected by our historical failures. Throughout this appeals process we have supported the quashing of the overwhelming majority of these convictions and the judgment will be an important milestone in addressing the past."
Long-time Slashdot reader Martin S. reacts: As a software geek, the part I find most troubling is that blind faith that those in authority placed in the software without proper accounting. Accounting systems and Software are deterministic, well they should be. IF the system/software worked correctly, this missing money must have shown up somewhere. Software defects are always traceable. It might be expensive and time consuming but persistence will win in the end. Somebody somewhere is responsible for this and defacto framing of these people is criminal in principle, if not in law.
The Horizon system, developed by the Japanese company Fujitsu, was first rolled out in 1999 to some post offices to be used for a variety of tasks including accounting and stocktaking. But from an early stage it appeared to have significant bugs which could cause the system to misreport, sometimes involving substantial sums of money. Horizon-based evidence was used by the Post Office to successfully prosecute 736 people. But campaigners fought a long and series of legal battles for compensation in the civil courts, which have been followed by referrals by the Criminal Cases Review Commission. A Post Office spokesman said: "We sincerely apologize to the postmasters affected by our historical failures. Throughout this appeals process we have supported the quashing of the overwhelming majority of these convictions and the judgment will be an important milestone in addressing the past."
Long-time Slashdot reader Martin S. reacts: As a software geek, the part I find most troubling is that blind faith that those in authority placed in the software without proper accounting. Accounting systems and Software are deterministic, well they should be. IF the system/software worked correctly, this missing money must have shown up somewhere. Software defects are always traceable. It might be expensive and time consuming but persistence will win in the end. Somebody somewhere is responsible for this and defacto framing of these people is criminal in principle, if not in law.
Post Office? Accountable? Bwahahahaha... (Score:3, Funny)
736 People?? (Score:5, Interesting)
Horizon-based evidence was used by the Post Office to successfully prosecute 736 people.
They quite literally ignored/dismissed what these 736 accused people said in their defense, blindly believed the one, singular system that they obviously didn't audit, and convicted them on that "evidence"?
Whoever prosecuted the accused, and everyone else that supported them in those accusations, should get 736 consecutive sentences equivalent to what were given to those convicted.
Ok, only 42 people (Score:3)
Evidently, I misread part of the story - but wondering how many of the other 600-ish other ones still are/were in a similar situation.
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In December 2019, the Post Office agreed to pay almost £58m to settle the long-running dispute with more than 500 sub-postmasters and postmistresses affected by the scandal.
(taken directly from T.F.A.)
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I wonder how you can misread sentences like this:
In December 2019, the Post Office agreed to pay almost £58m to settle the long-running dispute with more than 500 sub-postmasters and postmistresses affected by the scandal.
(taken directly from T.F.A.)
So sue me.
So the OP was right (Score:2)
So the OP is right - they believed some flawed software (and its developers) over what 700+ people said.
Re:So the OP was right (Score:5, Insightful)
So the OP is right - they believed some flawed software (and its developers) over what 700+ people said.
That's true of the judges, however the Post Office and Fujitsu knew that the evidence of from the system was often wrong and actually lied about it. They stood up in court and claimed that the system was flawless. The former head of the post office was fully informed about the problem and decided not to go back on the testimony they had given. Having been forced into admitting that they had done wrong and investigating this, the post office then made a special set of procedures that made it almost impossible for the postmasters involved to access the information they needed. There are a quite a number of people from both companies that should be going to prison for purgery, obstruction of justice and fraud. The BBC radio series on this is excellent if you can get access to it.
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Even better. We all know that CEOs get paid the big bucks because they are worth it, and take personal risks with their careers, as if they were shown to be liars that perverted the course of justice then they would be toxic for life. Maybe go to prision.
Let's see how that worked out -
From https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/apr/23/post-office-aggressive-pursuit-of-staff-ex-boss-paula-vennells [theguardian.com]
"When the Rev Paula Vennells stepped down as chief executive of the Post Office in February 2019, she walked a
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Astutely observed. The false excuse offered for the incredible wealth showered on top executives in the Anglophone world since the 1970s is compensation for the awesome risks they take on when managing the fortunes of an entire enterprise. But that excuse is utterly transparent nonsense.
CEOs routinely "negotiate" compensation packages that make them immensely rich even when they leave nothing but smoking ruins behind, and the idea that they have any legal exposure due to their position is preposterous. In t
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Re:Ok, only 42 people (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, the average payout was around £24,000 per victim. Doesn't seem like a lot considering they got criminal convictions, lost their jobs and other opportunities, some did jail time and of course the mental anguish of fighting for years to clear their names.
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You say that like it's supposed to mean something. If the lawyers front all of the cost of a lawsuit and shoulder all of the risk...ofc they are entitled to a generous payment. Don't like it? Hire your own damn layer, and shoulder your own damned costs while taking all of the damned risk.
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> .sig: Sique (sic!) *sigh*
Re:736 People?? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: 736 People?? (Score:3)
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Yes, that is probably correct.
But one juicy detail is that these were private prosecutions, conducted by private lawyers paid with private money. They were not public prosecutions, and it seems that they were not conducted with the necessary due diligence. It just reeks of withholding of evidence.
Uh, what? (Score:3)
Are UK Post Office employees required to know math(s), or did they use the same faulty software to determine the numbers? 42 is not a majority of 736.
Will they now be prosecuting (or firing) those responsible for testing the software before purchasing/deploying it?
Re:Uh, what? (Score:5, Informative)
Are UK Post Office employees required to know math(s), or did they use the same faulty software to determine the numbers? 42 is not a majority of 736.
There's a linked story [bbc.com] that goes into more details - basically these were people that owned 'local franchises' of post offices, and they used software for, I guess, internal accounting (there's not much details).
Will they now be prosecuting (or firing) those responsible for testing the software before purchasing/deploying it?
From that same story:
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From that article:
In December 2019, at the end of a long-running series of civil cases, the Post Office agreed to settle with 555 claimants. It accepted it had previously "got things wrong in [its] dealings with a number of postmasters", and agreed to pay £58m in damages. The claimants received a share of £12m, after legal fees were paid.
It looks like this group got ripped off twice. Once by the Post Office and then by their lawyers... That's only £82,000 per person, but £46m for the lawyers.
Re:Uh, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
It looks like this group got ripped off twice. Once by the Post Office and then by their lawyers... That's only £82,000 per person, but £46m for the lawyers.
Are you surprised by this? The only real winners in any legal proceding ever are the lawyers.
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Your capitalist overlords salute you for parroting this bootlicking narrative. If you don't want lawyers working on contingency (so they make all of the financial investment in a case and take all the risk in losing) then hire your own damn lawyer and shoulder your own damn risk in a lawsuit.
fractions of a penny (Score:2)
fractions of a penny
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Well, no it is Fujitsu in the firing line by law they provided false testimony and are in fact criminally and legally liable. Those experts from Fujitsu should now be prosecuted and punished for lying under oath with regard to the qualities of their software. Horizon evidence, drops criminal charges square on Fujitsu and any UK government officials who criminally confirmed it's accuracy. YOU CAN NOT LIE IN COURT and they should be fucked by the legal system in the UK were it not so corrupt.
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To be fair, Fujitsu are now under investigation by the Met Police for just this reason - suspected perjury.
https://www.computerweekly.com... [computerweekly.com]
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To be fair, Fujitsu are now under investigation by the Met Police for just this reason - suspected perjury.
https://www.computerweekly.com... [computerweekly.com]
Holy fuck that timeline at the end!
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"42 is not a majority of 736."
It is not claimed to be. The Post Office spokesperson said they supported quashing the majority, not that a majority had been quashed.
Welcome to "hard on crime" (Score:5, Insightful)
Therac-25 (Score:5, Insightful)
I must of put a decimal in the wrong place (Score:2)
I must of put a decimal in the wrong place
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And failed English class.
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I'm proof that the standards for passing an English class are exceedingly low.
Fujistu (Score:1)
Computers are tools. (Score:2, Interesting)
When a driver puts their Tesla on "auto-pilot", and then doesn't pay any attention to the road, and when that car subsequently hits and kills some pedestrians, do we allow the driver to simply blame the car and get off scott free? No, the driver is held accountable. The car is merely a mechanical tool which we use as a means of transportation. Features like auto-pilot can make the driver's job easier, but the driver is ultimately accountable.
If you use a computer accounting system to file your taxes, and
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Re:Computers are tools. (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems logical then, if a computer accounting system is used in a place of work, such as a post office, the people operating the computer and submitting the accounting reports should be responsible, particularly for large scale and repeated errors, which seems to be the case here. No one will be charged for one wrong number on a balance sheet (unless it was clearly deliberate). The fact that these people were charged criminally suggests large scale and multiple discrepancies. It seems that regardless of "buggy software" they should bear some responsibility.
It's not quite clear what you're trying to say here. Who do you mean by "the people operating the computer"? If you mean the senior management in the post office then fine, yes, they should be held accountable. The people actually entering the information though had no choice or control at all. What happened was they entered all their transactions during the course of the day and then the system said they should have £N in the till, and in fact they had only £N - X in the till. The P.O. accused them of stealing the £X, and they had absolutely no way of demonstrating that they hadn't.
What boggles the mind is that the software must have been developed by people who had absolutely no experience of accounting systems. It shouldn't be possible for massive discrepancies like this to creep in. Everything must add up. If money was apparently disappearing from the shops, then it should have been mysteriously accumulating somewhere else. Basic double-entry book keeping procedures would have prevented all of this.
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it gets worse.
Fujitsu "had the ability and facility to insert, inject, edit or delete transaction data or data in branch accounts, to implement fixes in Horizon that had the potential to affect transaction data or data in branch accounts or to rebuild branch transaction data, all without the knowledge or consent of the SPM [sub-postmaster] in question."
If Fujitsu injected a transaction into a branch account, "this would look as though the SPM had done it."
Almost no integrity of logs to further manipulation
Re: Computers are tools. (Score:3)
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If you use a computer accounting system to file your taxes, and the software is buggy, you can still be charged for filing a fraudulent return. The computer is merely a tool. The submitter of a tax return is ultimately liable for the accuracy of the return submitted.
Which is what happened here. Postmaster submits return, gets prosecuted for fraud due to a discrepancy discovered at head office.
The problem being of course that the Postmaster's return was accurate; the discrepancy was at head office due to their shitty IT system that they and Fujitsu lied about.
The power of software developers (Score:2)
The power of FOSS developers (Score:2)
The power of software developers...is enormous. Anyone who has worked on critical systems knows that the decisions they make can affect lives and there are not many checks on that power or oversight.
Whew! Thank goodness open-source doesn't have that kind of power.
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Twenty years? (Score:4, Insightful)
They installed the software over twenty years ago and they are only now getting around to admitting it falsely accused people?
In cases like this, I think there should be triple penalties.
1) For falsely accusing someone and For false prosecution without proper investigation.
2) For covering up the crime after any sane person would have discovered.
3) For delaying restitution.
low settlement (Score:1)
from the referenced article:
"In December 2019, the Post Office agreed to pay almost £58m to settle the long-running dispute with more than 500 sub-postmasters and postmistresses affected by the scandal."
This amounts to 160k USD per victim on average.
160k USD as compensation for having your life destroyed???
The UK is Different (Score:2)
It is incumbent on IT pros to not work for Fujitsu (Score:2)
There are only a couple of companies that I won't flat out work for - Fujitsu is the most egregious of them. Remember the great Fujitsu hard drive debacles of the 2002 era? This was one reason and Horizons is another.
Fujitsu have lied on the stand, have colluded with the Post Office to insert false accounts into the system (they had update access to other peoples accounts and were falsley inserting records at the Post Offices behest) They have perjured on the stand, they have conspired (and succeeded!) in p
An insult (Score:1)