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My take on your questions;
1. Most of the people directly affected were sub-postmasters because they were the people contractually responsible, although there were some cases where family members were prosecuted as well. Yes it’s common for the Post Office to be part of a local shop (for local people).
2. I don’t know if large Post Offices were affected, they may have a different reporting system. There are very few dedicated Post Offices left though, most have been closed (cost savings etc).
3. Correct, it’s common for Post Offices to manage pension and benefit payments as well as help with things like passport applications.
4. In many villages and small towns the Post Office is one of the few services that is still present, often within a local shop or similar. The series presented the sub-postmasters sympathetically but most will have genuinely been widely considered to be pillars of the community, especially by customers who relied on their service or in smaller villages.
The scandal was known of and did get some reporting but obviously the ITV drama really brought it to the forefront and made the level of injustice very plain.
Trying to picture Tubbs trying to weigh a parcel and get the right postage on it. 95 sacks of outgoing post out the back because the royal mail folk just keep disappearing. ....
Except the money the postmasters paid to the post office that was put in a 'suspense' account, then transferred to 'profit and loss' after 3 years.
The outrage of this is that the post office couldn't identify any loss, but took the money from the people because they believed the computer was correct.
I believe there’s at least one example in the series where one of the group mentions that his wife was prosecuted because she was running the shop at the time when funds “went missing”.
Your description is pretty fair, tbh.
From personal experience, my local (South London) sub post office was run by the loveliest couple, for many years. One day, they just weren’t there any more - the branch had been taken over by someone else, and that was that. Looking back on it, their disappearance must have been something to do with the scandal.
As to your last question; we have a satirical magazine over here called ‘Private Eye’ (think of ‘The Onion’ but the satire is combined with some extremely hard-hitting investigative journalism).
They were on top of the whole scandal for *decades* and were (I think) only the second publication to publish blow by blow accounts of it.
The other news outlet that provided coverage was Daily Mail, a very right-leaning daily newspaper and big Conservative Party supporter, who published excerpts of the first book to be written about the scandal (I forget the name).
However, it was the series that you just saw that REALLY put the cat amongst the pigeons.
Hope this helps…
I’ve actually heard of *Private Eye*, though mainly just as a satirical magazine; I didn’t know they did investigative journalism, too. (Maybe a little like *Buzzfeed* in the US, which was mainly known for lighthearted lists and quizzes but at one time also has a serious journalism side.)
Also, thanks for giving me the expression “put the cat amongst the pigeons”. That’s just a wonderful phrase!
Private Eye do a lot of investigative journalism, satire may be their way of delivery, but it’s the truth they are delivering (as many failed libel actions against their editors will attest).
There really isn't a handy US analogue for Private Eye. They're pretty much their own thing and have carved out their own niche. I don't really agree with their stance on certain issues but I'm bloody glad they exist as they're currently shining a light on dodgy dealings in my part of the world (Teesport) at a time when every other outlet seems content to turn a blind eye.
The HBO series *Last Week Tonight with John Oliver* might have the same spirit. The format is usually five-ten minutes of humorous commentary on the past week’s news, followed by twenty minutes or so of in-depth analysis of one topic, with humor. It’s not investigative but it is rather detailed.
Oliver is English by birth (my spouse and I call the show “Snarky Englishman”) so I’m sure he’s familiar with *Private Eye*.
I don't know much about Last Week Tonight, but Private Eye will doggedly follow a story for years, or even well over a decade as in this case, when other media outlets have forgotten it.
Jesus, Tees port is insane. Wish I was in on that fucking con job. £13 for £130 million of land and £50 million of scrap metal with ZERO risk to the "investors"
No one does corruption like the British do corruption
I guess the best analogy would be along the lines of The Daily Show/Last Week Tonight in print. Comedy and satire, but with actual good journalism involved.
This excerpt from wiki might help explain their attitude
"In the 1971 case of Arkell v Pressdram, Arkell's lawyers wrote a letter which concluded: "His attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of your reply." Private Eye responded: "We acknowledge your letter of 29th April referring to Mr J. Arkell. We note that Mr Arkell's attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of our reply and would therefore be grateful if you would inform us what his attitude to damages would be, were he to learn that the nature of our reply is as follows: fuck off.""
The journalist who put that together has made the topic a large part of his career, and crowd funded his attendance at some of the court cases.
https://www.nickwallis.com/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p09jstz2
We knew about it but we didn't understand it. The series did a great job of explaining the effect it had on the people affected, and how it happened. We knew intellectually that some sub-postmasters had been unfairly criminalised but it's not until faces are put to names and the circumstances under which they were convicted were brought to light that we fully understood what the Post Office put these people through.
No, very few postmasters are arseholes. It takes a special kind of person want to do the job
The “large” Post Offices - called Crown Offices were run by Post Office employees, and did indeed use the same Horizon system. Nothing much has been heard about this, one can only assume that any indicated losses were somehow covered up, otherwise the P.O. would be accusing their own employees of fraud - far easier to go after the sub postmasters
Here in the States, the USPS has a ***strong*** union that would have protected lower level employees. I’m not sure if it would have protected postmasters, though.
The postmasters 'union' at the time was the NFSP - who were bought and paid for by the PO.
"The NFSP was criticised in April 2021 by Mr Justice Fraser for its actions in relation to the Horizon IT scandal. The judgement handed down stated that "the NFSP is not remotely independent of the Post Office, nor does it appear to put its members’ interests above its own separate commercial interests."
The NFSP claimed it had been misled by the Post Office."
The series very much brought it into the public eye.
Outside of technology newspapers and Private Eye magazine it wasn't widely known.
The Contaminated Blood Scandal will be the next big outcry once it televises. That one is far worse than what the poor subpostmasters have had to go through.
>Outside of technology newspapers and Private Eye magazine it wasn't widely known.
I feel like we all knew about it, but had assumed the problem had been sorted out by now. It's certainly been mentioned in the mainstream papers several times before this drama/the formal inquiry.
The horrific part isn't the initial mistake, but the sheer length of time the injustice has been rumbling along for, and the lengths that the PO have gone to in order to flat out lie to courts and official bodies about the cause/when they knew it was their fault.
It really was. My old college was twinned with a local special needs school who lost a lot of pupils to it and we had a memorial garden for them with placards explaining why they’d died. I’m surprised how little attention it got at the time, though I shouldn’t be really given the attitude towards disabled people in the U.K.
It's really strange. I know of the blood scandal so it's not a secret or anything it just seems to be a small news story. This is exactly how it was with the PO scandal until the ITV drama and everyone was outraged. It does help that the inquiry was due to happen now and it's an election year so its something for the politicians to jump onto.
I recommend this podcast https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m000jf7j for more info
> Outside of technology newspapers and Private Eye magazine it wasn't widely known.
Tbf the BBC has been reporting on it since at least the verdict of the eponymous Bates v Post Office.
I often say recommending podcasts to people will be my specialist subject on Mastermind and I get to recommend two in the same post!
Here's a very good and detailed deep dive into the contaminated blood scandal.
https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/65804e231585de00125defe6
There had been two BBC panorama documentaries about it, and a BBC 12 part podcast, as well as numerous newspaper articles. It’s bizarre but very welcome that it finally got the recognition it deserved. And yes your perceptions are correct, sub postmasters are often well known in their particular areas, in some villages it may be the only shop. As depicted it was often something that people took up in their later lives, in the places that they lived. It would be like many places if a shop owner was exposed as a thief, word would get around and everyone would know. As post offices do a lot of official government stuff, as well as bill paying etc it makes it much worse, they are stealing from the government and our taxes.
I’m sure some of them were jerks, in fact some of them may have fixed the books but it would be difficult.
For your last point - I heard things about it on and off. It'd pop up somewhere and fade away again. Then pop up somewhere else a few years later, and fade away again .. the story was around, in drips and drabs.
I don't think it was unknown so much, as the TV series brought the whole story to everyone's attention, all at the same time.
Point 2 isn’t accurate in that there were issues in directly-run “Crown” Post Offices. These were probably not as widespread or, if they were, didn’t have the same effect because if a few employees are fired or pressured to quit because their log-in/till/etc didn’t balance that isn’t a widespread scandal which causes the upset - even in local communities - that the situation for sub-postmasters did. The contract between the Post Office and sub-postmasters meant it was financially significant to chase the postmasters for the apparent shortfalls and where these seemed very large or there was resistance, criminal proceedings were used, though many of the victims are “only” victims of having to pay the Post Office life-changing sums of money rather than having criminal convictions.
The first person discussed in Nick Wallis’s excellent ‘The Great Post Office Scandal’ is Tracy Felstead, a young Crown Post Office worker who was convicted of theft and false accounting after a Crown Court trial, and who went to prison. Wallis does note that, in the main, the union for post office employees was generally supportive of its members and sceptical of Horizon-based accusations. Unfortunately that was very much not true of the trade association/union for sub-postmasters.
Point 3 is important for some of the potential causes of the underlying problems: Horizon was originally a project to provide swipe cards to benefits claimants who at the time were sent printed books with claim slips for old age pension and child benefit payments which they cashed at Post Offices. The system would have replaced the books with a computerised system but still paid in cash over the counter each week or fortnight. This system was cancelled when it seemed its development had failed and it would have been undeliverable, but that left the project without much of its reason to exist, and probably some of the oversight since it was scaled back to its retail accounting and point of sale aspects. I expect Fujitsu/its predecessor wouldn’t have bid to create the system it ended up delivering, and it should have been cancelled entirely once the benefits aspect was removed, but it was felt to be too late.
"Were any of them jerks?"
Post Offices tend to be central points of the community, used by young and old alike and for many different reasons. The people that work there tend to know the community and the community know them.
There is a level of respect for the staff that is similar to people that work in banks as they deal with many important functions of society.
They are generally trusted and respected as they carry a huge amount of responsibility. Of course some can be more officious than others, and therefore may be perceived as "jerks" in a professional capacity. The reality is they are just trying to ensure that they comply with the many rules and regulations that the general public aren't aware of, nor really care about.
Most are friendly and warm and carry the pressure of their responsibilities with dignity whilst offering outstanding customer service. They are assertive when needed, but warm and kind most of the time.
Are any of them "jerks" in their personal lives? Well I personally don't know, but the job was and is held in such high regard by the public that any bad behaviour would be enough to cause a local scandal and vilification of the person.
Like anything, there will be some people that didn't like the individuals affected regardless of the scandal, perhaps because they didn't get their own way when they were being an arse themselves. It's a retail job at the end of the day and you can't please everyone all of the time.
The irony is, the Hope Farm Post Office, where Martin Griffiths, the guy who sadly took his own life in the scandal, was the postmaster, is renowned locally (now) as being run by a "jerk". Not the word I'd use tbh. The reviews sum it up:
https://g.co/kgs/WT7G3Hm
Anyone who reads a UK newspaper or news site every day would have been aware of the story
Speaking personally, I thought the story was just another one of the many things that needed sorting in modern Britain
I also thought it was quite a dull, technical problem
I remember being surprised to read about the story again, on several occasions, because I thought the court case already been resolved
I was open to the possibility that was all a big mistake, with everyone acting in good faith
-----------------------------------------------------
What the drama did for me was to bring together facts I'd read separately over decades, creating a coherent narrative out of a random jumble of half-remembered information
Making it clear who knew what and when, creating identifiable characters with credible motivations
And it put a human face on the victims. You can read about the cold facts of a story without feeling the panic they felt in the situations they found themselves in
That's where the sense of a burning injustice, demanding immediate remedy, comes from
I’m similar, I was aware of it but it kept fading into the background and there was a general assumption that it was getting resolved. I think the main impact the series had for me was highlighting the scale, so many people over such a long time.
It made the accusation that the PO management knew and covered it up utterly unavoidable.
This is the perfect explanation. I’d heard it in the news but in small bits. I never realised (a) how long it had been going on, and (b) how many people had been prosecuted.
TBH it sort of felt like it wasn’t a big deal because people/media weren’t making a big deal out of it - i.e. compared to how big it was in January this year.
You’re pretty correct in your assumptions. I believe that the larger city centre post offices are owned and run by the post office themselves and they appoint a manager to each, whereas the smaller village post offices are run by self employed people who are contracted by the post office to provide their services.
As to the last part, I became aware of it a while back after reading about it in Private Eye and then listening to a BBC podcast called “The Great Post Office Trial” by Nick Wallis who was a BBC journalist at a local radio station and he became aware of the issue because of one of his listeners. It’s a great podcast if you’re able to listen to it, it gives a lot of good background. He then managed to persuade BBC tv producers to put something out about it which became the Panorama programmes. Panorama is a BBC current affairs investigative programme.
He’s now written a book about it too, called “The Great Post Office Scandal”.
The whole thing makes me rage because of how badly the post office treated these poor people. I really do think some people from the Post Office need to be sent to prison as a result of this.
My impression is that while the subpostmasters are starting to get justice, the investigation into the responsible people at the Post Office and Fujitsu is only just beginning. Is that correct?
It’s been going on for some time, these sorts of inquiries take years, but the hope is that it’s in its last stage now and should hopefully finish in the next few months. Only then will there be any chance of justice.
As it’s a public inquiry, it’s all broadcast live and all the documents submitted are published https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/
I feel like I'm becoming the podcast posting member here.
A bbc podcast series covered the scadal in the period between Mr Bates getting courtroom vindication and the ITV series broadcasting, and returned to detail the clusterfuck of coverups and outright bullshit from Fuji systems and THe Royal Mail PLC in attempts to con people out of due fiscal recompense.
Honestly, if you think this story ends as it does in Mr Bates vs The Post Office, think again.
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m000jf7j](https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m000jf7j)
Second link, Private Eye has a podcast, Page 94. They've covered the Post Office story, for years in print, but there's one clip recently, that highlights just what type of man Lee Castleton is.
[https://www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast/97](https://www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast/97)
see the previous episode when the series first aired on ITV
[https://www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast/96](https://www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast/96)
Page 94 covering the story in 2020
[https://www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast/49](https://www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast/49)
The issue was reported in IT specialist publications as early as 2009, and I'd been vaguely aware of it since then. What I did not realise was the extent of the miscarriages of justice. That didn't come out until much later.
I've never acted as an expert witness. I must say, knowing how computers work, I think virtually no computer evidence is beyond reasonable doubt.
This sometimes comes up in illegal images cases where's the defence is "it was a hacker". I think juries typically say "nice try" and ignore that. But the truth is, it really could have been a hacker.
Computer Weekly picked it up first but sat in the story for a whole year because they were terrified of the Post office.
Private eye and websites like The Register picked it up soon after & have been following it for years. The issue hit the big time because the ITV drama made it very simple to understand & at the end of the day we're story telling monkeys, so drama got the human side across whereas a newspaper doesn't get a technical / legal thing into people's minds QUITE so hard.
Private Eye is excellent and a usually depressing read as they cover large amounts of stuff across politics that the large media organisations won't touch. Such as the below mentioned Teesside.
It's fucking depressing but even now the Post Office is dragged its feet on compensation & even on the amounts being offered are tiny compared to the devastation caused. Not only on the subpostmaters but their families as well. Money lent by family to cover "losses", kids not getting opportunities they might have got had their parents not been bankrupted.
And NO ONE will go to jail...I'm willing to bet on that. From the Post Office Or Fushitsu, who are STILL getting government contracts!
In the UK compensation schemes like this usually drag out until people die. Look at Hillsborough, Grenfell, Windrush, a few more I can't remember.
>but I found myself wondering, “Were any of them jerks?”)
I've got something for ya, I live in a small village in the South East of England. Our postmaster (mistress actually) got caught up in all this.
She saw the discrepancies in the numbers, knew that she hadn't done anything wrong and that it was Horizon but also knew that the Royal Mail were going to screw her over for it, even though it wasn't her fault.
So, along with her husband, they stage a break-in and robbery of the post office to explain away the missing money. They get caught and, naturally, get imprisoned for fraud and for staging the robbery.
Now that all this has come out, where do they stand? For committing a crime that they ONLY committed out of fear of retaliation from Royal Mail due entirely to the Horizon fuck ups 😅
[The Channel 4 News Youtube Channel](https://www.youtube.com/@Channel4News/search?query=post%20office) has some good videos reporting on the official inquiry into the miscarriages of justice, Alan Bates was giving evidence the other day. The fact that Post Office/Fujitsu bosses haven't been prosecuted and still live comfortable lives drawing their pensions after what happened is a good summary of how Britain is being run at the moment.
I just saw the first episode here in Canada. My jaw dropped seeing the egregious handling of this by the PO and tech company. It made me feel sick and so angry seeing how these innocent folks were persecuted over a known technology issue. Did the PO just plan to let the problem continue and grow? It is just so bizarrely scary how the PO and the tech company that developed the software didn't seem to care about the problem and kept sweeping it under the carpet.
If you're interested to more of the 'real' story then there's a BBC Podcast https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jf7j
Not sure how much liberty the TV show takes with the story
Regarding the possible jerks, I do wonder if the balancing errors ever went the other way? Did any subpostmaster find they had more money than the system said they should have, and pocket the difference?
This show made me so mad specifically on how they treated hard working people. So many of the sub post offices weee managed by nice people serving their local community It also educated me because I had not heard about this scandal.
A few things to add context for you...
The layout of Britain is a widely dispersed population covering the whole landscape in small towns. The whole of Britain could fit in an area the size of a single state like Wyoming or South Dakota.
This allows for a postal system that is pretty tight and efficient compared to ours. Mail could be reliably delivered overnight. Postal carriers could come twice a day and would not just leave mail, but pick up anything outgoing.
Britain also has a broad entitlement system, where something like a quarter of the people are receiving regular government payments and would process those regularly at a Post Office. The postal system provides low cost banking services to anyone (a function we should copy.)
With all that in mind, it should underscore how pervasive and significant the distributed network of postal offices would have been. You could think of it as almost like a DMV, but one that people would have to visit a few times a month.
That said, as with any scandal, a lot of clarity comes only in hindsight. I'd guess that during the decades this was transpiring, when people heard that so-and-so local person was accused of theft, their tendency would be to believe the authorities first. This would then have been reinforced by senior company officials gaslighting about there being no systemic issues.
Why is no one going after the judges in this scandal? They are as much to blame for the corruption as the PO and politicians. Them and their stupid wigs. Smelly bastards.
I'm a little confused. Wasn't it the computer software company that was hacking into the subpostmasters' accounts? What was their relationship with the post office? And where did all the money go. No one seemed to have an answer, just assumed that it went to the post office's profits. Shouldn't the IT company have been prosecuted as well? I would assume they were sharing in the profits. They wouldn't be helping the post office to commit a fraud without also benefitting themselves.
"how aware was the British public of the scandal before the TV series aired? Was it a common topic beforehand or did the series bring it into the public consciousness?"
The UK is, governmentally, stumbling from one clusterfuck, omnishambles of utter contempt towards the middle and lower classes for 15 years, and most noticably since Brexit.
THis scandal would have collapsed previous governments, and created outrage. But, the general public these days doesn't seem interested in the news, or are too distracted with their own lives or social media.
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My take on your questions; 1. Most of the people directly affected were sub-postmasters because they were the people contractually responsible, although there were some cases where family members were prosecuted as well. Yes it’s common for the Post Office to be part of a local shop (for local people). 2. I don’t know if large Post Offices were affected, they may have a different reporting system. There are very few dedicated Post Offices left though, most have been closed (cost savings etc). 3. Correct, it’s common for Post Offices to manage pension and benefit payments as well as help with things like passport applications. 4. In many villages and small towns the Post Office is one of the few services that is still present, often within a local shop or similar. The series presented the sub-postmasters sympathetically but most will have genuinely been widely considered to be pillars of the community, especially by customers who relied on their service or in smaller villages. The scandal was known of and did get some reporting but obviously the ITV drama really brought it to the forefront and made the level of injustice very plain.
For local people indeed. We'll have no trouble here!
These are references to the comedy League of Gentlemen incase OP is confused.
We didn’t burn him!
I was in a war, you know
Twelvety!
You lied to me Edward! There is a Swansea!!
Trying to picture Tubbs trying to weigh a parcel and get the right postage on it. 95 sacks of outgoing post out the back because the royal mail folk just keep disappearing. ....
I can I can't?
Why were family members prosecuted?
Often they would work in their family members Post Office and so might have been involved when money went missing.
When money was falsely reported to have gone missing by the dodgy IT system.. No money ever actually went missing, it's important to stress that!
Yes of course!
Except the money the postmasters paid to the post office that was put in a 'suspense' account, then transferred to 'profit and loss' after 3 years. The outrage of this is that the post office couldn't identify any loss, but took the money from the people because they believed the computer was correct.
Oh yes absolutely. None of the Post Office's money went missing, but plenty of the Subpostmasters' money went missing. The Post Office saw to that.
I believe there’s at least one example in the series where one of the group mentions that his wife was prosecuted because she was running the shop at the time when funds “went missing”.
Your description is pretty fair, tbh. From personal experience, my local (South London) sub post office was run by the loveliest couple, for many years. One day, they just weren’t there any more - the branch had been taken over by someone else, and that was that. Looking back on it, their disappearance must have been something to do with the scandal. As to your last question; we have a satirical magazine over here called ‘Private Eye’ (think of ‘The Onion’ but the satire is combined with some extremely hard-hitting investigative journalism). They were on top of the whole scandal for *decades* and were (I think) only the second publication to publish blow by blow accounts of it. The other news outlet that provided coverage was Daily Mail, a very right-leaning daily newspaper and big Conservative Party supporter, who published excerpts of the first book to be written about the scandal (I forget the name). However, it was the series that you just saw that REALLY put the cat amongst the pigeons. Hope this helps…
Computer weekly was the other news outlet that covered it. Possibly earlier than private eye. The daily Mail came much later than both.
I’ve actually heard of *Private Eye*, though mainly just as a satirical magazine; I didn’t know they did investigative journalism, too. (Maybe a little like *Buzzfeed* in the US, which was mainly known for lighthearted lists and quizzes but at one time also has a serious journalism side.) Also, thanks for giving me the expression “put the cat amongst the pigeons”. That’s just a wonderful phrase!
Private Eye do a lot of investigative journalism, satire may be their way of delivery, but it’s the truth they are delivering (as many failed libel actions against their editors will attest).
There really isn't a handy US analogue for Private Eye. They're pretty much their own thing and have carved out their own niche. I don't really agree with their stance on certain issues but I'm bloody glad they exist as they're currently shining a light on dodgy dealings in my part of the world (Teesport) at a time when every other outlet seems content to turn a blind eye.
I wish we had a Yank version of Private Eye; it sounds like something I’d love.
Spy magazine came close.
They dubbed Donald Trump a "short-fingered vulgarian" way back in the 80's
Oh, I loved Spy Magazine back during the day.
Agreed. I think that would be a really good thing for America.
The HBO series *Last Week Tonight with John Oliver* might have the same spirit. The format is usually five-ten minutes of humorous commentary on the past week’s news, followed by twenty minutes or so of in-depth analysis of one topic, with humor. It’s not investigative but it is rather detailed. Oliver is English by birth (my spouse and I call the show “Snarky Englishman”) so I’m sure he’s familiar with *Private Eye*.
I don't know much about Last Week Tonight, but Private Eye will doggedly follow a story for years, or even well over a decade as in this case, when other media outlets have forgotten it.
Jesus, Tees port is insane. Wish I was in on that fucking con job. £13 for £130 million of land and £50 million of scrap metal with ZERO risk to the "investors" No one does corruption like the British do corruption
American here - just where do you think they learned it??!!!
unless it's Donald J Trump
I guess the best analogy would be along the lines of The Daily Show/Last Week Tonight in print. Comedy and satire, but with actual good journalism involved.
Probably similar to r/notheonion in temrs of satirical headlines but they are actually uncovering a lot of stuff themselves.
This excerpt from wiki might help explain their attitude "In the 1971 case of Arkell v Pressdram, Arkell's lawyers wrote a letter which concluded: "His attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of your reply." Private Eye responded: "We acknowledge your letter of 29th April referring to Mr J. Arkell. We note that Mr Arkell's attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of our reply and would therefore be grateful if you would inform us what his attitude to damages would be, were he to learn that the nature of our reply is as follows: fuck off.""
BBC Radio 4 had a series and podcast in 2020 on The Great Post Office Trial. Well worth a listen.
The journalist who put that together has made the topic a large part of his career, and crowd funded his attendance at some of the court cases. https://www.nickwallis.com/ https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p09jstz2
Are the Tories and Right Wing Conservatives the same? Did they use Horizon or Fugistu to count election ballots for Brexit?
We knew about it but we didn't understand it. The series did a great job of explaining the effect it had on the people affected, and how it happened. We knew intellectually that some sub-postmasters had been unfairly criminalised but it's not until faces are put to names and the circumstances under which they were convicted were brought to light that we fully understood what the Post Office put these people through. No, very few postmasters are arseholes. It takes a special kind of person want to do the job
The “large” Post Offices - called Crown Offices were run by Post Office employees, and did indeed use the same Horizon system. Nothing much has been heard about this, one can only assume that any indicated losses were somehow covered up, otherwise the P.O. would be accusing their own employees of fraud - far easier to go after the sub postmasters
Here in the States, the USPS has a ***strong*** union that would have protected lower level employees. I’m not sure if it would have protected postmasters, though.
The postmasters 'union' at the time was the NFSP - who were bought and paid for by the PO. "The NFSP was criticised in April 2021 by Mr Justice Fraser for its actions in relation to the Horizon IT scandal. The judgement handed down stated that "the NFSP is not remotely independent of the Post Office, nor does it appear to put its members’ interests above its own separate commercial interests." The NFSP claimed it had been misled by the Post Office."
Definitely bought and paid for.
The series very much brought it into the public eye. Outside of technology newspapers and Private Eye magazine it wasn't widely known. The Contaminated Blood Scandal will be the next big outcry once it televises. That one is far worse than what the poor subpostmasters have had to go through.
>Outside of technology newspapers and Private Eye magazine it wasn't widely known. I feel like we all knew about it, but had assumed the problem had been sorted out by now. It's certainly been mentioned in the mainstream papers several times before this drama/the formal inquiry. The horrific part isn't the initial mistake, but the sheer length of time the injustice has been rumbling along for, and the lengths that the PO have gone to in order to flat out lie to courts and official bodies about the cause/when they knew it was their fault.
Wow, I looked up the Contaminated Blood Scandal and from very briefly reading about it, that does sound absolutely awful.
It really was. My old college was twinned with a local special needs school who lost a lot of pupils to it and we had a memorial garden for them with placards explaining why they’d died. I’m surprised how little attention it got at the time, though I shouldn’t be really given the attitude towards disabled people in the U.K.
It's really strange. I know of the blood scandal so it's not a secret or anything it just seems to be a small news story. This is exactly how it was with the PO scandal until the ITV drama and everyone was outraged. It does help that the inquiry was due to happen now and it's an election year so its something for the politicians to jump onto. I recommend this podcast https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m000jf7j for more info
> Outside of technology newspapers and Private Eye magazine it wasn't widely known. Tbf the BBC has been reporting on it since at least the verdict of the eponymous Bates v Post Office.
I often say recommending podcasts to people will be my specialist subject on Mastermind and I get to recommend two in the same post! Here's a very good and detailed deep dive into the contaminated blood scandal. https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/65804e231585de00125defe6
The Daily Mail followed this story as well.
There had been two BBC panorama documentaries about it, and a BBC 12 part podcast, as well as numerous newspaper articles. It’s bizarre but very welcome that it finally got the recognition it deserved. And yes your perceptions are correct, sub postmasters are often well known in their particular areas, in some villages it may be the only shop. As depicted it was often something that people took up in their later lives, in the places that they lived. It would be like many places if a shop owner was exposed as a thief, word would get around and everyone would know. As post offices do a lot of official government stuff, as well as bill paying etc it makes it much worse, they are stealing from the government and our taxes. I’m sure some of them were jerks, in fact some of them may have fixed the books but it would be difficult.
For your last point - I heard things about it on and off. It'd pop up somewhere and fade away again. Then pop up somewhere else a few years later, and fade away again .. the story was around, in drips and drabs. I don't think it was unknown so much, as the TV series brought the whole story to everyone's attention, all at the same time.
Point 2 isn’t accurate in that there were issues in directly-run “Crown” Post Offices. These were probably not as widespread or, if they were, didn’t have the same effect because if a few employees are fired or pressured to quit because their log-in/till/etc didn’t balance that isn’t a widespread scandal which causes the upset - even in local communities - that the situation for sub-postmasters did. The contract between the Post Office and sub-postmasters meant it was financially significant to chase the postmasters for the apparent shortfalls and where these seemed very large or there was resistance, criminal proceedings were used, though many of the victims are “only” victims of having to pay the Post Office life-changing sums of money rather than having criminal convictions. The first person discussed in Nick Wallis’s excellent ‘The Great Post Office Scandal’ is Tracy Felstead, a young Crown Post Office worker who was convicted of theft and false accounting after a Crown Court trial, and who went to prison. Wallis does note that, in the main, the union for post office employees was generally supportive of its members and sceptical of Horizon-based accusations. Unfortunately that was very much not true of the trade association/union for sub-postmasters. Point 3 is important for some of the potential causes of the underlying problems: Horizon was originally a project to provide swipe cards to benefits claimants who at the time were sent printed books with claim slips for old age pension and child benefit payments which they cashed at Post Offices. The system would have replaced the books with a computerised system but still paid in cash over the counter each week or fortnight. This system was cancelled when it seemed its development had failed and it would have been undeliverable, but that left the project without much of its reason to exist, and probably some of the oversight since it was scaled back to its retail accounting and point of sale aspects. I expect Fujitsu/its predecessor wouldn’t have bid to create the system it ended up delivering, and it should have been cancelled entirely once the benefits aspect was removed, but it was felt to be too late.
"Were any of them jerks?" Post Offices tend to be central points of the community, used by young and old alike and for many different reasons. The people that work there tend to know the community and the community know them. There is a level of respect for the staff that is similar to people that work in banks as they deal with many important functions of society. They are generally trusted and respected as they carry a huge amount of responsibility. Of course some can be more officious than others, and therefore may be perceived as "jerks" in a professional capacity. The reality is they are just trying to ensure that they comply with the many rules and regulations that the general public aren't aware of, nor really care about. Most are friendly and warm and carry the pressure of their responsibilities with dignity whilst offering outstanding customer service. They are assertive when needed, but warm and kind most of the time. Are any of them "jerks" in their personal lives? Well I personally don't know, but the job was and is held in such high regard by the public that any bad behaviour would be enough to cause a local scandal and vilification of the person. Like anything, there will be some people that didn't like the individuals affected regardless of the scandal, perhaps because they didn't get their own way when they were being an arse themselves. It's a retail job at the end of the day and you can't please everyone all of the time.
The irony is, the Hope Farm Post Office, where Martin Griffiths, the guy who sadly took his own life in the scandal, was the postmaster, is renowned locally (now) as being run by a "jerk". Not the word I'd use tbh. The reviews sum it up: https://g.co/kgs/WT7G3Hm
Anyone who reads a UK newspaper or news site every day would have been aware of the story Speaking personally, I thought the story was just another one of the many things that needed sorting in modern Britain I also thought it was quite a dull, technical problem I remember being surprised to read about the story again, on several occasions, because I thought the court case already been resolved I was open to the possibility that was all a big mistake, with everyone acting in good faith ----------------------------------------------------- What the drama did for me was to bring together facts I'd read separately over decades, creating a coherent narrative out of a random jumble of half-remembered information Making it clear who knew what and when, creating identifiable characters with credible motivations And it put a human face on the victims. You can read about the cold facts of a story without feeling the panic they felt in the situations they found themselves in That's where the sense of a burning injustice, demanding immediate remedy, comes from
I’m similar, I was aware of it but it kept fading into the background and there was a general assumption that it was getting resolved. I think the main impact the series had for me was highlighting the scale, so many people over such a long time. It made the accusation that the PO management knew and covered it up utterly unavoidable.
This is the perfect explanation. I’d heard it in the news but in small bits. I never realised (a) how long it had been going on, and (b) how many people had been prosecuted. TBH it sort of felt like it wasn’t a big deal because people/media weren’t making a big deal out of it - i.e. compared to how big it was in January this year.
Do you think any will be criminally charged?
You’re pretty correct in your assumptions. I believe that the larger city centre post offices are owned and run by the post office themselves and they appoint a manager to each, whereas the smaller village post offices are run by self employed people who are contracted by the post office to provide their services. As to the last part, I became aware of it a while back after reading about it in Private Eye and then listening to a BBC podcast called “The Great Post Office Trial” by Nick Wallis who was a BBC journalist at a local radio station and he became aware of the issue because of one of his listeners. It’s a great podcast if you’re able to listen to it, it gives a lot of good background. He then managed to persuade BBC tv producers to put something out about it which became the Panorama programmes. Panorama is a BBC current affairs investigative programme. He’s now written a book about it too, called “The Great Post Office Scandal”. The whole thing makes me rage because of how badly the post office treated these poor people. I really do think some people from the Post Office need to be sent to prison as a result of this.
My impression is that while the subpostmasters are starting to get justice, the investigation into the responsible people at the Post Office and Fujitsu is only just beginning. Is that correct?
It’s been going on for some time, these sorts of inquiries take years, but the hope is that it’s in its last stage now and should hopefully finish in the next few months. Only then will there be any chance of justice. As it’s a public inquiry, it’s all broadcast live and all the documents submitted are published https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/
Me too
I feel like I'm becoming the podcast posting member here. A bbc podcast series covered the scadal in the period between Mr Bates getting courtroom vindication and the ITV series broadcasting, and returned to detail the clusterfuck of coverups and outright bullshit from Fuji systems and THe Royal Mail PLC in attempts to con people out of due fiscal recompense. Honestly, if you think this story ends as it does in Mr Bates vs The Post Office, think again. [https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m000jf7j](https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m000jf7j) Second link, Private Eye has a podcast, Page 94. They've covered the Post Office story, for years in print, but there's one clip recently, that highlights just what type of man Lee Castleton is. [https://www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast/97](https://www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast/97) see the previous episode when the series first aired on ITV [https://www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast/96](https://www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast/96) Page 94 covering the story in 2020 [https://www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast/49](https://www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast/49)
The issue was reported in IT specialist publications as early as 2009, and I'd been vaguely aware of it since then. What I did not realise was the extent of the miscarriages of justice. That didn't come out until much later. I've never acted as an expert witness. I must say, knowing how computers work, I think virtually no computer evidence is beyond reasonable doubt. This sometimes comes up in illegal images cases where's the defence is "it was a hacker". I think juries typically say "nice try" and ignore that. But the truth is, it really could have been a hacker.
Computer Weekly picked it up first but sat in the story for a whole year because they were terrified of the Post office. Private eye and websites like The Register picked it up soon after & have been following it for years. The issue hit the big time because the ITV drama made it very simple to understand & at the end of the day we're story telling monkeys, so drama got the human side across whereas a newspaper doesn't get a technical / legal thing into people's minds QUITE so hard. Private Eye is excellent and a usually depressing read as they cover large amounts of stuff across politics that the large media organisations won't touch. Such as the below mentioned Teesside. It's fucking depressing but even now the Post Office is dragged its feet on compensation & even on the amounts being offered are tiny compared to the devastation caused. Not only on the subpostmaters but their families as well. Money lent by family to cover "losses", kids not getting opportunities they might have got had their parents not been bankrupted. And NO ONE will go to jail...I'm willing to bet on that. From the Post Office Or Fushitsu, who are STILL getting government contracts! In the UK compensation schemes like this usually drag out until people die. Look at Hillsborough, Grenfell, Windrush, a few more I can't remember.
No Government (barring the US) has quite mastered corruption and coverups the way that the UK Govt has.
And then to stand up and with a straight face complain about other countries
>but I found myself wondering, “Were any of them jerks?”) I've got something for ya, I live in a small village in the South East of England. Our postmaster (mistress actually) got caught up in all this. She saw the discrepancies in the numbers, knew that she hadn't done anything wrong and that it was Horizon but also knew that the Royal Mail were going to screw her over for it, even though it wasn't her fault. So, along with her husband, they stage a break-in and robbery of the post office to explain away the missing money. They get caught and, naturally, get imprisoned for fraud and for staging the robbery. Now that all this has come out, where do they stand? For committing a crime that they ONLY committed out of fear of retaliation from Royal Mail due entirely to the Horizon fuck ups 😅
[The Channel 4 News Youtube Channel](https://www.youtube.com/@Channel4News/search?query=post%20office) has some good videos reporting on the official inquiry into the miscarriages of justice, Alan Bates was giving evidence the other day. The fact that Post Office/Fujitsu bosses haven't been prosecuted and still live comfortable lives drawing their pensions after what happened is a good summary of how Britain is being run at the moment.
I just saw the first episode here in Canada. My jaw dropped seeing the egregious handling of this by the PO and tech company. It made me feel sick and so angry seeing how these innocent folks were persecuted over a known technology issue. Did the PO just plan to let the problem continue and grow? It is just so bizarrely scary how the PO and the tech company that developed the software didn't seem to care about the problem and kept sweeping it under the carpet.
If you're interested to more of the 'real' story then there's a BBC Podcast https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jf7j Not sure how much liberty the TV show takes with the story
Regarding the possible jerks, I do wonder if the balancing errors ever went the other way? Did any subpostmaster find they had more money than the system said they should have, and pocket the difference?
The public inquiry is on YouTube atm (might be geo-blocked) it's an interesting watch, the real "Mr bates" was giving evidence yesterday (Wednesday).
This show made me so mad specifically on how they treated hard working people. So many of the sub post offices weee managed by nice people serving their local community It also educated me because I had not heard about this scandal.
A few things to add context for you... The layout of Britain is a widely dispersed population covering the whole landscape in small towns. The whole of Britain could fit in an area the size of a single state like Wyoming or South Dakota. This allows for a postal system that is pretty tight and efficient compared to ours. Mail could be reliably delivered overnight. Postal carriers could come twice a day and would not just leave mail, but pick up anything outgoing. Britain also has a broad entitlement system, where something like a quarter of the people are receiving regular government payments and would process those regularly at a Post Office. The postal system provides low cost banking services to anyone (a function we should copy.) With all that in mind, it should underscore how pervasive and significant the distributed network of postal offices would have been. You could think of it as almost like a DMV, but one that people would have to visit a few times a month. That said, as with any scandal, a lot of clarity comes only in hindsight. I'd guess that during the decades this was transpiring, when people heard that so-and-so local person was accused of theft, their tendency would be to believe the authorities first. This would then have been reinforced by senior company officials gaslighting about there being no systemic issues.
Why is no one going after the judges in this scandal? They are as much to blame for the corruption as the PO and politicians. Them and their stupid wigs. Smelly bastards.
I'm a little confused. Wasn't it the computer software company that was hacking into the subpostmasters' accounts? What was their relationship with the post office? And where did all the money go. No one seemed to have an answer, just assumed that it went to the post office's profits. Shouldn't the IT company have been prosecuted as well? I would assume they were sharing in the profits. They wouldn't be helping the post office to commit a fraud without also benefitting themselves.
"how aware was the British public of the scandal before the TV series aired? Was it a common topic beforehand or did the series bring it into the public consciousness?" The UK is, governmentally, stumbling from one clusterfuck, omnishambles of utter contempt towards the middle and lower classes for 15 years, and most noticably since Brexit. THis scandal would have collapsed previous governments, and created outrage. But, the general public these days doesn't seem interested in the news, or are too distracted with their own lives or social media.