Were Still More UK Postmasters Also Wrongly Prosecuted Over Accounting Bug? (computerweekly.com)
(Sunday April 06, 2025 @03:34AM (EditorDavid)
from the post-haste dept.)
- Reference: 0176939751
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/04/06/0221239/were-still-more-uk-postmasters-also-wrongly-prosecuted-over-accounting-bug
- Source link: https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366621800/Post-Office-Capture-and-ECCO-users-asked-to-make-contact-with-Scottish-statutory-body
U.K. postmasters were mistakenly sent to prison due to a bug in their "Horizon" accounting software — as first reported by Computer Weekly back [1]in 2009 . Nearly 16 years later, the same site reports that now the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission "is [2]attempting to contact any former subpostmasters that could have been [3]prosecuted for unexplained losses on the Post Office's pre-Horizon Capture software .
"There are former subpostmasters that, like Horizon users, could have been convicted of crimes based on data from these systems..."
> Since [4]the Post Office Horizon scandal hit the mainstream in January 2024 — revealing to a wide audience the suffering experienced by subpostmasters who were blamed for errors in the Horizon accounting system — users of Post Office software that predated Horizon [5]have come forward ... to tell their stories, which echoed those of victims of the Horizon scandal. The Criminal Cases Review Commission for England and Wales is now reviewing 21 cases of potential wrongful conviction... where the Capture IT system could be a factor...
>
> The SCCRC is now calling on people that might have been convicted based on Capture accounts to come forward. "The commission encourages anyone who believes that their criminal conviction, or that of a relative, might have been affected by the Capture system to make contact with it," it said. The statutory body is also investigating a third Post Office system, [6]known as Ecco+ , which was also error-prone...
>
> A total of 64 former subpostmasters in Scotland have now had their convictions overturned through the legislation brought through Scottish Parliament. So far, 97 convicted subpostmasters have come forward, and 86 have been assessed, out of which the 64 have been overturned. However, 22 have been rejected and another 11 are still to be assessed. An independent group, fronted by a former Scottish subpostmaster, is also calling on users of any of the Post Office systems to come forward to tell their stories, and for support in seeking justice and redress.
[1] https://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240089230/Bankruptcy-prosecution-and-disrupted-livelihoods-Postmasters-tell-their-story
[2] https://irp.cdn-website.com/8f56052e/files/uploaded/Capture_information_sheet_-_news_release.pdf
[3] https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366621800/Post-Office-Capture-and-ECCO-users-asked-to-make-contact-with-Scottish-statutory-body
[4] https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Post-Office-Horizon-scandal-explained-everything-you-need-to-know
[5] https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366568092/MP-demands-answers-from-government-minister-over-second-faulty-Post-Office-IT-system
[6] https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366614435/Federation-requests-government-investigation-into-third-Post-Office-branch-system
"There are former subpostmasters that, like Horizon users, could have been convicted of crimes based on data from these systems..."
> Since [4]the Post Office Horizon scandal hit the mainstream in January 2024 — revealing to a wide audience the suffering experienced by subpostmasters who were blamed for errors in the Horizon accounting system — users of Post Office software that predated Horizon [5]have come forward ... to tell their stories, which echoed those of victims of the Horizon scandal. The Criminal Cases Review Commission for England and Wales is now reviewing 21 cases of potential wrongful conviction... where the Capture IT system could be a factor...
>
> The SCCRC is now calling on people that might have been convicted based on Capture accounts to come forward. "The commission encourages anyone who believes that their criminal conviction, or that of a relative, might have been affected by the Capture system to make contact with it," it said. The statutory body is also investigating a third Post Office system, [6]known as Ecco+ , which was also error-prone...
>
> A total of 64 former subpostmasters in Scotland have now had their convictions overturned through the legislation brought through Scottish Parliament. So far, 97 convicted subpostmasters have come forward, and 86 have been assessed, out of which the 64 have been overturned. However, 22 have been rejected and another 11 are still to be assessed. An independent group, fronted by a former Scottish subpostmaster, is also calling on users of any of the Post Office systems to come forward to tell their stories, and for support in seeking justice and redress.
[1] https://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240089230/Bankruptcy-prosecution-and-disrupted-livelihoods-Postmasters-tell-their-story
[2] https://irp.cdn-website.com/8f56052e/files/uploaded/Capture_information_sheet_-_news_release.pdf
[3] https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366621800/Post-Office-Capture-and-ECCO-users-asked-to-make-contact-with-Scottish-statutory-body
[4] https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Post-Office-Horizon-scandal-explained-everything-you-need-to-know
[5] https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366568092/MP-demands-answers-from-government-minister-over-second-faulty-Post-Office-IT-system
[6] https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366614435/Federation-requests-government-investigation-into-third-Post-Office-branch-system
UK (Score:2)
by pele ( 151312 )
Has becime such an inept country it's inconceivable anyone still lives there. Postoffice, brexit, dole, ulez, wars, woke, need I say more?
Everybody is to blame (Score:3)
Absolutely every part of this whole thing stinks, at every level. Not one instituion involved in it comes out looking in any way clean.
1. That the software was so shody in the first place.
2. The the Post Office knew about it and continued to use it anyway.
3. That the Post Office knew that the software allows remote access to the sub-postmaster's accounts and could make remote changes tot heir data, and lied about.
4. That Fujitsu appears to have lied to the UK counts on issue 3 above, and so have committed perjury.
5. That the Post Office knew they were making proesecutions based on false/fraudulant evidence.
6. That the Post Office (basically a private company with a government charter) can make prosecutions at all (why aren't they required to just delegate it to the police and CPS like everyone else).
7. That everyone has known about this since it was first reported in aroud 2015, but everyone has done their best to conspicuously ignore it.
8. That the courts and the judges presiding over them prosecuted and sentences these people on such nonsense evidence.
9. That there was no oversight over these prosecutions. How is it possible that no one noticed a pattern, a trend. There was a hughe spike in a particular type of presecution of a particular type of defendant all with the Post Office as the prosecuting body, all with the same basic claims about the reliability of their software as the deciding factor. Are we really to believe that no one noticed a pattern here?
10. That the government has known about this, and it has been spoken about in partiliament since about 2019.
11. That successive governments have done nothing about it.
12. That it took a hit TV show to make the problem impossible to ignore any longer.
13. That the police have known about this enourmous miscarrige of justice, and have had an open case against Fujitsu for perjury, for about 10 years, and have done nothing.
14. That we all know that absolutely everyone in power who had a part to play in this (the managers of the Post Office, the judges who issued the ridiculous sentences, the politicians who turned a blind eye, the police who knew about a miscarrige of justice and did nothing) will get away with it without any sanction of any kind whatsoever.
I've probably missed a few, there's plenty of shame to go around here...
Re: (Score:3)
> 7. That everyone has known about this since it was first reported in aroud 2015, but everyone has done their best to conspicuously ignore it.
It was first reported long before then, from 2009 according to the wikipedia article. I remember reading about it in [1]https://www.theregister.com/ [theregister.com] at about that time, and saw articles in Private Eye not long after.
[1] https://www.theregister.com/
Re: (Score:2)
> Everybody is to blame
When everyone is at fault, no one is at fault. That's why we design systems to dilute responsibility as perfectly as possible.