Parliament demands to know the score with Fujitsu as Post Office Horizon scandal gets inquiry with legal teeth
- Reference: 1621440581
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/05/19/post_office_horizon_scandal_public_inquiry_announced/
- Source link:
The existing inquiry, chaired by retired judge Sir Wyn Williams, has no legal powers to force witnesses to give evidence, raising fears it would not be able to scrutinise people such as ex-Post Office CEO Paula Vennells if they decided not to co-operate.
Junior business minister Paul Scully told the House of Commons today: "I will convert the inquiry into a statutory footing [sic] on the first of June 2021."
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"The Horizon saga has wrecked lives and livelihoods," continued the minister, reading from a prepared statement. "We can't undo the damage that has been done. But we can establish what went wrong with the Post Office and ensure something like this is never allowed to happen again."
MPs listening were not convinced. Darren Jones, Labour MP for Bristol North West, asked: "We welcome the statement today. However, if I've understood it correctly, the terms of reference are still being decided by ministers, and not by the independent chair, Sir Wyn Williams. Why?"
The minister said Williams had asked for extra powers, though his inquiry "wouldn't explore matters of substantive criminal law."
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As the Post Office is wholly owned by government, many inside and outside Parliament have asked what the government did to rein in the hundreds of false prosecutions carried out by internal Post Office investigators aided and abetted by Japan-headquartered IT contractor Fujitsu. A [5]civil claim for damages was settled by the Post Office in December 2019 , with most of the money going to lawyers.
Fujitsu cannot hide forever
During private prosecutions Post Office and Fujitsu staff lied to courts across the country for 15 years, deceiving judges and juries into believing the Fujitsu-made Horizon accounting and stock control IT system was infallible. In reality Horizon was full of bugs and generated huge accounting shortfalls.
Even though managers inside the Post Office were repeatedly warned about the bugs making their prosecutions legally unsafe, the evidence was covered up – and wrongful prosecutions continued regardless. [6]39 convictions were overturned in April , with up to 400 more potentially being quashed after the Post Office wrote to them all.
Duncan Baker, Conservative MP for North Norfolk, poured scorn on Scully's suggestion that formally clearing subpostmasters of criminal convictions was enough compensation for the scandal's victims, saying:
I think justice and peace of mind is just one thing, but the matter of compensation for the victims is another and Fujitsu must not be let off the hook on this. What assessment has the minister made of ensuring that Fujitsu contribute compensation to the funds and make sure that those people who are still as we know hugely at a loss are properly compensated?
Scully prevaricated, murmuring: "He raises a pertinent point about Fujitsu. It's for the Post Office… to work out the terms of compensation and to build an issue around that. But I'm sure that [the subpostmasters] will hear what he said and absolutely raise that incredibly prevalent point, as they – as they seek redress."
However, the minister appeared to concede later that anyone from the Post Office or Fujitsu who was found guilty of crimes over the scandal could be punished by being made to pay compensation directly to their victims: "But we'll continue to look at what we can do to get full and fair settlement of compensation for postmasters in the different branches, of the stages of – of the civil cases and indeed the criminal cases."
The minister also mentioned that the Post Office was looking to replace Horizon with "a successor CRM system moving forward", something that doesn't quite square with the £42.5m [7]Horizon contract extension given to Fujitsu in April . If the contract sum was payable upfront as a lump sum it could be very useful – if, for some reason or another, Fujitsu faced a sudden need to pay out several millions of pounds.
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Kevan Jones, Labour MP for North Durham, summed up public feeling about the scandal by telling the minister: "Remember that in 2019, the Post Office spent £100m of taxpayers' money defending the civil case. In a case which frankly was... completely indefensible."
He concluded: "I know ministers like to hide beyond the Post Office [and say it's] their fault. It's not, it's a wholly owned company of government. Government's got to take responsibility for this." ®
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[5] https://www.theregister.com/2019/12/12/post_office_horizon_case_settled/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/23/post_office_scandal_fujitsu_convictions_quashed/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/07/post_office_fujitsu_horizon_extension/
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Re: At last!
Plus many multiples of their wealth in payments for damages and many years in prison for fals accounting, perjury, false imprisonment, malfeasance in public office and being compete shits in general.
Re: At last!
There’s also “perverting the course of justice” and “conspiracy to pervert the course of justice” that ought to cop a fair number of Fujitsu and PO staff.
Fujitsu’s expert witnesses Gareth Jenkins and Anne Chambers will probably be hung out to dry (deservedly so) and used as a human shield for everyone else, I suspect.
Re: At last!
Paula Venells, all of the Post Office staff who aided her, the post office lawyers and Fujitsu including the individuals involved should all be in court for their malicious and criminal actions to cover up the shortcomings of the system and the failures to address them in a an honest and professional way.
However, in my crystal ball all I see is a bucket with a brush sticking out of the top.
Re: At last!
I hope some of the Discovery work for these cases leaks to the public domain. I'd love to see some "smoking gun" emails pointing at Venells and others...
Government delays in deciding ...
are quite understandable. They first have to find out if any of their mates are likely to be adversely affected if the inquiry is made a statutory one.
STOP. GIVING. FUJITSU. GOVERNMENT. CONTRACTS.
That is all...
Re: STOP. GIVING. FUJITSU. GOVERNMENT. CONTRACTS.
Fujistu bought ICL so they have to get all the government contractors because they are the last BRITISH computer company
Still
In spite of absolutely clear evidence, and yes dead bodies, the government continues to prevaricate and protect the guilty, all at our expense.
Typical bullcrap
If I falsify testing results on aircraft parts, I can be held liable even though I'm working for a company... we all sign the paperwork off all the way through the process from recieving the purchase order all the way through to delivery to our customer.
Fujitsu and the post office KNEW horizons was not fit for purpose and that its data should not be relied on , if we tried that sort of thing, the company would be kicked off the customer's approved contractors list and I'd be kicked out of a job.. and god forbid an aircraft went down through our falsifying records...
The suits in charge of the PO and fujitsu should in in the dock answering why they decieved the courts into thinking horizons was telling the truth and explain why they falsely jailed so many people over it.
And then suffer a f'ing long prison sentence to deter other c-level execs from doing that sort of thing too
Re: Typical bullcrap
Great post. I particularly like "c-level execs". Does anyone else read that "C" as a well-known Anglo-Saxon word?
Re: Typical bullcrap
I didn't... but I do now cheers
Re: Typical bullcrap
Yep , cretins, pronounced “cunts”
Re: Typical bullcrap
So on the back of this does anyone trust the police national computer?
Background checks on teachers/etc?
Forensic DNA results?
Track and Trace?
The thing I'd like to know a LOT more about is ...
.. the ability, mentioned in the excellent BBC Radio 4 series detailing the history of the Horizon Scandal, for people on the Horizon operations staff to view and/or make changes to the database content of the live system. IOW I'd like to know:
why was it part of the live system?
who was intended to use it and for what purpose?
was its use logged and if not, why not?
did the auditors know it was there?
As soon as the radio program mentioned that a terminal was available to the operations team that could give that level of access, regardless of whether, as the program implied, it supported designed-in auditing and account manipulation functions or was merely a login with access to a DBA's SQL command utility, the fact that it was accessible to an apparently ordinary member of the operations team was an obvious warning that all was not well with Horizon, e.g.:
if something like that is normally connected to the live system, just how much system and acceptance testing, if any, had ever been done?
had anybody made unauthorized use of it?
The one thing that no one
seems to mention is that this Horizon shit was introduced by the Labour party. And as they were in power for 10 years of it's life methinks that gobby Labour MPs should keep their traps shut. Stones and glasshouses.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56718036
Re: The one thing that no one
>methinks that gobby Labour MPs should keep their traps shut
You're obviously not old enough to have watched "Yes, Minister", a documentary that was disguised as a sitcom. MPs are like worker bees in business; they have a nominal role but they're not necessarily part of the management team and are invariably excluded from decision making until their 'soundness' is verified.
I don't have much faith that the everyday MP was involved in any decisions about Horizon. They'd have been fed the Powerpoint pablum like everyone else -- and not encouraged to ask any questions. Once bitten, though....
Re: The one thing that no one
On the other hand, the first case of fraud brought by the PO was in 2007, just as Gordon Brown became Prime Minster. By the time Cameron came in in 2010, Labour had had 3 years of seeing multiple caes being brought and an action group being set up to contest the alarmingly growing number of supposed fraud cases. Even in 2009, back under Labour, at least one case was deferred due to questions over the IT system. It was known about and on the public record under Labour.
The Torys were worse thoiugh, they have presided of all of the rest of the process and not taken action, but as pointed out above, it did start under Labour and the warning flags had already been raised.
Re: The one thing that no one
Actually it was first piloted in 1995 and the contract was awarded in 1996 having started the procurement in 1994…. Labour inherited it from the Tory government that were in power until May 1997. The Labour government actually stopped the Social Security aspect of the system in 1999 - which only left the Post Office counters part to continue which was managed by the Post Office themselves (or at least Consignia, their holding company)
There needs to be established...
...a criminal offence of 'reckless prosecution', along similar lines to 'reckless driving'.
Prosecutors and witnesses, as in this case, have the power to destroy lives as effectively as a dangerous driver - and when their conduct in using those powers amounts to recklessness, they should face similar penalties, including imprisonment.
And this, I think, is one of those very rare cases where the conduct was so serious and persistent that it could be argued the proposed law should be applied retroactively.
At last!
Paula Vennells and Fujitsu deserve their day in court