Not generous at all -- it's about a single day of legal work in this kind of case. Given the circumstances, the entire legal costs should be covered, however much they rise to. There's no legitimate argument for the victims incurring any additional costs.

The local solicitor my friend was using was charging £350 per hour. That's like 3 hours of work. You can probably do some assessment whether the claim has any standing during that time, but to prepare it? Doubt it.

What about serious punishment for those who, once they knew of problems, first didn't have a pair to let the system's users know, so they could report errors or, if they didn't like that, then stop the system entirely and at least revert to a manual system; and second, then went on to hide the errors.

That there are problems is part of the 'fun' of IT. But if you don't collect evidence to help debug the system you just make it harder to solve. Knowing it's shit and that these postmasters were suffering is just egregiously inexcusable.

Fine them heavily, then lock them up , as some in the US may say.

Absolutely this!

From earlier articles, I believe that senior managers have been proven to have known that there were serious issues with Horizon - both within the Post Office and Fujitsu and yet they lied and were happy to see livelihoods and in some cases, lives, lost. Lied under oath, lets remember.

Add up all the time the people impacted by this spent in jail. Then double it and share the time out between the senior staff.

And whilst you're at it force them to sell their assets - after all they were effectively gained via illegal actions - and give the proceeds to the above people.

This is one of, if not the worst miscarriage of justice the UK has ever seen and yet the real criminals continue to walk around free.

Also as a side note - it's time private companies (PO, TFL etc) had powers to arrest and prosecute removed. They aren't the police.

Why should TfL lose the power to prosecute fare evaders?

Because an independent third party who has all the facts must make the judgement whether or not a crime has been committed.

Bad things happen when one entity is judge, jury and executioner. Or in control of the evidence that could prove innocence or guilt. This Post Office scandal clearly illustrates how that approach goes badly wrong.

In the case of TfL, there are many possibilities where "fare evasion" might appear to have happened but actually hasn't: ticket goons not knowing TfL's rules or applying them incorrectly, broken Oyster cards (or readers), human error, passengers buying the wrong ticket in good faith, etc.

Yeah, but TfL cases are heard in the court. They are not judge, jury and executioner. So how's that different to, say, DFS taking me to court for not paying for my sofa, or getting a parking ticket from NCP?

TfL revenue have no power of arrest, by the way. They work alongside e.g. the BTP who DO have a power of arrest. Did I misunderstand which bit of the OP was in error?

Fine them heavily, then lock them up , as some in the US may say.

[1]Putting people into universities of crime at public expense is of doubtful utility . They've cost the public vast amounts of money, so spending more on them is not an obvious approach, especially as they have not been shown to be violent/a physical danger to the public.

I'm in favour of them having the benefits of their criminal activity removed (Ill gotten gains) - a financial arrangement that removes padded pension schemes, bonuses, inflated salaries etc, and furthermore being saddled with a debt that is undischargeable by bankruptcy, but which can be paid of by a reasonable attachment/garnishment on their subsequent income until the debt (to society) is paid off. I don't think it'll happen though. Being forced to live on an income that is below median ought to be the minimum.

Depriving people capable of earning an honest wage of their liberty has two costs: you have to house them securely, and they aren't paying taxes. It should be a last resort once other methods have been tried and failed - the intent of the justice system should be about rehabilitation - it ends up being cheaper, and you get productive members of society out of it.

Surveys of criminals show that the incentive that works is not gaol, but being caught. These have been caught. They should have no gains from their criminality, and the victims should be compensated in full. Anything else is immoral.

[1] https://davidallengreen.com/2022/12/prisons-will-not-be-reformed-until-and-unless-we-rethink-our-views-on-punishment-and-retribution/

So, is this money for compensation coming from BEIS (ie public purse) or somewhere else?

The only place it should be from is the upper echelons of the post office and Fujitsu. The entire senior management and legal team of the PO and Fujitsu knowingly involved in this should be in court - have their assets seized, nice houses and cars impounded, etc,. and made to pay compensation and publically disgraced, like the sub-PM's were. Then they should be jailed where due, barred from holding any senior public body figure again, and Fujitsu barred from undertaking any public sector work. Ever. The only ones who should be spared should be a few whistle blowers who may have stood up and said "hang on, instead of all our employees being crooks, maybe there is something wrong with the system?"

Dang I started to write the same reply but got distracted and by the time I hit submit you'd already said it. Eloquently.

The Post Office refused to pay, and made it clear that they would drag it out in court for years.

Many of their victims are older persons so the government made the decision to pay it themselves and then reclaim the money from the Post Office later on. This way the victims get the compensation quicker.

The Post Office would, could and did drag it out in court for years. In 2019 when the privately funded litigation won £57M (from which reports noted roughly half went to the litigation firm funding the case, and the other half to the 550 subpostmasters who had joined the case), the judge noted that the Post Office "has resisted timely resolution of this Group Litigation whenever it can". The Post Office was estimated to have spent over £20M on their own lawyers.

Again, that happened more than three years ago.

The suffering these postmasters endured was beyond belief. Compensation is highest priority but the accountability of those who continued with prosecutions despite questionable evidence must immediately follow this.

Next step, private prosecutions against the individuals that are culpable for this - name them, shame them, make them pay even if it means personal ruin. There's no excuse, there must be consequences and there must be deterrents for this type of behaviour in future.

At least justice has been served and the boss at the time took full responsibility for the failings.

Pardon...? Promoted? CBE? Rich as hell? Still not taking any responsibility? Wicked Witch of the West?

The great British business models "we need to pay well to get good quality management" and "the boss is paid to take responsibility" have been shown to be complete fallacies.

But still makes me bloody angry.

not for those who killed themselves.

p.s. has anyone been punished, or was it a x-years long, force-extracted 'uh-oh... sorry....!'

-> A statutory public inquiry is currently investigating the scandal, calling witnesses from both the Post Office and Fujitsu

At the end of it the postmasters will be treated to some big words from some bigwig: lessons must be learned and we must ensure this never happens again. But we don't think it is in anybody's interest for anyone at the Post Office or Fujitsu to be held to account.

"...lessons must be learned"

I fucking hate that phrase with a passion. Might as well say "We don't care. Never did. Never will. Fuck the victims. Carry on."

"...received £43 million ($52 million) plus legal costs in a settlement. But the bulk of the money was consumed by the costs of funding the case."

I'm struggling to understand this. Is there a subtle legal difference between " the costs of funding the case" and "legal costs"? Because to a simple layman it sure seems like it *should* be the same thing.