6 ms·

UK Post Office: 700 Horizon software scandal victims to receive £600k each

89 points by martynr 3y ago

tyingq 3y ago
They did answer my first question after reading the headline... "The government said the new compensation offer was in addition to paying for all reasonable legal fees, and any post office operator who does not want to accept it can continue with the existing legal process."
- gumballindie 3y ago
  What i am curious though is if they’ll be taxed on the money. Of so that means the compensation is far lower.
  - tyingq 3y ago
    Some about that here: https://www.rossmartin.co.uk/private-client-a-estate-planning/income-losses-claims-reliefs/6805-post-office-horizon-compensation-how-are-receipts-taxed https://www.rossmartin.co.uk/private-client-a-estate-plannin... Though that's talking about the prior monies paid, and not specifically this.
  - gizajob 3y ago
    I believe compensation doesn't count as taxable income.
  - pipes 3y ago
    They may have already had to pay for bed and board for free accomodation they got while in prison: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/06/wrongly-convicted-prisoners-no-longer-pay-jail-living-costs/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/06/wrongly-convicte... I remember David blunket introducing this ghastly mechanism and being shocked that no one cared. He was an awful home secretary.
gumballindie 3y ago
No news about convicts being let go earlier or a little bit after yet? Some software in the uk is really just good looking bugs that work for the most straight forward use case and nothing else. Difficult to maintain attention to detail when the product management culture is to make changes for the sake of changes.
edandersen 3y ago
Any prosecutions yet for the people behind the scandal?
- darkclouds 3y ago
  Get real, this is the UK, in fact if you follow the progression of some of the key players, they are now manipulating politicians. So once politicians learn to give the bird to the media headlights, you might start to see this country cleaned up, ironically I think Russell Brand can probably do more to clean up the media and their witch hunts than any member of the Royal Family or Govt. Personally I think £600k is an insult!
  - valdiorn 3y ago
    Wait until you read about this guy https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/27/innocent-andrew-malkinson-wrongful-conviction-compensation/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/27/innocent-andrew-... The maximum compensation you can get in the UK is around 1.1 million IIRC. They were going to deduct several hundred thousand pounds from that for "room and board" while he was in jail, leaving him with just over 700k
    - psd1 3y ago
      I don't think you read TFA, which anyway had a misleading title. He would not be charged for his prison costs. It appears to be a factor in determining compensation. It looks to me like they are basing it on how much he would have earned had he been free to work, in which context you can see the logic of deducting costs he would have incurred. I find this callous and despicable, but the problem is related to determining the value of a human life - there isn't really an answer, yet guidance is needed for consistency between cases. How would you approach it? I think £2m should be enough for a reasonably comfortable retirement in most of the UK, and that over 10 years is enough of a person's liberty taken to warrant providing that. Should someone get more if they were a high earner? I'd like compensation to come out of the DPP budget, to align incentives properly, but starving that department might result in less justice instead of more.
  - 3y ago
rajandatta 3y ago
I've followed this matter a little bit as I work in the I.T. industry. I don't live in the UK and have no knowledge of the actors. The government response, including this announcement is shockingly deficient and on the low side of the impact. For a start - it only targets those who were convicted. It does not take into account all actors adversely impacted including falsely accused but not convicted. It doesn't take into account the circumstances of the victims. The government does not at all seem inclined to take any substantive action on this matter other than writing a cheque. Open question to those in the UK closer to this - How do you see the government's response? What is the public sentiment on the matter. Does anyone have any insight why charges are not being pursued against Post Office Management in light of substantial evidence of wrong doing?
- pipes 3y ago
  I live in the UK. It's bizarrely barely news. The scale of it is staggering yet the media coverage is small. Well it feels small to me. I don't see any public outrage about this. Part of me thinks it's because it's sort of an institution like the NHS and critisizing it is a no no (though it has been privitized). I want to see heads roll at the post office. As far as I can remember staff knew about the software issues but covered them up. Also why wasn't the burden of proof on the software developers to prove to the court it was correct? Can the vendor be held accountable? And lastly, the bonuses the board have paid themselves for cooperating with the enquirey, that's truly sickening. It's rotten on so many levels. It's money for sending innocent people to prison.
  - toyg 3y ago
    I think part of the reason for relative quietness is: after 30 years of privatisation drives, what is left of the Post Office is just another business with some extra regulatory burden. "Business Screwing Up" happens every day and is hardly news. This said, thank goodness some free press still exists in the UK. Without Private Eye, these folks would never have seen even the little justice they received.
    - psd1 3y ago
thmsths 3y ago
What I can't comprehend is the scale of the failure of the justice system here. Unless I am mistaken there were hundreds of victims over more than a decade. So 700 trials, in which the judges and the juries failed these people. How can such a systemic failure happen? It paints a very poor picture of the justice system in the UK ...
- fauigerzigerk 3y ago
  It's because Post Office bosses failed to disclose the facts. This was/is a systematic cover-up. What I don't understand is why the people responsible for this, such as then CEO Paula Vennells, do not face criminal charges. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/18/post-office-scandal-cover-up-justice https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/18/post-o... https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/apr/23/post-office-aggressive-pursuit-of-staff-ex-boss-paula-vennells https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/apr/23/post-office... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Vennells https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Vennells
  - zzbn00 3y ago
    This is the key. The prosecutions were all "private prosecutions" by the post office, in which a private entity begins (and sometimes carries through to end) a prosecution _on behalf of the people_. There is an enormous amount of incredible litigation behaviour by the post office in this case. The problem for them is: it all came to trial in the end and its there for everyone to read in painful detail. Here is, for example, the post office trying to remove the judge in the case after it all started unraveling: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2019/871.html https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2019/871.html And in 929 of https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2019/3408.html https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2019/3408.html the Judge writes of Post office senior officers refusal to accept to flaws of Horizon even very late in the game: "This approach by the Post Office has amounted, in reality, to bare assertions and denials that ignore what has actually occurred, at least so far as the witnesses called before me in the Horizon Issues trial are concerned. It amounts to the 21st century equivalent of maintaining that the earth is flat. "
walthamstow 3y ago
You can subscribe to Private Eye here for £38 a year with an issue through your letterbox every fortnight https://checkout.private-eye.co.uk/singleitem?item=PEY&prom=W37AAPEA https://checkout.private-eye.co.uk/singleitem?item=PEY&prom=...
- 15457345234 3y ago
  Oh they have a podcast, how intriguing
  - zimpenfish 3y ago
    Infuriatingly irregular though (I will concede the last couple of months haven't been too bad.) Also a bit short but I suppose it's essentially a trailer for the magazine and going longer may cannibalise those sales.
- FridayNightTV 3y ago
  +1 for Private Eye. Real investigative journalism, holding politicians to account, all whist taking the piss in classic British style. If Private Eye hadn't investigated this, who would have?
  - BerislavLopac 3y ago
    Byline Times follows a very similar model, only with less humour: https://bylinetimes.com/ https://bylinetimes.com/
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
drcongo 3y ago
There was an excellent Radio 4 series about this scandal, available as a podcast here - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-great-post-office-trial/id1569800816 https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-great-post-office-...
justusw 3y ago
Fujitsu? I am sure the link is only the company name, but the Japanese government contracted out the ID card deployment largely to them, leading to a catastrophic rollout: https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/30/fujitsu_japan_micjet_id_card_pause/ https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/30/fujitsu_japan_micjet_... Some were able to do bank related activities as unrelated people because their cards were issued around the same time, and this thing will be our medical insurance ID at the end of 2024
kcartlidge 3y ago
A few mentions of Private Eye pushing the story. True, but also worth mentioning The Register and, especially, Computer Weekly who actually broke the story: https://archive.ph/OYJwW https://archive.ph/OYJwW
mrlonglong 3y ago
It's high time the UK sorted out the Tories (who caused the whole thing with their "assholery"). They have systematically raped the country of its wealth during the years they were in charge. County councils going bankrupt because Tories deliberately starved Labour run councils of money. Our beautiful NHS going into the shitter because they are starving in preparation for US style health care that will cost billions. This post office scandal is just the tip of the iceberg. You'll see.

89 points by martynr 3y ago

They did answer my first question after reading the headline... "The government said the new compensation offer was in addition to paying for all reasonable legal fees, and any post office operator who does not want to accept it can continue with the existing legal process."

gumballindie 3y ago
What i am curious though is if they’ll be taxed on the money. Of so that means the compensation is far lower.
- tyingq 3y ago
  Some about that here: https://www.rossmartin.co.uk/private-client-a-estate-planning/income-losses-claims-reliefs/6805-post-office-horizon-compensation-how-are-receipts-taxed https://www.rossmartin.co.uk/private-client-a-estate-plannin... Though that's talking about the prior monies paid, and not specifically this.
- gizajob 3y ago
  I believe compensation doesn't count as taxable income.
- pipes 3y ago
  They may have already had to pay for bed and board for free accomodation they got while in prison: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/06/wrongly-convicted-prisoners-no-longer-pay-jail-living-costs/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/06/wrongly-convicte... I remember David blunket introducing this ghastly mechanism and being shocked that no one cared. He was an awful home secretary.

gumballindie 3y ago

No news about convicts being let go earlier or a little bit after yet? Some software in the uk is really just good looking bugs that work for the most straight forward use case and nothing else. Difficult to maintain attention to detail when the product management culture is to make changes for the sake of changes.

edandersen 3y ago

Any prosecutions yet for the people behind the scandal?

darkclouds 3y ago
Get real, this is the UK, in fact if you follow the progression of some of the key players, they are now manipulating politicians. So once politicians learn to give the bird to the media headlights, you might start to see this country cleaned up, ironically I think Russell Brand can probably do more to clean up the media and their witch hunts than any member of the Royal Family or Govt. Personally I think £600k is an insult!
- valdiorn 3y ago
  Wait until you read about this guy https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/27/innocent-andrew-malkinson-wrongful-conviction-compensation/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/27/innocent-andrew-... The maximum compensation you can get in the UK is around 1.1 million IIRC. They were going to deduct several hundred thousand pounds from that for "room and board" while he was in jail, leaving him with just over 700k
  - psd1 3y ago
    I don't think you read TFA, which anyway had a misleading title. He would not be charged for his prison costs. It appears to be a factor in determining compensation. It looks to me like they are basing it on how much he would have earned had he been free to work, in which context you can see the logic of deducting costs he would have incurred. I find this callous and despicable, but the problem is related to determining the value of a human life - there isn't really an answer, yet guidance is needed for consistency between cases. How would you approach it? I think £2m should be enough for a reasonably comfortable retirement in most of the UK, and that over 10 years is enough of a person's liberty taken to warrant providing that. Should someone get more if they were a high earner? I'd like compensation to come out of the DPP budget, to align incentives properly, but starving that department might result in less justice instead of more.
- 3y ago

rajandatta 3y ago

I've followed this matter a little bit as I work in the I.T. industry. I don't live in the UK and have no knowledge of the actors. The government response, including this announcement is shockingly deficient and on the low side of the impact. For a start - it only targets those who were convicted. It does not take into account all actors adversely impacted including falsely accused but not convicted. It doesn't take into account the circumstances of the victims. The government does not at all seem inclined to take any substantive action on this matter other than writing a cheque. Open question to those in the UK closer to this - How do you see the government's response? What is the public sentiment on the matter. Does anyone have any insight why charges are not being pursued against Post Office Management in light of substantial evidence of wrong doing?

pipes 3y ago
I live in the UK. It's bizarrely barely news. The scale of it is staggering yet the media coverage is small. Well it feels small to me. I don't see any public outrage about this. Part of me thinks it's because it's sort of an institution like the NHS and critisizing it is a no no (though it has been privitized). I want to see heads roll at the post office. As far as I can remember staff knew about the software issues but covered them up. Also why wasn't the burden of proof on the software developers to prove to the court it was correct? Can the vendor be held accountable? And lastly, the bonuses the board have paid themselves for cooperating with the enquirey, that's truly sickening. It's rotten on so many levels. It's money for sending innocent people to prison.
- toyg 3y ago
  I think part of the reason for relative quietness is: after 30 years of privatisation drives, what is left of the Post Office is just another business with some extra regulatory burden. "Business Screwing Up" happens every day and is hardly news. This said, thank goodness some free press still exists in the UK. Without Private Eye, these folks would never have seen even the little justice they received.
  - psd1 3y ago

thmsths 3y ago

What I can't comprehend is the scale of the failure of the justice system here. Unless I am mistaken there were hundreds of victims over more than a decade. So 700 trials, in which the judges and the juries failed these people. How can such a systemic failure happen? It paints a very poor picture of the justice system in the UK ...

fauigerzigerk 3y ago
It's because Post Office bosses failed to disclose the facts. This was/is a systematic cover-up. What I don't understand is why the people responsible for this, such as then CEO Paula Vennells, do not face criminal charges. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/18/post-office-scandal-cover-up-justice https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/18/post-o... https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/apr/23/post-office-aggressive-pursuit-of-staff-ex-boss-paula-vennells https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/apr/23/post-office... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Vennells https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Vennells
- zzbn00 3y ago
  This is the key. The prosecutions were all "private prosecutions" by the post office, in which a private entity begins (and sometimes carries through to end) a prosecution _on behalf of the people_. There is an enormous amount of incredible litigation behaviour by the post office in this case. The problem for them is: it all came to trial in the end and its there for everyone to read in painful detail. Here is, for example, the post office trying to remove the judge in the case after it all started unraveling: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2019/871.html https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2019/871.html And in 929 of https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2019/3408.html https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2019/3408.html the Judge writes of Post office senior officers refusal to accept to flaws of Horizon even very late in the game: "This approach by the Post Office has amounted, in reality, to bare assertions and denials that ignore what has actually occurred, at least so far as the witnesses called before me in the Horizon Issues trial are concerned. It amounts to the 21st century equivalent of maintaining that the earth is flat. "

walthamstow 3y ago

You can subscribe to Private Eye here for £38 a year with an issue through your letterbox every fortnight https://checkout.private-eye.co.uk/singleitem?item=PEY&prom=W37AAPEA https://checkout.private-eye.co.uk/singleitem?item=PEY&prom=...

15457345234 3y ago
Oh they have a podcast, how intriguing
- zimpenfish 3y ago
  Infuriatingly irregular though (I will concede the last couple of months haven't been too bad.) Also a bit short but I suppose it's essentially a trailer for the magazine and going longer may cannibalise those sales.
FridayNightTV 3y ago
+1 for Private Eye. Real investigative journalism, holding politicians to account, all whist taking the piss in classic British style. If Private Eye hadn't investigated this, who would have?
- BerislavLopac 3y ago
  Byline Times follows a very similar model, only with less humour: https://bylinetimes.com/ https://bylinetimes.com/
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

drcongo 3y ago

There was an excellent Radio 4 series about this scandal, available as a podcast here - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-great-post-office-trial/id1569800816 https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-great-post-office-...

justusw 3y ago

Fujitsu? I am sure the link is only the company name, but the Japanese government contracted out the ID card deployment largely to them, leading to a catastrophic rollout: https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/30/fujitsu_japan_micjet_id_card_pause/ https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/30/fujitsu_japan_micjet_... Some were able to do bank related activities as unrelated people because their cards were issued around the same time, and this thing will be our medical insurance ID at the end of 2024

kcartlidge 3y ago

A few mentions of Private Eye pushing the story. True, but also worth mentioning The Register and, especially, Computer Weekly who actually broke the story: https://archive.ph/OYJwW https://archive.ph/OYJwW

mrlonglong 3y ago

It's high time the UK sorted out the Tories (who caused the whole thing with their "assholery"). They have systematically raped the country of its wealth during the years they were in charge. County councils going bankrupt because Tories deliberately starved Labour run councils of money. Our beautiful NHS going into the shitter because they are starving in preparation for US style health care that will cost billions. This post office scandal is just the tip of the iceberg. You'll see.