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Post Office Scandal - Disgrace


FANG

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39 minutes ago, FANG said:

I agree mate. I do not have a link because i don't think any of the senior management have been charged yet. I don't think they ever will be.

And the compensation they are offering the accused is derisory.

https://twitter.com/DanNeidle/status/1639929877271805952?s=20

One of the involved middle management is now in charge of the internal compensation scheme. It's astounding. It is simply institutional evil and I've come across utterly disgusting middle and senior management at different organisations in my time. But, like with the banking crisis, just because they live in a big posh house and have an enormous car doesn't make them personally less culpable if they are involved in a large institutional crime.

https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/trotter-is-back-at-the-post-office-why/

"I was treated like a criminal by the Post Office. The Post Office audit team were extremely callous and made no attempt to find the root cause of the alleged shortfalls. Specifically, Brian Trotter my contacts manager, was particularly keen to get me to admit to falsifying the books. He asked me to admit to this several times.”

Trotter said he was “shocked” by this, adding:

“I can’t prove this discussion didn’t take place but it’s not the sort of thing that I would have been saying to anybody.”

To summarise, Mr Trotter made assumptions that all problems in the branches he looked after were down to poor training, incompetence or theft. He gave inaccurate evidence to the High Court, and was observed by the judge to be very reluctant to be unhelpful to his employer of (at that stage) 39 years. A Subpostmaster, in a sworn witness statement, gave evidence that Trotter tried to bully her into making a false confession of a criminal offence.

Just the person to be re-hired by the Post Office to help them work in the historical matters unit dealing with Postmasters’ claims, specifically their Suspension Pay scheme – compensating Subpostmasters for being unfairly suspended without pay.

Within hours of Trotter telling the Inquiry he was back at the Post Office, I received an email from the wife of a former Subpostmaster who was suspended without pay. She told me “This man [Trotter] suspended my husband, who ultimately had his employment withdrawn. How can we or others get a fair hearing under this scheme?”

I asked if they had applied to the scheme. She told me:

“We don’t know what to do yet… it’s like entering a nest of vipers.”

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2 hours ago, Si1 said:

Just shows that things will never change - Unless we decide to make a stand and how many in this country are prepared to do that.

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1 hour ago, FANG said:

Just shows that things will never change - Unless we decide to make a stand and how many in this country are prepared to do that.

Yeah we have to be vigilant not only with others and with the powerful but also with ourselves.

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  • 4 weeks later...

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/365532477/Subpostmaster-demands-names-of-Post-Office-executives-who-crushed-him-to-suffocate-truth

Quoting the document, Page said there was a clear intent on the part of the Post Office with legal advice to defeat Castleton in court and claim heavy costs, “Not to make a net financial recovery, but to defend the Horizon system and hopefully send a clear message to other subpostmasters that the Post Office will take a firm line and to deter others from raising similar allegations”.

Page told the inquiry: “So that was the purpose. It was not ever envisaged that the Post Office would actually get that costs order back – that was a loss leader, if you like. But the purpose was to send a clear message to deter others.”

The document is expected to appear later, when the reasons and motivation for the proceedings against Castleton, and the conduct of those proceedings, will be examined.

Page said Castleton “lost everything he’d invested in his branch, he lost his living, his family were treated like thieves, and they endured years of hardship”.

Castleton told Computer Weekly: “I want the name of the person who decided to do this to be made public by the inquiry, because that person made terrible decisions that caused so many consequences to my family. I can’t tell you how painful the journey has been for the last 20 years.”

At the time of his challenge to the Post Office, it was determined that one system flaw, known as the Calendar Square bug, was not revealed to Castleton’s legal team.

In a recent inquiry hearing, an email from December 2006, sent from a Post Office executive involved in dispute resolution to an executive from Horizon supplier Fujitsu, was marked “Calendar Square: URGENT”.

The email read: “Our legal team at the court will be doing their best to persuade the court not to allow [Lee] Castleton to call this evidence because it is filed late and does not relate to the problems at his branch. If they are successful there will be no need to progress further with these investigations, but as Castleton is a litigant in person it is common for judges to be sympathetic and may allow him to rely on this evidence. If so you will have to pull out all the stops to investigate what, if anything, went wrong at these branches and why we can distinguish them from Mr Castleton at [his branch].”

Castleton said: “Seeing these documents in the inquiry makes me sick. All this pain and anguish we have been through as a family, and now we know that this was hidden by the Post Office. They have continued to do this over the years to make it difficult for everybody. If only they had been open and honest from the start, we could have got to the bottom of this and it would have been less painful for everybody.”

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3 hours ago, Si1 said:

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/365532477/Subpostmaster-demands-names-of-Post-Office-executives-who-crushed-him-to-suffocate-truth

Castleton said: “Seeing these documents in the inquiry makes me sick. All this pain and anguish we have been through as a family, and now we know that this was hidden by the Post Office. They have continued to do this over the years to make it difficult for everybody. If only they had been open and honest from the start, we could have got to the bottom of this and it would have been less painful for everybody.”

They are really evil. There should be masses of compensation. It could easily be £1 million just for him (if he lost a house worth £320K in 2007 it could be worth £800k now plus loss of earnings.

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6 minutes ago, iamnumerate said:

They are really evil. There should be masses of compensation. It could easily be £1 million just for him (if he lost a house worth £320K in 2007 it could be worth £800k now plus loss of earnings.

As well as the trauma. If a hospital blunder has damaged his life similarly I imagine the compensation would be huge, for example. Except this is worse, it was allegedly deliberate. That's horrifying.

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13 hours ago, Si1 said:

As well as the trauma. If a hospital blunder has damaged his life similarly I imagine the compensation would be huge, for example. Except this is worse, it was allegedly deliberate. That's horrifying.

Good point - sadly I fear that they won't get the compensation they deserve.

It could easily cost £100-200 million

(1000 people x 1-2 million).

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1 hour ago, iamnumerate said:

Good point - sadly I fear that they won't get the compensation they deserve.

It could easily cost £100-200 million

(1000 people x 1-2 million).

That's 1-2 billion total

Yes they won't get it. But the perpetrators should go to prison and never be let out.

Edited by Si1
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58 minutes ago, Si1 said:

That's 1-2 billion total

Yes they won't get it. But the perpetrators should go to prison and never be let out.

Thanks for that - I don't know how I made that mistake.

I think I was originally thinking it was 100 people and didn't correct the sum.

Although a lot of money it is affordable for the country - despite the amount.

I agree with you that the perpetrators should go to prison - not going to happen.

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19 hours ago, iamnumerate said:

Thanks for that - I don't know how I made that mistake.

I think I was originally thinking it was 100 people and didn't correct the sum.

Although a lot of money it is affordable for the country - despite the amount.

I agree with you that the perpetrators should go to prison - not going to happen.

No worries.

I just read that govt has provided £1billion for compensation, in the right ballpark then.

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2 minutes ago, Si1 said:

No worries.

I just read that govt has provided £1billion for compensation, in the right ballpark then.

That is wonderful news might need to be more.

Considering labour introduced this I am surprised the Tories aren't going after the people responsible more.

Surely the REAL criminals should pay towards this?

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5 hours ago, iamnumerate said:

That is wonderful news might need to be more.

Considering labour introduced this I am surprised the Tories aren't going after the people responsible more.

Surely the REAL criminals should pay towards this?

Senior tories are AS guilty as senior labour figures for extending the coverup, AFAIK.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Post of the legal fall out of the actual Hotizon review trial.

There should be massive repercussions as the legal team on the Port office dropped massive bollock after massive bollock.

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/post-office-lawyers-decision-making-corrupted/5115940.article

Makes a nod to the scummy farce if trying to get the Judge removed.

https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/recusal-top-dog-revealed/

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6 hours ago, spyguy said:

Post of the legal fall out of the actual Hotizon review trial.

There should be massive repercussions as the legal team on the Port office dropped massive bollock after massive bollock.

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/post-office-lawyers-decision-making-corrupted/5115940.article

that's arguing, if I understand properly, that lawyers should perhaps have an obligation not to unquestioningly agree to rabidly immoral legal actions, I guess

6 hours ago, spyguy said:

Makes a nod to the scummy farce if trying to get the Judge removed.

https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/recusal-top-dog-revealed/

"Every legally-qualified person I spoke to variously thought the recusal attempt was desperate, doomed to fail and/or little more than a delaying tactic. And let’s be clear what it was delaying – justice. It prolonged the agony for hundreds of people who had their lives materially changed for the worse by the Post Office."

I mean, once again, sh#t, f#cking h#ll. Those poor people are literally dying whilst this is going on and the PO are using cynical DELAYING TACTICS.

There aren't enough sh#ts and f#cks.

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1 hour ago, Si1 said:

that's arguing, if I understand properly, that lawyers should perhaps have an obligation not to unquestioningly agree to rabidly immoral legal actions, I guess

"Every legally-qualified person I spoke to variously thought the recusal attempt was desperate, doomed to fail and/or little more than a delaying tactic. And let’s be clear what it was delaying – justice. It prolonged the agony for hundreds of people who had their lives materially changed for the worse by the Post Office."

I mean, once again, sh#t, f#cking h#ll. Those poor people are literally dying whilst this is going on and the PO are using cynical DELAYING TACTICS.

There aren't enough sh#ts and f#cks.

Pretty much.

On a case where they knew it was hopeless and no chance.

The court archives n reporting from the reporter are interesting.

They really should have paid from some proper consultants to RIP apart the PO n Fujitsus claims in the SW.

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  • 4 weeks later...

"Our conclusion: the Post Office has adopted a strategy to minimise compensation for the worst miscarriage of justice in British history. It does that by minimising the initial claim postmasters are making. The Post Office can then point to all the procedures in place to ensure claims are handled fairly – but the unfairness happened right at the start."

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10 hours ago, Si1 said:

"Our conclusion: the Post Office has adopted a strategy to minimise compensation for the worst miscarriage of justice in British history. It does that by minimising the initial claim postmasters are making. The Post Office can then point to all the procedures in place to ensure claims are handled fairly – but the unfairness happened right at the start."

They should go to prison for that.

It should be simple :-

a)if you lose your house get the same plus HPI/RPI (whatever is greater) for the area plus 10%

b) Any debts same as b

c) if you lose your job then the difference between what you would have earned and what you did plus 10%

d) pcm in prison £8k

e) £10 k p.a. wrongly convicted for reputational damage

f) Family member commits suicide then family gets what would they would have got if a drunk driver killed them pls 10%.

To be honest even under this compensation I wouldn't envy them and might not be enough.

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1 hour ago, iamnumerate said:

They should go to prison for that.

It should be simple :-

a)if you lose your house get the same plus HPI/RPI (whatever is greater) for the area plus 10%

b) Any debts same as b

c) if you lose your job then the difference between what you would have earned and what you did plus 10%

d) pcm in prison £8k

e) £10 k p.a. wrongly convicted for reputational damage

f) Family member commits suicide then family gets what would they would have got if a drunk driver killed them pls 10%.

To be honest even under this compensation I wouldn't envy them and might not be enough.

They've deliberately sent a baffling form full of legalese for the victims to fill in and claim compensation knowing full well that they will underclaim as a result. And then they will hold them to that too. It's just evil constantly.

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58 minutes ago, Si1 said:

They've deliberately sent a baffling form full of legalese for the victims to fill in and claim compensation knowing full well that they will underclaim as a result. And then they will hold them to that too. It's just evil constantly.

And weird evil - after all it is the tax payer who will pay they don't have any shares in the post office.

(If they have Government pressure to minimize the cost they should record it and leak it).

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