The UK post office inquiry continues

[Lilith7]

For anyone who saw the recent TV series about this dire situation, this is interesting - especially the fact that someone who worked for the Post Office for 20 odcd years 'can't  recall' much of it.



https://www.bbc.com/news/live/business-68893655

We're soon going to be pausing our live coverage of the Post Office inquiry. But before we do, here's a recap of some of the evidence we heard today from Angela van den Bogerd, who spent 35 years working for the Post Office and was a senior director during the Horizon scandal:

    She began with an apology to former sub-postmasters and postmistresses, saying she was "truly sorry for the devastation caused to you, your family and friends"
    Van den Bogerd maintained that she wouldn't knowingly do anything wrong and blamed Fujitsu for not being transparent about the faults with its Horizon software
    The inquiry counsel showed her a number of emails and documents, starting in 2010, that discussed the ability for Fujitsu staff to remotely access Post Office branch accounts through Horizon. But she argued that she either didn't see the correspondence or didn't fully register what it meant until years later when the scandal came to a head
    Asked about her denials of any fault with Horizon when BBC's Panorama covered the story in 2015, van den Bogerd said she was true to the findings of the investigation by forensic accountants Second Sight
    On the topic of that investigation, she said it was not her understanding that the Post Office wanted to remove Second Sight because it was "too independent" and denied knowledge that she was picked to head investigations in its place
    She also said she could not remember being told that Fujitsu's Gareth Jenkins - who was ditched as an expert witness from Post Office prosecutions - had given "tainted" evidence

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-68384240

"Former Post Office boss Paula Vennells has been formally stripped of her CBE for "bringing the honours system into disrepute", according to the Cabinet Office.

Ms Vennells said last month she would hand back her title following the Horizon IT scandal.
Hundreds of sub-postmasters were prosecuted based on faulty data between 1999 and 2015.

Some people went to prison while many were financially ruined.

The scandal has been called the biggest miscarriage of justice in UK history and earlier this year it was thrust back into the spotlight by the broadcast of the ITV drama, Mr Bates vs the Post Office.
Following the drama, more than a million people signed a petition calling for Ms Vennells to be stripped of her CBE before she announced she would be handing it back."

[Zurdo]

Handing back the OBE sounds like admission of guilt...but she is also pretty high in the Church...she thinks, God thinks she did ok.

I watched the doco and series, both were good to watch. I have a friend whose parents had a Post Office in the UK nearly all their lives, and she doesn't think any of that happened to them...but she has been in NZ for nearly 40 years. I guess it didn't happen to all Subpostmasters, and with some it may have just been a small amount they could cover and no one would know.

[Oh_hunnihunni]

Anyone who does a Mr Bates, and takes on a massive organisation soon learns there is a very high price to be paid, and winning is a rare thing. ' You cannot fight city hall' is true, most of the time.

[Lilith7]

I saw both, too. And despite the fact that it has been a considerable time, it seems a bit difficult to believe that she genuinely 'couldn't recall' very much about it.
Just appalling that it could continue for such a long time & cause unimaginable stress to so many people.

[king1]

I saw both, too. And despite the fact that it has been a considerable time, it seems a bit difficult to believe that she genuinely 'couldn't recall' very much about it.
Just appalling that it could continue for such a long time & cause unimaginable stress to so many people.

and that the UK post office had so much power, and authority to prosecute...

[Lilith7]

I saw both, too. And despite the fact that it has been a considerable time, it seems a bit difficult to believe that she genuinely 'couldn't recall' very much about it.
Just appalling that it could continue for such a long time & cause unimaginable stress to so many people.

and that the UK post office had so much power, and authority to prosecute...

That, too. That people were obliged to sell their homes was just appalling & all the more so when it was the fault of the system rather than theirs. Its just stunning that it was alowed to continue for so long & do so much damage.