Programming error in UK postal system led to suicides and false convictions

At what point do they realize that it is statistically unlikely that so many postmasters are stealing money? Either they are hiring nothing but criminals to run their post offices or the one common element (the software) is wrong.

 

I listened to a podcast episode from The Economist on the recent dramatization series that is only showing in England that really made this scandal large again. I'm dying to see it but it's not available in the United States yet

 

Awesome. Now that AI is here we can all rest easy.

 

There was a time when I thought well of my place of ancestry …

Britain has become a bad country to be hard-working, decent and honest

 

You lost that when we fought the Revolutionary War.

 

Here's an article on the impact of the show - "Mr. Bates vs. The Post Office". You need a VPN to watch here

Mr Bates vs The Post Office: How a TV drama shook up Britain – in just a week

 

agree. I don’t get why it would come out. Imagine being falsely accused at work and the reaction.


700 were convicted of criminal offenses

 

Looks like the show that really got the UK populace properly outraged will be on PBS here April 7

 

Episode one is on PBS right now.

 

Episode Two down. Man the injustice.

 

This really is a very well done, compelling series. Highly recommended.

 

Fujitsu pays my bills. Yikes.

 

I don't understand how they could be accused of this kind of theft and not have their bank accounts not reflect their innocence, unless the theft was in the form of cash, which seems unlikely. Basically, they would look at all of the deposits into their accounts and have the person explain them. This comes under the legal term "habeus cashus", or, if you are actually Roman, "habeus denarius". In case you were wondering what a denarius is, I offer this without further explanation, except to say that Romans believed that bronze asses were a valid form of currency.

Britannica Money

 

Didn’t someone think it was suspicious that so many supposed thefts were showing up at the same time?

 

The Telegraph.

Please take with a pinch of salt. None of the papers are free of bias (I'd argue the Independent is the safest) but that one especially - it's the Tory sympathiser-paper. They know, after 13 years of dismal governance, they're months from ruin.
Angry old white men shouting at clouds, "It's not what it used to be, Tarquin!"
It's high on the gammon/froth appeal-o-meter.

We're not doing great because of the greedy scuzzbuckets who have purposefully widened the inequality gap in the past deacde, I'm not going to lie... BUT I'm decent, hard-working and honest and I'd still rather do that here in the UK than the majority of places around the world.

Try not to believe all you read.

 

A big part of the plot line is that Horizon kept telling each subpostmaster that came up short they were the only individual having problems with the software, so it must be them. So far, two episodes in, a lot of what has been accomplished is connecting subpostmasters and showing how widespread it was - as Mr. Jones tells the group when they meet and realize how numerous they are (paraphrasing), no matter what happens, you will never be told anymore that you are the only one.

To be clear, Horizon/The Post Office knew the complaints were all over. Their statements to individual subpostmasters that that no one else was having the problem were knowing lies. The show has not yet made clear whether Horizon/The Post Office was affirmatively creating the problems through remote access, or were just trying to cover up incompetence as organizations do without oversight.

As things left off Sunday night, the Post Office paid for a study that supposedly showed that while there were problems, it was not systemic. That will certainly not hold up.

 

Same thought occurred to me, and one of the accused asks (paraphrasing), if I really did come up short, where is all the money? I'm broke.

No real answer

 

Just finished all four episodes. Excellent drama. Much justice has been served, but not all. Those poor people.

Glad the show was produced. Dramatization was apparently what was needed