At what point do the suicides connected with this become manslaughter cases? This is truly egregious and nothing short of long prison terms and swift and plentiful compensation is acceptable.
I still haven’t heard what actually caused it?
“glitches” don’t change money but remote access from fujitsu could as they already stated
So was it a bad intentioned person in that company causing havock or were they hacked by a foreign intelligence agency and the remote access abused
China? Sabotage for commercial competitive benefits perhaps.
What other UK infrastructure uses software that can be remotely accessed from abroad? The security of the UK dependant on commercial companies in foreign countries?
Edit: if the software was that bad how weren’t more people and post offices affected?
Surely some criminal behaviour going on here. When will we Post Office managers behind bars for this?
Well colour me surprised. Can’t wait to see how the government defends the post office and themselves. Remember. Kemi Bad-enough wasn’t lying…. *Wink wink*
The law is different depending on how rich and influential you are
we’re going to need a whole load more court cases. This time for the post office managers at the time.
Re: not knowing what caused it
It was caused by faulty databasing.
In brief, the template which the software is based on had areas for data to be stored. As the program became more complex to deal with the many intricate systems the post office needs, some of those areas move, are renamed, are redirected, no longer exist etc.
Since they did a poor job, it essentially led to some data being databased in an invalid location, and just disappearing altogether with whatever error management they applied.
It’s *kinda* like me saying “put this tin of beans in the cupboard above the sink” but I’ve destroyed the cupboard over the sink. I can tell it’s no longer in my shopping bag, and I refuse to acknowledge the black hole in place of the cupboard, so I tell the police you stole my beans.
C4 news last night has recordings of phone calls from IT consultants to PO staff discussing the Fujitsu problems and they had to tell the then chief exec before she met with Parliament.
The consultants were sacked shortly after.
It doesnt add up. They knew the system had bugs, yet spent £100m trying to fight it and cover it up
Surely it would cost a hell of alot less than £100m just to fix the bugs?
That is unforgiveable. Senior Post Office leadership need to be in court and then jail.
None of this “They resigned” or “Handed back their honors” bullshit, let alone community service.
They ruined more lives than most murderers.
About two decades ago, I got into a conversation with a customer of mine (who I was really friendly with). She told me that a strange thing had once happened that confused her-and we had quite a chat about it.
She told me that she’d had a “little part time job” in her local sub post office. She didn’t need the work, but the postmaster was an old friend of hers. He was a lovely man: fair, funny, cheerful, efficient. It was great working together. He had married in middle age, and had taken on his stepson when he was ten-and by the time the boy was seventeen, they were inseparable: the boy doted on him.
Friendly and sociable, the whole village looked up to him and he helped a lot of people. He was truly a pillar of the community.
Anyhoo, I won’t go into the part of the story that readers of this thread are familiar to. His story went the same way as so MANY of these accounts in the Post Office scandal. He was convicted, fined and had to pay a huge amount of money to the Post Office. It made into the local newspaper. Everyone he knew heard of his shameful behaviour. He had to sell his house to pay for it all-and of course, he lost his beloved post office.
His wife stood by him-but his boy was humiliated in front of his mates, disappointed and disgusted by the “hypocrisy” that he had shown. He didn’t speak to him for months, and it broke the chap’s heart. The man died of a heart attack just a couple of years afterwards. The customer told me she wasn’t surprised: she’d never seen anyone age so fast: he really was a broken man.
I asked her if she thought he was guilty. She said everyone in the village didn’t want to believe it because he had previously been so respected, but ultimately they did-because they just couldn’t believe that all the authorities could have had got it so wrong.
When she told me that story I felt my blood pressure going up. I was virtually hyperventilating by the time she was finished. I didn’t think-I KNEW he was innocent. I’m not just saying this with the benefit of hindsight: I knew it was a horrendous miscarriage of justice. Everyone who knows me knows that I’ve been following the threads of this story from their tiny beginning to the torrent that cascaded last year.
Imagine what it would feel like to be that man’s stepson. It’s all very well saying that he should have trusted in his dad’s innocence. But he was very young-and had idolised the man. How would *anything* ever compensate that man for what he lost? And how he must feel? And that doesn’t even BEGIN to address a widow who lost *everything*, and a man who lost his life.
I knew INSTANTLY that it was wrong. Those responsible people ALL KNEW. Quite honestly, I don’t want simple justice. By this stage, I want retribution.
11 comments
At what point do the suicides connected with this become manslaughter cases? This is truly egregious and nothing short of long prison terms and swift and plentiful compensation is acceptable.
I still haven’t heard what actually caused it?
“glitches” don’t change money but remote access from fujitsu could as they already stated
So was it a bad intentioned person in that company causing havock or were they hacked by a foreign intelligence agency and the remote access abused
China? Sabotage for commercial competitive benefits perhaps.
What other UK infrastructure uses software that can be remotely accessed from abroad? The security of the UK dependant on commercial companies in foreign countries?
Edit: if the software was that bad how weren’t more people and post offices affected?
Surely some criminal behaviour going on here. When will we Post Office managers behind bars for this?
Well colour me surprised. Can’t wait to see how the government defends the post office and themselves. Remember. Kemi Bad-enough wasn’t lying…. *Wink wink*
The law is different depending on how rich and influential you are
we’re going to need a whole load more court cases. This time for the post office managers at the time.
Re: not knowing what caused it
It was caused by faulty databasing.
In brief, the template which the software is based on had areas for data to be stored. As the program became more complex to deal with the many intricate systems the post office needs, some of those areas move, are renamed, are redirected, no longer exist etc.
Since they did a poor job, it essentially led to some data being databased in an invalid location, and just disappearing altogether with whatever error management they applied.
It’s *kinda* like me saying “put this tin of beans in the cupboard above the sink” but I’ve destroyed the cupboard over the sink. I can tell it’s no longer in my shopping bag, and I refuse to acknowledge the black hole in place of the cupboard, so I tell the police you stole my beans.
C4 news last night has recordings of phone calls from IT consultants to PO staff discussing the Fujitsu problems and they had to tell the then chief exec before she met with Parliament.
The consultants were sacked shortly after.
It doesnt add up. They knew the system had bugs, yet spent £100m trying to fight it and cover it up
Surely it would cost a hell of alot less than £100m just to fix the bugs?
That is unforgiveable. Senior Post Office leadership need to be in court and then jail.
None of this “They resigned” or “Handed back their honors” bullshit, let alone community service.
They ruined more lives than most murderers.
About two decades ago, I got into a conversation with a customer of mine (who I was really friendly with). She told me that a strange thing had once happened that confused her-and we had quite a chat about it.
She told me that she’d had a “little part time job” in her local sub post office. She didn’t need the work, but the postmaster was an old friend of hers. He was a lovely man: fair, funny, cheerful, efficient. It was great working together. He had married in middle age, and had taken on his stepson when he was ten-and by the time the boy was seventeen, they were inseparable: the boy doted on him.
Friendly and sociable, the whole village looked up to him and he helped a lot of people. He was truly a pillar of the community.
Anyhoo, I won’t go into the part of the story that readers of this thread are familiar to. His story went the same way as so MANY of these accounts in the Post Office scandal. He was convicted, fined and had to pay a huge amount of money to the Post Office. It made into the local newspaper. Everyone he knew heard of his shameful behaviour. He had to sell his house to pay for it all-and of course, he lost his beloved post office.
His wife stood by him-but his boy was humiliated in front of his mates, disappointed and disgusted by the “hypocrisy” that he had shown. He didn’t speak to him for months, and it broke the chap’s heart. The man died of a heart attack just a couple of years afterwards. The customer told me she wasn’t surprised: she’d never seen anyone age so fast: he really was a broken man.
I asked her if she thought he was guilty. She said everyone in the village didn’t want to believe it because he had previously been so respected, but ultimately they did-because they just couldn’t believe that all the authorities could have had got it so wrong.
When she told me that story I felt my blood pressure going up. I was virtually hyperventilating by the time she was finished. I didn’t think-I KNEW he was innocent. I’m not just saying this with the benefit of hindsight: I knew it was a horrendous miscarriage of justice. Everyone who knows me knows that I’ve been following the threads of this story from their tiny beginning to the torrent that cascaded last year.
Imagine what it would feel like to be that man’s stepson. It’s all very well saying that he should have trusted in his dad’s innocence. But he was very young-and had idolised the man. How would *anything* ever compensate that man for what he lost? And how he must feel? And that doesn’t even BEGIN to address a widow who lost *everything*, and a man who lost his life.
I knew INSTANTLY that it was wrong. Those responsible people ALL KNEW. Quite honestly, I don’t want simple justice. By this stage, I want retribution.