I think you have it backwards, they signed statements saying the system generated false accounts were accurate. In some cases they did so after putting in manu

I think you have it backwards, they signed statements saying the system generated false accounts were accurate. In some cases they did so after putting in manual adjustments to diminish the debts which themselves were not accurate (they had the right moral effect, but they were literally false accounting records-- correct accounting would have required finding and adjusting the actual errors made by Horizon, which they did not and likely could not do). At best they were in a weird catch-22 where disputing the records is an admission that they knowingly filed false accounts (itself a crime, regardless of they funds owed or not), and at worst they indisputably entered false accounting records (though for understandable reasons and sometimes at the direction of tech support staff). Part of the reason justice was possible at all was because Alan Bates simply refused to sign the false reports. He got shut down and suffered tremendous hardship as a result, but he wasn't litigated against-- which left him in a position to drive forward justice. ... and even that required whistle blowers and leaks to force the disclosure of documents that were wrongfully being concealed. I can't emphasize enough that I'm not saying any of this to attribute fault to the subpostmasters or deflect it away from the post office or Fujitsu. I don't think it does. But I think it's important to have a more comprehensive understanding of what went wrong so as to understand how situations like this can be prevented. To that end understanding how the situation made some of the subpostmasters guilty (or at least in violation of their contract) in narrow a technical sense is important, because it highlights how the judiciary and its duty bound actors (the solicitors, barristers, and independent experts) operated in a -- for lack a better word-- autistic and rule bound way that yielded results which were completely incompatible with justice.