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However bad the software is and however bad the software-related decisions at Fujitsu and the Post Office were, nothing should distract from the fact that the r

However bad the software is and however bad the software-related decisions at Fujitsu and the Post Office were, nothing should distract from the fact that the real culprit is really with the Post Office leadership who destroyed the lives of 900 people, ridiculed them, forced over 40 into suicide and countless others into falsely claiming guilty to bargain when faced with a lawsuit they had no hope to win at the time. Equally guilty is every politician and bureaucrat above them who failed to raise their voice or take action, as the case may be. Instead, the former head of the Post Office has moved on to the next sinecure (at NHS this time) and was awarded a CBE. Thankfully a recent High Court decision has condemned those in charge in no uncertain terms. The damage of this decade-long scandal for all of society is tremendous.

soco 3y ago
It all started with a simple business decision: do we fix costly bugs, or send to jail a few folks?
- rwmj 3y ago
  The sending people to jail option also included demanding postmasters pay £1,000s to the Post Office for money that the Post Office (wrongly) alleged had been stolen. It could have been the profitable option.
  - soco 3y ago
    I suppose then the high compensations and prizes for the initiators of such a grand business scam^Widea appear more than justified.
- freetanga 3y ago
  Cue the McKinsey analyst that did “the cost of an overdose death vs revenue from pushing doctors to over-prescribe” slide for the Purdue family…
  - nness 3y ago
    "A McKinsey and Deloitte consultant are asked to seat a classroom of children, but there are fewer chairs than kids. The Deloitte consultant recommends buying more chairs. The McKinsey consultant recommends killing the excess kids."
    - FireBeyond 3y ago
      Excuse me. That's not 'killing' them, that's "rightsizing" the class.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
croes 3y ago
Fujitsu is also to blame. Good have simply said that their software can't be trusted.
Xylakant 3y ago
A large chunk of the blame goes to the legal system as well, especially the assumption that computer records are correct, unless proven otherwise - which is a nearly impossible uphill battle for the defendants in such cases. I can recommend this article on the topic https://emptycity.substack.com/p/how-the-legal-system-made-it-so-easy https://emptycity.substack.com/p/how-the-legal-system-made-i...
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago
  While that is true, specific people people knew that the system is faulty and lied in county. They should be in prison for perjury.
  - Xylakant 3y ago
    The article I linked touches on that much more elaborately than I possibly could, so forgive me the large quote: > But a saddening thing is that if it were not those particular identifiable individuals who were culpable (and they certainly should be held to account) then it would have been other individuals doing the same things. And this is because of legal and corporate contexts that facilitated this wrongdoing. > This is not to say that the guilty people can themselves blame the system - the culpable individuals could and should have done different things, at each and every step. Indeed, exceptional individuals could have stopped the nonsense and the cruelty. > But these were not exceptional individuals - they were individuals doing what they (wrongly) believed to be their job or performing what they (wrongly) believed to be their function or protecting what they (wrongly) saw to be legitimate interests. Those people are culpable for their actions, but they did so in a system that made doing the wrong thing easy, and such shortcomings will lead to another case like this.
switch007 3y ago
> Equally guilty is every politician and bureaucrat above them Just for the “but they’re a private company” crowd: the company is wholly owned by the government and there is a minister whose responsibilities include postal affairs which includes the Post Office
- DemocracyFTW2 3y ago
  Exactly. One does get the feeling that privatizing an entity but then keeping it in the governments, err, vicinity is very convenient; if anything has to be excused or justified you can always choose one from "but it's a private company" or "since it is effectively controlled by the government", whatever works for you-
nullify88 3y ago
AFAIK there were 4 suicides related to this scandal. Where did you get 40 from?
- DemocracyFTW2 3y ago
  I stand corrected. Sorry for that, not sure what I read; Wikipedia and the Sun (of all papers) say there were four, not fourty
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

soco 3y ago

It all started with a simple business decision: do we fix costly bugs, or send to jail a few folks?

rwmj 3y ago
The sending people to jail option also included demanding postmasters pay £1,000s to the Post Office for money that the Post Office (wrongly) alleged had been stolen. It could have been the profitable option.
- soco 3y ago
  I suppose then the high compensations and prizes for the initiators of such a grand business scam^Widea appear more than justified.
freetanga 3y ago
Cue the McKinsey analyst that did “the cost of an overdose death vs revenue from pushing doctors to over-prescribe” slide for the Purdue family…
- nness 3y ago
  "A McKinsey and Deloitte consultant are asked to seat a classroom of children, but there are fewer chairs than kids. The Deloitte consultant recommends buying more chairs. The McKinsey consultant recommends killing the excess kids."
  - FireBeyond 3y ago
    Excuse me. That's not 'killing' them, that's "rightsizing" the class.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

croes 3y ago

Fujitsu is also to blame. Good have simply said that their software can't be trusted.

Xylakant 3y ago

A large chunk of the blame goes to the legal system as well, especially the assumption that computer records are correct, unless proven otherwise - which is a nearly impossible uphill battle for the defendants in such cases. I can recommend this article on the topic https://emptycity.substack.com/p/how-the-legal-system-made-it-so-easy https://emptycity.substack.com/p/how-the-legal-system-made-i...

ClumsyPilot 3y ago
While that is true, specific people people knew that the system is faulty and lied in county. They should be in prison for perjury.
- Xylakant 3y ago
  The article I linked touches on that much more elaborately than I possibly could, so forgive me the large quote: > But a saddening thing is that if it were not those particular identifiable individuals who were culpable (and they certainly should be held to account) then it would have been other individuals doing the same things. And this is because of legal and corporate contexts that facilitated this wrongdoing. > This is not to say that the guilty people can themselves blame the system - the culpable individuals could and should have done different things, at each and every step. Indeed, exceptional individuals could have stopped the nonsense and the cruelty. > But these were not exceptional individuals - they were individuals doing what they (wrongly) believed to be their job or performing what they (wrongly) believed to be their function or protecting what they (wrongly) saw to be legitimate interests. Those people are culpable for their actions, but they did so in a system that made doing the wrong thing easy, and such shortcomings will lead to another case like this.

switch007 3y ago

> Equally guilty is every politician and bureaucrat above them Just for the “but they’re a private company” crowd: the company is wholly owned by the government and there is a minister whose responsibilities include postal affairs which includes the Post Office

DemocracyFTW2 3y ago
Exactly. One does get the feeling that privatizing an entity but then keeping it in the governments, err, vicinity is very convenient; if anything has to be excused or justified you can always choose one from "but it's a private company" or "since it is effectively controlled by the government", whatever works for you-

nullify88 3y ago

AFAIK there were 4 suicides related to this scandal. Where did you get 40 from?

DemocracyFTW2 3y ago
I stand corrected. Sorry for that, not sure what I read; Wikipedia and the Sun (of all papers) say there were four, not fourty

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]