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My burning question about this: What was the 'state of mind' of the higher-ups at the post office when they started prosecutions and then continued prosecutions

My burning question about this: What was the 'state of mind' of the higher-ups at the post office when they started prosecutions and then continued prosecutions into the hundreds? It's clear that the higher-ups at the post office knew these issues were caused by software rather than the postmasters, they must have known as early as 1998 or 1999. Maybe at first they must have thought that these were one-off issues and that they could just prosecute one or two postmasters, sweep the whole thing under the rug and forget about it. But that doesn't explain how they continued prosecutions into the hundreds years down the road. Like what did they think the endgame here was? Just prosecute indefinitely to cover up for the system?

traceroute66 3y ago
> What was the 'state of mind' of the higher-ups at the post office I'm not defending the post office, but I suspect you have to look at it in context. My understanding is that during that period of time (1999–2002) the Post Office's accounts took two large hits: - £570m write-off of the failed Horizon project - £1bn losses from the so-called renewal plan So perhaps the higher-ups regarded it as form of revenue management, claw-back of losses from the postmasters.
simonh 3y ago
I don't understand the state of mind of the government elected in 2011. The whole system was set up under the previous government, it would have been costly and difficult to come clean and do the right thing, but they could have blamed the entire thing on Labour and made political hay over it. Instead Ed Davey doubled down on the lying and persecuting ordinary postmasters, over an issue that until then he had no personal accountability for. This is what democracy is for, to provide the opportunity for a reset, to change course, and a mechanism for accountability of those who made the mistakes. Instead he allowed himself to be co-opted by the system.
stefan_ 3y ago
The prosecutors were getting paid for convictions, of course: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/10/post-office-executives-paid-bonuses-postmasters-conviction/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/10/post-office-exec...
denton-scratch 3y ago
> What was the 'state of mind' of the higher-ups at the post office The Post Office was a money-hole; it hadn't made money since privatisation. It was effectively still a government agency. UK government agencies have a long history with ICL, the UK "champion" mainframe maker, which was taken over by Fujitsu. It appears that this "champion" status was inherited by Fujitsu. ICL couldn't compete with companies like IBM on merits; they had to have backdoor support from politicians and the civil service. I don't know how that worked; but if MI5, the armed services, the National Grid and so on were reliant on ICL, then it's understandable that government would want to encourage agencies to buy ICL. So I suspect that the PO were pressurised by ministers and civil servants to buy Horizon from ICL/Fujitsu, and further pressurised to keep schtumm about the defects. Well, that's my guess: the higher-ups owed their jobs and reputations to ministers and civil servants, because they were effectively employed by a government agency, and it was losing money, and the government wanted to protect the reputation of ICL/Fujitsu.

traceroute66 3y ago

> What was the 'state of mind' of the higher-ups at the post office I'm not defending the post office, but I suspect you have to look at it in context. My understanding is that during that period of time (1999–2002) the Post Office's accounts took two large hits: - £570m write-off of the failed Horizon project - £1bn losses from the so-called renewal plan So perhaps the higher-ups regarded it as form of revenue management, claw-back of losses from the postmasters.

simonh 3y ago

I don't understand the state of mind of the government elected in 2011. The whole system was set up under the previous government, it would have been costly and difficult to come clean and do the right thing, but they could have blamed the entire thing on Labour and made political hay over it. Instead Ed Davey doubled down on the lying and persecuting ordinary postmasters, over an issue that until then he had no personal accountability for. This is what democracy is for, to provide the opportunity for a reset, to change course, and a mechanism for accountability of those who made the mistakes. Instead he allowed himself to be co-opted by the system.

stefan_ 3y ago

The prosecutors were getting paid for convictions, of course: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/10/post-office-executives-paid-bonuses-postmasters-conviction/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/10/post-office-exec...

denton-scratch 3y ago

> What was the 'state of mind' of the higher-ups at the post office The Post Office was a money-hole; it hadn't made money since privatisation. It was effectively still a government agency. UK government agencies have a long history with ICL, the UK "champion" mainframe maker, which was taken over by Fujitsu. It appears that this "champion" status was inherited by Fujitsu. ICL couldn't compete with companies like IBM on merits; they had to have backdoor support from politicians and the civil service. I don't know how that worked; but if MI5, the armed services, the National Grid and so on were reliant on ICL, then it's understandable that government would want to encourage agencies to buy ICL. So I suspect that the PO were pressurised by ministers and civil servants to buy Horizon from ICL/Fujitsu, and further pressurised to keep schtumm about the defects. Well, that's my guess: the higher-ups owed their jobs and reputations to ministers and civil servants, because they were effectively employed by a government agency, and it was losing money, and the government wanted to protect the reputation of ICL/Fujitsu.