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The Wikipedia article on Paula Vennells tells me that the Post Office prosecuted 700 subpostmasters between 1999 and 2015 [0]. That works out to about one prose

The Wikipedia article on Paula Vennells tells me that the Post Office prosecuted 700 subpostmasters between 1999 and 2015 [0]. That works out to about one prosecution every 8 days. I do not know the baseline rate at which postmasters commit fraud or are prosecuted, but isn't one prosecution every 8 days an awfully high number? Shouldn't the Post Office have conducted some sort of internal investigation as soon as the frequency of prosecutions hit a number this high? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Vennells https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Vennells

puzzledobserver 3y ago
> "In 2013, Vennells hired forensic accounting firm Second Sight, headed up by Ron Warmington, to investigate the Horizon software losses. Warmington discovered the system was flawed and faulty, but Vennells was unhappy with Warmington's report and terminated their contract." Inexcusable.
- conductr 3y ago
  Yes totally but shouldn’t it have been the prosecution that hired forensic accountants in order to, well, prosecute
  - ajcp 3y ago
    The Post Office was the prosecution! That's what makes this even worse...
  - cge 3y ago
    I get the impression that, no, forensic accountants were not used in the prosecutions, and they instead just relied on the software's accounting. From the bugs described, it seems like forensic accountants legitimately looking at specific cases would have been unable to confidently state that funds were missing.
  - Eisenstein 3y ago
    In the UK, private parties can prosecute people. The Post office was doing this. As a citizen of the USA, this is a completely alien concept to me. How can a corporation put a person in prison?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - anigbrowl 3y ago
      Look up how much power postal inspectors have in the US. They can arrest you if you commit crimes that fall within their jurisdiction.
      - Eisenstein 3y ago
        The Postal Inspector in the USA is not a private entity, and they cannot prosecute you. There is not 'Postal Prosecutor' there is District Attorney and a Federal Prosecutor and they are either directly elected or appointed by elected officials.
        anigbrowl 3y ago
        That's why I said 'they can arrest you', a fact which surprises a lot of people when they first discover it.
        Eisenstein 3y ago
        Technically anyone can arrest you.
    - mananaysiempre 3y ago
      > In the UK, private parties can prosecute people. [...] How can a corporation put a person in prison? On criminal trial, not in prison. (Prosecute, not convict.) In theory, this sounds like it could somewhat mitigate the phenomenon where a law is on the books but the DoJ or whoever employs public prosecutors decides to just ignore it. (Whether that’d be a good thing or a bad one from a separation of powers perspective I’m not sure.)
- ikidd 3y ago
  > terminated their contract Two days before the report was due to be released.
- tjpnz 3y ago
  Vennells deserves to spend the rest or her life in prison. An evil piece of work that one.
hermitcrab 3y ago
One possibility is that the PO bosses thought that there had always been a high level of theft and that Horizons system was finally uncovering it. The ultimate case of projecting your own failings onto others by grasping and immoral execs? I mean seriously, if you were a criminal, would you go to all the trouble to run a post office for years?
- lazide 3y ago
  If you went to all the trouble of running a post office for years - would you mind ‘losing’ a package or two every once in awhile to pad your retirement?
  - chris_wot 3y ago
    No.
    - lazide 3y ago
      Then you’re doing better than they expected 10% of their sub postmasters to be doing.
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  > PO bosses thought that there had always been a high level of theft From the testimony, it seems that is rather likely. PO managers seem to have had a pretty bad attitude to subpostmasters in general. I think the general view was that subpostmasters are essentially village shopkeepers, drawn from a population that would happily engage in grift if the opportunity presented itself, and therefore needed close monitoring.
dataangel 3y ago
I think the more important variable is how many subpostmasters there are. If there are millions then 700 is impressive.
- londons_explore 3y ago
  As of 2023, there were 6727 subpostmasters. So about 10% committed fraud. Seems a little high - but I could believe it if the subpostmasters are the local "boss", handling cash, and are supposed to pay 'the blokes in London' who they never meet. Also, most subpostmasters had many employees - and I believe if any one of their employees was commiting fraud/stealing money, then it was the sub postmaster responsible - so that 10% number might actually only be 1% if every branch had 10 people involved in the running of it.
  - was_a_dev 3y ago
    It was the arrogance that they thought that these subpostmasters had been doing this for years, and just been caught out by their new computer system. The contempt for their staff is insane
    - denton-scratch 3y ago
      > The contempt for their staff is insane Subpostmasters are not Post Office staff; they are self-employed shopkeepers, who sign a contract with the PO to run the office in a part of their shop. I suspect that part of the contempt is precisely because the subpostmasters are not PO managers who have struggled up the greasy Post Office management pole. They are "civilians", and bureaucrats often despise civilians.
  - vlovich123 3y ago
    I think this is too generous a take given the facts we know that happened. First, the time period we’re talking about here is 16 years. You’re telling me that the post office in 16 years couldn’t figure out how 10% of their branches were having persistent problems with their counts for 16 years! What business operates this way when dealing with such large amounts of money. At a minimum even if it was legit fraud by the subpostmasters this would be an indictment of the competence of the Post Office in managing the offices. Then there’s gems like this: > Some subpostmasters noticed the new system reporting false shortfalls, sometimes for thousands of pounds, but the Post Office insisted that the system was robust and, when shortfalls occurred, prosecuted the subpostmasters or forced them to make good the amounts, as required by their contract. Then an audit that was disputed and ignored: > In 2012, as a result of pressure from campaigners and Members of Parliament, the Post Office appointed forensic accountants Second Sight to conduct an investigation into Horizon. Second Sight concluded that Horizon contained faults that could result in accounting discrepancies, but the Post Office insisted that there were no systemic problems with the software. Finally, the most egregious thing is that even if you go back in time and are an honest player, as the convictions start happening more and more often, maybe at some point you go and ask the question “what changed in 1999 when we started prosecuting and why weren’t we catching this fraud before? Did we become better at it somehow?” Actually it corresponds to the rollout of the system. It’s possible of course that this system added new auditing capabilities that didn’t exist before but honestly 10% is still ridiculously high. Ultimately, the facts of the case are pretty clear this is bad faith from the Post Office (and maybe Fujitsu) top to bottom. There’s no point playing hypotheticals with good faith actors when the Post Office even had audits showing the software was buggy and the response was to dispute the audits they themselves contracted. It’s beyond the pale.
spondyl 3y ago
While Paula is getting all the attention, mostly due to appearing in the dramatisation, I'd point out that we haven't heard from Adam Crozier who was CEO of the Royal Mail from 2003 - 2010 which was a fairly key period when this was all going down. I pick on him particularly because after he handed the role over to Vennells, he went over to ITV for a number of years. The same ITV who provides the very dramatisation that brought all this stuff into the public eye once again. That said, he had left ITV well before the series would have started production so it may have just been a creative decision rather than due to any outside influence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Crozier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Crozier
- pityJuke 3y ago
  Worth noting that the executive producer of the show, Patrick Spence, was asked about why Adam Crozier was not present in the show in an interview with The Times. Here is a timestamp of the question and answer: https://youtu.be/3KfMptK294M?t=251 https://youtu.be/3KfMptK294M?t=251

puzzledobserver 3y ago

> "In 2013, Vennells hired forensic accounting firm Second Sight, headed up by Ron Warmington, to investigate the Horizon software losses. Warmington discovered the system was flawed and faulty, but Vennells was unhappy with Warmington's report and terminated their contract." Inexcusable.

conductr 3y ago
Yes totally but shouldn’t it have been the prosecution that hired forensic accountants in order to, well, prosecute
- ajcp 3y ago
  The Post Office was the prosecution! That's what makes this even worse...
- cge 3y ago
  I get the impression that, no, forensic accountants were not used in the prosecutions, and they instead just relied on the software's accounting. From the bugs described, it seems like forensic accountants legitimately looking at specific cases would have been unable to confidently state that funds were missing.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  In the UK, private parties can prosecute people. The Post office was doing this. As a citizen of the USA, this is a completely alien concept to me. How can a corporation put a person in prison?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - anigbrowl 3y ago
    Look up how much power postal inspectors have in the US. They can arrest you if you commit crimes that fall within their jurisdiction.
    - Eisenstein 3y ago
      The Postal Inspector in the USA is not a private entity, and they cannot prosecute you. There is not 'Postal Prosecutor' there is District Attorney and a Federal Prosecutor and they are either directly elected or appointed by elected officials.
      - anigbrowl 3y ago
        That's why I said 'they can arrest you', a fact which surprises a lot of people when they first discover it.
        Eisenstein 3y ago
        Technically anyone can arrest you.
  - mananaysiempre 3y ago
    > In the UK, private parties can prosecute people. [...] How can a corporation put a person in prison? On criminal trial, not in prison. (Prosecute, not convict.) In theory, this sounds like it could somewhat mitigate the phenomenon where a law is on the books but the DoJ or whoever employs public prosecutors decides to just ignore it. (Whether that’d be a good thing or a bad one from a separation of powers perspective I’m not sure.)
ikidd 3y ago
> terminated their contract Two days before the report was due to be released.
tjpnz 3y ago
Vennells deserves to spend the rest or her life in prison. An evil piece of work that one.

hermitcrab 3y ago

One possibility is that the PO bosses thought that there had always been a high level of theft and that Horizons system was finally uncovering it. The ultimate case of projecting your own failings onto others by grasping and immoral execs? I mean seriously, if you were a criminal, would you go to all the trouble to run a post office for years?

lazide 3y ago
If you went to all the trouble of running a post office for years - would you mind ‘losing’ a package or two every once in awhile to pad your retirement?
- chris_wot 3y ago
  No.
  - lazide 3y ago
    Then you’re doing better than they expected 10% of their sub postmasters to be doing.
denton-scratch 3y ago
> PO bosses thought that there had always been a high level of theft From the testimony, it seems that is rather likely. PO managers seem to have had a pretty bad attitude to subpostmasters in general. I think the general view was that subpostmasters are essentially village shopkeepers, drawn from a population that would happily engage in grift if the opportunity presented itself, and therefore needed close monitoring.

dataangel 3y ago

I think the more important variable is how many subpostmasters there are. If there are millions then 700 is impressive.

londons_explore 3y ago
As of 2023, there were 6727 subpostmasters. So about 10% committed fraud. Seems a little high - but I could believe it if the subpostmasters are the local "boss", handling cash, and are supposed to pay 'the blokes in London' who they never meet. Also, most subpostmasters had many employees - and I believe if any one of their employees was commiting fraud/stealing money, then it was the sub postmaster responsible - so that 10% number might actually only be 1% if every branch had 10 people involved in the running of it.
- was_a_dev 3y ago
  It was the arrogance that they thought that these subpostmasters had been doing this for years, and just been caught out by their new computer system. The contempt for their staff is insane
  - denton-scratch 3y ago
    > The contempt for their staff is insane Subpostmasters are not Post Office staff; they are self-employed shopkeepers, who sign a contract with the PO to run the office in a part of their shop. I suspect that part of the contempt is precisely because the subpostmasters are not PO managers who have struggled up the greasy Post Office management pole. They are "civilians", and bureaucrats often despise civilians.
- vlovich123 3y ago
  I think this is too generous a take given the facts we know that happened. First, the time period we’re talking about here is 16 years. You’re telling me that the post office in 16 years couldn’t figure out how 10% of their branches were having persistent problems with their counts for 16 years! What business operates this way when dealing with such large amounts of money. At a minimum even if it was legit fraud by the subpostmasters this would be an indictment of the competence of the Post Office in managing the offices. Then there’s gems like this: > Some subpostmasters noticed the new system reporting false shortfalls, sometimes for thousands of pounds, but the Post Office insisted that the system was robust and, when shortfalls occurred, prosecuted the subpostmasters or forced them to make good the amounts, as required by their contract. Then an audit that was disputed and ignored: > In 2012, as a result of pressure from campaigners and Members of Parliament, the Post Office appointed forensic accountants Second Sight to conduct an investigation into Horizon. Second Sight concluded that Horizon contained faults that could result in accounting discrepancies, but the Post Office insisted that there were no systemic problems with the software. Finally, the most egregious thing is that even if you go back in time and are an honest player, as the convictions start happening more and more often, maybe at some point you go and ask the question “what changed in 1999 when we started prosecuting and why weren’t we catching this fraud before? Did we become better at it somehow?” Actually it corresponds to the rollout of the system. It’s possible of course that this system added new auditing capabilities that didn’t exist before but honestly 10% is still ridiculously high. Ultimately, the facts of the case are pretty clear this is bad faith from the Post Office (and maybe Fujitsu) top to bottom. There’s no point playing hypotheticals with good faith actors when the Post Office even had audits showing the software was buggy and the response was to dispute the audits they themselves contracted. It’s beyond the pale.

spondyl 3y ago

While Paula is getting all the attention, mostly due to appearing in the dramatisation, I'd point out that we haven't heard from Adam Crozier who was CEO of the Royal Mail from 2003 - 2010 which was a fairly key period when this was all going down. I pick on him particularly because after he handed the role over to Vennells, he went over to ITV for a number of years. The same ITV who provides the very dramatisation that brought all this stuff into the public eye once again. That said, he had left ITV well before the series would have started production so it may have just been a creative decision rather than due to any outside influence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Crozier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Crozier

pityJuke 3y ago
Worth noting that the executive producer of the show, Patrick Spence, was asked about why Adam Crozier was not present in the show in an interview with The Times. Here is a timestamp of the question and answer: https://youtu.be/3KfMptK294M?t=251 https://youtu.be/3KfMptK294M?t=251