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> "In 2013, Vennells hired forensic accounting firm Second Sight, headed up by Ron Warmington, to investigate the Horizon software losses. Warmington discovered

> "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.)
    - Eisenstein 3y ago
      > On criminal trial, not in prison. In this case they ended up getting guilty pleas in exchange for 'promises' of leniency. That sounds like 'putting people in prison using leverage' to me. With an imbalance between resources of the entity going after you and what you have available, I would say the giant corp will win the overwhelming majority of the time. The problem is that they have every incentive to push people to pay them/take a deal with what is essentially extortion and there is no oversight. If the city prosecutor were threatening otherwise upstanding citizens with jail time if they didn't pay them many thousands of pounds for mystery expenses viewable by only the prosecutor, that person would be impeached or at least lose the next election, then be prosecuted for corruption. No such luck when the entity pursuing is 'faceless corporation that needs to maximize profits and has no person held to account for injustice'. I fail to see how this is in the public interest.
      - mananaysiempre 3y ago
        I mean, many others have used the same tactics with civil suits—being stripped of all of one’s money might be marginally better than being put in prison, but I’d argue it’s still on the same spectrum, so it makes for a hell of a lot of leverage. So I don’t think this works as an argument against private prosecutors—it’s rather an argument against a legal system that necessitates ruinously expensive lawyers, which is a major problem, but one I see no solution for, not even a blank-slate one. (To be clear, I still reserve my judgment on whether private prosecutors are actually a good idea. What do you do if a private party takes up a murder investigation and screws it up?.. I’m not ready to give up non bis in idem for this. On the other hand, the idea sounds sufficiently reasonable that I probably wouldn’t have thought to question it had I been brought up to think it were normal.)
  - Ichthypresbyter 3y ago
    A lawyer paid by the private party fills the role of the government prosecutor, but the case is heard by the same judge and jury who would hear it in a state prosecution. Until the 1980s this was how almost all criminal prosecutions worked in England, though by the end the "private prosecutor" was usually a police officer.
    - wonderwonder 3y ago
      So a company with money and a good lawyer could really just essentially have you thrown in jail? Seems really not good.
      - qingcharles 3y ago
        Yes, because often they are in control of all the evidence and/or can create evidence. In the 90s, I caught the technical head of a certain very large telecoms firm logging private IRC chats and then blackmailing the users, some of whom were gay and not out. When I made it clear I knew what was going on and that it needed to stop this person went on to fake logs of me hacking into said firm and sent them to the dean of the university where I was studying and there was a serious attempt to have me expelled and talk of criminal charges. I was only saved by the heads of the computing department who vouched for my good character and independently proved that the logs were fake.
        conductr 3y ago
        Were you then able to prosecute him for this fraudulent conspiracy he manufactured? Is there any check and balance, like something seriously discouraging people from doing this nefariously? Is there any responsibility on the judge or jury to demand burden of evidence? As in the postmaster situation, if I were the judge or jury I first and foremost need to be convinced a crime occurred and money is missing. The fact a forensic accountant wasn’t required is still odd to me. I suppose they were glad to call guilty on circumstantial evidence or just took the financial statements at face value
        3y ago
  - scott_w 3y ago
    It still goes to the regular courts. The problem comes when the prosecution lies and fabricates evidence.
  - foldr 3y ago
    Private prosecutions are still possible in some US states and were more common historically: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prosecution#United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prosecution#United_S... Also: https://law.umn.edu/events/what-process-due-history-and-use-private-prosecutions-american-states-and-exploration#:~:text=In%20Private%20Prosecution%20in%20America,is%20still%20with%20us%20today https://law.umn.edu/events/what-process-due-history-and-use-.... I’m not saying that private prosecutions are a good idea, but they’re not completely alien to the US.
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.

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.)
  - Eisenstein 3y ago
    > On criminal trial, not in prison. In this case they ended up getting guilty pleas in exchange for 'promises' of leniency. That sounds like 'putting people in prison using leverage' to me. With an imbalance between resources of the entity going after you and what you have available, I would say the giant corp will win the overwhelming majority of the time. The problem is that they have every incentive to push people to pay them/take a deal with what is essentially extortion and there is no oversight. If the city prosecutor were threatening otherwise upstanding citizens with jail time if they didn't pay them many thousands of pounds for mystery expenses viewable by only the prosecutor, that person would be impeached or at least lose the next election, then be prosecuted for corruption. No such luck when the entity pursuing is 'faceless corporation that needs to maximize profits and has no person held to account for injustice'. I fail to see how this is in the public interest.
    - mananaysiempre 3y ago
      I mean, many others have used the same tactics with civil suits—being stripped of all of one’s money might be marginally better than being put in prison, but I’d argue it’s still on the same spectrum, so it makes for a hell of a lot of leverage. So I don’t think this works as an argument against private prosecutors—it’s rather an argument against a legal system that necessitates ruinously expensive lawyers, which is a major problem, but one I see no solution for, not even a blank-slate one. (To be clear, I still reserve my judgment on whether private prosecutors are actually a good idea. What do you do if a private party takes up a murder investigation and screws it up?.. I’m not ready to give up non bis in idem for this. On the other hand, the idea sounds sufficiently reasonable that I probably wouldn’t have thought to question it had I been brought up to think it were normal.)
- Ichthypresbyter 3y ago
  A lawyer paid by the private party fills the role of the government prosecutor, but the case is heard by the same judge and jury who would hear it in a state prosecution. Until the 1980s this was how almost all criminal prosecutions worked in England, though by the end the "private prosecutor" was usually a police officer.
  - wonderwonder 3y ago
    So a company with money and a good lawyer could really just essentially have you thrown in jail? Seems really not good.
    - qingcharles 3y ago
      Yes, because often they are in control of all the evidence and/or can create evidence. In the 90s, I caught the technical head of a certain very large telecoms firm logging private IRC chats and then blackmailing the users, some of whom were gay and not out. When I made it clear I knew what was going on and that it needed to stop this person went on to fake logs of me hacking into said firm and sent them to the dean of the university where I was studying and there was a serious attempt to have me expelled and talk of criminal charges. I was only saved by the heads of the computing department who vouched for my good character and independently proved that the logs were fake.
      - conductr 3y ago
        Were you then able to prosecute him for this fraudulent conspiracy he manufactured? Is there any check and balance, like something seriously discouraging people from doing this nefariously? Is there any responsibility on the judge or jury to demand burden of evidence? As in the postmaster situation, if I were the judge or jury I first and foremost need to be convinced a crime occurred and money is missing. The fact a forensic accountant wasn’t required is still odd to me. I suppose they were glad to call guilty on circumstantial evidence or just took the financial statements at face value
        3y ago
- scott_w 3y ago
  It still goes to the regular courts. The problem comes when the prosecution lies and fabricates evidence.
- foldr 3y ago
  Private prosecutions are still possible in some US states and were more common historically: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prosecution#United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prosecution#United_S... Also: https://law.umn.edu/events/what-process-due-history-and-use-private-prosecutions-american-states-and-exploration#:~:text=In%20Private%20Prosecution%20in%20America,is%20still%20with%20us%20today https://law.umn.edu/events/what-process-due-history-and-use-.... I’m not saying that private prosecutions are a good idea, but they’re not completely alien to the US.

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.