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How material were the post offices “overbooking” of profits by false sales registered via this bug ? How plausible is it that in-fact the internal narrative was

How material were the post offices “overbooking” of profits by false sales registered via this bug ? How plausible is it that in-fact the internal narrative was that the post office was wildly more profitable than it was, but that they just need to crack down on this minor theft problem that they have via prosecutions while at the same time padding their figures a bit via postmasters money ?

amiga386 3y ago
It's worse than that. Post Office investigators got performance-related bonuses for every successful prosecution. They were chomping at the bit to prosecute anyone who showed the slightest discrepancy, and all their Christmases came at once after Horizon was installed. Moral hazard, cobra effect, if all you have is a hammer, etc. 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...
- buggeryorkshire 3y ago
  Jesus Christ I didn't know that. Wow.
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  To be fair, Sewell (Fujitsu security team manager) was asked about these bonuses, and denied that they related to prosecutions; they were just for doing their job well. To be unfair, the job they were tasked with was providing evidence to support the prosecutions. And Sewell was a strikingly unconvincing witness; "It was 2008. I don't remember." Apparently he remembered almost nothing that might have a bearing on the inquiry.
  - amiga386 3y ago
    In this case I was talking about the Post Office investigators, not Fujitsu, although it's also very depressing about the Fujitsu side of things. From the article: > Mr Thomas, of the Post Office security team, told the inquiry there were “bonus objectives”, including a 40 per cent “loss recovery objective”, available to his team. > Asked if that influenced his behaviour as an investigator, he said: “I’d probably be lying if I said no because… it was part of the business, the culture of the business of recoveries or even under the terms of a postmaster’s contract with the contracts manager.” > In an email sent by Mr Thomas in 2021 to Nick Read, the Post Office’s chief executive, and which was disclosed to the inquiry, he wrote: “My yearly objectives that were bonus worthy at the time were based on numbers of successful prosecutions and recovery amounts of money to the business.” > He also discussed “a proceeds of crime unit within Post Office Ltd that ensured some of these individuals lost their homes and families”. > Mr Thomas was the lead investigator in the case of sub-postmaster Julian Wilson, who was convicted of false accounting and died of cancer five years before his conviction was overturned. > Mr Thomas did not include any of the problems Mr Wilson had reported with the Horizon system when writing his report after interviewing him in 2008. Years later, Mr Thomas told a colleague he was “pleased” to have his hands on documents relating to Mr Wilson’s case because he wanted to prove there was “no ‘Case for the Justice of Thieving Subposters’” and that they “were all crooks”.
    - denton-scratch 3y ago
      I haven't seen that session. I guess I'll dig it out and watch.

amiga386 3y ago

It's worse than that. Post Office investigators got performance-related bonuses for every successful prosecution. They were chomping at the bit to prosecute anyone who showed the slightest discrepancy, and all their Christmases came at once after Horizon was installed. Moral hazard, cobra effect, if all you have is a hammer, etc. 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...

buggeryorkshire 3y ago
Jesus Christ I didn't know that. Wow.
denton-scratch 3y ago
To be fair, Sewell (Fujitsu security team manager) was asked about these bonuses, and denied that they related to prosecutions; they were just for doing their job well. To be unfair, the job they were tasked with was providing evidence to support the prosecutions. And Sewell was a strikingly unconvincing witness; "It was 2008. I don't remember." Apparently he remembered almost nothing that might have a bearing on the inquiry.
- amiga386 3y ago
  In this case I was talking about the Post Office investigators, not Fujitsu, although it's also very depressing about the Fujitsu side of things. From the article: > Mr Thomas, of the Post Office security team, told the inquiry there were “bonus objectives”, including a 40 per cent “loss recovery objective”, available to his team. > Asked if that influenced his behaviour as an investigator, he said: “I’d probably be lying if I said no because… it was part of the business, the culture of the business of recoveries or even under the terms of a postmaster’s contract with the contracts manager.” > In an email sent by Mr Thomas in 2021 to Nick Read, the Post Office’s chief executive, and which was disclosed to the inquiry, he wrote: “My yearly objectives that were bonus worthy at the time were based on numbers of successful prosecutions and recovery amounts of money to the business.” > He also discussed “a proceeds of crime unit within Post Office Ltd that ensured some of these individuals lost their homes and families”. > Mr Thomas was the lead investigator in the case of sub-postmaster Julian Wilson, who was convicted of false accounting and died of cancer five years before his conviction was overturned. > Mr Thomas did not include any of the problems Mr Wilson had reported with the Horizon system when writing his report after interviewing him in 2008. Years later, Mr Thomas told a colleague he was “pleased” to have his hands on documents relating to Mr Wilson’s case because he wanted to prove there was “no ‘Case for the Justice of Thieving Subposters’” and that they “were all crooks”.
  - denton-scratch 3y ago
    I haven't seen that session. I guess I'll dig it out and watch.