In 1999 the British Post Office installed a computer system named "Horizon". From the early training phase problems were reported, but the upper management at both the Post Office and developer Fujitsu failed to take corrective measures. As a result Horizon kept providing phony reports of lost funds in branch offices. The Post Office responded aggressively to these reports by prosecuting managers of these offices.
Subsequent investigations have brought to light disturbing details. During prosecutions the Post Office had claimed that only branch masters had access to the financial data in Horizon but this was untrue: a back door existed which gave engineers access to these figures. They had withheld relevant code and data from courts. They had also lied to those accused, claiming that theirs were isolated cases when in reality there were over 700. This looks like a showcase of what harm can be done by refusing to disclose code and data and by keeping victims helpless by isolating them. --- Post Office scandal: What the Horizon saga is all about - BBC News 22 March 2022 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56718036 Between 2000 and 2014, the Post Office prosecuted 736 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses - an average of one a week - based on information from a recently installed computer system called Horizon. Some went to prison following convictions for false accounting and theft, many were financially ruined and have described being shunned by their communities. Some have since died. After 20 years, campaigners won a legal battle to have their cases reconsidered, after claiming that the computer system was flawed. What was Horizon? Horizon was introduced into the Post Office network from 1999. The system, developed by the Japanese company Fujitsu, was used for tasks such as transactions, accounting and stocktaking. Sub-postmasters complained about bugs in the system after it reported shortfalls, some of which amounted to many thousands of pounds. Some sub-postmasters attempted to plug the gap with their own money, even remortgaging their homes, in an (often fruitless) attempt to correct an error. What was the effect on individuals? Many former postmasters and postmistresses have described how the saga ruined their lives. They had to cope with the long-term impact of a criminal conviction and imprisonment, some at a time when they had been pregnant or had young children. Marriages broke down, and courts have heard how some families believe the stress led to health conditions, addiction and premature deaths. ... --- Post Office accused of withholding documents from IT scandal inquiry https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/11/post-office-accused-of-withholding-documents-from-it-scandal-inquiry The Post Office has been accused of withholding thousands of documents from the inquiry into an IT scandal that led to more 700 unsafe convictions. The Post Office IT inquiry resumed on Tuesday with a strongly worded row over the failure to disclosure more than 30,000 documents. Lawyers for the unfairly convicted operators accused the Post Office of continuing to deploy "malevolent" tactics to frustrate justice. They also called for the inquiry to be adjourned until all the relevant documents were made available. A lawyer for the Post Office strenuously denied the claims. The dispute provided a foretaste for what is set to be a hotly contested second phase of the inquiry into one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British legal history. Edward Henry KC, representing one group of post office operators, suggested the Post Office needed to be trained to comply with disclosure orders. ... --- Postmasters were prosecuted using unreliable evidence 8 June 2020 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52905378 ... Evidence from the system was still used by the Post Office to secure convictions against postmasters like Seema Misra. She was pregnant when she was sentenced to 15 months in prison in 2010 for stealing -L-74,000 from her branch in West Byfleet. At her trial, the Post Office argued computer errors could not be responsible for the missing money. But [BBC] Panorama has seen internal Post Office emails which show its legal department was told about Horizon errors shortly before her trial. One email from the Post Office Security Team to the Criminal Law Team is about a bug in the Horizon computer system that makes money "simply disappear". In one case, -L-30,611 went missing. The security team tell the legal team they are worried the bug may have "repercussions in any future prosecution cases". An attachment to the email says that "any branch encountering the problem will have corrupted accounts". The document was printed out by the Post Office legal department just three days before Seema Misra's trial, but it was never disclosed to her defence. ... Note: In some countries prosecutors have a "right" to withhold any evidence that favors the defendant. In Japan the "right" is commonly practiced to the fullest extent, leading to an extremely high conviction rate. It seems that this is not the case in UK but I am not sure about the details. Wherever prosecutors have this "right", the defendant is burdened with the responsibility to prove himself or herself innocent. This is often an uphill struggle. --- Fujitsu: How a Japanese firm became part of the Post Office scandal https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61020075 As the public inquiry into the scandal continues, Fujitsu's legal representatives will make their opening statements on Friday. So how did a Japanese company, generally known to Brits as a maker of laptops, become embroiled in one of the most widespread miscarriages of justice in UK legal history? It may be difficult to believe, but in Fujitsu's home market, hardly anyone has heard of the Horizon scandal. ... --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal There is one detail in this Wikipedia article which is hard for those outside UK to understand. It appears that the Post Office has the authority to assume the role of prosecutor in certain cases. _______________________________________________ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss