Post Office Scandal

Not if used correctly, and within a well-thought out legal framework, it shouldn't.
If enough people think like that or are brainwashed into thinking like that then there is no hope!
 
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This won't happen across all quarters. As with any tech, some will use it for good and within agreed global policies, others will want to use it for bad with scant regard for any legal parameters. And there's a distinct difference with AI. Device A might be extremely advanced in many ways but still require a human to 'switch it on.' If device B can switch itself on ...

This is a thread about failings in the Post Office investigation and legal system, not about rogue actors.
 
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Another reminder from Marina Hyde @ the Guardian -

Right now, in London’s Aldwych House, Wyn Williams’s long-awaited and tirelessly fought-for inquiry is hearing evidence, except on the days it can’t, because the Post Office is continually failing to hand over evidence. Right now, the weeks turn up completely eye-popping new revelations, like the discovery of a document proving that Post Office investigators were ordered to group suspected subpostmasters in racial categories such as “negroid types” and “dark-skinned European types”. This advice was still in use in 2011. That document was also somehow not put before the inquiry, would you believe, along with tens of thousands of others the Post Office has been accused of serially withholding. Last week, on the very night before a crucial evidence session from an engineer for Fujitsu, the firm that designed and maintained the highly defective Horizon accounting software, the Post Office suddenly found a mere 4,767 relevant documents it had forgotten to mention. So his evidence was not heard, and the inquiry again had to be halted.

...Bear in mind this is an organisation that said it needed up to £1bn from the taxpayer to fund the compensation and clean-up, otherwise it would be insolvent...this was at the same time as, say, the case of Francis Duff, an 81-year-old former subpostmaster who lost his house, business and marriage in the two-decade wait to be absolved and compensated. He was finally awarded £340,000 last October – only for the Post Office to immediately swoop and tell him he would lose £332,000 of it to cover income tax and the bankruptcy their own erroneous actions had forced him into. He couldn’t afford to heat his home last winter.
 
absolute scandal people need to do time for what they put these people through .
 
One thing stuck in my mind. One of the women accused and jailed for this said that she asked the PO investigator if there had been any issues elsewhere? She was told none - she was the only one. That was a blatant lie which led the woman to think that it was just her. I think that person should be tracked down and charged separately, and personally. And jailed and his house taken away and he should personally compensate the victim.

I said it before; this would not have gotten so out of hand today, because of social media. Those accused would have known the issue was widespread and the investigation would have taken a very different course.
 
I think that person should be tracked down and charged separately, and personally. And jailed and his house taken away and he should personally compensate the victim.

Absolutely.

My quick, knee-jerk thoughts on this are:

- use AI to sweep large amounts of data / cases
- named individuals scrutinise stuff from the above, that has triggered further investigation
- those individuals are made personally liable for any actions taken (i.e. in the case of wrongful conviction).

"The computer banged them up; nothing to do with me!" defence can't be permitted.

It wasn't "the Post Office" who destroyed these peoples' lives; it was other people.
 
"The police investigation into Anne Chambers (and other potential criminal activity at Fujitsu and the Post Office) is called Operation Olympos. It has been running since January 2020 and has so far seen no arrests. When I asked, under the Freedom of Information Act, how much Operation Olympos had cost, the police refused to tell me, citing the difficulties of adding up lots of numbers. Operation Olympos only got a cost code to itself in March 2023."

Should have got Horizon to add it up....

the case of Francis Duff, an 81-year-old former subpostmaster who lost his house, business and marriage in the two-decade wait to be absolved and compensated. He was finally awarded £340,000 last October – only for the Post Office to immediately swoop and tell him he would lose £332,000 of it to cover income tax and the bankruptcy their own erroneous actions had forced him into. He couldn’t afford to heat his home last winter.
That is absolutely despicable.

Some solicitor should work Pro Bono to get that back.

because the Post Office is continually failing to hand over evidence.
I would be looking at that repeated failure to produce evidence and wonder why.

After all, if their wonderful "sun shines out of its arse" software is so accurate and fault-free, why wouldn't the PO hand over all documents and evidence, confident in the knowledge that all will be well?
 
I would be looking at that repeated failure to produce evidence and wonder why.

When the evidence won't reflect well on oneself, the SOP is to only hand over the barest minimum, dragged out over as long a period as one can be brazen enough to dare.
Offer nothing; address only direct and specific demands.


Rinse and repeat.
 
"The police investigation into Anne Chambers (and other potential criminal activity at Fujitsu and the Post Office) is called Operation Olympos. It has been running since January 2020 and has so far seen no arrests. When I asked, under the Freedom of Information Act, how much Operation Olympos had cost, the police refused to tell me, citing the difficulties of adding up lots of numbers. Operation Olympos only got a cost code to itself in March 2023."

Should have got Horizon to add it up....


That is absolutely despicable.

Some solicitor should work Pro Bono to get that back.


I would be looking at that repeated failure to produce evidence and wonder why.

After all, if their wonderful "sun shines out of its arse" software is so accurate and fault-free, why wouldn't the PO hand over all documents and evidence, confident in the knowledge that all will be well?
It’s a 10 minute bit of work to make sure Compensation is not subject to income tax. If it’s going to be gobbled up by consequential damages, then his lawyer needs to go back for another bite
 
It’s a 10 minute bit of work to make sure Compensation is not subject to income tax. If it’s going to be gobbled up by consequential damages, then his lawyer needs to go back for another bite
How many bites would be required before all the relevant documentation is provided by the Post Office?
They've routinely withheld information until it suits them to provide it in order to avoid further implication in their wrongdoing - it may well be legal and within the 'rules of the game' but nothing about their actions can be perceived as 'doing the right thing'.
 
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