The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #169732   Message #4140219
Posted By: Rain Dog
26-Apr-22 - 04:35 AM
Thread Name: BS: Belief in Technology
Subject: RE: BS: Belief in Technology
Shown on BBC1 last night.

Panorama - The Post Office Scandal

"The Post Office is responsible for the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British legal history. For nearly two decades, the scandal saw hundreds of men and women who ran post offices in towns and villages across the country accused of losing or stealing money, when in reality, a computer system could have been to blame. This Panorama special tells the story of those whose lives were utterly devastated, reveals the damning evidence that was kept from them and investigates how and why the Post Office, a multinational tech company and the government covered up the truth for so long."

The BBC published the following article about the programme.

Post Office scandal victims still waiting for compensation

"The quest for accountability

A public inquiry into the scandal has spent the first two months hearing harrowing evidence from former subpostmasters in England and Wales, and will travel to Northern Ireland and Scotland in May to hear the human impact of the decisions taken by Post Office bosses.

However, all victims are hoping that someone within government, the Post Office and Fujitsu, who made the Horizon software, will be held to account. But the calling of those witnesses will not get underway until the autumn, as the inquiry has announced another delay in its progress.

Noel Thomas, who was wrongly jailed for nine months on a charge of false accounting, said he wants those in charge to feel some consequences. "People in their position, being paid a lot of money, hiding the truth; make them feel like I felt when I lost everything overnight," he told Panorama.

That celebration at the High Court last year marked a huge achievement for victims fighting a seemingly impossible battle, but it has certainly not been the end of the story."

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I don't know how long this inquiry will take and then how long the subsequent legal cases will rumble on. No doubt the Post Office and Fujitsu will argue about which of them are the most responsible.

This has been one of the worse scandals in recent years. It 8s sad to see the effect that it has had, and continues to have, on the victims and their families.