Sir Alan Bates’ wife, Suzanne Sercombe, who now becomes ‘Lady Bates’
1 Post Office campaigner Alan Bates given knighthood – but insists there’s still ‘work to do’
The campaigner has insisted the honour won’t change his life, while his wife Suzanne told Sky News she is “very proud” of her “very deserving” husband.
Alan Bates, recently knighted, led the fight for justice after hundreds of sub-postmasters were wrongfully convicted due to the faulty Horizon system. He rejected an OBE last year, deeming it an insult while former Post Office CEO Paula Vennells still held a CBE.
With Vennells stripped of her title, Bates accepted the knighthood, despite concerns that many victims haven’t received full compensation. He urges other victims to persist in seeking justice, stressing Fujitsu’s responsibility in the scandal. Bates also supports potential criminal charges against individuals and corporate entities involved.
Post Office campaigner Alan Bates knighted in King’s Birthday Honours
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15 jun 2024
Alan Bates, the campaigner who uncovered the Post Office scandal, has been awarded a knighthood in the King’s Birthday Honours list.
Mr Bates previously rejected the offer of an OBE last year because former Post Office boss Paula Vennells had been given a CBE – but she’s since been stripped of the title.
News: Post Office hero Alan Bates honoured with knighthood after exposing Horizon IT scandal…
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2 The Post Office knew what was going on
Fujitsu employees ‘dragged over coals’ if they admitted issues with Post Office software | ITV News
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1 feb 2024
A former employee at a Fujitsu call centre who dealt with queries from sub-postmasters about the Horizon system told ITV News that staff would have been “dragged over the coals” if they admitted the software had problems.
Nate Orrow worked at Fujitsu’s Stevenage call centre for two years, between 2010 and 2012.
Speaking exclusively to ITV News, he said that when sub-postmasters were required to balance their accounts, the call centre would be “back to back for hours” with queries.
Post Office ‘has case to answer for corporate manslaughter’, senior Tory MP says | ITV News
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4 apr 2024
A senior Conservative MP who questioned Paula Vennells and the Post Office in 2015 on the Horizon IT Scandal says the organisation has a “case to answer for corporate manslaughter” and “criminal wrongdoing”.
After hearing a secret recording obtained by ITV News, Nadhim Zahawi said the former Post Office boss and her team “were not telling the truth” when they gave evidence to the House of Commons Business and Skills Committee nine years ago.
Union representing sub-postmasters repeatedly ignored Horizon IT concerns | ITV News
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20 mrt 2024
How was it the Post Office were able to go about criminalising hundreds of innocent people for more than a decade without as much as a peep from the National Federation of Subpostmasters (NFSP), which represents the vast majority of self-employed sub-postmasters?
ITV News can reveal that the union repeatedly ignored concerns over Horizon IT.
Nick Wallis reports.
Educational
Educational
3 The Post Office was Either Completely Negligent Or Complicit
“They’re Either Completely Negligent Or Complicit!” Post Office Scandal Victims Slam Those Involved
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9 jan 2024
TalkTV’s Kevin O’Sullivan and Alex Phillips are joined by two victims of the Post Office scandal, Christopher Head and Wendy Buffrey, to discuss the impact it had on their lives.
It comes after the former Post Office boss Paula Vennells is set to hand back her CBE following the fallout of the Horizon IT scandal which led to the wrongful prosecution of hundreds of subpostmasters.
The former chief executive, who ran the Post Office while it routinely denied there was a problem with its Horizon IT system, was appointed a CBE in December 2018.
In a statement, Ms Vennells said: “I am truly sorry for the devastation caused to the sub-postmasters and their families, whose lives were torn apart by being wrongly accused and wrongly prosecuted as a result of the Horizon system.”
Post Office Inquiry: Laughter as Vennells is challenged over her ‘odd’ apprach before talking to MPs
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22 mei 2024
Counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC accused Paula Vennells of adopting an “odd” approach before speaking to MPs.
In 2015, she told MPs on the the business select committee that she had seen no evidence of miscarriages of justice and that there were no faults in the Horizon system.
On Wednesday, the inquiry was told of an email Ms Vennells sent before the select committee hearing saying she needed to tell MPs “it is not possible” to access Horizon remotely. Counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC asked why she needed to say remote access was not possible.
Ms Vennells responded:”I phrased this point very specifically and I can remember why I did this.
“Alice Perkins, not related to this particularly, but I can remember Alice Perkins saying to me at some stage, ‘Paula if you want to get the truth and a really clear answer from somebody, you should tell them what it is you want to say very clearly and then ask for the information that backs that up’, that was why I phrased this that way.”
Mr Beer said:”That’s an odd way of going about things, isn’t it? ‘I want to know the answer to the question, here’s the answer to the question, tell me I’m wrong’.”
Ms Vennells added: “Well yes, I hoped they would do….I believed this was absolutely the case, I had an obligation going before the select committee to be able to share the information that I knew and be able to answer their questions correctly and this is what I was trying to ask for from the team. I was not in any way, if you’re suggesting this, trying to tell them what the answer should be.”
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Educational
Post Office: chair intervenes after groans as Vennells admits she followed ‘grossly improper’ advice
23 mei 2024
Ex-Post Office boss Paula Vennells followed a “grossly improper” suggestion to not review all subpostmaster prosecutions after her communications chief said it would end up “front page news”, the Horizon IT inquiry has heard.
The probe was shown an email exchange between Ms Vennells and then director of communications Mark Davies in July 2013 in which she said she would “take your steer” after he said looking at all past cases would be “in media terms… very high profile”.
Ms Vennells agreed that had the Post Office decided to review all prosecutions of false accounting, it “may well have” avoided the “lost decade” until miscarriages of justice involving subpostmasters were discovered.
The public gallery at the inquiry, made up of mainly subpostmasters, groaned loudly after Ms Vennells said she did not remember if she took the “advice of the PR guy” to review past prosecutions.
After chairman Sir Wyn Williams intervened, Ms Vennells continued: “As I tried to say before, what we were working to at this stage was numbers of cases going through a scheme, and a scheme that was going to be opened up to anybody who wanted to come forward.
“I understand how this reads, but I don’t recall making any conscious decision not to go back and put in place a review of all past criminal cases.”
Post Office Inquiry: Fujitsu boss labels editing of witness statements in prosecutions ‘shameful’
19 jan 2024
Fujitsu’s European boss has described the editing of witness statements to defend the Horizon IT system that were used in the prosecutions of subpostmasters as “shameful”.
Paul Patterson told the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry that he was “surprised” that details of bugs, errors and defects (BEDs) in the scandal-hit software were not included in witness statements for criminal proceedings against subpostmasters.
He admitted that BEDs had existed in the system for “nearly two decades” and said the “vast majority” had been shared with the Post Office contemporaneously.
Post Office scandal: ‘The sub-postmasters are fed up’, says campaigner
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8 jan 2024
Journalist and campaigner Nick Wallis says that sub-postmasters and mistresses are fed up with the response of the authorities to the Horizon IT scandal.
More than 700 sub-postmasters and mistresses had their reputations ruined by allegations of theft and false accounting, with many left bankrupt or in prison, as a result of the computer system.
Educarional
Sudden Corner Store Hostage
2 mei 2011
Prank victims enter a corner store hoping to pick up a few essential items. As they go to the counter to pay, they notice a baseball bat, which rolls to the floor. They go to pick it up, but suddenly, all the lights turn off. Then, in a flash, the lights turn back on and the cashier is tied up with duct tape around his mouth, while the prank victims are brandishing a baseball bat. This doesn’t look good. For the two police officers who come in immediately after, it sure looks like they just entered a hostage situation, and these confused prank victims are in a lot of trouble.
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