
Hundreds of ‘lives ruined’ by Post Office scandal, inquiry hears
Unjustly sacked and sent to jail:
UK postal workers get higher compensation after “post office scandal”
© 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
In the UK, victims of the so-called “post office scandal” are getting greater compensation. Between 2000 and 2014, more than 700 postal workers were accused of theft and fraud. They were fired and sometimes taken into custody. But this was unjustified, because it was actually a system error. The British government has now announced an additional compensation measure for the employees.
A total of 732 employees of the British Post Office were unlawfully prosecuted for theft, fraud and falsifying accounts between 2000 and 2014. The court cases and civil parties led to the conviction of many employees. Rumours of extortion and false testimony were also circulating.
Many innocent employees ended up in prison, lost their friends and partners or ended their lives. In reality, it turned out to be a system error. The case was not undeservedly dubbed the “post office scandal”.
An error in the system
The false accusations were caused by a fault in the operating system that cost more than 1 billion euros. That system was supposed to automate payments, but an error made it look as if employees were embezzling money. A few weeks after the introduction of the new system, employees reported the system errors via the “help line” they were supposed to use. However, the reports were dismissed as fabrications by the head office. Although many employees made similar reports, no further attention was paid to them.
In 2000, 6 employees were prosecuted for the shortage of money, in 2001 41, in 2002 even 64, … Meanwhile, there were 12,000 communication breakdowns per year and software errors in 76 post offices. In total, 732 employees were prosecuted on suspicion of fraud, theft or forgery.
Wrongful dismissal or imprisonment
The consequences of the more than 700 lawsuits and civil proceedings were enormous. Employees lost their jobs, their homes, their families and sometimes even their freedom. Some 555 former employees jointly initiated proceedings against the British headquarters. At the end of 2019, the British court ruled that the computer system for payments was full of software errors. The victims received compensation.
More than 50 million euros was promised to the victims. In reality, they only received 12 million euros, the rest of the money went to the lawyers. But the British Government now wants to change that. According to Prime Minister Johnson, the entire group of employees will now be properly compensated “even though it cannot take away the fears of many years”.
Hundreds of millions
For the British postal company, the bill could be high. More than 2,500 former postal workers are eligible for compensation. It will soon amount to hundreds of millions of euros. Employees who were acquitted in the past are also entitled to compensation. They are already receiving more than 100,000 euros pending a final judgment.
Onterecht ontslagen en naar de gevangenis:
Britse postmedewerkers krijgen hogere compensatie na “postkantoorschandaal”
© 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Lukas Lecluyse
di 22 mrt 18:31
In het Verenigd Koninkrijk krijgen de slachtoffers van het zogenoemde “postkantoorschandaal” een grotere compensatie. Tussen 2000 en 2014 werden meer dan 700 postmedewerkers beschuldigd van diefstal en fraude. Ze werden ontslagen en soms in hechtenis genomen. Maar dat was onterecht, want het ging eigenlijk om een systeemfout. De Britse regering heeft nu een extra compensatiemaatregel aangekondigd voor de medewerkers.
In totaal werden 732 medewerkers van het British Post Office (de Britse post) tussen 2000 en 2014 onrechtmatig vervolgd voor diefstal, fraude en het vervalsen van de boekhouding. De rechtszaken en burgerlijke partijen leidden tot de veroordeling van heel wat medewerkers. Vaak deden ook geruchten van afpersing en valse getuigenissen de ronde.
Veel onschuldige medewerkers belandden in de gevangenis, verloren hun vrienden en partners of maakten een einde aan hun leven. In werkelijkheid bleek het te gaan om een systeemfout. De zaak kreeg dus niet onterecht de naam “postkantoorschandaal”.
Een foutje in het systeem
Aan de oorzaak van de valse beschuldigingen lag een fout in het besturingssysteem dat ruim 1 miljard euro kostte. Dat systeem moest betalingen automatiseren, maar door een fout leek het alsof medewerkers geld verduisterden. Enkele weken na de invoering van het nieuwe systeem, meldden medewerkers de systeemfouten via de “hulplijn” die ze moesten gebruiken. De meldingen werden door het hoofdkantoor echter afgedaan als verzinsels. Hoewel veel medewerkers gelijkaardige meldingen deden, werd er verder geen aandacht meer aan besteed.
In 2000 werden 6 medewerkers vervolgd voor de geldtekorten, in 2001 waren dat er 41, in 2002 zelfs 64, … Dat terwijl er ondertussen 12.000 communicatiestoringen werden vastgesteld per jaar en in 76 postkantoren softwarefouten waren. In totaal werden 732 medewerkers vervolgd op verdenking van fraude, diefstal of vervalsing.
Onterecht ontslagen of opgesloten
De gevolgen van de ruim 700 rechtszaken en civiele procedures waren gigantisch. Medewerkers verloren hun baan, hun huis, hun familie en soms zelfs hun vrijheid. Zo’n 555 oud-medewerkers startten gezamenlijk een procedure tegen het Britse hoofdkantoor. Het Britse gerechtshof oordeelde eind 2019 dat het computersysteem voor betalingen vol softwarefouten zat. De slachtoffers ontvingen een schadevergoeding.
Er werd ruim 50 miljoen euro aan de slachtoffers toegezegd. In realiteit kregen ze slechts 12 miljoen euro, de rest van het geld ging naar de juristen. Maar daar wil de Britse regering nu verandering in brengen. Volgens premier Johnson zal nu de volledige groep medewerkers correct worden vergoed “ook al kan dat de jarenlange angst niet wegnemen”.
Honderden miljoenen
Voor het Britse postbedrijf kan de rekening hoog oplopen. Ruim 2.500 voormalige postwerknemers komen in aanmerking voor de compensatie. Al snel gaat het om honderden miljoenen euro. Werknemers die in het verleden werden vrijgesproken, maken ook aanspraak op de vergoeding. Zij krijgen nu al meer dan 100.000 euro in afwachting van een definitieve uitspraak.
The High Court ruling declared that the Post Office’s computer system, called Horizon,
was defective and had caused accounting discrepancies
and false accusations of fraud against sub-postmasters.
The court also found that the Post Office had failed
to investigate these issues properly, and
had unfairly blamed the sub-postmasters for the errors.
1 Trouble at Post Office – Panorama – 17th August 2015
2 Panorama : Scandal at the Post Office BBC Documentary 2020
12 jun. 2020
3 *The Great Post Office Scandal and Cover Up Part 1
5 jul. 2020
The Post Office wrongful convictions scandal is a case in which the UK Post Office wrongly accused and convicted numerous sub-postmasters of theft, fraud, and false accounting. Here are some of the key points of the scandal:
The Post Office accused sub-postmasters of theft and fraud based on discrepancies in their accounts, which were often caused by software errors in the Post Office’s computer system.
Sub-postmasters who were accused and convicted of theft and fraud were often forced to pay back the allegedly missing funds, leading to financial ruin for many of them.
The Post Office pursued legal action against sub-postmasters even when it knew that the discrepancies were caused by software errors.
Many of the sub-postmasters who were wrongfully convicted lost their jobs and were unable to find work in the industry again due to their criminal records.
The scandal was exposed in 2019 when a group of sub-postmasters won a High Court case against the Post Office, which ruled that the computer system was flawed and that the Post Office had acted unfairly.
As a result of the scandal, the Post Office agreed to pay £57.75 million in compensation to more than 2,000 sub-postmasters who were affected by the wrongful convictions.
The scandal has been described as one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British legal history, and has led to calls for greater accountability and transparency in the Post Office’s operations.
4 *The Great Post Office Scandal and Cover up part 2.
5 jul. 2020
5 Post Office Scandal | Two Decades | Trailer
5 jul. 2021
6 Post Office Scandal || The Truman Show || SpeakEasy 21 Feb 2022
21 feb. 2022
7 Two Decades – The Fight For Justice
8 jul. 2021
8 Post Office scandal: Man wrongly convicted of stealing died before court cleared his name | ITV News
24 nov. 2021
9 Post office scandal: Varchas Patel joins Gloria De Piero to discuss how his family were impacted
14 feb. 2022

10 Post Office Scandal: 44 postmaster convictions set to be quashed 20 years later | 5 News
2 okt. 2020
► Dozens of former sub-postmasters and postmistresses should get a clear path to have their convictions for false accounting, fraud and theft quashed.
47 postmasters were convicted 20 years ago of theft after a faulty IT system was installed, resulting in many being sacked and some imprisoned.
11 The Post Office Scandal
17 jun. 2020
12 Short debate about the Post Office scandal in the House of Lords
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5 feb. 2020
13 Post Office scandal: Why were postmasters prosecuted?
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23 apr. 2021
14 Former postmasters cleared after Britain’s biggest miscarriage of justice
23 apr. 2021
15 Justice for Sub-postmasters in the Post Office case
10 jun. 2021
Our Panel comprises the following speakers::
– Paul Marshall, Cornerstone Barristers
– Flora Page, 23 Essex Chambers
– Nick Gould, Aria Grace Law
– Dineshi Ramesh, Board Intelligence
– Anthony Edwards, retired solicitor
– Jonathan Rogers, University of Cambridge
– Richard Moorhead, University of Exeter
– Alan Brener, Centre for Ethics and Law, UCL
– Ian Henderson, Second Sight
16 Wrongly jailed at 19 years old in Post Office scandal | Janet Skinner & Tracy Felstead
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15 feb. 2022

17 EXPLAINED: The Post Office Wrongful Convictions Scandal | Nick Wallis
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14 feb. 2022
Speaking to Carole Walker ahead of the inquiry, journalist and author Nick Wallis explains the Post Office scandal, where hundreds of former sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses were wrongly accused of stealing.
Their convictions were later overturned after it was discovered that a computer error was the cause of accounting shortfalls.
Nick Wallis said: ” And the government has been forced to set aside a billion pounds in compensation to those who a. were prosecuted and have now had their convictions quashed and b. who were forced to pay back money with menaces, and that number runs into the thousands.”
His book ‘The Great Post Office Scandal’ details the impact of the errors on the Post Office workers falsely accused.
He said: “This happened on an industrial scale.
“700 people falsely prosecuted, thousands more forced to pay back money that they never owed in the first place, creating broken lives, broken families and mental health problems that will continue to reverberate for many, many years to come.”
Listen to Nick Wallis speaking with Carole Walker on Times Radio.
EXPLAINED: The Post Office Wrongful Convictions Scandal | Nick Wallis – Blog
18 Post Office scandal victim on being wrongly imprisoned: I could’ve killed myself
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18 dec. 2021
19 The Post Office Scandal: How not to Manage Software: James Christie
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20 The Post Office and the Miscarriage of Justice: Paul Marshall
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18 feb. 2022
21 Falling Foul of the Disclosure Rules: The Post Office: Chris Daw QC
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25 feb. 2022
22 Autonomy Denied: The Pressure To Plead Guilty: Rebecca Helm
21 jan. 2022
le.
23 The Post Office Scandal: The Naive Faith in Computers: Steven Murdoch
10 dec. 2021
The courts have a naive faith in computer evidence, based in ignorance. Since the repeal of the section of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act which required certification that computer systems were functioning correctly, a presumption has been adopted by the courts of England and Wales that they simply do, without the need for any certification to confirm it and is therefore admissible as evidence.
This presumption formed the basis for the criminal prosecutions and civil actions against subpostmasters who were consequently put in the position of having to prove their innocence with no need by the Post Office to prove that Horizon, full of bugs as it was, was functioning properly.
This resulted in the hundreds of miscarriages of justice caused to subpostmasters and the ruin of many lives
Steven Murdoch is Professor of Security Engineering and Royal Society Research Fellow at University College London. He is Innovation Security Architect at OneSpan. He explains how wrong this presumption is, how ignorant the courts and lawyers are and how laughable IT specialists consider this presumption to be.
24 Demanding Justice: The Post Office Scandal
In première gegaan op 18 mrt. 2022
25 Post Office Horizon Scandal – Computerphile
9 jul. 2021
26 Horizon scandal: Falsely accused sub-postmaster went through ’20 years of hell’ | ITV News
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14 feb. 2022
27 Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry Human Impact – Day 8 AM Live Stream (23 February 2022)
28 Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry Human Impact – Day 9 PM Live Stream (24 February 2022)
29 Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry Human Impact Focus Group Day 2 AM Live Stream (11 March 2022)
30 Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry Human Impact – Day 10 AM Live Stream (25 February 2022)
31 Public inquiry into Post Office scandal starts
14 feb. 2022
32 Post Office Horizon scandal: ‘It’s broken people’s lives’ | Andrew Bridgen MP
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18 feb. 2022
33 – 39 former subpostmasters are cleared after Post Office wrongly accused them of theft and fraud
23 apr. 2021
Former subpostmasters who were wrongly convicted because of the Post Office’s defective Horizon accounting system have called for a public inquiry into the scandal which “destroyed” people’s lives.
On Friday, 39 former subpostmasters who were convicted and even jailed for theft, fraud and false accounting finally had their names cleared by the Court of Appeal.
Lord Justice Holroyde, sitting with Mr Justice Picken and Mrs Justice Farbey, said the Post Office “knew there were serious issues about the reliability of Horizon” and had a “clear duty to investigate” the system’s defects.
But the Post Office “consistently asserted that Horizon was robust and reliable”, and “effectively steamrolled over any subpostmaster who sought to challenge its accuracy”, the judge added.
The Court of Appeal also allowed 39 of the appeals on the grounds that the prosecutions were an affront to the public conscience.
Lord Justice Holroyde said: “Post Office Limited’s failures of investigation and disclosure were so egregious as to make the prosecution of any of the ‘Horizon cases’ an affront to the conscience of the court.”
Lawyers representing the former subpostmasters said evidence of serious defects in the Horizon system was “concealed from the courts, prosecutors and defence”, in order to protect the Post Office “at all costs”.
Continue reading:
Post Office scandal: 39 Postmasters whose lives were ‘ruined’ over faulty IT theft-claims sob as convictions overturned
34 IT Horizon scandal over for ex-postmasters in convictions appeal
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23 apr. 2021
35 Post Office – Inside Out South, BBC 1 – First transmitted 7 Feb 2011
11 feb. 2011
36 Public inquiry into sub-postmasters convicted of theft and fraud opens | 5 News
37 Post Office scandal ‘ruined lives’, inquiry hears
14 feb. 2022
38 Wrongly convicted Post Office workers say those responsible should face jail
16 feb. 2022
39 Parliamentary debate on treatment of convicted Post Office workers
6 mrt. 2020