The Post Office Scandal

Boncey's mate, Professor Tim, is right about the Post Office hierarchy. I believe he's also right that it all goes 'right to the top' of whatever colour of government  happened to be in charge at all the different times involved.





What about the NHS? Is he right about that too?

Well yes, he is. There's a lot of big snouts in that ginormous trough.

I very much doubt the very top of whatever colour of government happened to be in charge at all the different times involved ever knew what was going on to individual SPMs until the recent court case when all the scandal became known.

How could they?

The PO is ultimately owned by the government but it is operated independently with only a government representative at PO Board meetings, therefore if such individual issues about SPMs are not discussed at the meetings they attended - BUT THEY WERE NOT...

Ed Davey the initial minister responsible for the PO was LIED to from the beginnig -

Ed Davey has apologised for the first time for his role as a minister in the Horizon scandal, with the Liberal Democrat leader saying he was “sorry I did not see through the Post Office’s lies”.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/feb/01/ed-davey-apologises-for-his-role-in-post-office-horizon-scandal

PO Board Chairmen were kept in the dark...

Meanwhile, the former chairman of the Post Office said he had 'no idea' how the organisation's board was kept in the dark about large financial counter-claims made by subpostmasters.

Reference the case of Julie Wolstenholme, Sir Wyn Williams, who is leading the Horizon IT inquiry, said to Sir Michael Hodgkinson: 'I can understand how the more senior these people are the more discretion they may have to act, and they make a judgment about whether to bring things to the board, etc...'

'But going back to [Ms] Wolstenholme's case where she's claiming £188,000 from the Post Office, which in 2003/4 is a substantial amount of money, and I don't know precisely how much Ms Wolstenholme was paid, but all the indications are that it was a very significant sum of money.

'I'm intrigued as to how that could have happened without the board being involved - can you help me with that?'

Sir Michael responded: 'I've got no idea.'

https://forum.boltonnuts.co.uk/t26035p60-the-post-office-scandal#461569

The PO held the line that Horizon was 'robust' at the Post Office Mediations of 2015 as per Parliaments Business, Innovation and Skills Committee

https://committees.parliament.uk/work/1803/post-office-mediation/publications/


And told LIES to the HIGH COURT in 2019

Lord Justice Fraser, the judge in the 2019 case, was critical in his judgment of Van Den Bogerd over her testimony. He found in two instances “she did not give me frank evidence and sought to obfuscate matters, and mislead me”.

https://www.ft.com/content/433163c4-ad7f-430b-85bc-59e49772b1c3


...so HOW exactly did those at the very top of these governments of any colour even KNOW about the scandal in order to conceal it???

What do you think MPs do when they get a complaint from constituents, Sluffy?

If you don't know, let me tell you. One thing they will often or usually do is write to the relevant Minister. Not that it does much good but it looks like they have done something and it does go on the record.

The system is based on fobbing off and obfuscation whilst grinding down and wearing out anyone and everyone with genuine concerns.

Quite simply, that's probably how it got as bad as it did in the Post Office and its barely any different in the NHS. 
 
My local hospital was granted its coveted 'Foundation Trust' status by the coalition despite having the highest hospital-related mortality rates in the whole of England and whilst mothers and babies died needlessly through neglect at Furness General Hospital (under the same Trust control). Anyone in-house that blew the whistle were out of the house before you could say Jack Robinson. 


The Inquiry into Furness General wasn't a public inquiry, its terms of reference were narrow and its chairman seemed to have been given the job because he was 'a safe pair of hands'. In other words it was 'managed'.

Patient care counts for very little when compared with governments 'flavour of the month' agendas. 

Professor Tim is spot on. The one who pays the piper calls the tune and, so far as I can ascertain, insufficient time seems to have have been allocated to questioning the pipers in this Inquiry. But some of them will appear and that's good.

Ten Bobsworth wrote:What do you think MPs do when they get a complaint from constituents, Sluffy?

If you don't know, let me tell you. One thing they will often or usually do is write to the relevant Minister. Not that it does much good but it looks like they have done something and it does go on the record.

The system is based on fobbing off and obfuscation whilst grinding down and wearing out anyone and everyone with genuine concerns.

Quite simply, that's probably how it got as bad as it did in the Post Office and its barely any different in the NHS. 
 
My local hospital was granted its coveted 'Foundation Trust' status by the coalition despite having the highest hospital-related mortality rates in the whole of England and whilst mothers and babies died needlessly through neglect at Furness General Hospital (under the same Trust control). Anyone in-house that blew the whistle were out of the house before you could say Jack Robinson. 


The Inquiry into Furness General wasn't a public inquiry, its terms of reference were narrow and its chairman seemed to have been given the job because he was 'a safe pair of hands'. In other words it was 'managed'.

Patient care counts for very little when compared with governments 'flavour of the month' agendas. 

Professor Tim is right. The one who pays the piper calls the tune and, so far as I can ascertain, insufficient time seems to have have been allocated to questioning the pipers in this Inquiry. But some of them will appear and that's good.

Oh but I DO KNOW what MP's do when they get a complaint from constituents because I was the one that had the job of answering them!

What they do in fact is write to the responsible body, so if it was for a PO complaint, they would in the first instance write on behalf of their constituent to the PO's CEO. who would pass it down to someone like me to reply.

I/others doing the same role, would be handed it by the CEO and would in turn refer it to the relevant head of that service responsible to reply and to respond in their name (or reply in the CEO's name and pass on to the CEO for signature).

So in reality it would be the van den Bogerds and Vennells of the organisation who would be the ones supplying the replies to the MP's - the same van den Bogerds and Vennells who would be on the PO's Management Team, briefing the PO's Board of Directors, attending Parliaments committees of inquiry and giving evidence at the High Court.

Of course if the MP's such as Arbuthnot were not happy with the replies they were getting from the PO they would write directly to the Minister who in turn would contact the PO which would in turn would follow exactly the same procedure to respond.

Obviously the PO would know that they need to do more to appease the Minister and that's why they came up with the commissioning of the various reports from the forensic accountants, the mediation scheme, and ultimately face the High Court - but all the time it would be the van den Bogerds and Vennells who would be the gatekeepers and the ones who are briefing everyone above them and/or external to the PO - including the Ministers, that there WASN'T an issue and the Horizon was 'robust', when at least van den Bogerd (and others in the PO) KNEW by then differently and presumably Vennell knew too or was in denial of the fact.

Although her comments about Susan Crichton, PO's inhouse Head of Legal, seems to damn her in my eyes...

The relationship between Vennells and Crichton had appeared to have broken down by September 2013. The pair met at a Costa near the Post Office offices in Old Street where Vennells recorded that Crichton got angry and shouted at her. Crichton says she has no recollection of this.

Vennells said Crichton was upset that the Post Office had ruined her reputation and compromised her by undertaking a further review of the Second Sight handling. Crichton was said to be ‘very emotional’ and her ‘ego and self-esteem have been undermined’.

Then comes a particularly enlightening note from Vennells. The chief executive reflected that ‘Susan was possibly more loyal to her professional conduct requirements and put her integrity as a lawyer above the interests of the business’.

Crichton tells the inquiry that at all times she had been focused on delivering an independent report through Second Sight.

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/post-office-inquiry-live-former-gc-susan-crichton-gives-evidence/5119453.article#:~:text=The%20chief%20executive%20reflected%20that,independent%20report%20through%20Second%20Sight.

As I keep saying, you can only do something if you know about it, I'm yet to be convinced that the government really didn't know much about the scandal until it blew up at the High Court.

Yes, you are correct, the government is the one that sets the terms of reference and the timescale for this inquiry but I don't believe they are looking to control the narrative resulting from it - indeed if what I believe to be is correct and that the various governments during the period of the scandal knew little to nothing about it, it would be in their own interest politically for that to come out rather than to be seen to have been hiding something.

I've made reference of 'gatekeepers' several times on this thread and have assumed people would know what I'm talking about but just in case I've Googled the term and this was the first one I found under the search 'gatekeepers business' -

Gatekeepers act as a line before decision makers, such as business owners, chief officers, members, executives and managers, screening and assessing each party trying to contact the decision makers.

I use the term to explain why people in the PO HAVE reported up the chain to the likes of the van den Bogerds and Vennells of issues with Horizon but that these issues seemed not to have reached the Board and government.

If they have I have seen no evidence to that effect and certainly none produced to the Inquiry to date.

That's why I can't see why Bob and Professor Tim seem to think with certainty that several  governments have knowledge and not acted upon it???

There's simply been no proof - no smoking gun - found that they or the PO Board of Directors knew anything about it much before the High Court case outcome.

Call them 'gatekeepers' if you want, Sluffy, but snivelling gobshites that hide behind snivelling gobshites are still snivelling gobshites in my book.

Let’s hope the Inquiry and counsel for the SPMs expose them for what they really are.

Ten Bobsworth wrote:Call them 'gatekeepers' if you want, Sluffy, but snivelling gobshites that hide behind snivelling gobshites are still snivelling gobshites in my book.

Let’s hope the Inquiry and counsel for the SPMs expose them for what they really are.

I'll call them gatekeepers because that was the term used when I was studying for my MBA.

It was really used as a term to describe someone (usually) lowly on the pay scale but with access to key decision makers - such as the CEO's PA.

In practice I have always found that you tend to get more help, assistance and advise when you need it by treating everyone civil, respectfully and equal to yourself than think and act as though you are superior to everyone.

There may be a lesson in there, somewhere for you Bob.

I always found that the 'invisible' people - the cleaners, the caretakers, the office juniors, etc, etc, often knew more what was really going on in the organisations than many of the senior managers did!

Anyway I digress.

The point I was making is that if the gatekeeper didn't allow you access, it PREVENTED information getting past them to the decision makers.

How better then to keep the shit that you've created, hitting the fan, if you ARE the gatekeeper and can stop it reaching the ears of the Board and government?

Up to now Bob you've seemed to think EVERYONE has been a "snivelling gobshite" (no doubt you think I'm one too) and would have lynched them all if you had your way, whereas I'm suggesting that many of those you've condemned without any proof are more likely not to have known about the scandal because it was kept from them by gatekeepers such as the van den Bogerds and Vennells.

No smoking gun has yet been produced to dispel my hypothesis and similarly absolutely nothing found in support of your uber lynch mob hatred of everyone from all the governments during the period of the scandal (whatever the colour), downwards.

"I was only the Minister for the Post Office, how was I to know what was going on?" said Minister 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 etc etc etc.

"Well you were actually appointed and paid to know what was going on, weren't you?"

"Yes, but there's all these gatekeepers telling me lies. How do I know when someone's telling me lies?"

"In some cases its when their lips are moving, isn't it"

"Oh I never thought of that"

Bob, clearly not everybody is as super clever as you believe yourself to be because I for one am certainly not a clairvoyant and base my decisions on the best information I am given by the people who have been appointed to give it to me.

After some time I probably will start to suss out that not everything I'm being told rings true but even then, as in the case of David Mills (CEO 2002 - 2005) the primary aim was to save the company from going bust and a prosecution of a random SPM (1 of 10,000 sub post offices, or whatever there was) is hardly going to be a priority issue to anyone at the time.

If you were such a genius to know that something stank so badly with what was happening at your mates PO at the time - then what exactly did you do about it in the last TWENTY YEARS?

Sweet fuck all, apparently.

You aren't as perfect as you like to think you are, otherwise you wouldn't be carrying all these chips around that you've got on your shoulder and you're clearly very intolerance of people like me who simply won't kow tow to you.

You can try to lampoon me all you want but the fact remains that if things are kept from you, then you DON'T KNOW about them, no matter how high up the greasy pole you are.

It's a wise child that knows his own father - as they say...

(Act 2, Scene 2, The Merchant of Venice - William Shakespeare).

Sluffy wrote:Bob, clearly not everybody is as super clever as you believe yourself to be because I for one am certainly not a clairvoyant and base my decisions on the best information I am given by the people who have been appointed to give it to me.

After some time I probably will start to suss out that not everything I'm being told rings true but even then, as in the case of David Mills (CEO 2002 - 2005) the primary aim was to save the company from going bust and a prosecution of a random SPM (1 of 10,000 sub post offices, or whatever there was) is hardly going to be a priority issue to anyone at the time.

If you were such a genius to know that something stank so badly with what was happening at your mates PO at the time - then what exactly did you do about it in the last TWENTY YEARS?

Sweet fuck all, apparently.

You aren't as perfect as you like to think you are, otherwise you wouldn't be carrying all these chips around that you've got on your shoulder and you're clearly very intolerance of people like me who simply won't kow tow to you.

You can try to lampoon me all you want but the fact remains that if things are kept from you, then you DON'T KNOW about them, no matter how high up the greasy pole you are.

It's a wise child that knows his own father - as they say...

(Act 2, Scene 2, The Merchant of Venice - William Shakespeare).

Good old Sluffy, the lion-hearted defender of lying toerags and  snivelling gobshites/gatekeepers if you prefer.

Ten Bobsworth wrote:Good old Sluffy, the lion-hearted defender of lying toerags and  snivelling gobshites/gatekeepers if you prefer.

Good old Bob, detests anyone standing up to him.

Where's your proof that the government for the last TWENTY YEARS knew anything about this?



He's shocked to see that someone has the balls to tell him that he's not always right and that calling me names has no effect on me.

He doesn't know what else to do now, do you Bob?



Kia ora and goodnight to you Bobby!

It’s like two old pensioners having a fight this. Deary me!  

Fans of the Inquiry show will have to wait until mid-July before the Post Office Ministers turn up.

But there's another good line-up this week, winding up with POLs leading legal eagle, Jarnail Singh, on Friday. Not to be missed.  Clear your diary.

karlypants wrote:It’s like two old pensioners having a fight this. Deary me!

Yes you are right, we are two old pensioners having a fight BUT I don't see it that way, the way I see it is that we have one old bloke who acts and behaves as though he knows it all and another old bloke who simply says that if he's so cocksure he's right, then where's his proof?

And of course he NEVER comes up with anything and instead resorts to personal abuse, which he thinks he can get away with by simply saying he's 'lampooning' folk such as Norpig and more recently myself.

Did the government know about the scandal, I strongly suspect not until around about the time of the High Court case.

Is me having this opinion worth all the shit that has since followed - I certainly don't think so - but it matters to Bob - look at Bob's behaviour since - he clearly doesn't like anyone putting up a different view to his - this sort of behaviour from him has carried on, on many other topics and threads - I muddy the water, I haven't got my thinking head on, I can't spell for toffee and now I'm defending snivelling gobshites.

I'm actual non of the above (apart from the spelling!), I simply ask him to prove his case or accept there could be alternatives to what he holds to be the truth.

Is that really unreasonable of me to do?

That's the way I see it - and that is actually what it is.

It's as simple as that.

Private Eye seemed to think it all originated from PFI schemes promoted by government and snake oil salesmen. They might well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.

https://www.private-eye.co.uk/pictures/special_reports/justice-lost-in-the-post.pdf

Ten Bobsworth wrote:Private Eye seemed to think it all originated from PFI schemes promoted by government and snake oil salesmen. They might well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.

https://www.private-eye.co.uk/pictures/special_reports/justice-lost-in-the-post.pdf

Ok, I've read it.

It doesn't say anywhere that government Ministers knew what was going on.

Indeed it says exactly the opposite in that the Post Office in effect lied to Parliament telling them that Horizon was infallible...

In February 2015 Paula Vennells was summoned
by the Commons business committee, along with
Second Sight’s Ian Henderson. To barely
disguised derision, the Post Office chief executive
claimed to run “a business that genuinely cares
about the people who work for us”. If “there
had been any miscarriages of justice, it would
have been really important to me and the Post
Office that we surfaced those… so far we have
no evidence of that.” And so, misleadingly, on.

One insider told the Eye of unswerving
loyalty at HQ: “If you wanted to belong and fit
in, you had to put the future of the Post Office
first. If that meant turning a blind eye – or worse
– that’s what people would do.”

Denial dictated Vennells’s response to MPs
exasperated by a mediation process that had
turned into trench warfare.

When Vennells claimed to MPs that she was
unaware of this, Second Sight’s Henderson, also
giving evidence at the hearing, humiliatingly
corrected her: “It came up at one of the working
group meetings at which you and I were present.”
The affair had become, Tory committee member
Nadhim Zahawi said, “a shambles”.

The actual truth only started getting out to a wider audience - and by that I mean beyond the gatekeepers such as Vennells and to the PO Board and the government itself when the High Court litigation started in 2017...

The Post Office’s case was creaking from the
outset. During one procedural hearing leading
up to the opening of the class action, the critical
claim that only a sub-postmaster could alter their
own accounts – which underpinned the notion
that all shortfalls must be their fault – was
exposed as nonsense. “Fujitsu… has the
capability to inject a new transaction into our
branch accounts,” admitted the Post Office’s
counsel, adding that previous statements to the
contrary were “a matter of enormous regret”



So Bob please point out to me and the rest of the class how all these government Ministers going back years KNEW that Horizon was faulty when everything was hidden not only from them but everyone else - including the PO Board and the courts by Vennells et al, not disclosing the truth?

Go on mate, we all know you think you are a genius and the rest of us brain dead, so here is your moment to prove it to us all.

Go on then.



I won't be holding my breath though because you never do.

I didn't get chance to watch much of today's proceedings but you didn't need to watch much to get the flavour.

In the morning session, POLs Head of Legal apparently couldn't remember very much except that he seemed to know less than the average tea lady about criminal law and everything was Susan Crichton's responsibility, according to him. 

The afternoon's witness was a barrister from the now defunct law firm that POL used. If he knew then what he knows now then everything would have been different. Yeh right.

The excuse they all keep coming up with is that Horizon was believed to be 'robust'. Who came up with that word? It looks, for all the world, like a shifty lawyer's  carefully crafted inexactitude to me.

You might describe Ricardo Santos as robust. It doesn't mean he never makes a mistake or get anything wrong.

Here's an extract from Nick Wallis on the 'evidence' of POL's Head of Legal:

'Hugh Flemington is a very careful man. The former Post Office Head of Legal spent his morning in the Inquiry witness chair characterising his involvement in the Post Office scandal as accidental, at best.
The problem was, the documents do seem to suggest he was involved at some level, though he couldn’t recall how. He didn’t remember doing things and mostly he didn’t remember not doing things and if he didn’t do something it wasn’t a failing on his part, it just hadn’t occurred to him at the time.
The tone was set quite early on when barrister for the Inquiry Sam Stevens asked if Mr Flemington knew that the standard of proof in a criminal trial was that a jury had to be sure of guilt. Mr Flemington wasn’t sure, telling Stevens he was reliant on comedy Post Office lawyer Jarnail Singh for his education in criminal law. Stevens was a little taken aback, as well he might be. If Flemington, a senior lawyer, was going to tell the Inquiry he was not able to confirm he knew what the criminal standard of proof was, it was going to be a long morning.'


https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/what-hugh-didnt-do/

Ten Bobsworth wrote:Here's an extract from Nick Wallis on the 'evidence' of POL's Head of Legal:

'Hugh Flemington is a very careful man. The former Post Office Head of Legal spent his morning in the Inquiry witness chair characterising his involvement in the Post Office scandal as accidental, at best.
The problem was, the documents do seem to suggest he was involved at some level, though he couldn’t recall how. He didn’t remember doing things and mostly he didn’t remember not doing things and if he didn’t do something it wasn’t a failing on his part, it just hadn’t occurred to him at the time.
The tone was set quite early on when barrister for the Inquiry Sam Stevens asked if Mr Flemington knew that the standard of proof in a criminal trial was that a jury had to be sure of guilt. Mr Flemington wasn’t sure, telling Stevens he was reliant on comedy Post Office lawyer Jarnail Singh for his education in criminal law. Stevens was a little taken aback, as well he might be. If Flemington, a senior lawyer, was going to tell the Inquiry he was not able to confirm he knew what the criminal standard of proof was, it was going to be a long morning.'


https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/what-hugh-didnt-do/

Sounds like Littlechap in Stop the World... Mumbo Jumbo.

observer wrote:

Ten Bobsworth wrote:Here's an extract from Nick Wallis on the 'evidence' of POL's Head of Legal:

'Hugh Flemington is a very careful man. The former Post Office Head of Legal spent his morning in the Inquiry witness chair characterising his involvement in the Post Office scandal as accidental, at best.
The problem was, the documents do seem to suggest he was involved at some level, though he couldn’t recall how. He didn’t remember doing things and mostly he didn’t remember not doing things and if he didn’t do something it wasn’t a failing on his part, it just hadn’t occurred to him at the time.
The tone was set quite early on when barrister for the Inquiry Sam Stevens asked if Mr Flemington knew that the standard of proof in a criminal trial was that a jury had to be sure of guilt. Mr Flemington wasn’t sure, telling Stevens he was reliant on comedy Post Office lawyer Jarnail Singh for his education in criminal law. Stevens was a little taken aback, as well he might be. If Flemington, a senior lawyer, was going to tell the Inquiry he was not able to confirm he knew what the criminal standard of proof was, it was going to be a long morning.'


https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/what-hugh-didnt-do/

Sounds like Littlechap in Stop the World... Mumbo Jumbo.

I think it is pretty obvious that he and others are bending over backwards to avoid being held responsible for legal advice that was acted upon and was clearly unlawful.