Not the case, which continues vile. The Horizon thing at the Post Office simply needs to be grasped and hard, by the short and curlies at the least. If not by red hot tongs on genitals.
But the fun bit – Marina Hyde:
A chap I corresponded with not long ago thought the entire over-remunerated executive class covering the period in question should be chucked straight into prison and have to argue their way out;
A quote from an email correspondence between myself and Marina:
“There should be significant jail time for large numbers of people over this. My current suggestion is simply that we jail the entire board of the organisation – that PO – at the time and then see who will squeal first.”
Hopefully we’ll get there at some point.
Fvck’s sake Tim. That’s an example of your pulling technique, to get a poke at Marina’s Bonus Hole?
Yup- jail them all right now, plus the prosecutors who did the legwork, plus everyone in the chain of command between them.
Let (some of) them out when only when every last penny has been paid in compensation, with interest.
And if any of them squeal that they haven’t got the money, give them the same response that the prosecutors gave the subpostmasters…
One of the Post Office team needs to be jailed for perjury for his lies in the witness box. Why has this not yet happened?
I’ve followed this story from the El Reg days. It is truly horrifying. Some spineless bastards knew the system had flaws, covered it up and stood back while the power of the state crushed innocent hardworking victims, pushing them to ruin and the grave. That HMG did not take action – punitive on the culprits, restorative for the victims – years ago is an absolute disgrace. An example of why the powers that be must be held to account, and to the highest standards.
It’s the usual MO of the ruling clique: delay, investigate, report, learn lessons, shuffle the cards, rinse and repeat. How long has this been going on for now?
The Courageous State can f*ck right off.
Hell yeah!! Woop!!
Because “Innocent until proven guilty” only applies when we WANT it to!
Go Zeitgeist!
For fuck’s sake. Do we have principles or do we not? Somebody explain why the presumption of innocence is inapplicable here.
I reckon you’d see the biggest outbreak of previously undiagnosed medical conditions the world has ever seen. The entire senior management of the PO would be suddenly stricken with Alzheimers.
@Geoffers.
There’s no doubt sufficient prima facia evidence to put a lot of them in the dock now. Mostly for perjury. The purpose of the “Inquiry” is to prevent that.
Don’t forget to jail the lot from Fujitsu who knew the software was broken but insisted it was perfect.
As I have said here before, the ghost of my missus is shouting “two phase commit” in my ear. Fujitsu/ICL ( who have always been useless ) failed to implement the single most important function in any financial based Transaction Processing system.
And Geoffers, they are all bastard well guilty. Bang to rights.
BiS
“There’s no doubt sufficient prima facia evidence…” I’ve no reason to contradict that assertion, but that is still no explanation why the basic presumption of innocence should not apply in this case – are we on the side of the angels or not?
Principles suck, because they either apply without favour or they don’t exist.
Geoffers, somebody’s guilty aren’t they.
I’d agree with Tim. Put the obvious ones on trial. The ones who gave evidence in court. These are serious offences can carry a lot of jail time. The only defence/mitigation will be “a big boy told me”” to”. So another round of arrests. There’d be more singing going on than the North Korean Army Choir. If you don’t think, of course, that the justice system has a long time been bought & paid for. Which is my personal view. But then so’s the “Inquiry”.
According to Alan Sked, yes that one, someone pushed him in to my Twitter timeline:
“ The three ministers involved were Vince Cable, Jo Swinson and Ed Davey—all leaders of the Lib Dems.”
I’d like to see them made to justify their inaction and gullibility.
I wonder if the Guardian realises that the Post Office is a State owned (ie nationalised) business? Or does it think (like just about everyone I’ve ever discussed this with) that ‘The Post Office’ is the same as the ‘The Royal Mail’, and as the latter is privatised its all the fault of the Evil Capitalists™ again?
@ BiND
Rubbish
The LibDems were not in power in 2003
The scandal was organised by civil servants under the Blair government
No, this is why there has to be jail time. Because the cover up has been going on ever since.
@ Jim
There does seem to be a whispering campaign hinting that Royal Mail desrves the blame for the criminal conspiracy within the Post Office. Nobody, but nobody, is getting and shouting that this is a crime committed by the Blair government because the cover-up has gone on so long that people forget who was in power at the time. LibDems in 2000?!?
@ HexChopper, July 18, 2023 at 4:09 pm
@ Arthur the Cat, July 18, 2023 at 4:31 pm
Absolutely, jail all. It was clear in El Reg reports (from 2003?) and whistleblower comments who was guilty. MSM glibly accepted Gov’t, Fujitsu and PO narrative
@Geoffers
There would be a fair trial first. Having followed this debacle for a number of years, I cannot see how a jury would fail to convict.
and we should move on from there. Next up is Covid. And in a short period of time the prisons will be full. We will have to kick out some BBC license evaders to make room.