Horizon Scandal

[Mervyn and Trish]

Another round of compo then! What idiots.

[Stephen]

It beggars belief the incompetence of these people.

Sack the lot of them as they clearly couldn’t run a bath let alone a company.

[Mervyn and Trish]

Yep, p*ss up and brewery spring to mind.

[david63]

Another one with selected memory recall and not knowing what he was doing

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cmjjjg8drggt

[oldbluefox]

Just a total web of lies

[Mervyn and Trish]

I think they're all more interested in their getting their criminal defence sorted than telling this inquiry anything useful. If this jerk wasn't the bloke who designed Horizon, as everyone seemed to think, then who was?

[david63]

There is a definite pattern developing with all of these "experts" with the advice that they have been given by their legal advisers and that is forget everything and deny everything - it is all about self protection and basically sticking two fingers up to the sub postmasters.

The whole lot are lying through their front teeth and I am sure that Sir Wyn Williams can see through all of this.

If there is 1% of the truth coming out I would be surprised - the whole lot are totally incompetent.

[Chalgrave4]

I'm perhaps watching this through different eyes. Whilst I agree it is indefensible the level of suffering inflicted on many of the sub-postmasters I consider too much emphasis is being placed on the computer system. The software did not initiate or push through the prosecutions - people did. Most if not all software comes with some bugs - when they surface it is how they are dealt with that matters. The Post Office investigators and prosecutors were too focused on getting their man (and Money) and not prepared to do proper investigation. They and Post Office bosses became blinkered. To place all the blame on the system and its developers is just passing the buck.
I would be pretty certain that GJ did not design Horizon - the design would have been by committee and bits of development would have been farmed out to a lot of people - no one man could have done the whole lot but he can be seen as a convenient scapegoat and a focus for everybodys anger.
With a supposed 'enquiry' , led by a judge, peopled by lawyers (who don't live in the real world), and with the threat of criminal prosecutions to follow - who wouldn't develop a 'convenient memory'

[david63]

I would be pretty certain that GJ did not design Horizon - the design would have been by committee and bits of development would have been farmed out to a lot of people - no one man could have done the whole lot but he can be seen as a convenient scapegoat and a focus for everybodys anger.

In my experience with major projects like this there would be somebody at the helm driving it on a day to day basis and responsible for the overall delivery - who that was in this situation appears to be a mystery.

I don't think that in principle there was anything wrong with the system but it comes back to what I have seen many times in my working life of people not involved with the business on a day-to-day basis therefore not understanding the business, creating the system. I would be interested to know from those who specified the Horizon system how many of them actually visited any sub Post Offices either before or after.

All computer systems have bugs. All major computer systems have areas that do not function correctly at first and need modifications. These are facts of computer life. It is how these are dealt with that matters and it is totally apparent that the Post Office management of the time, and possibly still is, was of the opinion that once the system was signed off (if it ever was) that everything was OK - which it never is!

The crux of the matter is the attitude within the Post Office, for justifiable reasons, is that you are guilty until proven innocent and they blindly follow that route. In any normal business when discrepancies suddenly start appearing in situations where they did not happen before and you have just brought in a new computer system then alarm bells should be ringing and should be being investigated - and this is where the fundamental problem started from which point onward it was/is heads in the sand and everybody washing their hands of the matter.

[Mervyn and Trish]

Of course there were bugs, itself not surprising. These were on occasions causing hiccups. Again not surprising. And they were working to fix them. Perfectly reasonable. The problem seems to be they were doing some of this by remotely accessing branch accounts, which on occasions made matters worse. Then they denied remote access was even possible.

This guy was presented to court as an expert witness. Which for one thing he now suggests he wasn't. And instead of giving an honest opinion to the best of his technical ability he was parroting the line the Post Office fed him. So he committed perjury and as a result innocent people went to prison. As he now should do, to share a cell with the rest of the conniving scum.

[Stephen]

One system playing up may not bring any major attention, but after many failures throughout the country and still no one in authority thinking ‘there’s something wrong here’ is indefensible

[Mervyn and Trish]

Absolutely. Could they seriously believe that number of sub postmasters had suddenly gone bent?

[david63]

Absolutely. Could they seriously believe that number of sub postmasters had suddenly gone bent?

That's what I said earlier that if you were short then the assumption was that you were fiddling (which some were) - the problem was that nobody tried to join the dots up.