[meowface]

Yeah, this is the part I'm having trouble understanding. A few people, sure. But all these postal workers committing fraud, with many insisting there must be something wrong with the software? How did this not get discovered before they were all convicted and sentenced?

And according to the article, the full number may actually be something like 900 people.

>Campaigners believe that as many as 900 operators, often known as subpostmasters, may have been prosecuted and convicted between 2000 and 2014.

How do you make this mistake almost 1000 times over 14 years before someone suspects the system data may not be quite right? Also, even if you do completely believe the data, how can you convict them all without additional supporting evidence, like new purchases that don't seem to fit their salary, suspicious bank transactions or balances, records of unusual system access or them actually manipulating data, etc.

[karatinversion]

The judgement from TFA is available here: https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/hamilton-others-v-post-of...

It pains a very bad picture of the Post Office, including:

- an expert witness from Fujitsu, who developed the system, "had been aware of at least two bugs which had affected Horizon Online[...], but had failed to say anything about them or about any Horizon issues in his statements";

- POL arranged a number of conference calls to discuss problems with the system; "instruction was then given that those emails and minutes should be, and have been, destroyed";

- "there was a culture, amongst at least some in positions of responsibility within POL, of seeking to avoid legal obligations when fulfilment of those obligations would be inconvenient and/or costly"

Further, once a number of convictions had been secured, the Post Office then used those convictions in later trials as evidence that the Horizon system was robust and reliable.

All in all, a prima facie criminal conspiracy by the Post Office.

[baybal2]

> How do you make this mistake almost 1000 times over 14 years before someone suspects the system data may not be quite right?

It's very much a case of assumed infallibility of "scientific evidence," which in this case were computer records.

It's also very much a case of UK judges greatly, greatly disregarding the process, which fully reneges on their oath.

Country's legal system can't function if you have judges who can lightheadedly throw out the process out of the window 1000 times over 14 year.

[JetSetWilly]

> It's very much a case of assumed infallibility of "scientific evidence," which in this case were computer records.

I wonder if any of the prosecuted were in Scotland?

In Scots Law there's a fundamental rule of Corroboration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corroboration_in_Scots_law

There must be two source of independent evidence for someone to be convicted of a crime. I'll be interested to see (if there's genuinely no corroborating evidence beyond the computer records) how many prosecutions went ahead north of the border.

[g_p]

Given this appeal took place in England (and not in the Supreme Court), it was all English verdicts which were overturned as I understand.

The requirement for corroboration in such a situation would probably be met by having someone "speak to" the digital evidence and audit trail.

For example, if you have CCTV evidence, the CCTV is one piece of evidence, and it would be corroborated by a witness statement of the victim identifying them from the CCTV.

Corroboration is an important and useful safeguard, but I don't think it would necessarily have outright prevented this. Perhaps it would - maybe it would have raised the bar on scrutiny of the evidence, by there being a general higher expectation?

[JetSetWilly]

Hmn possibly. I suppose I am interested to see if there is a practical difference because there's some debate about whether corroboration is a good thing to have or not, when you can have one piece of evidence (like DNA evidence) which is very high certainty.

I'd expect there was prosecutions north of the border seeing as the post office is UK-wide so be good to see how they went.