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by robinjfisher 1886 days ago
I've made this point on LinkedIn and I'll make it here - bad software did not send postal workers to jail.

Read the judgment: https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Hamilton...

The Post Office knew Horizon had faults and had a legal duty to disclose its knowledge to the defendants when prosecuting them. They failed to do so.

Paragraphs 81-90 are frankly unbelievable and I question what Post Office's own lawyers were doing.

Paragraph 91(iii):

A memorandum dated 22 October 2010 by a senior lawyer in POL’s Criminal Law Division reported the successful prosecution of Seema Misra. The memorandum complained that the case had involved “an unprecedented attack on the Horizon system” which, the author said, the prosecution team had been able to “destroy”. He ended the memorandum, which was copied to the Press Office, by expressing the hope that “the case will set a marker to dissuade other defendants from jumping on the Horizon bashing bandwagon”.

The prosecution team had "destroyed" it because they had withheld crucial evidence supporting the allegations against the Horizon system.

The Seema Misra case is what started the unravelling because her husband called a journalist, Nick Wallis [1], who has spent 10 years investigating and reporting on this case.

It's a scandal of immense proportions and three convicted individuals died before seeing their convictions quashed. It is very sad.

[1] https://www.nickwallis.com

2 comments

What are the chances we'll see jail time for any of the people responsible? I'm guessing zero?
I find it hard to believe that the approach taken - to prosecute sub post masters in this way - didn't make it to board level (indeed if it didn't then that by itself would be a corporate failure).

Individual managers may have had incentives that would lead to take this approach but the PO Board should have had an overview and have been able to correct this.

In any event a great scandal and very sad as you say.