Bradshaw the Post Office 'investigator' (still employed by the PO) seems the type who would make an ideal Stasi/KGB time server .. a warning that if, God forbid, we ever become subject to a totalitarian regime there are plenty who would love a job in the secret police I missed the very start of his evidence so don't know his background and supposed suitability to be a Post Office copper, but 'investigator' is a complete misnomer, victim interrogator would be a more appropriate job description .. the lead counsel questioning him is named Julian Blake, a better name for a clever KC could not be dreamed up by any novelist
On a slightly (humorous) note, Bradshaw did cone out with a statement which was missed by lots of people as containing a great throw away line.
When talking (I believe) about a defendants solicitor asking for info he said in an email that it was
" a red herring.......they are just on a fishing expedition".
I know this is a very serious issue & he, and loads of others, should be locked up...but it did make me smile.
I can imagine that Bradshaw would be a very nasty individual when interviewing, he came across as very arrogant.
He has come across as a complete c... It would not surprise me if he and his colleagues had their own brand of 'canteen culture' that included racist stereotypes about corner shop people. No I don't have evidence or recordings, but maybe I could be allowed to say that Bradshaw is exactly the kind of person I would be wary of.
I can imagine that Bradshaw would be a very nasty individual when interviewing, he came across as very arrogant.
He has come across as a complete c... It would not surprise me if he and his colleagues had their own brand of 'canteen culture' that included racist stereotypes about corner shop people. No I don't have evidence or recordings, but maybe I could be allowed to say that Bradshaw is exactly the kind of person I would be wary of.
You have become a caricature of yourself, I love it
I bet he voted Brexit too and diverted passports going to black people to a small flat above a bookies in Stoke.
I don't have evidence or recordings, but I bet I'm right.
On a serious note though, that guy comes across as a complete scumbag and a bully. This is a tale of hundreds of David's against a Goliath and I can't believe the things that are coming out... Shameful.
On a serious note though, that guy comes across as a complete scumbag and a bully. This is a tale of hundreds of David's against a Goliath and I can't believe the things that are coming out... Shameful.
interesting how he has total (and I mean TOTAL) recall on many cases, names, times, words spoken, locations, people involved, BUT any question that might show him or the Post Office in a bad light results in a case of instant amnesia. He is not too averse to throwing some colleagues (if they still are PO employees) under a Post Office van, 'it wasn't me it was her doing the interview'. I bet he was a bit of a hero in the Post Office boardroom, Bradshaw, the Broadener of our Horizons
On a serious note though, that guy comes across as a complete scumbag and a bully. This is a tale of hundreds of David's against a Goliath and I can't believe the things that are coming out... Shameful.
It's frightening to see the unaccountable power that can be acquired by low intelligence thugs employed to maintain a totalitarian culture. Bradshaw must have studied Eichmann's defence strategy - "nothing to do with me guv I only followed orders."
I can imagine that Bradshaw would be a very nasty individual when interviewing, he came across as very arrogant.
He has come across as a complete c... It would not surprise me if he and his colleagues had their own brand of 'canteen culture' that included racist stereotypes about corner shop people. No I don't have evidence or recordings, but maybe I could be allowed to say that Bradshaw is exactly the kind of person I would be wary of.
You have become a caricature of yourself, I love it
I bet he voted Brexit too and diverted passports going to black people to a small flat above a bookies in Stoke.
I don't have evidence or recordings, but I bet I'm right.
Yeah. Silly me to give you the opportunity of your usual personals in my direction. In your case you have not become the caricature of anything, you’re condemned to being yourself all the time.
I can imagine that Bradshaw would be a very nasty individual when interviewing, he came across as very arrogant.
He has come across as a complete c... It would not surprise me if he and his colleagues had their own brand of 'canteen culture' that included racist stereotypes about corner shop people. No I don't have evidence or recordings, but maybe I could be allowed to say that Bradshaw is exactly the kind of person I would be wary of.
You have become a caricature of yourself, I love it
I bet he voted Brexit too and diverted passports going to black people to a small flat above a bookies in Stoke.
I don't have evidence or recordings, but I bet I'm right.
I can imagine that Bradshaw would be a very nasty individual when interviewing, he came across as very arrogant.
He has come across as a complete c... It would not surprise me if he and his colleagues had their own brand of 'canteen culture' that included racist stereotypes about corner shop people. No I don't have evidence or recordings, but maybe I could be allowed to say that Bradshaw is exactly the kind of person I would be wary of.
You have become a caricature of yourself, I love it
I bet he voted Brexit too and diverted passports going to black people to a small flat above a bookies in Stoke.
I don't have evidence or recordings, but I bet I'm right.
Yeah. Silly me to give you the opportunity of your usual personals in my direction. In your case you have not become the caricature of anything, you’re condemned to being yourself all the time.
Nothing but love from me mate, you are the Ying to my Yang and I love that you are here .
Genuinely no malice in anything I said, I'm sorry you viewed it that way.
Hearing the PO Rottweiler Bradshaw try so hard to come across as a poodle was a drama in its self. I know it was only an enquiry not a law court but I can't be alone in wanting evidence of the scores of phone calls he bombarded the postmistress Shazia Saddiq with.
Been thinking about who might play the characters in the other scandals that tv companies will be falling over themselves to make now this has been so impactful.
Struggling with (Lord) Ben Houchen who is up to his mayoral bling in corruption and cronyism accusations. Mark Benton is the right size and from the North East but is very lightweight for a serious drama.
Been thinking about who might play the characters in the other scandals that tv companies will be falling over themselves to make now this has been so impactful.
Struggling with (Lord) Ben Houchen who is up to his mayoral bling in corruption and cronyism accusations. Mark Benton is the right size and from the North East but is very lightweight for a serious drama.
An investigation by the FT suggests that the Post Office claimed tax relief on the compensation payments to the sub postmasters, which isn't legal apparently, and may mean they face £100m tax bill.
As this may make the Post Office technically insolvent, it'll be interesting to see if there's any attempt to claw back any bonuses paid out to senior staff on the basis of the performance of the company, and/or any prosecutions for false accounting, which would be incredibly ironic in the circumstances.
While the Post Office appears to have deducted compensation provisions from their taxable profits, it apparently ignored them when it came to calculating executive pay.
There is a story about a postmaster convicted of murdering his wife and getting a minimum 20 years for it (still in prison) where part of the circumstantial evidence against him was the Horizon system. No DNA involved apparently, and the jury was 10-2.
Having been involved with many IT systems and roll outs, my experience is that bugs and errors are a normal part of system management. I have, however never been in position of not having access to support which was accountable to users to sort out reported transaction errors or erroneous reporting. My guess is that Horizon was poorly designed but probably no worse than scores of business critical systems currently being operated throughout the UK. This is why Fujitsu have tried to present the system as "robust" in the face of evidence of bugs and errors known to Fujitsu and the Post Office.
In the Inquiry Fujitsu tries to show it was a "normal" system - beset with the bugs and errors reported by users any IT system would experience.
In my view the crucial failure and criminal negligence, was less in the system integrity of a poorly designed system, rather the lack of transparency and control of the users to manage the impact of bugs and errors to resolve the resulting problem of non-balancing accounts. Users were oblivious to how their data was being altered and impacted by manual intervention of Fujitsu behind the scenes to get round the effect of bugs. In some IT environments, manual intervention may be the only way to correct an anomaly in advance of a software fix, so what Fujitsu were doing was not extraordinary, except it should only have happened transparently with the full knowledge and agreement of the user and implemented only after re-testing.
Sub-postmasters had no access to any data to prove their innocence in the face of an inept and corrupt investigation and prosecuting process - a perfect recipe for disaster.
I suspect Fujitsu will show they delivered a system that the Post Office accepted and were operating exactly as the Post Office contract required. The Post Office didn't have a clue of the impact on sub-postmasters of what they had delegated and must take the main blame and face the consequences.
While I accept your opening premise is true, I think you might be letting Fujitsu off the hook a bit here. Now my view is largely based on a dramatisation of the facts. Nevertheless, even a dramatisation will not depict scenes which cast aspersions on a major player in a controversial scandal in a negative light, especially a global corp. unless those scenes are substantively true. And Fujitsu are staying very quiet, no lawsuits being hurled at ITV. So, we must assume it’s true that Fujitsu set up that team we saw being visited by the postmasters’ union rep. It was routinely going into postmaster accounts and changing stuff without them knowing. Do you think it ok that nobody senior in Fujitsu questioned the ethics of that? They were operating that team on behalf of the PO and for substantial fees. In my view they need to be held to account, and I notice that some heavy -hitting journos, such as Emily Maitlis are starting to ask questions.
My brother-in-law, who’s worked for just about every major investment bank over the years, is now firmly of the opinion that we should renationalise the Post Office, the trains, water and even maybe the energy industries, much to my surprise.
Tony Blair was warned Horizon IT system could be flawed, documents show
Sir Tony Blair was warned the Horizon IT system at the centre of the Post Office scandal could be flawed before it was rolled out, a document shows.
A handwritten note from the then-Labour PM, published by the public inquiry on Friday, suggests he raised concerns after being warned the system was "possibly unreliable".
But he said he gave it the go-ahead after being reassured by others.
Among them was Peter Mandelson, who was then his trade and industry secretary.
There was no indication at this stage that the Horizon software would lead to wrongful accusations of theft but there were concerns about its reliability and ballooning cost.
He warned that cancelling the contract would cause "political fallout" from post office closures and damage relations with Fujitsu, which he described as a major investor in the UK.
My brother-in-law, who’s worked for just about every major investment bank over the years, is now firmly of the opinion that we should renationalise the Post Office, the trains, water and even maybe the energy industries, much to my surprise.
What’s the relevance of him being an investment bank employee to that conclusion?
Isn’t that view simply the merits of weighing up the pros and cons of privatisation based on several decades of experience?
Having been involved with many IT systems and roll outs, my experience is that bugs and errors are a normal part of system management. I have, however never been in position of not having access to support which was accountable to users to sort out reported transaction errors or erroneous reporting. My guess is that Horizon was poorly designed but probably no worse than scores of business critical systems currently being operated throughout the UK. This is why Fujitsu have tried to present the system as "robust" in the face of evidence of bugs and errors known to Fujitsu and the Post Office.
In the Inquiry Fujitsu tries to show it was a "normal" system - beset with the bugs and errors reported by users any IT system would experience.
In my view the crucial failure and criminal negligence, was less in the system integrity of a poorly designed system, rather the lack of transparency and control of the users to manage the impact of bugs and errors to resolve the resulting problem of non-balancing accounts. Users were oblivious to how their data was being altered and impacted by manual intervention of Fujitsu behind the scenes to get round the effect of bugs. In some IT environments, manual intervention may be the only way to correct an anomaly in advance of a software fix, so what Fujitsu were doing was not extraordinary, except it should only have happened transparently with the full knowledge and agreement of the user and implemented only after re-testing.
Sub-postmasters had no access to any data to prove their innocence in the face of an inept and corrupt investigation and prosecuting process - a perfect recipe for disaster.
I suspect Fujitsu will show they delivered a system that the Post Office accepted and were operating exactly as the Post Office contract required. The Post Office didn't have a clue of the impact on sub-postmasters of what they had delegated and must take the main blame and face the consequences.
While I accept your opening premise is true, I think you might be letting Fujitsu off the hook a bit here. Now my view is largely based on a dramatisation of the facts. Nevertheless, even a dramatisation will not depict scenes which cast aspersions on a major player in a controversial scandal in a negative light, especially a global corp. unless those scenes are substantively true. And Fujitsu are staying very quiet, no lawsuits being hurled at ITV. So, we must assume it’s true that Fujitsu set up that team we saw being visited by the postmasters’ union rep. It was routinely going into postmaster accounts and changing stuff without them knowing. Do you think it ok that nobody senior in Fujitsu questioned the ethics of that? They were operating that team on behalf of the PO and for substantial fees. In my view they need to be held to account, and I notice that some heavy -hitting journos, such as Emily Maitlis are starting to ask questions.
I don’t think we’ve yet heard an explanation for that though have we?
I had assumed they were changing things in an attempt to fix errors/issues not to deliberately create problems for the postmasters ie unintended consequences due I assume to a deeply flawed system.
We need to learn who did what and why. I assume the inquiry will expose that at some point.
Tony Blair was warned Horizon IT system could be flawed, documents show
Sir Tony Blair was warned the Horizon IT system at the centre of the Post Office scandal could be flawed before it was rolled out, a document shows.
A handwritten note from the then-Labour PM, published by the public inquiry on Friday, suggests he raised concerns after being warned the system was "possibly unreliable".
But he said he gave it the go-ahead after being reassured by others.
Among them was Peter Mandelson, who was then his trade and industry secretary.
There was no indication at this stage that the Horizon software would lead to wrongful accusations of theft but there were concerns about its reliability and ballooning cost.
He warned that cancelling the contract would cause "political fallout" from post office closures and damage relations with Fujitsu, which he described as a major investor in the UK.
Having been involved with many IT systems and roll outs, my experience is that bugs and errors are a normal part of system management. I have, however never been in position of not having access to support which was accountable to users to sort out reported transaction errors or erroneous reporting. My guess is that Horizon was poorly designed but probably no worse than scores of business critical systems currently being operated throughout the UK. This is why Fujitsu have tried to present the system as "robust" in the face of evidence of bugs and errors known to Fujitsu and the Post Office.
In the Inquiry Fujitsu tries to show it was a "normal" system - beset with the bugs and errors reported by users any IT system would experience.
In my view the crucial failure and criminal negligence, was less in the system integrity of a poorly designed system, rather the lack of transparency and control of the users to manage the impact of bugs and errors to resolve the resulting problem of non-balancing accounts. Users were oblivious to how their data was being altered and impacted by manual intervention of Fujitsu behind the scenes to get round the effect of bugs. In some IT environments, manual intervention may be the only way to correct an anomaly in advance of a software fix, so what Fujitsu were doing was not extraordinary, except it should only have happened transparently with the full knowledge and agreement of the user and implemented only after re-testing.
Sub-postmasters had no access to any data to prove their innocence in the face of an inept and corrupt investigation and prosecuting process - a perfect recipe for disaster.
I suspect Fujitsu will show they delivered a system that the Post Office accepted and were operating exactly as the Post Office contract required. The Post Office didn't have a clue of the impact on sub-postmasters of what they had delegated and must take the main blame and face the consequences.
While I accept your opening premise is true, I think you might be letting Fujitsu off the hook a bit here. Now my view is largely based on a dramatisation of the facts. Nevertheless, even a dramatisation will not depict scenes which cast aspersions on a major player in a controversial scandal in a negative light, especially a global corp. unless those scenes are substantively true. And Fujitsu are staying very quiet, no lawsuits being hurled at ITV. So, we must assume it’s true that Fujitsu set up that team we saw being visited by the postmasters’ union rep. It was routinely going into postmaster accounts and changing stuff without them knowing. Do you think it ok that nobody senior in Fujitsu questioned the ethics of that? They were operating that team on behalf of the PO and for substantial fees. In my view they need to be held to account, and I notice that some heavy -hitting journos, such as Emily Maitlis are starting to ask questions.
I don’t think we’ve yet heard an explanation for that though have we?
I had assumed they were changing things in an attempt to fix errors/issues not to deliberately create problems for the postmasters ie unintended consequences due I assume to a deeply flawed system.
We need to learn who did what and why. I assume the inquiry will expose that at some point.
While of course your concluding sentence is obviously correct I do not think an “explanation” is needed to conclude that going into the system to change figures without PMs being made aware was wholly unacceptable. Of course one can see why they didnt make them aware. The PMs are independent self-employed people, and the PO and Fujitsu would have been worried that some would have spoken publicly about the obvious flaws in the system, with consequential serious reputational damage to both the PO and Fujitsu. In addition - and someone correct me if I misunderstood the the dramatisation on this point - the helpline was staffed by Fujitsu. The helpline that told all those poor PMs that they were “the only one”. Which as Alan Bates said, was a flat out lie, and absolutely central to the miscarriage of justice.
As you say, we shall see what the inquiry finds, but I would be amazed if the inquiry shows that the facts contradict my current understanding re Fujitsu’s central role in the grotesque treatment of these innocent people.
Having been involved with many IT systems and roll outs, my experience is that bugs and errors are a normal part of system management. I have, however never been in position of not having access to support which was accountable to users to sort out reported transaction errors or erroneous reporting. My guess is that Horizon was poorly designed but probably no worse than scores of business critical systems currently being operated throughout the UK. This is why Fujitsu have tried to present the system as "robust" in the face of evidence of bugs and errors known to Fujitsu and the Post Office.
In the Inquiry Fujitsu tries to show it was a "normal" system - beset with the bugs and errors reported by users any IT system would experience.
In my view the crucial failure and criminal negligence, was less in the system integrity of a poorly designed system, rather the lack of transparency and control of the users to manage the impact of bugs and errors to resolve the resulting problem of non-balancing accounts. Users were oblivious to how their data was being altered and impacted by manual intervention of Fujitsu behind the scenes to get round the effect of bugs. In some IT environments, manual intervention may be the only way to correct an anomaly in advance of a software fix, so what Fujitsu were doing was not extraordinary, except it should only have happened transparently with the full knowledge and agreement of the user and implemented only after re-testing.
Sub-postmasters had no access to any data to prove their innocence in the face of an inept and corrupt investigation and prosecuting process - a perfect recipe for disaster.
I suspect Fujitsu will show they delivered a system that the Post Office accepted and were operating exactly as the Post Office contract required. The Post Office didn't have a clue of the impact on sub-postmasters of what they had delegated and must take the main blame and face the consequences.
While I accept your opening premise is true, I think you might be letting Fujitsu off the hook a bit here. Now my view is largely based on a dramatisation of the facts. Nevertheless, even a dramatisation will not depict scenes which cast aspersions on a major player in a controversial scandal in a negative light, especially a global corp. unless those scenes are substantively true. And Fujitsu are staying very quiet, no lawsuits being hurled at ITV. So, we must assume it’s true that Fujitsu set up that team we saw being visited by the postmasters’ union rep. It was routinely going into postmaster accounts and changing stuff without them knowing. Do you think it ok that nobody senior in Fujitsu questioned the ethics of that? They were operating that team on behalf of the PO and for substantial fees. In my view they need to be held to account, and I notice that some heavy -hitting journos, such as Emily Maitlis are starting to ask questions.
I don’t think we’ve yet heard an explanation for that though have we?
I had assumed they were changing things in an attempt to fix errors/issues not to deliberately create problems for the postmasters ie unintended consequences due I assume to a deeply flawed system.
We need to learn who did what and why. I assume the inquiry will expose that at some point.
While of course your concluding sentence is obviously correct I do not think an “explanation” is needed to conclude that going into the system to change figures without PMs being made aware was wholly unacceptable. Of course one can see why they didnt make them aware. The PMs are independent self-employed people, and the PO and Fujitsu would have been worried that some would have spoken publicly about the obvious flaws in the system, with consequential serious reputational damage to both the PO and Fujitsu. In addition - and someone correct me if I misunderstood the the dramatisation on this point - the helpline was staffed by Fujitsu. The helpline that told all those poor PMs that they were “the only one”. Which as Alan Bates said, was a flat out lie, and absolutely central to the miscarriage of justice.
As you say, we shall see what the inquiry finds, but I would be amazed if the inquiry shows that the facts contradict my current understanding re Fujitsu’s central role in the grotesque treatment of these innocent people.
Well of course the apparent lies about it not being widespread cannot be acceptable.
I tend to assume for now however that (at least initially) the suggested corrections being made were done with good intentions.
Books have to balance so my guess is they maybe thought they identified scenarios that created the ‘wrong’ figures and manually corrected. But likely it was a fudge / did not work as was more complex and they dug a hole they couldn’t get out of. It was maybe something that then got out of hand when/if postmasters also made their own correcting figures out of sheer frustration. Maybe. I don’t know.
My point is I would think that at the start the interventions were being done with the expectation it was the right thing to do but snowballed out of control and not telling users / staff only made it worse.
Honesty is the best policy springs to mind as to how they should have managed it.
Comments
On a slightly (humorous) note, Bradshaw did cone out with a statement which was missed by lots of people as containing a great throw away line.
When talking (I believe) about a defendants solicitor asking for info he said in an email that it was
" a red herring.......they are just on a fishing expedition".
I know this is a very serious issue & he, and loads of others, should be locked up...but it did make me smile.
It would not surprise me if he and his colleagues had their own brand of 'canteen culture' that included racist stereotypes about corner shop people.
No I don't have evidence or recordings, but maybe I could be allowed to say that Bradshaw is exactly the kind of person I would be wary of.
I bet he voted Brexit too and diverted passports going to black people to a small flat above a bookies in Stoke.
I don't have evidence or recordings, but I bet I'm right.
In your case you have not become the caricature of anything, you’re condemned to being yourself all the time.
Calling @bobmunroe
Genuinely no malice in anything I said, I'm sorry you viewed it that way.
I know it was only an enquiry not a law court but I can't be alone in wanting evidence of the scores of phone calls he bombarded the postmistress Shazia Saddiq with.
Post Office lied and threatened BBC over Horizon whistleblower
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67884743Struggling with (Lord) Ben Houchen who is up to his mayoral bling in corruption and cronyism accusations. Mark Benton is the right size and from the North East but is very lightweight for a serious drama.
CPS involved in up to 99 Post Office convictions, leaked letter shows (msn.com)
https://news.sky.com/story/post-office-scandal-sparks-calls-to-end-failed-outsourcing-of-public-contracts-13046925
The corruption within the Post Office is disgusting, I hope all involved end up in jail.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67964064
While the Post Office appears to have deducted compensation provisions from their taxable profits, it apparently ignored them when it came to calculating executive pay.
No DNA involved apparently, and the jury was 10-2.
Now my view is largely based on a dramatisation of the facts. Nevertheless, even a dramatisation will not depict scenes which cast aspersions on a major player in a controversial scandal in a negative light, especially a global corp. unless those scenes are substantively true. And Fujitsu are staying very quiet, no lawsuits being hurled at ITV. So, we must assume it’s true that Fujitsu set up that team we saw being visited by the postmasters’ union rep. It was routinely going into postmaster accounts and changing stuff without them knowing. Do you think it ok that nobody senior in Fujitsu questioned the ethics of that? They were operating that team on behalf of the PO and for substantial fees. In my view they need to be held to account, and I notice that some heavy -hitting journos, such as Emily Maitlis are starting to ask questions.
Tony Blair was warned Horizon IT system could be flawed, documents show
Sir Tony Blair was warned the Horizon IT system at the centre of the Post Office scandal could be flawed before it was rolled out, a document shows.
A handwritten note from the then-Labour PM, published by the public inquiry on Friday, suggests he raised concerns after being warned the system was "possibly unreliable".
But he said he gave it the go-ahead after being reassured by others.
Among them was Peter Mandelson, who was then his trade and industry secretary.
There was no indication at this stage that the Horizon software would lead to wrongful accusations of theft but there were concerns about its reliability and ballooning cost.
In a letter dated 10 December 1998, Lord Mandelson said he believed the "only sensible choice" was to proceed with Horizon.
He warned that cancelling the contract would cause "political fallout" from post office closures and damage relations with Fujitsu, which he described as a major investor in the UK.
BBC
being an investment bank employee to that conclusion?
Isn’t that view simply the merits of weighing up the pros and cons of privatisation based on several decades of experience?
I had assumed they were changing things in an attempt to fix errors/issues not to deliberately create problems for the postmasters ie unintended consequences due I assume to a deeply flawed system.
I expect the papers will find a way to blame Davey or Starmer though tbf.