Altering/even tampering(?), with witness statements from FJ which were to be used in prosecutions, obviously deleting bit which could open up issues for PO. The depth of bad culture is staggering.
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Fujitsu, I assume…?
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‘Going back 18 years… I can’t really remember…’ - tampering with the evidence from Fujitsu…
Another one, whose memory has conveniently failed him.
In related news -
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You couldn’t make it up
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At last some really solid evidence of tampering (IMO).
As I’m sure most will know, that if enabled, Microsoft Word will maintain in detail changes made to a document, so that you can see what changes have been made, and by whom.
From my work days, we always had to be careful with this when having to remove sensitive security data from a document before sharing it.
So here it has been used to prove that the change to remove details of system failures were made by this Investigator.
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Yep - although could be Fred Karno’s circus (using some licence here, but hey POL did, in everything!).
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And clearly done by a PO employee, of Fujitsu’s evidence. Trying to minimize the potential impact, to make the PO look at least less bad. Clearly PR driven… IMO.
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The Union bit was all too predictable with the classic Union bloke. Came across like The Judean People’s Front and People’s Front of Judea.
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Kay Linnell’s not beating about the bush. I think we know what she thinks of POL.
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Broadcast suspended?
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Back now.
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It would be very interesting to see the original prosecution files. The forensic accountants evidence the other day mentioned there was a statement that in Jo Hamilton’s case (hope I have the name right) the investigator found no evidence of any proceeds of the theft being taken by her. I know that in another prosecution POL rocked up at court and tried to get theft charges to stick including a sum that had already been “re”paid. The judge was having none of it and the defendant although being convicted didn’t get a custodial sentence as a result
Just staggering incompetence by POL
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It’s been referenced several times. In Angela van den Bogerd’s evidence Tim Moloney read from the investigator’s report in the Jo Hamilton case. I’ve pinched this summary from Nick Wallis’s excellent site.
“Moloney then took van den Bogerd to a report written about Jo’s branch by an internal Post Office investigator called Graham Brander. The report noted several things. Firstly that overnight, between the auditor doing an initial check and a subsequent check the next day, a mysterious £61.77 added itself overnight to Jo’s £36,583.12 discrepancy. As the auditor could not explain this, it was just added onto the amount Jo owed.
Brander also wrote: “I was unable to find any evidence of theft, or that the cash figures had been deliberately inflated.”
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What Happened to Jo Hamilton -
“In a plea bargain, she accepted a lesser charge of false accounting, agreed to pay back the money and was sentenced to a community order . She later had to sell her shop and found work as a cleaner, which she still does now.”
In other words, JH ‘gave up’ under the legal onslaught from the PO and pleaded guilty to False Accounting.
Truly shameful - that JH felt she had to do this.
Paula Vennels & co should be thoroughly ashamed - but they are not.
Far from it. Bonuses intact - and retirement plans all set.
Truly horrible beings. Are they human…?
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That was the standard approach - threaten with theft charges then get them to accept false accounting and convict them for that. Which doesn’t account for the accounting records provided by POL being false so it’s pol that was false accounting!
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Thanks - I have read Nick Wallis’ excellent book, followed a fair bit on Twitter but only seen limited bits of the inquiry due to the day job!
Having worked for a large company all my life I recognise the pattern. Senior management are very good at running programmes to tell everyone they are valued and they are expected to speak up and tell bad news, but the reality of the culture is that the top layers don’t want to hear bad news. So people who do speak up are sidelined, and you build tiers of senior and middle management who know what the bosses want to hear.
Even if you somehow get a CEO or NED who does want the painful truth the business is not set up to tell them.
Perhaps the most unpleasant thing was Perkins explaining that she hadn’t registered the things she was told about Horizon because she was focused on major programmes like RMG separation and returning POL to profitability. Yes Alice we hear you, 500+ little people wrongly convicted of crimes aren’t a major issue for you. Vennells made similar comments as well.
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Hi Eoin , couldn’t agree with you more.
My proudest moment (though I didn’t know it , at the time) was being hauled into my boss’s office and given a dressing down for going on about a certain issue and told all was above board. It wasn’t , I knew it , others did but we had to wait for the CEO to retire before action was taken .
I felt I had done my bit and later it was revealed we had been done for many millions .
A friend was told to take a course of action , she did what she was told and quietly put a file note on the file. She was interviewed by the police and was able to prove she had acted under duress.
What got me was afterwards it was the underlings that got the blame .
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Just a postscript to say that I’m sure that there are ExCos and boards which genuinely wish to know reality and dig for truth, but a common factor of major corporate issues seems to be terrible culture where major issues are covered up until the inevitable disaster, and that tends to be led from the top. Not the pretty posters on the wall and the mugs saying “Speak Up”, the reality of the treatment of people who point out the transparency of their new clothes.
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