\n<\/p>\n
So now we know \u2013 the Post Office Horizon scandal has not been about senior management\u2019s incompetence and their struggles to recognise that an expensive software programme might not have been all that it was cracked up to be. It has been a fundamental illustration of man\u2019s inhumanity to man, or, more precisely, it has shown just how self-serving and lacking in regard for employees senior managers have been and continue to be.<\/p>\n
Marina Hyde (Innocent subpostmasters went to jail, but now it is clear: the Post Office boss class belong there instead, 8 July) chilled my blood to the bone in describing how a postmistress made 256 calls to the helpdesk, but was still prosecuted and incarcerated, and missed her daughter\u2019s 18th birthday while in prison. She then\u00a0had to endure her daughter\u2019s death a year later. Who on earth was so uninterested in the reason for so many calls, was so callous that they sat by while the postmistress was prosecuted?<\/p>\n
Hyde says the Post Office bosses should go to jail. This one example of their failure to question why so many employees were experiencing serious Horizon problems, their callous indifference, the industrial-scale cover-up, not to mention their collective amnesia of events during the inquiry, leads to only one conclusion \u2013 those bosses must be prosecuted and incarcerated. Commentary on the Horizon scandal has focused on the shortcomings of Fujitsu and of the\u00a0Post Office. I suggest the British\u00a0judiciary must also take some responsibility. Something like\u00a01,000 people were brought before the courts, charged with stealing huge sums of money. There was no direct evidence against them. No one could show\u00a0where\u00a0the\u00a0money had gone; there was no sign of the accused people developing an expensive lifestyle \u2013 most could not even afford lawyers to defend them. The only evidence came from a software system that could not be\u00a0cross-examined.<\/p>\n Why did the judges allow these cases to proceed? They must, or should, have known about the hundreds of almost identical cases being prosecuted across the country. What has become of the principle of being judged guilty beyond reasonable doubt? This debacle has ruined so many lives and the perpetrators have yet to face any meaningful sanctions beyond public ignominy. Do we really have to wait for completion of the public inquiry before criminal proceedings can be started? The government should be ashamed at dragging its feet and further punishing the victims\u00a0with\u00a0the snail\u2019s pace of agreeing compensation. Wasn\u2019t there at least one person in the Post Office hierarchy who thought, \u201cHang on a minute, aren\u2019t there a disproportionate number of people suddenly apparently stealing?\u201d Or were they all so in thrall to new technology, and being courted by Fujitsu, that common sense flew out the window? Marina Hyde\u2019s review of the scandal was, again, upsetting. A year or so ago, I felt it necessary to email Fujitsu\u2019s CEO, Takahito Tokita. I said his company should provide immediate and substantial compensation as a matter of honour, but primarily because it was at fault. I\u2019m still awaiting a reply. What we didn\u2019t learn from the inquiry report \u2013 where did the money go <\/em>(Post Office Horizon IT scandal: five things we learned from the report, 8 July)? Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please <\/em><\/strong>email<\/em><\/strong> us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our <\/em><\/strong>letters<\/em><\/strong> section.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So now we know \u2013 the Post Office Horizon scandal has not been about senior management\u2019s incompetence and their struggles to recognise that an expensive software programme might not have been all that it was cracked up to be. It has been a fundamental illustration of man\u2019s inhumanity to man, or, more precisely, it has<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10673,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[2999,1248,3747,1008,1105,2798,2963,3745,3746],"class_list":{"0":"post-10672","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-bosses","9":"tag-deserve","10":"tag-horizon","11":"tag-office","12":"tag-post","13":"tag-prison","14":"tag-scandal","15":"tag-selfserving","16":"tag-short"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
John Robinson<\/strong>
Lichfield<\/em><\/p>\n
Alan Robinson<\/strong>
Griffydam, Leicestershire<\/em><\/p>\n
David Felton<\/strong>
Wistaston, Cheshire<\/em><\/p>\n
Terry Stone<\/strong>
Southend-on-Sea, Essex<\/em><\/p>\n
Paul Garrod<\/strong>
Southsea, Hampshire<\/em><\/p>\n
Sarah Walker and Barrie de Lara<\/strong>
Norwich<\/em><\/p>\n