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Largest ever miscarriage of justice?

Pixel42 said:
Alan Bates has received a knighthood in the birthday honours.
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Arise Sir Alan... and thoroughly deserved sir!

His determination not to be bullied by the Post Office, of refusing admit to false accounting (thereby refusing to accept that he did anything wrong) and in bringing together the JFSA has greatly served justice in the UK.
 
Orphia Nay said:
:heartbeat: So touching to see him be recognised, and the turnaround in history.

This article explains why he accepted it.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c722kzgp90lo
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I didn't even have to read the article to know something like this would be in there...

"He insisted the honour was not just for him but also for his group, the Justice for Sub-Postmasters Alliance, which he started in 2009."
 
It is also significant that normally if someone turns down an honour, they are never offered another. I would have preferred Lord Alan Bates, as it is people like him, who should be in the second house, not hereditary peers and people who have bought their honour.
 
And yet Vennells and co still have not admitted any responsibility for the miscarriage of justice, blaming other people and claiming to be 'too trusting'. It could be her lawyers have advised her not to admit liability as she was questioned 'under caution' and could be looking at criminal charges. So she - and others - has to keep up the 'Not Guilty' plea.

IMV it is significant that the King authorised Bates' knighthood. It underlines the wrongfulness of the Post Office in the eyes of the establishment.

If it ever did go to trial under Pulic Office offences, Venells and co would likely just get a slap on the wrist with perhaps a two-year suspended sentence. Such trials are incredibly difficult to run because juries that are specialised enough to understand the complexities of Company Law and what constitutes fraud or maladministration are hard to find, needing sometimes very long periods of service and similar cases have a history of being thrown out for those reasons (for example, a bunch of people in the banking world had to be acquitted after an extremely long trial, with the case abandoned).
 
Vixen said:
And yet Vennells and co still have not admitted any responsibility for the miscarriage of justice, blaming other people and claiming to be 'too trusting'. It could be her lawyers have advised her not to admit liability as she was questioned 'under caution' and could be looking at criminal charges. So she - and others - has to keep up the 'Not Guilty' plea.

IMV it is significant that the King authorised Bates' knighthood. It underlines the wrongfulness of the Post Office in the eyes of the establishment.

If it ever did go to trial under Pulic Office offences, Venells and co would likely just get a slap on the wrist with perhaps a two-year suspended sentence. Such trials are incredibly difficult to run because juries that are specialised enough to understand the complexities of Company Law and what constitutes fraud or maladministration are hard to find, needing sometimes very long periods of service and similar cases have a history of being thrown out for those reasons (for example, a bunch of people in the banking world had to be acquitted after an extremely long trial, with the case abandoned).
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While I would like to see those who perpetrated this miscarriage of justice tried and imprisoned for what they did, knowing what I do about the UK's history of not holding public figures to account for their wrongdoing, I am not at all confident that justice will be visited on these people.

No-one has ever been held to account for the Hillsborough Disaster, or the wrongful convictions of the Guildford Four, the Birmingham Six or the Maguire Seven, despite the fact that there were clear acts of perjury, filing false reports, fabricating evidence and withholding exculpatory evidence from the defence by police and government officials.

I don't see that anything has changed enough in the UK to make it at all likely that people like Vennells will end up in jail.
 
smartcooky said:
I didn't even have to read the article to know something like this would be in there...

"He insisted the honour was not just for him but also for his group, the Justice for Sub-Postmasters Alliance, which he started in 2009."
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Did he get a higher honour than Vennels initially got?
 
Bates' knighthood to Vennells' CBE (returned) be like: God lifting Maradona's 'hand of God' goal out of the back of the net and handing it back to him with his arse on a plate.
 
The evidence from Second Sight is very impressive, from what I have read. They have been able to remember what happened, for a start! Then this;

https://x.com/JohnHyde1982/status/1803015776460218773

Second Sight explained that this supposed crime was unlike any other they had investigated. It was bizarre that the heavily vetted sub-postmasters with no previous convictions had all suddenly become criminals and unlike any other theft/fraud, there was no sign where the supposedly stolen money had gone.
 
jimbob said:
I couldn't find an explanation for the various levels.

I did try
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I went to Paula Vennells' wiki entry, clicked on the link to the Commander of the Order of the British Empire, and it lists the classes of OBE in order. hth
 
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