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Largest ever miscarriage of justice?

Point of information.

In the context of this discussion, the word "subbie" is not shorthand for "subpostmaster". It is in fact shorthand for deputy or substitute subpostmaster, a person who was brought in to run a subpostoffice in the absence of the tenured subpostmaster.

Another point of information. George Thompson's successor in 2018 was Calum Greenhow, the subpostmaster of the office in the village where I live. I believe he was Thomson's deputy before that. (To be strictly accurate, Calum's wife Gillian is now the subpostmistress, having taken over from her husband in 2018.)
Also in 2018 Calum (and Gillian) suddenly started attending church, although I don't remember seeing them there before that.

Calum is generally believed in the village to have been supporting the subpostmasters, because that's the natural assumption when you know he is General Secretary of the NFSP. That's not how he is portrayed in "The Great Post Office Scandal" though. He seems to have been a continuation of the Thomson regime.
I feel rather uncomfortable about all this. I wonder if he will be called to give evidence?
 
I think there have been some changes of position. When I innocently remarked to Gillian that I was reading Nick Wallis's book she bridled and stammered something about there being different views about some things and the book not being entirely accurate or unbiassed or something like that. (She also said they'd been lucky, it could easily have happened to them, which indicated she was well aware that something had been happening to people.) I had no idea what she meant by her caveats about the book until I got to the relevant part, then the penny dropped.

Nick Wallis seems perfectly clear that when Calum took over from George Thomson he continued Thomson's line, and of course before taking over he had been Thomson's deputy so I would imagine he was on board with the line the NFSP was taking earlier.
There has been some reverse ferreting since everything started to come out, but it all looks a bit murky.
 
I haven’t got to that part yet in the book, but from the article above, George Thomson sounds like someone the police need to look into.
 
There is a long line of people the police should look into here. Will they? I doubt it.
 
I suspect there are so many PO and Fujitsu employees who have committed crimes, that the police, with the prosecution services, will do a sift to see who they think are the low hanging fish they can get an easy prosecution for. So a lawyer who fled to Australia will be safe.
 
Rolfe said:
Point of information.

In the context of this discussion, the word "subbie" is not shorthand for "subpostmaster". It is in fact shorthand for deputy or substitute subpostmaster, a person who was brought in to run a subpostoffice in the absence of the tenured subpostmaster.

Another point of information. George Thompson's successor in 2018 was Calum Greenhow, the subpostmaster of the office in the village where I live. I believe he was Thomson's deputy before that. (To be strictly accurate, Calum's wife Gillian is now the subpostmistress, having taken over from her husband in 2018.)
Also in 2018 Calum (and Gillian) suddenly started attending church, although I don't remember seeing them there before that.

Calum is generally believed in the village to have been supporting the subpostmasters, because that's the natural assumption when you know he is General Secretary of the NFSP. That's not how he is portrayed in "The Great Post Office Scandal" though. He seems to have been a continuation of the Thomson regime.
I feel rather uncomfortable about all this. I wonder if he will be called to give evidence?
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OK, fair enough, I was using 'subbie' in the ironic sense of Paula Vennell's email referring to 'subbies with their fingers in the till' although it is possible that she, too, found it a chore to write out 'subpostmasters and mistresses' in full.

BTW word on twitter is that a subpostoffice robber named 'Thomson' is actually a close relative of George Thomson.
 
Gareth Jenkins is using the, I was only doing what I thought the lawyers wanted me to do, defence. It is kind of the just following orders defence, but without much in the way of orders.
 
theprestige said:
None of that matters, regarding the flaw I see in Nessie's complaint.
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What complaint? Jenkins is trying to pass the responsibility buck. He was regarded as an expert witness and they should have a better understanding than most witnesses about giving evidence.
 
Wudang said:
Are you saying no he's not a Knight Bachelor? Or something else
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A Knight Bachelor is simply somebody who has been knighted but is member of no particular order. It's the term for a generic knight.

In matters related to the scandal I see Gareth Jenkins is lying his rear off through his testimony at the inquiry, telling so many porkies in an attempt to exonerate himself that I'm now doubting his real name is Gareth.
 
Nessie said:
What complaint? Jenkins is trying to pass the responsibility buck. He was regarded as an expert witness and they should have a better understanding than most witnesses about giving evidence.
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I really don't understand how you could call somebody who was involved in the scandal as an expert witness. On that narrow point, I'm with Gareth Jenkins.
 
Nessie said:
What complaint? Jenkins is trying to pass the responsibility buck. He was regarded as an expert witness and they should have a better understanding than most witnesses about giving evidence.
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I would expect an expert witness to have a better understanding than most about the importance of deferring to experts in their area of expertise.

Also I'm pretty sure that in most jurisdictions lawyers can be held liable for the legal advice they give their clients, precisely because their own expertise is expected to stand in place of the client.

Also, if you're on trial for a crime, I think it's absolutely appropriate to pass the legal buck to wherever you can. This isn't the same as a soldier following orders they know to be immoral or illegal. The whole point of engaging a lawyer is that they know better than you do what's appropriate.
 
jeremyp said:
I really don't understand how you could call somebody who was involved in the scandal as an expert witness. On that narrow point, I'm with Gareth Jenkins.
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Jenkins was the expert witness used by the PO to dispute defences that something was wrong with Horizon.

Expert witnesses are used by prosecutors and the defence to provide detailed and supposedly reliable evidence on a topic they have expert knowledge of. A common example of expert witness evidence, are doctors who make comment on injuries, or the lack of such, in cases of assault or murder.
 
I've worked on large software projects, some from the ground up, and I am suspicious of Jenkins testimony. If I designed something that had remote access I would mention the robust audit trail I had included.
 
Wudang said:
I've worked on large software projects, some from the ground up, and I am suspicious of Jenkins testimony. If I designed something that had remote access I would mention the robust audit trail I had included.
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Indeed. The client should demand such, especially if they're PMing properly.
 
Auditing must have been ruled "out of scope," probably for cost reasons, at some point, there can be no other excuse for it?
 
This report suggests he's either an idiot or a liar.

A former engineer for the company responsible for developing the Post Office’s faulty Horizon IT system has said he knew the computer system could in theory be accessed remotely by its staff for nearly two decades before realising it was happening in practice.

The former Fujitsu engineer Gareth Jenkins was giving his second day of evidence to the Post Office inquiry which is looking at why the state-owned institution prosecuted 900 operatives on the basis of alleged financial shortfalls in their branches when many of the discrepancies were caused by bugs, errors and defects in the Horizon IT system.

Jenkins told the inquiry he knew that remote access to the Horizon IT system by Fujitsu staff was technically possible from about 2000, shortly after its introduction across branches, but said he believed at the time it was “controlled, recorded and visible” to post office operators. He did not realise it was being used in practice until 2018.

Jason Beer KC, counsel to the inquiry, asked Jenkins when he first became aware that staff at the support service centre in Fujitsu’s offices in Bracknell, Berkshire, were able to remotely access branch accounts and insert transactions.

“I always knew it was theoretically possible … until 2018 I did not realise [they] were actually doing it,” Jenkins replied, adding that he understood any interventions were not done “very frequently”.

Beer proposed: “If they were doing it in the hours of business when a sub-postmaster was logged on, their work might be attributed to him or her?”
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He worked on a big financial system and knew that there was a massive, insecure, back-door. He's as bad as the rest.

Off to dig a little more
 
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