Conspiracy To Defraud

More incompetence and wilful mendacity oozes from the foul pit that our erstwhile National Treasure, The Post Office, has become over the last thirty years; it would seem, every day. Not only have they singly, jointly, severally, and corporately lied about the accuracy of one accounting system - 'Horizon' - in doing so blighting the lives of hundreds of good, honest sub-postmasters, but they did so in the full knowledge that they were working off the back of a previous, equally shitty piece of software - 'Capture' - that had almost equally egregious effects, years previously. Even worse in the latest revelations regarding the older system, is the stark fact that the Post Office briefed sub-postmasters on the errors present in its system, via its internal staff bulletin, 'Focus', only to then proceed to either successfully prosecute large numbers of sub-postmasters/mistresses over shortfalls created by the error-prone software, or if unsuccessful in that endeavour, to still insist on the sub-postmaster's repaying the non-existent shortfalls to them. This was nothing short of extortion. Demanding money with menaces.

And all that this this hands-off, do nothing government can come up with in response to this is to say that they have '...ordered The Post Office to investigate claims the Capture system may have led to the wrongful convictions of sub-postmasters.' Who is the sole shareholder in this private, limited company? The bloody government. As always, this lot will slope-shoulder its way out of doing anything of practical import and will simply mouth empty platitudes about their 'plans'. A plan can only be seen as successful, and therefore of any bloody use at all, if successful action is taken within its theoretical remit and a positive result obtained. Otherwise it's just vapourware, political guff: in other words, spurious bollocks.

Given the track record of Post Office Ltd.'s essentially criminal activity, hand-in-glove with Fujitsu et al, over the last thirty years, and the overwhelming body of evidence of that criminality; three things need to happen, and happen very, very quickly. Firstly, in line with Ian Hislop's view - expressed forcefully in the media - a payment of one million pounds sterling should be paid immediately to each and every postmaster in any way affected by this outrage, without caveats, non-disclosure-agreements or any other such corporate/governmental hedging, and which in no way prejudices any potential, future legal action that might be brought, singly or collectively, by victims; against Post Office Ltd. They have thus-far been egregiously short-changed by the legal system and the compensation schemes currently in place. Secondly, the monies that were extorted from them by Post Office Ltd. should be repaid, with interest, no questions asked: the sums involved are all a matter of the Post Office's own record, anyway.

Thirdly, and probably most importantly for the future, is that those who were responsible for this affair, whether still in post or having had salaried or contracted influence in the fraud, but who have since moved on, should be charged jointly, severally, and corporately with conspiracy to defraud, illegally demanding money with menaces, and brought to trial at the highest level. As to corporate complicity in false imprisonment and effective manslaughter by proxy; well, pick the bones out of that one, if you dare, but someone needs to take up the baton and run with it sharpish, and the responsibility for the investigations into and prosecution of, these criminals should not be in the hands of the very people who have been complicit in one of the biggest corporate crimes for decades. Don't just call this a miscarriage of justice. It's orders of magnitude worse than that, and heads need to roll: jail time for the perpetrators should be the ultimate aim, but let's just get the financial compensation out there, no strings attached, first. If it bankrupts the Post Office, so be it: then we can just restore that to its former status as a public service, rather than something masquerading as a 'business'...