Originally posted on #LinkedIn on the 2nd of January 2024
I watched the first episode of Mr Bates vs the Post Office yesterday. It was hard to watch at times and you can only applaud the persistence and courage of the central characters as the story plays out in front of us.
It is shameful that some of these victims are still fighting for compensation to enable them to pick up their lives and move on.
… and a lack of #quality at the heart of the problem! #scandal #miscarriage
Originally posted on #LinkedIn on the 3rd of January 2024
I rarely binge-watch TV series but we couldn’t help it last night. Having watched Episode 2 we couldn’t stop.
The portrayal of the behaviour of Post Office Ltd and its senior executives was unbelievable. With systemic failings of hashtag#governance and #assurance and systematic persecution of the Sub Postmasters and Sub Postmistresses with all the consequent impacts on hundreds of lives was shameful.
The drama brought to life some of the cold facts emerging from the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry. Anyone interested can follow the progress here.
As for the quality of the Horizon software at the heart of this miscarriage of justice below is a quote from the expert brought in to evaluate the software
‘In my opinion, the stability of the Horizon IT System was affected by these shortcomings. The sometimes-conflicting expectations between ICL Pathway and POCL introduced a disruptive element at the management level. The effects of these disruptions manifested itself throughout the implementation of the Horizon IT System. Other ICL Pathway selfinflicted wounds included suboptimal support from ICL Pathway’s program for training of SPMs, the Helpdesk support of SPMs, and the Helpdesk support of ICL Pathway’s error resolution function. A noticeable symptom of these issues was a recurrent balancing problem experienced by the SPMs, which directly degraded the accounting integrity of the Horizon IT System.’
The full review can be viewed here.
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