Forum Topic

I know someone personally who was nearlly caught up in this horror stry and it is a true story of torture, driving innocent people to prison so as to be able to tell the government all was well with Horizon.  My friend was on Hrizon training with some of the SUb posmasters who were caught up in it all. She was a Post office Manager and her husband was and IT guy at the time. When she noticed prior to training some things she did not get he went through it with her and said she was right Horizon was not fit for purpose.  She was pregnant at the time of her training s could not go on day they wanted due to a scan and they sent her to go with Subposties.She was very sarcastic all through training ponting out how awful Horizon was.  The trainer said they had found some system anomolies but they would be sorted before it was in place and running. She swapped numbers with some people on the course and a month or so later she got calls asking if she was having problems and she was and she had reported them to PO.She advised them to report the problems but then she found out people were being charged with theft and she was horrified.  She could not believe her concerns were being taken seriously and Subposties were being arrested and charged.  She was at one stage interviewed by the police as her name was on the training list.  The questions she was asked were she considered ridiculous and she told the police all the times she had complained etc.  The police did not believe her and accussed her of theft.  She got out her diary and gave the a list of dates and who she reported things to etc and they then asked her how she purchased her business which was when she told them she was not a Sub postmaster but a manger employed by the post office.  They appologised to her and sent her home said it was a mistake.  SHe was so scared by it and the fact she could have been charged she lef the job after maternity leave and no one thought anything about it.  After her 4 kids grew up she went back to the job and was not surprised to see the reporting system was as hopeless as 10 years earlier but that no one was being arreseted anymore.

Caroline Carney ● 499d

I've been following this for years and am very happy the sub-postmasters are getting huge public support. As some of you know, my mother runs Strand on the Green Post Office and I've worked there many times over the last few decades.Has Post Office (PO) HQ cleaned up its act? No. What has not gone widely reported in the media are the following that have occurred in the last year alone:- serious tax problems with the way PO was compensating the victims of the Horizon scandal- falsely asserting that its compensation settlement offers were confidential which handcuffed impacted sub-postmasters- failure to disclose a document to the public inquiry about PO's use of racial identification codes. In the words of the Chair "I am dissatisfied by the approach that has been taken by the Post Office; in my view, their approach demonstrates a lack of clear thinking about the disclosure obligations owed to the Inquiry with which the Post Office must comply and the means by which their obligations can be fulfilled"- awarding its executives bonuses for complying with the Inquiry into itself- misleading Parliament in its annual accounts, including falsely claiming the Chair of the Inquiry had approved PO's compliance with the statutory inquiry- very serious disclosure failings on the part of PO in complying with the Inquiry. In the words of Jason Beer KC, counsel to the Inquiry, in July 2023, it was "grossly unsatisfactory to be told at 10.32pm on the night before an important witness gives evidence that there are 4,767 documents that are at least potentially relevant to a witness who is being called 11 hours and 28 minutes later"- yet more serious disclosure failings in November 2023 where 363,000 documents were not disclosed to the Inquiry the previous year and these may not have been disclosed to sub-postmasters in litigation years ago

Milan Joshi ● 500d