Marina Hyde is right that there has not been nearly enough outrage about the Post Office/Horizon scandal (Hundreds of lives ruined. Not a single person held to account. And still: silence on the Post Office scandal, 2 May). One of the most disturbing aspects is that Post Office Ltd was allowed to bring private prosecutions, thereby acting as victim, investigator and prosecutor at one and the same time.
Our criminal law system relies on full disclosure of all relevant facts, but Post Office Ltd had already told each defendant that they were the only subpostmasters this had happened to, so they failed that requirement at the first hurdle. They were never going to reveal any failings of the Horizon software to the courts. That the cases were ever allowed to proceed at all on that basis is one of the biggest scandals.
Colin Hoskins
Whatstandwell, Derbyshire
Understanding the Post Office scandal, and the horrendous way in which innocent people were treated, requires a knowledge of how subpostmasters’ contracts work. They bear all the risk of running a financial institution, with very little support from either Post Office Ltd or the government – and for that they receive very poor recompense but provide vital services, particularly in rural and deprived areas.
Post Office Ltd is now using the compensation it is due to pay to affected postmasters as an excuse to close more branches and cut the associated exit payments to postmasters (many of whom are working past the state retirement age), despite the fact that the funds for these payments came from government and were meant to be ringfenced until network transformation was completed.
Perhaps it is hoping that some 130 postmasters will opt to “voluntarily” close, placing the blame with individual postmasters instead of the network. The Post Office appears to have learned no lessons from the Horizon scandal.
Róisín Russell
Newtownabbey, County Antrim
Marina Hyde is quite right about the Post Office scandal. But there is another group of professionals who should be castigated and ashamed of their role in this business: the lawyers and judges who apparently accepted that a computer system could provide “evidence” of fraud. Any computer system can do only what its algorithms and code tell it to, and should certainly never be used as “proof” of anything; nor can it be called as a witness and swear to tell the truth.
None of the criminal cases should have resulted in convictions; all should have been thrown out for lack of evidence, and any guilt could not have been beyond reasonable doubt.
Chris Willers
Letchworth, Hertfordshire
In my naivety, I assumed that the government was sorting out the lives of subpostmasters, restoring their reputations, compensating them for lost earnings, and holding to account those responsible for this unbelievable miscarriage of justice. Silly old me – expecting integrity and responsibility from this government is a lost cause.
Ellie Weld
London
The Post Office scandal has parallels with the Robodebt scandal in Australia. The same reliance on poorly designed and controlled technology, the same lack of oversight, or at least compassionate oversight, and similar lack of any consequences for malfeasance and/or incompetence.
Robert Banks
Sandy Bay, Tasmania, Australia
