Post Office scandal - "cock-up or cook-up"?

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https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252 ... or-cook-up

The second phase of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal raised more questions over who did what, when and where, with shocking revelations at every turn

Coders who couldn’t code, information being suppressed, pressure from Japan and government nerves all featured in the second phase of the public inquiry into the Post Office Horizon scandal.


The statutory inquiry is seeking to establish what caused a scandal often referred to as the widest miscarriage of justice in UK history, which saw lives ruined as subpostmasters were blamed and punished for unexplained accounting shortfalls caused by errors in the Post Office’s computer system. It wants to make sure nothing like this can ever happen again.

But how much was incompetence and neglect on the part of the Post Office, Fujitsu and the government, and how much was part of a wider cover-up?

In closing phase two of the statutory public inquiry, Sam Stein KC, working on behalf of victims, recommended the inquiry ascertain whether the suffering caused to many hundreds of victims was the result of a “cock-up or cook-up”.

He said: “We ask that the inquiry continues to seek disclosure, scrutinise the documents with us and understand whether what happened to our clients was the result of a dreadful, but avoidable, cock-up, or was this a more sinister cook-up to cover up the fact that the Post Office had bought a system not fit for purpose and certainly not fit to support the subpostmasters.”

Phase one of the public inquiry heard the devastating stories of lives wrecked in the subpostmaster community as for nearly two decades honest hard-working people were blamed and punished for unexplained account shortfalls that were caused by computer errors.

The inquiry’s second phase put the Horizon system and its introduction under the spotlight, and it didn’t have to zoom in far before evidence emerged, hard to believe and even disturbing for IT experts.

Despite “I don’t recall” being a commonly used phrase during discussions of events that happened over 20 years ago, weeks of evidence continued to unearth shocking details that have been kept from public view despite years of investigation by subpostmaster campaigners, journalists, and even High Court and Court of Appeal trials.

Controversial from the start
A surprise request for an adjournment by barristers representing victims kicked off phase two on 11 October, with accusations that the Post Office had failed to meet its obligation to provide thousands of documents requested.

To avoid delay to the inquiry, already planned to run into the autumn next year, this was turned down by the inquiry chairman, Wyn Williams, who made it clear he would use all the powers at his disposal to make sure everything that is required to be disclosed is disclosed.

Now, after years of avoiding direct scrutiny, Fujitsu/ICL would finally be questioned in public. Joining it in the spotlight were Post Office senior management and civil servants at the time, who until now have just been names on documents. It was also time for heavily criticised executives from the National Federation for Subpostmasters to face questions about the conduct of its leadership during the first years of the Horizon system.

For 13 years, Fujitsu has consistently given a “no comment” response to Computer Weekly when asked questions about the Horizon system’s inadequacies, but there was nowhere to hide in the inquiry.