This goes way beyond the Post Office and Fujitsu. As I posted elsewhere, OH said it was to do with keeping Japan sweet and encouraging inward investment (notably the car industry)
From Lord Arbuthnot’s interview in yesterday’s Times
“Right at the beginning, a faulty system was installed and the government and Fujitsu and the Post Office knew it was faulty but they had to do it in order to preserve good relationships with Japan and Japanese industry and in order to preserve jobs in all sorts of other sectors. That’s government. That’s the way decisions are made but what is not forgivable is to then throw your sub-postmasters against the wall in order to defend that sort of government decision.”
Priceless, haven’t seen that because I never watch Peston, his verbal delivery frustrates me to put it mildly.
I see that this Berry bloke who I’d never heard of till the wonderful Truss was put on him was knighted presumably by her, but Wiki does not say why. What a useless so-called honour that is, and there is the living proof of that statement.
Hislop of course is in full spate, and worth the licence fee many times over, although, I don’t pay it, obviously.
No the so called whistleblower was sacked way before he was found by the BBC. He couldn’t do his job and the rest of the development team could not work with him
The development team were very very distressed at being forced by the post office to give evidence especially when their words were twisted into something they didn’t believe. The horizon system did work but was not appropriate for use by post masters and mistresses. That was the fault of the bad specification given by the post office and the fault of Fujitsu for accepting it. This is the information I have been given by someone who worked there at the time. The truth is always very hard to find and Ian Hislop is certainly very entertaining but I wouldn’t trust private eye to find it
That’s not saying very much! I gave up on politicians and the media ever since Blair. I used to read Robert Fisk but then once he died I didn’t find anyone else worth reading.
I’ve just been speaking to the person who used to work for Fujitsu. He can’t believe the nonsense stories being made up by the media. He’s been called four times by the BBC to try to get him to dish the dirt on Fujitsu. Trying to get him to say he was asked to keep quiet about the bugs in the system. The horizon system is a massive complex system that is working now with millions of transactions each week. There are 4 bugs in the system that are well known and were explained to the post office. The media are trying to make a big issue about Fujitsu staff having access to the remote terminals but this is quite normal in a big complex system if they are to correct any problems. Of course the post office is now trying to pass the buck onto Fujitsu but it is the post office who are largely at fault for not properly training their staff an then foolishly prosecuting them
But they could have still told the truth, I wouldnt lie for a company. I had to give evidence on a case where a lady operator lost some of her fingers. I was told by the company what to say but went against it and simply told the truth, the truth doesnt alter, only the lies which is why the sh1t is hitting the fan now.
Very admirable and thereby is the problem
faced by whistleblowers.
Towing the company line and throwing someone under the proverbial bus likely saves the liars job and they can live with that, others can’t.
Did you keep your job after telling the truth?
Yes I did, I had been there for around 14 years and was well known. To be clear I wasnt a whistle blower, I just was not going to lie to diminish this lady’s compensation claim for a rich company.
At another job years later I was a whistle blower at the request of two board members. The rest of the board were not interested so I was allowed to leave with a good payout after agreeing an NDA.
All part of life’s rich tapastry.
The fuss is that the Post Office repeatedly said this wasn’t possible. Perhaps Fujitsu should have issued a public statement saying it was. But they didn’t so are implicated in the cover up.
