Post Office CTO had 'nagging doubts' about Horizon system despite reliability assurances

The former CTO of the Post Office had "nagging doubts" about the Horizon system at the center of one of the most far-reaching miscarriages of justice in UK history, yet he continued to sign off statements to MPs attesting to its security and reliability. Horizon is an EPOS and back-end finance system for thousands of Post …

[Guy de Loimbard]

I could empathise....

But I'm not going to.

People were jailed, wrongly, people had reputations and lives destroyed, some are sadly no longer with us due to this crusade against them.

Protecting a brand, when it was known to be flawed, then going on to prosecute people to this extent is morally reprehensible and legally shocking!

Post Office need to have all of the BS "rights" to prosecute removed, if that hasn't happened already.

[Ol'Peculier]

Re: I could empathise....

Fully agree.

Incidentally, the Royal Mail is believed to be the first organisation to carry out investigations and prosecutors in the world.

Not that been first is best...

[NoneSuch]

Re: I could empathise....

When people stop speaking truth to power for fear of retribution, that is no longer a democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I could empathise....

Exactly this, the Post Office Management should never have been let near investigation and prosecution of suspected fraud cases.

The problem with Government (and quasi government stuff like this) is Politicians always see IT as a "magic wand" that will automatically stop fraud etc. which they believe is rife among us serfs.

When they see a lot of apparent fraud they don't stop to think "hang on maybe it's the computer system" they gleefully take the opportunity to clean up Dodge City and claim the result as a win (In any case admitting you spent multi millions on something flawed is not something they will readily admit to), and for the supplier to openly admit to problems on a project earning millions, well it's a brave person who'd scream it from the rooftops, most companies usually assume they will fix the kinks on the fly, hence altering data, "just this once and we'll find and fix the bug, probably something simple!".

They should have had an independent dedicated investigation unit with police officers with experience in this field (City of London Police are the UK experts in financial cases I believe), together with software engineers experienced in investigation to actively look for possible bugs (would never happen up front as would be too expensive, also admitting that data could be flawed and results less than perfect would not be their first choice)

Therefore you had a perfect storm, all the parties who should have looked for potential problems had no incentive to, and this for a project which when it was begun was heralded as the largest non military project in Europe, think how many post offices and sub post offices were involved (about 14,000 Post Office branches according to Computer Weekly), hundreds of cases merge into the background when there's thousands of offices/transactions involved:

It will probably happen again when some politician kicks off another grandiose scheme to "stop fraud" or "bring more efficiency", already happened multiple times before with DWP, HMRC and others

https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Post-Office-Horizon-scandal-explained-everything-you-need-to-know

[Eclectic Man]

Re: I could empathise....

The issue is not that he received assurances from his senior team and Fujitsu, but that he did not check the basis on which those assurances were made. he did not ask for an independent technical security assessment report, or even an audit to ISO27001 by a competent independent team. He just relied on what he was told without questioning it too hard. That is what some people would call 'sloping shoulders', I call it abrogation of responsibility.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: I could empathise....

I call it fear.

[UnknownUnknown]

Re: I could empathise....

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/misconduct-public-office#:~:text=Charging%20Practice-,Introduction,of%20the%20public%20office%20held.

Simple as.

[tmTM]

Why always 'someone else'

A recurring theme people use in their defence is that 'someone else' told them the system was fine and that was that.

Who are these 'someone else'?? Why did even the head of IT have 'someone else' telling him everything was hunky dory?

Sooner or later names will have to be named, if it's not the head of IT then who was it?

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Why always 'someone else'

His job was not to know anything, that's why he was paid so much.

[Alan Brown]

Re: Why always 'someone else'

On the otjher hand the reason he was paid so much is because "the buck stops here"

There's a marked reluctance to find C-levels legally responsible for company decisions but having seen laws passed to make such things possible, I've also seen _massive_ changes in company operating procedures to ensure that every I is dotted and T crossed

Bear in mind that "Limited Liability" only applies to shareholder financial risk. Management and board members can and should be found personally liable for criminal behavious and decisions

In some countries he'd be safer in jail than allowed to freely walk the streets, given what happened to the families of some of the people victimised

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Why always 'someone else'

So perhaps C suites of public private partnership companies should invest in a Private Eye subscription ?

[Denarius]

Re: Why always 'someone else'

Indeed. Seems KPIs are an excuse for saying the numbers are OK therefore nothing is wrong

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Why always 'someone else'

> Seems KPIs are an excuse for saying the numbers are OK therefore nothing is wrong

Thought that was what KPGM were for ?

[R Soul]

Re: Why always 'someone else'

At least none of these lying, malevolent, incompetent bastards has resorted to the Nuremberg defence - "I was only obeying orders", Well, not yet.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Why always 'someone else'

This is the new version "I was going on what I'd been told." It should carry as much weight when you're in a position where you can demand the truth.

[Alan Brown]

Re: Why always 'someone else'

I wish they would. It's an admission of guilt and allows more robust investigations of the command chain

[TheWeetabix]

Re: Why always 'someone else'

If you squint, “I was only obeying orders”, and “I was going on someone else’s information” are both the same kind of buck-passing and should be treated the same way. Severely.

The phrase “Trust but verify” comes to mind. (One of America’s better exports.)

[Anonymous Coward]

If there's no audit log how can there be prosecutions?

Genuine question.

My understanding of this case is that in simple terms Fujitsu had access to remote systems and were able to edit transaction data. They did this to make it appear as though bugs were either resolved or had never occurred in the first place. However they did this without any real form of audit logging (for dubious reasons) or understanding/caring about the ramifications of doing this in a financial application.

Naturally anyone who is now being "accused" is simply pointing the finger elsewhere.

Realistically how is anyone going to get definitive answers on a case like this when identifying and tracing the source of every bodged transaction is effectively impossible?

I'm not for one moment saying any of this is alright but I also don't see how anyone expects to get all the relevant information to prosecute the appropriate people.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: If there's no audit log how can there be prosecutions?

They've put themselves in a position where they can't - or shouldn't be able to - convict even a genuine case without completely independent proof.

[adam 40]

Re: If there's no audit log how can there be prosecutions?

There was no audit logging.

No any form of double-entry by the looks of it.

I've only worked in accounting software once, and when I said "we have two ways of tracking transactions" shall I get rid of one, the accountant in the team said "no! great, keep them both, we can use them to counter-check against each other". A principle that seems lost in Horizon (probably, to this day. Which lays it open to fraud.).

[Peter 6]

Re: If there's no audit log how can there be prosecutions?

There was some kind of audit logging but it was held within Fujitsu and under the terms of the contract, POL had to pay Fujitsu for them to retrieve those logs. You see this becoming a huge bone of contention during Second Sight's review when they start asking for audit data and POL quibble on the basis of cost.

[Ian Johnston]

Re: If there's no audit log how can there be prosecutions?

Look for the Fujitsu and Post Office staff with Swiss ball accounts and surprisingly lavish lifestyle. That money was going somewhere...

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: If there's no audit log how can there be prosecutions?

>That money was going somewhere...

There wasn't any money.

A software bug said that a small Sub Post Office in Tobermory sold £65535 worth of stamps over lunch - then the post master better have £65535 cash in the till, or they have obviously stolen it !

[Jimmy2Cows]

Re: There wasn't any money.

There certainly was money after the SPMs "repaid" money they didn't actually owe as it was never actually missing. Where the fuck has that all gone? Someone (likely several) has benefited from procedes of crime. There was fraud and theft, but it was by Fujitsu, the Post Office, and their executives, not the SPMs.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: There wasn't any money.

Ok, That money all went back to the Post Office, ie the government, the government stealing money is OK

[HobartTas]

Re: If there's no audit log how can there be prosecutions?

How many people are here that can instantly recognize that £65535 is £ (2^16)-1 or basically the highest unsigned 16 bit integer number that you can have, unsigned is 0..65535, signed is -32768 to 32767, and anytime this pops up then it's probably not a random or chance amount and more likely a programming error of some kind.

[Alan Brown]

Re: If there's no audit log how can there be prosecutions?

Malicious prosecutions to cover up shortcomings are an area where the people involved should be facing jailterms AT LEAST as long as those served by the victims

Post Office has billions of pounds in liabilities around its neck as do the individual staff involved in making the decisions to prosecute. That's why they're closing ranks

[martinusher]

Re: If there's no audit log how can there be prosecutions?

Judges and other legal personnel have the same kind of flaws and respect for institutional authority as any other senior manager.

[Anonymous Coward]

Those Post Office workers never stood a chance

Everything was rotten back at HQ and Fujitsu.

Bastards.

[Ian Johnston]

Re: Those Post Office workers never stood a chance

And to this day it is clear that the PO and its senior management believe that the SPMs were guilty and only got off on a technically, which is why none of them show the slightest hint of remorse.

[Dan 55]

Re: Those Post Office workers never stood a chance

15 years since the story first broke, about 25 years since problems were first reported, and they still haven't managed to get that the system can't add up properly so any losses it reports are meaningless. They walk among us.

[Doctor Syntax]

If he had nagging doubts he was the best placed person to satisfy them yet he didn't. In his position plausible deniability isn't. There were obviously too many who didn't want to start turning over stones for fear of what might lie beneath.

[Neil Barnes]

...and it was open to abuse.

So who abused it? It doesn't appear to have been the poor bloody postmasters.

[BobChip]

Re: ...and it was open to abuse.

Lots of money (LOTS and LOTS of money) is still missing. Since it is now obvious that it was not the Postmasters who were stealing it, where did it go, how, and where is it now? Those who had access to the system and could "adjust" it at will, look to me to be the primary suspects. Whether within Fujitsu or even the Post Office itself? And who is now looking into this? Obviously can't let either the Post Office or Fujitsu anywhere near to running the investigation themselves. This story has only just begun......

[katrinab]

Re: ...and it was open to abuse.

The “missing” money never existed.

Post office terminal sent a sales transaction to head office. Head office sent an ack packet back. Ack packet didn’t arrive at the terminal. Terminal retransmitted the transaction. Head office logged it as a second sale.

[Sam not the Viking]

Re: ...and it was open to abuse.

As far as I am aware, none of these convicted postmasters have been found with the ill-gotten-gains, which would, of course, be recoverable if they existed.

Those who were 'forced' to pay back 'lost money' were contributing to the PO bosses bonuses.

It now appears that it was 'somebody else's fault'. They've been coached by their legal team who have no incentive to get matters concluded.

[adam 40]

Re: ...and it was open to abuse.

An audit should have shown up phantom "profits"

[tfewster]

Re: ...and it was open to abuse.

> Terminal retransmitted the transaction. Head office logged it as a second sale.

Which is why a transaction should have unique reference, so if it's retransmitted then Head Office detect the duplicate.

Duplicate transactions are a possibility that has been considered and solved in many paper, computer and network processes. Surely Horizon couldn't have that basic a flaw?

Also, that doesn't explain the "remote access" issue, unless Fujitsu were changing the unique reference at both ends to allow the transaction to be processed.

[Ian Johnston]

Re: ...and it was open to abuse.

So where did Fujitsu staff remotely changing branch records come in? Your model is a little simplistic, I fear.

[Dagg]

Re: ...and it was open to abuse.

Post office terminal sent a sales transaction to head office. Head office sent an ack packet back. Ack packet didn’t arrive at the terminal. Terminal retransmitted the transaction. Head office logged it as a second sale.

WTF!!! This is the classic double commit problem. I remember being taught all about this in compsci and working with it in EFTPOS using AS2805/ISO8583.

The standard approach was to send a request and if the response did not arrive in time a reversal was sent. The original requests and responses could be discarded but the reversals had to be stored and forwarded. Total F*ckwits

[Pascal Monett]

So this sad tale of abject failure of leadership continues

You're CTO with nagging doubts, but you don't do anything about it ?

Of what use were you, exactly ?

Oh, right : signing off reports saying that everything was fine.

So, corrupt to the bone, eh ? And now you're pretending to have a conscience ?

A bit late for that.

[Alan Brown]

Re: So this sad tale of abject failure of leadership continues

nagging doubts but signing things off is the kind of thing that has put other company directors in jail for a very long time

And he's admitted it in public

[Big Softie]

Re: So this sad tale of abject failure of leadership continues

It beggars belief that this guy was hired as CTO, and managing the IT activity.

As far as I can see he has:

1) No academic training/knowledge of software technology

2) Zero experience of developing code himself

3) Zero experience of managing a software development group

4) Zero experience of procuring software from a 3rd party

Yet again, a person in the wrong job. Appointed to a senior and extremely well compensated role for which lacks the required skills, abilities, knowledge and experience to do it properly.

[OllieJones]

Roll out new point of sale system, get petty crime wave?

Didn’t anybody wonder about the scope of this supposed crime wave? Seven hundred some-odd independent and disorganized small business people embezzling from the Royal Mail? Only in some dystopian sci-fi film.

Sure, one or two, or even ten might try that. But, not one judge, or detective, or silk-wearing barrister or auditor stopped to think and to ask the obvious questions when the number of accused started climbing into the hundreds? Impossible to believe. There is an untold story somewhere in this mess about a suppressed whistleblower.

[Spazturtle]

Re: Roll out new point of sale system, get petty crime wave?

The Post Office had long viewed Sub-Postmasters as outsiders who were all thieving bastards, they just never had any proof. Horizon comes online and confirms their already existing bias, instead of being surprised at the number of 'thieves' they were instead impressed by how well it was catching them.

[Alan Brown]

Re: Roll out new point of sale system, get petty crime wave?

Go back and look at the rollout history before it was renamed Horizon

ICL was full of shit and the project became the most expensive failed rollout in history

They knew the bugs were there and smply said they'd fixed everything. These are the SAME bugs which existed and were documented in Pathways failure

[TheWeetabix]

They’re the poors

The poors are always thieves.

Bring my Bentley around.

/s

[Lee D]

Re: Roll out new point of sale system, get petty crime wave?

To be fair, implementing a more robust accounting system could EASILY generate that kind of response, things that were totally missed before because there was no way to check them, but which flag up immediately in a newer system.

And judges are not there to do the research for you, they judge the case in front of them based solely on the evidence in front of them. Anything else is dangerous. It would be for the lawyers (especially defence) to say "There have been X hundred court cases in recent years because of the Horizon system, which is far in excess of the previous system, can you account for that? Is it not possible that my client is one of many being unjustly accused?"

Fact is, many of the people that went to court PLEADED GUILTY because they were advised to do so. In that instance, neither the lawyers or judges have much to do beyond dotting the i's and crossing the t's. It's why you never plead guilty to something that you know you didn't do. You've basically said "Yes, I did that, exactly as described." and there's no way back short of a pardon or major scandal.

But a new accounting system suddenly detecting 100's of cases of potential fraud over 16 years (so barely 50 cases a year), out of about 7000 subpostmasters, their other employees, etc.? Yeah, it's significant but it's not implausible. Especially when some of those pleaded guilty and in the process even accepted the evidence from Horizon was accurate.

If you were to suddenly implement "insider trading laws" on 7000 stockbrokers and their employees and departments, I would bet that you'd find more than 100 cases a year.

The real problem is the Post Office's rather unique ability to act on its own: "when an organisation is allowed to act as a prosecutor when it is also the victim and the investigator of an alleged offence".

i.e. crusty old laws with no modern need for them and people able to run amok and avoid oversight.

If they'd had to push their case through the normal entities (such as they had to do in Scotland and Northern Ireland), the number of instances would have been less but still might have flagged something in people's brains along the way.

[Anonymous Coward]

never plead guilty to something that you know you didn't do.

Easier said than done. Especially in this scandal.

The accused subpostmasters were royally fucked over in so many ways. The Post Office knowingly withheld evidence that would have proved innocence or at least raised sufficient reasonable doubt if cases went to court. The PO anf Fushitsu were also perjuring themselves by claiming Horizon was infallible even when they knew it wasn't. The PO intimidated their victims: threatening to spend gazillions on prosecutions => the accused couldn't possibly hope to afford the resources of mounting a matching defence. This meant the logical but wrong choice for many victims was to cop a plea for a lesser charge to avoid bankruptcy, homelessness and jail time even though they were innocent.

What would any rational person do in these circumstances?

[Alan Brown]

Re: never plead guilty to something that you know you didn't do.

"The Post Office knowingly withheld evidence that would have proved innocence or at least raised sufficient reasonable doubt if cases went to court. "

This in itself is a serious criminal matter and there's no statute of limitations for such things in British law - which is why ranks are closing

[Alan Brown]

Re: Roll out new point of sale system, get petty crime wave?

"many of the people that went to court PLEADED GUILTY because they were advised to do so."

Usually by public defenders or under ruinous threats due to not having money to pay competent layers

[katrinab]

Re: Roll out new point of sale system, get petty crime wave?

Private Eye was asking those questions > 20 years ago. I believe Computer Weekly was too, though I never read that publication.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Roll out new point of sale system, get petty crime wave?

> Private Eye was asking those questions > 20 years ago. I believe Computer Weekly was too, though I never read that publication.

Yes, CW uncovered the story first and PE only picked-up on it after a year or so, iirc, when its persistence was starting to become apparent.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Roll out new point of sale system, get petty crime wave?

> Didn’t anybody wonder about the scope of this supposed crime wave?

Given that there are now allegations that the previous accounting system - Capture - was also buggy, maybe the number didn't actually go up and there were just as many wrongful prosecutions under the old system?

It's a horrible thought.

[Dagg]

Re: Roll out new point of sale system, get petty crime wave?

previous accounting system - Capture - was also buggy

Yep, I wonder if Capture was the foundation/data-layer of Horizon.

[Anonymous Coward]

Chief Operations Officer

According to his witness statement, his job titles were "Operations Director", "Chief Technology and Operations Services Director" or "Chief Operations Officer". Never CTO. See pdf at:

https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/evidence/witn11130100-mike-young-witness-statement

The statement gives a summary of what he claims his different roles involved.

It also notes he is a former soldier in the British Army, and a former policeman (rank of Detective Sergeant).

[F. Frederick Skitty]

Re: Chief Operations Officer

I'm wondering how the hell you go from army and police to CTO of an organisation as big as Post Office Limited. I don't think he could've been an officer in the army, as he was a relatively lowly Detective Sergeant in the police - officers tend to go straight into cushy business jobs via the old boys' network (the British Army is still almost entirely class based rather than a meritocracy). I know plenty of police officers who are ex-army, but they were at most non-commissioned officers and resorted to joining the police as their pensions were virtually non-existant. If he was a Slime (Army Intelligence) or from another branch with IT skills, then I don't see him joining the police. So very strange career progression.

[collinsl]

Re: Chief Operations Officer

He could have joined the police to do a cyber-crime role - they are rare but they are there.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been interesting to hear the evidence and cross-examinations about remote access. It seems to me that there has been obfuscation. IMHO remote access is pretty much an intrinsic requirement for IT Systems and should not come as a surprise. The key issue is whether the remote access is used to alter the ledger and whether or not the audit log can be bypassed. Double-entry book keeping has been around for hundreds of years and no doubt there will be endless case law surrounding security of the ledger and how corrections are handled. To my way of thinking common sense would apply - any adjustments would have to be logged and signed-off by the business owner, not least to protect whoever is applying those adjustments. What were they thinking?

[katrinab]

Generally speaking, you should never be able to change an entry. You would add a new entry saying that a previous entry should be reversed.

[ChrisElvidge]

Double entry bookkeeping

As I understood it, double entry bookkeeping consisted of having two ledgers, each of which was updated individually. Reconciliation was then done between the two ledgers. If they didn't match there was a problem. Modern systems seem to accept an update to the first ledger and then apply that to the second ledger - or am I really, really wrong?

[katrinab]

Re: Double entry bookkeeping

Modern systems will generally update both ledgers as a single transaction

Transaction in both the financial and database sense.

For example, if you withdraw money from a bank ATM, the two entries would be

Deduct the money from your bank account

Deduct it from the cash balance held inside the ATM [if it is an ATM owned by the bank]

or add it to the balance due to the owner of the ATM [if it is an ATM owned by someone else]

If they charge you for the privilege, then there will be four entries. The other two would be

Deduct the charge from your bank account

Add it to the bank's sales income.

In that case, it would be two financial transactions, but a single database transaction.

[Dagg]

Re: Double entry bookkeeping

The only original reason for a double entry system is you only needed to add, no subtraction was required. From what I remember this was to do with the use of roman numerals.

In sales/ledger/account systems you don't need a double ledger but each transaction is recorded against each sale/purchase/banking etc.

[katrinab]

Re: Double entry bookkeeping

The oldest recorded use of double-entry bookkeeping in the West is in what is now Italy in around 1300. Arabic numerals were introduced to the west about 100 years before that.

It possibly came to the West from India (based on the Desi Namu system which is fairly similar but with Debits on the right and Credits on the left. Arabic numerals were actually invented in India.

So I'm not sure that double-entry bookkeeping had anything to do with Roman numerals.

[Zippy´s Sausage Factory]

So in short, his testimony was "well, I was pressured to lie, so I did, even though I thought maybe I shouldn't have, but it's OK because I can blame someone else for it"

Did I get that right?

[elsergiovolador]

Outdated

How can outdated equipment "mess up" with numbers this way?

Makes no sense.

Sure, bad memory, occasional bit flips can happen, but what a coincidence these would happen there.

Did they all get lobotomy and don't know about it?

[Spazturtle]

Re: Outdated

One of the big ones was lottery tickets, those sales were handled with a different machine which was connected to the Horizon POS. The connection would keep dropping and cause the messages to get re-sent, but Horizon would count them as multiple sales even though they had the same sale number.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Outdated

So that's a software error, nothing to do with outdated equipment. You always have to account for dropped connections, double spend etc. these are the basics.

[katrinab]

Re: Outdated

And probably, if anything, modern wifi would have way more dropped connections/lost packets than dialup?

[Dagg]

Re: Outdated

Nope, wrong dialup was extremely flaky. I remember back to the early days of ATMs and EFTPOS terminals. That is why they used AS2805/ISO8583 which overcomes the double commit problem.

[Alan Brown]

Re: Outdated

> How can outdated equipment "mess up" with numbers this way?

It doesn't. This is unlocked database transactions or the equivalent

Banks solved this issue before the first GenXers were born. The fact that it happened in the late 1990s shows just how much of a "kids in bedrooms" programming mentality prevailed acriss both organisations

[Arthur the cat]

To borrow a meme

Jail for CTO! Jail for one thousand years!

[heyrick]

Re: To borrow a meme

They manipulated people to the point where the innocent had no choice other than to confess to a crime they didn't commit rather than risk losing absolutely everything.

They manipulated people to the point where some of those who weren't happy admitting to something they didn't do decided instead to cease existing.

They withheld information that may well have demonstrated the innocence of the accused; this is where it gets really nasty - they knew something was amiss and decided to carry on screwing people over anyway.

The whole bloody board/directors/the lot should be behind bars - and for a good long time, none of this "we'll let you out in three months if you promise to be good" shit. If everybody blames everybody else, great, means they're all guilty. Don't wait for the first domino to fall, push.

And the laws need changed to ensure that this sort of abuse of power doesn't happen again.

[Wang Cores]

Criminality.

Knowing how they buried these people under suspicion and allegation, knowing they were innocent, knowing they couldn't fight back and knowing that the prosecutions were driving people into despair such that suicide became an option and the craveness to allow it to go on is beyond the measure of any human metric of criminal culpability. This is murder by system.

I'd bring back writs of outlawry for everyone involved. As they so denied innocents the protections of law or even common decency - let's see how iron-jawed they are when someone toys with their existence in the same arbitrary manner.

[Brian 3]

Re: Criminality.

Yes but on a smaller(we would hope) scale, this is just BUSINESS AS USUAL for 'justice'. It is no less wrong when one individual is stuffed up by dirty LEOs and judicials.

[mark l 2]

My question is how much money has been paid to ICL/Fujitsu over the decades this was going on for 'support' on something that from the sounds like it was written by idiots and was not fit for purpose?

As don't forget the Post Office is a government run company, so its our money that they have been paid.

So Fujitsu should be on the hook to pay the compensation to the affected postmasters.

[Emir Al Weeq]

Written by idiots

I can't find the link to the actual enquiry document that highlights this but there are several examples of the code available to read that confirm your "written by idiots" point. My favourite was actually a function to return the negative of its argument; ie when given d, to return -d. As if the use of a function isn't pointless enough, the algorithm used was something like:

if d<0 then return abs(d)

else return d-2*d

[Alan Brown]

Weasels do what weasels do

The moment he started trying to twist words on the stand, all credibility went out the window

[Anonymous Coward]

Nail 'em up, I say! Nail some sense into 'em!

Young, like all the others involved should be doing very long stretches in jail.

They should never be allowed into positions of trust or responsibility again.

[adam 40]

Most of this could have been cleared up much earlier if...

... the Post Office didn't have the means to start criminal prosecutions without going through the CPS (or equivalent).

This power must be revoked immediately.

[Peter 6]

There have to be two questions here surely..

1) Given that Horizon was and continues to be as useful as a chocolate fireguard and effectively makes its results up as it goes along, can POL's financial accounts for the last 20 odd years be treated as reliable?!

2) Is there such an offense as racketeering in the UK? Because to me, POLs behaviour towards SPMs in shaking them down for every penny they had on the flimsiest context screams racketeering to me.