Alan Bates the campaigner for the Post Office IT scandal has been knighted | Hacker News Reader

Alan Bates the campaigner for the Post Office IT scandal has been knighted

theguardian.com

25 pointsjack_riminton12 comments

Entrenched institutional malfeasance and incompetence invites people to dream of a strong authoritarian who can sweep away all the bureaucracy and do the right thing, including punishments in a show of justice by extralegal means.

When institutions fail, the door opens to strong-man tyranny. But the caretakers of these institutions seem oblivious to how fragile their position is. People like Vennels just might get shocked by what their fecklessness leads to.

They need to go back and asset strip the project managers who lied. They also need to prosecute people for perjury, perverting the course of justice, fraud, misrepresentation and misuse of public funds. They all need prison time. It’s clear as day.

I think Sir Alan should launch a crowdfunding appeal to take as many people to court as he can.

If they're found not guilty, then launch other lawsuits, appeals etc for as long as possible. I don't particularly care if they're not found guilty but they should be put through the wringer as much as the innocent postmasters were

May I highly recommend the British TV series on the scandal, with the always-excellent Toby Jones as Bates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr_Bates_vs_The_Post_Office

Can't recommend this show enough for a solo burn over a night or two.

But incredibly, compensation still not paid yet.

Yes, the fact that special laws had to be made to exonerate the postmasters shows just how poorly the legal system has performed

The fact that the prosecutions continued for so long and that it took so long for the scandal to be dealt with is undoubtedly a huge failure of the legal system. It's also concerning that more people aren't asking questions about how and why the judicial system wasn't able to look at appropriate challenges to the Horizon evidence here - there is a big potential systemic problem there. But sadly it seems people would rather focus on questions about who was entitled to prosecute which seems like a bit of a sideshow.

Having said that, I think a mass exoneration via legislation was exactly the right approach to this (even if it took too long to happen). The judicial system is quite rightly built to focus on individual cases and by necessity this would have meant a long, stressful and potentially expensive administrative process at the least for all involved showing that their convictions would have been unsafe without Horizon evidence.

> It's also concerning that more people aren't asking questions about how and why the judicial system wasn't able to look at appropriate challenges to the Horizon evidence here - there is a big potential systemic problem there.

This is the core of the issue. And sadly not addressed, meaning it can happen again.

The "computer is always right" precedent is now being challenged by the Chartered Institute for IT https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/law/it-experts-call-for-review-...

It's astonishing this 'guilty until proven innocent' approach has ever been allowed to stand up in court

It's astonishing, that the courts allowed to stand the argument, software with no defects, had been produced and put in production, for the first time in the history of Computer Science. And by Fujitsu from all companies....

It's more that the courts would presume that the software was working correctly for the purposes of the evidence provided by it for the prosecution, unless evidence was presented otherwise by the other side. But of course when that's the default it's quite hard to get the access to collect that evidence, especially if you're an individual with limited funds (even more so if you got bullied into paying fines beforehand).

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