Hacker News Reader

Comment by cmsefton | Hacker News Reader

I highly recommend reading Private Eye's special report, Justice Lost In The Post https://www.private-eye.co.uk/pictures/special_reports/justi... [PDF]

Private Eye were one of the few people reporting on this regularly. I've been reading about it in there for close on ten years, and am still astonished that it's taken this long to really hit home what happened to these individuals. Bravo to the makers of the recent show that's brought it back into the spotlight. It's truly shocking what the Post Office and Fujitsu did, and one can only hope prosecutions arise from this.

For anyone working in IT, there are lessons to be learned here about what impact software can have on individuals' lives, and bravo to any whistleblower that came forward to speak out.

View on HN

It's more shocking than that. It's just one example of a culture of corruption that pervades government and government-adjacent contracting in the UK.

Fujitsu acted like thugs not just to save face, but because important shareholders would lose money if the truth came out.

Also, this kind of thing:

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/fujitsu-post-office-scandal...

The PM's father in law is the head of Infosys. The PM's wife still has significant holdings in Infosys. Infosys and Fujitsu have a close partnership.

And so on. It's corrupt from top to bottom. The UK government is effectively the marketing wing of the huge public sector corporates, who invariably seem to have senior Tories and Tory donors on their boards.

While I don't disagree with the overall premise, Rishi Sunak has only been an MP since 2015 and this scandal has been going since 1999 so I am not sure the relationships you present:

Rishi Sunak -> Wife (Met 2004, Married 2009) -> Father -> InfoSys -> Fujitsu

Add up to any proof or even suggestion of corruption - just rich people know other rich people.

Yeah I dont know how Infosys-Fujitsu having a "close partnership" directly implies anything or implicates anyone.

Every big business has dozens if not hundreds of "partnerships".

I dont think someone at Fujitsu managing a big account like the UK post office would go out of their way to screw something up or cover something up because a partner company's co-founder happens to be F-I-L of the UK PM? Like what's the incentive here?

It's also ignoring the fact that if Fujitsu was rolled up tomorrow, Infosys would probably be better off for it, gaining a bunch of contracts that Fujitsu previously had.

Yeah, he was born in 1980. This scandal started when he was 19 and at Uni.

> It's corrupt from top to bottom.

I’m sure that you already know about it, but the bit that gets me is the Russian oligarchs and their money, honours, property and influence.

Assignations, poisoning etc and still the situation is tolerated.

This is specific to the Conservative Party as being the ones essentially bribed by the Russian state.

Also reported on by Private Eye.

https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/looting-with-p...

As opposed to spying for the Russian state, like Labour MPs.

> I highly recommend reading Private Eye's special report

Agreed. For those more audio inclined, I linked to these in another comment but I originally discovered their reporting on this via their "Page 94" podcast:

https://www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast/49

https://www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast/95

Yeah. It's baffling to me that Private Eye covered this in explicit, specific detail a decade ago and there were essentially no consequences for many years after.

(I have the same feelings as mhh__ in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38967529. Just a remarkable and extremely slow miscarriage of justice.)

I also wonder what responsibility the courts hold, seeing as folks were prosecuted and jailed on just IT evidence.

I mean how in the world can you accuse and convict someone of theft when there is zero evidence outside of the IT system. And how in the world was the IT system never scrutinized?

I personally think the prosecutions were a sign of the times when people were still far too trusting of computer systems. I feel like these days, everyone would realize that there would be at least reasonable doubt as to the accuracy of the system, yet when these prosecutions were mostly taking place it feels like everyone just assumed the system was perfect.

Add that also the Post Office was a trusted institution, the CEO at the time being also a prominent person in the Church.

> there are lessons to be learned here about what impact => a mgmt crowd with zero skills and integrity <= can have on individuals' lives

A friendly yet rueful amendment.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com