Inexcusable.
Two days before the report was due to be released.
On criminal trial, not in prison. (Prosecute, not convict.) In theory, this sounds like it could somewhat mitigate the phenomenon where a law is on the books but the DoJ or whoever employs public prosecutors decides to just ignore it. (Whether that’d be a good thing or a bad one from a separation of powers perspective I’m not sure.)
In this case they ended up getting guilty pleas in exchange for 'promises' of leniency. That sounds like 'putting people in prison using leverage' to me. With an imbalance between resources of the entity going after you and what you have available, I would say the giant corp will win the overwhelming majority of the time.
The problem is that they have every incentive to push people to pay them/take a deal with what is essentially extortion and there is no oversight. If the city prosecutor were threatening otherwise upstanding citizens with jail time if they didn't pay them many thousands of pounds for mystery expenses viewable by only the prosecutor, that person would be impeached or at least lose the next election, then be prosecuted for corruption. No such luck when the entity pursuing is 'faceless corporation that needs to maximize profits and has no person held to account for injustice'. I fail to see how this is in the public interest.
So I don’t think this works as an argument against private prosecutors—it’s rather an argument against a legal system that necessitates ruinously expensive lawyers, which is a major problem, but one I see no solution for, not even a blank-slate one. (To be clear, I still reserve my judgment on whether private prosecutors are actually a good idea. What do you do if a private party takes up a murder investigation and screws it up?.. I’m not ready to give up non bis in idem for this. On the other hand, the idea sounds sufficiently reasonable that I probably wouldn’t have thought to question it had I been brought up to think it were normal.)
So if one thing is terrible let's use that to justify something worse?
You are letting a profit motivated entity hold those powers over its own contractors in order to threaten them with lengthy jail sentences unless they agree to pay back the contested money and plead guilty to a lessor crime (which then makes it impossible to ever assert you were wrongly convicted and shouldn't have to pay).
To add to this, a corporation is does not have a corporeal presence that can be held to account for doing something egregious -- they just get fined and anyone involved almost always says 'I was just doing my job, a cog in the machine' and that's the end of that, whereas if a public prosecutor was extorting the community to pay them large sums of money or face an uncertain trial where they cannot access the evidence needed to prove their innocence, then that prosecutor could be put on trial themselves.
Wouldn't work in the UK; the Director of Public Prosecutions (a member of the government) has the power to take over a private prosecution, and then drop all charges.
Until the 1980s this was how almost all criminal prosecutions worked in England, though by the end the "private prosecutor" was usually a police officer.
In the 90s, I caught the technical head of a certain very large telecoms firm logging private IRC chats and then blackmailing the users, some of whom were gay and not out. When I made it clear I knew what was going on and that it needed to stop this person went on to fake logs of me hacking into said firm and sent them to the dean of the university where I was studying and there was a serious attempt to have me expelled and talk of criminal charges. I was only saved by the heads of the computing department who vouched for my good character and independently proved that the logs were fake.
Because it's not really over until there's justice, and the guilty person is punished.
I'm hoping that's what happened next!
Is there any responsibility on the judge or jury to demand burden of evidence? As in the postmaster situation, if I were the judge or jury I first and foremost need to be convinced a crime occurred and money is missing. The fact a forensic accountant wasn’t required is still odd to me. I suppose they were glad to call guilty on circumstantial evidence or just took the financial statements at face value
p.s. my accuser received his share of karma very shortly afterwards when his misdeeds caused him to be sued out of existence by several major multinationals he tried to bully. [I can't find much about the guy any longer, but I found his name in Google Books just now in a book titled Business Law where he is used as an example of how not to be]
My unqualified understanding is that UK's injurious laws (eg:defamation) are somewhat more favorable for prosecuting malicious behavior, than their US counterparts. The differences can be said to reflect a shift toward prosecuting an offender (UK) vs protecting the innocent (US).
I think we can see this whenever US govs tweak law to ease prosecutions. It's non-powerful people who can expect to feel the brunt of it. Stated differently, for each newly enabled prosecution of a well-protected person, an exponentially greater number of vulnerable people will prosecuted.
This is far from an absolute principle. It's more a comment about the trends that occur in the absence of ethics - which describes most moments in most justice systems.
They would have to prove the case against you beyond reasonable doubt though.
The real real problem is that the courts (not just in this case) assume computer records are sufficient of guilt without independent verification they are correct. There have been previous HN discussions on the law behind this.
The Crown Prosecution Service can take over a private prosecution and then drop it.
We do not usually require bonds for bail here either, and AFAIK most people accused of non-violent offenses do get bail (not checked the numbers so if anyone knows better please correct me).
They would have to go to court to defend themselves though. I am pretty sure you can be awarded costs (the prosecution has to pay your legal fees, to the level the judge thinks reasonable) if acquitted, as you can if you win a civil case here.
Also: https://law.umn.edu/events/what-process-due-history-and-use-....
I’m not saying that private prosecutions are a good idea, but they’re not completely alien to the US.