Vennells

[brainiac]

Just heard that at one point the vile Vennells was in the running to become Bishop of London - third most senior position in the Church of England.  Utterly mind-boggling!

[ToraToraTora]

"I am truly sorry for the devastation caused to the sub-postmasters and their families, whose lives were torn apart by being wrongly accused and wrongly prosecuted as a result of the Horizon system."

translation:

"I am truly sad that we could not keep this under the radar and ride rough shod over the innocents rather than tell the truth of our incompetance and blind belief in some software rather than common sense"

[jno]

here's an IT man who was hired by the PO to examine Horizon way back in 2003; he told them it was unreliable and was sacked. He's since given evidence on behalf of the postmasters.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-67921974

[gulliver1]

But after all Vennels is a Tory ,so one must expect her to think of herself first mustn't one eh!

[tomus42]

//rather than tell the truth of our incompetance and blind belief in some software//

Rather than blind belief, I'd be amazed if they weren't well aware that the software was faulty.

This is the most disgraceful and disgusting thing imo. They chose to let people they knew were innocent lose their livelihoods and go to prison rather than risk their own bonuses/jobs/comfy existences.

Moral cowardice in the extreme. 

[douglas9401]

When it all shakes out...scum.

[tomus42]

Exactly that Douglas, as they tend to float to the top.

[ichkeria]

Interesting from Danny Finkelstein in the Times yesterday on why it's taken so long for people to get really cross about this:

"And oddly it is linked to the reason why this disaster happened in the first place. It is because of the way that humans reason. We have an instinct and we then search for evidence that supports this instinct. We fall on stories that show we are right, ignore those that show we are wrong, and are indifferent to those that show we are a little bit right and a little bit wrong at the same time. The Post Office scandal didn’t vindicate anyone’s point of view or support anyone’s prejudices. So the only people who were interested were those suffering directly, who were pointing out the failings of the system, and journalists who were covering the story.

Imagine that the scandal was all the fault of Boris Johnson, or all the fault of Jeremy Corbyn. Opponents of one or the other would never have shut up about it. Imagine it was caused by Brexit or by the Post Office being woke; imagine it was solely the fault of privatisation or only caused by the big state; imagine it was the result of vaccination or capitalism; imagine it could be pinned on one political party or the BBC or the mainstream media or the MPs’ expenses system; or the empire or racism or Israel. We’d never have heard the last of it. Instead, it was everyone’s fault."