Post Office Horizon Inquiry LIVE: Former head of Branch accounting Rod Ismay gives evidence
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- čas přidán 9. 05. 2024
- The inquiry will hear evidence from Andrew Parsons - Partner at Womble Bond Dickinson (UK) LLP and Rod Ismay - former Head of Product & Branch Accounting at Post Office Ltd.
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Loved Mr Beer’s retort to Ismay’s complaint about having so many documents to sift through in preparation for his appearance to the Inquiry, “we believe in full disclosure”. Brilliant.
As a retired banker who ended up being a consultant for branches and branch systems overseas I cannot understand how these Post Office people accepted a system which seems to have no audit trail and therefore no way of tracing back transactions and provide a regular self balancing function, with a printout of all the transactions. It seems they were relying on something akin to snake oil and its magical properties to make everything right. I am also amazed that any Court of Law could have convicted on what seems to have been people's say-so. Just astonishing- unless there is something i have missed.
Well, there certainly wasn't a shortage of snakes at post office to provide the oil. Mind you, there wasn't any adders by all accounts.
I'm with you mate. As an ex accountant in the private sector, it's the first thing you ask for. It seems they could only construct after the event, and by paying Fujitsu. From a customer systems acceptance test. that's a firm "no"
Same for the convictions. "Show me the transactions and expected balance, and the actual cash count shortfall, or you have no case" Did they have no actual accountants in court, just lawyers?
I am not in the legal or financial sector, so I have to thank you for confirming my critical thinking. I also thought I must be missing something. No evidence, apart from the say so of a ZX81 which didn't even provide details what this money related to. It 's Kafka-esque. Jailed for murder without a body and nobody could say who they were or even prove they ever existed. Like you, I am unable to grasp how they got this a) Into court B)Past a judge C) To conviction. I'll try and find some of the court transcripts to see what on earth happened. I can only assume some boffin with wild hair and a white coat arrived. Wrote E=mc2 on a blackboard and said 'Horizon thinks, therefore it is' and everyone was blinded by science including the defence team.
I’m still shocked but not surprised at the low calibre of all these PO senior managers/pen-pushers and robots. No actual decisions, initiative or leadership, just constant passing the buck. With jobsworths like this “in charge” the whole shameful Horizon debacle was inevitable. Trying to work in that toxic environment and culture and with these clowns would have been impossible for any normal person. Now they are being held to account they’re just throwing each other under the big bus being driven by our hero Jason Beer KC.
To be honest 'I can't recall' what I had for dinner on Tuesday of last week, let alone what might have been meant in an e-mail 15 years ago. But what seems to have been air-brushed out in public life is Bunter, Sunak and Nicola ALL having lost their WhatsApp messages during crucial Covid times....disgraceful!
Another one that clearly doesn’t understand the word perjury
They should all volunteer for hypnotic regression.
Mate I was busy ok, just couldn't be bothered with all this Horizon stuff.
Sir Wyn has Mr Ismay down in his notes, Sir Wyn will not forget.
Ed under extreme pressure....,..... REALLY what about the extreme pressure of the innocent post masters that were charged and prosecuted
Don't remember.
To misquote Liz Cheney, I believe: ‘This enquiry will soon be over, but your shame will live on.’ Applies to Rod Ismay and all the other POL cowards..
He seems so weary (Mr Williams)
a BUG is an error in programming it will all ways be there until the so called BUG has been rewritten by a programmer. its like calling a deadly car crash mishap.
"Show me all the transactions, let me check them all, and "the calculated closing balance", and then actual cash and count shortfall. If you can't do this, you have no case ( and no way of proving your innocence either)
Did they have any actual accountants in court, or just lawyers?
Accountancy not needed, just critical thinking/logic. Even during checks of PO profits, multiple thousands of which they have no idea how it came to be. Stamp sales? Parcel string?
In the annual accounts meeting they must have had a pie chart on the powerpoint showing profits. What's that large green slice? We have no idea, but we've been getting this extra money since Horizon was installed, so we should expect to see it next year as well.
Tyrick Mitchell Crystal Palace FC is the one who should be in dock for tax avoidance isn’t that right ladies and gentlemen not these poor people /
It was all Dave’s fault!
Cant recall
i thought Ismay went down with the Titanic
None of these leptons have grasped the term 'validation'. Two previous cases, could not 'validate' the system. Even full validation of the program could not verify that Horizon was free from error as there are multiple variables which can introduce them. An overheated CPU, powercut.... Saying Horizon was robust, is totally meaningless. This catastrophe could only have arisen because of the swiss cheese effect. This manifested here, in that every single person in the chain was of sub-normal intelligence and completely lacked logic. I have encountered one judge, who applied logic and through the case out as he released the only evidence was everyone in the PO repeating 'computer say's no' and 'robust'.