A Trip down Misery Lane: Surviving the Post Office on BBC1

Will Mellor (l) and Lee Castleton

Surviving the Post Office (co-produced and co-directed by Hayley Hassall, who has previously reported on the story) has something of the travelogue about it. Will Mellor, who played former Subpostmaster Lee Castleton in the ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office, presents.

Mellor calls his role in the ITV drama “more important than any other” in his career. In this documentary, the actor traverses England, first meeting Lee Castleton in Scarborough (“we’ve become friends”) and then setting off on an odyssey by train and car to meet several more former Subpostmasters and/or their spouses/children.

The one person interviewed who is not directly affected by the scandal is Neil Hudgell from Hudgell solicitors. The legal firm Howe and Co is also mentioned in Mellor’s script. Both firms represent Subpostmaster core participants to the ongoing public inquiry.

The doc is worth watching. It’ll only take half an hour of your time and it will once more bring home just how bloody awful the Post Office were. My only criticism is that it would nice if there were some kind of graphic map put on screen tracking Mellor’s journey as he moved from location to location.

Interesting thing 1

Surviving… is not Panorama, nor is it meant to be. The revelations did not come thick and fast. But the doc emphasised a couple of points which have not had a huge amount of publicity until now.

The first interesting thing is that Postmasters are still getting discrepancies on the Horizon IT system. This has been reported elsewhere, but it’s now likely to be clocked by at least a couple of million people.

After meeting Lee, Mellor spoke to Shann Brede, who remains a Subpostmaster at Goldsithney branch near Penzance. In a brief shot, we see Brede holding a “Commander’s Certificate” from Devon and Cornwall Police, which she was awarded for facing down a robber armed with a knife, and ensuring he left empty-handed.

Shann Brede, Subpostmaster

Brede had discrepancies in her accounts totalling around £20,000 over the last 22 years. Until the settlement of the Bates v Post Office High Court litigation in 2019, Brede dutifully funnelled her own savings into the Horizon black hole, severely hampering her finances and draining the savings she’d put by to fund her daughter’s university education. Brede told Mellor the experience had “ruined our lives.”

Nowadays the Post Office does not chase her disputed discrepancies. In the voiceover Mellor says “we’ve heard from dozens of Subpostmasters who said they’re still having ongoing problems using Horizon. Losses tend to be written off, now.”

It doesn’t take a genius to spot the problem, first articulated to me by a forensic accountant many moons ago. Since the rollout of the Horizon system, the Post Office has not been able to tell the difference between IT error and fraud. This was fine (for the Post Office) when it could just blame Subpostmasters, seize their assets and destroy their lives through the criminal courts. But now it has chosen not to do that, who is picking up the tab for the mysterious discrepancies they’ve written off? The Post Office, and by extension, the taxpayer.

With no disrespect to the thousands of honest Subpostmasters, thanklessly working hard to serve their communities and scratch a living, there’s never been a better time to be a bent Subpostmaster. And that is entirely the fault of the Post Office cadre of investigators, who proved their incompetence by going after innocent people whilst failing to properly investigate what might be complex, messy and difficult crimes, a small number of which may have been (or be) happening inside Fujitsu, or the Post Office itself.

The Post Office/Fujitsu Right of Reply section after Brede’s interview was odd. In white writing on a black screen the following legend appeared:

This was followed by:

Putting aside the word “robust”, which may have been an attempt at gaslighting Subpostmasters [more on this below – see UPDATE], the two statements are tantalisingly oblique. There are 11,500 Post Office branches. I am not sure what “received” in relation to a discrepancy means. Assuming it means “has been reported” over the course of twelve months, that means the Post Office got up to 11,499 reports of discrepancies last year*, which could be as little as 50p, or £50,000.

Let’s arbitrarily assume the value of each reported discrepancy was £500 and you are looking at the Post Office writing off as much as £5,749,500 per year.

The second legend “It also claims none of the investigated shortfalls were down to a known Horizon defect” is oblique to the point of meaninglessness. Which Horizon shortfalls? Brede’s? All of them across the network in the last financial year? All of them ever? And what does “investigated” mean in this context? We know the Post Office has historically not done a great job of investigating shortfalls, so forgive me for not trusting the reported outcome. Also, note known Horizon defect. What does that imply? That many of the shortfalls were down to newly-uncovered defects?

* See UPDATE 2 below for more on this.

Interesting thing 2

Katie and Thomas Watson are children of a couple whose lives were torn apart by the Post Office scandal. They tell Mellor the day their mum Fiona was accused of stealing money from their branch it was “the end of our childhood”. Fiona was suspended and ordered to repay the Horizon discrepancy which resulted in the Watsons selling their home, moving in with their grandparents and living for a while in a caravan.

During the ordeal, Fiona was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer and died in October 2014. “She couldn’t do both,” Katie told Mellor. “Fight cancer, and fight the Post Office… She tried. She really tried, but she couldn’t do both….”

At the end of the Watsons’ segment, another white-on-black legend appeared which stated “There is no dedicated compensation scheme for the families of Subpostmasters.”

Again this is known, but not widely. Given that thousands of children, now adults, have had their life chances, and their mental equilibrium, severely impaired by this scandal, that will not sit right with many viewers. Katie tells Mellor “I think people forget there is a knock-on effect to the children. Kids have watched families become bankrupt. To have their parents’ ostracised because people believe that they are guilty. I think it’s important that the children are recognised and something happens for them.”

Neil Hudgell told the programme: “There are a good number of those children who are deeply affected now in adulthood from what’s gone on in their formative years. As it stands there’s no mechanism for compensation for children at the minute. What there is, is a huge groundswell of support to see how that can be brought about.”

You can watch Surviving the Post Office now on iPlayer, or wait till 8.30pm tonight to see it on BBC1.
You can read the Post Office’s statement about the documentary here.

UPDATE: the Post Office press office have said they will send me the same information used to inform the oblique white-on-black statements pictured above.

They also told me the description of the Horizon system as “robust” is taken from Mr Justice Fraser’s 2019 Horizon Issues judgment (part of the Bates vs Post Office High Court litigation), in which Fraser described the post-2017 Horizon system as “relatively robust” in comparison to its earlier iterations. That word “relatively” is missing from the Post Office statement. Furthermore, Horizon has undergone another major “upgrade” since 2019 (in 2022, I think) and no court ruling has been made on its robustness, relative or otherwise since then, so calling the current Horizon iteration robust feels more than a bit misleading.

UPDATE 2: I have received the written info sent to the doc-makers. It says in the last financial year the Post Office had 6,279 cases “referred to the Network Support and Resolution Team who investigate postmaster discrepancies”. They ask the reader to note: “this is not the same as the number of branches who used the ‘Review or Dispute’ button. This is because some issues are resolved following use of the button without referral to the Network Support and Resolution team, either in branch or with the help of the Branch Support Centre.”

The value of the discrepancies has not been disclosed. The press office adds:

Discrepancies – shortfalls or surpluses – can arise in branch for a range of reasons. Today, we have a process for the management of bugs, errors and defects to ensure that any issues, if they do arise, are dealt with transparently to mitigate any impact on postmasters. As of 1 July, we have four open bugs, errors or defects with the potential for financial impact. These are what is referred to as ‘edge cases’ in technical terms which means they have the potential to cause an impact, but this is highly unlikely. These have been communicated to postmasters via the Branch Hub. It is important to note that bugs, errors and defects could impact different elements of the Horizon system, and not all cause balancing issues. For example, a problem might not have the potential to cause any financial impact but could cause a poor user experience for postmasters. If a postmaster experiences issues with the system, they are encouraged to contact the Branch Support Centre for support.


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30 responses to “A Trip down Misery Lane: Surviving the Post Office on BBC1”

  1. Weird, works in Chrome but not firefox…..
    Still a load of old crock.

    C

  2. Let’s not forget the role played by the lawyer used by the PO in the Castleton case. A cold fish called Stephen Dilley.

    https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/nothing-personal-mr-castleton-its-just-justice/

  3. Anders Karlsson avatar
    Anders Karlsson

    One thing that strikes me is how everyone blames someone else. People like Paula Vennels claims that “she wasn’t told” by her subordinates, whereas people like Stephen Bradshaw claims that he “wasn’t told by the managers”. So although he knowlegde was there, no one at any level “knew”. This begs the question who was supposed to tell who? The likely conclusion is that no one knew because no one wanted to know.

    1. Sorry Anders, that’s not true. They all knew, they all looked away when it suited them. None of them broke ranks or blew the whistle. Those that tried were silenced. The combined effort and ‘GroupThink’ by a morally defect, ultimately lazy and corrupt phalanx of managers, lawyers, functionaries and fee hungry 3rd party ‘clients’ was powerful enough to even pervert the British justice system let alone crush innocent SPMs. Tragic and a warning that this can happen to me and you, anytime.

      1. Anders Karlsson avatar
        Anders Karlsson

        Michael,

        Yes, I am myself sure that is so. My point is that claiming “I didn’t know” is not a workable explanation. Someone wrote those emails that spells out the facts. A company sues 1000s of their employees, employees that said company had first checked and screened, and drives them into suicide, bankcupcy and disgrace and the CEO “doesn’t know”. That just isn’t believable. And if the unlikely truth is that she didn’t know, that is just as bad, possibly even worse.

  4. Didn’t Sir Alan Bates say that the POL should be dismantled and simply started again from scratch? He may have used the phrase “burned down” but I’m not putting those words in his mouth!

    Really, when does this end?

  5. Hopefully a lot of the points you make about POL today will come out in unvarnished detail in phase 7.

  6. As the PO were standing by the “robustness of the Horizon system” why was no one querying why were so many sub postmasters were not experiencing this “robustness”Why was the system robust in some area but not others. The same applies to the word “systemic”. Why if there were no systemic problems what was causing the problems experienced by SPMs. There has been no response to why it was not systemic. What was unique about the prosecuted SPMs daily activities that caused the failures in accounting that did not affect all SPMs.

    1. Terence Kinnear avatar
      Terence Kinnear

      “robust” is the gaslighting word of our age. it is still vastly overused by POL personnel, and it is worthless because it is so vague.
      The press releases issued by the POL are full of bureaucratic gobbledygook (gaslighting again!) and demonstrate that the organisation has learned nothing.

  7. I am not surprised there are still quote, “ongoing problems using Horizon”.

    “Relatively robust” is a very low-bar for dependable (reliable, secure, safe) systems. Then again, I would not expect the hordes of amateurs at PO and ICL/Fujitsu to even begin to understand the perspective of a systems-engineering professional.

  8. Geoff Dougherty avatar
    Geoff Dougherty

    Hi Nick, the PO Media centre link won’t work through my Chrome browser on my Windows computer, but does work though Firefox on the same machine. This might help if the PO website is still playing ducks and drakes.

  9. well if we had £10 for everytime I have heard the word “sorry” in all of this story and enquiry , the govt would not need to pay any compensation

  10. Having watched this evening’s ‘Surviving the Post Office’, and taking a keen interest in the PO Inquiry, it is incredibly upsetting to watch and listen to the immense trauma suffered by the sub-postmasters and their families. While those responsible for this unspeakable injustice (they know who they are) still live in their smart, expensive houses, enjoy fancy foreign holidays and collect huge wage packets, whilst rubbing shoulders with the great and good, I hope and pray they will now be seen for the evil beings they are. I hope there are more programmes like
    Will Mellor’s, keeping this national outrage to the fore.
    Well done Nick, for all your sterling efforts!

  11. The ‘scandal’ keeps on giving. Lives have been lost, ruined, scarred and harmed in ways that no documentary can possibly reveal. The damage done to people cannot be undone, compensation can mitigate but not heal. Horizon is still being used, still buggy and still controlled by POL and Fujitsu and many of the enablers of this tragedy are still in post or in comfortable retirement. No-one, not a single person giving evidence in the inquiry has as of today been charged let alone prosecuted for inflicting this level of harm to defenceless SPMs and their families who found themselves in the crosshair of a brutal witch-hunt. Many survivors are still waiting for compensation. And so the suffering goes on, the anger, the frustration, the sleepless nights and stress related ailments causing real, visceral, actual pain. Some have grown into role models like Lee Castleton who refuses to let this injustice damage him any longer but that ‘Mandela’ level of forgiveness is something few people can achieve (myself included) but is remarkable and exemplary. Eventually some justice will be doled out to some of the enablers and hopefully financial settlements will be paid to survivors as soon as the slow wheels of politics can turn in their favour. This whole chapter fills me with a deep sense of unease: anyone at anytime can find himself or herself innocently in a situation where there is nobody to help, nobody to advise, no-one to turn to and that is scary.

  12. There has been a lot of talk about the ‘shortfalls’ and ‘surpluses’ (not many of the latter?) appearing in SPM’s accounts. However I haven’t seen any explanation as to how these discrepancies were generated and they varied from small sums, say £500 to massive ones of £70,000 and more. SPMs say they just ‘appeared’ out of the blue but they, the SPMs, were held responsible for them. Is it possible staff at Fujitsu were involved? Or did they appear through the ‘glitches/bugs/errors’ mentioned? What are these exactly? No one seems to have explained what actually happens. Will Fujitsu be called to account in detail about the Horizon system before the enquiry ends?

    1. Peter Harrison avatar
      Peter Harrison

      We don’t know exactly what happened, but the evidence is that many of the shortfalls were caused by problems with Horizon – either bugs or failure to recover properly from unusual situations such as power outages. It is certainly possible that some of the staff at Fujitsu who appear to have had uncontrolled access to alter subpostmasters’ accounts may have been using their position to enrich themselves. You may want to listen to Nick’s podcast, subtitled “Where did all the money go?” at https://audioboom.com/posts/8417438-ep-34-where-did-all-the-money-go

  13. Hi Nick, I have found your podcast fascinating and incredulous at the lengths the post office went to and watching the inquiry the lengths they are still going to. My question is will there be further episodes of yours and Rebecca’s podcast? We lived in Australia from 2006 till 2023 so knew very little about what was happening.

    1. I have wondered about this also

  14. It’s something I’ve thought about for a long time: how some people in local communities at best ostracised and at worst dreadfully abused the wrongly accused subpostmasters and subpostmistresses. I wonder if they feel shame or guilt or have made efforts to make amends to the innocent people they tormented. I hope so but I doubt it; most are quick to judge and slow to apologise.

    1. Yes I’ve thought about this too. However at the time it would have been reported that the SPM had been found guilty in a court of law. So if you read in the local rag that such & such Subpostmaster had been found guilty of theft or false accounting, you wouldn’t have thought ‘Oh maybe the court got it wrong’.

      Nowadays, of course, you would think just that but back then it would have just been another person found guilty of something and unless you knew them personally, there would be no reason to doubt the court’s decision.

      When I first got interested in this whole affair, I remembered reading in the local paper something about a local Postmaster being found guilty of some crime, a few years back. So I Googled it and my memory was correct, a Postmistress in Painswick, Glos had indeed been found guilty. However it wasn’t Horizon related, she’d been caught stealing from packages being posted at her Post Office. Undercover PO Investgators, in a sting, had posted some jewellery at her PO and it had somehow found its way to her bedroom. I mean it’s pretty certain that she was guilty and at the time I just thought ‘what a scumbag’ and life went on. But I can see how local people might have turned against their (innocent) SPM because there was no reason at the time doubt a Court decision.

      Well I say it seems pretty certain she was guilty but duh duh-duh ….!

  15. Elizabeth Moyse avatar
    Elizabeth Moyse

    Is there any way the Inquiry can be alerted to the ongoing ‘discrepancies’? Although the September sessions are supposed to deal with what the current situation is in the Post Office. It must be very distressing for current honest subpostmasters to find shortfalls, whatever the Post Office reaction is – and you are quite right to point out that if it is taxpayer who is bearing the cost, that is shocking.

  16. Why do the billions of transactions made every day with credit cards, buying stuff in person and online, all add up, and can be immediately (virtually all) corrected whenever wrong, works flawlessly – but the UK tax payer is STILL funding this faulty calculator? Who is benefitting? Follow the money, this may go even deeper.

  17. Nick Canfield avatar

    For expanded stories on BBC iplayer please see https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/p0j9q0h0. Five episodes available now. Will Mellor digs a bit deeper.

  18. Hi Nick,

    There is no information on the post office link you posted?

    Excellent work btw.

    Thanks
    C

    1. Thanks – you’re not the only person to note this, but it works in my browser: https://corporate.postoffice.co.uk/en/media-centre#/news/post-office-statement-on-bbc-documentary-486399

      1. Nick Canfield avatar

        Nick
        Bang out a secret email quick. So people can see Will at broadcast time (Just an hour away)
        Another Nick

      2. Robert Grindrod avatar
        Robert Grindrod

        Hi Nick,
        The link works but there is no statement there when using Chrome at least. Weird.

      3. Oliver Harrison avatar
        Oliver Harrison

        Not working for me. Just says “Latest news, press releases and media contacts” but nothing else.

        People getting different results from a Post Office computer? How ironic.

      4. Fujitsu Whistleblower avatar
        Fujitsu Whistleblower

        Dear Mr Wallis,

        The people telling you it does not work are referred to –
        https://archive.today/t7Bkt
        where, despite the vagaries of POL (as incompetent at the internet as Fujitsu is with programming), they will be able to read it.

        Note. A browser may be retrieving contents from its cache which one had surfed to when the website contained other data.

        The Wayback Machine saved that exact and evidently eventful webpage a surprising 69 times between February 14, 2022 and February 10, 2024 –

        https://web.archive.org/web/20240000000000*/https://corporate.postoffice.co.uk/en/media-centre#/news/post-office-statement-on-bbc-documentary-486399

        They need to scroll through those captures to find the valuable one(s); I am at the Inquiry right now and so cannot explore it more.

    2. Same. Post Office press link shows nothing relevant. Will try another browser.

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