Horizon Scandal Latest – From May 2009!

Horizon Scandal Latest – From May 2009!

This NL Week is dated to coincide with the first appearance of ex Post Office CEO Paula Vennells before the independent public statutory inquiry into the Post Office Horizon system.

Although the inquiry was established in June 2021, it took a further two and a half years to rush into full public awareness, thanks to the ITV drama Alan Bates v The Post Office.

And, a full 12 years before that – in May 2009 – 15 years ago this month – Computer Weekly (CW) magazine published a story about seven sub-postmasters who were experiencing unexplained losses, revealing to others that they were not alone and that the Post Office was lying to them.

From then until now, they were very often the first to report on the realities – such as naming many innocent postal workers who were being criminalized over false accounting. In the face of threats, legal letters and intimidation, CW have never given up.

Sadly, this wasn’t the case with all of the sub-postmasters. While most have continued to fight – again in the face of massive adversity – some were wrongly convicted and went to  prison, others were forced out of their local communities in shame, and very tragically four people died by suicide.

This blog is not to make judgement on anyone, that is for the legal inquiry to do, it is to share three important human, leadership and behavioural lessons that I take from it all:

1. #nevergiveup on what you believe in

2. Thank goodness for so called ‘whistle blowers’ and their courage to speak out in the face of establishment authority

3. It takes a clear, concise and compelling story (ITV drama) to get people to really take notice

I hope those three takeaways do not trivialize this dreadful real life suffering, and I haven’t included all the links on research for this article – just type IT Post Office Horizon and your search engine will do the rest.

With my love and best wishes to you all

David

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