The Post Office has a single shareholder, the British Government. The Post Office terminated the Initial Complaint Review and Mediation Scheme in 2015 and published a report clearing themselves of any wrongdoing. Second Sight's (forensic accountants) report of 2014 described the Horizon Computer System as not fit for purpose, whilst the Post Office stated that "there is absolutely no evidence of any systemic issues with the computer system". In 1999, the problems began with Horizon's introduction, which wrongly detected the existence of financial discrepancies at multiple post office branches. In 1996, International Computers Limited (ICL) began working on a computer accounting system, called Horizon, for the publicly-owned Post Office corporation. The prosecutions, civil actions, and extortions resulted in criminal convictions, false confessions, imprisonments, defamation, loss of livelihood, bankruptcy, divorce, and suicide. The number of those affected by other types of abuse by the Post Office, torts, breach of contract, coercion etc., has not been tabulated or published. By 2022, 736 prosecutions had been identified, 81 convictions had been overturned and more were expected to be quashed. Īfter some convicted SPMs successfully sued the Post Office, 555 convictions were declared unsafe and to have been obtained unlawfully. The cases constitute the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British legal history, spanning a period of over twenty years and it remains unresolved. Then on Friday 400 workers in Plymouth, Stockport and Stoke who deal with poorly-addressed mail will walk out.Īnd they will be followed by 77,000 delivery and collection workers on Saturday.īusiness Secretary Lord Mandelson denied repeated union claims that he was orchestrating the postal strike, describing the CWU's accusations as “nonsense from beginning to end”.The British Post Office scandal is a miscarriage of justice involving the wrongful civil and criminal prosecutions of an unknown or unpublished number of sub-postmasters (SPMs) for theft, false accounting and/or fraud. Next week's 24-hour strikes will involve 43,700 staff across the United Kingdom in mail centres, delivery units in mail centres, network logistic drivers and garage staff on Thursday. “We want to go to Acas with no preconditions on either side to resolve this dispute.” “Given the progress we were making in talks earlier this week, this should be enough time to reach an agreement. Receive today's headlines directly to your inbox every morning and evening, with our free daily newsletter.Įnter email address This field is required Sign Upĭeputy general secretary Dave Ward said: “We have six days before any further strike action would take place. The union said it was reiterating its offer of unconditional talks at the conciliation service Acas to try to break the deadlocked row over pay, jobs and modernisation.ĭaily Headlines & Evening Telegraph Newsletter Meanwhile, the GMB set up a phone hotline for members of the public to report the names of employment agencies supplying staff to the Royal Mail, believing the practice was illegal, despite denials from the postal organisation.Ī Royal Mail spokesman branded the strikes “unnecessary and irresponsible”, adding: “We are very grateful to the 20% of our delivery staff who have chosen to come to work today and who are doing everything possible to get all delayed mail delivered to customers as quickly as possible over the next few days.” The union said up to 120,000 workers “solidly supported” this week's strikes, attracting support from members of the public and other workers, including nurses who joined picket lines yesterday. The huge backlog is set to grow next week because of another three days of strikes planned by the Communication Workers Union from Thursday. Two 24-hour walkouts led to 30 million letters being delayed, around 40% of an average daily postbag. Postal workers today began clearing a huge backlog of mail as the latest wave of strikes ended, with further disruption planned in the bitter row over jobs, pay and modernisation.
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