Horizon - The Fujitsu/Post Office Scandal

Having worked in IT for over 30 years I've been in situations where systems don't behave as required if it's consistent in misbehaviour that can be tracked down I remember one occasion where 1 user from several hundred had a problem over and over again eventually she said she couldn't work because of the issue, as it was supposedly happening 5-6 times an hour I was sent to observe, I sat with her for 4 hours no issue, so we closed it and I got back in my car and set off back for the office , 10 minutes down the road and my phone rings it's my boss "it's happening again" so I turn round at the next roundabout and head back, again no issue for the rest of the day.
overnight on of my colleagues installed a key logger, sure enough the next day it happens so the key logger file is downloaded in amongst all the data are a load of weird control codes. after a bit more digging it turned out when we weren't around she was using some macros to save herself effort but the macros were for a previous version of the software and were inserting Line feed carriage return or something similar and it was totally messing things up.

As I understand it it was only occurring in a small number of POs each day so would be difficult to track.

I saw this today www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/12/post-office-leadership-accused-contempt-for-victims-horizon-it-inquiry leaving no stone unturned is unreasonable say PO lawyers I bet if it was them they wouldn't be saying that

is it still showing live on the bbc ? I can't immediately find it, it was under the news section previously. Yes I have had a couple of days of listening to it while doing decorating......

I used to work with a fairly senior IT guy from ICL, he was in the ICL pension scheme and he retired just after his 51st birthday ( this was late 90's ) so at the time most local government could retire at 60 and I knew he was on a similar scheme, he explained that the way the system worked if he retired 9 or more years early his pension was reduced by 25%, 5-9 years was 10% and 0-5 years no reduction. he therefor took his early retirement at just under 9 years. about 6 months later we had an upgrade due and he turned up. so we got chatting, he was back working just on the one system and 2 days a week but on 80% of his previous salary ie being paid twice as much. He had a contract for 6 years ( as that was how long the last customer had a contract for maintaining that software ) I asked what impact it had on his pension and he said he was investing it as he could live on what he was making. he expected that after the 6 years was up he would have an income from his pension, the new pension and returns on investments that would be 120% of his full pension had he worked to 60.  he also said that working only 2 days a week meant he could spend more time with elderly parents.

so looking at that I think ICL had a very generous pension scheme

Patterson confirms that "right from the very start" there were "bugs, errors and defects" with the Horizon software which were "well known to all parties".

I don’t know much about the guy appearing on the public inquiry, but this video explains how they work for being in the top of the company.

He said he doesn’t have to be an expert in everything. 🤣

It seems like covering up to support the company or previous incarnation is what he does.

I did 36 years in IT some jobs we did with no Audit, but usually on non financial systems

but editing the audit log is a NO a very big NO

lol reminds me of the time late one Friday night the logging on the access control system was disabled, on Monday early we discovered a lot of PC's and laptops had gone including new ones kept in a locked store ( which had been opened with a key ). A junior member of staff turned up at reception and asked to be let in as his access card was missing. when we checked the last person to log into the system was access control system on Friday was him.