Worrying levels of incompetence

Good afternoon!

This is your irregular Post Office scandal update, better known as the “secret” email. Lots to tell you about:

Sum-thing’s wrong

The Post Office somehow managed to underestimate the value of claims to its Historical Shortfall Scheme by at least a factor of nine. This suggests no one involved in budgeting for the scheme had any idea what the business has been up to for the last 21 years. Worrying. Full story here.

Second Sight reveal more

Ian Henderson’s participation in last month’s UCL ethics and law seminar into the Horizon scandal was interesting on a number of levels, not least for the new information it revealed. We found out that Fujitsu’s Gareth Jenkins told Second Sight about remote access as early as September 2012.

Mr Henderson has kindly given me his speaking notes from the seminar, which I have published here. They contain a list of questions he would like the Williams inquiry to ask.

Murdoch gets in a helicopter

Professor Steven Murdoch at UCL (who has been an dedicated follower of this scandal for a few years now) has produced a series of short youtube seminars which provide a wide overview of the issues surrounding the Horizon IT scandal. They are:

Evidence-critical systems: what they are and why we need them

Designing for Dispute Resolution

Post Office Horizon Scandal – Computerphile

The Great Post Office Scandal on Amazon

A secret emailer wrote to ask if the book was going to be available for pre-sale on Kindle. I thought it was. It wasn’t. But it is now! If you would rather spend £8.99 on the e-book, rather than £25 plus postage on what is going to be quite a hefty hardback, please click here.

You won’t get the e-book until the hardback is published, which is currently on-track to be mid-October, but every Amazon pre-sale (hardback or kindle edition) makes a huge difference to the success of the book, so if you are tempted, please do buy a copy. I would be endlessly grateful. My thanks to the correspondent who prompted us to get this sorted.

Come on, Ingerland

Thanks for your continued support. I’m grateful for all the correspondence. Apologies if I can’t respond to every comment. We’re still in the middle of grinding towards publication date for the book. Whilst the hardest work is done, there’s plenty of editing, quote drop-ins, fact-checking, indexing, glossary-writing and legalling to come.

I will, however, be taking a break tonight. Having watched the Italy v Spain semi-final I will be amazed if England lift the trophy this evening. Nonetheless I will be trying to enjoy the occasion. I hope you can too, whoever you are supporting.

Best

Nick