The Devastating British Post Office's Point of Sale Scandal| Tom Herbert

In this episode, Tom Herbert, technology editor at Accounting Web, shares his insights on the British Post Office scandal, which has been ongoing for decades, ruining the lives of many subpostmasters. Heather and Tom discussed the problems with the Post Office's Fujitsu Horizon point of sale system implementation, leading to unbalanced reconciliations and accusations of theft against subpostmasters. The Post Office used its prosecution powers and prosecuted 700 subpostmasters between 1989 and 2015, resulting in jail time, financial ruin, relationship breakdown, lost homes, living in cars, and sadly much much worse. The scandal is discussed from the perspective of an accountant, the POS implementation, the forensic accountant who aided in uncovering the issues, the suspense account, the high tax hitting the subpostmasters when they received any compensation. The story behind this scandal, Mr Bates vs the Post Office, was broadcast on ITV in January 2024. We talk about the importance of storytelling in bringing this story into the narrative of the general public.

Contact details: Tom Herbert 

Contact details:

• Tom Herbert https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomherbert/ 
• AccountingWeb https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/ 
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• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/HeatherSmithAU/ 
• YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/ANISEConsulting 
• X: https://twitter.com/HeatherSmithAU