> Agree that the courts are somewhat to blame.
> But really, to me, the full blame should be on the Post Office, and those involved.
Anyway.
> They constantly change, morph requirements
All software systems are like that. Even if they weren't, the moment a new law comes in you'd need to change them anyway. If the engineering process and build can't withstand change, that's a problem.
It seems clear that the Post Office and Fujitsu were complicit in the coverup, and the justice system utterly failed the defendants. All three are so poorly behaved, I hope some change will be triggered. Sadly, I think the way of the world is all organisations regress to the mean, and lots of them are allowed to let their mean get pretty low.
I don’t mean to diminish the culpability of all those involved in the coverup, but the system needs fixing more than they need punishment. Fixing the system has a chance of preventing future harm, punishment does not, at least not to the same extend.
This wasn't cogs in a machine that went awry, this was intentional malicious behavior.
Handwaving about "fixing a system" is begging th question. No system made by humans can resist malice of those humans.
But there are a few key points that made it essentially impossible for the accused postmasters to defend themselves against the allegations, among them as a key point the presumption that computer records are correct and must be challenged by the defendant, not proven by prosecution. And to challenge these, you’d need to have the internal records that you can’t access as defendant - no surprise that many of the accused entered a plea deal, knowing that they’d never stand a chance in a trial.
Then, the Post office boasting powers to investigate and bring cases, while not being held to the same standards as the Crown Prosecution, meaning no independent review, no challenge.
This basically made all efforts to defend hopeless, and you can see the results. The cases did turn on the outstanding work of a few heroic individuals and a stroke of luck - if not for those, this all would have gone away quietly, with the postmaster convicted, broken, silenced.
A system that allows for that is broken, and the same thing will happen again, unless the shortfalls are addressed, because careless, negligent and even somewhat malicious individuals are plenty, and heroic people defending are rare.
I can recommend reading this, which sheds some light on the legal details that made the scandal possible at this scale. https://emptycity.substack.com/p/how-the-legal-system-made-i...
Some systems have a better chance of resisting a few malicious actors within than others.
There's no reason not to do both: punish the people who broke the law and also think how in the future we might prevent such a disaster happening again (or expose it sooner, or minimize the damage it can do)
I saw this directly in California too. State employee bureaucrats changing the spec and deliverables, even on tight deadline or high priority results.
But really, to me, the full blame should be on the Post Office, and those involved.
Trying to conceal problems? Purposefully ignoring bugs? Not listening to, well, everyone. Lying to the courts?
People need to be in jail, and starting at the top.
I'm not going to absolve Fujitsu, but I have worked government contracts in Canada. They constantly change, morph requirements, not for any real reasons other than "Oh you build this entire thing? We didn't think of X, let's add that".
Meanwhile, X basically means an entire rewrite.
I've even had situations where "Let's add X" happens, then after done, "Aw, never mind, remove that".
It's a different world.