The Human Risk Podcast15 Jan 2022

Nick Wallis on The Great Post Office Scandal

How did the Post Office deliver one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British history?

My guest Nick Wallis, is a journalist and radio presenter who has written a book called The Great Post Office Scandal which explains how a billion pound IT system, unleashed an enormous legal, ethical and political scandal.

As Nick explains on the show, hundreds of sub-postmasters were alleged to have engaged in theft, false accounting and/or fraud and were taken to court by the Post Office. This resulted in criminal convictions, imprisonment, loss of reputation and livelihood, bankruptcy, divorce, and even suicide amongst those involved.

It subsequently transpired that it wasn’t people that were at fault, but rather the billion point IT system that the Post Office had installed as part of a modernisation program. In our discussion, we explore how the Scandal occurred, Nick’s experience in investigating it and what lessons we can learn.

This is a tale of appalling human decision-making with serious consequences. It’s about as human risk-relevant as it gets.

To learn more about the subjects we discussed on the show:

Nick’s website - https://www.nickwallis.com/

Nick’s book The Great Post Office Scandal - https://bathpublishing.com/products/the-great-post-office-scandal

The BBC Radio 4 podcast - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jf7j

BBC Radio Surrey - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_surrey

The BBC Radio Surrey Twitter account - https://twitter.com/BBCSurrey

The Justice for Subpostmaster’s Alliance - https://www.jfsa.org.uk/
 BBC TV’s Inside Out South program featuring Nick - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ2FLuFVGMg

The Wikipedia page for the Post Office Scandal with links to court hearings and other relevant documents - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal

Infected Blood Scandal - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_blood_scandal_in_the_United_Kingdom#Background

Windrush Scandal - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windrush_scandal

Hillsborough Disaster - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsborough_disaster

Professor Richard Morehead - https://socialsciences.exeter.ac.uk/law/staff/moorhead/

Darren Jones MP on Artificial Intelligence - https://thebristolcable.org/2018/06/artificial-intelligence-robots-and-the-future-of-society-interview-with-darren-jones/

The Horizon Scandal Fund - https://www.horizonscandalfund.org/

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(373)

Anna Rössler on Finding Your Voice — Online, On Stage and At Work

What does jazz singing have to do with LinkedIn? More than you might think. This week's guest, Anna Rössler, has built a career helping senior leaders find their voice online while simultaneously deve...

5 Jul 1h 1min

David Grosse on The Unconvention

What happens when two people who spend their careers thinking about human behaviour meet in a London pub and start complaining about conferences? Apparently, they decide to organise one.Episode Summar...

25 Jun 48min

Freewheeling on Human Risk with Thomas Ableman

Why is it so hard to stop people playing vides, music or phone calls out loud on public transport — and what does that tell us about changing human behaviour? Show Summary This episode of The Human Ri...

11 Jun 45min

Jill Wick on The Human Side of Cybersecurity

What if the best way to improve cybersecurity — or any other form of human risk — wasn't another policy, training course, or piece of technology, but a board game? That's the kind of question my gues...

30 Mai 1h 3min

Tobias Sturesson: from cult to corporate culture

What can businesses learn from cults?It might sound like an uncomfortable comparison: one involves strategy meetings, values statements and quarterly targets; the other manipulation, charismatic leade...

23 Mai 1h 8min

Will Tarrant on Service: Closing the gap between brand promise and reality

What makes great service? It’s one of those things we instantly recognise when we experience it, but struggle to define. And while organisations spend huge amounts of time trying to design seamless cu...

8 Mai 1h

Dr Carissa Véliz on Prophecy

What if prediction isn’t about knowing the future, but controlling it? On this episode, I'm joined by a leading thinker on digital ethics, privacy and technology to explore the idea of prophecy.Episo...

25 Apr 1h 2min

Dr C Thi Nguyen on How to stop playing someone else's game

We like to think we choose what matters. But what if the goals we’re chasing… aren’t actually ours?Episode Summary My guest on this episode is Dr. C. Thi Nguyen, philosopher and author of The Score: H...

12 Apr 1h 8min