Historically, all prosecutions were private, and later, the police who investigated them carried them out.
Between 1999 and 2015, an estimated 3500 staff employed
by the state-owned Post Office service were accused of
fraud, theft or malicious accounting.
Almost 700 of them were convicted in courts and some 230
were jailed.
Most were legally compelled to repay the amounts they
were accused of fleecing, resulting in bankruptcies,
marriage failures, substance abuse and even suicides.
There was just one not-so-little problem – virtually all
of those people were innocent
Doesnt the UK have independent non-political bodies that watch the watchers? What about protections for whistleblowers who call these things out?
Frankly that sounds Banana-Republic-ish and not something you would find in a first-rate advanced economy.
[1] Inside the incredible and devastating postal service scandal that could bring down the UK government
https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/inside-the-incr...
There is a fair groundswell of opinion, already driven by the bad reputation that the RSPCA, another prolific private prosecutor, has garnered, against private prosecutions. The Horizon thing only serves to fuel this, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were not soon a proposal to do away with all private prosecutions on the back of these, despite the fact that Post Office Ltd and the RSPCA are institutional private prosecutors, and there's nowhere near as strong a case that personal private prosecutors are a problem.
The royal mail had all sorts of powers, historically, as it was a royally sanctioned monopoly, with a charter. The process of privatization left some odd conventions around, such as that it was normal for Post Office Ltd to prosecute things privately, when this has been exceptional for most other entities.
The Post Office used to prosecute for television licence offences, for example, and that only went away relatively recently compared to some of its historic powers. Historically, it had a monopoly over telephones and telegraphy, and some of the powers that the Post Office had in the 19th century were things like compulsory purchase of anyone running private telephone or telegraph systems or prosecuting people for traffic offences on the highway just because there was a mail coach involved.
The Post Office Act 1953 granted the Postmaster General some very sweeping powers, and set the bar quite low for proving fraud against the Post Office: basically, the Postmaster General's say-so for some elements. The Postmaster General also had to give consent to all prosecutions of offences against the Post Office, effectively putting prosecutorial discretion in the hands of the Post Office. And the Postmaster General also had the power to collect the fines upon conviction.
And that's part of how we ended up with the situation at the start of the 21st century.
The idea that you need a license to own a television and receive broadcasts in the UK and that the government actively prosecutes people who watch TV without a license always boggled my mind. Surely there is a more economically efficient and less absurd way to fund the BBC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_Un...
The Crown Prosecution Service can take over any prosecution at the discretion of the Director of Public Prosecutions, but they didn't seem to know (and/or care) what the Post Office were doing.
In Law and Order: Postal Inspectors Jerry Orbach is a Postal Inspector, Sam Waterston is the Federal Attorney, and the closest boss who intersects in their respective lines of authority is literally the President of the United States.
Consider that in Scotland, private prosecutions are much rarer and are only permitted in certain circumstances. The post office could not and did not do private prosecutions in Scotland. So, as a result, do we observe lower rates of prosecutions in Scotland than in the wider UK? Nope!
In fact, in Scotland there were 100 convictions, vs 700 in the UK as a whole. The conviction rate per capita, and hence injustice rate, was actually higher in the part of the UK doing public prosecutions, than in the part of the UK doing private prosecutions. Not exactly a vote of confidence.
Isn't this very similar to how the United States Postal Inspection Service works? (although I think they don't prosecute themselves, but refer matters to the prosecution.)
I heard they are quite formidable and not to be trifled with.
The UK justice system is not fit for purpose - unless the purpose is to let the upper classes get away with (almost literal) murder.