Recently,A new drama has caused a sensation
In the three weeks after the broadcast, 1.7 million people in the UK sent out ** letters, and the parliament convened urgently.
The Prime Minister stepped forward and announced the introduction of the new law
CCTV also reported on the incident.
Because, it is adapted from real events and exposes a black history that has been suppressed for more than 20 years.
Purported to beThe largest injustice in the history of British justice
The play restores the beginning and end of the case to the greatest extent, and the names of relevant characters, companies, and even leaders are real.
There are also parliamentarians themselves who play themselves.
Even putting aside the gimmicks, the show itself has a strong reputation.
Douban，imdb
What kind of story is it?
Let's take a look today
The drama is about people from all over the UKPostmasterexperience.
The British post office system has a franchise tradition.
The so-called postmaster is not an employee of a state-owned enterprise, but is self-financedOperators
For example,Joe, she runs a bakery in town.
Because of his good popularity, with the support of the locals, he used his life savings to contract the post office.
It's really just an extra window in your own store.
In the early years of the post office, old-fashioned cash registers were used.
In 1999, it was upgraded to a networked system and purchased a high-end financial system developed by Fujitsu in JapanHorizon System
At that time, the Internet was just becoming widespread.
Joe is also old, not good at operating a computer, and not used to the new system.
Once, while doing a weekly work report, Joe was in trouble.
She declared her cash flow and inventory as required, and checked it several times to determine that there was no problem.
ButThe general ledger just doesn't match
Show herThe actual revenue was more than £2,000 more than the book value
She called customer service ** for help.
Follow the other party's prompts, reverse the previous operation, and re-declare the accounts.
I thought it would be solved soon, but I didn't expect it
Not only did she not correct her mistakes, but the difference doubled under her nose.
A whole chunk of money just disappeared like that? She was so frightened that tears fell from her eyes.
But the customer service calmly said that if there is a problem, the system will automatically correct it, and the high-tech is like this. 」
What if it still can't be corrected?
Well, as stipulated in the contract,Joe is responsible for making up the difference
Because, the other party said, it is definitely not a problem of the system.
There are so many post offices, and no one else has encountered this kind of problem. 」
After that, as Joe feared, the system didn't automatically correct.
If the deficit is not addressed, she will be fired, her store will be mortgaged, and she will have nothing left.
For timely stop loss,Joe had to empty his savings and ask his parents to borrow money to make up for all the shortfalls
But it didn't stop there.
It didn't take long for the same thing to happen again.
Joe didn't have the money to fill the hole, and he didn't dare to tell his family anymore.
In order to keep the business running, she chose to manually adjust the amount and signed the fake account.
But of course, this is just a cover-up.
Soon, the audit team came to investigate and found that more than 30,000 pounds were missing from her account.
Joe was summoned by the court and charged with 14 counts of theft, making false accounts, and more.
You may face jail time.
Another postmasterMartin, ran into the same problem.
At first, he found that the accounts did not match, and suspected that the store staff had stolen the money, which also caused a rift.
Since then, the problem has not been solved, and the difference has become more and more.
He worries about the East Window incident every day, and gradually suffers from depression.
One day, two robbers entered the post office and violently threatened each other to steal a large sum of money.
However, the police did not treat Martin as a victim.
On the contrary, because of the financial situation of the post office, he was suspected of stealing from prison in order to conceal the crime.
He must fill the hole himself or face prosecution.
In order not to cause trouble to his wife and children, he chose to commit suicide one morning.
Walk head-on to a moving bus ......
At that time, social media had not yet developed.
Both Joe and Martin bear the grievances alone, and they don't think that they are not the only victims.
Between 1999 and 2015, the UK had about:3500 peopleThe post office ** dealer was wrongfully accused of making false accounts, and more than 900 people were prosecuted.
236 people suffered from prison time, as well as moral reproaches of **, at least4 people committed suicide
Countless people have lost their families and suffered from depression, which has caused ...... to their spouses and children
The whistleblower on this matter is also the postmasterMr. Bates
He is also in deep financial crisis, howeverThe difference is that he never doubted himself
He had always been convinced that something was wrong with the system.
After negotiating with the headquarters, he quickly realized that these people didn't want to solve the problem and just wanted him to take the blame.
Bates refused to pay back the money, refusing to admit that it was his problem.
Before the audit team arrived, he took all the accounts and returned to his hometown behind closed doors.
Bates has always wanted to expose the misdeeds of the post office system.
He once approached a reporter and wrote a lot of whistleblower letters, but no one paid attention to them.
It wasn't until 2003 that the news reported on several postmasters**.
He realized that there were more victims than he had imagined.
Perhaps, then, the time has come.
* Smells wrong too.
The reporter finally agreed to meet with Bates and published his experience in the newspaper.
Bates reached out to postmasters across the UK.
They formed a coalition of post office victims to raise awareness and demand justice from the post office.
We don't have to go it alone anymore. 」
At first, it didn't go well.
The post office headquarters did set up an investigation team and promised to help them find out.
After two years, the lawsuit against 12 postmasters was dropped, and they were not required to pay back.
But the problem is that there are far more than 12 victims, and there is no way to prove their innocence without paying back the money.
People wonder where the money that disappeared from the system goes.
The inside information about the truth was deliberately concealed by the post office.
It took Baates and his friends 20 years to successfully take the British Post Office to the Supreme Court.
On the one hand, because the number of victims continues to increase, the truth is becoming more and more difficult to ignore.
On the other hand, many well-wishers from the outside world have given a helping hand.
A lawyer came across their story and offered to clear their name.
There are also former employees of Horizon Systems who have come forward to testify and thoroughly expose the lies of the post office.
The drama culminated, in 2019, when the court ruled that the post office's conviction of them was unreasonable and that there was a problem with the horizon system.
In 2021, the court quashed the criminal convictions of 39 postmasters.
However, this is not the end of the story.
As of January 15 this year, only 95 of the 736 postmaster generals had been convicted.
More people have not been able to get compensation because the process of reversing the case has not been completed.
More than 60 victims did not wait for the day of rehabilitation until their deaths.
Moreover,The British Post Office and Fujitsu were not punished in any way, and the horizon system is still used today.
In 2019, during the turmoil, Paula Vennells, CEO of the British Post Office Company, was also awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
After the show aired, 1.7 million people**, her medal of honor was withdrawn.
Another 50 victims, inspired by the drama, contacted their lawyers in an attempt to get justice.
At first glance, this is absurd.
Hundreds of people have been wronged and suffered simply because of bugs in computer systems.
But if you think about it carefully, it exposes the disadvantages of the British system in which officials protect each other and favor each other.
At first, the leaders did not understand technology and bought a system that was claimed to be high-end but was actually garbage.
After a problem arises, the first reaction is to evade responsibility and let the ** business take the blame.
As the problem grows, focus on how to reduce the negatives.
Find an expert to whitewash and prove that there is no problem with the horizon system.
Suing the postmaster and sending him to jail is intended to make an example of the monkey.
The British Post Office and Japan's Fujitsu Company colluded with each other for their respective reputations.
Fujitsu had provided a large amount of money to the post office to help them win their lawsuits.
They took advantage of the weakness of ordinary people and took the initiative to help some victims erase their debts, on the condition that they admit that it was their own mistake and not a problem with the system.
Many people were at the end of their rope at that time, and they were forced to compromise in order to provide a good living environment for their children.
Just as Britain said, this is a struggle between weak individuals and state-owned enterprises and multinational corporations. 」
But the show doesn't just decipher a British scandal, it also reveals a more general, current reality.
It is exposedThe impact of the digital divide on many older people
In this case, many of the victims were middle-aged and elderly people who did not understand technology.
When they make accounting mistakes, their first instinct is to suspect that they have made a mistake.
They are all honest and dutiful people, do not have any criminal records, and are very popular in the local area.
Many people spend their life savings contracting branches, just to find a stable errand and spend the rest of their lives in peace.
They put their heart and soul into it, and they actively and enthusiastically learned the new system that was fashionable.
They were all defeated, and they experienced the loneliness and frustration of being abandoned by the times.
They never thought of confronting authority, and many of them just wanted the post office to be open, so they did not hesitate to pay out of their own pockets.
Today, when the era of artificial intelligence has arrived, this matter is even more worthy of thought.
Technology not only brings convenience, but also deepens the generational divide.
Many older people are marginalized because they struggle to keep up with the pace of technology, making them more likely to fall victim to online traps.
There have been news reports in China that some elderly stall owners, because they don't understand electronic payment, have become the target of some people's crimes because they just hang up a ***.
Some people fool around with screenshots of the payment page, and some even replace the merchant's *** with their own.
During the previous epidemic, there were also elderly people who were refused to take the bus because they could not use the health code without WeChat.
Recently, there have also been cases of fraud using AI to swap faces, which has also made many people sweat for the elderly.
This drama uncovers the unjust case that has been sealed for 20 years at the same time.
At a time when everyone is cheering for the progress of science and technology, we once again pay attention to these people who have been left behind by the times.
Technology iteration is too fast, and people who walk slowly are very easy to be caught under the wheel if they don't pull them.
Between people and the system, the British Post Office and the Royal Court have chosen the latter countless times, resulting in the tragedy of the fate of hundreds of people.
The same problem will still lie before us countless times in the future.
This drama is also reminding us that the two are not in conflict.
Don't go too fast and forget to make your choices carefully and honestly.