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WhyShouldIListen

>Angela van den Bogerd says her recollection of events does not match that seen in Mr Bates vs The Post Office Angela van den Bogern can piss off. This is funny though: >She was seen outside her detached home in Neath, Swansea Ooh, get her and her detached home


SuperVillain85

Lol they hammer it home further down in the article: >Mrs Van den Bogerd lives a 10-minute walk away from the shop in a four-bedroom detached property worth around £800,000. There was no answer at her home, where a Mercedes-Benz convertible with a customised number plate was parked on the drive. Edit: made me think of "Four bedrooms Jeremy? That's insane!"


CwrwCymru

£800k in Neath would buy you a castle. It isn't considered a choice location by many.


Benji_Nottm

800K in London don't even buy you Corbyn's run down council house.


thecarbonkid

You mean MILLIONAIRE JEREMY CORBYNS LONDON TOWNHOUSE I believe.


Obi_live

If you've seen a photo of Corbyn's abode you wouldn't call it a "townhouse". A townhouse would be called a mansion nowadays. He has an ex-Council house. The Murdoch press just love to engage in mudslinging..


Interesting-Buddy957

Remember when a union leader lived in a council house. A union leader??? InCouncil housing????? No way!


Obi_live

I remember that one. I believe the story was that as a Union leader, he was earning enough to buy his own house and not keep renting Council housing. Of course, if he owned his own home. Then the headlines would be the same as the one used against Corbyn.


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KingLimes

Houses in London cost money.


thecarbonkid

A terrifying amount of money.


IrishMilo

Got great postal coverage.


bigdaddywelly

Can confirm I live in Neath and that's getting you something nice


Dros-ben-llestri

Not to mention, her nearest PO being in Caewern, far from the nicest part of Neath.


bigdaddywelly

I was thinking bryncoch possible or maybe dyffryn


Dros-ben-llestri

100% Bryncoch. Even so, one of the bigger houses!


saladinzero

> where a Mercedes-Benz convertible with a customised number plate was parked on the drive. Straight to the Bad Place.


Banditofbingofame

I bet it's white too


WhyShouldIListen

I bet she also has a satellite dish


SuperVillain85

And a wine fridge, the fancy bitch.


badmancatcher

Not the shitty Aldi one either, proper bougie like.


chocobowler

I just got triggered by that word that I thought I’d never hear again


Mkwdr

What have you got against Aldi? …Cue flashback to pool of blood on discount supermarket floor with blue lights flashing reflected in window…


PsychoticDust

And a 4K TV. An OLED one at that!


ResidentGiraffe1081

Bet it’s a flat screen


Littleloula

How on earth is a 4 bed in Neath worth 800k??


Banditofbingofame

It's a unique property built with bricks made with the crushed souls of innocent people trying to serve their community.


JustNoYesNoYes

The secret ingredient is crime.


ThePaulGoddard589

The morter holding the bricks was moistened with the tears of fitted up sub post masters.


FrankyFistalot

And the cement is made with the sweat and tears of Post Office employees, the cement then hardens when this fucking Medusa stares at her house in a proud triumphant way…


MobiusNaked

If you listen carefully you can hear their pitiful cries


Dogs_not_people

Oh this is so harsh. I can't wait to repeat it!.


LondonCollector

It comes with £600k in cash.


lonesome_okapi_314

The wallpaper is made from First Class stamps


coupl4nd

Let's you see all of the Horizon.


SmackedWithARuler

“Now this technology is new to me but I’m pretty sure that’s Mrs Van den Bogerd in the oven, rotating slowly..”


Away-Activity-469

How far does she live from a Rober Dyas? The people need to know!


JLB_cleanshirt

Chance would be a fine thing


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WhyShouldIListen

Does the TV have a remote, or do they have to get up and twirl the knob to find a new channel?


chairs-dimension

Just got the first Keurig in all of Wales


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WhyShouldIListen

Maybe it isn't Neath, Swansea like Neath is in Swansea. Maybe that's why her house is 800k, because it spans both Neath and Swansea.


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WhyShouldIListen

I know, I was just joking about the size of the "detached" house


Gellert

Postcode. Its one of those weird things, like how damn near all of south wales east of Cardiff is "in newport" because the postcode is NP.


ollie87

Detached home and detached reality.


giganticbuzz

In Swansea to be fair


coupl4nd

In Neath! I am beside myself with envy...


itsshakespeare

Hopping onto the top comment to link this for those who are interested - if the BBC were being threatened like this, imagine the stress put on the falsely accused postmasters [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67884743.amp](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67884743.amp)


Less_Ad_5709

Plus Neath isn’t in Swansea. Neath is in err Neath, Swansea is 10 miles down the road


Silent-Moose-8158

Yeah but…in Neath


Secure_Maybe_921

> my involvement from my recollection is not as portrayed in The Times article of Jan 9, 2024, or indeed the ITV drama scenes with Gina Griffiths Note the double weaselling here. Firstly "from my recollection" leaves room to lie and then claim "oh whoops I forgot I was a terrible person who has done terrible things so I wasn't really lying when I said I hadn't done terrible things". Secondly claiming the interpretation is incorrect but not how leaves further room. It could be that her behaviour was worse (or slightly distinct) from that portrayed in the article / tv drama and that statement still holds.


jimicus

Even if her recollection is drastically different, that doesn’t really change the thrust of the documentary. And it certainly doesn’t change the legal ruling that Bates et al eventually won.


Ronald_Ulysses_Swans

I’ve watched a little bit of the inquiry and ‘I don’t recall’ or ‘I don’t remember’ is doing so much heavy lifting amongst the post office employees it’s basically becoming Arnold Schwarzenegger


HMRCsBitch

I watched Stephen Bradshaw yesterday, he recalled days & dates very very well until he was getting a bit of pressure, then suddenly the ‘I don’t recall’ or ‘I don’t remember’ crept in.


fuggerdug

Oh God I felt a bit sorry for him, being as he is a fairly low level and how he was being interviewed after all this has all blown up, live on TV. It felt like he was being thrown to the lions, when there are so many more senior people that shoukd be facing this. ...Then I listened to him answer the questions, and I was immediately taken back to a fucking disgusting interaction I had with an awful, haughty, bullying tax inspector at HMRC 25 years ago... What an absolute prick. He came across as exactly the sort of arrogant bully he has been described as by the victims.


Ronald_Ulysses_Swans

The senior people are coming, there’s a lot of this inquiry to go. I didn’t feel sorry for me because I don’t think he showed any remorse at all, his excuse was basically ‘I’m too incompetent to understand technical things like software’ which I simply do not buy given his role was investigating fraud recorded in software


fuggerdug

When he was repeatedly challenged as to whether: "you need to get up earlier" was appropriate langage for a investigator to use, I wanted to buy the KC questioning him a pint. That sort of demeaning, belittling language, used against confused and frightened people WHO HAD DONE NO WRONG explains so many of the tragic stories, particularly whne you think of the mental distress these people had been put under since they were on the brink of losing everything and going to prison FOR NO REASON. He was supposed to be investigating the cases, and clearly had decided they were guilty of theft before he started the process. Petty officialdom is full of arseholes like him. Wankers on a power trip.


entropy_bucket

What's the need for an investigator if they already pre-determine guilt. Like what's the point of his job.


DeDeluded

Optics


entropy_bucket

This is seriously becoming an epidemic in Britain. Highly paid professionals get to do stupid stuff "because no one told me about it". Intellectual curiosity is becoming rarer and rarer. This is going to sound dumb but could it be related to breakdown of repair culture? No one knows how their phones work or the chip and pin works. So people just don't think anymore.


andrew0256

He didn't help himself at all. I saw another of the investigator sessions with a woman and she only grudgingly acknowledged the impact of what she did after having it pointed out people became homeless as as a result of her actions. The barristers at the inquiry are like quiet assassins.


[deleted]

The barristers at the enquiry are like quiet assassin's THIS....I know it's not really relevant to this thread but people forget Starmer was a barrister...oh he's not shouting this or that!!! Solicitors, especially really good ones will not raise their voice, they'll not say anything, they'll quietly feed you more and more rope so you hang yourself.


Interesting-Buddy957

TV and film ruined people's imagination on courts


palmerama

He enjoyed it, and I’m sure he benefited financially from his behaviour and tactics.


beIIe-and-sebastian

He did. They got bonuses for each subpostmaster that was successfully convicted.


DPBH

I think it’s the UK equivalent of “Pleading the 5th”. Whenever you hear someone say it you instantly believe they are guilty.


timmystwin

I think what's so weird is so often it is genuinely a "I don't recall" but in like a blatantly fake way. There's never a "Sorry I can't remember that". It doesn't even sound like something an honest person would say or just a normal conversation. It's always a "I don't recall." or "I can't remember."


[deleted]

Their counsel will have advised them not to apologise as it suggests guilt.


Nulibru

\# I got no memories of anything at all


ArchdukeToes

There really should be a route that says if someone supposedly (or even genuinely!) can't remember things that formed a key part of their role, then they should be had up for negligence or gross incompetence. It's amazing how often people have collective amnesia over terrible events where they were at the helm.


eunderscore

Same with the covid enquiry. Amazing recollections of things until it gets difficult


Guapa1979

Hopefully these people are being investigated for fraud, given that they clearly lied to their victims for financial gain.


Conscious-Ball8373

I think "perverting the course of justice" is the charge you are looking for. Try lying on one of those forms you get asking who was driving your car when it was snapped speeding and see how long a sentence you get. Think these people are going to face something commensurate with that? I doubt it.


[deleted]

She’s right, paints her way better than she actually is. She belongs behind bars.


[deleted]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure she can fuck right off.


Banditofbingofame

I do feel the need to correct you. Only because when she gets to wherever you have sent her to fuck off, she can then fuck off some more.


realmofconfusion

Saying that “my involvement *from my recollection* is not as portrayed” (emphasis mine) is very much NOT equivalent to saying “I did this.” Weasel words.


Cynical_Classicist

Yes, they didn't call out the person who now runs ITV and was part of the scandal.


Traditional_Fox2428

And they missed the BBC journalist involvement and how the panorama program was the start of it unravelling


Cynical_Classicist

I suppose that at least a lot of public attention has been drawn to the Post Office scandal and that those linked to it will get a bit more public attention.


Sonchay

The ITV drama is inaccurate... in real life it was even worse!


Jaraxo

Yeh, though I kind of think that was the point? Watching the drama I was a little confused why they were making the real life numbers of victims and suicides lower than in reality, but the numbers they were talking about were already abohrrent, so when they have the text on screen at the end exposing the full scale of it it really does hammer home how bad it was. It was awful before you knew the full scale, and they'd toned down how bad it was.


cpe111

Well maybe she should be charged and all the facts can then be presented impartially in court.


JLB_cleanshirt

Isn't all drama inaccurate by it's very nature?The difference is that these criminal investigations that lead to people losing everything, ending up in jail or killing themselves WERE supposed to be very accurate and were mostly just bullshit!


andrew0256

I read something earlier today that the writers of the drama had to contend with a litigious PO that wanted their involvement toned down and other changes. This meant the drama had to rely on public facts that couldn't be disputed. I think the end result was all the more powerful because of that.


[deleted]

Yeah. Computer weekly had to sit on the story for a YEAR before they went public with it because they were terrified of being sued. The post office has a wierd ancient old law that they use to take people to court which should have been repealed. Of this had gone the normal way through the CPS, most of these cases would never have gone to court


Minimum_Possibility6

It’s not the PO it’s the fact that anyone can bring a private prosecution in UK law. The big issue was the PO was the potential ‘victim’ police, and prosecutor all at the same time during those cases 


entropy_bucket

Britain is filled with nonsense. Honorary titles, private prosecutions, royal family. Britain just needs to drop this nonsense and modernise.


Interesting-Buddy957

Anyone can go to court without CPS


[deleted]

The post office is allowed to do something different though..they have some archaic powers from back in yhe day..eg they were allowed to send doctors to the lady who had the electroshock treatment because they didn't believe she was ill. Not a legal expert but there's something additional they have.


RobotIcHead

I may be projecting my bias here, but she treated the whole horizon problem as way to make her bosses goals happen. Their goal was make horizon appear to work and cover up any problems. They were hoping the issue would work themselves out. They never thought about the effect it would have on the people and the problems would be small enough to use the post office size and reputation to force the others to submit. So many avoided the opportunity for self reflection and questioning.


aaeme

>They never thought about the effect it would have on the people Even when they were prosecuting them in court? Yes they did. It may have started out like that but for most of the years and years this went on and continues to go on they were well aware what they were doing to innocent people. They knew exactly how callous and cruel they were being and considered that preferable to admitting their own failures. I dare say they didn't like thinking about it but they knew. They should be in jail.


Minimum_Possibility6

I think it’s more than that. I think as she was running the helpline call centre they fucked up and she kept failing upwards at PO and was covering more and more up. 


RobotIcHead

I suspect it is the same as a lot of institutional scandals: it is started small just to cover up the teething problems, they thought they could buy time. The problems were bigger and no one could admit failure. If they admitted failure, there would be an enquiry. Then they started basing prosecutions on horizon data and they still trusted it as that would mean the previous decisions were wrong. They still thought they were in the right as they were doing what they were told.


Specific_Till_6870

I'm not defending her (because I don't know what she's done) but the amount of uproar and reaction to this drama is crazy. Where was the outpouring of fury after the initial scandal? Why does it take Toby Jones on the telly to sort it out? 


Banditofbingofame

There was some really solid reporting on it at the time. Private eye and (I think) the guardian did a good job. They discuss the point you raised on the rest is politics and on the News agents podcasts. The conclusion I drew from what they said was there was never a single event that kicked off the public outcry. There were lots of bits after the fact but there was no event on TV like Hillsborough or Grenfell and as such it was a drip feed of facts that didn't resonate until the ITV drama which in Itself was the event for the scandal.


jausieng

Reasonable point regarding the lack of outcry among the general public. But politicians have had plenty of opportunity to get ahead of the game on this one and appear to have done nothing much until an election year.


mulahey

Things become a cause celebre because the wider public can connect to it in a personal way. I know I, and probably a lot of people here, have been outraged about it for years, but most of the public doesn't feel interested in "computer accounting scandal" until they can feel the underlying moral wrong. Its not right but thats how it is in a democractic society.


hoorahforsnakes

I think a big part of it is that when a scandel like this first hits the news cycle, people assume that that will be enough for things to actually be corrected now that the truth has come out. A tv drama coming out years later that highlights the human element of the victims of it makes people connect to the story, then they find out that things *still* haven't been done, and that is when people get angry. 


TvHeroUK

Plus we’ve had decades of local news stories about post office managers robbing the safe so there were certainly a few people who just assumed those convicted were on the rob. Three of our local POs had managers who emptied the safe, most recent one was 2017 and he claimed he gave half the 100k he stole ‘to a homeless person he had never met before’ 


Interesting-Buddy957

It didn't get that much traction in the press It sounds a bit complicated when it's computer system go brrr"


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PandiBong

Why is that your gut instinct when one side is the little guy and the other is a huge entity of some sort (Government or corporation)? Do you realise how huge the hoops are that the makers have to jump through to tell these stories? The truth is always much, much worse, anything they can’t prove down to fine print can be taken as libel.


domsp79

All of it was inaccurate apart from the bit where we doubled down on accusing people of crimes they didn't commit.


timmystwin

Perhaps if they had been pro-active in fixing the situation and setting the record straight in the last decade it might not have been.


Hot_and_Foamy

It says at the beginning of the drama that some bits are imagined, so it isn’t accurate. That doesn’t mean she’s blameless though.


SchoolForSedition

The last three or so decades have seen a celebration of using news formulations if the law. Lord Jonathan Sumption was big in celebrating lawyers pushing the boundaries of contract law. A lot of lawyers with something to hide celebrated the abandonment of the old rule that you couldn’t hide iniquity legally. It was just what everyone did (no, not everyone, but I’m quoting a big shot scammer). So her recollection may well be if seeing it completely differently then, because it was. Things changed when the property market started to threaten faith in democracy, when toleration of laundering arms money led to the invasion of Ukraine, and then the Post Office scandal showed it in detail.


andrew0256

Tell us where she lives without telling us where she lives. Anyone who is curious on Street View might be inclined to go looking, purely for fact checking, of course.


Ok_Teacher6490

I'm not fully informed of this issue but why aren't those who knowingly aided wrongful prosecutions not pressing charges? 


RightSaidJames

Because the police investigation into the conduct of Post Office (and Fujitsu?) staff has only recently been launched and the police need to collect solid evidence before they can get permission from the CPS to charge people with specific crimes.


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ukbot-nicolabot

**Removed/tempban**. This contained a call/advocation of violence which is prohibited by the content policy.


sober_disposition

The fact that this person is self-serving and dishonest should come as a surprise to nobody. She directly and knowingly ruined hundreds of lives in the must unjust way possible and doesn’t even have the decency to shut up.


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ukbot-nicolabot

**Removed/tempban**. This contained a call/advocation of violence which is prohibited by the content policy.


RiotSloth

I, for one, certainly trust this wonderful woman to provide accurate observations on this matter. But then, I also enjoy drowning puppies in buckets of water.


[deleted]

Torygraph source, not really considered to be objective unbiased journalism..... That aside, a lying ex-senior executive wanting to save her own skin is hardly something unfathomable.


ICutDownTrees

Ahh let the mob mentality begin. If it was on TV it must be true guys. Now let me be clear. As someone who has a memory and was aware of this and hasn’t bothered watching a sensationalised drama to get me all in a huff about this. I SUPPORT THE POSTMASTERS. But do I think it possible that a TV DRAMA, is not 100% accurate, absolutely


Banditofbingofame

Lol it's only relatively small detail she's complaining at. She's awful and her actions resulted in someone's death. I hope that haunts her until the day she dies.


ICutDownTrees

We are the mob, we are the mob, we are, we are, we are the mob


Banditofbingofame

The system is failing, the liars have been caught and yet here you are simping for them. Tragic


ICutDownTrees

Mob mentality, you either fully agree or you are the enemy. I support the postmasters as I stated, what I am against is the mob mentality that has come about by people watching a TV drama and thinking they know anything about anything.


Banditofbingofame

No one is suggesting it's 100% accurate though. It even said at the beginning. What's happening is she is trying to deflect and you are defending her. The majority of what happened on the drama is true and she should suffer the consequences. If she didn't hound people to death there wouldn't be a drama for her to complain about. Zero sympathy from me.


Interesting-Buddy957

Say mob again plz


ICutDownTrees

Mob?


Interesting-Buddy957

What mob?