Weekend essay

Comment

Ethics

Justice

27 January 2024

8 min read

The Post Office scandal: why truth matters

Lawyer Alex Stewart analyses the Post Office scandal for the lessons it teaches on our missing morals.

Alex Stewart

Alex Stewart is a lawyer, trustee and photographer.

A man, dressed in a suit and anarak, stands in front of a law court.

Toby Jones plays the eponymous Mr Bates in ITV Studios dramatisation.

The reaction to ITV's 4-part dramatisation of the The Post Office Horizon story has been profound. It managed to stir up huge public sympathy for the sub postmasters and has galvanised the Government into action. The story has also tapped into deep wells of moral outrage at a time when trust in our institutions and corporations is the lowest in living memory. It’s a tale of failure to take responsibility. It’s a tale that shows the truth matters.

A failure to take responsibility

What seems to have enraged us most is the collective moral failure over many years of those in positions of power. They either deliberately covered up the problems with the Post Office’s Horizon IT system, by withholding information about known faults, or simply ignored them. The sense of disbelief has been compounded by the apparent inability, so far, to pin the blame on any one person or group of people. The Post Office’s ex CEO, Paula Vennells, has handed back her CBE but it seems she was only the tip of an iceberg of obfuscation and prevarication.

What emerges is a pattern of behaviour that moral philosophers call moral diffusion. It is also called the ‘bystander effect’, so-called after a case in which a woman was attacked in New York in the presence of a large number of people who knew that she was being assaulted but failed to come to her rescue as they all saw it as someone else’s problem.

I witnessed an example of this the other day in London at a busy pedestrian crossing. A man with an angle grinder was cutting through a bicycle lock. As the sparks flew, pedestrians looked at each other for reassurance, as if to ask - is this ok? Was he shamelessly stealing the bicycle, or had he been sent by the council to remove a long-abandoned bicycle? No one knew and no one intervened.

The instinct to shirk responsibility seems to be hardwired into us, part of our fallen nature. It all started with Adam and Eve. Embarrassed and ashamed they hide, only to discover you cannot hide from God. And when they are discovered, both deny personal responsibility, saying in effect “it wasn’t me”.

Later we have the story of Cain killing his brother Abel. Cain doesn't deny he has done something wrong, he simply denies he had any responsibility for his brother at all. He asks why he should have any concern for anyone beyond himself. ‘Look after Number One’ Is the voice of Cain throughout the ages.

Why is this failure of leadership such an effrontery to us? Because we instinctively recognise that leadership is not about lording it over others.

The Government has promised to hold to account those responsible for the scandal. Perhaps the roving searchlight of the inquiry will succeed in identifying the human culprits? In the meantime, executives and politicians are scrambling over themselves to deny responsibility, typified by the response of Sir Ed Davey who has taken the art of the non-apology to a new level. The honourable exception, among the political class, is Lord Arbuthnot who as an MP was both tireless and fearless in campaigning for justice for the sub-postmasters.

Why is this failure of leadership such an effrontery to us? Because we instinctively recognise that leadership is not about lording it over others, hiding behind other people’s decisions or passing the buck, it is about taking responsibility. In practice we do not live by the philosophy presented by Glaucon in Plato’s Republic, that justice is whatever is in the interest of the stronger party. Nor are we willing to live in a Darwinian world where in the struggle for supremacy there is no need for the powerful to look out for the weak simply because they are powerful.

There is a fascinating moment in the story of Moses in the book of Exodus when he notices an Egyptian official beating one of the Israelite slaves. He sees that no one else is willing to intervene and he gets involved, at some personal risk, and in so doing marks himself out as a leader.

Leadership is born when we become active not passive, when we decide that something is wrong and we need to take steps to put it right. These are the people who make the world a better place because doing nothing, though it may not be illegal, is not morally neutral. Failing to act to prevent a wrong does not simply leave a vacuum, it gives permission for evil to flourish. Or as Burke put it “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.”

Alan Bates could have resigned himself to his fate, but instead has doggedly pursued justice for 20 years.

We all long for leaders who will lead responsibly and not out of self-interest, who will not turn a blind eye to the suffering of the powerless or blame others when asked to explain why they did nothing.

This is especially so in the church which holds itself to a higher standard and should know better. The ITV series quite deliberately dwells on the fact that Paula Vennells was, as well as being CEO of the Post Office, ordained in the Church of England.

The truth matters

Key to the success of the sub-postmasters case was the ability to get to the truth, a task made very difficult by the fact that the Post Office held all the records needed to prove that it was the Horizon system, not the sub-postmasters, that was at fault.

Being able to determine the truth of a matter is essential to how we lead our lives, and especially in matters of justice. The version of events presented by the Post Office turned out to be false, but once this false version was on record, the reputations of otherwise upstanding pillars of local communities were destroyed overnight. The public shame and the human cost of being cruelly and wrongly labelled a liar and thief is powerfully brought home by the TV series, as is the relief of vindication.

We do not in reality live our lives in a postmodern universe where truth is seen as relative (Oprah’s infamous “What is your truth?” moment), or nothing more than a claim to power. We know on a daily basis the power of the truth to set us free, from false accusations or a guilty conscience, and how much it stinks when we are deceived - especially when it is by the powerful.

A lack of integrity

During the Cold War, there was a running joke that the best indicator of whether a country operated as a one-party state was whether it had the word “Democratic” in its name.

We have become used to the same kind of dissonance between image and reality, whether it is the smiley telegenic people in a company’s glossy videos (actors? library footage?) or an impossibly worthy values statement.

I was once part of group of employees invited to revamp our employer’s declared values. We were presented with a set of aspirational statements that described a culture that was akin to the Garden of Eden and a working environment that bore no relation to the reality. When I pointed this out, I was not invited back.

In public Paula Vennells was insistent that the Post Office cared about its people while out of the spotlight those people were being horribly mistreated.

It isn’t always so, but how can so many organisations live with such glaring contradictions? Or is it that boards become so disconnected, by geography or otherwise, from the organisations they run and the cultures they preside over that they actually believe the image over the reality?

"Computer says no"

One of the more terrifying issues raised by the Post Office scandal is how the principle of the presumption of innocence was abandoned. How come the testimony of hundreds of innocent people was rejected in favour of a faulty computer system’s data?

Part of the problem is that the English courts regard computer records as reliable unless the defendant can show otherwise. Since 1999, the burden of proof - and with it the presumption of innocence – has effectively been reversed: the defendant is guilty unless he can show that the computer records implicating him are wrong.

The notion that we cannot challenge a computer that “Says No” is a real problem. As the Post Office scandal shows, computer software is often riddled with bugs. After all, it is written by fallible human programmers. It also became clear that the Horizon system’s data could be manipulated remotely - and without the knowledge of the sub postmasters.

To assume that computer generated evidence is infallible is a very dangerous assumption in a world increasingly dominated by machines and, more recently, artificial intelligence.

A very human story

The sub-postmasters in the Post Office case were not machines or assets. The ITV drama succeeded in doing what no legal or investigative process can adequately do, it humanised the victims. Despite all the PR talk about caring for its people, the Post Office only cared about its own reputation, and in the process of trying to save itself lost its humanity and its reputation.

The drama successfully stripped away all the lifeless procedural, technical and legal terminology to reveal a very simple, devastatingly human story that needed to be told. In Alan Bates’ words: “the Post Office stole my livelihood, my shop, my job, my home, my life savings and my good name”.

This Post Office story has struck a chord because it reminds us of is what is increasingly missing in public life - leadership, accountability, respect for the truth, integrity and humanity.

Watching the ITV drama, I was frequently moved to tears and cheered at the end. We root for the victims out of solidarity, as if we ourselves had been wronged.

The Christian understanding of sin identifies it as a public not a private matter, as it infects the whole body politic. This is why the case name given to a crime is “R (that is, the state) v X”. There are certain wrongs which are so serious they are considered to be offences against the whole community, not just the individual victim.

The Post Office saga is a parable of our times. It tells a story of a society whose elites have become dangerously detached from principle and deaf to the concerns of ordinary people. It will not go away any time soon. The moment of true catharsis, if it comes, will be when our institutions and leaders have earned back our trust.

The last word goes to the book of Proverbs:

When good people run things, everyone is glad, but when the ruler is bad, everyone groans.

Review

Books

Care

Comment

Psychology

23 July 2025

7 min read

We don’t have an over-diagnosis problem, we have a society problem

Suzanne O’Sullivan's question is timely

Henna Cundill

Henna is a researcher with the Centre for Autism and Theology at the University of Aberdeen.

A visualised glass head shows a swirl of pink across the face.

Maxim Berg on Unsplash.

Rates of diagnoses for autism and ADHD are at an all-time high, whilst NHS funding remains in a perpetual state of squeeze. In this context, consultant neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan, in her recent book The Age of Diagnosis, asks a timely question: can getting a diagnosis sometimes do more harm than good? Her concern is that many of these apparent “diagnoses” are not so much wrong as superfluous; in her view, they risk harming a person’s sense of wellbeing by encouraging self-imposed limitations or prompting them to pursue treatments that may not be justified.

There are elements of O-Sullivan’s argument that I am not qualified to assess. For example, I cannot look at the research into preventative treatments for localised and non-metastatic cancers and tell you what proportion of those treatments is unnecessary. However, even from my lay-person’s perspective, it does seem that if the removal of a tumour brings peace of mind to a patient, however benign that tumour might be, then O’Sullivan may be oversimplifying the situation when she proposes that such surgery is an unnecessary medical intervention.

But O’Sullivan devotes a large proportion of the book to the topics of autism and ADHD – and on this I am less of a lay person. She is one of many people who are proposing that these are being over diagnosed due to parental pressure and social contagion. Her particular concern is that a diagnosis might become a self-fulfilling prophecy, limiting one’s opportunities in life: “Some will take the diagnosis to mean that they can’t do certain things, so they won’t even try.” Notably, O’Sullivan persists with this argument even though the one autistic person whom she interviewed for the book actually told her the opposite: getting a diagnosis had helped her interviewee, Poppy, to re-frame a number of the difficulties that she was facing in life and realise they were not her fault.

Poppy’s narrative is one with which we are very familiar at the Centre for Autism and Theology, where our team of neurodiverse researchers have conducted many, many interviews with people of all neurotypes across multiple research projects. Time and time again we hear the same thing: getting a diagnosis is what helps many neurodivergent people make sense of their lives and to ask for the help that they need. As theologian Grant Macaskill said in a recent podcast:

“A label, potentially, is something that can help you to thrive rather than simply label the fact that you're not thriving in some way.”

Perhaps it is helpful to remember how these diagnoses come about, because neurodivergence cannot be identified by any objective means such as by a blood test or CT scan. At present the only way to get a diagnosis is to have one’s lifestyle, behaviours and preferences analysed by clinicians during an intrusive and often patronising process of self-disclosure.

Despite the invidious nature of this diagnostic process, more and more people are willing to subject themselves to it. Philosopher Robert Chapman looks to late-stage capitalism for the explanation. Having a diagnosis means that one can take on what is known as the “sick role” in our societal structures. When one is in the “sick role” in any kind of culture, society, or organisation, one is given social permission to take less personal responsibility for one’s own well-being. For example, if I have the flu at home, then caring family members might bring me hot drinks, chicken soup or whatever else I might need, so that I don’t have to get out of bed. This makes sense when I am sick, but if I expected my family to do things like that for me all the time, then I would be called lazy and demanding! When a person is in the “sick role” to whatever degree (it doesn’t always entail being consigned to one’s bed) then the expectations on that person change accordingly.

Chapman points out that the dynamics of late-stage capitalism have pushed more and more people into the “sick role” because our lifestyles are bad for our health in ways that are mostly out of our own control. In his 2023 book, Empire of Normality, he observes,

“In the scientific literature more generally, for instance, modern artificial lighting has been associated with depression and other health conditions; excessive exposure to screen time has been associated with chronic overstimulation, mental health conditions, and cognitive disablement; and noise annoyance has been associated with a twofold increase in depression and anxiety, especially relating to noise pollution from aircraft, traffic, and industrial work.”

Most of this we cannot escape, and on top of it all we live life at a frenetic pace where workers are expected to function like machines, often subordinating the needs and demands of the body. Thus, more and more people begin to experience disablement, where they simply cannot keep working, and they start to reach for medical diagnoses to explain why they cannot keep pace in an environment that is constantly thwarting their efforts to stay fit and well. From this arises the phenomenon of “shadow diagnoses” – this is where “milder” versions of existing conditions, including autism and ADHD, start to be diagnosed more commonly, because more and more people are feeling that they are unsuited to the cognitive, sensory and emotional demands of daily working life.

When I read in O’Sullivan’s book that a lot more people are asking for diagnoses, what I hear is that a lot more people are asking for help.

O’Sullivan rightly observes that some real problems arise from this phenomenon of “shadow diagnoses”. It does create a scenario, for example, where autistic people who experience significant disability (e.g., those who have no perception of danger and therefore require 24-hour supervision to keep them safe) are in the same “queue” for support as those from whom being autistic doesn’t preclude living independently.

But this is not a diagnosis problem so much as a society problem – health and social care resources are never limitless, and a process of prioritisation must always take place. If I cut my hand on a piece of broken glass and need to go to A&E for stiches, I might find myself in the same “queue” as a 7-year-old child who has done exactly the same thing. Like anyone, I would expect the staff to treat the child first, knowing that the same injury is likely to be causing a younger person much more distress. Autistic individuals are just as capable of recognising that others within the autism community may have needs that should take priority over their own.

What O’Sullivan overlooks is that there are some equally big positives to “shadow diagnoses” – especially as our society runs on such strongly capitalist lines. When a large proportion of the population starts to experience the same disablement, it becomes economically worthwhile for employers or other authorities to address the problem. To put it another way: If we get a rise in “shadow diagnoses” then we also get a rise in “shadow treatments” – accommodations made in the workplace/society that mean everybody can thrive. As Macaskill puts it:

“Accommodations then are not about accommodating something intrinsically negative; they're about accommodating something intrinsically different so that it doesn't have to be negative.”

This can be seen already in many primary schools: where once it was the exception (and highly stigmatised) for a child to wear noise cancelling headphones, they are now routinely made available to all students, regardless of neurotype. This means not only that stigma is reduced for the one or two students who may be highly dependent on headphones, but it also means that many more children can benefit from a break from the deleterious effects of constant noise.

When I read in O’Sullivan’s book that a lot more people are asking for diagnoses, what I hear is that a lot more people are asking for help. I suspect the rise in people identifying as neurodivergent reflects a latent cry of “Stop the world, I want to get off!” This is not to say that those coming forward are not autistic or do not have ADHD (or other neurodivergence) but simply that if our societies were gentler and more cohesive, fewer people with these conditions would need to reach for the “sick role” in order to get by.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, if we want the number of people asking for the “sick role” to decrease, we actually need to be diagnosing more people! In this way, we push our capitalist society towards adopting “shadow-treatments” – adopting certain accommodations in our schools and workplaces as part of the norm. When this happens, there are benefits not only for neurodivergent people, but for everybody.

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