Mr Bates vs The Post Office-Absent Justice
Visitors to this website have drawn parallels between its content and a comprehensive portrayal of criminal activities encompassing fraud.
• Side-by-side comparison of both scandals• Quotes from Alan Bates and Frank Blount• Analysis of regulatory failure and public impact• Call for a similar public inquiry and redress in Australia
🧩 Twin Scandals: When Software Lies and Governments Look Away
In two different corners of the Commonwealth, separated by oceans but united by betrayal, thousands of innocent people were crushed under the weight of faulty technology and bureaucratic indifference. The British Post Office Horizon scandal and Australia’s Telstra COT case share a chilling symmetry: both involved defective software systems, both triggered wrongful accusations, and both saw government regulators fail to protect the very citizens they were meant to serve.
Great Britain: The Horizon Scandal: Software That Stole Lives
Beginning in the late 1990s, the UK’s Post Office deployed Horizon, an accounting system developed by Fujitsu. It was riddled with bugs that falsely showed financial shortfalls in subpostmasters’ accounts. Instead of investigating the software, the Post Office prosecuted over 900 subpostmasters for theft, fraud, and false accounting. Many were imprisoned, bankrupted, or driven to suicide.
Despite mounting evidence of Horizon’s flaws, the Post Office insisted the system was robust. Government oversight was minimal, and civil servants deferred to the Post Office’s assurances. It took decades—and the tireless efforts of Alan Bates and the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance—for the truth to surface. Only in recent years did the UK government launch a statutory inquiry and begin overturning convictions.
🧩 Twin Scandals: When Software Lies and Governments Look Away
In two different corners of the Commonwealth, separated by oceans but united by betrayal, thousands of innocent people were crushed under the weight of faulty technology and bureaucratic indifference. The British Post Office Horizon scandal and Australia’s Telstra COT scandal share a chilling symmetry:1800 systemic billing problems: both involved defective software systems, both triggered wrongful accusations, and both saw government regulators fail to protect the very citizens they were meant to serve → Mr Bates vs The Post Office-Absent Justice.
📘 Managing in Australia: A Postscript of Concealed Truths
In late 1999, after stepping down as CEO of Telstra, Frank Blount co-authored Managing in Australia. This business memoir inadvertently confirmed what many COT claimants had long suspected: Telstra knew its systems were failing, and it chose silence over accountability.
On pages 132–133 of the book (referenced in File 122-i, CAV Exhibit 92 to 127 → https://www.qbd.com.au › managing-in-australia › fran, Blount describes his growing alarm upon discovering widespread performance issues within Telstra’s infrastructure:
“Blount was shocked, but his anxiety level continued to rise when he discovered this wasn’t an isolated problem.
The picture that emerged made it crystal clear that performance was sub-standard.”
This quote is not just a retrospective admission—it’s a contradiction of sworn witness statements submitted to the arbitrator in my case. Nine Telstra-affiliated witnesses testified that no faults existed in the 1800 billing software or related equipment, which would have affected my business. The arbitrator, Dr Gordon Hughe, accepted these nine witness statements as factual, noting in his written findings 11 May 1995 award at point 3.2 (h) that my business had no problems after July 1994, dismissing this part of my claims.
Yet Blount’s own words, published years later, confirm that the problems were systemic and ongoing. The very equipment under arbitration scrutiny was known to be defective by Telstra’s top leadership.
• Faulty systems produced false data.• Victims were disbelieved or silenced.• Executives knew the truth but withheld it.• Government bodies failed to act.
🔗 Connecting the Dots: Telstra and the Horizon Scandal
Just as the British Post Office insisted Horizon was reliable—while prosecuting subpostmasters based on false data—Telstra allowed its legal team to deny faults that its CEO privately acknowledged. In both cases, these aren’t isolated failures—they’re institutional patterns.
Like Telstra's CEO Frank Blount as well as the entire Board of Telstra, as was the case with the British Post Office, they knew that the Fujitsu Horizon computer software was responsible for the incorrect billing accounting system, as evidenced in this YouTube link: https://youtu.be/MyhjuR5g1Mc.
Australia The Telstra COT Case: Faults Buried, Voices Silenced
Around the same time, in Australia, chronic faults plagued Telstra’s network—many linked to software and systemic technical failures. Businesses like yours, Alan, suffered devastating losses due to call failures, disconnections, and misleading fault reports. But instead of acknowledging the flaws, Telstra settled cases while concealing evidence of ongoing problems.
The most damning proof came from a briefcase left behind by Telstra technicians in 1993. Inside were handwritten notes confirming that faults had persisted for over 18 months—contradicting Telstra’s claim of a mere 16-day issue. This prompted AUSTEL (now ACMA) to conduct national surveys, revealing that up to 120,000 customers were experiencing similar problems.
Yet under pressure from Telstra, AUSTEL revised its findings, reducing the number of affected customers to “some hundreds.” The regulator bent to corporate influence, just as the UK’s oversight bodies had done with Horizon. No full investigation was launched into Telstra’s conduct, and the government failed to hold the corporation accountable—even as threats, document tampering, and legal intimidation mounted.
🔗 Common Threads: Faulty Systems, Broken Trust
These aren’t just stories of technical failure—they’re stories of institutional betrayal. Both scandals show how governments can be complicit through silence, how regulators can be swayed by corporate pressure, and how truth-tellers must fight for decades to be heard.
