PRESUMPTIVE LOGIC (APPLIED EPISTEMOLOGY)

[Mick Harper]

Well, well... 327 views and 16 comments in the first three hours. That's more than I've had in three months with Medium (and three years on the AEL). Not terribly enlightening but I've decided to stash them all here for what they're worth (a lot to my morale).

Ali Quis
Small correction: the green note does not say ‘I AM EVIL, I DID THIS'. And calling it a 'post-it note confession' or ‘unquestionably the star exhibit' at the trial is seriously misleading. See previous blog.

dcm539 Replying to Ali Quis
Indeed, if that was the star exhibit then Lucy would be walking free. The post-it-note was a rubbish piece of evidence.

Mick Harper Replying to dcm539
I'm not so sure about this. Juries are strange beasts. They will sit woodenly through weeks of forensics then seize on something of 'human interest'. The treatment of the case by the British media after the trial seemed to concern itself with nothing else.
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Ross Hendry
Patsy - as Lucy clearly knew, and told the court. Unfortunately the court wasn't minded to allow an evil nurse to implicate management. I mean, whatever next?

Mary Smyth Replying to Ross Hendry
Yes, Lucy named 2 doctors who were working against her. How many hours did police spend grilling those 2 doctors? I'd really like to know. Was it zero hours?
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dcm539
"Detective Superintendent Hughes didn’t get where he was by taking the word of civilians, no matter how eminent. He was by no means convinced Letby was a suspect." How do you know this? I have had the conviction for some time that at the very outset the police were led to believe (by the gang of four) that there was a killer on the ward and that the killer was Lucy Letby. They then set out to build a case against her. You overvalue the intelligence - and integrity - of police officers.

Mick Harper Replying to dcm539
"He was by no means convinced Letby was a suspect" is a direct quote from SkyNews which is normally reliable, though in this case I assume they meant 'prime suspect' or something similar. SOT have not used my original system of attribution, though it is not particularly important. The graphs are not mine.

gill Replying to Mick Harper
What people say today need not be the exact truth, anyway. But anyway: of course Hughes wasn’t *immediately certain*. But he very rapidly got himself completely convinced, with the help of dr Dewi Evans, who was totally unqualified for the job he got himself hired for. The police then investigated intensively for five years, and found … *nothing*. Mainly a heap of pretty irrelevant and multi-interpretable old paper. Plus vague and conflicting memories … but no memory of Lucy actually doing anything remotely sinister.

Mick Harper Replying to gill
The detection of crime by its nature -- and the small amount of resources we put into it -- mean inevitably that tunnel vision has to be used. The judicial system is meant to keep the process honest. Sometimes it doesn't. I describe a similar example here https://medium.com/@mickxharper/organised-crime-in-the-tory-shires-cdb799bfe1cc
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Unknown member
It hardly matters what readers reply when SOT censors what it allows to be seen. Hardly science is it?

dcm539 Replying to Unknown member
Explain yourself?

Mary Smyth Replying to dcm539
Dear unknown member, Its my understanding that its perfectly OK to make your comments here on 'science on trial' and to do so anonymously. But please, just give us one piece of evidence that you rely on to make your comments? Or, the separate pieces that amount to something. Provide your evidence and - unless it is something new - we may be able to show you how its not evidence at all of what you purport it to be. That's if you wish to engage in discussion?
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Unknown member
notice the name of the member SOT gives to people who have open minds and do not blindly suck up the lop sided Lucy is innocent stance.

dcm539 Replying to Unknown member
So you believe that Lucy is guilty. Justify that.
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Mary Smyth
How was the chief expert witness evaluated for the role? Was this role advertised to invite other candidates so that the best could be selected? Were qualifications, experience (and recency of qualifications and experience), any prior relationship between candidate and witnesses, their motivation and any possible hidden agendas ... scrutinised? References checked? Is this the selection process? OR, was the first person to come forward asking for the role ... selected?

[Mick Harper]

Since I was answering a bunch of questions I figured it would be as well if people knew why, so I asked SoT to stick my name at the head of it. They did but not in the way I asked and then changed the name of my paper for good measure

[Mick Harper]

Ali Quis
Your reply to the other person who commented does not address the points I made in the first comment on your blog. Perhaps I was not clear enough. You call the note a confession. The previous blog devotes a lot of careful analysis towards arguing that this is not the case and that the notion of a confession was not only not explicitly suggested at the trial but is nothing more than a lazy trope in the hysterical mass media. If you disagree with this and think that it is a confession, that’s fine, but if you don’t give an argument as to why the previous blog is wrong then people will think you have just fallen for (and are perpetuating) that lazy trope. If you don’t disagree then it should at least be called a ‘so-called’ or ‘apparent’ confession.

Secondly you say that the note was ‘unquestionably the star exhibit’ at the trial. Again the previous blog has made a point of delimiting exactly the effect that it may have had, including detailing how the amount of time devoted to it was minuscule compared to what one would think from what the media said about it. If you have a different analysis, then say so, but again you give the impression again of just following the mass media line.

Thirdly the note simply doesn’t say what you say it does: a) it is inaccurate in small (but important) details, actually misquoting the note, b) you string together elements from the note that simply repeat the hysterical media selective quoting c) what are the words ‘Lucy Letby’ doing in the middle of this? Where do they come from? Details are important and particularly so for a site that claims to be concerned with science and accuracy.

If you disagree with the previous blog on the green note, then that is fair enough and part of reasoned debate. But if so you need to say why and to give your reasons, not write as though you simply haven’t read what is already published. The green note had a great deal of attention in the media and its standing there has had a significant effect in the public imagination and in framing a widespread sense of Lucy Letby’s obvious guilt. This needs to be challenged because it is fundamentally misconceived, and that’s what the previous blog is all about.

Your last section seriously undermines this and in my view should not have been published in this lazy and ill-considered form. At best it is poorly formulated and at worst plain wrong. This is bad for SoT and bad for distinguishing sound evidence from the completely bogus in establishing Lucy Letby’s guilt or innocence. (SoT blog editors please note.)

Mick Harper Replying to Ali Quis
I did not reply to your initial post, All Quis (and others), because I had nothing to say. Everything in my account is taken from a single -- but generally trustworthy -- media account. Your corrections of fact are entirely welcome. You (and others) will know far more about the case than I do. My specialty, such as it is, is Applied Epistemology, the study of how knowledge is formed and transmitted in the public arena. Hence, when I say the note is a 'confession' or the 'star exhibit' these are judgements of mine based on media reports. I am not arguing for Lucy Letby's innocence, though I happen to believe she is, but why she was tried and found guilty.

Ali Quis Replying to Mick Harper
My comment about replying to my blog was not directed at you, but at Ramon SM who says he disagrees with me but doesn't say what about or why. No reason at all why you should have posted to it. But surely, as an 'applied epistemologist' you know better than to take ANY media source as 'trustworthy' without checking it for accuracy on the basis of your own research. My own blog was aimed at doing exactly this. The very fact that the most detailed analysis of the note (that I know of) was published in the blog immediately before yours on a site like this should immediately give you a prima-facie better source to start from than any 'generally trustworthy' media source when it comes to forming judgements of your own.

Relying on the media for accuracy in relation to the green note without even giving your source is like relying on Dewi Evans for accuracy about causes of death in neonates. I'm not claiming infallibility for my blog but if anyone had picked up genuine errors I would have wanted to make immediate corrections. This site is about 'science', which is not about infallibility or everyone's opinion being valid, but about being open to the possibility of error and correcting it when it happens in order to progress the general body of knowledge, which is not the possession of one person. In the meantime the ending of your blog still perpetuates the errors I have raised. I notice that several other posters have picked up others.

Mick Harper Replying to Ali Quis
I was not writing for this forum, or for any 'scientific' or 'forensic' audience, but here https://medium.com/@mickxharper/lucy-letby-baby-killer-or-patsy-b4c1e35d010b for a mainly American audience with little or no a priori knowledge of the case. The errors were taken from a responsible source and did not, in my judgement, require further cross-checking. They do not seem to me of sufficient gravity to affect the overall argument in my own piece though they may well be for other, more specific, purposes.

dcm539 Replying to Ali Quis
I agree completely. It is the police's and prosecution's game to convict by all and any dubious means possible. We are way above that and have neither the need nor motivation - we believe in justice - to play the same game. If Lucy is guilty on the basis of sound evidence, then let it be, but she was not convicted on that basis. Lucy is not Elvis (or some other superstar) right or wrong, she is an ordinary young woman who has suffered an extraordinary injustice.
 

[Mick Harper]

Science on Trial has completely rewritten my ending, substituting several completely new paragraphs of their own, without alerting either me or the reader. This goes a long way beyond re-titling, re-paragraphing, obscuring quotes and adding graphs. I don't think I've ever come across this before. It may be acceptable for a campaigning site to do this but I think it's maybe time to cut links with such an organisation.

Even so, with eight hundred views and fifty-odd comments a worthwhile exercise. For me, that is. Once can only hope it contributes to Lucy Letby's cause.

[Mick Harper]

Cat Fight!

[Mick Harper]

I am engaged in an interesting AE campaign over on Medium. I'll post it up verbatim and as it unfolded because I am hoping to push the AE message via it. It is written for a mainly American audience but aimed at the British end. This was first posting

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Post Office Scandal Scandal
One aspect of the Post Office scandal is being resolutely ignored.

For those outside the benefices of the British Post Office, the story so far

1840: Britain invents the modern Post Office, which is why it is the only country in the world without its name on its stamps. Well done, Britain
1999: The Post Office starts installing the Horizon software system made by Fujitsu of Japan to simplify the work of sub-postmasters, people licensed to run small post offices as retail units. Well done, Japan.
1999: Sub-postmasters start noticing that what Horizon says they should be sending to the Post Office at the end of the day’s business is not matching what’s in the till. Well done, sub-postmasters
1999: The Post Office tells each one of them they are the only one experiencing any difficulty so there is no way the Horizon system can be wrong and, we’re very sorry, but you’ll have to make up the shortfall out of your own pocket. Well done, the Post Office
1999–2009: Sub-postmasters start running out of money and start going to prison for theft, false accounting etc. Well, done British judges
2009: Computer Weekly publishes a story about how crap the Horizon software is. Well done, Computer Weekly
2010: Government, Post Office, judiciary consider what to do and decide to sit on their hands and hope it all goes away. Well done, hands
2018: Head of Post Office given the CBE for services to the Post Office. Well done, the British honours system
2024: Television company broadcasts programme about it all, shit hit fans. Well, done ITV
2024: Ex-head of Post Office gives CBE back. Well done, Paula Vennells
2024: But you know all that. Here’s the bit only I know (as far as I can tell). Well done, me

If the software is reporting an incorrect figure it follows, as likely as not, that it will be under-reporting the money owed to the Post Office as well as over-reporting it. We have been regaled with the many thousands of times Horizon over-reported — to the vast misfortune of sub-postmasters. We have not heard (leastways, I haven’t) of a single case when it under-reported. Presumably to the great good fortune of the sub-postmaster.

Why is that important? Well, the very first time it happened and if it was reported to the Post Office, the Post Office would have known immediately that the Horizon software must be in the frame because there is no way in the world a sub-postmaster is going to steal Post Office money and report the fact to them when there was absolutely no need to. Once human error has been ruled out by their inspectors, the only other possibility is that Horizon is reporting false figures. The whole thing would have been cleared up in 1999.

But nobody did. They may, however, be quaking in their beds now.

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That was the only idea I had at the time but then our old friend, Marcus Welford M.D commented.

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

Because hardly anyone reads my stuff on Medium, I had to assume people wouldn't have read the first piece but I had to bear in mind people who had. So anyway...

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It’s Whack-a-Mole Time. Any Mole.
It’s official: the Post Office Scandal is now a Moral Crusade

In Applied Epistemology, we have various rules of thumb when trying to solve problems. For instance, when it comes to human beings, we always proceed on the basis that everyone is doing their job. They may not be doing them well but at least they’re doing them. Another assumption is that people are doing them honestly. They may not be paragons of virtue but they’re not out-and-out crooks. These assumptions apply to algorithms as well.

We may, in the end, conclude that one or other of these assumptions is incorrect but we do so reluctantly because for the vast preponderance of human activity, people are just doing their jobs and they ain’t crooks. That’s a fact. So why is annunciating these simple self-evident truths important?

It is because, when faced with a problem they can’t immediately solve, human beings have a tendency to start hunting for people who aren’t doing their jobs and/or are crooks. It’s a bit weird but that’s what they do and it’s important because once human beings have come up with satisfying solutions, they stop looking. They most certainly turn a deaf ear to anyone who is.

When a software program was installed into privately run and owned sub-post offices in 1999, it started reporting, at the end of the working day, that what was in the till was not matching what the software was saying ought to be in the till. The Post Office, an august and venerable institution answering to the British government, could not initially solve the problem so it decided either the sub-postmasters weren’t doing their jobs and/or they were stealing the money.

This situation lasted for many years and resulted in a lot of sub-postmasters losing their life savings and/or going to prison. Eventually the common people, an august and venerable institution answering to the British government, called a halt. They decided it was unlikely that a long procession of hitherto hardworking, law-abiding people would turn into incompetent shopkeepers bent on stealing from their own shops. So they blamed the Post Office. The bigwigs at the Post Office, they averred, weren’t doing their job and/or were ravening wolves bent on persecuting innocent souls to line their own pockets.

This situation lasted for many years until everyone fastened on a new set of villains, the employees of Fujitsu, the people who had supplied and operated the software. They hadn’t been doing their jobs and/or were hardened criminals taking everyone for a ride.

So now Applied Epistemologists will have to take a hand and sort the whole mess out. They are going to assume everyone was doing their jobs (as best they were able) and nobody is a crook (though not necessarily paragons of virtue). But because nobody ever listens to us, I will use that time-honoured device, the cliffhanger, and stop at this point. I shall post up the correct solution when you are all not on the edge of your seats.

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The denouement, hopefully, tomorrow. It's rather good even if I do say so myself. [Please indicate any maladroit phrasing or incorrect data, I can change the Medium posts with no sweat.

[Grant]

My guess is that the Post Office suspected that most fraud by postmasters was not detected. When the new Horizon system started "finding" crooks they were very happy.

No-one asked themselves why a postmaster would immediately use the new system to commit more fraud. Surely any true criminal would have got used to the system before starting to use it dishonestly. And any honest postmaster would not have been turned into a crook by the new system.

No-one asked these bigger questions. That was the job of someone higher up the food chain. But at the very top was a classic establishment figure who had no experience of doing the actual job.

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

The Post Office Furore Solved
It was somebody you never thought of

You may recall from my previous post that only two assumptions are being made: (1) everyone is doing their job (2) everyone is honest. How does this square up to the statistical universe of (in round figures and very approximately)

* 25,000 sub-postmasters
* 1,000 having 'trouble' with their Horizon software
* Millions of daily tallies that were correct
* A few thousand that weren't

Not very well. All the sub-postmasters were doing much the same things, so why was only a small, if substantial, proportion getting it wrong? And why did they keep on getting it wrong despite their  --  and the Post Office's --  best efforts? The Horizon software was doing its job, there were millions of correct tallies testifying to it. If the software had glitches why could nobody find them, and why were they only happening, over and over again, to the same hapless sub-postmasters?

The first clue: We know (now) the Horizon software was registering wrong figures but here's the thing: it only registered figures that were too high, never too low. How do we know this? Because if it was low, the sub-postmaster would have known he had made a spurious profit, what was in his tell was more than the Post Office was asking for. Since we are assuming basic honesty, even if a few sub-postmasters kept quiet about their little windfall, one or other of them, sooner or later, would have reported this to the Post Office.

As soon as this occurred, the Post Office would have been alerted that prima facie there was something wrong because the sub-postmaster couldn't be accused of theft, he wanted to give money to the Post Office not steal it from them! It might be human error but once a few examples came in and some inspectors had been sent out, that can be dispensed with. 

The second clue: what kind of software program reports erroneous figures but only in one direction, upwards? This cannot be built into the software because we are assuming competence and honesty on the part of Fujitsu software engineers. It might get in as a glitch and, if the sub-postmasters were being blamed, it might not get red flagged but not only is all this highly unlikely in itself, not considering it subsequently would show gross incompetence (if not dishonesty) on the part of the Post Office, Fujitsu, the prosecutory authorities and the courts. It is though a racing certainty it will be the conclusion the Official Enquiry will come to.

The third clue: what happened to the missing money? Eventually it amounted to millions of pounds. Nobody knows hat happened to it. The forensic accountants called in by the various parties were stumped though they all took refuge in 'it ended up boosting the Post Office's bottom line' as if that is a satisfactory explanation. It may be satisfying to the baying hordes but it is not satisfactory. 

Because it would mean the Post Office's accountants were not doing their job. Money does not disappear. It always leaves a paper trail. The Post Office is a vast operation so, yes, some paper trails might get elided, a few more might disappear from oversight and incompetence, but when it is is thousands of different sums from a thousand different sub-post office tills, it can only mean there is no paper trail for any of them. So why not, that is the question everyone should be asking.

The fourth clue: how secure is a system of money transfer which has to be accessed by twenty-five thousand people without any a priori skills in computers? Is it (a) secure (b) very secure or (c) totally secure? I'd plump for (c) personally. This is after all a de facto government department. That's the one the Pentagon uses and gets hacked regularly by teenagers in bedrooms. But I digress.

[Mick Harper]

Let me ask you: what's your idea of a perfect crime? Well, this is mine. 

1. I look for someone who is competently running a small business and prides himself on his honesty. He (or she throughout) believes he is providing a public service, no less. He wouldn't dream of doing anything else. I am looking for proud people. I am looking for little people.
2. I find one. I wait for him to send money to one of his suppliers then I intercept the payment, cream a bit off the top, and send the rest of the money on to the supplier.
3. The supplier will naturally complain and ask in no uncertain terms for the rest of their money.
4. Now comes the bit I'm looking for, the bit that creates the perfect crime. The geezer sighs, checks all the figures over and over, worries through the night, then makes up the shortfall out of his own pocket. 
5. I have discovered someone who, when money goes missing, doesn't go to the police, doesn't sue the supplier, doesn't change his supplier, doesn't change his line of work. Just goes right on as if nothing has happened.
6. He blames himself, he blames the software, he blames the Post Office.
7. The Post Office is blaming him.
8. But nobody is blaming me. I know this because the next time, absolutely nothing has changed. Would you adam-and-eve that? Money is going walkabout and the suckers just carry on regardless. I can't believe my luck.
9. So I do it again. And again. And again. Eventually the pigeon will be ruined but the supplier is a government body so making money, losing money, it's all the same to them.
10. What's really nice is no-one is looking for me. Not then, not now. Why not? They've decided no crime has been committed. They're even holding a public enquiry into how anyone could have ever suspected a crime was committed. Good grief.

So now the only bit missing is discovering how the money is being creamed off. We got a clue during that sequence in the TV programme and which couldn't have been made up because it happened when the sub-postmaster was actually on the phone to the PO Helpline, so there's a recording of it. A number increased on her screen as she was looking at it. But she only knew that because she was looking at the screen and she was only looking at the screen because she was talking to the Helpline. So…

So I'll cream off the money during the day when all the figures are changing constantly unseen as transactions occur across the counter and adjust the figure accordingly in the early hours. Or something, we never did Computer Crime at the school I went to. It was all shoplifting in my day. /ends

[Mick Harper]

One thought I've just had that I might spatchcock in. Sub-post offices are peculiar in that (a) they are always handling large sums of money but (b) they are always having temporaries working behind the counter. (At least, mine is.) The sub-post office has to stay open, come rain come shine, but the sub-postmaster can't be there, come rain come shine. Under the Horizon scheme, as I understand it, anybody behind the counter has to have the password to use it. Now one thing everyone does is deny their passwords have been compromised. Come on, we've all done it.

But, on reflection, I don't think that's the route. I think it is more likely that a bunch of hackers on the Dark Web set out to crack the system and enjoyed themselves for ten, fifteen, twenty years. Estimates vary. Never killing the golden goose by taking too many golden eggs.

[Hatty]

Hacking into Horizon seems a more plausible explanation for the missing sums than the usual 'bugs in the system' version.

A journalist called Nick Wallis has been blogging on the subject of where the Post Office money went, coming up with a list of suggestions. No. 7 on his list is

[Mick Harper]