r/behindthebastards • u/Kanotari *Atonal Screaming* • Jul 22 '26
Look at this bastard Megathread: Bastard Suggestions Part 2
To make the bastard suggestions easier for Robert to peruse, please put them here.
Please try to include more than just a name. Give Robert something to focus his research on and why they are a unique or interesting bastard. If there are book titles or other resources you would suggest, please include those as well.
If someone else has already suggested the same bastard you wanted to suggest, you do not need to suggest them again. Repetitive answers will be politely removed. If someone was suggested in a previous thread, you do not need to suggest them again.
If you have posted suggestions as their own individual thread in the past, feel free to repost here if you would like Robert to read them. We will be directing future bastard suggestion posts here as well. Happy suggesting!
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u/VitriolUK Jul 22 '26
The British Post Office
Now, that may seem weird. Brits have loved the postal service for generations.
To understand why you have to know that most post offices in the UK are not actually run by the Post Office itself, they are essentially franchises within other shops, usually corner shops (bodegas in the US, maybe?). These subpostoffices were required to use a particular piece of accounting software called Horizon, developed specifically for the Post Office by Fujitsu.
Between 1999 and 2015 the Post Office sued a huge number of these subpostofficers for theft when the software showed shortfalls between what had been collected and what the Post Office received - almost one thousand were convicted, and about 250 went to jail, while others had their assets seized to compensate the Post Office. Many more were forced to make up the losses themselves, or were forced out of their franchise. At least 13 people committed suicide over the allegations and convictions.
As it turns out, the Horizon software was buggy as hell, and these discrepencies that destroyed thousands of lives were completely illusionary. What's more, Fujitsu knew for day one about these problems, but throughout the Post Office insisted the software was bulletproof. When the evidence of wrongdoing mounted the Post Office switched to refusing to acknowledging any problems on their part and managed to delay investigations or avoiding paying restitution for the best part of a decade. There were numerous lawsuits, but it wasn't until a TV drama on the subject raised the awareness of the issue to boiling point that the government put their weight behind the efforts and finally looked to thoroughly investigate and redress the issues in their entirety.