OPINION - Post Office scandal: cash for convictions is by far the worst revelation yet

Query: which element of the great Post Office Horizon scandal is the most outrageous? Your call. Was it the way that the Post Office bosses unquestioningly put their faith in the infallibility of technology over the integrity of some 900 people of previously good character? Was it the way ministers — Ed Davey, say — put his trust in the Post Office’s sovereign right to run its own affairs, over the complaints of people like Alan Bates? Was it the way the Post Office was — who knew? — effectively authorised to run its own criminal investigation? Was it the implacability of the system in the face of the protests of hundreds of bewildered sub-postmasters and mistresses?