Somebody should have picked up on Post Office IT and Shrewsbury maternity scandals as they unfolded - Yorkshire Post Letters

Somebody somewhere should surely have noticed.

The terrible situation of the Post Office convictions, when all along the fault was a result of computer failings.

It was followed by the heartbreaking reports of more than 200 babies and nine mothers having died as a result of failings at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust.

It is now reported that police are looking into no fewer than 701 cases of inadequate baby care at that maternity facility.

In the first place, how could these situations reach such staggeringly high proportions?

Seventy-two convictions of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses have been quashed. Many actually served time in prison.

At Telford, hundreds died. Anyone who has experienced the joy of becoming a parent can reflect how appalling the situation must be when the baby dies, much less the mother.

These situations built up over a number of years. Surely someone, somewhere, must have seen the reports and the figures mounting?

Why did no one at the hospital trust appear to have seen the mounting death toll reported and realise that this was so unusual that the circumstances needed urgent investigation?

Why did no one at the Post Office appear to have seen the accumulating fraud reports and realise that their recruitment processes were so flawed that they had managed to put in places of trust mounting numbers of thieves and fraudsters at hundreds of post offices where there were found to be large deficits of cash?

Especially, why did someone collating these reports not notice that in no case had any apparently stolen money been found in their staff’s possession?

In my view, it is the people who had all the information funnelled into their offices at HQ who should be first to be investigated.

In the second place, where these management failings resulted in more than 200 avoidable deaths, are charges of corporate manslaughter being prepared?