Post Office sub-postmasters could be left waiting another five years for justice after police said they need millions more to continue their investigation. The Mailhas the story:
Around 1,000 branch managers were prosecuted, 236 went to jail and thousands more were wrongly accused over shortfalls in their tills caused by the faulty Horizon accounting system built by Japanese firm Fujitsu.
Some were left financially ruined and shunned by their communities, while others took their own lives in one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British history.
The scandal was brought to wider public attention in 2,024 by the award-winning ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office.
Around 10,000 victims are seeking financial redress, it emerged last year in an inquiry report amid an ongoing investigation.
But they are set for yet another delay after Commander Stephen Clayman, who is leading the inquiry, said the size of the investigation team needs boosting.
Commander Stephen Clayman, pictured in 2024
He insisted the group would need to nearly double from 111 to 210 officers in order to submit files to prosecutors by late next year or early 2028.
If these staffing reinforcements are not achieved, the investigation could run into the next decade, Mr Clayman admitted.
The inquiry is also facing financial difficulties, with its projected budget soaring to £19.3 million “for 2026/27 and beyond” against a Home Office special grant of only £2.8 million.
Police have so far interviewed just 13 of the 53 people under investigation, including seven suspects questioned this year. …
Faulty software run by Fujitsu wrongly suggested money was missing from branch accounts across the country.
The scandal – which took place between 1999 and 2015 – led to widespread anger after being brought to the public’s attention in a hit ITV drama.
Following an outcry, it was announced that victims would be awarded compensation.
So far, more than 11,500 claimants have received payments worth approximately £1.48 billion.
The total bill is expected to rise to around £2 billion once legal and administrative costs are taken into account. …
Yet the company behind the software is yet to contribute to the bill and has not yet agreed to a figure.
And in May, MPs said Fujitsu, the company behind the Post Office Horizon scandal, should be barred from Government contracts as it has not paid any compensation to victims.
The firm is “yet to contribute a penny” to the redress bill for the sub-postmasters who were wrongly convicted, they said.
The Business and Trade Committee said the company should not continue to benefit from taxpayers’ money. …
In January 2024, Fujitsu announced a self-imposed moratorium on bidding for new Government contracts.
However, it continues to supply its IT system to the Post Office and also to Government departments through a number of contracts.
Why only half? if you consider left-wing as favouring collectivist policies, then…
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15 Comments
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lulu-b45
3 months ago
Can’t be that difficult – sounds like deliberate delaying tactics to me…..to avoid even larger payouts
pjar
3 months ago
I can practically guarantee, the ‘investigation’ will cost a great deal more than the victims get… and, once the lawyers take their cut, you can probably double that.
psychedelia smith
3 months ago
Can they not just watch the fucking show?
mike r
3 months ago
So it’s getting kicked into the long grass again. Surely all it needs is to pull out the documentation where people in authority signed the system off, find these people, and lock them up. And pay the people whose lives were ruined.
Matt Dalby
3 months ago
What needs to be investigated at great length and massive cost?
The software is known to be faulty therefore the accused are innocent. This should be the end of the matter unless the Post Office has good reason to suspect one or two people genuinely had their hand in the till, with the number of people caught up in the scandal it’s possible there was literally one or two wrong ‘uns, in which case they should pass the evidence onto the police and there should be a thorough investigation.
We are surely beyond all that. It is not sub-postmasters who need to be investigated but the Post Office and those of its management and staff who persecuted them. The hearings showed quite clearly the PO and staff did not spend much time and effort on justice, just on getting convictions.
The most telling issue for me was this: if thefts on any material scale had taken place there would have to be charges to the P&L account. There was some evidence the PO was taking credits (profits) from branch balances, not losses.
I have not seen the terms of the contracts between the PO and Fujitsu and ICL but I strongly suspect the latter have no contractual responsibility. I expect to learn they had already, many times, warned the PO that a new IT system was needed. At the end of the day. the PO was the principal with statutory powers whereas Fujitsu was a contractor with no public obligations.
At this rate all the PO management will have enjoyed a long, well paid retirement long before the police catch up with them; at that point their lawyers will claim they are unfit to stand trial. Meanwhile, compensation to… Read more »
Not sure about that… from what I read, some time ago admittedly, my understanding is that Fujitsu warned there were bugs in the system but the PO brass decided not to spend any more on development and to press on regardless?
A relative, in a top management position in the pre- Paula Vennels period, appears to be suffering from an almost total failure of recollection. Maybe due to statins?
You might need some legislation but surely a small team would be enough to validate claims and pay out financial redress? If a few claimed more than was justified then that could be handled separately.
The software was originally by British firm ICL, effectively taken over by Fujitsu in 1998.
There is some suspicion that the programming was not just faulty but nefarious, e.g. allowing funds to be diverted to a (numbered?) ‘foreign’ bank account. A few £ – or even pennies- syphoned off from each of the thousands of branches each week would hardly have been noticed and would soon add up to a ‘life-changing’ amount for the dodgy programmer(s) involved.
However, I’m sure there’s no truth in the rumour that confronting postmasters with a hefty ‘shortfall’ was a cheap – indeed lucrative – way to terminate branches that were earmarked for closure.
MajorMajor
3 months ago
Interesting how the very same police investigation and judicial process can be lighteningly fast in some cases (Lucy Connolly) and glacially slow in others (Muslim rape gangs).
Nonetheless, of course, as Lord Herpes pointed out, any suggestion that the police and legal system is biased is absolutely disgusting!
JAMSTER
3 months ago
And then the covid jab mandates and severe adverse reactions / health destructions / deaths subsequent to the “warp speed” rollout — not to mention the criminal cover-ups.
EppingBlogger
3 months ago
When they have finished this 20 year old issue in 10 years time maybe they will start on the rape gang investigations.
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Can’t be that difficult – sounds like deliberate delaying tactics to me…..to avoid even larger payouts
I can practically guarantee, the ‘investigation’ will cost a great deal more than the victims get… and, once the lawyers take their cut, you can probably double that.
Can they not just watch the fucking show?
So it’s getting kicked into the long grass again. Surely all it needs is to pull out the documentation where people in authority signed the system off, find these people, and lock them up. And pay the people whose lives were ruined.
What needs to be investigated at great length and massive cost?
The software is known to be faulty therefore the accused are innocent. This should be the end of the matter unless the Post Office has good reason to suspect one or two people genuinely had their hand in the till, with the number of people caught up in the scandal it’s possible there was literally one or two wrong ‘uns, in which case they should pass the evidence onto the police and there should be a thorough investigation.
We are surely beyond all that. It is not sub-postmasters who need to be investigated but the Post Office and those of its management and staff who persecuted them. The hearings showed quite clearly the PO and staff did not spend much time and effort on justice, just on getting convictions.
The most telling issue for me was this: if thefts on any material scale had taken place there would have to be charges to the P&L account. There was some evidence the PO was taking credits (profits) from branch balances, not losses.
I have not seen the terms of the contracts between the PO and Fujitsu and ICL but I strongly suspect the latter have no contractual responsibility. I expect to learn they had already, many times, warned the PO that a new IT system was needed. At the end of the day. the PO was the principal with statutory powers whereas Fujitsu was a contractor with no public obligations.
At this rate all the PO management will have enjoyed a long, well paid retirement long before the police catch up with them; at that point their lawyers will claim they are unfit to stand trial. Meanwhile, compensation to… Read more »
And Fujitsu needs to be forced to pay compensation to everyone involved.
Not sure about that… from what I read, some time ago admittedly, my understanding is that Fujitsu warned there were bugs in the system but the PO brass decided not to spend any more on development and to press on regardless?
A relative, in a top management position in the pre- Paula Vennels period, appears to be suffering from an almost total failure of recollection. Maybe due to statins?
You might need some legislation but surely a small team would be enough to validate claims and pay out financial redress? If a few claimed more than was justified then that could be handled separately.
Absolutely agree the presumption 0f innocence DOES still apply surely?
Usual British state shitshow, what a freakin’ shambles.
The software was originally by British firm ICL, effectively taken over by Fujitsu in 1998.
There is some suspicion that the programming was not just faulty but nefarious, e.g. allowing funds to be diverted to a (numbered?) ‘foreign’ bank account. A few £ – or even pennies- syphoned off from each of the thousands of branches each week would hardly have been noticed and would soon add up to a ‘life-changing’ amount for the dodgy programmer(s) involved.
However, I’m sure there’s no truth in the rumour that confronting postmasters with a hefty ‘shortfall’ was a cheap – indeed lucrative – way to terminate branches that were earmarked for closure.
Interesting how the very same police investigation and judicial process can be lighteningly fast in some cases (Lucy Connolly) and glacially slow in others (Muslim rape gangs).
Nonetheless, of course, as Lord Herpes pointed out, any suggestion that the police and legal system is biased is absolutely disgusting!
And then the covid jab mandates and severe adverse reactions / health destructions / deaths subsequent to the “warp speed” rollout — not to mention the criminal cover-ups.
When they have finished this 20 year old issue in 10 years time maybe they will start on the rape gang investigations.