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topicnews · September 3, 2024

What is the “Mr. Bates vs. Post Office Horizon” scandal about?

What is the “Mr. Bates vs. Post Office Horizon” scandal about?

Jones played Alan Bates, who, along with his partner Suzanne Sercombe, used all his savings to buy a post office in Llandudno, North Wales.

Her life – and that of many others – is turned upside down when a new computer system called Horizon is installed in stores across the country.

Due to errors in technology, numerous postmasters were wrongly accused of fraud, theft and accounting fraud between 1999 and 2015.

Since the broadcast of “Mr. Bates vs. The Post Office,” 50 new potential victims have contacted lawyers.

The Post Office is wholly state-owned and there is a public inquiry into Horizon.

During a visit to Oxford on Sunday, the Prime Minister said the British government wanted to do “everything in its power because this was appalling” and “should never have happened”.

What is the Post Office Horizon IT scandal about?

Between 1999 and 2015, the British Post Office relentlessly pursued post office branch operators across the UK for suspected theft, fraud and false accounting based on information from its Horizon IT system, installed in the late 1990s.

And this despite the fact that it was known that there had been deficiencies in the central accounting software since 2010 at the latest.

In total, about 3,500 branch owners were wrongly accused of siphoning off money from their businesses. More than 700 of them were prosecuted by the post office, despite protesting their innocence and citing problems with the software in their defense.

The scandal is often described as the worst miscarriage of justice in British history.

What damage did it cause?

Hundreds of post office operators ended up on criminal records and were sentenced to punishments ranging from community service and electronic ankle bracelets to prison sentences. Many were left financially struggling or even bankrupt after their convictions. Even those who did not go to court had to raise money to make up nonexistent deficits.

Victims and their families suffered severe stress and, in many cases, illness. The scandal is linked to at least four suicides.

The Post Office, which has investigative and prosecution powers without having to involve the police, has for years defended itself through legal means against accusations and press reports pointing to problems with the IT system developed by the Japanese company Fujitsu.

In 2019, a group of postal workers won a case in the High Court that found their convictions wrongful and the Horizon IT system to blame. In 2021, the verdict was upheld on appeal, overturning the convictions of some workers who were wrongly accused of committing crimes, paving the way for compensation.

But even after the deficiencies in the computer system were identified, the post office still rejected several objections from the operators.

What about those who continued the prosecution?

So far, no postal worker has been punished for the scandal. On Friday, the Metropolitan Police confirmed for the first time that the Post Office is being investigated for “potential fraud offences” committed during the scandal.

The Met is already investigating two former Fujitsu experts who appeared as witnesses in the trials for perjury and perverting the course of justice.

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