Post Office suspected of more injustices over
Horizon pilot scheme
Exclusive: software believed to have resulted in
prosecutions even before full system rollout in 1999
Rajeev Syal
Home affairs editor
Sun 7 Jan
2024 20.58 GMT
The Post
Office is suspected of wrongly prosecuting dozens more operators who took part
in a pilot scheme of the faulty Horizon system, the Guardian has been told.
Amid
growing anger over the treatment of postmasters whose lives have been ruined in
the scandal, Whitehall sources have confirmed that a precursor scheme was
rolled out in 1995 and 1996 to hundreds of branches in north-east England.
After
taking part in the pilot, at least two branch managers were prosecuted despite
protesting that there was a glitch in the system, a senior Labour MP has
claimed.
The
development comes after a national outcry over the treatment of post office
operators between 1999 and 2015 after faulty Fujitsu software made it appear as
though money was missing from their outlets.
This week,
an ITV drama has highlighted the scandal and heightened demands for the
government to take action.
Hundreds
were jailed or left bankrupt and at least four people took their own lives.
Most victims have not received compensation.
Conservative
MPs are expected to return to parliament this week demanding action.
David
Davis, the former cabinet minister, said the government is facing a “tidal
wave” of public support for the victims in the wake of the ITV drama Mr Bates
vs the Post Office.
Kevan
Jones, the Labour MP who is a member of the Horizon compensation advisory
board, said he was told by Post Office managers that the Horizon pilot scheme
was rolled out to 300 branches in 1995.
“I have met
one of the post office managers who was pursued by the Post Office after taking
part in the pilot and then accused of mishandling money. There were protests
that the system was faulty and the protests were ignored. They were obviously
not a crook and should never have been prosecuted,” said Jones.
Jones said
he believed there may be dozens more victims of the pilot scheme and said the
Post Office should have disclosed the existence of the pilot years ago. “Amid
the controversy and scandal over the Horizon system, no one from the Post
Office thought to mention that they had this pilot scheme which also resulted
in prosecutions.
“The
question we have to ask is how many more have been prosecuted and how many more
lives have been ruined. It’s what we have come to expect from the Post Office –
they hide the truth and the sub postmasters take the blame.”
Jones told
the Commons in December he had met a former Post Office manager who was
protesting their innocence after being prosecuted and convicted under the
Horizon pilot scheme.
“When all
the publicity came out about Horizon, why did no one come forward and say: ‘By
the way, do you realise we had another system on the go at the beginning and we
prosecuted people under that system?’,” he told MPs.
Kevin
Hollinrake, the trade minister, replied: “I understand that was a pilot scheme
for Horizon so we are confident that our current compensation schemes can
deliver outcomes and compensation for the individuals he refers to.”
A Post
Office spokesperson did not respond to questions asking how many people were
prosecuted under the pilot scheme and why prosecutions under the pilot were not
disclosed until December.
“Kevan
Jones MP raised this matter on the floor of the House of Commons on 19 December
and the current postal affairs minister responded to his questions regarding
Horizon installations in the north-east of England. We regularly meet with the
Horizon Advisory Board which Mr Jones sits on and is supported by the
Department for Business and Industrial Trade and will answer any queries he has
as best as we are able to,” a spokesperson said.
Earlier on
Sunday, the prime minister raised the possibility that operators whose lives
have been ruined by the Horizon scandal could be exonerated under plans being
considered by the government.
Asked
whether the justice secretary was looking at plans to exonerate the victims or
take away the Post Office’s ability to prosecute, Rishi Sunak said: “The
justice secretary is looking at the things that you’ve described. It wouldn’t
be right to pre-empt that process, obviously there’s legal complexity in all of
those things, but he is looking at exactly those areas.”
In an
appearance on BBC One’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme, he added:
“Everyone has been shocked by watching what they have done over the past few
days and beyond and it is an appalling miscarriage of justice.”
Earlier
this week, ITV began broadcasting Mr Bates vs the Post Office, a four-part
drama charting the scandal and the fight for justice by wrongly prosecuted
branch owner-operators.
Fifty new
potential victims have contacted lawyers this week, including five who wish to
appeal against their convictions.
Davis, the
former cabinet minister, called for a series of measures to speed up justice
for the post office operators.
He called
for the government to fast-track the quashing of convictions using the key fact
that operators from Fujitsu had access to post office operator’s terminals,
raising questions over the safety of every conviction.
“The fact
that they could access each computer means that each conviction is unsafe,” he
said.
He urged
the government to intervene to stop the Post Office from using “very expensive
lawyers” to block and question compensation packages for victims.
“These very
expensive lawyers are protecting the shareholders but there’s only one
shareholder and that is the government. So we could make a decision to pull
back from challenging obvious compensation claims.
“If the
Post Office goes bankrupt, and it has to be refinanced by the government, so be
it,” he told the Guardian.
The
Metropolitan police has been looking into potential offences of perjury and
perverting the course of justice in relation to investigations and prosecutions
carried out by the Post Office.
Two people
have been interviewed under caution but nobody has been arrested since the
investigation was launched in January 2020.
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