What next in the Post Office scandal?

A public inquiry examining the wrongful convictions of hundreds of sub-postmasters and mistresses – described as the UK’s most widespread miscarriage of justice in history – finally began this week. 

A total of 736 sub-postmasters were wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting between 2000 and 2014 – an average of one a week. The prosecutions were based on information from a Fujitsu computer system called Horizon, which was installed by the Post Office in its branches in 1999.

Bugs in the software meant that it falsely reported shortfalls running into thousands of pounds. This was down to a “hopelessly stupid programming mistake”, said Tim Worstall on CapX. If the internet connection dropped out when a transaction was being sent, “which wasn’t unusual back in the 90s”, and a postmaster re-sent it, Horizon would log it as a new transaction and over-calculate the amount of money collected.

Turned life ‘upside down’

The Post Office ignored evidence of IT errors and mounted prosecutions against countless innocent people. One was Harjinder Butoy, who ran the post office in Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, with his wife. Butoy was sentenced to three years and four months in jail for stealing £208,000 – and didn’t have his wrongful conviction overturned in the High Court until 2021.

Speaking about the public inquiry, Butoy told the BBC that he wanted to see “someone on the other side to be charged and jailed like I was”.

Under suspicion, some desperate postmasters tried to compensate for the system’s mistakes using their own money, even mortgaging their homes to do so. Many were shunned by their communities, who believed them untrustworthy, while others struggled to find new work.

Baljit Sethi, who ran a post office in Essex for 22 years, told the inquiry that the software error turned his life “upside down”. At one stage he contemplated suicide because he felt like a “failure” for being financially unable to help his children through university, reported the FT. 

One wrongly accused postmaster, Martin Griffiths, took his own life in 2013. 

Concerns raised

For decades, MPs, journalists and campaign groups including the Justice for Sub-postmasters Alliance (JFSA) have raised concerns about this miscarriage of justice. 

Article source: https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/crime/955762/what-next-in-the-post-office-scandal