Today begins the long awaited inquiry into the Post Office Horizon IT scandal with testimony being taken from former subpostmasters and subpostmistresses (SPMs) who have been wrongly accused of false accounting due to IT errors in a system they were required to use by the Post Office.
Former SPM Baljit Sethi told the inquiry today that “I knew there was something wrong with the system but no-one wanted to know that.”
The scandal arose from the installation of the “Horizon” computer system in Post Offices around the country which started in 1999. Within weeks it was reported that the system was reporting unexplained imbalances in accounts. The Post Office maintained that these imbalances were not due to the computer system but rather due to errors by the users.
The Post Office would demand the settling of these imbalances leaving SPMs out of pocket, where they refused the Post Office would prosecute. Between 2000 and 2014, more than 700 sub-postmasters were wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting due to a flaw in a computer system Horizon.
In total, 72 SPMs have had criminal convictions overturned. Counsel to the inquiry, Jason Beer QC, said the prosecutions of SPMs could be “the worst miscarriage of justice in recent British legal history… Lives were ruined, families were torn apart, families were made homeless and destitute.”
The inquiry will run for the rest of 2022. The Post Offices has said that “In addressing the past, our first priority is that full, fair and final compensation is provided and we are making good progress”.
Picture Credit: John H Darch