What is the Horizon IT scandal?
Between 1999 and 2015 the Post Office relentlessly pursued operators of sub-post offices across the UK for alleged theft, fraud and false accounting based on information from its Horizon IT system installed in the late 1990s.
That was despite knowing that from at least 2010 onwards that there were faults in the centralised accounting software.
In total, about 3,500 branch owner-operators were wrongly accused of taking money from their businesses, with more than 700 prosecuted by the Post Office despite protesting their innocence and raising issues with the software in their defence.
The scandal is frequently described as the most widespread miscarriage of justice in UK history.
What harm did it cause?
Hundreds of sub-post office operators ended up with criminal records and punishments ranging from having to do community service and wear electronic tags to being jailed. Many were left struggling financially or even bankrupt following convictions. Even those who did not go to court had to drum up money to cover nonexistent shortfalls.
Victims and their families were severely hit by stress, and in many cases illness, with the scandal linked to at least four suicides.
For years the Post Office, which has the power to investigate and prosecute without the need for police involvement, continued to defend itself against accusations and press reports highlighting problems with the IT system, developed by Japan’s Fujitsu, including through legal means.
In 2019, a group of post office operators won a high court case in which their convictions were ruled wrongful and the Horizon IT system was ruled to be at fault.
In 2021, the ruling was upheld on appeal, quashing the convictions of some workers who were wrongly accused of committing crimes, paving the way for compensation.
However, even since the computer system was found to be defective, the Post Office has still opposed a number of appeals by operators.
What kind of justice have victims got since?
By last month, 142 appeal case reviews had been completed out of 900 people convicted during the scandal, with 93 convictions overturned and 54 upheld, withdrawn or refused permission to appeal.
A total of £24m has been paid out in relation to overturned convictions.
However, there has been widespread criticism that the Post Office has been dragging its feet with delays to payments. Dozens of victims have died before they could receive any compensation.
It has also come under fire for further blunders, such as tax being charged on compensation and offering bosses about £1.6m in bonuses, with handling of the Horizon inquiry one of four “metrics” on which payments were awarded.
The overturned convictions process is one of three different compensation schemes that have been established as the scandal developed, and last September ministers promised that every branch owner-operator whose wrongful conviction had been overturned would receive £600,000 in compensation from the government.
More than £130m has so far been paid out to about 2,500 Post Office workers across the three schemes.
However, last month it emerged that the Post Office had almost halved the amount set aside for payouts as fewer owner-operators than expected had won or brought appeals.
What about those who pursued the prosecutions?
To date no Post Office staff have been punished for the scandal.
On Friday, the Metropolitan police confirmed for the first time that the Post Office is under criminal investigation over “potential fraud offences” committed during the scandal.
The Met is already investigating two former Fujitsu experts, who were witnesses in the trials, for perjury and perverting the course of justice.
Why is the scandal back in the headlines?
The independent public inquiry, established in September 2020 and made statutory the following June, has brought further revelations.
The hearings led by retired judge Sir Wyn Williams, featuring testimony and internal documents from former Post Office management, members of legal teams involved at the time, investigators and victims, are expected to be completed some time this year.
Campaigners have also highlighted other shocking aspects of the story, including documents that Post Office prosecutors classified branch owner-operators by ethnicity, using a racist term for black workers.
An ITV drama broadcast last week, Mr Bates v the Post Office, highlighting the story of Alan Bates leading the fight for justice for him and his fellow sub-post office operators, was widely watched and has renewed public outrage and calls for action against those involved.
What happens next?
Rishi Sunak said on Sunday that ministers were considering plans to exonerate post office operators whose lives have been ruined. The prime minister also confirmed that the justice secretary, Alex Chalk, could strip the Post Office of its private prosecution powers.
There have been calls for former Post Office boss Paula Vennells, who was chief executive for much of the period during which the postmasters were wrongly pursued, to be stripped of her CBE.
Sir Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, has also come under increasing criticism for his lack of action when he was postal affairs minister between 2010 and 2012, when the software issues started coming to light.
In May 2010, Davey refused to meet Bates, saying he did not believe seeing the campaigning post office operator “would serve any purpose”.
Davey, who did later meet Bates in October 2010, has said he regretted not doing more at the time and claimed that Post Office executives had blocked him from meeting campaigners.
In the meantime, the Post Office continues to use the Horizon system.
The loss-making Post Office has asked the government for £252m of funding to keep it afloat, including money to cover the cost of updating the controversial IT system, which it still uses with support from developers Fujitsu."
The entire story can be read at:
GIST: "Mr Bates vs the Post Office review – Toby Jones is perfect in a devastating tale of a national scandal," by Rebecca Nicholson, published by The Guardian one January 1, 2024." (Rebecca Nicholson is a columnist for the Observer and the Guardian);
SUB-HEADING: "A starry cast takes on one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British history. They’re the ideal way in to skulduggery so terrifying it could be a Black Mirror episode."
GIST: STORY: "The Post Office Horizon scandal presents the dramatist with fiendish hurdles. The timescale is vast, the cast list of victims is innumerable, the legal landscape is as befogged as Jarndyce vs Jarndyce. Also, the villain is a computer terminal that clunks and blinks and never says a word.
And yet the story is also an open goal. Rarely in the legal history of blameless Davids going into battle with bullying Goliaths has a just cause come up against such a manifestly evil enemy. To load the dice even more, this Goliath simpers in a dog collar.
Mr Bates vs the Post Office (ITV1) establishes its moral position in the opening frames as Alan Bates (Toby Jones) and his other half, Suzanne (Julie Hesmondhalgh), are turfed out of their north Wales sub post office by big glowering men who arrive in a cruel fleet of black saloons that may as well be Panzer tanks.
The drama positions Bates as a caped crusader who, tirelessly over many years, simply refuses to let a corporate bully get away with insisting that its Horizon accounting system works and hundreds of sub-postmasters are therefore thieves. Jones, all cheer and steel, is simply perfect as the little man who proves undefeatable.
Indeed, the many familiar faces all feel ideally cast, from Monica Dolan as Jo Hamilton, whose plain-as-a-pikestaff decency was weaponised against her, to Lia Williams as Post Office Ltd’s Paula Vennells. At a guess, the CEO, CBE and former priest will scarcely be able to show her face in public after this merciless pummelling. Even former Cabinet Minister Nadhim Zahawi convinces as himself, getting het up on a select committee.
To mark a crooked path through the complexities, Gwyneth Hughes festoons her four-part script with flags and signposts. Some – over-helpfully – explain what to think and feel. “The more of you people I meet,” says Ian Hart’s forensic accountant, bursting into tears in the second episode, “the less I understand how you’re all still standing.”
It’s never subtle. While illness and depression, self-harm and suicide, plus a violent robbery, afflict the sub-postmasters, the Post Office’s glassy head office is basically the Death Star. Bates fights the good fight from a white house in a north Wales valley that shimmers like Eden.
But fuelled by righteous rage and sheer incredulity at a corporate malfeasance that can never be fully explained, it’s undeniably powerful and finally redemptive. “We just cling to a notion, don’t we,” someone says, “that people can’t be that bad.” I’ve rarely felt more manipulated by a drama, and rarely resented it less."
The entire story can be read at:
| PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog; |
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/47049136857587929
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices.
Lawyer Radha Natarajan;
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater's attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, "Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it's the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.
