Does the Post Office still use Horizon? IT system at centre of scandal
The Post Office IT scandal has returned to public consciousness after the release of ITV’s four-part drama series, Mr Bates vs the Post Office.
The Justice Secretary is holding talks with senior judges on Tuesday on how to expedite clearing sub-postmasters of wrongful convictions, Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride has said.
There are also questions over whether Paula Vennells, who was the Post Office’s chief executive at the time of the scandal, should have her CBE revoked.
What happened in the Post Office scandal?
It centred around a faulty IT system called Horizon, made by software company Fujitsu. It ultimately resulted in the wrongful convictions of hundreds of people working for the Post Office.
Horizon was introduced into the Post Office network in 1999. The system was used for tasks such as transactions, accounting and stocktaking.
Faults with Horizon made it appear as though money was going missing from the Post Office. Instead of admitting there were errors, the Post Office wrongly accused sub-postmasters of stealing the money.
More than 700 were prosecuted on charges of theft, false accounting or fraud between 1999 and 2015. Many were jailed, and four took their own lives.
To date, only 36 convictions have been overturned by the Court of Appeal.
Problems with the Horizon system were first reported to Post Office Ltd by Alan Bates, a sub-postmaster at Craig-y-Don, North Wales, and the focus of the ITV series, in which he is played by Toby Jones. Mr Bates’s contract was terminated, which he alleges was down to him raising the complaints.
Does the Post Office still use Horizon?
Yes, the Post Office still uses Horizon, though the system has been updated from the one that caused the scandal.
The Post Office is also planning to move away from Horizon to a “new IT cloud-based system that will be more user-friendly and easier to adapt for new products and services”.
it said: “There have been several versions of Horizon since its introduction in 1999 and the current version of the system, introduced from 2017, was found in the group litigation to be robust, relative to comparable systems.
“But we are not complacent about that and are continuing to work, together with our postmasters, to make improvements.”
What is happening now?
Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake told MPs on Monday that ways to overturn the convictions were being investigated, including possible legislation.
Scotland Yard said on Friday that it was “investigating potential fraud offences arising out of these prosecutions”.
It has already 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 an investigation was launched in January 2020.
Since the ITV dramatisation, 50 new potential victims have approached lawyers.
Neil Hudgell, a lawyer acting for claimants, said: “The majority were not prosecuted but lost their livelihoods, lost their homes.
“But there’s a small handful of people who were convicted that have come forward, three in total at the moment, which is obviously a tiny number proportionate to those that are still out there.
“And I think the common feature of these is totally unsurprising. It’s people that have been so heavily damaged by Post Office psychologically that they have been so fearful of coming forward and going through the process again.”
Shadow schools minister Catherine McKinnell has said that it is “really important” that the Horizon scandal is “getting the focus it is now”.
She told Sky News: “It’s been far too long coming in terms of Government focus on how we speed up justice for the victims. Labour will support any plans the Government has that will deliver that justice as quickly as possible.
“We know that some of these victims are dying waiting for justice, and waiting for their compensation.”
Asked if Fujitsu, the company behind the Horizon programme, should be paying compensation, she said: “I think all of this needs to be looked at.
“There is a public inquiry and I think it’s absolutely right that it looks at all of these aspects, and that whoever is in Government learns lessons.”
