Why public needs to stay angry over Post Office Horizon IT scandal
First report by the public inquiry into the Post Office Horizon IT scandal underscores the impact on innocent people’s lives
When ITV’s Mr Bates vs the Post Office hit our screens, it caused a public outcry over the fate of innocent sub-postmasters whose lives were ruined by false accusations of fraud and similar offences. The Post Office Horizon IT scandal had been covered by the media for years, but it took the humanising force of a drama to give the issue the prominence it deserved and finally begin to get justice for all those who were wronged.
However, even though the programme was only broadcast last year, it feels like the scandal is fading from public consciousness, as people assume we know the worst and that the victims are being properly compensated. The first volume of a public inquiry’s report into what happened shows why our attention must not wane.
Inquiry chair Wyn Williams found at least 13 people, including six former sub-postmasters, had taken their own lives and 59 had contemplated suicide, while others had self-harmed, turned to alcohol, or endured abuse from local people who thought they were guilty. It was, he said, impossible to tell how many people had suffered but he pointed to the 10,000 or so eligible claimants in compensation schemes.
Fiction of infallible accounting system
The problems happened because faults with Fujitsu’s Horizon IT system used by the Post Office wrongly suggested there were inexplicable shortfalls in the accounts. This led some people to use their life-savings to pay back “illusory” losses, while others were sent to prison.
Ravinder Naga even pleaded guilty to a crime he did not commit – ‘stealing’ £35,000 – to save his mother Gurbash, subpostmistress at Greenock’s Belville Street Post Office, from prosecution. His conviction was quashed last August.
Shockingly, staff at the Post Office and Fujitsu knew there were problems with Horizon but, the report said, they “maintained the fiction” in court that it could not make mistakes.
Amid claims the Post Office is trying to delay compensation, the public needs to remain every bit as angry as they were last year to ensure the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British legal history comes to as satisfactory a conclusion as is possible given the horrific circumstances.
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