The British Post Office scandal, also called the Horizon IT scandal, involved Post Office Limited pursuing thousands of innocent subpostmasters for shortfalls in their accounts, which had in fact been caused by faults in Horizon, accounting software developed by Fujitsu. Between 1999 and 2015, more than 900 subpostmasters were convicted of theft, fraud and false accounting based on faulty Horizon data, with about 700 of these prosecutions carried out by the Post Office. Other subpostmasters were prosecuted but not convicted, forced to cover Horizon shortfalls with their own money, or had their contracts terminated. The court cases, criminal convictions, imprisonments, loss of livelihoods and homes, debts and bankruptcies, took a heavy toll on the victims and their families, leading to stress, illness, family breakdown, and at least four suicides. In 2024, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak described the scandal as one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British history.

Although many subpostmasters had reported problems with the new software, and Fujitsu was aware that Horizon contained software bugs as early as 1999, the Post Office insisted that Horizon was robust and failed to disclose knowledge of the faults in the system during criminal and civil cases. In 2009, Computer Weekly broke the story about problems with Horizon and subpostmaster Alan Bates launched the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance (JFSA). In 2012, following pressure from campaigners and Members of Parliament, the Post Office appointed forensic accountants from the firm Second Sight to conduct an investigation into Horizon. Together with Second Sight and the JFSA, the Post Office then set up a mediation scheme for subpostmasters, but terminated it after eighteen months.

In 2017, 555 subpostmasters led by Bates brought a group action against the Post Office in the High Court. In 2019, the judge ruled that the Post Office's contracts with the subpostmasters were unfair, and that Horizon "contained bugs, errors and defects". The case was settled for £58 million, which left the claimants with only £12 million after legal costs. However, the judge's rulings in the case paved the way for subpostmasters to challenge their convictions in the courts and, in 2020, led to the government establishing an independent inquiry into the scandal. This was upgraded into a statutory public inquiry the following year. As of April 2024, the public inquiry is ongoing and the Metropolitan Police is investigating executives from the Post Office and its software provider, Fujitsu.

Courts began to quash convictions from December 2020. By February 2024, 100 of the subpostmasters' convictions had been overturned. Those wrongfully convicted became eligible for compensation, as did more than 2,750 subpostmasters who had been affected by the scandal but had not been convicted. The final cost of compensation is expected to exceed £1 billion. In January 2024, a four-part television drama, Mr Bates vs The Post Office, was broadcast on ITV after which the scandal became a major news story and political issue. Three months later, the Government introduced the Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill to Parliament designed to provide blanket exoneration of all convicted subpostmasters.

Impact of the prosecutions

Between 1999 and 2015, the Post Office and the statutory authorities of the UK, including the CPS, the PPSNI, and the COPFS, prosecuted hundreds of subpostmasters ^[a] in criminal prosecutions in magistrates' courts and the Crown Court when the Horizon accounting system showed money was missing from their post offices. ^[1] In all, between 1999 and 2015, over 900 subpostmasters were prosecuted and 236 went to prison. ^[2] The Post Office itself prosecuted 700 people. ^[3]

Once the Post Office had secured a criminal conviction, it would attempt to secure a Proceeds of Crime Act order against convicted subpostmasters, allowing it to seize their assets. ^[4] In addition to those convicted, there were subpostmasters who were prosecuted but not convicted, and many more who, without being prosecuted, had their contracts terminated and lost money as they were forced to pay the Post Office for Horizon shortfalls. The actions of the Post Office caused the loss of jobs, bankruptcy, family breakdown, criminal convictions, prison sentences and at least four suicides. ^{[5] [6]}

By February 2024, over 4,000 subpostmasters had been identified as eligible for compensation ^[7] In Scotland, 73 convicted subpostmasters were identified in 2020. By March 2024, 19 of those 73 had applied for their convictions to be reviewed. The BBC said "It is possible there are hundreds of people across Scotland who were accused of stealing money from their post office branches who were not convicted." ^[8] In Northern Ireland, 53 convicted subpostmasters have been identified. ^[9] Those prosecuted in Scotland or Northern Ireland are not eligible for exoneration under the proposed Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill 2024. ^[10]

Post Office as private prosecutor

At the time of the prosecutions, the Post Office had the same standing in law as any other private prosecutor in the British legal system. It acted as a private prosecutor in England and Wales. In Scotland, it reported allegations of crime to a procurator fiscal, and in Northern Ireland to the Public Prosecution Service. ^[11]

Historically, Royal Mail and the Post Office were part of the same entity and were a public authority. They split into separate organisations in 2012. ^[12] The Post Office's unique position, with a history as a prosecutor going back to 1683, gave the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) concerns about its neutrality. In June 2020 the chair of the CCRC wrote to the Justice Select Committee asking if the Committee would undertake a formal review of the circumstances, and what safeguards were in place, "when an organisation is allowed to act as a prosecutor when it is also the victim and the investigator of an alleged offence". ^[13] The committee's report into private prosecutions and their safeguards, published in October 2020, noted that barrister Paul Marshall, who represented several subpostmasters, had argued that the private nature of the prosecutions was not a significant cause of the Horizon scandal. ^[14] The report stated: ^[14]

"The Post Office is not a typical private prosecutor ... The Private Prosecutors' Association question whether the Post Office was conducting private prosecutions at all and was in fact a 'publicly-owned entity and a public prosecutor' during the relevant period... One of the CCRC's principal concerns is whether any organisation with the Post Office's combined status, as victim, investigator and prosecutor, would be able to take decisions on investigations and disclosure 'appropriately free from conflict of interest and conscious or unconscious bias'."

Protecting the brand

In February 2015, George Thomson, the General Secretary of the National Federation of SubPostmasters, told a House of Commons committee that "We have to be careful, that we are not creating a cottage industry that damages the brand and makes clients like the DWP and the DVLA think twice. The DWP would not have re-awarded the Post Office card account contract, which pays out £18 billion a year, in the last month if they thought for a minute that this computer system was not reliable... If we are not careful, we damage the brand, we damage the franchise and we cost my members’ ability to sell the franchise. If we lose big contracts, [other] members lose their jobs as well. So we have to be careful that we do not create a cottage industry that is built on supposition." ^[15] The federation was criticised by the judge in the Bates case: "the NFSP is not remotely independent of the Post Office, nor does it appear to put its members' interests above its own separate commercial interests". ^[16] At the Horizon Inquiry, the NFSP submitted in June 2023 that it had been continually deceived by the Post Office as to the design, integration and integrity of the Horizon system. ^[17]

In January 2024, the BBC reported that the Post Office had threatened to sue Ian Henderson, from the independent forensic accountants Second Sight, when he uncovered evidence of miscarriages of justice, saying: "If your statements go as far as to harm Post Office's reputation then we may have to take even more serious action in order to protect our brand." The report said: "The Post Office threatened and lied to the BBC in a failed effort to suppress key evidence that helped clear postmasters in the Horizon scandal". ^[18]

Post Office civil cases against subpostmasters

In 2003 the Post Office pursued a civil claim against Julie Wolstenholme, subpostmaster at Cleveleys Post Office in Lancashire. The Post Office dropped its claim and settled Wolstenholme’s counterclaim out of court after a jointly appointed expert, Jason Coyne, reported that discrepancies could have been caused by faults in Horizon. ^[19]

In spite of the outcome in the Wolstenholme case, the Post Office continued to pursue subpostmasters in the civil courts. Lee Castleton, a subpostmaster in Bridlington, was pursued for £25,859 after he refused to pay a shortfall that had been caused by Horizon. The case was heard before judge Richard Havery in December 2006 and January 2007. Castleton represented himself and counterclaimed damages in the sum of £11,250 on the ground that the Post Office wrongfully determined his contract as a subpostmaster following his suspension. The judge found for the Post Office on both the claim and the counterclaim. ^[20] Unable to afford the losses and the £321,000 in legal costs, Castleton declared himself bankrupt. ^[21]

In September 2023, solicitor Stephen Dilley, who represented the Post Office in the case, told the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry that the Post Office had known Castleton would not be able to pay if he lost, but wanted to send "a message that they were willing to defend the Fujitsu Horizon". ^[22] Dilley defended the decision not to disclose details of the 12,000-15,000 calls being made every month by other sub-postmasters reporting technical problems with Horizon claiming the request for disclosure by Castleton was ‘onerous’. ^[23]

Richard Morgan KC, who had designed the strategy of the Post Office case against Castleton and represented the Post Office at trial denied that he had been given instruction to establish a legal point. He said "he would have told Post Office he would not do it if those instructions had been given." ^[24] This strategy was repeatedly referred to as a "nice legal point", by counsel to the Horizon Inquiry Jason Beer KC. ^[25] Prof Richard Moorhead maintains "The same strategy formed a central part of the Post Office's thinking in subsequent cases and provided a legal rationale for insulating Horizon from legal challenges without proper evidence of its robustness." ^[26] The Castleton case has been analysed and assessed in Evidenced Based Justice Lab - University of Exeter WP7, The First Flat Earther: How ‘clever’ strategy might drive professional error. ^[27]

Post Office management structure

The Post Office business, along with the Royal Mail delivery service, were formerly part of the General Post Office, tracing its origins back to 1516. It became a statutory corporation after the passage of the Post Office Act 1969. A gradual business restructuring process started in 1969 and was completed in 2012, after the Postal Services Act 2011 placed Royal Mail under separate ownership. ^[28] Post Office Limited became and has remained a single share government-owned entity with government represented at board level.

Oversight of Post Office Limited was assigned to what later became the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. As well as a succession of junior post office ministers, ultimate control was held by civil servants including Brian Bender, Simon Fraser, Martin Donnelly and Alex Chisholm. From 2003, Royal Mail (and thus the post office business) came under the management of the Shareholder Executive, which in 2016 was merged into UK Government Investments. ^[29]

Key personnel who presided over the Post Office while these events unfolded include Adam Crozier who headed Royal Mail when it owned the Post Office between 2003 and 2010; and Paula Vennells who became chief executive officer of Post Office Limited from 2012 to 2019. ^[30] British peer, Lord James Arbuthnot, who supported the subpostmasters, said in November, 2019: ^[31]

"My own suggestion is that the government should clear out the entirety of the board and senior management of the Post Office and start again, perhaps with the assistance of consultancy services from Second Sight, who know where the bodies are buried."

Subpostmasters contracts

Subpostmasters are self-employed and run branch post offices under contract to the Post Office. ^[32] There were approximately 11,000 local branches. In Bates vs Post Office, the subpostmasters argued that the Post Office owed a duty of good faith because a relational contract existed. The Post Office relied entirely on the actual wording in the contracts which stated:

"The Operator shall be fully liable for any loss of or damage to, any Post Office Cash and Stock (however this occurs and whether it occurs as a result of any negligence by the Operator, its Personnel or otherwise, or as a result of any breach of the Agreement by the Operator)... Any deficiencies in stocks of Products and/or any resulting shortfall in the money payable to Post Office Ltd must be made good by the Operator without delay so that, in the case of any shortfall, Post Office Ltd is paid the full amount. ^[33]"

Justice Fraser found that the “contractual relationship between the Post Office and the SPMs was a relational contract. This imposes an implied duty of good faith on both parties.” He added that “the parties must refrain from conduct which in the relevant context would be regarded as commercially unacceptable by reasonable and honest people.” ^[34]

Management culture

In July 2023, Parliament debated the Post Office's management culture. The then government representative, Tom Cooper, a senior civil servant, had been heavily criticised and had resigned following a scandal concerning Post Office bonuses and the slow disclosure of documents to the Horizon Inquiry. "That is not a great look for the Government and it raises real questions about the governance of Post Office Ltd." said Marion Fellows MP. ^[35] Writing in The Guardian in July 2023, Marina Hyde, said: ^[36] "It remains something of a downer that the most widespread injustice in British legal history doesn't get the full-spectrum fever coverage that is lavished on more frivolous news – but then, the forces formerly known as The Man have always wanted this one covered up ... Wyn Williams's long-awaited and tirelessly fought-for inquiry is hearing evidence, except on the days it can't, because the Post Office is continually failing to hand over evidence."

On 27 January 2024, Post Office chairman Henry Staunton was dismissed by Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch, who said that his departure was about more than just the Horizon scandal, but concerned the governance of the Post Office more generally. ^[37] In February 2024 it was reported that the government would meet representatives of post office operators to discuss the possibility of handing them ownership of the Post Office. ^[38]

Tax avoidance by Post Office management

BBC business editor Simon Jack, on 12 January 2024, reported that the Post Office had underpaid more than £100m in tax by deducting payments to victims of the Horizon scandal from its profits. Tax expert Dan Neidle maintained that claiming tax relief for compensation paid to victims of the scandal could be a breach of the law, it could also mean that the business is at risk of insolvency and that senior executives may have been overpaid. Referring to notes in the most recent accounts, the BBC concludes that HMRC "is investigating the way that the Post Office has accounted for the compensation payments and provisions". ^[39] Heather Self, tax consultant, agreeing with Neidle's assessment said, "The payments of compensation by the Post Office are almost certainly not deductible for corporation tax purposes, in my view." ^[39] Neidle maintains that the Post Office does not currently have enough money to pay a £100m tax bill and would be technically insolvent. Although compensation payments seem to have been deducted from profits for tax purposes, they appear to have been ignored when calculating executive pay. In year ending 2022 the CEO was paid a salary of £436,000 and a bonus of £137,000. ^[39] Neidle said: ^[39]

"Bonuses have been paid to the executive team based on an apparent level of profitability which does not exist. If a public company missed an obvious tax point that made the business insolvent the shareholders would be demanding the CFO and CEOs head on a platter."

Post Office IT systems

A 2020 article in Private Eye described the origins of Horizon: ^[40]

"Conceived in 1996 as one of the first private finance initiative (PFI) contracts, between the Post Office and the Benefits Agency on the one hand and computer company ICL on the other, the Horizon IT system had an unpromising start. It had been set up to create a swipe card system for payment of pensions and benefits from Post Office branch counters. When, in May 1999, the plug was finally pulled on what the Commons public accounts committee called 'one of the biggest IT failures in the public sector', taxpayers had lost around £700m. Something had to be salvaged, however. So, against the better judgement of its IT specialists, the Post Office decided to use the system to transform its paper-based branch accounting into an electronic system covering the full range of Post Office services. The new Horizon project became the largest non-military IT contract in Europe."

Problems with the software

Subpostmasters began reporting balancing errors within weeks of the Horizon system being installed, via the helpline the subpostmasters were instructed to use. ^[32] The Post Office denied the subpostmasters' reports of faults in the system, insisted that the subpostmasters make up any shortfall of money, and in many cases untruthfully denied that any other subpostmasters had reported problems. ^{[41] [42]} In May 2002, shopkeeper Baljit Sethi raised concerns with the press that there were errors in Horizon, after his wife Anjana was notified that her subpostmaster contract would be terminated. ^[43] The Post Office responded that it "totally refuted" that the system was faulty, and that it had "sent experts ... to check it twice". ^[43]

In around 2000, problems with the system were reported by Alan Bates, the subpostmaster at Craig-y-Don from March 1998 until November 2003. In 2003, Bates had his contract as subpostmaster terminated when he refused to comply with Post Office policy. ^{[42] [44]} He reported his concerns to Computer Weekly in 2004; sufficient evidence had been gathered by 2009 to publish. ^[45] A campaign group, Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance (JFSA), was formed by Bates and others in September 2009. ^[41] By 2012, concern in the media, and amongst a number of members of parliament, had grown. As a result, an independent firm of forensic accountants, Second Sight, was commissioned by the Post Office to conduct an independent inquiry in 2012. ^{[46] [47] [41]} During this period the chief executives of Royal Mail Group were John Roberts, Adam Crozier and Moya Greene, and then Paula Vennells, who became chief executive of the Post Office when it separated from Royal Mail in 2012. ^[48]

On 8 April 2021, after the software problems had caused a scandal, Post Office chief executive Nick Read announced that the Horizon system would be replaced by a new IT system that would be "more user-friendly, easier to adapt for new products and services, and cloud-based to ensure easy maintenance and ready interoperability with other systems", and presented a plan to share Post Office profits with postmasters. ^{[49] [50]}

During the period of public concern and increased press coverage of the Post Office scandal after the transmission of Mr Bates vs the Post Office in January 2024, there were complaints that a computer system named Capture, which had been rolled out to 300 post offices in 1995, had created false accounting information that led to prosecutions. Kevan Jones MP wrote to the Post Office minister, asking what the Post Office knew about Capture errors and why some subpostmasters were persecuted and prosecuted based on the Capture-generated data: "We know that the Capture software was faulty, resulting in corrupted data. We also know that the Post Office knew about these faults at the time, as it openly communicated with subpostmasters about them." The Post Office declined to answer detailed questions about Capture, leaving uncertainty about the number of subpostmasters affected. ^{[51] [52] [53]} At least two subpostmasters using the system were accused of fraud, but protests that the accounting problems were a "glitch in the system" were ignored. ^[54]

At the Inquiry in 2024, it was revealed that Fujitsu was aware that the Horizon software contained bugs as early as 1999, but this was not disclosed to the subpostmasters or to the courts in which prosecutions were conducted. ^[55]

Investigating Post Office IT problems

Second Sight reports

In 2012 forensic accountants Second Sight were appointed by the Post Office to conduct an independent investigation of the Horizon software at the request of a group of MPs and the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance (JFSA). ^[56] Second Sight issued an interim report in July 2013. Their preliminary conclusions stated that, although there was no evidence of system wide problems with Horizon, there had been two incidents where defects or bugs in the software had led to false shortfalls in accounts at 76 branches. The losses in these two incidents had been identified by the Post Office and the subpostmasters had not been held liable. ^{[47] [57]} More than 100 subpostmasters were by this time saying that they had been prosecuted or forced to repay shortfalls created by Horizon. ^[47]

In April 2015, Second Sight issued a further report, titled Initial Complaint Review and Mediation Scheme and marked as confidential, which said that, for some subpostmasters in some limited circumstances, "Horizon could not be described as 'fit for purpose'". ^{[58] [59]} According to an earlier version of the report leaked to the BBC in September 2014, Horizon had not been tracking money from lottery terminals, Vehicle Excise Duty payments or cash machine transactions – and Post Office investigators had not looked for the cause of the errors, instead accusing the subpostmasters of theft or false accounting. Other problems included a lack of training, outdated equipment and poor communications. ^[32] The report was dismissed by the Post Office. ^[31]

In 2020, Vennells, who stood down from her Post Office role in 2019, said of the 2013 report that "it concluded, while it had not found evidence of system-wide problems with the Horizon software, there were specific areas where Post Office should consider its procedures and operational support for sub-postmasters". ^[46]

In December 2019, Warmington said in a statement: ^[60]

"The Post Office has improperly enriched itself, through the decades, with funds that have passed through its own suspense accounts. Had its own staff more diligently investigated in order to establish who were the rightful owners of those funds, they would have been returned to them, whether they were Post Office's customers or its Subpostmasters. When is the Post Office going to return the funds that, in effect, belonged to its Subpostmasters?... It also seems to be clear now that some of those funds could have been generated by Horizon itself, or by errors made by the Post Office's own staff, or by those of Fujitsu. They weren't 'real' losses at all. They were phantom discrepancies... If the Post Office Board had believed... and acted on... what Second Sight reported... instead of being led by the nose by its own middle management and in-house and external legal advisors, huge amounts of money, and human suffering, would have been avoided."

Mediation scheme

After the publication of Second Sight's interim report, a mediation scheme for affected subpostmasters was set up in August 2013, to be funded by the Post Office and run by a working group comprising the Post Office, Second Sight and the JFSA and chaired by retired judge Sir Anthony Hooper. ^{[61]: 206  [32]} Hooper doubted that the subpostmasters were dishonest and thought Horizon likely at fault. ^[62] By December 2014, MPs were critical of the mediation scheme and 140 had withdrawn their support for it. ^[63] James Arbuthnot, who was leading the 144 MPs who had been contacted by subpostmasters about the issue, accused the organisation of rejecting 90% of applications for mediation. He said the Post Office had been "duplicitous", and suggested there would be legal and political campaigns in response. ^[64]

In 2014, the Post Office board set up a sub-committee named Project Sparrow to oversee its interactions with Second Sight, JFSA and MPs. The sub-committee was led by Post Office chair Alice Perkins and included chief executive Vennells, senior in-house lawyer Chris Aujard, and Richard Callard, a senior civil servant at UK Government Investments, then a division of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. ^[65] The project first became publicly known during the Bates & Others case under the name of the 'X Working Group'. The Post Office claimed privilege in respect both of the name of the project and some of the contents of a document referred to as the 'X Action Summary'. ^[66] The Evidence-Based Justice Lab Post Office Scandal Project at the University of Exeter noted that "The judge criticises [the Post Office] for what appears to be excessive redaction, which includes concealing the name of a working group called 'X' [Project Sparrow is our assumption] and other redactions." ^[67] In January 2024, the BBC obtained and published an un-redacted version of minutes from two Project Sparrow sub-committee meetings which took place in April 2014. The minutes revealed Post Office plans to sack Second Sight. In March 2015, the Post Office terminated the contract. ^[65]

In February 2015 the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee was told by Angela van den Bogerd, head of partnerships at the Post Office, that the Post Office had provided Second Sight with the information they had agreed to provide at the outset. Ian Henderson, lead investigator for Second Sight, disagreed and told the committee that he had not been given access to prosecution files, which he needed to investigate his suspicions that the Post Office had brought cases against subpostmasters with "inadequate investigation and inadequate evidence". ^[68] He said that these files were still outstanding 18 months after they had been requested. ^[64] The working group reached a stalemate and was wound up in March 2015, 18 months after it had been set up, having reneged on its promise to include subpostmasters with convictions. ^{[61]: 224, 283, 285}

Detica report

In October 2013, Detica undertook a detailed analysis of the Post Office's systems. It advised the Post Office that its systems were "not fit for purpose in a modern retail and financial environment". ^[69]

Clarke advice, CK sift review, Altman review

In 2013 the Post Office received advice from Simon Clarke, a barrister engaged by Cartwright King (CK), a solicitors' firm instructed by the Post Office in relation to the Post Office prosecutions. In the first advice, written in July 2013, Clarke reminded the Post Office of its obligations as a prosecutor regarding disclosure and of the duties of an expert witness and expressed a view that several trials had been misled as to the reliability of the Horizon system. He said that Fujitsu employee Gareth Jenkins, even though he was aware of bugs in the system, had given expert evidence to the court attesting to Horizon's accuracy. ^{[70]: 81–90  [71]} Cartwright King then carried out the "CK Sift Review", which was in turn reviewed by Brian Altman QC, counsel for the Post Office. The CK sift review, which was concluded in 2014, identified 26 potential miscarriages of justice since 2010 and led to four prosecutions being halted. ^{[72] [73]} The second piece of advice was written in August 2013, after Clarke became aware that the Post Office had given instructions to shred minutes of a conference call about Horizon bugs, and again reminded the Post Office of prosecution disclosure obligations. ^{[70]: 81–90} The existence of the Clarke advice became known during the case of Hamilton & Others and Post Office Ltd in 2021 but remained unpublished until 2022. ^{[70] [74]} It was described by Lord Falconer of Thoroton, former head of the judiciary, as a likely " smoking gun". ^{[75] [76]}

In May 2023 the Evidenced Based Justice Lab - University of Exeter published a 41 page analysis and assessment of "Brian Altman's General Review." Concluding their executive summary, Professor Richard Moorhead, Dr Karen Nokes and Dr Rebecca Helm say: ^[27]

"There are lessons to be learned on the nature of human and professional relationships that encourage lawyers to absorb and reflect back their client's view without sufficient independence and critical detachment. "The Review demonstrated a tendency to treat with cynicism the appellants and to disregard entirely the human costs of the Post Office's conduct. This blindness to the humanity of others is sometimes reified in practice (and the Bar's Code of Conduct) as fearless advocacy. The Review stands as a monument to that approach, showing how the decision-making of the lawyers can be limited or corrupted by excessive zeal."

Deloitte Review

In 2014 auditors from Deloitte found that branch accounts could be altered remotely by Fujitsu. In February 2016 they began a further review, intending to look at Horizon transactions since its launch in 1999, but the Post Office halted their work four months later on legal advice after the subpostmasters had launched their group action. ^[77]

Exposing the IT problems

In 2004, Bates approached Computer Weekly investigative journalist Tony Collins over suspicions about the Horizon IT system. Five years elapsed before the journalists felt able to 'stand up' the story. ^[78] Horizon was legally declared unreliable in Bates & Others v Post Office Ltd, in 2018. The unlawful nondisclosure of knowledge by the Post Office in its prosecution cases was established in law in the case of Hamilton & Others and Post Office Ltd, in 2021.

In 2015 Baroness Neville-Rolfe, on behalf of the government, told the incoming Post Office chairman Tim Parker to properly review the Horizon situation. Parker commissioned barrister Jonathan Swift, who had formerly been a first treasury counsel (a position colloquially known as the Treasury Devil), to investigate. The resulting document was written by two authors, Swift and barrister Christopher Knight, and became known as the Swift Review. The report was written in 2016 but was not revealed until August 2022. ^{[69] [79] [80]}

In an analysis of the Swift Review, the Evidence-Based Justice Lab Post Office Scandal Project at the University of Exeter said: ^[69]

"The Swift Review revealed to the PO Chairman that secret remote access to Horizon was possible in 2016. The Chairman discussed the review with PO's General Counsel (Macloed). The Bates litigation, roundly criticised by the High Court judge dealing with it for being misleading, was founded in part, until 2019, on the basis that secret remote access was not possible. Given Macloed and Parker were involved in the litigation, and it appears to have been run on an incorrect basis that was or ought to have been known to them, the extent of that involvement it needs investigation."

The Lab also noted that Swift did not interview Anthony Hooper, chair of the Post Office's mediation committee, as part of his review. ^[62]

The extent to which the government was aware of the Post Office's defence in the Bates case was questioned during the parliamentary debate on 19 March 2020. David Jones MP said, "Of course the Post Office has a non-executive director appointed by the Government. One must assume that that non-executive director is reporting to Ministers." Kevan Jones MP replied, "If I had been the Minister, I would have had that person in and scrutinised what was going on ... That would certainly have applied in the past few months, given the hundreds of millions of pounds that have been spent defending the indefensible." Bambos Charalambous MP said, "The Post Office seemed to have unlimited funds at its disposal to fight this action ... The Post Office is an arm's length organisation, but there seems to be no accountability ..." Chi Onwurah MP said, "Its only shareholder is the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, so more should have been done to address the scandal before it was allowed to fester to this extent." ^[81] Arbuthnot, sitting in the House of Lords as Baron Arbuthnot of Edrom, in a written question asked "whether the Accounting Officer with responsibility for the Post Office has played any role in advising ministers on the Government's policy in relation to... the sub-postmasters' litigation against the Post Office". ^[82]

In 2024 Andrew Bridgen MP said in parliament:

"I was in the original Post Office review group. By 2015, a whistleblower from Fujitsu had come forward from the boiler room, as they called it. He had been altering accounts without the knowledge of the sub-postmasters. The MPs in the review group knew. The investigator from Second Sight, Ron Warmington, knew. The Post Office knew that the convictions were unsafe, as did the Government, yet it took another five years of very expensive litigation from the 555 before justice was done." ^[83]

Bates & Others v Post Office Ltd

When mediation with the Post Office broke down, the subpostmasters began to consult and combine their efforts into legal action. The action taken against the Post Office took the form first of group litigation in the name of Bates and others, a civil action in the High Court by some 555 people. There were six lead claimants, and 23 common issues (that is issues common to all the cases) were identified and agreed to enable the court to examine the 555 cases. The case was settled mid-trial by consent and without judgment as to costs; Post Office costs have been estimated as £100m ^[84] and those of the subpostmasters as £47m. ^[85] The Post Office agreed to pay the subpostmasters £58 million, but after legal costs the claimants were left with £12 million to share. ^[86] During the trial, which had been divided into a number of sub-trials, those acting for the Post Office attempted to persuade the judge to recuse himself. Journalist and writer Nick Wallis, commenting on the two very senior lawyers who had advised the Post Office Board on the strategy, described it as "misuse (of) a very serious instrument designed to aid fairness as a weapon purely for their wealthy client's benefit". ^[87] At the Horizon inquiry, a former Post Office manager admitted that the ultimately lost case was seen by the Post Office as a way of "killing off" challenges to the Horizon system. ^[88] Kathleen Donnelly, one of the barristers who acted for the subpostmasters in the case, said: ^{[89] [90]}

"It is obvious that the Post Office had a strategy to withhold material until they were forced to produce it. This caused delay, disruption and ran up costs. We only received significant documents after a battle and were left with little time to review them, sometimes just days before a witness was cross-examined. It was exasperating."

On 22 March 2017, Senior Master Fontaine made a group litigation order with the approval of the President of the Queen's Bench of the High Court and, on 31 March, the then Mr Justice Fraser was nominated managing judge in Bates & Others v Post Office Ltd, ^{[91] [92]} brought by 555 claimants. ^{[93] [78]} At the start of the proceedings, the Post Office unsuccessfully opposed the making or the existence of a group litigation order. ^[93] The Post Office had set up a litigation sub-committee, attended on 24 April 2019 by Tim Parker, Tom Cooper, (director of UK Government Investments), ^[94] David Cavender, Alisdair Cameron, Ben Foat, staff from Womble Bond Dickinson and from Herbert Smith Freehills. ^[95] There was an unsuccessful application by the Post Office that the judge recuse himself, an appeal, and two separate submissions described by judges as attempts to put the courts in terrorem. At the Judgment No. 6 the judge said: ^[59]

"The recusal application was issued the day after Mr Godeseth's cross-examination had made it clear, not only that this remote access existed, but after he was taken in careful cross-examination through specific examples of Fujitsu personnel manipulating branch accounts, and leading to discrepancies in branch accounts. I am aware that criticism of the Post Office and Fujitsu in this respect may prove to be controversial, as earlier criticism of certain aspects of the Post Office's case in Judgment (No. 3) was not well received by it. However, if criticism is justified, I consider it would be detrimental to proper resolution of the group litigation if that criticism were to be withheld simply because it might lead to a further negative reaction by the Post Office. It is also an inherent part of the judicial function in any litigation to make findings, which may include criticisms where justified, that may be contrary to a litigant's own view of the merits of their case. Some litigants are so convinced of the righteousness of their own position that they consistently refuse to accept any possible view of the litigation other than their own. Such a blinkered view is rarely helpful, and would be particularly unhelpful from a publicly owned institution."

The subpostmasters were financed by a litigation fund, Therium. ^[96] The high cost of High Court battles means that some cases may not make it to court without them. ^[97] The matter ended by consent when the Post Office agreed to pay costs of £58 million, without admitting liability, and compensation was therefore not awarded. ^[98] Of that payment, £46 million went to the financial backers. ^[97]

Vennells, the then-Post Office chief executive, in December 2019, after the Post Office conceded the court cases, apologised to workers affected by the scandal, saying: "I am truly sorry we were unable to find both a solution and a resolution outside of litigation and for the distress this caused." ^[99] In a letter to the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Select Committee she wrote: ^[46]

... The message that the Board and I were consistently given by Fujitsu, from the highest levels of the company, was that while, like any IT system, Horizon was not perfect and had a limited life-span, it was fundamentally sound. ... [para. 7(11)]

... I raised this question [of remote access] repeatedly, both internally and with Fujitsu, and was always given the same answer: that it was not possible for branch records to be altered remotely without the subpostmaster's knowledge. Indeed, I remember being told by Fujitsu's then CEO when I raised it with him that the system was "like Fort Knox". ... [para. 54, response to question 14]

— Vennels (June 2020). "Letter to BEIS Select Committee". pp. 4, 15–16

During the case, six separate judgments were handed down: ^[98] See Bates v Post Office Ltd (No 3)

Appeals against convictions

The ruling in Bates & Others v Post Office Ltd that the Horizon software contained "bugs, errors, and defects" that could cause shortfalls paved the way for subpostmasters to have their convictions overturned. ^[100] In March 2020, the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) announced that it was referring thirty-nine cases for appeal on the grounds that their prosecutions were an abuse of process. ^[101] More referrals followed and in May 2021 the Law Society Gazette reported that the organisation was 'not adequately resourced' if 200 cases were to be brought forward for review. ^[102]

The Post Office states that the total number of all overturned convictions, as of 2 February 2024, is 101. This includes eight cases in which Post Office was not the prosecutor. Of the 147 completed cases, 37% were refused permission to appeal or withdrawn from Court. ^[103]

In August 2023 the chair of the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board, Christopher Hodges, wrote to the CCRC setting out the view of the Board. "Our strong belief is that the overwhelming majority of convictions of Sub-Post-Masters and -Mistresses (SPMs) related to Horizon, and possibly also a significant number of those not directly related to Horizon, are unjust." ^[104] The letter was also sent to all UK statutory prosecuting authorities. ^[105]

The Times on 7 January 2024 reported that Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, was looking at whether the Post Office can be stripped of its role in the appeals process, with many victims still attempting to overturn wrongful convictions. ^[106] On 9 January 2024 Nick Read, Post Office's chief executive, wrote to ministers saying it would stand by the prosecution of more than half of the post office operators targeted during the Horizon scandal. it would be “bound to oppose” appeals in 369 cases. In the letter, Read wrote: “This clearly raises acute political, judicial, and communications challenges against the very significant public and parliamentary pressure for some form of acceleration or by-passing of the normal appeals process." ^[107]

Moorhead, a member of the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board, posted his thoughts on what's wrong with the Post Office Appeal cases on Substack.

"I'm not going to rehearse all the arguments and why we think the legitimate concerns about our proposals can and should be met. But I do want to add one point of general interest. That point also addresses the extent to which some would like to portray the hear [ sic] of the Post Office Scandal as having occurred in a different decade... [T]he Post Office tried to resist the Court Appeal hearing Ground 2 in November 2020. They did so knowing that if they were successful, the evidence of serious wrongdoing available to the court... would be less likely to be made public." ^[108]

When that failed the Post Office then resisted Ground 2 as a "damage limitation strategy." ^[108] Moorhead illustrates his assessment of the Post Office's approach:

"Okay, the PR line would have gone, we were a terrible prosecutor but only in a tiny number of cases. They resisted Ground 2 partly on the basis that prosecution misconduct was limited to a particular period of time. What has emerged only recently is that the solicitors acting for the Post Office took the unusual but professionally proper (and to be applauded) step of reporting Post Office in-house lawyers for misconduct between 1999-2013. These concerns in other words were not time-bound. The report was not disclosed to the appellants as far as we can tell from public information." ^[108]

R v Christopher Trousdale & Others – December 2020

The first subpostmaster appeals against convictions were heard at Southwark Crown Court before circuit judge Taylor, sitting as a deputy judge of the High Court. The six cases were from magistrates' court convictions for theft, fraud and false accounting in London, Luton, Basingstoke, Oxford, Burton-upon-Trent and Scarborough between 2004 and 2012. The Post Office did not oppose the appeals and apologised for what they called "historical failings." At the end of the hearing the judge said, "I am sure that all of the appellants are grateful for the approach that the Post Office has taken finally to this matter and that it can be put to rest for them." ^[109]

Hamilton & Others and Post Office Ltd – April 2021

In April 2021, after an appeal before three judges, Lord Justice Holroyde, Mr Justice Picken and Mrs Justice Farbey, thirty-nine of the convicted former postmasters had their convictions quashed. The case was heard over four days in March 2021. The forty-two appellants were represented by seven teams of barristers; the Post Office representatives were led by Brian Altman QC. ^{[70] [110]}

Forty-two historical convictions of dishonesty had been referred by the CCRC to the Court of Appeal:

"The CCRC referred the cases because it considered that two cogent lines of argument in relation to abuse of process were available to each appellant: first, that the reliability of Horizon data was essential to the prosecution and conviction, and it was not possible for the trial process to be fair; and secondly, that it was an affront to the public conscience for the appellant to face criminal proceedings." ^[70]: 5

Each of the forty-two cases was considered individually. Of the forty-two, just two had previously appealed, unsuccessfully. ^[70]: 53 The Post Office accepted Fraser's findings of the unreliability of the Horizon systems and, in some cases, of inadequate investigation, and/or of insufficient disclosure. In these cases, the Post Office did not resist the appeal on first ground but it would oppose the second ground. The Post Office divided the appellants into three groups; A, 4 cases where it asserted that both categories 1 and 2 abuse of process applied, group B, 35 cases where category 1 applied, but not category 2, and group C, where neither category applied. The Post Office would not seek a retrial of any appellant whose appeal was allowed. ^{[70]: 70–78} Counsel for three of the appellants argued that:

"... the court must act judicially. It would be wrong in principle for the court to permit the respondent (the Post Office) effectively to preclude argument on Ground 2 by its concession that Ground 1 is not opposed. ... The appellants have suffered very severely as a consequence of their prosecutions, and a finding in their favour on Ground 1 alone would not fully vindicate them. ... there has been an important disclosure since the Commission referred the cases, and submitted that the public interest required consideration of the complete picture." ^[111]: 18

For the other applicants, it was submitted all were concerned about delay:

"... only three... had actively sought to argue Ground 2 ... appellants would be content to have their appeals allowed on Ground 1 alone... however, appellants do contend that Ground 2 is made out in their cases... if the court concluded that argument should be heard on Ground 2, they would wish their submissions on Ground 2 heard." ^[111]: 21

The court ordered that, "... in the exercise of the court's discretion we would permit argument on Ground 2 by any appellant who wished to advance it. In the event, each appellant did wish to do so." ^[70]: 79 The court set out its reasoning and highlighted four factors of particular importance: ^{[111]: 39–43}

1. "issues of abuse of the process of the court are important matters of concern to the appellants and the respondent, and are also matters of public interest... notwithstanding that the appellants had not previously applied for leave to appeal."
2. "Ground 1 presupposes... that there should be a prosecution... the public may legitimately feel... that a finding in the appellant's favour on Ground 2 adds materially to a finding in his or her favour on Ground 1... If in fact an appellant should never have been prosecuted at all... the court should make that determination."
3. "We are... satisfied that appropriate case management can avoid any risk of these appeals becoming an open-ended exercise in finding facts."
4. "Fourthly, we do not accept the submissions that consideration of Ground 2 will cause undue delay in the determination of these appeals..."

At the April hearings, after considering the submissions of the subpostmasters and the Post Office, the court stated, "In those circumstances, we are satisfied that a fair trial was not possible in any of the "Horizon cases" and that Ground 1 accordingly succeeds in each of those cases." ^[70]: 126 The court decided that Ground 2 succeeded in each of the "Horizon cases". ^[70]: 138

In November 2020, Altman drew the court's attention to the leaking of the Clarke advice to the police and a journalist by Marshall and Flora Page, who were acting for three of the appellants. Marshall and Page resigned from the case under the threat of possible contempt of court proceedings. The threat was lifted in April 2021. ^[112]

The thirty-nine appellants whose convictions were quashed included:

Noel Thomas, who had worked for the Royal Mail for 42 years, ran the village post office in Gaerwen on the Isle of Anglesey in Wales. He was convicted of false accounting in 2006, when a Horizon error showed a shortfall of £48,000 in his accounts. He spent 13 weeks in prison and was disqualified as a local councillor. ^[113] After his conviction was overturned he was honoured by Anglesey County Council in 2022. ^{[114] [110]}

Jo Hamilton, who ran the village post office in South Warnborough, Hampshire, first noticed problems with the Horizon system in 2005 and in 2006 was prosecuted for a Horizon shortfall of £36,000; she pleaded guilty to false accounting in order to avoid going to prison on a theft charge. ^[47] She was told by the Post Office that she was the only one having problems with Horizon and had to pay them for the Horizon shortfall. ^[115] Hamilton, alongside Monica Dolan who played her in the ITV drama series Mr Bates vs The Post Office, presented one of the awards at the Brit Awards 2024. She thanked the public for their support and said: "despite what the government says, they're not paying the postmasters". ^[116]

Rubbina Shaheen, who ran Greenfields post office in Shrewsbury, was jailed for 12 months in 2010 due to an error caused by Horizon. She and her husband lost their home and had to sleep in a van, before being helped by a local charity. After her conviction was overturned she was able to make a donation out of her interim compensation payment to the charity that had helped them. ^{[117] [118]}

Seema Misra ran a post office in West Byfleet in Surrey and was prosecuted by the Post Office when her Horizon accounts showed a false shortfall of over £70,000. ^[119] She was convicted of theft and sent to prison when pregnant. ^[120] A few days before Misra's trial began in October 2010, three Post Office solicitors, Rob Wilson, Jarnail Singh and Juliet McFarlane, had been told about a bug in Horizon but had not disclosed the information to Misra's defence team. The solicitors have been reported to the Solicitors Regulation Authority. ^[121] It was part of a much larger failure of disclosure on the part of the Post Office, a failure that cost Misra a fair trial. Giving evidence at the Horizon IT Inquiry, Warwick Tatford, the barrister who had represented the Post Office at Misra's trial, acknowledged the failures of disclosure and said that he was ashamed to have been part of the case. He also acknowledged failures in how Fujitsu engineer Gareth Jenkins, currently under investigation by the Metropolitan Police for possible perjury, was instructed as an expert witness. ^[122] Misra, recalling the moment when she was sentenced to 15 months in prison in 2010, said, "It's hard to say but I think that if I had not been pregnant, I would have killed myself." Post Office solicitor Singh meanwhile sent a celebratory email to Post Office managers, in which he said: "it is to be hoped the case will set a marker to dissuade other defendants from jumping on the Horizon-bashing bandwagon". ^[123]

Criticism and assessment of Hamilton

In October 2023 Moorhead, Nokes and Helm observed how relatively general the court had been in its consideration of the wrongs in Hamilton. They emphasised lack of enquiry within the proceeding and the need to find out what had happened and why and concluded that the Hamilton appeal itself requires investigation:

"It is possible to see the cases not as an aberration corrected, if belatedly, by the appeal system, but as symptomatic of a deeper malaise... The Hamilton appeal judgments are again too superficial, despite their acuity and strength of criticism, to stand as the last word on accountability for these failings. It is not good enough to say that the POL prosecution strategies were flawed and failed without also identifying the lines of accountability. After all someone devised the strategy, someone signed it off, someone designed it, someone implemented it and someone managed it; others then endorsed it, defended it and protected it. Those people need to account for their actions and justify what was done." ^[124]

Marshall criticised the Court of Appeal in Hamilton for "having done nothing more than the bare minimum that was required to determine – and adjudicate upon – the outcome of the appeals." ^[125]

"Hamilton itself was largely (in effect exclusively) based upon the CCRC's reading of Fraser J's Horizon Issues judgment. That judgment in turn was necessarily only on preliminary issues in the Bates litigation. As is elsewhere noted, Fraser J knew only the half-of-it and was in any event, as his judgment made clear, only concerned with Horizon – and the Post Office's contention that it was a reliable and robust system. Horizon was only one of a raft of problems confronting the Post Office from 2013 – but the only one to have been judicially considered. The Post Office and the government have latched on to the Court of Appeal's approach and treat it in effect as determinative that issues and claims other than arising out of Horizon shortfalls are outwith compensation arrangements. The analysis, and therefore the conclusion, are both arguably flawed." ^[125]

Marshall argues that the court followed, in the absence of argument and relevant evidence, a "dichotomy/taxonomy" canvassed by the CCRC for those appeals that it considered to be "Horizon cases" and those that were not "Horizon cases". It ought, argues Marshall, to have considered why, in so many instances, "innocent people had been wrongly convicted on seriously incomplete and unsatisfactory evidence, and had as a result became victims of the miscarriage of justice on a scale hitherto unknown". Marshall refers to the deficits in the Bates judgements due, he says, to the inadequate disclosure by the Post Office during the progress of Bates and in the Hamilton appeals.

"The default position appears to be 'if not a Horizon shortfall case' the Post Office's prosecution was unimpeachable and its evidence has been treated as reliable and the resulting conviction not 'unsafe' – the litmus test for a successful appeal. The remaining 39 appeals were, in every instance, allowed on both grounds of appeal – i.e. 'first' and 'second' category abuse of process of the court by the Post Office as prosecuting authority. The second is the very serious conclusion that the Post Office was engaged in conduct likely to undermine the criminal justices system and/or public confidence in it. The essential distinction is that if a person was prosecuted on the sole basis of evidence in their Horizon account, then the appeal against conviction has been allowed... but if that was not the sole/only basis for their prosecution and other data/evidence was available as the basis for a prosecution, the appeals failed... Further, it appears to be the case... that appeals have only been allowed by appeal courts where the Post Office has accepted that there were disclosure failures in connection with Horizon... The Post Office failed to give important and highly relevant disclosure in Bates: Ismay was not disclosed, the Post Office's board's notification to its insurers of risk in 2013 was not disclosed, and Detica's October 2013 report... was not disclosed. ^[125]

Marshall cites Detica's report as the "most important single document that appears not to have been disclosed in that (GLO) litigation." The report "advised the Post Office that its systems were 'not fit for purpose' in a modern retail environment." ^[125]

This issue was addressed by Lord Arbuthnot at the Business and Trade Committee on 16 January 2024:

"Since those cases were referred to the Court of Appeal, things have come out within the public inquiry about the investigators' behaviour and about the Post Office's entire approach to the ethics of prosecution, which I believe take us way beyond the application of Horizon data... Those whose cases were overturned may need to be told 'You have to go back to the Court of Appeal, but you will do so with Government assistance, with legal aid, so that these things can be overturned by the Court of Appeal.' I think that is still up for bottoming out, and we have not come to any firm conclusion on it." ^[126]

Exoneration

Proposed legislation

On 10 January 2024, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the government's intention to introduce legislation to exonerate wrongly convicted Post Office branch managers and said there would be a "new upfront payment of £75,000 for some of those affected". ^[128] However, the new legislation would aim to ensure that any subpostmaster guilty of criminal wrongdoing was still subject to prosecution. Kevin Hollinrake, the Post Office minister, said that all those claiming compensation would have to sign a "statement of truth" to confirm they had not committed the crimes of which they were accused. He explained, "Anyone subsequently found to have signed such a statement untruthfully will be putting themselves at risk of prosecution or fraud." ^{[128] [129]} The BBC described the proposal as 'unprecedented', with a number of possible problems that might make implementation difficult. ^[130]

David Davis MP warned that the plans would fail to distinguish between the genuinely innocent majority and the guilty minority. He suggested that former Supreme Court judges be brought out of retirement to exonerate innocent postmasters. ^[131] Rozenberg commented on 15 February that five weeks after the prime ministerial statement there had been no bill, no draft, and no consultation paper. Rozenberg had speculated that the courts would respect whatever legislation Parliament might pass but, on 15 February thought that remarks made by the Lady Chief Justice, Sue Carr, Baroness Carr of Walton-on-the-Hill, at the Justice Committee on 16 January and at a press conference on 6 February indicated otherwise. ^[132] The Chief Justice had been asked by the Justice Secretary to 'speak urgently' with him and had two short conversations. But, said the Chief Justice, "any suggestion that the judiciary has given any proposed legislation the green light is simply not true." ^[133] Carr added that it was not for the judiciary to comment on the wisdom of proposed legislation. ^[132] Haroon Siddique, writing in The Guardian, said "By not mincing her words on... the Post Office mass exoneration plans, Carr has shown a commitment to protecting the independence of the judiciary against government interference." ^[134]

On 22 February the minister announced the detail of the proposed legislation in both houses of parliament. ^[135] In a letter of the same date to the chair of the Justice Select Committee, Sir Robert Neill MP, the Justice Minister and the Business Minister wrote jointly that the legislation would include victims of pilot schemes as well as of Horizon. ^[136]

Rozenberg commented that the proposed legislation would present problems to those "who want to show that their convictions have now been quashed". ^[137] Writing for the Law Society Gazette, Rozenberg compared the proposed legislation to the Policing and Crime Act 2017 that awarded pardons. ^[138] On BBC radio's Law in Action, Moorhead recognised the radical nature of the proposed legislation but explained that the need to exonerate the victims of the scandal "at pace" was imperative, to enable compensation to be paid quickly. The former president of the Council of HM Circuit Judges, Isobel Plumstead, criticised the proposal as dangerous: "if you do it once you can do it again". ^[139] She said, "It is overriding the whole judicial system. It will inevitably lead to pressure for action in respect of other findings in criminal cases where a sort of moral right to exoneration is urged." ^[140] Barrister Sam Fowles wrote in an opinion piece in The Guardian: ^[141]

"The government could give the commission and the courts the resources to investigate outstanding wrongful convictions. But this would risk exposing more Post Office wrongdoing and/or highlight the long-term flaws in the justice system that allowed false prosecutions to go on for so long. Instead, the government is sweeping the whole thing under the carpet by overturning all the convictions in one fell swoop. But it's a transparently political manoeuvre. Ministers (despite knowing about the scandal for years) showed no interest in mass exoneration until it saw a political upside. This sets a dangerous precedent, overturning criminal convictions based on political opportunism rather than justice, fact, and law."

The Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill was introduced into Parliament on 13 March 2024. ^[142] The Bill makes provision to quash the Horizon-related convictions of subpostmasters and others in England and Wales who were prosecuted by the Post Office or the Crown Prosecution Service, including those who are no longer alive. ^[143] The government announced that those whose convictions are quashed by the act will be eligible for compensation via a scheme administered by the Department for Business and Trade rather than by the Post Office. ^[144] The government had set aside £1bn for compensation to victims of the Post Office scandal in 2021. In January 2024 Downing Street, after the announcement of the exoneration bill confirmed that it expects compensation to exceed £1bn. ^[145]

Redress and compensation

There are three schemes for different groups of victims: the overturned convictions scheme for those who were convicted; the Horizon shortfall scheme for those who suffered losses but were not convicted; and the GLO scheme those who took part in the group litigation. ^{[146] [147]}

The Horizon shortfall scheme, originally named the historic shortfall scheme, was established by the agreement between the Post Office and the 555 subpostmasters in Bates & Others v Post Office Ltd. It was designed to compensate subpostmasters who had lost money due to shortfalls caused by Horizon, but had not taken part in the group action and had not been convicted. The scheme is administered by the Post Office. ^[148] By 15 January 2024 the scheme had received 2,753 eligible claims and paid out £93 million to over 2,172 claimants. ^[149]

In December 2019, at about the time of the high court verdict in Bates & Others v Post Office, the government decided this group could not apply for compensation through the historic shortfall scheme. ^[150] The details of the settlement between the subpostmasters and the Post Office were not made public until August 2020. In February 2022, MPs from parliament's Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) committee expressed concerns about the time taken to make settlements to former Post Office operators who were wrongfully convicted and warned that compensation needed to be concluded urgently, as many of those affected by the long-running scandal are elderly, some having died while awaiting redress, while others remained at risk of losing their homes. ^[151]

In April 2021, Nick Read, Post Office chief executive, urged the government to provide funding for compensation, saying "The Post Office simply does not have the financial resources to provide meaningful compensation." ^[152] Shortly afterward, the government promised "fair and speedy" pay-outs for the 555 victims of the Horizon IT scandal who had been excluded from the Post Office's compensation scheme. ^[153]

In July 2021, the government announced that subpostmasters wrongly convicted of offences would get interim compensation of up to £100,000. ^[154]

On 22 March 2022, a government scheme was launched to compensate the 555 subpostmasters at the same level of compensation as subpostmasters who had had their convictions overturned. ^[155]

In December 2022, the Horizon Inquiry heard from Tim Moloney KC that postmasters made bankrupt after being wrongly prosecuted were receiving a fraction of what they were due. The Law Society Gazette reported:

"Moloney explained [an] applicant had run a successful postmaster business for 20 years before his life was ruined by a false conviction which led to his mental health deteriorating and his being unable to pay his mortgage. In another case, a victim's award of £25,000 was reduced to £4,500 after deductions paid to the official receiver. The barrister added: 'It appears that the shortfall scheme takes no account of whether the root cause of the bankruptcy was or may have been generated by the Horizon software. Compensation is intended to put the claimant in the position they would have been if they had not been adversely affected... many of the debts accrued by these people which led to bankruptcy were caused by the shortfalls [wrongly flagged up by Horizon]'... The compensation award is then 'swallowed up' by legal obligations to repay debts." ^[156]

In March 2023 Marshall, in a submission to the Horizon Inquiry, criticised the structure of the compensation schemes and their lack of independence. He writes that, since English company law requires the board of a company to act in the interests of its shareholders, the Post Office is bound to act in the government's interests and keep compensation paid to as little as possible and that "averments by the Post Office about its concern for fairness require to be read against that legal constraint." ^[157] He writes: "There should be independence at the point where an applicant for compensation engages – not once there is 'an issue'. Compensation paid will tend to be skewed in favour of the Post Office/the government." ^[157] He points out that the three compensation schemes are administered respectively by the Post Office's solicitors; by the Post Office's owner; and by the Post Office itself. He writes that the scheme for those with overturned convictions "is not compensation but is the continuation of litigation. The most grievously harmed victims of the Post Office remain locked in adversarial litigation." Those who do not have convictions, he writes, become "engaged in a quasi-inquisitorial process." ^[157] Marshall illustrates his argument of non-independence and of continuance of litigation with the following example: ^[157]

"I recently received a letter in connection with observations made by me in January 2023 in connection with an HSS scheme claim; the author of/signatory to the letter being Mr Simon Ricaldin of the Post Office. Mr Ricaldin has overall responsibility within the Post Office for compensation. The letter was headed 'Without Prejudice'. The Post Office is in a position to determine both if and what compensation is paid. Further, no argument for the continuing participation of Herbert Smith Freehills in the operation/management or supervision of the HSS scheme is available that is capable of being reconciled with established legal principle."

Marshall accepts that the structure of the schemes was created and affected by the litigation that gave rise to the need for compensation. He writes that there is no answer to his criticism except "the Post Office's averment... that it wishes to see fair compensation paid." Nearly 12 months later, Marshall's criticism was echoed by the Observer in January 2024, " The multiple compensation schemes being administered by the government and – extraordinarily inappropriately – by the Post Office – have become mired in bureaucracy and delay..." ^[158]

In September 2023, the government announced that subpostmasters who have had their convictions on the basis of Horizon evidence overturned would be offered compensation of £600,000 in full and final settlement of their claim. ^[159] In March 2023, the Law Society Gazette wrote, "Journalist Nick Wallis, who wrote The Great Post Office Scandal, tweeted today that 27 claimants who would have qualified for the group litigation scheme have died waiting for compensation." ^[160] In January 2024, postal affairs minister Kevin Hollinrake told the Commons the families of the 60 people who died before receiving any compensation will be able to apply for compensation in their place. ^[146]

As of 11 January 2024, approximately £153 million had been paid to over 2,700 claimants across these three schemes, ^[149] with 64% of all those affected by the scandal having received full and final compensation. ^[161] It is estimated that more than 4,000 people have been told they are eligible for compensation. ^[162] The Guardian reported that of the 700 post office workers prosecuted in England and Wales, about 250, more than a third, have yet to respond to contact despite efforts by the Post Office and, separately, by the Criminal Cases Review Commission. In Scotland, 73 potential victims have been contacted but just 19 have so far come forward seeking review. ^[163]

"Those working with Horizon victims say there are obvious reasons why people have not come forward. 'You have a significant number who have not come forward, either because they were so traumatised they want nothing to do with it or because they still don’t realise they are entitled,' said the Labour MP Kevan Jones... Westminster's cross-party business and trade committee recently heard that just 4% of those with wrongful convictions had received compensation for their ordeal."

On 27 February 2024 Nick Read, Post Office CEO, told the Business and Trade Committee into fair and fast redress for sub-postmasters that all of the original applicants to the Horizon shortfall scheme had been made offers and that he thought "in the region of 62%" had been settled. Read accepted that settlements in the overturned convictions scheme had been slow. Simon Recaldin, director responsible for compensation and disclosures, explained that the closure date of the Horizon shortfall scheme had been planned for March 2025, when a further 1,000 claims were made following the transmission of Mr Bates v The Post Office. The additional claims meant the closure date would have to be put back. Possible claims concerning Capture, a predecessor of Horizon, that had been used by over 1,000 subpostmasters in the 1990s, were discussed. Remediation matters director Ricaldin told the committee that, of the eight cases of people experiencing problems with the Capture system, four had resulted in convictions and were being investigated. ^[164]

The committee had heard from James Hartley and Neil Hudgell, solicitors for different groups of victims. In the complex cases they had not been seeing fair offers. The process was too legalistic and offensive to a lot of postmasters. Hudgell said "there is too much lawyering going on. Everything is over-engineered." ^[165] Of the Horizon shortfall scheme Hudgell said more than 2,000 cases have been settled without legal advice and in his opinion needed to be reviewed. ^[165] At the end of the session Liam Byrne MP said ^[165]

"You have told us that there is a strong case that many of the cases that have been settled may need to be reopened. You have told us that many of the claims you are working on are so problematic that you can’t accept them. You have told us that there are significant process delays, that you appear to be employing three times more lawyers than the Government on some of these schemes, and that is it going to take one to two years at the current pace to finally bring justice. Thank you very much indeed for laying that out with such clarity. That concludes this panel."

Post Office (Horizon System) Compensation Act 2024
Act of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title	An Act to provide for the payment out of money provided by Parliament of expenditure incurred by the Secretary of State under, or in connection with, schemes or other arrangements to compensate persons affected by the Horizon system and in respect of other matters identified in legal proceedings relating to the Horizon system.
Citation	2024 c. 1
Introduced by	Kevin Hollinrake, Minister for Enterprise, Markets and Small Business, 19 December 2023 (Commons)
Dates
Royal assent	25 January 2024
Commencement	25 January 2024
Status: Current legislation
Text of statute as originally enacted
Text of the Post Office (Horizon System) Compensation Act 2024 as in force today (including any amendments) within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk.

The following day, on the floor of the House, Byrne said that the Post Office chief executive had not received a clear written instruction from the Government to accelerate all the compensation schemes. Byrne called on the minister to "again reflect, when he brings his Bill before the House, on the need to eliminate the Post Office from this [compensation] process." ^[166]

Kevan Jones MP and member of the Horizon compensation advisory board, said to the Post Office Minister, during an urgent question in the House of Commons, 22 February, ^[167]

"If there are to be overturned convictions, they cannot just be about Horizon; they should also be about Capture. Evidence that I have put to the public inquiry and sent to the Minister yesterday clearly indicates that the scandal predates Horizon. Those affected need to be included in both the compensation scheme and among those with overturned convictions."

The minister replied that the Government is keen that those detrimentally affected are included in any compensation. ^[168]

Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry

After the success of the JFSA in the Bates case against the Post Office, the organisation began to campaign to highlight the government's handling of the Post Office. The alliance raised £100,000 through crowdfunding, to complain to the Parliamentary Ombudsman that the government had failed in its duty by allowing the Post Office to wrongly prosecute SPMs. ^[169] The government resisted the complaint and declared that it had been lied to.

The government resisted requests for a statutory inquiry for months before acceding to an independent inquiry. On 26 February 2020, Prime Minister Boris Johnson appeared to commit to an independent inquiry but was equivocal. ^[170] Evidence of the legal costs in the Bates case was heard by parliament's Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee on 10 March 2020. ^{[171] [172]} On 19 March 2020, in a debate in the House of Commons, Kevan Jones MP criticised former Post Office chief executive Vennells for her role in the scandal. ^[81]

In a written ministerial statement on 10 June 2020, Paul Scully, Minister for Small Business, Consumers and Labour Markets, announced the scope of the independent review into the Post Office Horizon IT system and the trials. ^[173] The terms specifically excluded the Post Office's prosecution function, the Horizon group damages settlement, and the conduct of current or future litigation. Of the review's terms of reference, Lord Arbuthnot said in the House of Lords chamber on 6 October, "[W]hy have the Government excluded these most important things?" ^[174] The minister replied that the Bates settlement agreed was full and final and the Post Office was not currently conducting any private prosecutions and had no plans to do so. ^[174] After the terms of that inquiry were published, the JFSA refused to participate. ^{[175] [176]}

First round of non-statutory hearings

The non-statutory inquiry, now titled The Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry and led by Sir Wyn Williams, began work in autumn 2020 and issued a call for evidence on 1 December 2020. The first public hearing took place on 15 January 2021. ^[177] During the non-statutory inquiry, two public hearings were held in early 2021. A preliminary hearing on the provisional List of Issues was held on 8 November 2021. ^[178]

Neil Hudgell, representing SPMs, said "Now Post Office officials must face criminal investigation for maliciously ruining lives by prosecuting innocent people in pursuit of profits", and called for the prime minister to convene a judge-led inquiry. ^[179] After the subpostmasters' successful appeals on both grounds one and two of abuse of process, in an article headed "Calls grow for SRA and police to investigate Post Office lawyers", Hudgell wrote that the Post Office engaged in "legal gymnastics to seek to persuade the court away from finding a clear systematic abuse of process of the criminal law", adding "the SRA and BSB should investigate whether anyone should be held to account amid professional concerns about who was responsible for disclosure issues". ^[180] Solicitors for subpostmasters wrote to the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy asking it to re-establish the inquiry on a statutory footing and to reconsult on the terms of reference, saying: "The department should be called as witnesses under oath, not have effective control of the inquiry", ... "The Post Office wrongly prosecuted so many upstanding pillars of the community and its owners want to mark (their) own homework – that is unconscionable." ^[181]

Conversion to a statutory inquiry

On 19 May 2021, the government announced that an extended statutory inquiry into the scandal would deliver its conclusions in autumn 2022. Wyn Williams said that the inquiry would produce a statement of approach and that, in September 2021, a further statement would set out all relevant details. ^[182] The extant non-statutory inquiry was formally converted to a statutory inquiry on 1 June 2021 with additional powers, including the ability to compel witnesses and demand evidence, with potential fines or imprisonment for non-compliance. Scully said he and Sir Wyn had agreed that the context of the events had changed after convictions were quashed and hundreds more were expected to follow. Boris Johnson said in May 2021: ^[183]

"We must stand with postmasters to get to the bottom of what went wrong in the Post Office Horizon IT dispute. I heard first-hand the irreparable impact it has had on their lives. That's why, in light of the recent Court of Appeal judgment, we're stepping up our independent inquiry by putting it on a statutory footing, so we can get the answers they deserve."

On 28 July 2021, DBEIS issued its fourth statement of approach, which included the terms of reference. After setting out preliminary and organisational matters – the appointment of solicitors and counsel to the inquiry, establishment of a website and of premises, etc. – the statement set out terms, in essence:

"The Inquiry will consider only those matters set out in the preceding sections A-F. The Inquiry will not consider any issue which is outside the scope of the powers conferred upon the Inquiry by the Inquiries Act 2005. The Horizon group damages settlement (albeit the Inquiry may examine the events leading to the settlement), and/or the engagement or findings of any other supervisory or complaints mechanisms, including in the public sector, are outside the Inquiry's scope." ^[184]

On 13 February 2022, in a report prior to the start of the hearings, the BBC quoted a prosecuted, jailed and subsequently cleared subpostmaster: "I want someone else to be charged and jailed like I was." This request was later repeated by other subpostmasters. ^{[185] [186] [187]}

Phases 1 to 4 of the Statutory Inquiry

The Phase 1 hearings, covering Human Impact, opened on 14 February 2022 at Juxon House in the City of London. ^[188] The Phase Two hearings, covering the Horizon IT System procurement, design, pilot, roll out and modifications, started in October 2022. ^[189] They were streamed online, as were the later phases of the inquiry. ^[190] The inquiry also investigated whether the Post Office and ICL's owner, Fujitsu, knew about the faults. ^{[188] [184] [191]}

Richard Moorhead, Professor of Law and Professional Ethics at the University of Exeter, said in an oral submission: ^[192]

"If I can end by putting the case metaphorically for a moment. Considering the Horizon saga without considering the lawyering, and without lifting professional privilege, would be a bit like considering Watergate without considering the White House Tapes. Essential, telling, [and] perhaps vital information will be missing. The abuse of power, the injustice, who did it and why, will not be properly understood. Sir, you must, to discharge the Inquiry's remit, you must do the equivalent of listening to the tapes."

Immediately after the November hearing, Williams said he would ask Post Office Limited, IT supplier Fujitsu, and the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy to waive privilege in respect of material relevant to the terms of reference, and he set a deadline for a response. ^[193] On 16 November, Williams reported that all four parties had responded within the timescale specified and added "The response of POL, on any view, goes a very long way towards meeting the request I made of them. It is clear to me that in respect of many of the most crucial lines of investigation for the Inquiry POL has waived legal professional privilege." ^[194] The Post Office published its response to the request on 15 November 2021. ^[195] One commentator, Elisa Wahnon, wrote that although BEIS was prepared to waive privilege: ^[196]

"The Post Office, which is owned by BEIS, took a more cautious approach. It agreed 'as a general principle' to waive legal privilege for the purpose of the inquiry (ie a limited waiver) over relevant material but maintain privilege over documents relevant to ongoing litigation/remediation activities. Specifically, the Post Office has maintained privilege over documents relevant to the ongoing group litigation claim in the Employment Tribunal... It has also maintained privilege over legal advice related to the Historical Shortfall Scheme and to current and anticipated claims from individuals whose criminal convictions have or will be quashed... The decision by the Post Office to maintain privilege over certain documents could have wide-reaching ramifications for the inquiry... If it withholds such advice on the basis that it is relevant to current and anticipated claims from those who have had their convictions quashed, this may lead to gaps in the inquiry."

The Phase 3 hearings, covering operational issues, were held between January and March 2023. Phase 4 hearings, covering action against sub-postmasters and others, were held in July 2023.

Interim report

The inquiry issued an interim report on 17 July 2023. The recommendations were: ^[197]

• The Horizon Compensation Advisory Board (HCAB) should not be prevented from monitoring individual cases
• HCAB shall produce written reports in respect of each of their meetings
• Membership of HCAB should be increased to ensure that it has sufficient capacity
• The government should within 28 days seek directions under section 306 of the Insolvency Act 1986 to ensure that compensation payable to bankrupt claimants is not diverted to insolvency practitioners
• The government should publish proposals for ensuring that applicants to all schemes are treated equally and fairly
• The government should ensure that legislation is enacted to allow compensation under group litigation orders to be made to applicants after midnight on 7 August 2024
• No applications for compensation to the Horizon Shortfall Scheme should be entertained after such date as agreed by the minister

The government accepted the recommendations in full or in part on 26 October 2023. ^[198]

Phases 5 and 6

On 9 April 2024, the inquiry commenced Phases 5 and 6 to cover "[r]edress, access to justice, Second Sight, Complaint Review and Mediation Scheme, conduct of the group litigation, responding to the scandal, governance, monitoring of Horizon, contractual arrangements, internal and external audit, technical competence, stakeholder engagement, oversight and whistleblowing". ^[199] 15 weeks were scheduled for the hearing of evidence. ^[200]

The resumed hearings began with a day for the evidence of Alan Bates, who described Post Office officials as "thugs in suits" and contended that the government should have been involved far earlier. ^{[201] [202]}

Former MP Lord Arbuthnot, appearing in week 1, told the inquiry: "[Post Office management] knew there was a large number of bugs in the system that they hadn't told MPs about. They were operating some sort of behind-the-scenes deception process which suggests to me now that they were stringing MPs along in order to preserve the robustness of Horizon, the existence of Horizon and possibly the existence of the Post Office". ^[203]

Other witnesses gave evidence in weeks 1 and 2. Alan Cook, former managing director of the Post Office, expressed regret, both for an email in which he wrote that subpostmasters had their "hands in the till" and for not realising sooner that the organisation itself was prosecuting victims of the scandal; he had assumed that the police or the Crown Prosecution Service were responsible for the decision to prosecute. ^[204] David Miller, former Post Office COO, told the inquiry that he should not have said to the board that Horizon was "robust and fit for purpose". ^[205] Rodric Williams, a litigation lawyer for the Post Office, said there was a "bunker mentality" among staff in relation to the media’s coverage of the Horizon system; asked by a journalist when was the last time the Post Office did research into subpostmasters' satisfaction with it, Williams said: “We don’t need to do research ... the vast majority of our agents and other users work with it just fine”. ^[206]

In week 3, Susan Crichton, former General Counsel of the Post Office, testified that problems in the system came to be referred to as 'branch exceptions' rather than 'bugs' and agreed that this demonstrated the use of 'smoke and mirrors'. ^{[207] [208]} Angela van den Bogerd, a former senior manager at the Post Office, was questioned about her statement to the High Court in 2019 in which she said she had only become aware in 2018 that transactions could be input to Horizon without a sub-postmaster’s knowledge; emails given to the inquiry showed she was told about this in 2010 and 2014. Van den Bogerd told the inquiry that she did not remember receiving the December 2010 email, calling it "very strange". ^[209]

Also to be questioned under oath are other senior former Post Office and Royal Mail executives, including former CEO Paula Vennells, who is scheduled to testify for three days in May. ^[210] Scheduled to be questioned over four days in June is Gareth Jenkins, a former chief architect at Fujitsu who was instrumental in designing and implementing the Horizon software and testified in court cases that the software was functioning correctly. ^[211]

Criminal investigation

When handing down the Horizon issues judgment in December 2019, Fraser said he had passed a file to the Director of Public Prosecutions relating to evidence given by Fujitsu employees in actions brought by the Post Office. ^[212] In January 2020, at the request of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Metropolitan Police initiated a criminal investigation into potential offences of perjury and perverting the course of justice during the investigations and prosecutions carried out by the Post Office. ^[213] Two former Fujitsu expert witnesses were interviewed under caution. ^[214] The Metropolitan Police confirmed in January 2024 that they were investigating possible additional offences of fraud in relation to "monies recovered from sub-postmasters as a result of prosecutions or civil actions"; as of January 2024, there had been no arrests. ^[213]

Regulatory action

On 19 January 2024, the Solicitors Regulation Authority confirmed that it is continuing to investigate "live cases into a number of solicitors and law firms who were working on behalf of the Post Office/Royal Mail Group". ^[215] The Bar Standards Board (which regulates barristers) is currently a core participant of the public inquiry, and says that no evidence heard by the Inquiry currently "indicates that any members of the Bar present an ongoing risk to the public that requires the BSB to act immediately". ^[216]

A public interest investigation by the computer scientist Junade Ali in January 2024 found that Gareth Jenkins, who gave evidence in court attesting to the accuracy of the Horizon system (and later became a person of interest to the Metropolitan Police ^[217]), solely relied upon qualifications obtained by the British Computer Society to be accepted by the court as an expert, despite the British Computer Society being obligated by the Engineering Council UK to uphold the conduct of its members. Whilst the British Computer Society later published a press release saying they would take action only after the public inquiry and legal processes had been completed, Ali however had found evidence that Jenkins' membership with the Society had long expired raising questions as to whether any regulatory action was possible and the BCS' conduct to date as a regulator. ^{[218] [219]}

The Post Office is also regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and research by Tussell has found the FCA was one of numerous governmental organisations that also had a contract with Fujitsu. ^{[220] [221]}

Call for reform on digital evidence

In May 2021, the British Computer Society, a professional body for those working in IT in the UK, called for reconsideration of courts' default presumption that computer data is correct. ^{[222] [223]}

The presumption that computer evidence is correct is based on a naïve and simplistic understanding of software systems. Large systems are complex and lay people cannot discern whether these systems are reliable or be confident that they can spot errors as they happen. It is difficult even for experts to judge the reliability of systems or detect any but the simplest errors. ^[224]

If the legal system and wider society are to have any confidence in computer evidence the providers of such evidence must be able to demonstrate that they are managing their systems responsibly. ^[225] This was not the case at the Post Office and Fujitsu. Horizon was not subjected to a full, rigorous system audit. ^[226] In 2010, senior Post Office management took a decision that Horizon would not be subjected to an independent review because: ^[227]

If one were commissioned – any investigation would need to be disclosed in court. Although we would be doing the review to comfort others, any perception that POL doubts its own systems would mean that all criminal prosecutions would have to be stayed. It would also beg a question for the Court of Appeal over past prosecutions and imprisonments.

No independent review was conducted until Second Sight was commissioned in 2012; their contract was terminated abruptly before it could formally report. The Post Office have not offered any evidence that their own internal auditors conducted an appropriate system audit. ^[226]

Media

Investigative reporting

A Computer Weekly article written by Rebecca Thomson in July 2013 listed over 300 articles on the scandal published by the magazine, since it first broke the story in May 2009 with seven case studies. ^{[228] [229] [230]} This first article was read by a Welsh BBC reporter, and in May 2009 BBC Wales went on to report that "an investigation by a respected technical journal ... appeared to be calling into question the integrity of the Post Office Horizon system". On 8 September 2009, the jailing of Anglesey subpostmaster Noel Thomas was covered on the S4C current-affairs programme Taro Naw, making the claims of problems with Horizon, and interviewing Alan Bates, Lee Castleton and Jo Hamilton, who had featured in the Computer Weekly article. The programme also uncovered a further nine subpostmasters who had been affected. ^{[231] [232] [233]}

In November 2010, the husband of Surrey subpostmistress Seema Misra, who had been jailed while pregnant, spoke to Nick Wallis, then the presenter of the breakfast programme on BBC Radio Surrey, who after some research and discovering the prior mentions, used his contacts to get the issue reported on 7 February 2011 on both BBC Radio Surrey, and regional BBC One television current affairs programme Inside Out. ^{[234] [235] [236] [237]} Wallis also shared his information with Private Eye magazine, which ran many articles on the scandal, starting in September 2011. ^{[238] [230] [239] [240] [241] [237]} A former Fujitsu employee saw the BBC South report and decided to blow the whistle to the JFSA, and later to BBC Panorama. ^[230]

Starting in 2012, other BBC news and current affairs programmes and national newspapers began to cover the scandal, with the Daily Mail in 2015 publishing a double-page spread entitled "Decent lives destroyed by the Post Office". ^{[230] [242] [243]}

From 2018, Wallis, following on from his work on Panorama and in Private Eye, and having left the BBC, started reporting the trial on a specially-set up journalism blog, postofficetrial.com, having raised £9,000 through crowd-funding. ^{[242] [244] [237]}

In 2020, Private Eye published online a special report co-authored by Richard Brooks and Wallis titled "Justice Lost In The Post". ^{[240] [242]} A BBC Radio 4 series about the scandal, The Great Post Office Trial, presented by Wallis and produced by Whistledown Productions, was named "Best News and Factual Radio Programme" in 2020 by the Voice of the Listener & Viewer, and won two gold awards in the 2021 New York Festivals Radio Awards. ^{[245] [246] [247]} In November 2021 Wallis' book, The Great Post Office Scandal was published by Bath Publishing. ^{[242] [237]}

Dramatisation

A four-part television drama, Mr Bates vs the Post Office, starring Toby Jones as Alan Bates, was broadcast over four evenings on ITV from 1 January 2024. ^[248] The drama brought the scandal to the centre of public and political attention. ^[249] During the period of broadcast, an additional fifty victims contacted lawyers, five of whom seek to get criminal convictions quashed. ^[214] As of 9 January, it was reported that over a hundred further potential victims had contacted lawyers following the broadcast. ^[250] The drama was followed by a documentary, Mr Bates vs The Post Office: The Real Story, which included interviews with subpostmasters. ^[251]

Following the broadcast, a petition to strip Vennells of her CBE passed one million signatures. ^[252] On 9 January 2024, she announced that she would hand back her CBE. ^[252] However, this would have no formal effect as only the monarch, on the advice of the Honours Forfeiture Committee, can revoke honours. ^{[252] [253]} On 23 February 2024, King Charles III revoked Vennells' CBE. ^[254]

See also

• Dutch childcare benefits scandal
• Phoenix pay system
• Robodebt scheme

Notes

References

Bibliography

• Wallis, Nick (2021a). The Great Post Office Scandal (1st ed.). Bath Publishing. ISBN  978-1-9163023-8-9.
• Jôb, Aled Gwyn (2023). Llythyr Noel (in Welsh). Gwasg y Bwthyn Cyf. ISBN  978-1913996758.
• Jôb, Aled Gwyn (2023a). The Stamp of Innocence. Troubador. ISBN  978-1805143024.

External links

Official

• Post Office Horizon Inquiry – official website
• "Post Office Mediation sub-committee". UK Parliament. Archived from the original on 15 December 2019.
• "Hamilton & others -v- Post Office Limited". United Kingdom Judiciary. 23 April 2021. – Official finding of the April 2021 appeals, and summary
• Timeline of key events in the Horizon scandal and Other pages on the Post Office Corporate site

Media

• Trouble at the Post Office, BBC Panorama programme, broadcast 17 August 2015
• Second Class Citizens: The Post Office IT Scandal, File on 4: BBC Radio 4 documentary, broadcast 16 February 2020
• The Great Post Office Trial, BBC Radio 4 documentary series, broadcast 25 May – 5 June 2020
• Scandal at the Post Office, BBC Panorama programme, broadcast 8 June 2020
• A First Class Scandal, File on 4: BBC Radio 4 documentary, broadcast 15 February 2022
• The Post Office Scandal, BBC Panorama programme, broadcast 25 April 2022
• Investigating the Post Office Scandal, podcasts by Rebecca Thomson and Nick Wallis, 2022–23