Post Office scandal: A look at one of Britain’s gravest injustices
LONDON (AP) — An inquiry into one of Britain’s gravest injustices resumed Thursday as momentum grew to compensate and clear the names of more than 900 Post Office branch managers wrongly convicted of theft or fraud because of a faulty computer system.
A lawyer looking into the Post Office scandal grilled an investigator who denied he and others acted like “Mafia gangsters” in the original probe that postal employees said left them bankrupt and broken.
The inquiry that began three years ago resumed the day after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak vowed to introduce unprecedented legislation to reverse the convictions following a television docudrama that created a huge surge of public support for the former postmasters.
“This is one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation’s history,” Sunak said. “People who worked hard to serve their communities had their lives and their reputations destroyed through absolutely no fault of their own. The victims must get justice and compensation.”
In addition to the inquiry, police are investigating possible charges related to the investigation and prosecution.
Some things to know about the scandal:
WHAT HAPPENED?
After the Post Office rolled out the Horizon information technology system, developed by Japanese company Fujitsu, in 1999 to automate sales accounting, local Post Office managers began finding unexplained losses they were responsible to cover. The state-owned Post Office maintained Horizon was reliable and accused branch managers of dishonesty. Between 2000 and 2014, around 900 postal workers were wrongly convicted of theft, fraud and false accounting, with some going to prison and others forced into bankruptcy. In total, more than 2,000 people were affected by the scandal.
WHY NOW?
The mistake was turbocharged by a four-part television docudrama that aired Jan. 1 and fueled public outrage that led to days of bruising headlines about the Post Office and sparked a swift response by lawmakers. The ITV show, “Mr. Bates vs the Post Office,” told the story of branch manager Alan Bates, played by Toby Jones, who has spent nearly two decades trying to expose the scandal and exonerate his peers. Despite hundreds of news stories over the years about court hearings and the continuing public inquiry, the show seen by millions rapidly galvanized support for victims of the injustice.
WHO WAS AFFECTED?
Post Office branch owners and employees typically lived in the communities where they operated, and many became outcasts when accused of stealing. Former clerk Lisa Brennan told the inquiry that after being falsely accused of stealing 3,000 pounds ($3,800) in 2003, her marriage fell apart, she lost her house and she ended up homeless with a young daughter. Janine Powell, a former subpostmistress, said she felt broken by being sentenced to 18 months in prison after being convicted in 2008.
WHAT COMPENSATION COULD THEY RECEIVE?
The government plans to set aside 1 billion pounds ($1.28 billion) to compensate the wrongly convicted and others whose lives were destroyed in the scandal. To date, a total of nearly 150 million pounds has been paid to more than 2,500 victims, Sunak said.
IS ANYONE BEING HELD ACCOUNTABLE?
In addition to the inquiry, a committee in Parliament plans to question the chief executives of the Post Office and Fujitsu next week. Police in London said they were investigating potential fraud related to money the Post Office received as a result of prosecutions or civil actions against postal workers.
The long-awaited inquiry aims to identify the organizations and individuals responsible for the scandal, and some members of Parliament have called for prosecuting those who allowed postmasters to take the blame for the faulty software.