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Post Office and Fujitsu employees knew that the Horizon IT system was deeply flawed yet “maintained the fiction” that it could not produce errors when prosecuting innocent sub-postmasters, a public inquiry has found.
Employees at the Japanese IT group were aware the system was “afflicted by bugs, errors and defects” even before it was rolled out, the report from retired High Court judge Sir Wyn Williams said.
He also found “a number of senior and not so senior employees of the Post Office knew, or at least should have known, that Legacy Horizon was capable of error”.
“Yet, for all practical purposes, throughout the lifetime of Legacy Horizon, the Post Office maintained the fiction that its data was always accurate,” he added. “The impact upon those wrongly accused and prosecuted for criminal offences has been disastrous.”
Nearly 1,000 Post Office branch managers were convicted between 1999 and 2015 for offences including theft and false accounting using flawed evidence from Fujitsu’s Horizon system. About 236 of these sub-postmasters were sent to prison.
The report’s findings reaffirm victims and campaigners’ long-standing belief that leaders of the Post Office abused its position as a trusted national institution to bring forward wrongful prosecutions against its own sub-postmasters.
In 2019, the High Court found Fujitsu’s Horizon system contained bugs and errors that resulted in branches being wrongly flagged as suffering shortfalls.
A group of more than 500 sub-postmasters brought the case, which paved the way to a Court of Appeal ruling in 2021 that resulted in a small cohort of sub-postmasters having their convictions overturned.
Legislation passed last year by the previous Conservative UK government overturned all remaining convictions. The move followed increased public scrutiny after the airing of an ITV series Mr Bates vs The Post Office.
About £768mn had been paid in financial redress across four schemes by the end of February this year, according to the Department of Business and Trade, which is responsible for the Post Office. There are approximately 10,000 eligible claimants.
The public inquiry into the affair was established in 2020 and concluded hearings late last year. It has taken evidence from dozens of sub-postmasters, many of whom lost their livelihoods and suffered significant personal losses. At least 10 sub-postmasters have died by suicide during the process.
Williams set out a series of recommendations for the government, including the creation of a public body to oversee the administration of redress schemes. He has also called for family members impacted by the Post Office scandal to receive compensation.
He also advised that a senior lawyer should be appointed to the Horizon Shortfall Scheme — which compensates victims for erroneous account shortfalls — to expedite the claims process, and victims should be allowed to fall back to the government’s fixed offer on other schemes even if they seek a full assessment.
Williams expects a written response to be provided by the Post Office, government and Fujitsu by 10 October 2025, with a report on plans for restorative justice by 31 October 2025.
Findings from other phases of the Post Office inquiry and overall recommendations from Williams will feature in a final report due to be published at a later date.
The Post Office said: “The inquiry has brought to life the devastating stories of those impacted by the Horizon Scandal. Their experiences represent a shameful period in our history. Today, we apologise unreservedly for the suffering which Post Office caused to postmasters and their loved ones. We will carefully consider the report and its recommendations.”
