Fujitsu is in the firing line over the Post Office scandal with one minister furious at the firm (Image: Getty)
Computer giant Fujitsu could be forced to pay hundreds of millions of pounds for its role in the Post Office scandal after ministers insisted taxpayers should not be “left with the tab”.
MPs are also demanding that the firm be banned from bidding for lucrative public sector contracts.
More than £148million has been paid to 2,700 victims of the Horizon IT scandal, with hundreds of others still to receive compensation.
But Post Office Minister Kevin Hollinrake said: “The taxpayer shouldn’t be left with the tab for this scandal so I will be looking at the extent of any other organisation’s culpability.”
Writing in the Sunday Express, Mr Hollinrake described the scandal as “one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in history” and urged those wrongfully convicted to take legal action.
It follows warnings that making the publicly owned Post Office pay compensation is effectively a charge on taxpayers.
Fujitsu provided the Horizon accounting system installed in 11,500 branches.
It was eventually proved to be faulty but only after the Post Office prosecuted 736 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses for supposed crimes such as false accounting.
Liam Byrne, chairman of the House of Commons Business Committee, which will this week interrogate Fujitsu and Post Office bosses, said: “Fujitsu is reported to have known there was something fundamentally flawed with the system.”
“What moral obligation do they feel to contribute royally to the hundreds of millions of pounds of compensation that must now be paid to the innocent?”
The Japanese tech giant has been awarded an estimated £6.8billion of contracts from the public sector since 2012.
Lucrative deals included £200million to work on the Police National Computer, which is used to check criminal records and car number plates.
Labour’s Kevan Jones, one of the first MPs to take up the sub-postmasters’ cause, said: “Fujitsu has been notable by their silence. They need to come clean and be banned from all future government contracts until they do.”
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Victims of the scandal have also insisted that Fujitsu should pay, with one, a former Regimental Sgt Major, writing directly to the under-fire firm.
David Avery, 82, served 24 years in the Army but it was a 19-year stint as a sub-postmaster that pushed him to the brink of bankruptcy due to computer errors.
He was forced to borrow money and even had his car repossessed as he struggled to cover the shortfalls.
He said: “People were wrongly accused of crimes and others killed themselves with the shame of it.”
“My wife Lorraine and I had two young children and we all suffered due to having no money from 2000 onwards. I finally retired aged 67 in 2008.
“After much messing about I have had a payout from the Post Office Historical Shortfall scheme but now, having heard about the Fujitsu situation, I feel compensation from them should be forthcoming.
“My lawyers quantified my loss at £140,000 and I haven’t got all that back yet but I believe morally that compensation should come from Fujitsu as a top-up to the Post Office payouts.”
Others expressed fury at the lack of remorse from Fujitsu and Post Office Ltd. Former sub-postmaster Vijay Parekh, 65, who spent six months in jail for a crime he didn’t commit, said: “Executives are still working, getting huge amounts of money.”
“We haven’t been able to move on because our lives were ruined.”
A Fujitsu spokesperson said: “The Post Office Horizon IT statutory Inquiry is examining complex events stretching back 20 years to understand who knew what, when, and what they did with that knowledge.”
“The inquiry has reinforced the devastating impact on postmasters’ lives and that of their families, and Fujitsu has apologised for its role.”
