Detectives are looking into “potential fraud offences” committed during a Post Office scandal that saw 700 people handed criminal convictions due to faulty IT software.
The Horizon accounting system appeared to show money was missing from Post Office outlets. As a result, at least 700 branch managers were prosecuted after allegations of fraud, theft and false accounting between 1999 and 2005.
Hundreds were bankrupted or jailed while at least four people took their own lives. The scandal has been described as the most widespread miscarriage of justice in UK history and a public inquiry into it is ongoing.
It has hit the headlines this week after ITV aired a four-part drama called Mr Bates Vs The Post Office starring actor Toby Jones.
Scotland Yard said on Friday evening that officers are “investigating potential fraud offences arising out of these prosecutions”, for example “monies recovered from sub-postmasters as a result of prosecutions or civil actions”. The Metropolitan Police has already been looking into potential offences of perjury and perverting the course of justice in relation to investigations and prosecutions carried out by the Post Office.
The force also said in the statement: “The Met is investigating potential offences of perjury and perverting the course of justice. These potential offences arise out of investigations and prosecutions carried out by the Post Office.
“The investigation was launched in January 2020 following a referral from the DPP. Two people have been interviewed under caution. Nobody has been arrested.”
Two people were interviewed under caution. But no one has been arrested since the investigation was launched in January 2020.
Fifty new potential victims of the scandal have come forward this week. Neil Hudgell, a lawyer acting for claimants, told the BBC the new enquiries include former sub-postmasters who were given convictions.
He said: “The majority of (those 50 new enquiries) were not prosecuted but lost their livelihoods, lost their homes. But there’s a small handful of people who were convicted that have come forward, three in total at the moment, which is obviously a tiny number proportionate to those that are still out there.
“And I think the common feature of these is totally unsurprising. It’s people that have been so heavily damaged by [the] Post Office psychologically that they have been so fearful of coming forward and going through the process again.”
The Criminal Case Review Commission, which sends cases to the Court of Appeal, has also come forward urging potential victims to speak out. It said it “might be able to help if your appeal was unsuccessful, or if you pleaded guilty in a magistrates’ court, or if you are a close relative of a former sub-postmaster who has died”.
The scandal began in 1999 when glitches in the Horizon software appeared to show a shortfall in the Post Office’s branches. Under the terms of their contracts, postmasters were liable for the losses and the Post Office demanded that they repay the money or face closure, prosecution, or a civil claim, reports The Times.
The High Court later ruled Post Office IT experts were aware of bugs in the Horizon system from the early 2000s, but continued prosecutions and chased up losses.
It is not known how much cash was paid for the imaginary losses, but postmasters claim tens of millions of pounds were wrongly clawed back into the Post Office profits. While £151 million has since been paid in compensation.
The Post Office told the Times it was doing “all it can” to “put right the wrongs”. A spokesman said: “We share fully the aims of the public inquiry to get to the truth of what went wrong in the past and establish accountability. It’s for the inquiry to reach its own independent conclusions after consideration of all the evidence on the issues that it is examining. It would be inappropriate for the Post Office to comment on any police investigation.
“We are doing all we can to put right the wrongs of the past, including providing full and fair compensation for those affected and offers of more than £138 million have been made to around 2,700 postmasters, the vast majority of which are agreed and paid.”
