The Post Office scandal dramatised in the recent ITV programme ‘Mr Bates v The Post Office’, has brought this appalling miscarriage of justice not just straight into our homes but back into the heart of the UK Government where it all started.

UK Tory Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, is looking at measures which would clear the hundreds of Sub-Post Office managers in the Horizon scandal. Over 700  branch managers were convicted of false accounting, theft and fraud based on faulty software. Only 100 have had the convictions quashed.

A Post Office was once the centre of villages and towns across the UK. Locally based and often providing a range of other products, these small outlets performed a vital role in the sustainability of many communities. The managers were well known trusted people in their area.

There was a time in its once great history that the Post Office and Royal Mail were basically the same thing, and people today still get that confused. Elected politicians and Government decided to change that and creeping privatisation took place – where profit takes over from service and accountability.

Successive Conservative Governments had in the past looked into privatising the UK’s postal services but with a backlash from many of their own MPs and public disquiet these plans were watered down. Then in 2010 The Liberal Democrats went into a Coalition Government with the Conservatives and the privatisation of this once great national institution could really get underway. The  Postal Services Act 2011 was passed. The Act allowed for up to 90% of Royal Mail to be privatised, with at least 10% of shares to be held by Royal Mail employees.

Then on 1st April 2012, Post Office Limited became independent of Royal Mail Group, and was reorganised to become a subsidiary of Royal Mail Holdings, with a separate management and board of directors. A 10-year inter-business agreement was signed between the two companies to allow Post Offices to continue issuing stamps and handling letters and parcels for Royal Mail. The Act also contained the option for Post Office Ltd to become a mutual organisation in the future.

This was all made possible by the Conservative/LibDem Coalition Government and some of those MPs who voted for this destructive policy are still sitting in the House of Commons – they may even be seeking your votes at the General Election.

Today Post Office Limited is a company owned by the UK Government.

As of March 2022, there were 11,635 post office branches in the UK (House of Commons Library)

• 9,617 agency branches, 83% of the network.
• 1,901 outreach services, 16% of the total network.
• 117 Crown branches, 1% of the Post Office Network.

The Post Office is owned by the UK Government, through the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and UK Government Investments (UKGI), however, the Post Office Ltd Board has responsibility for the operations of the Post Office.

There have been over 128 public hearings and the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry has now heard oral evidence from 190 witnesses, including expert witnesses; lawyers; Post Office employees; ICL and Fujitsu employees; civil servants; ministers; union representatives and many sub-postmasters and their colleagues or families.

The disaster of privatisation of Royal Mail and the separation of the Post Office from the delivery services is made even worse by the treatment of the honest hardworking sub postmasters by the PO when the faulty Horizon IT system was installed. Lives, reputations and businesses ruined. Physical and mental ill health – sadly for some, leading to suicide. Twenty years on justice has still not been served and those responsible have not been held to account. It is a shocking betrayal of the trust the people of this country place in those we elect. Firstly, when they pursued those disastrous policies and, secondly that they are still dragging out this issue until a TV drama spurred them into some kind of action. (But we’ll have to wait to see if anything comes of that).

Additional Information

House of Commons Research Briefings, The Post Office 18th October 2021 – Horizon (Download Link )

Background

The Post Office Horizon affair has been described as the one of UK’s most widespread miscarriages of justice.

A number of postmasters experienced difficulties with the Horizon Post Office computer system, used for transactions between Post Office Limited and its branch network. Postmasters claimed that there were problems with the IT system and related training and support.

Investigations by the Post Office into postmasters, using information from the Horizon system, led to suspensions, termination of postmasters’ contracts, prosecution and conviction of postmasters, for example for false accounting and fraud.

This has been a long and complicated saga, stretching back over two decades. Here we focus on some of the key events of the last couple of years.

The high court settlement and judgement

From late 2015, a group of claimants, coordinated by the JFSA (Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance), began to seriously explore legal action against the Post Office. In January 2016, Alan Bates from the JFSA secured the financial funding to take the Post Office to court in return for a proportion of any damages awarded. This high court group litigation became Bates and
others vs. The Post Office Ltd.

On 11 December 2019, there was a settlement between the Post Office and the 555 claimants. As part of the settlement, the Post Office agreed to pay the claimants £57.75m. However, after costs – including to the funder of the case, Therium – it was expected that the claimants would see around £10 million, which was unlikely to cover their financial losses.

On 16 December 2019, there was a judgement in favour of the claimants at the High Court in the second, and last, civil court case in the high court group litigation.

CCRC and appeals

The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) considers cases where someone convicted of an offence has exhausted their normal rights of appeal, yet still maintains they were wrongly convicted or incorrectly sentenced. The CCRC has been receiving applications from former sub-postmasters claiming to have been falsely convicted of offences as a result of Horizon failures, since March 2015.

Since the judgement in the high court case, the CCRC has referred many postmaster cases to the courts, as they set out in September:

Six further ‘Post Office’ cases have been referred by the CCRC. … This takes the total number of Post Office referrals made by the CCRC to 57 […] the CCRC currently has around 30 further Post Office cases under review. Recent indications are that many people have lodged appeals directly with the Court of Appeal. The Post Office has also written to over 500 people whose convictions may be affected.

The Inquiry

The Prime Minister committed to an inquiry into the Post Office Ltd Horizon IT system in February 2020. The Government announced a review in June 2020, and in September 2020 announced that it would become a non-statutory inquiry, led by judge Sir Wyn Williams. The inquiry was converted to a statutory inquiry – with powers to compel witnesses to give evidence – in June 2021.

The Inquiry has terms of reference but its role has been summarised as:

Sir Wyn is tasked with ensuring there is a public summary of the failings which occurred with the Horizon IT system at the Post Office leading to the suspension, termination of subpostmasters’ contracts, prosecution and conviction of subpostmasters. The Inquiry will look to establish a clear account of the implementation and failings of the system over its lifetime (a period of over 20 years).

The Inquiry will gather relevant evidence from affected persons, previous and current subpostmasters and subpostmistresses, Post Office Ltd, UK Government Investment (UKGI), Fujitsu, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), amongst others. It will also consider whether Post Office Limited has learned the lessons and embedded the cultural change necessary from the findings in Mr Justice Fraser’s judgments and the impact on affected postmasters.

The Post Office response

The Post Office prosecuted submasters for many years based on information from the Horizon system and defended their actions.

One key high court judgement said their approach to some of the evidence in the trial:

“… demonstrates a simple institutional obstinacy or refusal to consider any possible alternatives to their view of Horizon, which was maintained regardless of the weight of factual evidence to the contrary. That approach by the Post Office was continued, even though now there is also considerable expert evidence to the contrary as well (and much of it agreed expert evidence on the existence of numerous bugs).

[…] This approach by the Post Office has amounted, in reality, to bare assertions and denials that ignore what has actually occurred, at least so far as the witnesses called before me in the Horizon Issues trial are concerned. It amounts to the 21st century equivalent of maintaining that the earth is flat.”

In settling the high court case, the Post Office apologised to those affected, committed to applying the lessons it had learnt and said it was making an ambitious and sustained programme of changes. The Post Office have since made various changes to improve relationships with postmasters, saying they are:

… undertaking wholesale reform with a programme of improvements to overhaul culture, practices and operating procedures throughout every part of the Post Office to forge an open and transparent relationship with postmasters.

Two current postmasters joined the Post Office Board as Non Executive Directors earlier this year to influence Post Office strategy and the implementation of programmes affecting postmasters. Comprehensive improvements have been made from initial recruitment and training through to daily transaction accounting, including design changes made to transactions on the Horizon system, based on postmaster feedback.

The Post Office are also supporting applications to appeal by some postmasters. 

The Post Office ran a Historical Shortfall Scheme – now closed to applications – offering redress for current and former postmasters who may have experienced shortfalls related to previous versions of Horizon. The scheme was not open to postmasters who were part of the high court case.

Separately, compensation is being paid to those who have had Horizon related convictions overturned. The government is contributing towards the cost of this compensation and the Historical Shortfall Scheme.

You can find a lot more on the website Post Office Scandal – Reporting by Nick Wallis

Click on this link for the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry

Fiona Grahame