THE full scale of the Post Office scandal has been revealed after a bombshell report found 13 workers tragically took their own lives.
At least 59 other postmasters considered suicide after they were falsely accused of wrongdoing due to the faulty Horizon system.
The first part of the Post Office inquiry has been released[/caption]
Others suffered from alcoholism and mental health disorders, while some workers were subjected to divorce, bankruptcy and personal abuse.
Around 1,000 people were wrongly prosecuted and convicted throughout the UK between 1999 and 2015 as a result of the faulty Fujitsu software.
They were accused of false accounting, theft and fraud over the scandal, which had a “disastrous” impact on sub-postmasters.
A long inquiry into the IT blunder found that postmasters and their families should be regarded as “victims of wholly unacceptable behaviour”.
Chairman Sir Wyn Williams concluded both the Post Office and Horizon developers Fujitsu knew the data could be false.
Senior employees were also aware that the Horizon IT system could produce accounts “which were illusory rather than real” even before it was rolled out to branches.
Sir Wyn said: “I am satisfied from the evidence that I have heard that a number of senior, and not so senior, employees of the Post Office knew or, at the very 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.”
Sir Wyn said around 10,000 people are eligible to submit compensation claims following what has been dubbed as the worst miscarriage of justice in British legal history.
Lead campaigner and former subpostmistress Jo Hamilton said the report “shows the full scale of the horror that they unleashed on us”.
The scandal was propelled into the spotlight in January last year following ITV drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office.
The show centred around Sir Alan Bates – former sub-postmaster and founder of the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance.
Ex-Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells is accused of overseeing a huge number of wrongful prosecutions and convictions.
Sir Wyn’s 162-page report criticised the “unnecessarily adversarial attitude” of the Post Office and its advisers towards making compensation offers to victims.
It also said the organisation and the Government “simply failed to grasp how difficult it would be to provide appropriate financial redress.”
Sir Wyn also singled out the behaviour of Post Office investigators, saying subpostmasters “will have been in wholly unfamiliar territory and they will have found the experience to be troubling at best and harrowing at worst”.
The publication of the first part of the report today focused solely on the devastating impact of the scandal on victims and the compensation offered to subpostmasters.
A further report potentially attributing blame is expected at a later date.
In a statement, 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.”
If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this article, please call the Samaritans for free on 116123.
