At least 13 people committed suicide in UK's Post Office scandal

Canada News.Net

11-07-2025

LONDON, U.K.: At least 13 people are believed to have taken their own lives as a result of the U.K.'s Post Office scandal, in which nearly 1,000 postal workers were wrongly prosecuted or convicted due to a faulty computer system, a public inquiry report revealed on July 8.
Another 59 individuals considered suicide over the scandal, which has been described as one of the most serious miscarriages of justice in British legal history.
Between 1999 and 2015, hundreds of sub-postmasters and postmistresses were falsely accused of theft, fraud, and false accounting based on data from a defective accounting software called Horizon. Many were imprisoned, driven into bankruptcy, lost their homes, or suffered mental health crises, broken relationships, and social isolation.
Retired judge Sir Wyn Williams, who leads the public inquiry into the case, said families linked the 13 suicides to the devastating consequences of the Post Office's reliance on Horizon, which wrongly reported cash shortfalls in branch accounts.
The Horizon system, developed by Japanese tech firm Fujitsu, was rolled out across Post Office branches in 1999 to automate sales and accounting. However, when errors occurred, the Post Office held individual employees responsible—demanding they repay the missing sums and initiating prosecutions.
Despite internal knowledge of the system's flaws, the Post Office insisted for years that its data was infallible. "The Post Office maintained the fiction that its data was always accurate," Judge Williams said. "Some senior staff knew—or should have known—Horizon was unreliable."
The scale of the injustice was known in legal and technical circles for years, but public awareness surged in 2023 following a widely viewed television docudrama that sparked outrage and support for the victims.
Jo Hamilton, a former sub-postmistress wrongly convicted of false accounting, and now a prominent campaigner, said the new report "shows the full scale of the horror that they unleashed on us."
In a statement, Post Office chairman Nigel Railton apologized, acknowledging the institution's failures: "The Post Office did not listen to postmasters and, as an organization, we let them down. Postmasters and their families have suffered years of pain. It has taken too long for them to clear their names and receive justice."
The government has passed legislation to overturn wrongful convictions and offer compensation. This week's report is the first from the official inquiry, which has the authority to demand testimony and documents from all involved. A subsequent report is expected to assign responsibility and determine accountability.