Latest news with #HorizonSystem
BBC News
3 days ago
- BBC News
Handsworth Post Office victim to return to family business
A postmistress who lost her Post Office branch after being wrongly accused of stealing money plans to return to her family business next Gill ran the Wattville Road Post Office in Handsworth in Birmingham and was one of hundreds to be accused or convicted of theft and fraud because of a faulty computer system, branch was started by her father in 1976 and then handed down to her and she said: "My father always wanted us to get it back somehow."Yesterday a report was released, looking at the impact on victims, as well as the fairness and speed of the compensation process. The report said the scandal had a "disastrous" impact on those said at least 59 people contemplated suicide at various points, of whom 10 attempted to take their own lives, and more than 13 people may have killed themselves due to the Post Office has apologised unreservedly for what it called a "shameful period" in its Gill said she had considered suicide herself and it was "saddening" to hear how so many others had been said when the allegations first emerged of money going missing from her Post Office, there was an assumption in the local community that she was guilty."Everybody started talking about it, everybody said you did it," she said."People just automatically believed what was said."To try to balance the books and stay out of jail, she said she ended up missing card and mortgage payments and her parents had to sell a property to keep her inquiry, led by Sir Wyn Williams, criticised the speed of compensation, saying that for many claimants it had not been delivered "promptly".Ms Gill, one of those still waiting for her compensation, said: "I just want it finished."Now, she said the local community was "behind me 100%" and wanted her to get her Post Office back."I've watched these people in there for the last 15 years," she said."My father always wanted us to get it back somehow and next year will be 50 years of us having the business, and that's one thing I wanted to do for him and his memory." Follow BBC Birmingham on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
SBS Australia
4 days ago
- Politics
- SBS Australia
Report lays bare suffering from UK Post Office scandal
It's been talked about as one of Britain's worst miscarriages of justice: the prosecution of nearly 1000 people who worked at Post Office branches around Britain between 1999 and 2015, who were wrongly accused and sometimes convicted of theft, fraud and false accounting. The now 92 year old Betty Brown and her late husband were among the victims. Ms Brown has told ITV News she did her best to protect her husband, who was sick with cancer at the time, but they were still forced to sell their business and spend their entire life savings to cover the 50,000 pound shortfall wrongly raised. "Horizon just changed and spoiled everything. I was going to bed at night and I was asleep right in the edge of the bed so that my husband wouldn't hear me crying or feel me crying or anything, and you just had to deal with it yourself." The pursuit of those caught up in the scandal was based on evidence from a defective information technology system called Horizon, made by the Japanese firm Fujitsu, which the Post Office introduced 25 years ago. After false shortfalls were picked up by the software, the Post Office accused branch managers of dishonesty and obliged them to repay the money. Of the nearly 1,000 people prosecuted, all except for 50 to 60 people were convicted, forcing some into bankruptcy, while others went to prison. At least 13 people are thought to have taken their own lives as a result of the situation, while another 59 contemplated suicide. That's one of the findings of the first report from a public inquiry launched in 2021 into the extent of the suffering and damage caused by the scandal - an inquiry chaired by Sir Wyn Williams. "The picture which has emerged and which is described in my report is profoundly disturbing. Many thousands of people have suffered serious financial detriment, and for a sizable proportion, that detriment subsists. Many people have, inevitably suffered emotional turmoil and significant stress in consequence. Many businesses and homes have been lost. Bankruptcies have occurred. Marriage and families have been wrecked." Seema Misra is a former Post Office sub-post master who was convicted and imprisoned. She has told told Sky News the report's findings come as a relief after so many years of upheaval. "It's been a really frightening, angry journey. But it's moving in the right direction now." In 2024, the government introduced legislation to reverse the convictions, and many of the victims have been compensated. However, the inquiry heard from affected employees about significant delays in receiving compensation, and many who had been compensated through the Post Office's redress scheme who said the amount they received was only a portion of what they had lost. Sami Sabet says he lost his job and was put through criminal proceedings as a result of the faulty software. He is among many still fighting for compensation, telling Chanel 4 News financial redress would go a small way to address the damage caused. "The psychological trauma is almost irreversible. You cannot put any figures on it. My health isn't going to come back. My eyesight, my post-traumatic stress disorder is there. I'll have to learn to live with it." Sir Williams says the Post Office's conduct has been unacceptable. "There are still more than 3,000 claims to resolve. And the likelihood is that there are approximately 1,500 complex and standard claims which are either in the process of assessment or waiting for the process to begin." The report has made 19 urgent recommendations, including that the claimants receive free legal advice, and that a program of restorative justice be established to enable individual victims to meet directly with Fujitsu, the Post Office and the government. It also recommends compensation payments be made available for close family members of those affected, and acknowledges around 10,000 people are eligible for redress. The Post Office's chairman, Nigel Railton, has pledged to ensure that all victims are compensated. He's told Sky News he is sorry for the harm caused. "I mean, look, some of the human impacts.. make apologies not sufficient. The harm that the post office has caused to people over decades is just completely unacceptable, and it's horrific, is the only way to describe it. So I am genuinely really, really sorry, but that's not enough." Fujitsu has also issued a statement saying they are sorry for their part in the scandal, that they are considering the recommendations, and are engaging with the government on contributing to compensation. They - post office and government - have until October to formally respond to the report's findings. The inquiry is expected to issue a further report in due course that will address who was at fault for overseeing the scandal. For Mr Sabet, the inquiry - and an ongoing police investigation into the scandal - offer hope those responsible will be brought to justice. "I would very much like to see the people who are responsible for this go through the same as we went through and be punished just as we were punished, but we were punished wrongly, but they will be punished correctly."
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
The Guardian view on the Post Office scandal: justice delayed, redress demanded and a nation's shame exposed
It was not a terror attack or an earthquake but something more mundane – a faulty computer system and a rigid bureaucracy – yet it devastated hundreds of ordinary lives. Over two decades, Britain's Post Office prosecuted its own subpostmasters for crimes they had not committed, based on the say-so of a computer system called Horizon. The software, developed by Fujitsu, and rolled out from the late 1990s onwards, was riddled with faults. But these were not treated as glitches. They were treated as evidence of dishonesty. The public inquiry into the Post Office IT Horizon scandal, seen as one of the worst miscarriages of justice, began in 2021. In a searing 162-page first volume its chair – the retired judge Sir Wyn Williams – laid bare the human toll, and the often sluggish, inadequate attempts to put things right. Between 1999 and 2015, nearly 1,000 people were prosecuted – and convicted – using data from the flawed Horizon system. Some were jailed. At least 13 may have killed themselves. Many more were ruined – wrongly imprisoned and bankrupted with their health and reputation shredded. The report makes clear: this was not a technical slip. It was a systemic failure that destroyed lives – and one that the Post Office let happen. Sir Wyn can't assign legal guilt, but he leaves no doubt about blame. Victims, he writes, suffered 'wholly unacceptable behaviour' at the hands of 'the Post Office and Fujitsu'. Post Office executives and Fujitsu staff knew early on that Horizon was faulty. Still, prosecutions went ahead. Unreliable data was used to discipline, sack and jail subpostmasters. Complaints were brushed aside. Shortfalls were assumed to be theft. Victims were isolated and disbelieved. Compensation schemes have followed, but these too have been marked by delay, confusion and red tape. Sir Wyn criticises all three of the major schemes as failing to deliver 'full and fair' redress – and retraumatising many victims. He calls for clearer definitions, swifter payments and a permanent public body to handle compensation for people harmed by state wrongdoing. The judge says there are about 10,000 eligible claimants for financial redress. It seems astonishing that it took a television drama about the scandal to move the government to act. The judge concurs with a barrister acting for the victims who noted that 'until a change in political momentum in January 2024, behind the scenes an overly legalistic, slow and potentially obstructive attitude operated to constrain the amounts of compensation paid'. Sir Wyn also proposes restorative justice: not only money, but acknowledgment. How this is framed has yet to be determined. But there seems much to be gained from public apologies and human understanding. There must be a moral reckoning with the damage caused. This isn't the end – more volumes will follow – but even this first report reveals something badly broken in British public life. The real failure wasn't tech, but people and institutions. The government-owned Post Office, once a trusted part of society, emerges as secretive, punitive and unwilling to admit fault. It failed its reputation for being a pillar of civic life. It was, instead, the state that Nietzsche warned of – the 'coldest of all cold monsters' – wearing the people's face, but turning on them with indifference. The question now is not whether this happened, but what a country should do when it learns what it allowed to happen.
BBC News
4 days ago
- BBC News
Post Office scandal: Exhausted, angry, heartbroken - Postmasters react to report
Victims of the Post Office scandal have been waiting years for than 900 sub-postmasters were prosecuted after the faulty Horizon computer system made it look like money was missing from their branch Wyn Williams has now published the first part of his report from the official inquiry into the scandal, focusing on the human impact as well as former sub-postmasters travelled to the Oval cricket ground in London to see Sir Wyn deliver volume one of his report in spoke to some of those who were there, to hear about what impact the scandal had on their lives and to get their reactions to Sir Wyn's findings. 'I was 19. My life was over before it began' Tracy Felstead was just 19 when she was sentenced to six months in prison in 2002. She was wrongly accused of stealing £11,503 while working at Camberwell Green Post Office in had her conviction quashed at the Court of Appeal in 2021."Emotional" is how she says she felt on reading Sir Wyn's report, in which her personal story featured."It doesn't matter how much therapy I go through, how much compensation you give me - I'll never get that back," she says."This was my first job and obviously, my life was over before it began."Even now, certain things "trigger the memory" of what she went through and "that trauma comes flooding back".Tracy is still waiting for full and final compensation."My claim is in, but they come back with 101 questions that you have to try and answer," she hopes Sir Wyn's recommendations will be implemented, but more than anything wants to move on with her life."For me to get up in the morning and not think about this would be a big day." 'I feel heartbroken, angry - and happy' Seema Misra's story is one of the most well-known of the scandal. She was jailed in 2010 while pregnant after being accused of stealing £74,000 from her Post Office branch. She was sent to prison on the day of her eldest son's 10th birthday."I've got mixed emotions," she says, reflecting on the publication of the report. "I feel heartbroken, angry - and happy, too, that it's finally here."There are several recommendations in the report on financial redress, which it described as having been "bedevilled with unjustifiable delays".Seema says she's hopeful that compensation payouts will speed up as a result."When we started the fight... we didn't think it would take this long, at all. Hopefully now the government will listen and implement sooner rather than later," she Post Office issued an unreserved apology for "a shameful period in our history", but that doesn't mean much to Seema."I don't accept their apologies at all. Go behind bars and then I'll think." 'We are getting tired. It's exhausting' Kathy McAlerney was a sub-postmistress in a small branch in the village of Litcham, in Northern others, unexplained shortfalls began appearing in her Horizon an audit by the Post Office in 2007, she was suspended "on the spot" and pursued for years to pay back the money back, which, under the terms of her contract, she was liable to cover.A year later, her contract was terminated. She was eight months pregnant with her fourth daughter at the daughter is now 18 years old - and Kathy is still awaiting came with her husband Patrick to see Sir Wyn deliver his report, which she really hopes will make a difference. "We have been waiting so long. We've been waiting decades now. And we really just want to get to the point where we can put this behind us and move on with our lives."We are getting tired, you know. It's exhausting." Report shows 'horror they unleashed on us' Post Office campaigner and former sub-postmistress Jo Hamilton says the government is now under pressure "to get a grip on redress" because Sir Wyn Williams is "on it"."They are under the cosh," she it comes to compensation, she says it is "just mad" that the government is "spending millions on lawyers to pull the claims apart" that they have paid for to be says Tuesday's report is huge because it lays bare "the full scale of the horror that they unleashed on us".The investigations into who is culpable for that suffering will be "interesting", she adds. 'Stress has shortened my life considerably' Sami Sabet was a successful businessman before deciding to leave the "rat race" and become a sub-postmaster for three post offices around he recognised shortfalls in his branch accounts in 2006, he contacted the Horizon helpdesk and spoke to regional managers about his problems, but was still ended up pleading guilty to fraud in 2009 to avoid prison, and received a suspended sentence. Even after his conviction was quashed in 2021, he says some of his neighbours still see him as a believes stress has "shortened my life considerably". He has had a heart attack and during open heart surgery lost some of his peripheral vision. He also suffered from depression, anxiety and panic attacks, and says his personality says that although Sir Wyn's recommendations for compensation for more people are fair, there is a danger that could push compensation for him back even further."It has taken so long," he was awarded compensation for intangible damages, such as the negative effects on his health, but is still waiting for compensation for the loss of his money and businesses.
Al Arabiya
4 days ago
- Politics
- Al Arabiya
At least 13 may have killed themselves over UK's Post Office wrongful convictions scandal
At least 13 people are thought to have taken their own lives as a result of Britain's Post Office scandal, in which almost 1,000 postal employees were wrongly prosecuted or convicted of criminal wrongdoing because of a faulty computer system, a report said Tuesday. Another 59 people contemplated suicide over the scandal–one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in UK history. From around 1999 to 2015, hundreds of people who worked at Post Office branches were wrongly convicted of theft, fraud, and false accounting based on evidence from a defective information technology system. Some went to prison or were forced into bankruptcy. Others lost their homes, suffered health problems or breakdowns in their relationships, or became ostracized by their communities. Retired judge Wyn Williams, who chairs a public inquiry into the scandal, said in a report published Tuesday that 13 people killed themselves as a consequence of a faulty Post Office accounting system showing an illusory shortfall in branch accounts, according to their families. The problems at the Post Office, which is state-owned but operates as a private business, were known for years. But the full scale of the injustice didn't become widely known until last year when a TV docudrama propelled the scandal to national headlines and galvanized support for victims. The culprit was a piece of software called Horizon, made by the Japanese firm Fujitsu, which the Post Office introduced 25 years ago across branches to automate sales accounting. When the software showed false account shortfalls, the Post Office accused branch managers of dishonesty and obliged them to repay the money. In all, the report said that about 1,000 people were prosecuted and convicted based on evidence from the incorrect data. The government has since introduced legislation to reverse the convictions and compensate the victims. Williams said that some senior Post Office employees knew–or should have known–that the Horizon system was faulty. But the Post Office maintained the fiction that its data was always accurate, he said. Jo Hamilton, a former Post Office manager and a lead campaigner, said that the report 'shows the full scale of the horror that they unleashed on us.' In a statement, the Post Office's chairman pledged to ensure that all victims are compensated. '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,' Nigel Railton said. 'It has taken them too long to clear their names and in many cases to receive redress.' Tuesday's report was the first to be published from the inquiry, which was launched by the government and has the power to require evidence from all parties. It's expected to issue a further report at a later date that will address who was at fault for overseeing the scandal and potentially attribute blame.
