Latest news with #miscarriageOfJustice
Telegraph
5 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Civil servants accused of fresh Post Office cover-up
Senior civil servants have been accused of covering up a report that could have exonerated sub-postmasters wrongly accused of theft. According to newly released emails, government officials removed any reference to a secret report that contained 'explosive' evidence about vulnerabilities in the Horizon computer system and bullying by Post Office prosecutors in correspondence with the National Audit Office (NAO). The report, which was compiled by Sir Jonathan Swift KC in 2016, was previously found to have been buried by the Post Office as it prepared to fight a legal case against more than 500 former sub-postmasters. However, The Telegraph can now reveal that civil servants at the UK Government Investments (UKGI) department, which manages the state shareholding in the Post Office, also kept the Swift review secret from the NAO. The revelation comes after the official inquiry into the Post Office Horizon scandal said it was likely 13 people took their own lives as a result of the miscarriage of justice. Sir Wyn Williams, the chairman of the public inquiry, said Post Office bosses knew Fujitsu's Horizon software was faulty but had 'maintained the fiction' that a version of it 'was always, always accurate'. In emails seen by The Telegraph from November 2018, UKGI officials recommended deleting reference to the Swift review in correspondence with the National Audit Office (NAO), the Government's financial watchdog. The Swift review was critical of the Post Office's tactic of pressuring sub-postmasters into pleading guilty to false accounting. The NAO asked UKGI for information while it was investigating the Post Office's decision to use public money to defend a lawsuit led by the former postmasters in 2018. This prompted immediate concern among UKGI officials, who raised fears internally about how documents could be used. Following a meeting to discuss the issue, a UKGI official sent an email to Richard Callard, head of risk and compliance, and Richard Watson, UKGI's general counsel, that said: 'I would not include specific reference to Jonathan Swift in the timeline for the NAO as I am not sure this was made public. 'Just say the Chair (Tim Parker) undertook a review, and that when you talk to the NAO, you can say you understand he took some independent legal advice as part of it or something.' Two minutes later, Mr Watson replied: 'I would just remove the reference entirely. As I understand it, the Swift review was never concluded.' Soon after, the UKGI civil servant responded: 'Thanks Richard. I will remove the Swift review then.' The Government has since claimed that UKGI did not have access to the Swift report until 2020. However, officials' awareness of its existence and decision to delete reference to it will raise questions about their decision-making, particularly as lawyers and former ministers claim that suppression of the Swift Report contributed to the biggest miscarriage of justice in British history. 'This new disclosure is very important,' said Paul Marshall, a barrister who acted for three sub-postmasters in their appeals against their criminal convictions. 'It tends to confirm a view I have held for a long time that it is possible the Government and civil servants were complicit in a cover-up.' It will also support claims by Baroness Neville-Rolfe, a former Post Office minister, who previously told a government inquiry that the 'explosive' Swift review had been 'buried and suppressed'. 'Airbrushed from the narrative' The internal UKGI emails were obtained by Eleanor Shaikh, a teaching assistant who has campaigned for justice for the sub-postmasters, under the Freedom of Information Act. She told The Telegraph: 'Instead of an impartial and transparent response to the NAO, the UKGI officials buried a document which threatened the very foundation of the Post Office's defence. Their carefully crafted communications allowed for plausible deniability. 'They knew the Swift review existed but actively colluded to airbrush it from the narrative. They were acting in the interests not of justice but of the Government.'
SBS Australia
6 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
7 days ago
- The Guardian
Post Office scandal may have led to more than 13 suicides, inquiry finds
More than 13 people may have killed themselves as a result of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal and it drove at least 59 more to contemplate suicide, according to the first findings from the public inquiry into what has been labelled the worst miscarriage of justice in UK history. The 162-page volume one report from Sir Wyn Williams, the retired judge who chaired the hearings, looks at the 'disastrous human impact' on thousands of post office operators wrongly held responsible for shortfalls in their branches caused by faulty software. It also covers the issue of compensation, arguing the Post Office and its advisers had in many cases adopted an 'unnecessarily adversarial attitude' to those seeking financial redress, who now number at least 10,000 – far higher than the more than 1,000 people prosecuted. Speaking after the report was published, Williams said evidence had revealed a 'profoundly disturbing' picture. While four suicides have been blamed on the scandal, Williams said at least 13 could be linked to it, and the total may be higher with some deaths unreported. A further 19 people began abusing alcohol, with some saying they could not sleep at night without drinking first. Of the 59 who had thoughts about killing themselves, 10 went on to attempt suicide, some on more than one occasion. Contemplating suicide 'was a common experience across both those who were and were not prosecuted', the report said. One post office operator said: 'The impact on me of the treatment the Post Office subjected me to has been immeasurable. The mental stress was so great for me that I had a mental breakdown and turned to alcohol as I sank further into depression. I attempted suicide on several occasions and was admitted to a mental health institution twice.' About 1,000 post office operators were prosecuted and convicted by the Post Office between 1999 and 2015, the report said, because of faulty Horizon accounting software that suggested they had committed fraud. A further 50 to 60 people, possibly more, were prosecuted but not convicted. The total wrongly held responsible for losses was in the thousands, with many making up the shortfall out of their pocket without ever being charged. Post Office bosses either knew, or should have known, that the IT system was faulty, the report said, but they 'maintained the fiction that its data was always accurate' when prosecuting branch owner-operators. Williams said he had received more than 200 witness statements from victims and almost all 'had suffered very significantly and many had endured a degree of hardship which was very severe by any standards'. Some became seriously ill, struggled with mental health problems, suffered financial hardship, lost their homes or went bankrupt. Even those who were acquitted often found themselves 'ostracised' in their communities, and many died before receiving compensation – reports have put the figure at about 350. Some family members also suffered psychiatric and other illnesses and 'very significant financial losses'. The report revealed about 10,000 people were claiming compensation through four schemes, two of which were merged in early June, and that number was likely to rise 'at least by hundreds, if not more' over the coming months. There were more than 3,000 claims still to resolve, half of which were in the initial stages, Williams said. In the report, he said: 'On too many occasions, the Post Office and its advisers have adopted an unnecessarily adversarial attitude towards making initial offers, which have had the effect of depressing the level at which settlements have been achieved.' Williams called for urgent action to deliver 'full and fair' compensation, asking the government and the Post Office to agree on a definition of the term to follow when deciding how much to offer. Williams said victims should receive free legal advice, funded by the government, to help them decide whether they should opt for the fixed-sum offer or assessment of their claims, and close family members of affected post office operators should also be compensated. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion Williams said the government had until 10 October to respond, and asked that ministers, with the Post Office and the Japanese technology company Fujitsu, which developed the faulty software, outline a programme for restorative justice, such as counselling and bursaries for those affected, by the end of that month. He also called for the creation of a standing public body that could administer and deliver 'financial redress to persons who have been wronged by public bodies'. In response to the findings, the chair of the Post Office, Nigel Railton, made a 'clear and unequivocal apology to every single person affected by this scandal' on behalf of the company and admitted 'as an organisation we let them down'. He vowed to do 'everything in my power' to make sure that affected branch operators received the redress they were entitled to, as soon as possible. The report, which follows 225 days of inquiry hearings with 298 witnesses, did not detail the total compensation paid out so far. According to the government, more than £1bn had been paid out to more than 7,300 post office operators by 9 June. No date has yet been set for the publication of volume two of Williams's findings, which will cover the technical issues with the Horizon IT system, the Post Office's handling of the reported discrepancies, legal proceedings against post office operators, institutional culture and government oversight. It could come as late as next year. Williams's report contained 17 case illustrations, including that of Millie Castleton, who was eight when the Post Office alleged that her father, Lee Castleton, was liable for shortfalls at his branch and his contract was terminated. He was later ordered to pay the Post Office £25,858.95 plus interest and their legal costs, a total sum of £309,807.94. Millie recounted that she became the target of bullying at school, where she was asked: 'Didn't your dad steal loads of money or something?' At 17, she was suffering from depression and was diagnosed with anorexia, and was forced by illness to 'take a year out' at university. At one point she was admitted to hospital with heart-related problems. 'That nagging voice in my head … still tells me that my past and my family's struggle will define me,' Millie said. 'I'm 26 and … I'm still fighting, as are many hundreds involved in the Post Office trial.' The scandal was exposed after years of campaigning and media investigations but was brought to the attention of many people by the ITV dramatisation Mr Bates vs the Post Office. Days after the series aired in January last year, the government announced plans to legislate to exonerate those who had been wrongly prosecuted, and the bill was passed in June. The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said in her debut budget last October that the government had set aside £1.8bn to cover all compensation claims. The government is the sole shareholder of the Post Office and is therefore responsible for paying out. Compensation payments have so far ranged from £10,000 to more than £1m. The postal minister, Gareth Thomas, said: 'Sir Wyn's … recommendations are immensely helpful as a guide for what is needed to finish the job, and we will respond in full to parliament after carefully considering them.' In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@ or jo@ In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at
Telegraph
7 days ago
- Telegraph
The Post Office victims driven to suicide by the Horizon scandal
The Post Office scandal has been repeatedly described as one of the ' UK's biggest miscarriages of justice in history '. On Tuesday, Sir Wyn Williams' report explicitly links five suicides to wrongful accusations of theft - a figure which underlines the extent of devastation for some victims and their families. In total, 59 people told the inquiry they had contemplated suicide at various points, of whom 10 attempted to take their own lives. Writing in his report, the inquiry chair said: 'I should stress that whilst I cannot make a definitive finding that there is a causal connection between the deaths... I do not rule it out as a real possibility.' Sir Wyn also suggested it is possible that there are more suicides linked to the scandal which 'have not been reported to the Post Office or the inquiry.' The names of only two sub-postmasters who took their own lives - Michael Mann and Martin Griffiths - were made public in evidence given to the inquiry. However, while other victims remained unnamed, reports of suicides linked to the scandal have previously been reported in the media. Martin Griffiths Martin Griffiths took his own life in 2013 aged 59 after being falsely accused of stealing £100,000 from his Ellesmere Port branch. During the inquiry, it was heard that the Post Office sought to 'hush up' the case of Mr Griffiths, a father-of-two, by 'drip feeding' compensation payments of £140,000 to his widow, Gina, getting her to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) and lining up a media lawyer to protect its reputation. Mr Griffiths's sister has blamed the Post Office saying that officials have 'blood on their hands'. A letter from the sub-postmaster's daughter was also presented as evidence in which she said she 'solely' blamed the Post Office for her father's death. Mr Griffith's sister, Jayne Caveen, 61, said last year: 'I hope those responsible at the Post Office and Fujitsu are finally prosecuted, as they truly have blood on their hands. I can't move on with my life without these bitter feelings and deep sadness until they are behind bars.' Her brother had run his branch successfully in Great Sutton, Cheshire, for 14 years before the faulty Horizon IT system appeared to show cash going missing in 2009. Over the next four years, he put £100,000 of his own money into the system to balance the books as his mental health deteriorated. In September 2013 he left home early, leaving a note apologising to his family, and took his own life at the age of 59. Ms Caveen claimed that her brother's wife, Gina, was pressured into signing a settlement deal and an NDA with a payout that prevented the full story from emerging until 2022. She said: 'The more weight the story gets, the better, however painful it is for my family to endure. True justice will only be served when those responsible for the cover-up and the subsequent years of torment are held to account. It is they who should have to see what the inside of a prison cell feels like.' Speaking to Panorama on BBC 1 in 2022, Gina Griffiths said: 'They hounded him, they persecuted him, there didn't seem to be any end to it at the time. Martin hit rock bottom. The worst thing was our children seeing their dad die. It was surely down to the Post Office, nobody else, so I blame them.' Michael Mann Former Post Office manager Michael Mann took his own life after being interviewed by the company's internal investigators on suspicion of fraud in 2013. Stephen Bradshaw and Helen Rose, former Post Office investigators, were interviewed as part of an internal probe into his death, and all Post Office employees involved in audit and investigations were later found to have behaved professionally. Peter Huxham Devon-based postmaster Peter Huxham's body was discovered by police in July 2020. Mr Huxham had been a postmaster for 25 years but served a prison term in 2010 after pleading guilty to fraud by misrepresentation over a £16,000 alleged shortfall - on the advice of his lawyers. His 22-year marriage reportedly disintegrated due to his ordeal and he also struggled with alcoholism and mental health issues in the years that followed. Jayakanthan Sivasubramaniam Father-of-two Jayakanthan Sivasubramaniam took his life hours after Post Office investigators raided his branch in Putney, south west London His branch in Putney came under investigation after the Post Office alleged that £179,000 went missing from the cash machine and the safe. According to the account given to the MPs' business committee by his widow, two Post Office investigators raided the store, took files and locked the couple out, just a few hours before he took his own life on March 4, 2005. His wife Gowri, who had been at a family birthday party with their two young children, returned home to find his body in the attic of their home in New Malden. 'My poor husband was not given the chance to prove his side, and took his own life,' his widow, Gowri, told The Times. In the weeks that followed Mr Sivasubramaniam's death, the Post Office continued to send letters chasing her for the 'missing' money, according to her account. She was forced to take out bank loans, remortgage their £350,000 home, and sell a property abroad and £14,000 worth of jewellery to keep the family afloat. Her account was sent to the House of Commons business committee, in formal evidence, in 2020. The Post Office refused to pay Mrs Sivasubramaniam a penny under the flagship compensation scheme despite admitting that the audit resulted in his suicide. The panel that decides claims, which is independent of both the Post Office and government, said that while it was 'sympathetic' to the widow 'regarding the state of affairs that transpired after the audit and untimely death of Mr Jayakanthan in March 2005' it added: 'In light of the panel's conclusions that the discrepancies identified at the audit were not Horizon shortfalls, the panel has concluded that none of the above losses can be considered to have arisen as a result of Horizon shortfalls.' Louise Mann Louise Mann, the wife of a postmaster in Moretonhampstead, Devon, took her own life in 2012 over the shame of being labelled a thief. Her husband Charles, a father-of-one, from Buckfastleigh, Devon, previously told the Mail: 'I lost my job. Then I lost my wife.'
The Guardian
7 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.
