Post office scandal: how much deeper and wider can it get?

The revelation of the IT scandal at the Post Office has brought to light a smaller but no less devastating suffering suffered by sub-postmasters at the hands of the organization, apart from the users of the flawed Horizon system.

It took, among other things, 20 years of campaigning, a £150m Supreme Court battle, overturned criminal convictions, a statutory public inquiry and a TV drama to expose the situation. magnitude of the scandal named as one of the largest in British history.

It was after the broadcast of ITV’s dramatization of the scandal, in January 2024, that another post office system hit the headlines. Capture, famously, predated Horizon, and subpostmasters using the software, like those using Horizon, suffered unexplained shortages, refunding so-called losses, contracts had been terminated and some were convicted of financial crimes. Only those sub-postmasters saw the Mr. Bates versus the Post Office drama that they had the confidence to come forward tell their own, often moving, stories.

About 2,000 sub-postmasterrs used Capture in the nineties. All subpostmasters have been using Horizon since 1999. A third branch system called Ecco+ is now also being investigated.

Steve Lewis, a former sub-postmaster in South Wales, lost everything after having trouble with Capture, while Steve Marston, a sub-postmaster in Bury, was advised to plead guilty to theft and fraud to avoid jail, leaving him with a criminal record and destroyed his life. The two and others have campaigned to ensure their cases are viewed in the same way as Horizon cases.

After printing, an independent forensic analysis was conducted. on behalf of the government found in May 2024 The catch would probably have led to shortages for which sub-postmasters were blamed.

Last week, the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) said it would review the convictions of sub-postmasters for financial crimes when using the Post Office Capture system. The statutory body said it is currently considering five cases where the “Capture IT system could be a factor” and is “seeking further information” on eight further cases.

This happened within a year of concerns being raised. By comparison, it took the CCRC about 15 years and an incredible amount of campaigning to start in April 2015 Look at the likelihood of wrongful convictions of subpostmasters based on data from the Horizon system. It took another six years before the first wrongful convictions were overturned Southwark Crown Court and the Court of Appeal.

Peer Kevan Jones, former MP and long-time campaigner for the victims of the Horizon scandal, The Capture issue was raised at the beginning of this yeardemanding answers from the post office. He insisted that Capture’s victims would be treated the same as those who suffered at Horizon’s hands.

In January, as public reaction escalated after the TV drama aired, then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced that all Horizon-related convictions – around 1,000 – would be quashed. undone through legislation. About 100 people had already gone through the slow process of individually appealing their convictions. There are also financial redress schemes to compensate former Horizon users.

Jones said, “There can’t be two levels of justice,” so capture convictions must also be overturned as a group.

Last month, the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board, of which Jones is a member, wrote a letter to the Secretary of Justice urge the government to enact legislation to overturn the convictions of sub-postmasters under the law Catching system.

The Ministry of Justice said: “The CCRC is investigating a small number of convictions that may have been based on evidence from the Capture computer system. If they consider that there is a real possibility that these convictions are unsafe, they will be referred to the Court of Appeal.”

Peer James Arbuthnot, another long-time campaigner for sub-postmasters since his days as an MP, continued in July 2023 when he called for a review of all Post Office prosecutions – even those not related to Horizon.

Arbuthnot said at the time: “No prosecution by the Post Office is safe unless there is the clearest evidence that the convict has committed a crime. All Post Office convictions should be reviewed with the presumption of innocence paramount. The Post Office’s approach to prosecution, disclosure and investigation was contrary to established rules of law.”

There is a lot of talk about the Capture system as a second Post Office scandal, but it is one and the same. Technical errors caused the problem, but the scandal arose because of the way the post office handled it. Software doesn’t always work properly, but how it responds to errors is a human decision.

Arbuthnot, who is also a member of the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board, told Computer Weekly: “TThe government must legislate on exactly the same basis as it did with Horizon, but with even greater urgency. Any other course of action would lead to even more long-term injustice, and the country will not want that.”

In the latest twist, the government has confirmed that this is so looking for a third software system used by subpostmasters called Ecco+, which may have caused unexplained deficiencies that were blamed on branch employees and subpostmasters.

As Computer Weekly reported last month, the National Federation of Subpostmasters (NFSP) wrote to the minister responsible for the Post Office and requests an assessment of the problems experienced by Ecco+ users.

Last week, NFSP CEO Calum Greenhow and legal representatives from Howe & Co lawyers met with officials involved in the Capture investigation to discuss Ecco+.

Greenhow said the government was taking it “very seriously” and had “approached the Post Office for information about the Ecco+ system”. The system was mainly used in Crown branches managed directly by the Post Office, but some were sold to subpostmasters who continued to use Ecco+. There is also evidence that the software, such as Capture used in the 1990s, was sold to sub-postmasters.

David Enright, partner at Howe & Co Solicitors, has represented hundreds of sub-postmasters fighting for justice in the Post Office scandal. “Now is the time to clear the decks,” he said. “The Post Office and the government are issuing statements of intent about the future, but all problems must be resolved first.”

Sir Alan Bates, the former sub-postmaster who led the fight for justice for more than two decades, said: “The one thing in common with Horizon, Capture, the second Post Office IT system under investigation, and now Ecco+, is that they were all subjected to the same post office culture that ultimately led to the failure of the Horizon system – they are all part of the post office scandal.”

One issue that remains unresolved is compensation for the victims of the Horizon scandal. Bates welcomed the developments regarding Capture and Ecco+, but urged the government to take faster action on financial compensation.

“It’s all well and good that the government wants to correct previous mistakes, but I wish they would make an equal effort to first resolve financial compensation for the GLO group that first exposed these IT problems and was covered up by the post office,” he said. Computerweekly.

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Computerweekly first exposed the scandal in 2009which reveals the stories of seven sub-postmasters and the problems they faced as a result of the Horizon accounting software, which led to the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history (see the timeline below of Computer Weekly articles on the scandal since 2009).