Police investigate Post Office over ‘potential fraud offences’ committed during Horizon scandal
5 January 2024, 22:24 | Updated: 5 January 2024, 23:44
Metropolitan Police detectives are looking at "potential fraud offences" committed during the Horizon scandal.
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More than 700 Post Office branch managers were handed criminal convictions after faulty Fujitsu accounting software made it appear as though money was missing from their outlets.
Hundreds of sub-postmasters were wrongly accused of fraud between 1999 and 2015 because of a Post Office computing error.
After a drama into the scandal, Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, was aired this week 50 new potential victims have approached lawyers, it has been said.
"The majority of (those 50 new enquiries) were not prosecuted but lost their livelihoods, lost their homes," Neil Hudgell, a lawyer acting for claimants, said.
Scotland Yard said on Friday evening officers were "investigating potential fraud offences arising out of these prosecutions".
It said potential examples included "monies recovered from sub-postmasters as a result of prosecutions or civil actions".
"The Met is investigating potential offences of perjury and perverting the course of justice," the force said in the statement.
"These potential offences arise out of investigations and prosecutions carried out by the Post Office.
"The investigation was launched in January 2020 following a referral from the DPP.
"Two people have been interviewed under caution. Nobody has been arrested."
Sir Keir Starmer responds to Post Office Horizon scandal
The government said in September last year that every sub-postmaster wrongfully convicted would be offered £600,000 in compensation to settle their claim.
Not all of the money has been paid out, and campaigners have urged the government to fast-track the compensation.
The Post Office scandal has been called the most widespread miscarriage of justice in UK history.
Hundreds of Post Office branch managers were given criminal convictions after the faulty accounting software, Horizon, made it look as if money was missing.
Horizon, which was introduced in 1999, was seen as a "better way" for managers to handle their branch accounts.
Sub-postmasters quickly realised unexplainable discrepancies in their records but the Post Office dismissed these concerns.
The Post Office then accused the sub-postmasters of taking the missing finances for themselves and started criminal proceedings.
Between 1999 and 2015, over 700 people were wrongly prosecuted. Some wrongly accused managers were imprisoned, and financially ruined. Some took their own lives.
No one responsible for the wrongful convictions has been prosecuted.
