Local MP welcomes Committee Inquiry into Post Office and Horizon IT

Jim McMahon

Yesterday, March 4th, the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee launches an inquiry on issues emerging from the Horizon IT Court cases.

The inquiry will look specifically into the impact the scandal had on sub-postmasters after hundreds of them were wrongly accused of fraud.

Shortly after the Post Office unrolled the Horizon IT system at the start of the millennium sub-postmasters across the country were having issues, and hundreds of them were terminated by the Post Office.

In total 555 ex and current sub-postmasters launched a group litigation order against Post Office and in December 2019 the High Court ruled in favour of the sub-postmasters, finding that Horizon was a flawed system, with numerous bugs, errors and defects that caused financial discrepancies on numerous occasions in branch accounts – of which Post Office had denied vigorously since the Horizon system was introduced.

“I’m grateful that the committee are looking into this injustice, hundreds of hard-working people across the were wrongly accused of fraud and have had their lives ruined as a result.

"The Horizon system was paid for using taxpayer’s money and was clearly not fit for purpose, the fact that it was allowed to continue for so long is extremely worrying, and I hope the inquiry prevents further injustices of this kind from happening again.”

“I have one constituent who is in danger of losing her home because Post Office terminated her contract, she’d invested thousands of pounds into running her post office and is now at risk of losing everything because of this system.

"Not only should Post Office seek to remedy this injustice, but the banks knocking at the door should recognise the exceptional circumstances of these cases and show some compassion.”

“It shouldn’t be the case that glitches in a software programme can cause this much stress and injustice. I look forward to this scandal being put to bed, and justice and compensation for sub-postmasters brought about as quickly as possible.”

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