- Written by Michael Reese
- Business correspondent, BBC News
Watch: Fujitsu 'truly sorry' for role in Post Office prosecutions
The head of Fujitsu Europe has admitted that the company has a “moral obligation” to contribute to the compensation of sub-postmasters who were wrongly prosecuted as a result of faulty IT programmes.
Paul Patterson said Fujitsu provided evidence to the Post Office which was used to prosecute the innocent managers.
He added that the Post Office was aware of “bugs and bugs” in its Horizon accounting software early on.
This comes at a time when victims of the scandal told MPs about problems in obtaining compensation.
Between 1999 and 2015, more than 900 branch managers and postmistresses were prosecuted for theft and false accounting after money appeared to go missing from their branches, but the prosecutions were based on evidence from flawed Horizon software.
Some subpostmasters went wrongfully to prison, and many were financially ruined. Some have since died.
It has been described as the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history, but so far only 93 convictions have been overturned, and thousands of people are still awaiting compensation settlements more than 20 years later.
Appearing before MPs at the Business and Trade Select Committee on Tuesday:
- Fujitsu's Mr. Patterson said his “gut feeling” was that employees at the company knew about problems with Horizon before 2010.
- Nick Read, the Post Office's chief executive, said he could not give an exact date when the Post Office became aware that the IT system could be accessed remotely.
- Both Mr. Patterson and Mr. Reid have frustrated MPs who have criticized the lack of answers and knowledge of the events
- Jo Hamilton, one of the victims of the scandal, told MPs she felt like she was being treated like a criminal during the process of getting compensation
- Lord Arbuthnot said it was vital that the victims, some of whom were “living on the bare bones”, got the money as quickly as possible.
- Attorney Neil Hugill said only three of his group of 77 wrongly convicted postmasters received full and final compensation.
Patterson apologized for Fujitsu's role in what he described as a “horrific miscarriage of justice” and admitted that the company was “involved from the beginning.”
“We had bugs and errors in the system and we helped the post office with their subpostmaster trials,” he said. “And for that we are truly sorry.”
Asked why Fujitsu didn't do anything about the Horizon glitches when the company became aware of them at an early stage, Mr. Patterson said: “I don't know. I really don't know.”
He added: “On a personal level, I wish I had known that. After my appointment in 2019, I looked at those positions in relation to the company and the evidence I saw but I don't know.”
Nick Reid, chief executive of the Post Office, appeared alongside Patterson before MPs.
He was criticized for not providing information to the committee about key events in the timeline, such as when the Post Office first learned that remote access to subpostmasters' Horizon systems was possible.
While the prosecutions were being conducted, Fujitsu told the Post Office that no one, except the subpostmasters themselves, could access or change Horizon records – meaning that blame for errors could fall solely on the subpostmasters, but that turned out to be a mistake . incorrect.
“You sure had time in four years [since joining the Post Office] Labor MP Liam Byrne, chair of the committee, said: “To get to the heart of this issue, which is: When did the Post Office know that remote access to stations was possible?”
“I can't give you an exact date on that,” Mr. Reed replied.
Delay
Earlier, Neil Hugill, a lawyer representing 400 people directly affected by the scandal and 77 subpostmasters who were wrongly convicted by the Post Office, told MPs that only three people had received full and final compensation.
He said layers of bureaucracy, along with some requests from the post office, caused problems for victims obtaining financial compensation.
“I'm not sure enough resources are allocated to it, in terms of the right resources in the right areas,” he said. “Routinely, in cases of overturned convictions, it takes three to four months to get a response to routine correspondence.”
He said that in some cases, requests were made for documents that were kept in Post Office branches and to which customers had been denied access for about 15 to 20 years.
“We need to give subpostmasters the benefit of the doubt on basic matters,” Mr Hugill said.
'Stitches'
Jo Hamilton, who was wrongly convicted of stealing £36,000 from the village post office she ran in Hampshire in 2006, said getting compensation was “like being retried”.
“It just goes on and on,” she told the committee.
WATCH: The real Mr Bates speaks at the Post Office inquiry
Alan Bates, a former postmaster who campaigned on the ITV drama Mr Bates v the Post Office and which brought the issue back into the spotlight, said compensation had “stumbled” and the pace of processing claims was “insane”. .
He said his compensation process had been hampered by the delay.
“I think it took 53 days before they asked three very simple questions,” he said. He added: “There is no transparency behind this, which is even more frustrating.” “We don't know what happens to these cases once they're gone there.”
Reid, who joined the Post Office in 2019, admitted there was a “culture of denial” behind the organisation's procrastination in paying compensation.
“I think the most important cultural challenge I face in my organization is making sure that everyone in the organization fully sees and understands what is going on.”
Post Office Minister Kevin Hollinracke welcomed the suggestion that the Post Office would seek to make the compensation process simpler.
He told the committee he wanted to reduce the amount of bureaucracy involved, but acknowledged there were “a lot of moving parts” in the various compensation plans.
“No amount of compensation can be quite good [what victims went through],” He said.
“I think all of us involved in this process should try to speed up every part of the process.”
Separately from Tuesday's hearing, the investigation into the scandal is ongoing.
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