I know this isn't on the list in my previous post but it's timely and brings attention back to the Post Office Ltd failings, and the unchanged culture.
Two reports, one about the computer system used at PO branches before Horizon was introduced, and the other about Fujitsu's reaction to POL asking for a witness statement and evidence this year for a further prosecution.
Report 1
In the week after Sir Alan Bates received his knighthood at Windsor Castle, Computer Weekly reveals failings similar to those in the Horizon case with its predecessor, Capture. Capture was a PC-based accounting system, referred to as 'a glorified spreadsheet'. There was no centralisation of data, and as with Horizon, too little training if any.
Here's the Computer Weekly article by Karl Flinders (links are to CW and WhatDoTheyKnow websites).
Post Office dramatically increased the number of investigations into subpostmasters after Capture Software was introduced
A change in Post Office behaviour after it introduced software to computerise branch accounts in 1993 mirrors an increase in prosecutions six years later, when the controversial Horizon system was introduced.
Lives were destroyed as the Post Office blamed subpostmasters for unexplained accounting shortfalls that only existed on the error-prone Horizon accounting system used in branches. Former users of Horizon predecessor, Capture, have been campaigning since January when ITV’s dramatisation of the Post Office scandal revealed parallels to problems they experienced.
Data on Post Office prosecutions has revealed worrying similarities to how the Post Office treated Horizon and Capture users who suffered unexplained losses.
According to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, in the six years before Capture was introduced by the Post Office to automate manual processes, fewer than five subpostmasters were investigated over account shortfalls in four of the years, seven investigations were carried out in 1992, and 11 investigations took place in 1993. But in the following six years, the number of investigations increased dramatically to an average of 191 a year, reaching 378 in 1998.
This mirrors a dramatic change that followed the introduction of the Horizon system to branches in 1999, in relation to the number of subpostmasters convicted of financial crimes. According to a separate FOI request from 2020, in the seven years between 1991 and the year before Horizon’s introduction, an average of six subpostmasters were convicted per year, compared with an average of 52 a year in the 13 years following its introduction, until the Post Office stopped prosecuting in 2013.
After Capture was introduced, prosecutions increased, but to a much smaller extent than investigations. However, the Post Office contract meant subpostmasters who had unexplained shortfalls, which the investigations typically related to, had to cover those shortfalls with their own money or face the termination of their contracts or prosecution.
The Post Office scandal was first exposed by Computer Weekly in 2009, revealing the stories of seven subpostmasters and the problems they suffered due to Horizon accounting software, which led to the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history.
Horizon is a large, complex, networked system connected to centralised services with links to Post Office systems, which all subpostmasters have to use. In contrast, the Capture system was a PC-based application developed by the Post Office and uploaded to a personal computer by subpostmasters to carry out their accounts. The software – referred to by some users as a “glorified spreadsheet” – was a standalone system, which was used by more than 1,500 subpostmasters.
Computer Weekly reported in January that former users of the software had come forward claiming they had been prosecuted for unexplained shortfalls. Former MP Kevan Jones, who now sits in the House of Lords, was involved in the campaign for justice for Horizon victims and has spearheaded a campaign for subpostmasters who believe they suffered losses and criminal prosecution as a result of Capture errors.
After pressure, the government commissioned an investigation of Capture to be carried out by forensic specialists Kroll. This report is now in the hands of the government and its publication is expected soon.
Neil Hudgell, a solicitor at Hudgell Solicitors, which has about 40 former Capture users as clients, said he is confident that the content of the report will be supportive of his clients’ claims.
Steve Marston was prosecuted in 1996 for theft and false accounting following an unexplained shortfall of nearly £80,000 in his branch in Bury, Lancashire. He said he had never had any problems using the paper-based accounting system. This changed when his branch, which he ran from 1973, began using Capture.
He covered the losses with his own money, but it kept getting worse. After an audit revealed a loss he couldn’t fully cover out of his own pocket, he was advised to plead guilty to theft and fraud to avoid jail. The judge took into account two bravery awards Marston had received for standing up to armed robbers, saving him a jail sentence. He was given a 12-month suspended sentence, lost his home and business, and went bankrupt.
Marston said the stats in the latest FOI response provide a damning indictment of the effects that the introduction of Capture had. “Are we really expected to believe that, all of a sudden, honest and hard-working postmasters who have substantial amounts of money invested in their businesses have all gone rogue at the same time?
“Surely someone at the Post Office should have seen that the numbers [of investigations] literally exploded after the introduction of Capture, which we know to be unfit for purpose and, in my opinion, should never have been made public.”
Marston, who will meet the government next week to discuss the Capture controversy, said he hopes to get justice. The government is expected to publish the Kroll report on Capture soon.
In June, Computer Weekly revealed another similarity between Capture and Horizon in terms of inadequate training. Subpostmasters used pre-Horizon Capture software without any training from the Post Office, a failing that mirrors one of the causes of the Post Office Horizon scandal. Despite a Post Office document from 1995 outlining the training users received, former subpostmasters, who encountered serious problems with Capture, have come forward revealing they had no training. One of the major problems with the controversial Horizon system was the lack of adequate training on using the system.
Computer Weekly has contacted the Post Office for comment.
The Post Office scandal was first exposed by Computer Weekly in 2009, revealing the stories of seven subpostmasters and the problems they suffered due to Horizon accounting software, which led to the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history.
Report 2
The Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry resumed while we were away: I'm not going to have time to comment on what I haven't even started to watch/listen to, but this report from Mark Sweney of The Guardian shows that, whilst PO CEO Nick Read thinks he has changed the business structure, he really doesn't understand at all.
Post Office asked to use Horizon IT data to support criminal case this year, inquiry hears
The Post Office attempted to use Horizon IT data to support a criminal case against a post office owner earlier this year, despite hundreds of post office operators being wrongfully prosecuted for theft, fraud and false accounting because of bugs in the system.
A chain of email correspondence between the Post Office and the Horizon developer, Fujitsu, relating to a police investigation into a potential criminal case involving a “large sum of money” against a sub-post office operator was shown at the public inquiry into the scandal on Tuesday.
An email was sent by John Bartlett, the head of investigations at the Post Office, to Fujitsu describing the Post Office as the “potential victim” and asking for the software company to provide a witness statement to the police or the case would not be able to progress.
The issue was rapidly escalated to Paul Patterson, the chief executive of Fujitsu Europe, who wrote directly to the Post Office chief executive, Nick Read.
“I am writing to you directly in order to raise serious concerns that have come to my attention which indicate the Post Office continues to pursue enforcement against postmasters and expects Fujitsu to support such actions,” he said in an email in May.
“We are concerned by the behaviour of the Post Office investigation team on this matter. That team maintains the approach of the Post Office as a ‘victim’ and requires Fujitsu to provide a witness statement as to the reliability of Horizon data stating that without such statement the case will not progress. For the investigations team to act in this manner seems to disregard the serious criticism raised in multiple judicial findings and indeed exhibits a lack of respect to the ongoing inquiry.”
Read responded by saying that there had been a “fundamental misunderstanding” at Fujitsu about the “Post Office’s current day culture and activities”.
He said that the Post Office was not continuing its pursuit of post office operators in private prosecutions – “including providing supporting data from the Horizon system” for cases – and that it was to help a potential police investigation.
Patterson responded saying that he considered the request to be “entirely inappropriate”, adding that the Post Office is “well aware there have been and there continue to be bugs, errors and defects in the Horizon system”.
“It seems clear that the Post Office continues to have significant cultural issues,” he said. “[It] sees itself as a ‘victim’ with the enforcement and prosecution of postmasters considered as a business as usual activity. Fujitsu finds the language and the suggested behaviour unacceptable from Post Office investigators.”
Between 1999 and 2015, the Post Office relentlessly pursued and wrongfully prosecuted more than 700 operators using faulty Horizon IT data.
The email request to Fujitsu came after ITV aired Mr Bates vs the Post Office, which brought the plight of the post office operators and use of the flawed data in legal actions to national attention.
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