05 January 2024 , 22:23
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Metropolitan Police detectives are looking at “potential fraud offences” committed during the Horizon scandal.
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.
Scotland Yard said on Friday evening officers were “investigating potential fraud offences arising out of these prosecutions”, for example “monies recovered from sub-postmasters as a result of prosecutions or civil actions”.
The force also said in the statement: “The Met is investigating potential offences of perjury and perverting the course of justice. 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.”
The shocking Post Office scandal took a devastating toll on the lives of ordinary Brits who were just fulfilling their normal job roles - but ended up convicted of crimes they never committed.
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An astonishing number of victims are still waiting to receive justice in the Post Office scandal despite the Government's promise of compensation, and the question of accountability looms large.
Viewers of ITV's new drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office have been left enraged at the injustice and horrific personal devastation caused by the wrongful prosecution for theft of hundreds of sub-postmasters by the Post Office.
More than 700 innocent postal workers were accused of theft, fraud and false accounting, including village post office shop owner Alan Bates, who lost £65,000. Their lives were irreparably damaged by the faulty technology, with sub-postmasters across the nation sacked, thrown in prison, and hit with immense mental distress.
Four people tragically died by suicide and others spiralled into a deep depression. As the scandal has been turned into a gripping ITV drama, Mr Bates vs The Post Office, The Mirror looked into the cruel human cost of the UK's worst-ever miscarriage of justice.
Out of a total of 736 employees, over 230 were jailed, including a pregnant woman, four committed suicide, 33 died, others were declared bankrupt while many saw their personal lives fall apart as they endured public humiliation.
Mr Bates, a former sub-postmaster from Wales who is played by Toby Jones in the TV drama, has spent two decades trying to clear the names of those who were wrongly given criminal convictions for reporting less income than Horizon said they should have.
In 2019, Alan and five other employees took the Post Office to the High Court on behalf of 555 claimants where a judge ruled the IT was at fault in what has now been named the UK’s worst miscarriage of justice.