The boss of Fujitsu has apologised to innocent sub-postmasters and said the firm has a "moral duty" to pay compensation to those wrongfully convicted due to its flawed IT system.
Appearing before MPs, Paul Patterson said the Japanese firm knew about "bugs and errors" in its Horizon programme from an "early stage". He acknowledged that Fujitsu helped the Post Office to prosecute sub-postmasters who were wrongly accused of swindling cash due to glitches in the IT system.
Mr Patterson said the Post Office was informed that there were bugs in the system but he couldn't say when. Post Office boss Nick Read was criticised by MPs for failing to answer some key questions. He blamed a "culture of denial" for the organisation's sluggishness in paying compensation wrongfully convicted sub postmasters.
Scandal victims Alan Bates and Jo Hamilton also gave evidence to the Commons Business and Trade Committee today on their fight for justice. Ms Hamilton said trying to get compensation resulted in being treated "like you're a criminal all over again".
The bumper session comes after ITV drama 'Mr Bates vs the Post Office' ignited a ferocious backlash over the scandal. Under intense public pressure to clear the names of the victims of the widest miscarriage of justice in British history, Rishi Sunak unveiled plans last week to swiftly exonerate and compensate those affected. More than 700 sub postmasters and subpostmistresses handed criminal convictions after Fujitsu's faulty Horizon software made it appear as though money was missing at their branches.
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Follow all the news from today's hearing as it happened
Thanks for following our liveblog on the Post Office scandal today.
Here are the highlights from today's Commons Business and Trade Committee hearing - featuring evidence from campaigners Alan Bates and Jo Hamilton, as well as Post Office and Fujitsu bosses.
The Commons Business and Trade Committee has wrapped up its mammoth hearing into the Post Office scandal.
Kevin Hollinrake, the minister for postal affairs, says there will be a "very significant bill" for compensation to innocent postmasters.
The Government has already set aside more than £1billion in taxpayers' cash to the Post Office - and Mr Hollinrake says he believes it would go beyond that.
He welcomes Fujitsu's commitment to contribute to the compensation - and says this would mean cash could likely be repaid to the taxpayer.
Rajibinder Sangha, a former Fraud and Litigation Support Officer at Fujitsu, is now questioned by Sam Stein, who represents subpostmasters, at the Post Office Inquiry.
He presses her on who was responsible for keeping her updated on "bugs, errors and defects in Horizon", as she says she was not always alerted to issues with the Horizon system. She says she can't remember if she had been alerted to a specific and significant bug that couldn't be deteced by branches, but if she had been it would "definitely" have caused concerns.
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Mr Stein asks who should have kept her up to date, "in other words, who was responsible for not dealing with these matters and discussing them with you". Ms Sangha responds: "I would say management."
He asks her whether to the best of her knowledge she knows if Horizon is still being used in court proceedings. She responds: “Yes, I think it is.”
Kevin Hollinrake, the Minister responsible for postal affairs, says he hopes compensation will be paid to wrongfully convicted postmasters by August.
"It's not a deadline," he says. "It's an ambition we want to deliver this scheme by."
Mr Hollinrake admits "no amount of compensation can ever make good what's happened in the past".
The Tory Minister also says he's open to drawing "short, sharp" legislation to quash all convictions as quickly as possible. The Government has committed to clear all wrongly convicted postmasters using a mass-exoneraton bill.
Post Office's Nick Read is grilled on whether Paula Vennells misled MPs when she gave evidence to a committee in 2015.
Asked if he would have said in 2015 that prosecutions against subpostmasters were sound as she did, he says: "I don't think I can give you a straight answer on that ... I don't think it's my place to judge that.
Paul Patterson admits he hasn't met any of the sub-postmasters - but says that he hasn't decided to not meet the victims.
"I have personally watched the drama on TV and read the evidence that was given in the impact statements by sub-postmasters", he says.
Jo Hamilton, who was wrongfully convicted of fraud but had her conviction overturned in 2021, watches his evidence from the seat behind.
(PA)Nick Read concedes that the Post Office could face liabilities of around £1 billion due to the Horizon scandal and compensation claims for postmasters.
Asked if the bill could hit £1billion, he initially says he doesn't recognise the figure.
Asked again, he says: "I think what has been done in the last 10 days in terms of the potential to mass exonerate, that is going to obviously generate a lot of people coming forward."
Asked for an assessment of the £1 billion estimate, he says: "I think it's unlikely to be that size, but it may well be."
The official Post Office inquiry tells Rajibinder Sangha, a former Fraud and Litigation Support Officer at Fujitsu, it appears “surprising” that her team wasn’t having meetings about problems with the Horizon system when they were arising.
Inquiry lawyer Julian Blake tells her: “People might see it as surprising that you didn’t have team meetings, discussions within the room about problems with Horizon - the bugs we’ve been referring to that caused discrepancies, issues with the integrity of the ARQ [Audit Record Query] data.”
After a long pause, Ms Sangha dodges personal responsibility, saying: “Obviously there were discussions but I didn't understand the severity of the issues compared to other senior members of the team.” Pressed if she had concerns about the integrity of the system or the reliability of the ARQ data at the time, she says: “No.”
Asked if there could have been more the team could have done, Ms Sangha says: "Maybe, obviously, have more conversations about these issues that were identified and it being filtered to everyone within the team."
Fujitsu chief Paul Patterson was unable to say exactly when bosses first became aware of issues with the Horizon IT software, but it had bugs at a "very early stage".
He told MPs: "I can't answer a month or a year. There were known bugs and errors in the system at a very early stage.
"I know there were bugs and errors when it was rolled out; in large IT projects there were will always be some bugs and errors, particularly of this scale.
"The important thing is what do we do with that information. Did we share that information with the Post Office? Yes, we did."
At the Post Office Inquiry, former Fujitsu fraud and litigation officer Rajbinder Sangha says a draft witness statement sent to her defending Horizon software now causes her concerns her because "obviously we had bugs in the system".
She was sent the draft statement on July 14 2010 shortly after joining the company but was copied into an email chain a week later which saw colleagues discuss issues regarding duplicate transactions on the system.
The statement sent to Ms Sangha read: "To the best of my knowledge and belief at all material times the system was operating properly, or if not, any respect in which it was not operating properly, or was out of operation was not such as to affect the information held within it."
The inquiry asked her: "Did it not cause you any concerns about the reliability of the statement?" Ms Sangha replied: "At the time, no, because I was not involved in producing a witness statement for going to court proceedings."
Mr Blake continued: "Does it cause you any concern now?" She replied: "Yes, it does." Asked why it caused her concerns now, Ms Sangha said: "Because obviously we had bugs in the system."
Asked if Fujitsu know about the problems with its software, Paul Patterson tells MPs: “My gut feeling would be yes.”
The Fujitsu Director accepts that the company has a "moral" obligation to contribute to the compensation scheme for postmasters.
Asked if the Japanese technology firm's evidence was used for this evidence, he says: "Yes, there was evidence from us.
"We were supporting the Post Office in their prosecutions. There was data given from us to them to support those prosecutions.
"The information shared with the Post Office as part of our contract with them was very clear - the Post Office also knew there were bugs and errors."
Emails shown to the Post Office Inquiry reveal that Fujitsu staff were discussing bugs in the Horizon IT system as early as 2008.
Concerns were raised that there were duplicated transactions in data being used to prosecute postmasters over shortfalls.
In an email in June 2010, Fujitsu executive Graham Welsh highlighted how there were issues with its Audit Record Query service. “We have a problem with the ARQ extraction tool,” he wrote. “Duplicate records that can not be differentiated are supplied as evidence. Thus could allow for legal challenge to the integrity of the system.”
Both Alan Bates and Jo Hamilton say they have been contacted by potential victims in recent weeks.
"Yes, they are starting to come through again," Mr Bates tells MPs.
Jo Hamilton also says that she was contacted by someone who went to prison just this morning.
She says: "I think there are people out there."
Jo Hamilton tells MPs she "felt helpless" when she was told she was the only one having issues with the Horizon IT system.
"I felt I had no choice but to run with it and keep putting money [her own] into it," she says.
Pressed by the Labour MP Ian Lavery where the money ended up - which included remortgaging her own house - she said she has heard it eventually was "hoovered into profit and loss" at the Post Office. "It's sickening to be honest," she adds.
Alan Bates says "most people haven't had a first offer" and his own personal case was submitted in October - 66 working days ago.
"I'm being told I won't receive a first offer until the end of this month".
He tells MPs not enough resource is being put in by the Government to deal with the cases. "They are just not moving - they are hitting a dead end when they get into the Department."
Alan Bates tells MPs there is no reason why compensation should have not been paid in full so far, adding: "People are dying".
"There are very few cases that have come out the other end - it's frustrating to put it mildly".
Describing claiming her own compensation, Jo Hamilton, another victim, says: "It's almost like you're a criminal all over again"
"It's almost like you're being re-tried. It just goes on, and on, and on. Everything has to be backed up with paperwork.
"I'm pretty much out the other side, but I'm fighting for the group who have had virtually nothing. They are in this factory of bureaucracy."
Lawyer Dr Neil Hudgell is asked by MPs whether could be hundreds more victims as a result of the scandal and whether many could have been "shortchanged".
He replies: "Both are correct".
Hudgell also questions how many people settled without legal advice.
Lawyer Dr Neil Hudgell, who works for more than 300 subpostmasters, reveals to MPs that just three individuals have been fully compensated so far.
He says around 27-40 had decided to take the £600,000 fixed offer while others have only received interim payments.
"Within the convicted cohort of clients that we have, of the 73, three have been fully paid out," he says.
He told the Business and Trade Committee: "It sounds perverse to say this, but I'm not sure that enough resources are thrown at it in terms of the right results into the right areas.
"For example, routinely with the overturned conviction cases it's taking three to four months to get a response to routine correspondence."
Asked by committee chairman Liam Byrne if government bureaucracy was "dragging its feet", he replied: "That's the only logical conclusion that that I can come to."
Lord Arbuthnot says Japanese company Fujitsu behind the Post Office's Horizon technology have "played a part in the devastation" inflicted on the subpostmaster and "should play a part in the redress" needed by victims now
Dr Neil Hudgell, the executive chairman Hudgell Solicitors, which has worked with convicted postmasters, says "this isn't about a flawed IT system".
"It's about the decisions made on the back of a flawed IT system".
It's a day of double hearing on the Post Office scandal.
At the same time as the Commons Business Committee hearing that is taking place in Parliament, the Post Office Inquiry is continuing to question people who worked at Fujitsu, the company that created the Horizon IT system that is blamed for the problems.
Rajbinder Sangha, who is a former member of Fujitsu's fraud and litigation support office, has begun giving evidence at the inquiry.
Rajbinder Sangha is a former member of Fujitsu's fraud and litigation support officeLord James Arbuthnot is now giving evidence with his former constituent and postmistress Jo Hamilton sitting directly behind him.
He says one of the "major blockings" of getting people compensation was that out of the 900+ convictions, only 95 had been overturned.
"This is a mass problem that the British legal system has never had to deal with before - and it needs a mass solution," he says.
"This has gone on for more than 20 years - if we can sort it out by the end of the year that would be a welcome change.
"Let's hope we can get it sorted out before the end of the year".
"It's essential for these people living hand to mouth - some of them bankrupt - that this money be paid as soon as possible. I hope it is a matter of weeks, rather than months. It must not be a matter of years - it must not spill into next year".
Former Tory MP Lord James Arbuthnot who pursued the case of postmasters in the face of obstruction from the Post Office is one of the first witnesses to appear.
He plays a major role in the ITV drama examining the Post Office scandal - working alongside his constituent and former postmistress Jo Hamilton, who will appear later.
He will appear alongside Dr Neil Hudgell, the executive chairman Hudgell Solicitors, who worked with the postmasters to bring their case against the Post Office.
More than 125,000 people have now signed our petition demanding that Alan Bates be honoured with a CBE or a knighthood for exposing the Post Office scandal which ruined the lives of hundreds of people.
The former postmaster, who led the decades-long fight for justice, had previously turned down an OBE as he believed it would be a "slap in the face" to the victims to accept an honour while ex-Post Office boss Paula Vennells still held her CBE. But after she handed back her gong, campaigners have said he should be recognised with the same honour himself - if not a knighthood.
Honours are usually announced to mark the New Year and the Monarch's birthday, but in special circumstances, they can also be awarded at other times. Our petition reached 100,000 signatures just days after we launched it.
Sign our petition HERE to give Post Office hero Alan Bates an honour
