Money wrongfully taken from victims of the Horizon scandal may have gone into the pay of Post Office executives, MPs have been told.
Nick Read, chief executive of the Post Office, said the company has still “not got to the bottom of” what happened to the cash paid by sub-postmasters and mistresses in a bid to cover the false financial black holes created by the Horizon software.
He said it has been investigated two or three times by external auditors, but it is something “we have struggled to uncover” due to various issues, including a low quality of data.
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MPs quiz Fujitsu – after admission of ‘bugs and errors’
However, he admitted it is a possibility the money taken from branch managers could have been part of “hefty numeration packages for executives”.
“It’s possible, absolutely it’s possible,” he said.
Mr Read said the information has been provided to the statutory inquiry into the Horizon scandal, which will look into the question of where the money went.
He appeared before MPs on the business committee alongside Paul Patterson, director of Europe’s Fujitsu Services Limited.
It follows renewed outrage over the issue after the airing of ITV drama Mr Bates Vs the Post Office, which documented the postmasters’ 20-year fight for justice.
Between 1999 and 2015, more than 700 Post Office branch managers were handed criminal convictions after discrepancies in Fujitsu’s Horizon system made it appear as though money was missing at their stores.
Firm ‘involved from start’ has compensation ‘obligation’
Mr Patterson told MPs he was sorry on behalf of his company that it would contribute to the compensation scheme.
“Fujitsu would like to apologise for our part in this appalling miscarriage of justice,” Mr Patterson said.
“We were involved from the very start.
“We did have bugs and errors in the system and we did help the Post Office in their prosecutions of the sub-postmasters and for that we are truly sorry.”
He said the company gave evidence which was used to send innocent people to prison, and while he did not know exactly when bosses first knew of issues related to Horizon, it had bugs at a “very early stage”.
Mr Patterson went on to say that the company has a “moral obligation” to contribute to the compensation scheme for those affected by the scandal – many of whom lost their homes and were financially ruined.
He said that he has spoken to the company’s bosses in Japan and it expects to have a conversation with the government about how much it should pay.
Mr Patterson has been in his current role since 2019 but has worked for Fujitsu since 2010.
He said he did not know why the company didn’t act when it knew there were glitches in the system.
“I don’t know, I really don’t know,” he said.
“On a personal level I wish I did and following my employment in 2019, I’ve looked back on those situations for the company and from the evidence I’ve seen, I just don’t know.”
‘The whole thing is madness’
Earlier Alan Bates and other campaigners – who were played by well-known actors in the ITV drama about the scandal – blamed red tape and bureaucracy on delays for subpostmasters accessing compensation.
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The real Mr Bates speaks to MPs
Mr Bates said his own process, for what he called “financial redress”, had been beset by delays.
“I think it was 53 days before they asked three very simple questions,” he explained. “It’s madness, the whole thing is madness.
“And there’s no transparency behind it, which is even more frustrating. We do not know what’s happening to these cases once they disappear in there.”
Wrongfully convicted former sub-postmistress Jo Hamilton said it was “almost like you’re being retried … it just goes on and on and on”.
