Angel of Death Posted April 10 Share Posted April 10 Alan Bates, who led the campaign to expose the Horizon IT scandal, on Tuesday accused the Post Office of “lying” over two decades. But just what was the crisis - one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British history - about. And why is it back in the news? Here’s what you need to know about a faulty system which has ruined thousands of lives – and why everyone is talking about it. During this 16-year period, approximately 3,500 branch owner-operators were accused of taking money from the Post Office. More than 700 ended up being prosecuted by the Post Office and received criminal convictions, even though they maintained their innocence and blamed the faulty software throughout. The whole incident has repeatedly been described as “the worst miscarriage of justice in recent British legal history”. Hundreds of employees received criminal records, and had to do community service, wear electronic tags or serve jail time. Some sub-postmasters had even been trying to top up any losses showing up Horizon’s system with their own money. The Post Office can investigate and prosecute without the police’s help. For years, it stood by its accusations, and tackled queries about its management or its IT system through legal means, maintaining that Horizon was “robust” and that its monetary losses were not due to the faults in the system. The stress – and sometimes bankruptcy – brought on by the case left many victims struggling with illness. Families broke down and people were cast out of their communities. There have been at least four suicides linked to the scandal. Dozens of branches took part in the pilot Horizon scheme in the 1990s, so there is a chance more victims could come forward. Former subpostmasters outside the the Royal Courts of Justice, London, to challenge their convictions in 2021. The attitude towards victims started to shift in 2019, when some Post Office operators won a high court case over their wrongful convictions – the blame was passed onto the Horizon IT system instead. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/post-office-horizon-scandal-explained_uk_6615478ee4b035c82d26ecd8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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