One of Britain's biggest miscarriages of justice, which led to the wrongful conviction of hundreds of Post Office workers due to faulty software, is provoking new public ire after being turned into a TV docudrama. - REUTERS
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00:00 For decades, Britain's post office scandal, perhaps the country's biggest ever miscarriage
00:06 of justice, has gone unnoticed by most people.
00:08 You're responsible for the loss.
00:10 I haven't got that money.
00:12 But all that changed this month thanks to a new ITV television drama, which portrayed
00:16 how hundreds of postal workers were wrongfully prosecuted over computer system errors.
00:21 No one else has ever reported any problems with Horizon.
00:25 Now the ensuing public furore is putting top post office executives and former ministers
00:30 in the firing line.
00:32 So what exactly happened?
00:34 And what's next?
00:35 This is about the reputation of the post office.
00:37 This debate versus the post office shows how hundreds of postal workers at the state-owned
00:42 post office were wrongly prosecuted or convicted between 1999 and 2015 for alleged false accounting,
00:49 theft and fraud.
00:51 Some received jail time, went bankrupt or had their marriages fall apart.
00:55 Others died before their names were cleared.
00:58 The real culprit?
00:59 A glitchy software system called Horizon, developed by Japan's Fujitsu.
01:04 It incorrectly showed money missing from the accounts of individual branches.
01:10 The post office, which also handles people's savings and pensions, maintained for years
01:14 that the accounting system was reliable, while accusing branch managers of theft.
01:22 Problems started being reported to the post office from the early 2000s.
01:26 In 2009, trade publication Computer Weekly reported claims of flaws with Horizon, alongside
01:32 the employee prosecutions.
01:34 The post office began to investigate as pressure built from media and lawmakers.
01:41 In late 2019, the post office agreed to settle claims made by 555 sub-postmasters.
01:48 The government says roughly $175 million was paid out to over 2,700 claimants.
01:56 But many found their compensation was greatly reduced by legal fees.
02:00 Some are yet to receive anything or have their convictions quashed.
02:03 It's frustrating.
02:04 Alan Bates is one of the leading claimants.
02:07 This money is only what they're owed.
02:11 This is money that, to put them back in a position that they would have been in had
02:16 the post office not done what they did to them.
02:21 No senior post office staff have been punished.
02:23 In 2015, its boss Paula Venels told a parliamentary committee that there had been no evidence
02:29 of any miscarriage of justice.
02:31 She eventually stepped down in 2019, having received more than $5.7 million in salary
02:37 and bonuses during her seven-year tenure.
02:40 Former Postal Affairs Minister Ed Davey has also come under the spotlight.
02:45 He refused to meet Bates in May 2010, but later said he was clearly misled by post office
02:50 executives.
02:52 Fujitsu has continued to win multiple British government contracts.
02:56 It says it supports a public inquiry and has apologised for its role in the scandal.
03:01 Bates hopes pressure on officials will mount.
03:04 I think there's going to be a lot more political attention on this and it will build the momentum
03:09 and hopefully bring speedy resolution, certainly to all those who are still waiting for their
03:13 financial redress in all of this, which has been so lacking throughout many, many years
03:19 in their lives.
03:20 The stories are appalling.
03:22 People were treated absolutely appallingly.
03:24 That's wrong.
03:25 Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has called the scandal an "appalling miscarriage of justice"
03:29 and says his government is considering its honourations.
03:33 London's Metropolitan Police has also confirmed its own investigation.
03:37 Separately, an independent public inquiry is gathering evidence.
03:41 [BLANK_AUDIO]