Prison warning issued by post office scandal inquiry chairman

Between 2000 and 2014, more than 700 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses (SPMs) were falsely prosecuted based on information from the Horizon computer system, installed and maintained by Fujitsu.

In December 2019, a High Court judge ruled the system contained a number of “bugs, errors and defects” and there was a “material risk” that shortfalls in Post Office branch accounts were in fact caused by it.

Since then, many SPMs have had their criminal convictions for theft, fraud and false accounting overturned.

Former counter clerk Tracy Felstead, from Telford, was wrongly jailed for six months in 2001 after being convicted of stealing more than £11,500 when she was aged 19. Rubbina Shaheen, who kept Greenfields post office in Shrewsbury, was wrongly jailed for 12 months in 2010 over a £43,000 shortfall in her accounts. Both convictions were overturned on appeal in 2021.

Staffordshire sub-postmasters Carl Page, jailed for two years in 2007, and Gillian Harrison, given a rehabilitation order in 2005, also had their convictions quashed.

The Government announced a compensation scheme in March this year for 555 victims of the scandal, who won a £43 million High Court settlement against the Post Office in 2019.

The High Court ruled that a glitch with the Post Office's computer database – known as Horizon – was likely to have created discrepancies in branch accounts.

Sir Wyn Williams, chair of an inquiry into the debacle, accused the Post Office of “grossly unsatisfactory” and “significant” failings to disclose important and necessary documents.

On Friday, he announced all future requests for evidence will be under Section 21 of the Inquiries Act 2005, which “carries a threat of a criminal sanction”, including a sentence of up to 51 weeks’ imprisonment.

Sir Wyn noted that in oral submissions on behalf of SPMs, there was no attempt to disguise the view held by many that the Post Office disclosure failings are deliberate.

He added: “It does not surprise me that this is the attitude of many former sub-postmasters.

“After all, a failure to disclose crucial information about Horizon was a central finding leading to the quashing of criminal convictions in the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) and the Crown Court.”

Regular discrete hearings about the handing over of evidence will be held during the remainder of the inquiry, Sir Wyn also said.

He went on: “It would be remiss of me to fail to guard against the possibility that there are those who are engaged in the process of disclosure of documents on behalf of the Post Office who are unwilling or unable to comply strictly with requests for disclosure of documents made of them by the inquiry.”

The inquiry resumes on July 26 to look at action taken against a sub-postmaster by the Post Office.