The Post Office could be embroiled in a second IT scandal involving a separate faulty computer system, according to an investigative report by the i newspaper.
According to the exclusive report, the Post Office made wrongful convictions against several sub-postmasters who used a computer system called Capture for back-office accounting, four years before Horizon was installed.
An internal staff bulletin from 1995 seen by i showed that the Post Office was aware that the Capture system had faults. Despite this, several sub-postmasters were prosecuted after reporting losses they couldn’t explain under Capture.
Labour MP Kevan Jones, who is in contact with the sub-postmasters making wrongful prosecution claims, has asked for Post Office chief Nick Read to be re-called before the Horizon inquiry and has questioned why the Post Office has not come forward about the issue before.
The Capture system was installed in 1995 and was used up until 1999, when it was replaced by Horizon. The Horizon system also contained faults resulting in huge accounting losses which could not be explained. As per the contractual agreement between sub-postmasters and the Post Office, all reported losses must be made up by the sub-postmasters, so those individuals were required to pay back the “deficits” themselves – amounting to tens of thousands of pounds in many cases.
Between 1999 and 2015, more than 3,500 individuals working as Post Office branch managers were wrongly accused of theft and fraud and more than 700 were wrongly convicted by the Post Office, and forced to pay back losses that didn’t actually exist – resulting in bankruptcy and financial ruin for many. Several individuals also died by suicide as a result of the actions of the Post Office.
It now appears that several more individuals may have been wrongly prosecuted in the years preceding the Horizon scandal, due to errors in the Capture system.
Steve Marston, who was a sub-postmaster in Heap Bridge in Greater Manchester was convicted of theft and false accounting by the Post Office in 1998 after recording losses of £79,000 via Capture. Marston said he was told by the Post Office when reporting the problem that “Capture doesn’t make mistakes,” echoing many of the accounts made by victims of the Horizon scandal.
A Post Office spokesperson said: “We take very seriously any concerns raised about the cases from before the Horizon system. We are investigating, including specific cases brought to our attention, and will transparently publish our findings.”
