By Nishkala Ganeshananthan (from the GHS Nightingale Newspaper)

Between 2009 and 2015, more than 900 sub-postmasters were prosecuted for stealing money from their post offices – crimes they did not commit. Recently, this issue has been brought to light due to the new ITV show Mr Bates vs The Post Office. This drama gripped the nation with the shocking story of what is the most widespread miscarriage of justice this nation has ever seen. The show has helped shed light on the trauma that these sub-postmasters faced when they were accused of stealing thousands of pounds from their post offices. Many had to deal with backlash from their community and the feeling of helplessness, knowing that they did nothing wrong. This TV series has helped people to understand and sympathise with people who were falsely accused and prosecuted but it has also brought up the question of how this miscarriage of justice happened for so long, and what is being done about it?

Paula Vennels was the CEO of The Post Office from 2012 to 2019, during the time of the Post Office Scandal. On camera, she and The Post Office wrongly apportioned blame to the sub-postmasters for the accounting, when the they knew that the Horizon system was the one at fault. She did the same in parliamentary committees, lying and knowingly misleading Parliament. She said that there was no evidence to suggest that the Post Office’s computer system – Horizon—had any errors, and instead claimed that it was extremely robust, in full knowledge that this was not the case. The Post Office Inquiry suggests she knew that there were major flaws with Horizon that led to the false prosecution of hundreds, ruining countless lives. Under encouragement from the Post Office, the government at the time actually passed a law requiring judges presiding over cases involving the Horizon system to assume that the system was correct, effectively pre-ordaining the results of the trials to be wrong before they were even held.

The sub-postmasters were made to pay back all the money they had allegedly stolen. Many had to empty their savings accounts and re-mortgage their houses to pay off their debt. Meanwhile, Paula Vennels was living off a salary of £5 million, fully aware that there were major problems with Horizon and that thousands of sub-postmasters had been wrongly convicted and had their lives ruined. Furthermore, senior staff in the Post Office were awarded unauthorised bonuses for complying with the investigation. Even after a court ruling in 2019, stating that the sub-postmasters were falsely accused, Paula Vennels accepted a CBE for her services to the Post Office and charity. Only after millions of people signed a petition for her to be stripped of this honour did she return her CBE.

It has been years since people were aware of the Post Office Scandal, leading many to believe that major reforms would have been made, to compensate for the ordeal innocent postmasters have been through. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Horizon, the faulty computer system, is still used by the Post Office today, even though it is the root cause of 4,000 sub-postmasters being accused of financial misconduct. Even the government, who have criticised the Post Office and the IT company Fujitsu, who made the Horizon system, have been far too slow in helping reverse this miscarriage of justice. No one involved in the cover up of the Post Office scandal has been prosecuted, with their legal team still failing to provide the courts with the correct documents, further delaying any legal proceeding. The government have been vocal in the need to compensate sub-postmasters, setting up a scheme that pays £600,000 to each sub-postmaster affected by Fujitsu’s system, funded by the taxpayer. However, in the last year, Fujitsu won 36 new contracts in the UK , with many of them from the government. This leads many to believe that the government is still not serious enough about reversing the wrongs suffered by many. The suffering unjustly endured by the sub-postmasters was so severe that it lead some of them to commit suicide. This is an horrific consequence that was entirely avoidable, were it not for the deceit of the Post Office.

People used to think of the Post Office as a company they can trust, who are there to serve the local community. There is an expectation that people who lead organisations are accountable for the way a company is run and these leaders are trusted to do the right thing. However, this scandal has brought to light that this is not entirely true. Instead, the Post Office was complicit in the false allegations against countless sub-postmasters. Is £600,000 enough to compensate for a decade of court battles and lives ruined, especially when Paula Vennels was earning millions all while this was going on? Overall, the scandal and lack of accountability has led to a loss of trust between the public and the Post Office. Are we certain that other organisations do not have similar uncovered problems?