FILE – The image shows a Post Office in London, Thursday, October 10, 2013. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File)Lefteris Pitarakis/AP
LONDON (AP) — Police in the United Kingdom have opened a fraud investigation into Britain’s Post Office over a miscarriage of justice in which hundreds of postmasters were wrongly accused of stealing money when a fraud was to blame. faulty computer system.
The Metropolitan Police indicated late Friday that it is investigating “possible fraud offenses arising from these allegations,” relating to money the Post Office received “as a result of allegations or civil actions” against accused postal workers.
Police are also investigating possible crimes of perjury and obstructing justice in inquiries and accusations by the Post Office.
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Between 1999 and 2015, more than 700 post office branch managers were charged with theft or fraud because computers wrongly showed money was missing. Many were left financially ruined after being forced to pay large sums of money to the company, and some were convicted and sent to prison. Several of them committed suicide.
The real culprit was a faulty accounting computer system called Horizon, supplied by the Japanese technology company Fujitsu, which was installed in post office branches in 1999.
The Post Office maintained for years that Horizon data was reliable and accused branch managers of dishonesty when the system showed money was missing.
After years of campaigning by victims and their lawyers, the Court of Appeal overturned 39 of the convictions in 2021. A judge said the Post Office “knew there were serious issues about the reliability” of Horizon and had made failings “atrocious” research and dissemination.
According to the Post Office, a total of 93 postal workers have had their convictions overturned to date. But many others have not yet been exonerated, and only 30 have accepted “full and final” compensation payments. A public investigation into the scandal has been carried out since 2022.
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So far, no one from the public post office or other companies involved has been arrested or faced criminal charges.
2024-01-06 16:43:46
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