Police consider corporate manslaughter charges in Post Office scandal
Police are also considering corporate manslaughter charges as they investigate the Post Office Horizon scandal.
In an update to victims, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) said there were now eight suspects and five were being questioned under caution.
The NPCC added that a total of 53 persons of interest are currently involved in the investigation; This investigation is widely reported to be the worst miscarriage of justice in British legal history.
No arrests have yet been made and the process of providing case file material to the Crown Prosecution Service is ongoing.
He said the investigation continues to focus on potential charges of perjury and perverting the course of justice, but additional charges of corporate manslaughter are now being considered.
Nearly 1,000 people were wrongfully tried and convicted in the UK between 1999 and 2015 as a result of Horizon; A significant number of them are considering self-harm and some have taken their own lives.
Independent More than 13 people may have committed suicide as a result of the scandal in July, according to the first tranche of the public inquiry report.
Retired judge Sir Wyn Williams, who chaired the inquiry, said at least 59 people had “contemplated suicide at various times” and “attributed this to their experiences with Horizon and/or the Post Office”.
He made the remarks in a report revealing the “catastrophic human impact” of post office workers accused of unfairly taking money from their branches due to faulty software.
Sir Wyn stated that “bankruptcies have occurred” and “marriages and families have been destroyed” due to the scandal, and said, “The picture that emerges is extremely disturbing.”
The Horizon IT system is an accounting software designed by the Japanese company Fujitsu that automates accounts after sub-postmasters enter sales figures via a touch screen.
Due to faulty software, sub-postmasters began to experience unexplained shortfalls in their accounts and became liable for losses under their contract with the Post Office, and sub-postmasters were ordered to repay the lost money.
But despite concerns being raised, the Post Office prosecuted hundreds of operators for offenses including theft and false accounting, based on information from Horizon.
Many of those falsely accused refused to recuse themselves, and after years of civil litigation, a group of postmasters led by the Justice Alliance for Subpostmasters won a Supreme Court decision in 2019.
This decision, which found the Horizon system at fault for creating deficiencies in branch accounts, was upheld on appeal in 2021 and resulted in the overturning of convictions for 39 sub-postmasters.
The long-running fight for justice accelerated dramatically after ITV aired drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, which highlighted the scandal.
The police’s Operation Olympus, which investigated the scandal, started in January 2020.
Police have previously said the ongoing investigation is of “unprecedented” scale, with evidence potentially involving more than 3,000 victims and more than 1.5 million documents.
Any potential criminal charges related to the investigation are not expected to occur until 2027.
Investigators have previously said they were examining a “significant number of people” from the Post Office, Fujitsu and the legal profession.
A Post Office spokesman said: “We would like to offer a unequivocal apology to every single person affected by the Horizon Scandal. We recognize that for some, the impact of their experience has lasted more than two decades and continues to this day. We continue to fully support the police’s investigations and deal with their requests transparently.”
