Police investigating potential perjury by former Fujitsu workers throughout trials of subpostmasters wrongly convicted of theft and fraud have interviewed a key former subpostmaster witness.
Nearly two years after it launched its investigation, the Metropolitan Police has interviewed a former subpostmaster who was blamed for unexplained accounting shortfalls that had been later confirmed to be attributable to errors within the Horizon system, equipped by Fujitsu, that has been utilized in Submit Workplace branches to automate accounts since 1999.
In response to a supply, the previous subpostmaster – a key witness – has been interviewed in latest days.
Ian Ross, director at Tartan Forensic, a former police officer and listed knowledgeable for the Worldwide Felony Courtroom in The Hague, mentioned: ‘That is an investigation into alleged perjury, the supply of data being a Excessive Courtroom choose, not some again avenue informant, however the Metropoloitan police have dragged it out for 2 years. There may be nothing ‘complicated’ about it. So is that this replace progress? Not satisfied.”
Subpostmasters, who run and personal Submit Workplace branches, had been blamed and punished for accounting shortfalls that had been truly pc errors. The Horizon scandal, named after the pc system utilized in Submit Workplace branches, has develop into one of many greatest miscarriages of justice in UK historical past. The Submit Workplace at all times denied that Horizon may very well be guilty for the shortfalls, and subpostmasters and their households have had their lives turned the wrong way up, with prison prosecutions for a whole lot and lots of extra financially ruined.
Greater than 700 subpostmasters had been convicted of crimes based mostly on Horizon knowledge as proof. Greater than 80 of them have thus far had wrongful convictions overturned, with many extra anticipated to comply with.
Proof given by former Fujitsu employees, performing as knowledgeable witnesses on behalf of the Submit Workplace through the subpostmaster trials, raised issues for choose Peter Fraser throughout a Excessive Courtroom Group Litigation Order (GLO) the place subpostmasters proved pc errors had been guilty for unexplained losses – for which they’d been blamed and punished.
The GLO, which started in 2018, noticed 555 former subpostmansters show Horizon errors induced unexplained losses, which the Submit Workplace had vehemently denied for practically 20 years.
Earlier than handing down his judgment on the second trial in December 2019, Fraser mentioned he was referring info to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) as a result of he had issues over the accuracy of proof given in courtroom by Fujitsu in earlier trials of subpostmasters.
Fraser mentioned: “Primarily based on the data that I’ve gained each from conducting the trial and writing the Horizon points judgment, I’ve very grave issues relating to the veracity of proof given by Fujitsu workers to different courts in earlier proceedings in regards to the identified existence of bugs, errors and defects within the Horizon system.”
In January 2020, the DPP referred Fraser’s issues in regards to the accuracy of proof given by Fujitsu employees to the police. In November 2020, the Metropolitan Police launched a prison investigation. Gareth Jenkins and Anne Chambers are the previous Fujitsu employees beneath investigation for potential perjury.
Extra revelations about what the Submit Workplace knew in regards to the reliability of proof has emerged since. In March 2021, throughout a Courtroom of Attraction listening to the place 42 former subpostmasters sought to have their convictions overturned, it was revealed {that a} lawyer working for the Submit Workplace advised it that certainly one of its knowledgeable witnesses misled courts in trials of subpostmasters prosecuted for monetary crimes.
The recommendation, given by a lawyer contracted by the Submit Workplace in 2013, mentioned the witness from Fujitsu, Gareth Jenkins, shouldn’t be used once more. Generally known as The Clarke Recommendation, it was given to the Submit Workplace in 2013 by Simon Clarke of Cartwright King, who was finishing up work for it.
Laptop Weekly first reported on issues with the system in 2009, when it made public the tales of a bunch of subpostmasters (see timeline of articles under).